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We're going to be doing a survey of chapters four and five today of Ephesians. And as you're turning there, just a little background so that you get the context of what we're about to read. The book of Ephesians is six chapters, and Paul wrote Ephesians in a way that it neatly divides into two sections. The first section, chapters one, two and three, are more doctrinal. That is to say, it explains to us who we are in Christ and what Christ has done for us. And you'll notice a lot of doctrinal terms. In fact, back in chapter one, when we were in chapter one, we talked about these various doctrinal terms that describe who we are in Christ. And I'll just read the list again real quickly. That we are chosen, loved, predestined, adopted, redeemed, saved and sealed. That's all just in chapter one, using different terms to help us understand doctrine, who we are in Christ, what Christ has done for us. That's the first three chapters. And then the last half of Ephesians, starting in chapter four, chapters four, five and six are more practical than they are doctrinal. That is to say that the last half of Ephesians helps us to understand not just who we are in Christ, that's the first three chapters, but now how we are to live for Christ, how we are to put into practice our faith. And so Paul writes in very practical ways. So you're going to notice here in chapter four that the emphasis shifts from who we are in Christ to how we are to live for Christ because of what he's done for us. And you'll notice with me as we look in here to chapter four, that Paul starts out by reminding us that he is writing this letter from prison, that he is in fact a prisoner in Rome when he writes the letter to the church of Ephesus. He has been imprisoned because he has been preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Why did that land him in jail? Well, the answer is because when you're preaching the gospel of Jesus, you're preaching that Jesus is Lord of all, that he is King of kings. Well, that conflicts with the Roman Empire who said that Caesar is Lord of all and Caesar is king of kings. And so that seemed to the Roman Empire as something seditious that Paul was preaching. So the gospel landed him in jail. But when he starts chapter four, he's going to remind us, hey, I might be in a Roman prison, but I'm actually a prisoner of the Lord because he believed in the sovereignty of God. Enough to recognize that he might be in a Roman prison, but he's there because it's God's ultimate will. And that God's going to use him, even in that dark situation, to proclaim the gospel and to be used by the Lord. So he gives the glory to God as sovereign, even though he's in a Roman prison. Look here in chapter four, verse one. Therefore, I. Therefore, the prisoner of the Lord. Notice he's not a prisoner of the Roman government. He's a prisoner of the Lord. The Lord is sovereign over my life is what he's saying. I beseech you to walk worthy. Underline that walk worthy of the calling with which you were called. With all lowliness and gentleness, with long suffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all. And in y'. All. So he's Southern there at the end. He's like, this is all in y', all, everybody. So, you know, this is how you need to walk now. But we're going to stop there and pray, and then we'll dig out these verses together. Lord, thank youk for your word today. And thank youk that yout are here with us. Where two or more are gathered, there youe are in our midst. Lord, use youe word to speak to our hearts today in ways that you know we need it most. And we give you all the glory and all the praise and all the honor in Jesus name. And everybody said, amen. Well, many years ago, I performed a wedding at the chapel on Base at Fort Myer in Arlington. And assigned as the wedding coordinator to this particular wedding that I was doing was a general's wife. And she ran that rehearsal like nobody's business. I gotta tell you, she was a tough cookie. I suspect that if she ran the home the same way she ran a wedding, that her husband, the General, probably volunteered for a lot of oversea assignments. I mean, I gotta be honest with you, she scared me a little bit. She scared me a little bit. And I remember during the rehearsal, the music was going, and the bridesmaid started walking and she came undone. She came undone. She stopped the music, she clapped her hands, she snapped her fingers. She said, ladies, that is not how you walk. And then she proceeded to show them the right cadence and the right way to walk down the aisle. Okay. And then she says, start the music back up. Let's try this again. And then I'm standing off to the side, right? I'm not up in front yet. So she comes and stands over next to me. The music's going. The bridesmaids are walking. She leans over and she goes, can you believe it? These bridesmaids don't know how to walk. And I said, I know. Been bothering me, too. Bridesmaids, they don't know what they're doing. Well, here in chapter four, Paul is acting like a general's wife. And he's going to teach us the right way to walk. And he uses that word walk six times in two chapters here in chapter four and also in chapter five. That's why we're going to survey both. Now, the word walk in our English Bibles, in the original Greek language is the word peripateo. Peripateo means to literally walk like you're moving your feet. But it can also be used, as Paul is using it here in chapters four and five, figuratively, to communicate how you walk something out, how you live it out. And he's specifically talking about our faith in Christ. He says