The Worthy Walk, and the Oneness That Holds It

Grace and peace to you, whoever you are who reads this today.

For three chapters now, as we have walked together through this letter, I have been telling you what God has done. I could not help myself. I had to lay it all before you first — that he chose you before the foundation of the world, that he made you alive when you were dead, that he brought near those who were far off, that he broke down the dividing wall and made of two one new man. I have been showing you the great house God is building, and I did not want to leave it until you had seen it whole.

And now comes a small word that turns the whole letter on its hinge. "I therefore." Everything after this word leans back on everything before it. I do not say, "Do these things so that God will love you." I say, because he has already done all this — therefore. The doing flows out of the done. Never forget which comes first, or you will make the gospel into a burden it was never meant to be.

Hear how I named myself as I wrote it: "I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called" (Ephesians 4:1). I do not command you as a free man with a rod. I plead with you as a man in chains — chains I wear even now, in this rented house where I am kept under guard. And notice what I call myself: not a prisoner of Rome, but "a prisoner for the Lord." My chains belong to Christ. I tell you this so you will know I am not asking you to walk any road I have refused to walk myself.

To walk worthy of your calling. Consider that. You have a calling — not a career, not a task, but a summons from God who reached down into your death and named you his own. I do not ask you to earn that calling; you cannot. I ask you to let your feet catch up to it. To live in a way that fits what you now are. A man does not become a son by acting like one, but a son who knows he is a son begins, at last, to walk like one.

And what does this walk look like? I could have said many things. I might have listed great deeds. Instead I begin low, at the ground, with the humble things: "with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love" (Ephesians 4:2). Do you see what kind of virtues these are? Every one of them is a virtue you cannot practice alone on a mountaintop. Humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance — these only have room to live where there are other people, difficult people, people who try you. God does not save you into a solitary holiness. He saves you into a body, and then he sanctifies you by the friction of it.

Bearing with one another in love. I chose that word carefully. To bear with someone is to put up with them — to carry what is hard about them the way you would carry a load. There is a brother whose manner grates on you. There is a sister whose weakness wearies you. The world says, cut them off; you owe them nothing. But love does not calculate what it owes. Love bears. I know how much God has borne with me — I who once dragged his people to prison, breathing threats and murder. If he has borne with me, who am I to refuse to bear with you?

Then I press further, to the goal all this is for: "eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Ephesians 4:3). Mark that word "maintain." I do not tell you to create unity. You cannot manufacture it; the Spirit has already made it. When God joined you to Christ, he joined you to everyone else who is in Christ, whether you feel it or not, whether you chose them or not. The unity is a gift, already given. Your work is to guard it, to keep it, to not tear apart with your quarrels and your coldness what the Spirit has knit together with his own hands. And notice I say be eager for this — not merely willing, but eager, quick, diligent, running to keep the peace before it can be broken. How many church fires would never catch, if we were only eager to guard the peace instead of eager to be proved right.

And now, having asked you to keep the unity, I show you why it is worth keeping — I open the very ground of it. Seven times I say "one," and I want you to let each one fall on you like a bell:

"There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all" (Ephesians 4:4-6).

Do you hear it? One body — you are not a crowd of strangers but a single living thing. One Spirit — the same breath of God dwells in each believer, so that the poorest saint and the greatest carry the same Presence. One hope — we are all walking toward the same dawn, the resurrection, the day we shall see him. One Lord — Jesus Christ, and no other master over the conscience. One faith — the same gospel held by all who are truly his. One baptism — one entrance, one washing, marking us all as belonging to him. And beneath it all, over it all, one God and Father of all.

This is why your divisions are so grievous. When you despise a brother, you are cutting at your own body. When you nurse a grudge, you are quarreling with someone the same Spirit indwells, someone bound for the same hope, ransomed by the same Lord, owned by the same Father. There are not many gospels and many Christs; there is one. To break fellowship carelessly is to lie about the very oneness of God.

So let me bring it to your own door, this day. You do not need great occasions to walk this walk. You need only the next person God sets before you — the one hard to love, the one you have been avoiding, the one you were about to answer sharply. Will you be humble there? Will you be patient? Will you bear with them, and keep the peace, because you both belong to the one Lord? That is the worthy walk. It is not glamorous. It is mostly done in small rooms and ordinary hours, by people who have decided that the unity Christ purchased is too costly to throw away over a slight.

I am content, even in these chains, because I have learned that the God who called me is faithful to finish what he began. Walk worthy, then — not to be loved, but because you already are. And may the God who is over all and through all and in all keep you in his peace.

Grace be with you.