What Does God Want as a Finished Product?
Ephesians 4:1-6
Intro:
1. When you gave your life to the Lord, you were born again. God made you a new creation & you were adopted into His family.
2. As a family member you are justified, made righteous & enter into a saved status.
3. God’s word says that when you are baptized, God indwells you with His Holy Spirit to empower you to become what He saved you to be. (Act 2:38)
4. The rest of your life is to be a building process to perfect God’s product - His workmanship. (Eph 2:10)
5. Important words in verse 1:
a. Calling - that’s your adoption as a child of God. You have that special status!
b. Worthy - that’s the final product of righteousness God intends for His adopted children to have. ILL: You live up to the Thomason name!
6. So what are the attitudes God wants to produce in you & how does He plan to do it?
I. v2-3 - What’s the Final Product?
A. Dr. Albert Ellis developed the theory of Rational Emotive Therapy.
1. ILL: The Albert Ellis Lectureship I attended in El Paso.
2. The idea: your feelings can be controlled by your behavior & your attitude at any given time. ILL: Arguing with your wife & then answering the telephone pleasantly.
B. So what are the attitudes & behaviors God wants to develop in your life?
1. v2 - Humbleness (ταπεινοφροσύνη) = modesty, (KJV) lowliness of mind.
a. The world says that humbleness is weakness.
b. God says Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment. - Rom 12:3.
c. You are to have the mind of Christ. Phil 2:5-8 - Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross!
d. You get this attitude by being honest with yourself & others.
2. v2 - Gentle (πραύ̈της) = (KJV) meekness - the ability to do it but the restraint not to.
a. Meekness does not mean weakness.
b. Moses was said to be meek (Num 12:3 - KJV).
c. The Lord called Himself meek (Matt 11:29). He could have summoned 12 legions of angels, but He didn’t! (Matt 26:53)
3. v2 - Patient (μακροθυμία) = lit. long-tempered, longsuffering, perseverance.
a. Patience is defined in the next phrase, bearing with one another in love.
I Thess 5:11 - Therefore encourage one another and build each other up.
b. The world says, “get ahead by tromping on others”, but God says, “build others up to your level”.
4. v3 - Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit!
a. The church is a family - we’re a team. We work together so the church benefits.
b. ILL: We cheered for the team even when Jacob wasn’t playing.
II. v4-6 - How Will God Make This Happen?
A. The church is necessary.
1. Harold Camping’s Family Radio program states all churches have fallen away from the truth & discourages participation in any church.
2. Heb 10:25 - Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another — and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
a. The encouragement & teachings of the church are not optional.
b. Forsaking the assembly of the saints will not produce Christian growth!
B. v4 - The church is necessary as the one body & Spirit.
1. God did not intend for His church to be fractured over names, creeds & interpretations.
ILL: One of the purposes of our Christian Church movement’s existence.
2. The one Spirit is the Spirit of God!
a. There are spirits in this world which we can’t see - called demons.
b. These spirits are of the devil - so stay away from them.
c. Anything that is supernatural but not of God is of Satan. That’s the occult!
3. The church can have problems & still be the church! Notice the Corinthian church:
a. They had conflict among their leadership (I Cor 1:10-15).
b. They had a case of incest (I Cor 5:1).
c. They may have had drunkenness at the Lord’s Table.
d. They misused spiritual gifts (I Cor 12 - 14).
e. They had doubts about the resurrection (I Cor 15).
f. But the apostle still called them the church of God (I Cor 1:2)!
C. v5-6 - The church is necessary in providing one plan of salvation.
1. It’s the church that points you to one Lord - the Lord Jesus. Jn 14:6 - Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
2. It’s the church that points you to one faith. Jn 3:16 - For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
3. It’s the church that points you to one baptism. Gal 3:27 - for all of you who were bap- tized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
4. v6 - It’s the church that points you one loyalty - God the Father.
If you want all God has in store for, both in this life & the next;
become everything God wants in His final product!
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