to the church at Ephesus, I got some things to tell you about the right way to walk. The right way to walk out your faith. Faith, or we might say it this way, how to put feet to your faith. How to put feet to your faith. So again, first three chapters all emphasize the doctrinal part. This is what Christ has done for you. This is who you are in Christ. Now, based on that, this is how you're to walk out your faith. Chapters four, five, and six. And so he's going to give us five specific instructions of how to walk. And the first use of how to walk is what we read at the top of chapter four, verse one. Look at your Bibles again. I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called. So we're going to title this teaching, putting feet to your faith. And here's the very first word of instruction that Paul gives us. He says, I want you to walk worthy of the calling. Walk worthy of the calling. Now, sometimes in Christianese, we use the term calling to describe a pastor, like a pastor's responded to a calling on his life. But the reality is that in the New Testament, Christians in general are referred to as the called, the called. Example, Romans 1:6 calls us the called of Jesus Christ. We are the called of Jesus Christ. When we respond to the love of the Lord, and we surrender our hearts to Jesus, and we come into relationship with him through faith. We've responded to his calling. So we are the called. Remember, even the Greek word in the New Testament for the word church is ekklesia ea from two Greek words, ek, meaning out of. And the second part is from the. The Greek verb k o, meaning to call. Ecclesia is from eko, called out of. That's what the word literally means. Christians are the ones who are called out of the world and called to Jesus. So we are the called out ones. And. And thus when Paul writes here about walking worthy of your calling, he said. He's saying, live up to your faith like you call yourself a Christian walking away. Live out your faith in such a way that you are identifiably a Christian. Walk in a way that is worthy of your calling. And he actually gives us a few things that we can work on as to how we walk in a worthy way. Look again at verses two and three. He mentions just five things. He's like, how about you? You guys just try working on five things. He goes, how about with all lowliness? That's verse two, with all lowliness, meaning humility. Like, we need to work on humility. Gentleness. Gentleness is the next word used there. Some translations say meekness. Now, meekness is not weakness. Sometimes we think of it that way. Well, if I'm all meek and mild, then I'm, you know, this reticent person who's, you know, just weak. And. And meekness doesn't mean weakness. Meekness means you just think of yourself less and you think of others more. And that was the character of Jesus. He also mentions long suffering in the list, which is patience. How many of you could use a little more patience in your life? Yes, three of you. Okay, Bearing with one another in love. That's the fourth thing he mentions in verse two. Like, bearing with one another in love. Like, he's talking about how we live it out among ourselves. Like, live out your faith in a way that you bear with each other, that, you know, we need to. Look, there are some crazy aunts and uncles in every family, and you put up with them. There's going to be some crazy aunts and uncles in every church. You put up with one another, bear with one another in love. And then he adds in verse three, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit. Now notice the language there. Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit. He doesn't say, endeavoring to create unity. The fact of the matter is that God creates the unity of the Spirit among us, we can only keep it. God by his Spirit, does a unifying work within the body of Christ that we can break or we can keep. Now, unfortunately, there's a lot in churches where people have divided and split over issues that they just shouldn't. Secondary, tertiary issues in Christendom that people want to divide over. It's like it's just not worth the division. These are not salvation issues. People like to pick fights and people like to sow discourse, discord in churches where these issues are not even salvation issues. So they're going to divide over, like spiritual gifts. They're going to divide over modes of baptism. They're going to divide over styles of church government. They're going to divide over the carpet in the children's wing. You know, I mean, all kinds of nonsense the churches divide over. And don't you know, this is exactly what the enemy wants? Because God is about unity and the devil is about disunity or division. And so he will often sow seeds of discord. He will often try to do what he can to divide people over nonsensical things in the church, in a family, in a marriage, anything that exemplifies Christ, you better believe the enemy is going to try to get in to divide. And that's why the exhortation here is you got to work on keeping the unity of the Spirit because the enemy loves to sow division. But we have to keep the unity of the Spirit. Now, we got to define that a little bit because unfortunately, today among churches, they seek unity under the umbrella of ecumenicalism. And ecumenicalism is just a big word that means we're going to tolerate a lot of nonsense, unbiblical things, because we just all want to be under one big umbrella. And let me tell you, there are some churches and ministries that you should never affiliate with or associate with because they embrace things that are unbiblical. They embrace things and teach things that are