I Urge You — Ephesians 4

0:06 I don't if you ever sit that close to the piano. You should alternate. One week, you should be assigned when Bethany's playing. I have to sit close. And you just feel like you wanna take your shoes off because you're on holy ground.

0:33 Open in prayer? And do I understand you've given me ten to fifteen extra minutes? Yes, sir. I do understand that correctly and I'm deaf. I didn't, I wanna make sure I heard it.

0:45 You got it. Okay, good. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that you preserved it from those times.

0:54 Lord, and for the purpose that we could be gathered to have it open to us by your spirit. To bring to our understanding the things that you've written down, that we would be instructed, that we would be comforted, we'd be corrected when necessary, Lord. We thank you. You've given us a record of your son. And now, Lord, we trust our time to you.

1:20 Commit ourselves that we could be quieted in our souls before you, That your sharpness of your word would penetrate. Keep us free from the world's distractions for a few moments we ask. In Christ's name, amen. No time to waste then. Ephesians four.

1:51 My task, my assignment is a transition So, I'll just read a portion of chapter four and verse one, just a portion. In the middle of that verse, just this phrase, I urge you to live a life. That's the NIV. I urge you to live a life. Now, we'll have to add and fill that in as we go.

2:29 But we'll use that to understand that the first three chapters of Ephesians perhaps was a wealth of information. If we made a list of everything that was written down for them to know, It would do us well individually to enumerate what exactly did the the spirit of god want the Christians at Ephesus to know in the first three chapters. So that you've had seven weeks. You should be able to just pop off a list. Maybe not all by yourself, maybe one person had one thing, but nevertheless these things should come, Yeah.

3:23 I'm open book quiz. Maybe you can look and remind yourself exactly what verse beginning with of course brother Ray telling us a little bit about the background of the city of Ephesus. I think in ending and and not wanting to jump over any of the truths and therefore implying or inferring in any way form or shape that some are more important than others. But we can't do them all. You've already done that.

3:54 It's not my job to do it. It's been done. I don't know if you're all here for all seven weeks or not. I... That I do not know.

4:24 Christ changes everything. Both from Andy and from Denzel or sorry, Roger. Christ changes everything. Now we, without a doubt, agree to that. The hard question is, what changed in your life?

4:53 What changed? If Christ changed everything in your life, what did he change? This is what we know about Ephesus. Things that Ray didn't necessarily share, perhaps some of them he did share. Paul made several trips there, one longer than the other.

5:15 There was a synagogue there which means there were Jews there but we don't know why Jews were there. We don't know why some of God's people were not living where God wanted them to live. God gave them a promised land. What are they doing up in Ephesus? Now I understand historically why they drifted back.

5:33 I get that. I'm not questioning the actual nomadic part of the dispersion coming back and stopping for, but for whatever reason, they were not where god intended. That Ephesus isn't in the promised land. Farther south down the coast. So, when I when I say that historically in context, always...

5:58 So, are we dealing with rebels primarily? But we know also, Ray brought to our attention, it was a great city, Jew and Gentile. Gentile by nature, of course. The Jews just stopped there and started happening. When?

6:16 Maybe 200 BC, 300 BC, uncertain. But we know that because there was a synagogue, because there were Jews there, Paul as oftentimes he went into the synagogue as his point of preaching. That's where it starts, the point of preaching. Opening the word of god for other people to consider the truths of Jesus Christ. Like we're doing here.

6:40 There's a point of preaching. A point where people gather to hear what god is saying. Alright? We know that when he wrote the letter, let's say that Paul was converted roughly thirty five AD and I I'm not trying to be pinpoint exactly when because I know nobody can really establish that historical markers for other historical events happening at that time in the world. One great book you could read, if you could get it, is the book of Acts in the setting of Hellenistic history.

7:15 So it goes through chapter by chapter what else is happening in that world at that time. But let's say, thirty five AD, Paul is saved, converted, Acts chapter nine. He's in Ephesus the second time for the lengthy period of teaching, maybe fifty five, fifty seven AD, twenty years later. He's writing to Ephesus from Rome in the mid sixties or the early sixties, 6263, which is roughly ten years after his heir, Eight years. Seven years.

7:55 And so you have historically, and all these things are important to me. It might not be important to you, God wasn't dealing with people in a vacuum nor does he deal with people here in a vacuum. Alright? There's historical content. I say that, why?

