Encouragement by Paul

Ephesians 4: 1-17

“Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. 2 Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. 3 Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. 4 For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future.

5 There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

6 one God and Father of all, who is over all, in all, and living through all.

7 However, he has given each one of us a special gift through the generosity of Christ. 8 That is why the Scriptures say,

“When he ascended to the heights, He led a crowd of captives

    and gave gifts to his people.”

9 Notice that it says “he ascended.” This clearly means that Christ also descended to our lowly world. 10 And the same one who descended is the one who ascended higher than all the heavens, so that he might fill the entire universe with himself.

11 Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. 12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. 13 This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.

14 Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. 15 Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. 16 He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.”

Paul goes on to pled with us, while he is a prisoner for serving the Lord.  He pleads with us followers to lead a life worthy of the calling.  Paul begs us to lead a life worthy of our calling.    

Worthy of our calling, you might be saying, “Mark!  What exactly does that mean?”  This is what it means to lead a life worthy of your calling.  We are called to different areas of ministry.  Regardless of the actual gift we are given, instructions on what we are to do and how we are to act to lead a life worthy of our calling. 

We are to be humble and gentle.  Now, these two things are for the most part hated by our flesh because our flesh is prideful and harsh.  These qualities humility and gentleness are very important as someone who represents our Lord and Savior because anything short of that is a gateway to sin.  Next, Paul encourages us to be patient with one another and to make allowances for others faults.  I don’t know if you ever noticed this, but pointing the finger at another you will find three pointing back at you.  We are to let our patience, no matter what it’s for, represent the love of Christ that we have inside of us.  People do notice these traits are worthy to practice for they build us up and help us grow into more mature Christians.  Humility, gentleness, patience, and love will help us stay united with others.  It will allow us to be at peace with others and it will allow the Holy Spirit to work through us just as God wants.

We are all the same body, which is the body of Christ.  We may all have different callings, but we all have the same spirit and should work together as one united body doing the will of God our heavenly father.

We the called were given special gifts.  So that when we answer the call, we can step into our calling and let our gifts be used.

Christ came to equip the church.  He gave these gifts to the church: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers.  He equipped the church with these gifts, so they can equip God’s people to do His work and build up the church, the body of Christ.  We should continue to grow in unity of our faith and knowledge of God’s son, so that we will be mature and full grown in the Lord, measuring up to the full stature of Christ.

We do this so we no longer will be like children.  We will grow into mature Christians and no longer will be changing our minds on certain issues like children do.  Christ is the head of the church and we are the body.  We are called chosen and gifted.  We are gifted with certain gifts to build up the body, to teach, preach, and help the body grow into loving mature Christ-minded Christians.