not orthodox Christianity. So we have to be wise about this now. We should always have unity over the essential matters, the salvation issues, okay? Jesus is the only way to salvation. Virgin birth, inerrancy of the scripture, the fact that Jesus is God, okay? We need to have unity over those things. If you don't have unity over those things, you have no real unity at all. And that's why sometimes, you know, over the years, when, you know, some local churches who teach things that I just can't agree with, they want us to join in on some community effort. I'm like, I just. I can't do it. I can't do it because there's such an embrace of unbiblical things that to try to come together in a unified way is not right, proper, godly, because you can't have unity over unbiblical matters. And so today it's somewhat difficult to find good unity in the body of Christ because there's a lot of weird stuff out there. There's a lot of heresy out there. Please don't read anything into what I'm saying. Like we're the only church that preaches the truth. That's not accurate at all. That there are plenty of churches that are good, godly, teach the truth, and it's just harder to find those to stay in fellowship with because there's a lot of nonsense out there these days. There's a lot of heresy out there these days. And so Paul says, you got to keep the unity, but you better understand who you are unifying with. Because he adds Here in verses 4, 5, and 6, there is one body, one spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all, and in you all. So the emphasis is, look, you can have unity if you agree on these things. Just take the fact that he says there's one Lord. I mean, you can talk to all kinds of people who will tell you a Jesus that is not the Jesus of the Bible, it's a different Lord. You can talk to a Muslim, they talk about Jesus, you can talk about to Mormons, they mention Jesus. You can talk to Jehovah's Witnesses, they talk about Jesus. But all of those Jesuses are not the Jesus of the Bible. And so you can't have unity over that because that's a different Jesus. There's a different gospel they're preaching. And so he calls us to walk worthy of our calling, to live out our faith in such a way that Christ is always exemplified. But we got to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. That takes work. We got to be wise about the way the enemy gets in there to divide the church. And we can't be unified with anything that is unbiblical or in any way heretical. Number two. He also tells us here in chapter four, walk differently than the world. Look at verse 17, this I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind having Their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling. We'll talk about that in a minute. Have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. So he talks here and he basically says, don't walk like the Gentiles, okay? Be different from the rest of the world. Now he's using the word Gentiles here in a generic sense. I'm a gentile. Most of you are probably Gentiles. Unless you have found in your family tree a Jewish branch, you're going to be a Gentile. And he's not disparaging all non Jewish people. He's using the word Gentile to communicate a broad sense of people who live in the world alienated from God, who don't turn to him. He says, you got to live differently. You got to live differently from the Gentiles. And by the way, he's going to remind us. And you used to be just like they lived. You used to act just like they acted. You used to behave just like they behave. So he says, this isn't a judgment call. They need Jesus just as much as you needed Jesus. But in other words, don't go back living that life. So he calls us to be different. Here, look at your bibles at verse 20. That's why he says in verse 20, but you have not so learned Christ. He's like, you've come out of that world. Jesus doesn't teach you to live like that, so live differently. Verse 21. If indeed you have heard him and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus, that you put off concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. See, every believer needs to understand that there is a putting off. That's what he mentions in verse 22. Put off the old nature, put on the new nature. That's verse 24. There's a putting off and a putting on for the Christian. Just like the way that you take your old clothes off at the end of the day. You know you wore your clothes all day, you've been working out in the yard, and you know you stink and you're dirty and so you take your clothes off at the end of the day, you take a shower that night or the next morning and you put on New clothes, okay? And he says, now look, we have to understand that when you follow Christ, there's a putting off and a putting on as well. It's like putting off the old clothes, putting on the new clothes, and you get showered up in between. Now the one who cleans you is Jesus. Like, you don't get cleaned up and then come to Jesus. You come dirty, smelly, stinky. And then Jesus redeems your life, forgives you, cleanses you, and, and he goes, and now you should live in newness of life, put on the new self. He says it would be as crazy as if you just got a shower, got all cleaned up, and then you put on yesterday's underwear. Why would you do that? Don't do that. I hope you don't do that. Don't tell me if you do that. I don't wanna know if you do that. Just like that. That's gross. That's disgusting. And he's like, okay, now as a Christian, as a Christ follower, same thing. Like, don't go back to the old ways. Don't go back to the old ways. That's like putting on yesterday's underwear. He's