8:10 Because when then Paul wanted to meet elders, elders, remember in Acts chapter 20, that Ephesus already had elders. What kind of elders? Well, how do you mean what kind? This kind of elder. That they could stop what they were doing at Paul's instruction and travel from Ephesus down across the bay and get to Meletus so Paul could meet there rather than Paul go to Ephesus.

8:36 He called his elders down there. The elders of the church at Ephesus down there. And why do I say that? Because those elders are sacrificial. Ephesus had sacrificial elders.

8:47 Elders who were concerned about the people, about the flock, about the sheep, about those gathering in the lord and so when Paul said, you tell the elders from Ephesus to come down and meet me because I'm not stopping there. I'm further north of the coast. I'm going down here instead. I'm taking a boat. So, they went and got em or the elders came down.

9:07 That's an amazing assembly at such a young age in my opinion. Now, I've often teased you about the first time I started coming to Westlake. Right? Five families, maybe six. Carl was one of them.

9:27 Right? All the Garrants were just little. Dave Bingham was one of them and his wife. They met in a school. This is 1970.

9:38 I I... I'm estimating five because I was already married and I got married in '74. It was before I went to The Philippines in '78. So '75, and I say it because that's what? '75 to 2000 is '25 plus twenty two, forty seven years ago.

9:58 That's one generation. Jewish generation roughly forty years. That's a generation. Why is that important? We'll see as we go on.

10:26 Right? People's recently saved, people saved their whole twenty, forty years. So, the maturity of understanding and dealing with truth varies. That's critical in my opinion. To understand that when he wrote to Ephesus, they were all people that he might have known well, he might have personally been involved with, and that they were all basically came to Christ in the same time frame.

10:54 It's like a brand new assembly. And I know he's writing around '62 when he's in Rome and he was working there and 5557 was his second trip. And so yeah, there's six or seven years and anything can happen but let's just for the sake of understanding history, allow for the fact that the Christians in Ephesus were growing up together. It doesn't mean that people weren't being added to the church, that people weren't being saved. I believe that they were.

11:24 Christ is building his church. I'm a firm believer in his process. He builds it. Nothing stops him. Nothing stops him.

11:33 And I say that also because we know that... And I tease the brothers when they first told me Ephesus. I just simply said, are you going to read both letters? And it was brother Don who said, oh, you mean the one in the Revelation? Yeah, of course, the one in the Revelation.

11:45 Why? Why the one in the Revelation? Well, because understand historically again, that was probably written in ninety six AD. This was written in sixty two AD. The church was started in fifty five AD.

11:58 So, from '55 to '96, one generation one generation of Christians from when they got this letter and about these people to when they got the revelation letter, which said what? The head of the church saying what? I have somewhat against you. You don't love me like you used to. One generation?

12:27 One generation? One family full of kids and then suddenly they're the adults. And now we're in a church where Christ says, I have an issue with you. You don't love me like you used to. You don't love each other like you used to.

12:45 Still meeting, you got everything right, you got good doctrine, but you don't do it with the right motive. The sense of love isn't being felt. And what's the warning? Listen to the warning to the church at Ephesus. Repent.

13:03 Remember and repeat what you used to do. Or else I will take your lampstand out. Now you can keep meeting together, but you just don't gonna have no light for me to do so. When there's no lamp stand in a local church, there's no clarity. Total confusion.

13:27 There's no evangelism. There's nobody being saved. There's no attraction to the world to come here. It's a safe harbor. There's none of that.

13:35 Because the lamp stands out. That was the warning. That's ninety six AD. Two hundred AD? The church at Ephesus existed called the Metropolis, which was a hub for all ecclesiastical purposes that were being issued forth from central headquarters, was now in Rome on its way to Constantinople under Emperor Constantine.

14:25 And I'll just leave it at that. What's the head of the church saying to you? One generation since I first started coming here till now. So, you have to ask yourself if Christ was writing a letter just to the church at Westlake. What would it include to say to you directly?

14:49 Alright? Now, I want to explain the truth that you've learned and present it in its application with three different words. Cultural relevancy, experiential relevancy, and generational relevancy. Because listen, we take in so much of information every day, how much of it's really relevant to your life? Don't you wish you could shut it out?

15:30 Not relevant. Doesn't have any impact. Doesn't impact me. Therefore, it's of no value to me. Alright?

15:40 It's of no value for me to think about that. If we could do that, and we could limit our thinking of all the truths that impact us, then we would probably grow more seriously in Christ. Because now we're just thinking about what really do you have for me. Well, you've had three chapters that I'm gonna label. Invisible, invisible.

