Ephesians 4:1-6 (NIV)
As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit– just as you were called to one hope when you were called–one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Paul first urges the Ephesians to live lives worthy of the calling they have received: the calling to be fully-functioning part of the larger kingdom of God. In the next five verses, he outlines what that kind of life looks like.
First, humility should characterize the people of God. They must approach everything in their lives with the clear understanding that they are not part of God’s kingdom because they were so special or so righteous. Every one of them came to God wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked (Revelation 3:17), completely lost in sin, and worthy of eternal condemnation. It was only by grace that they were able to avoid that fate and be transformed into real saints, worthy of eternal life.
Gentleness and patience are also hallmarks of a worthy life. As coworkers in God’s kingdom, brothers and sisters in Christ, harshness, bitterness and anger in dealing with each other is not only inappropriate but is anathema to the Spirit of the kingdom. All corrections are to be given gently and in agape love, and all differences settled gently with mutual respect and honor.
The final hallmarks of a worthy life are unity and peace. Even though the Ephesians met in many congregations in houses all over the city, their essential unity had to be recognized and embraced. What they held in common, one body of Christ, one Holy Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and a single God that they not only worshiped but served in their kingdom work, was to be so powerfully uniting, so supernaturally overpowering any cause of division, that they all lived and worked together in harmony and peace toward God’s goals and purposes.
Paul understood that a key tool of the enemy is dividing God’s people and turning them against each other, causing disease in the body of Christ. When God’s people are divided, when we allow ourselves to become separated from each other, when we fight against each other, striving to grow our own congregations by any means necessary, often at the expense of other congregations, and when we stop working together toward God’s common goals, the kingdom of God stops growing, and the kingdom of the world, under the inspiration and leadership of satan, is able to grow, and expand, and consume unhindered.
Father, all too often we look upon our divisions, sectarianism and denominationalism as no big deal, the way that things have been for so long that it feels natural, and even “scriptural”. But even in earthly battles, unity of purpose among those who are fighting on one side, even though they might be from different countries, is an essential element of victory. If any seeds of division grow up, and if infighting or territorialism is allowed to develop, then they will lose to the more united enemy. How much more is this true in the spiritual war in which we are engaged, a war for the eternal souls of men, women and children, in which the enemy is completely united in their unholy quest to enslave and doom the whole human race. Forgive us, Lord, for our divisions and infighting that rob us of Your presence and Your power, making us ineffective, and essentially handing the enemy a victory over our family, our friends, our neighbors, our coworkers. Help us to be restored to the unity that Jesus prayed for in the upper room: “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:20-23 NIV) Amen.