like, you need to walk differently from the way you used to live, that the world in general still lives. Who doesn't know Christ because they're alienated from God. So you live a life worthy of the calling. You live a life different from the rest of the world. That's how you used to live. Don't go back and live like that. Walk now in newness of life. Don't live for the world. Walk differently. Walk differently. Go to chapter 5. In the first two verses of chapter 5, he gives us another way to walk. Verse 1. Therefore be imitators of God as dear children and walk in love. There you have it. As Christ also has loved us and given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma. So this is number three. He tells us to walk in love. Now how are we to walk in love? Well, he answers it for us in the rest of verse 2. As Christ also has loved us and has given himself for us, so he says here we have to love others as Jesus loves us. Jesus said the same thing himself in John 13:34. Jesus said a new commandment, I give you. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. How do we love one another? Jesus said, as I have loved you. Well, that's the same thing that Paul is saying here in Ephesians 5, we have to walk in love how do we love other people the way that Jesus loves us? Well, how does Jesus love us? Well, last week we talked a little bit about this from chapter three when we looked at this prayer that Paul prayed. One of the things he prayed for us in Ephesians 3, 18 and 19 is that we would comprehend with all the saints what is the width and the length and the depth and the height to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. And again we said last week, how can you know something that's unknowable? He says, I want you to know the love of Christ, but it surpasses knowledge. How can you comprehend the incomprehensible? And the answer is, as we said last week, that he realizes we will not be able to comprehend the love of God intellectually because the vastness of his love is greater than the capacity we have to understand intellectually. But we can know the love of Christ experientially. We can experience the love of Christ and we can know how much he loves us. We, when we surrender our life to him, he floods our heart with his love and we can experience it in ways that we can't even necessarily define. It's too vast. But if you know the love of God, you know there aren't words enough to describe it. How, how his love is patient towards us. How God has been so patient in his love towards me, been so merciful in his love towards me. God has loved me in ways when I haven't been very lovely. He loves us even in our unlovable state. He is compassionate towards us. The love of God that floods our hearts, it's a wonderful thing that can't really be explained, but it can be experienced. But I want you to know also it's not just this sugary kind of love that comes from God. It's also, it's also a corrective love. God loves me so much that he is never content to allow me to remain as I am. And so he will challenge me in ways that make me feel very uncomfortable at times. Anybody relate. And it's because of his love for us that he disciplines us. It's Hebrews 12, 6. It says that as a father disciplines his children, so also our Father disciplines the ones he loves. When you feel the Lord putting the squeeze on you because you've been disobedient to him in some way, been living in a way that's displeasing to him. When he puts the squeeze on you and you feel how uncomfortable that is. You can thank him because it means that he loves you. Otherwise he wouldn't treat you as a child. He wouldn't care, but because he cares. So his love is not just this sweet love of patience and kindness and mercy. It is those things, but it's also a corrective love where he will admonish us, discipline us, because of his love for us. Now you translate all of that. And he says, as I have loved you, so you must love one another. Which means we show mercy to people who need mercy, but we also love them enough to tell them the hard truth about things, too. We don't just tolerate sin because Jesus doesn't tolerate our sin, but we had better be ready to always receive what we are dishing out, because then that's not genuine love. That's hypocrisy. If we love others the way Christ has loved us, we had better be ready to always receive the same thing that we are offering to people, which is sometimes sweet, merciful, compassionate, and other times corrective, lovingly confrontational. We love them enough that we even want to speak truth into their lives the way that Jesus speaks truth into our lives. So it's not an easy thing to necessarily define. But the more you know the love of Christ, the more. The more you walk in his love. You can then walk in his love in the way it's demonstrated towards others, because that's what he calls us to be about, to walk in love. Number four. He tells us also to walk in the light. This is here in chapter 5. Look at verses 8 through 11. In verse 8 he says, for you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness and truth, finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. I like the way the NIV words that it says have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. In other words, to really walk in the light means that there's no secret areas of our hearts that are off limits to God, that we are walking in the light as he is in the light, and therefore we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of His Son Jesus Christ cleanses us from all unrighteousness. That's what John tells us in First John. And so it means that we, that we come clean, we