To the Saints: Walk in a Manner Worthy of the Calling

Pink ribbons. Yellow ribbons. Red ribbons. Bracelets. T-shirts. 

"Like" if you support this cause. Paint a fingernail. Dump some cold water on your head. Show you care. Stand, walk, ride and run with us. 

The world has its ways to encourage people to rally around some great causes. We all want to see cancer, Lou Gehrig's disease and child abuse eradicated. And we're daily grateful for our men and women in uniform who protect our beloved country. Those are good causes. It's heartwarming to see people coming together to do something tangible to make this world a better place.

While those displays of solidarity are inspiring and worthwhile, we need to be careful not to confuse wearing a

ribbon, giving money, or even sticking a Christian fish on our bumpers, with the kind of unity that we have in Christ. Our unity as the body of Christ is not something we build with "likes" on Facebook or by wearing T-shirts.That's because our unity in Christ is a calling – for every single believer – not a cause that we decide whether to be a part of.  

Our symbols are not advertising gimmicks to promote unity. Our unity comes from God Himself: The cross unites us because it represents a very real event in which God Himself condescended to become one of us and to die for the forgiveness of our sins, and it also reminds us of his very real defeat of death, a victory that gives us the hope of eternal life; the dove represents the very real Holy Spirit — the third Person of the Trinity — God who lives in us (Rom. 8:11), empowering us to comprehend the gospel and to live holy lives, to "walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called” (Eph. 4:1). We don't choose this calling. Christ calls us. He expects our lives to radiate His grace, His love, His mercy, His salvation. 

True believers have not been brought together by a cause, but by the calling of Christ through His blood and resurrection, which by faith unites us with Christ (Gal. 2:20), and thereby with each other (Eph. 1:10; Gal. 3:28). We don't choose this unity. We simply are in unity because of what He did. 

Our common calling is what makes us the church. By faith we have been saved, and we belong to Christ. He possesses us (1 Cor. 6:19-20). We are the church. We have no choice in the matter. We are called out for His purposes. We are His body; He is the head, and we are His feet and eyes and hands. We are one body.

Paul tells us in Ephesians that our calling is far from abstract, or merely something we intellectually assent to. It's a very tangible, personal calling to holiness that requires our utmost devotion to Christ. It isn't a calling that we can heed separated from other believers. The only way we can answer this calling is in the fellowship of believers — that is, in the local church. That's because our calling is marked by the unity we have in Christ and in our holy attitudes and behavior – “Be imitators of God” (Eph. 5:1); God expects us to demonstrate that unity and holiness in our relationships and commitment to other true believers. 

But what are our personal responsibilities within that body? Do we really have any? What is our calling as the church? What does it mean for us as individuals to heed that calling? Is there a Biblical principle regarding membership to a local church? Are we really supposed to be all that committed to other believers? What does it mean to be unified? How does my personal walk with Christ relate to the body of Christ?

Beginning Oct. 18 and 25, and periodically as I have the

privilege of occupying the pulpit during the coming year, we'll find God's answers to those questions and more by walking through Ephesians. In July, we contemplated the three purposes of the church, which is comprised of true believers under the headship of Christ – the church is here to worship God, nurture fellow believers and to make new disciples. Those are the things we do as a church.

In this new series, called “To the Saints: Walk in a Manner Worthy of the Calling,” we’ll meditate on our calling to live worthily of the gospel, and how Christ expects us always to be walking in unity, in holiness, and in committed relationship to other believers.

The first half of the letter (Chapters 1-3) lays out the doctrine of our calling. We'll consider those familiar truths in the first sermon of the series, which will lay the groundwork for the second half of the epistle (Chapters 4-6), on which we'll meditate periodically in the coming months, as Paul spells out how we're called to walk as true believers in the local church, and even right here at Warrenton Bible Fellowship. 

The church has been God's plan all along. He saved us to make us gather His church, the Bride of Christ, "which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (Eph. 1:23). Christ is our unity, and He calls us to exemplify Him in the unity we share in our fellowship, and in our holy attitudes and behavior. My prayer is that as we walk through Ephesians together, that we’ll be equipped to "attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13).

Amen!

Pastor Scott Ferrell