Learning to Walk

Learning to Walk
Being Worthy of What Has Already Been Given to Us

Read Ephesians 4:1-16
A couple weeks ago the Pope made a comment about Islam that sparked furious indignation in the Islamic world. It makes me wonder if it’s at all possible to have any kind of peaceful dialogue with Islamists. The Pope’s comment was from a 14th century Turkish Emperor who said,
Show me just what Mohammad brought that was new, and there you will find things evil and inhuman, such as the command to spread by the sword the faith he preached. [1]

His words are eerie in their contemporary relevance. Remember that Turkey was once the center of Roman Christianity and is now a Moslem nation. Turkey, like all Moslem nations, was converted at the edge of a sword.[2] The Pope’s remark resulted in the death of at least one nun. She was a 65 year Italian woman working in a children’s’ hospital in Somalia and many Churches have also been destroyed.

I have not spent much time learning about Islam and so much of what I know about Islam, I learned from Moslem mobs, Al Quaida and other Islamic terrorists. Recently I have learned from the violent uproar of the Moslem mobs that it is wrong to draw a cartoon that is disrespectful to Mohammed; but the outcry from those same mobs is deafening in its silence when terrorists fly an airplane into a building full of innocent people, or kill innocent men, women and children in the name of Allah.
Nevertheless, I have to admit my jealousy of the convictions of Moslem’s that they are so bold and militant about their faith when it is mocked by infidels while we Christians just sit back and barely whimper when our culture slanders Jesus Christ and his church with films that portray him as everything from a homosexual to a megalomaniac to a myth and his followers are caricaturized as backward and ignorant.

But then, we do have a theological reason for passivity in our increasingly hostile world.[3] The reason is that, whereas Islam is a religion of honour, Christianity is a religion of dishonour. What I mean is that, where the Koran teaches that it is the duty of the faithful to violently defend God’s honour the Bible teaches that it is the duty of believers to be violently humiliated and despised for the gospel. God will defend himself and His people.
You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge… but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord (Lev 19:18); I will take vengeance on my adversaries and will repay those who hate me (Dt 32:41);

For the Lord has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion (Is 34:8);

[Jeremiah prayed] O Lord… take vengeance for me on my persecutors. …know that for your sake I bear reproach (Jer 15:15);

Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. …be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God.... “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink….” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Rom 12:19-21).

And in the sermon on the Mt., Jesus pronounced blessing on us saying:
“Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. … I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends

So this is not my opinion, it’s the counsel of God contained in the Law, the Prophets and the gospel; it’s the hallmark of Christian ethics. Ghandi learned it from the Christians and it liberated India. Martin Luther King Jr applied it to the civil rights movement in the 60’s and spared America another revolution. But most importantly, Jesus lived it out. Look how Isaiah describes the dishonour of Jesus:
He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed (Is 53:3-5).

Jesus never slandered anyone, he never beat anyone, he never killed anyone, he launched no rebellions or revolutions; he was reviled and slandered constantly before finally enduring a brutal scourging and humiliating crucifixion. In fact, in un-Islamic fashion, he actually prayed for his tormentors, saying “father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Yet he is the most important man who ever walked the earth!

So when Paul says that Jesus is a model for all believers he is saying something that aught to rock your world and shatter all your fleshly desires and ambitions. In the opening verse of chapter 4, Paul implores believers to walk worthy of the calling. He gave similar command in Philippians:
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross (2:5-8).

Paul was in jail when he wrote both of these Epistles; he was in jeopardy of losing his life. Roman prisons were brutal; they were dark underworlds full of filth, torture and death. But, in spite of his situation, Paul doesn’t consider himself a prisoner of misfortune or a prisoner of the Jews and Romans; he is a prisoner of Jesus… of providence and so all he can do is talk about his joy:
But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all. You too, I urge you, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me (Phil 2:17-18).

What is your prison? Are you a prisoner of bad decisions? Are you a prisoner of debt? Are you a prisoner of sickness, a bad job, an unhappy marriage? Try looking at it the way that Paul looks at his chains. Remember you are a prisoner of providence and every gift from God is a good and perfect gift- so rejoice in God’s providence.

So this how we walk worthy of the calling of God: instead of vengeance in the face of opposition (which is the behaviour of the unregenerate) we who are born again and sealed by the Holy Spirit are given the power to Love our enemies; and instead of despair in the face of life’s trials, we are to share our Joy because both persecution and trials are the providence of God.

But getting there does not happen overnight. It’s not like we raise our hand while every head is bowed and then walk the aisle and say a prayer and suddenly we’re able to walk worthy of the call. Or it’s not like, at some point in our Christian life we read Paul’s command to walk in a manner worthy of the calling and then suddenly we decide to do it.

I failed at this as a new Christian- I was combative and argumentative and bitter in my heart towards an antagonistic world and if I were not regenerate and restrained by the Holy Spirit, I would have thought and behaved just like those terrorists trying to convert the world in my own strength not knowing the power of God.

I still struggle with wanting to take vengeance when Christ and his church is slandered. But the love of Christ constrains me. We are all in this process of maturity- of coming to the place where we can walk in a manner that is worthy of the calling. It begins when we learn to walk. It’s a process that begins with baby steps.

And walking requires an example. Babies don’t just get up and decide to walk one-day; it requires their parents to model it to them and then to help them by prodding them and holding their hands and celebrating their baby steps. Likewise we have a heavenly example in Jesus.

Over the next couple of weeks I want to unpack Paul’s command to walk worthy of the calling by looking at the model he provides. First there is the individual application in verse, Paul calls us to Christlike character, “with all lowliness and gentleness and longsuffering, bearing with one another in love.” I touched on this a few weeks ago, but it is so practical, so crucial, so essential to our fellowship, that I want us to revisit this command.

Then, in verses 3 to 6 Paul gives a corporate command to the church to walk worthy of the calling citing the tri-unity of God as an example for unity in the church: “endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace … there is one Spirit… one Lord… one Father.” God is one and His church is one- so be careful if you believe you can divide the church, its like saying you believe God can be divided.[4]

Finally, Paul applies it in verses 7 to 17, “he gave gifts” and appointed ministers “for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ… til we come to the unity of faith, and the knowledge of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the fullness of Christ…” walking in a manner that is worthy of the calling. We will look at the gifts and their use for unity in the community.

So today, let’s take a baby step as we begin to consider how we might not be like the world, seeking honor for ourselves and our man-made gods. Let us begin to think about how we might walk in a manner that is worthy of the calling. Let us meditate upon the character of Christ and his words in the sermon on the mount and the example of his life. Let us pray that God would help us to live and to think and walk likewise both as individuals and as a church.

Notes:
[1] I wonder if making that quote has put me in danger too? But the Bible says fear not who can harm your body, rather fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell.
[2] Wherever Islam spreads, tensions between nations are heightened. Canada and the US are an example. We once boasted the longest most unguarded border in the world as a testimony to our shared values and freedom. Now we are more likely to see watch towers and armed civilians and military at Canada-US borders.
[3] Our passivity does not preclude using force either as individuals or as a nation to help the innocent; that is a matter of Christian ethics.
[4] The church is divided by gossip, a critical spirit, personal ambition, immature leadership, unloving behaviour and false doctrine.