step into the light because he is the light. Remember, Jesus said in John 8:12, I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. And why did he say that? Because he stepped into a dark world. You see, the symbolism is the idea that darkness represents evil, wickedness. Think of how many sinister evil things happen. Crimes that are committed under the COVID of darkness. So darkness is always reflective of evil, sinful, criminal, offensive kinds of things. Jesus says, I've stepped into this dark world to bring light so that people can see. Step into the light. They can know truth. They can know what's right versus what's wrong. They can be set free from darkness. Because we all are subjects of the darkness, living in a dark world. And that's why he says here. He says, you were once darkness. He says there in verse eight, you lived in a dark world doing dark deeds. He says, that was your life. That was descriptive of your life. But then you come into the light. Cause you get saved and you trust Jesus. He says, so live that way. Live like Jesus. Lived like. Come into the light and live that way. In First Peter 2, 9, remember, Peter reminds us, but you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you should declare the praises of him who brought you out of darkness into his marvelous light. And so we are called out of a dark world. Jesus changes our dark hearts. And then he says, now I want you to live in the light like I am the light. And then when we do that, Matthew 5:16, Jesus said, let your light so shine before men that they might see your good deeds and glorify your Father, which is in heaven. See, as we're living in the light, as he is in the light, people will see Jesus because of our lives, and they'll be drawn to him because we're living in the light. So he says, walk in the light, not in the darkness like you used to Live like the world lives in you. Walk in the light. Finally, number five. He tells us to walk in wisdom. This is here in chapter five. Look at verse 15. He says, See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And so he tells us there in verse 15, to walk circumspectly. Now that's a word from. With the Latin root that means simply to walk looking around like. Like be observant and. And be wise about where you're walking. And he means it, of course, figuratively like Spiritually, I mean, it's good for us to watch where we're walking so we don't fall on our faces. But the idea here is, in a spiritual sense, you need to also watch where you're walking and be aware of your surroundings and be smart about things. Be wise in evil times, he says. He says, because the days are evil, therefore redeem the time. Walk in wisdom. Satan is just waiting to hook you for some foolish thing you do if you let your guard down. That's why he says, don't let your guard down. The days are evil. So he says, walk in wisdom. Be vigilant, be aware, be smart, be wise about your world in which you live. And we need to start asking about things, like he says in verse 17, therefore, do not be unwise, but understand what the Lord's will is. We need to be asking the Lord in different situations, what is your will here, Lord? Or when we're making some decision, what is your will, Lord? Some circumstance, some. Something that we need his wisdom about. Lord, what is your will? Because I want to walk in wisdom, in step with your will. You and I know this. I can testify to it. When you're walking in the center of God's will, there's no better place to be. And when you're not walking in the center of his will, there's no worse place to be. It's difficult and it's troubling to be out of his will. But when you're in his will, I mean, there's. It's such. It's such an. You know, the Bible says the way of the transgressor is hard. So when we're in rebellion out of his will, it's hard. We bring hardship to ourselves. When you're walking in step with the Spirit and you're in the center of God's will, no better place to be. And if you say to yourself, well, I don't have much Wisdom, Hey, James 1, verse 5 tells us, if anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask. And the one who gives liberally, the Lord will give us wisdom. So ask for it. And God will help you to know his will that you might walk in his wisdom. Let's pray for these five things in our own lives today. Can we do this as we close our service and just ask the Lord to help us as we walk in these different ways. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for your word today. And we pray first that we would walk worthy of the calling that we have been called out of this world, called to follow you. And so, Lord, help us to walk worthy of the calling. And may we walk differently than the rest of the world because you have called us out of the world. So, Lord, we don't want to go back into the old ways. We want to put off the old ways, put on the new ways and walk in step with your spirit. And number three, Lord, we pray that we would walk in love, that as you have loved us, so we would love one another. We also ask that we would walk in the light as you were in the light. No longer walking in darkness. You've delivered us from darkness. We want to walk in the light as you were in the light. And we want to walk in love and wisdom, Lord. We want to know your will and walk accordingly. That we would be wise about the times in which we live. So help us, Lord, to walk in a right way, as Paul instructs us that yout would always be glorified in our lives. Lord, we need the help of youf Holy Spirit to walk in a way that is worthy of the calling. And we give youe the praise and the glory in Jesus name, Amen and Amen.