16:09 Things that we know because Christ told us. Nobody experienced all those things when they were saved. They were being told those things. They hadn't been told anywhere else yet. There wasn't a group down the street who had a copy of their own church letter that had said, oh, by the way, these are true of you.

16:31 This is a first generation group of Christians who are both being told things that happened through Christ that nobody had ever written before. That nobody had ever read about. It's like Calvary itself. You know a lot about Calvary, the physical side. It's the invisible things of Calvary that are the powerful.

17:00 It's the sin being... Him being made sin that nobody could see. And so here's a group of Christians who got saved through the preaching of Paul's and what's their testimony? Wow, this is great. No, now Paul wants to write them a letter and tell them, this is really what happened when you got saved.

17:20 These are all the truths. You might not even felt them. You might not have detected them. But they're still true, they're the invisible things. And therefore sets the stage for the last three chapters.

17:36 Because if those invisible somehow have to become visible, they have to be seen, and they're gonna be seen by the way you live. Those truths of the first three chapters have to become visible for people to see. Alright? Now think about Romans one. The wrath of God being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people who suppress the truth by their wickedness.

18:39 So you're gonna live a certain way. You're not gonna live like you used to. I urge you therefore to live. How? That's the question of four, five, and six.

18:51 How should we live? If God's gonna bring to light all the mysteries of Calvary that we're now being told and explained to in detail, of everything that happened, every truth that he goes over in the first, all that you pray that we would know, the love, and all that, then it's gonna have to be manifested in the way you live, not just the way you feel. Not just the quietness of your mind. They're not just doctrines to believe. They're truths to be experienced, to be lived out.

19:23 Alright? And this is... It's absolutely part of this culture, as it was in Ephesus to not want to upset. Listen, we've had some violence. Yeah, really?

19:42 We've always had violence. Our country was born on violence. Alright? The point is is when the Romans took over the world, they insisted on Pax Romana. The peace that Rome brings to warring tribes and roaring countries, we want everybody to live in harmony and peaceful.

20:06 And to do that, you're going to embrace, we're going to have religious syncretism. Everybody's going to just tolerate everybody else's beliefs. Alright? Well, that's not the gospel. The gospel is not a gospel of peace.

20:28 Don't confuse it with the shepherds and the peace story of Christ coming into the world. This gospel is a gospel, listen, how the church was born on the day the church was born. How did it start? And when they heard these words, they were pricked to the heart and said, what do we have to do? And the answer, repent.

20:56 Repent and be baptized. Repent. That's not a peaceful message. Repentance means don't take another step forward. Stop in your tracks, turn around, and go in the opposite direction.

21:16 That's how the church was born, brothers and sisters. We've gotten away from it, haven't we? We've gotten away from it. I'm going to read you Romans 15, Paul's testimony, writing now to Rome from Ephesus. Before he got to Rome to write back, he wrote to the Romans, had never been there, Heard about their faith.

21:42 Writes them a letter. And in the fifteenth chapter it says, I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done, by the power and signs and wonders through the power of the spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. And let me just say this because I know that election, predestination, all those words that Christians love to argue about, fight about, This is my favorite verse on election. My favorite verse. Why?

22:26 Because it says the number one word that's critical. Obey. Obey. Verse 18 is clear that leading the Gentiles to obey. The Gospel is the Gospel of obedience.

22:45 Now, we don't like that word. It's too harsh. We like invite. We like polite. We like accept.

22:57 We like encourage. Paul wrote the second letter of Thessalonians and said, God's gonna take vengeance with the angel flaming fire on who? All those who obey not the gospel. Obey not. You go through even the book of Romans and how many times he uses the word obey, obey, obey.

23:17 We don't talk about obedience. It's too impolite, it's too rough, it's too demanding. Obey? And why would that be your favorite verse about election? Because you wanna argue about elect and not, and called and chosen and free...

23:32 Listen, those are all good, and they're worth discussion. The bottom line, end of the day, did you obey the gospel? God has commanded everybody everywhere to repent. As Paul said to to those gathered on the Neuropagus in Acts 17. Repent.

23:51 Stop the direction you're going. Turn around and come back. Repent. Do you think he told people to do that if they weren't allowed to? And I'm not trying to answer that question.

24:08 I think John did a good... You know, these are hard truths. Nobody can deal with them with one sentence, one verse, one passage, one thought. You have to put them all together, but ultimately, what are we trying to tell people to do? Whosoever will call in the name of the Lord shall be saved.

