Walking Takes Balance

Walking in a Manner that is Worthy: Part III
Walking takes Balance

Read Ephesians 4:1-7
You’re probably thinking, “Here we go again, we’re in our third week in this text and Rick is still in verse 2 defining his terms.” I agree, and I am biting at the bullet just as much as anyone to get into the meat of Ephesians 4, but I still feel like I haven’t exhausted all of the rich theological implications of the exhortation to be able to move onto the rest of the chapter. So, today I want to look at the phrase “Walk in a manner that is worthy.”

If these were the days of Paul or the Puritans, I could preach for 2 hours and cover this whole text in one sermon. But times have changed, and for good or for bad, there are just too many modern demands that compete for our attention. But modernity is no justification for truncating God’s Word.

I. Worthy Balance
Life is all about balance. We try to eat a balanced diet; get a balance of exercise and rest; balance our work and our personal lives; balance our cheque books, our budgets, etc. Walking in a manner that is worthy of the calling is also all about balance.

When believers are exhorted to walk in a manner that is worthy of the calling, the Greek word for worthy is Axios; it literally means to bring up the other beam of the scale- to make the worth of one side equal to the other. So walking worthily engenders the image of trying to balance an unbalanced scale.

This is not Christian perfectionism[1] nor is it legalism. Our obedience is a grain of sand next to a mountain of disobedience compared in an ocean of God’s grace; it could never attain equal weight with God’s grace any more then a flea could lift the earth; but we must strive for it as though we could because “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” (Phil 2:12-13) “Faith without works is dead.”

II. Walking
Walking implies a change of behaviour and direction. 2:2 reminds us that we “…were dead in the trespasses and sins in which [we] once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air.” We were like that paralyzed man whom Jesus commanded to get up and walk. Now we are alive and we walk in grace, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (2:10).

Paul uses this walking metaphor five more times in Ephesians. In v. 17 he exhorts believers to walk, or rather, not to walk, saying:

…you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.
They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because
of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have
become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice
every kind of impurity (17-19).

This is saying the same thing as v. 1 only in the negative so that walking in a worthy manner includes no longer walking as the Gentiles.

How do Gentiles walk? In the futility of their own minds; leaning on their own understanding rather then trusting God and acknowledging Him…. And because their minds are darkened, they are fools who exchanged the truth for lies- pot ashes for gold. They’re callous… given to sensuality and greed and impurity- dead in trespasses and sin. Why? Because of the hardness of their heart.

In Matthew 13, Jesus grieved over the harness of men’s hearts, “…this people’s heart has grown dull,” it results in spiritual blindness and deafness, so that:

…with their ears they can barely hear,
and their eyes they have closed,
lest they should see with their eyes
and hear with their ears
and
understand with their heart
and turn, and I would heal them’ (Matthew
13:15).

But Jesus was also encouraged by those who believed, he said, “…blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear” (Matt 13:15-16). Walking is behaviour, it changes when we see; seeing is faith, it’s received when we hear; hearing comes when we understand the gospel; we understand when God changes our hearts.

So the evidence that our hearts have been changed is that we treat one-another in the church, and in the world, with gentleness, and meekness, humility and patience all of which is undergirded by love- that’s balanced walking; walking in a worthy manner.

In 5:2 we are once again exhorted to walk in love as Christ loved us. Love is the crown of all Christian virtues and the motive of God at the Cross. Love for God and others fulfills the Law.

Christ exemplified it in his love for those who abused and rejected him. His parting act of love was to soften the heart of the very centurion who stood guard over his humiliation at Calvary and give him the faith to say, “Truly this was the Son of God!” (Matt 27:54). Can we love one another, can we love members of the family of God the way that Jesus loved his enemies? Can? I pray that I might.

Christians are also exhorted in 5:8 to “…walk as children of light” (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true). This is the same thing as the command not to walk as Gentiles who walk in the darkness of their own understanding. If we are in the light, we must walk as children of the light, in the truth of God’s Word.

Walking worthily means walking in the light, that happens when we study God’s Word and conform ourselves to it. You’re not going to get that from a thirty minute sermon once a week. If this is all the Word you’re going to get this week then you are badly malnourished. The light that you walk in is very dim indeed. Walking in the light of God’s Word means personal study of the word and it means studying in a group with a leader who is able to teach the Word as well as hearing it preached.

Similarly in 5:15 Paul says, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” Not walking in the light of God’s Word is the most foolish thing a Christian can do! Think of all the information that comes into your mind every day. What percentage of that is the Word? Are you balanced?

It’s very revealing of a Christian who is proud, conceited, impatient, and unloving that he is likely not walking in the light of the Word. Pride, disrespect, impatience, lack of love: these are the very things that divide churches. “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough” (Gal 5:9).

Paul warned the Galatians:
13 You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. 14 The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself." 15 If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. …The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: [among them are] …hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy… and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Gal 5:13-21).

Conclusion
So what must we do? The first way we are commanded to walk worthy is in the way that we relate to one-another: with all lowliness, gentleness, longsuffering and love. It means esteeming others better then ourselves- basically it means cultivating the fruit of the Spirit: “ love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law” (Gal 5:22-23).

Notice they are the fruit of the Spirit, not the fruit of the believer? In other words, they are the work of the Spirit in us- they prove that we are sealed, filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

I think God deliberately chooses to put difficult people in our lives in order to teach us lowliness and gentleness and longsuffering and love. After all, how hard is to act humbly and patiently and lovingly to someone who doesn’t irritate us? If someone always has the same opinions as me, the same habits, the same preferences, it would be easy to be humble and gentle and loving towards them.

I once listened to a man who had been a Christian for a long time describe how furious he was that he had to drive into work every morning with a young man whose every action and word drove him up the wall. Finally he blew up at him. Have you ever felt that way about someone? I know I have. The problem is not the irritating person. This mature Christian who seethes with anger is the problem because he fails to walk in a manner that was worthy of the calling.

Bridled strength is true strength. That’s how we walk in a manner that is worthy: we bridle the flesh and its sinful urges. This doesn’t happen over night, it takes time. That’s why Paul calls it walking- we have a starting point and a destination. As Christians, we must be “masters of self and servants of others” (John Stott).

Notes
[1] A Theory of Wesley that taught that we could achieve perfect Christlikeness in this life. This teaching was later connected to the Baptism in the Holy Spirit as the means of Christian Perfectionism.