24:23 Not whenever the elect call, they will be saved. That's not our message. Whenever you call because you're the elect, you'll be saved. And if you call and you're not the elect, you won't be? And you're gonna tell me, well, no, no, they won't call.

24:40 Excuse me? Whosoever shall call in the name of the Lord shall be saved. Period. Because it's the gospel of obedience. This is Pax Americana.

24:57 Let's just all live peaceably. Let's not disrupt. We got other Christians well intended down the road who have a different message. Then they oppose the truth. Sorry.

25:08 They oppose the truth. Well, not all truth. Yeah, I agree. Not all truths. And you just put them on a continuum and find out which church opposes the most.

25:17 Listen, beloved, these are the things of God. You can't handle them just joyfully saying, well, doesn't really matter. What truth doesn't matter to you, Lord Jesus? Really, what truth? Is there any truths?

25:27 Give us a list of things that you don't care about anymore. Rubbish. He's the head of the church. And when he's no longer the head of the church, then you don't have to care. He is the head of the church.

26:00 I preached on it, labored on it. It's one of my favorites. Is this... Why was he... Forget that.

26:08 And then he's healed. How was he healed? How do you now see, the Pharisee said, we need to know. A man called Jesus, he made mud and put on my eyes, and he did what? He told me to go to the pool and wash, and so I did.

26:28 I obeyed. And I came back seeing. And I love that passage, I love his insistence. And they were so confused. This man's life was so interrupted by Christ.

26:42 Talk about Christ changing everything. His life was so interrupted. The people he begged with every day didn't recognize him. You know that detail. They called those who sat in the...

26:55 Well, looks like him, but I don't... Maybe he could be... His life was so different, his best friends didn't know him. Got that testimony? What did Christ change in your life?

27:10 Just your address in heaven? No, he changes the way we live. But how about the testimony when the Pharisees finally pushed him in the corner and said, we demand you tell us. Who is it? Listen to the answer.

27:22 I don't know. I know one thing. I was blind, now I see. Oh, let's rejoice that that's a clear testimony. It is.

27:34 It's a great testimony. But it's not good evangelism. What do you mean you don't know who Jesus Christ is? You just studied three chapters of Ephesians. You should know him in and out.

27:49 You shouldn't be testifying about yourself. You stand up and tell the man who Jesus Christ is. He's the king of kings. He's the great shepherd. And it goes on and on and on.

28:01 But listen, if you're gonna evangelize, if you're gonna be useful in the assembly, you gotta be able to get up and say who Jesus Christ is. Not one thing I know. It's not enough. You know a lot more. I listen to the messages.

28:15 I know a lot more. I wouldn't even hear. Alright? When a person doesn't have that experience, they experience... Knowledge has to be relevant to our experience.

28:37 If it's not, it just becomes formal doctrine that we fold up and we keep and we make sure it's accurate. I get that, and a lot of it is. But the reality of it is is that what is your real personal experience with the Lord Jesus this morning? I don't even care about last week. This morning.

28:58 This morning, Jesus Christ, your savior, if you know him, Alright, you've been gathered to him. He's the head. You've come here with your heart in submission to a head that you seek to honor, to have your heart spoken to by his spirit for a message for you. What is your experience with him? And if it's not genuine, if it's not real, gut check yourself.

29:26 At least admit that it's not real, it's pretend it's phony. Alright? Because that being made able to see is not a doctrine. It's an experience. And I don't mind using the word experience.

29:48 Being born again is an experience. It's a doctrine. But if you haven't personally been born again, you have no life in you. You have no life. An absence of genuine spiritual life is replaced by ceremonies.

30:08 Ceremonies. We have one. Anybody would walk in and say, well you have a breaking of bread ceremony. And if I go there, do I have spiritual life? Absolutely not.

30:20 Don't mix it with the Roman doctrine, false doctrine, heretical doctrine that if I eat this bread I'm taken in the body of Christ. And if I drink his blood then I have life. Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish. Sorry. You know, wish it was like the news.

30:35 Once in a while the news reporter will say, I'm sorry, you're about to hear words that others might find offensive. I shoulda had a crawler. And every time I got to a place that I anticipated perhaps somebody might be offended, press a button and the crawler would read. Difficult words coming. You don't have life by attending a ceremony.

31:07 Real life in Christ is you, not. And see that brings us, one was cultural, the Pax Romana, Pax Americana, and then experiential. But ultimately, what if this guy, Christ found this guy in the temple, you know that later on in ninth chapter. What if this guy went home and started a normal life? What do we mean by that?

31:32 Got married. And then what? I had a son. Who could see from birth? What's he care about his father's testimony?

31:47 Not his testimony. I don't know nothing about blindness. I don't know about living no life in darkness. The second generation knows nothing of the experience. Nothing.

32:05 The man who sat at the temple, Peter and John went to pray. They, what? Met a lame man on the way. And what happened? When they were done, he was walking and leaping and praising God.

32:23 Let's say he went home. First of all, let's back up a second. Before he got home, we know there was a lot of commotion about this one guy. How come he was the only guy walking and leaping? Why wasn't everybody leaping?

32:45 Why didn't he say, come on, leap with me? Come on, let's leap together. Let's get a beat down. Let's sleep. Let's put...

32:54 Let's sing while we're leaping. No, the point is is that you can't manufacture that kind of joy in other people. You cannot. You can't give the oil away you five virgins. You can't give it to them.

33:08 You cannot manufacture joy for other people. You're never gonna be in what I've done. Your life is different. But you have to come to Christ where Christ has gripped you, grabbed you, and rejoice there in what Christ is doing in your life, not in another's. You can't...

33:49 That's the battle we fight. To get it, to give it. I have a daughter. All my life, she's second generation. I'm first.

33:57 My wife was first. We didn't have Christian parents. But now she does, and so how, what, I cannot manufacture it. I'll try. How?

34:06 Well, her a tape. Give her music. Know, take her to the... You know, how do you manufacture it? How do you make people leap and walk and joyfully?

34:17 How do you get people to walk in the Lord's Supper and be happy to be here with Christ? You can't manufacture that. You can't You can't give it to somebody else. We can try. It helps.

34:36 Skating the 80 eight's helps. The singing helps. There is a lot of contagion. I mean it's contagious, joy can be contagious. But is it genuine?

34:46 Oh no, I'm joyful when he's here. We're the same way. We love coming here because of the singing. Not that we don't love the singing in here. I didn't mean that.

35:03 You can't get it from your dad. You can't get it from your mom. You can't get it from the elders. Can't. I'm sorry.

35:14 I like to tell you that you can. I wish that it was true. Zoom right into Psalm 51. Zoom. What is it?

35:29 David's prayer after Bathsheba. Normally the kings go out to war at this time of the year. David didn't. David didn't go to war, stayed back. Rooftop Bathsheba, I want her, I have her, now I gotta kill her husband, get him dead, whatever.

35:49 You know the whole story. So now we're into Psalm 51 and it's a Psalm of repentance. And we get to verse 12 of Psalm 51 and it says what? Restore unto me the joy of my salvation. Famous verse.

36:07 I've prayed it many times. You know when I don't pray it? Before Bathsheba. Why would I say that? Because if he would have been joyful and content, he wouldn't have been on a rooftop.

36:25 To preempt the flesh and the occasion the flesh provides for itself to go out and experiment with the possibility to be joyful in other things. Other methods of contentment. Things of the world that could be satisfying even as described of Moses, who instead of enjoying the pleasures of sin for a season. Sin is pleasurable for a season. Alright?

36:59 Joy before I sin. Give me joy now should have been the prayer. Not restore it to me because I lost it because of my excursion into the world. A lot of Christians go there and then they repent. Yeah, they're prodigal.

37:14 You can read Luke 15 all you want. I get it. I do. But we're not joyful. We gotta admit it.

37:25 And when we admit it, we also have to own why. Why? Why aren't you joyful? Yeah, or we're not satisfied. Sorry, you didn't do enough.

37:38 You didn't give me enough. You haven't blessed me enough. You haven't turned my world and my way yet. Everything is not in my favor. How many Christians played the lottery?

37:50 Do you suppose? One point what? Six? 6,000,000,000? I'm not talking about how many Christians you think thought, well, God could bless me with that.

38:49 And I don't know if I've done justice to my assignment or not, but I can honestly tell you, brothers and sisters, I was blessed and prepared. Let's close in prayer. I think I got three minutes, but it will be a short prayer. Father, thank you for such a life, such a method to give it to us, your death of your son. We rejoice and are glad in him.

39:19 We pray, Lord, that you would continue to lead the saints here, which you have, should you tarry for the next generation. We pray for all the second and third generation believers that are here, Lord, that you would burden them with your purposes of a lampstand that has burned brightly for these forty some years. We trust that you continue to use the oil, Lord, of your spirit and the lives living sacrificially, not only in the love for you, Lord Jesus, but in the love for each other. And he would burn bright. We pray and commit him to you in Christ's name.

39:59 Amen.