A Word in Season: Walk Worthy (Ephesians 4:1)

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A Christian's walk is his or her distinctive way of going through the world, the characteristic mode of progress of a true child of God.

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The Apostle Paul is concerned about a Christian's walk, not least in Ephesians 4 and verse 1, where he says,

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I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you are called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long -suffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavouring to keep the unity of the

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Spirit in the bond of peace. It's that concern that is expressed as Paul moves from the more doctrinal to the more practical part of his letter.

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We shouldn't absolutise that distinction. Doctrine is practical and practice rests upon doctrine, but there's a shift away from gospel indicatives, the things that God has done, to gospel imperatives, the things that we do in response to what

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God has done and at his command. And as Paul thinks about everything that he has said, and particularly about the glory that belongs to Jesus Christ in the church, he says,

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I'm pleading with you, as a prisoner of the Lord, to walk worthy of the calling with which you are called.

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This is a concern that arises in 1 Thessalonians 2, that you would walk worthy of God who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

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It's also in Colossians 1 and verse 10, that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him.

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It is the mind of a man or woman who is profoundly conscious of their gospel privileges, who is gripped by the reality of what

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God in Christ has accomplished for them and in them, who recognises that they no longer belong to themselves, but they now belong to him who loved him, loved us and gave himself for us, who purchased us at the price of his own blood, that we are now children of the living

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God, and that because of that identity and because of that relationship, we are now bound to live in a way that is truly pleasing to the

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God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so we are to walk worthy of the calling with which we have been called.

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God has called us to himself. He has called us to a life of true godliness.

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He has called us to live out of the relationship that we now sustain to him in Christ Jesus, as living beings in the spiritual sense, as those who are joined together in Christ Jesus, who are a living temple for God by the

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Spirit. Everything that we now do as God's people ought to properly and conscientiously reflect that new reality.

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We are to walk worthy of that calling. How constrained are you by that sense?

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It begins with really how you perceive yourself. Do you understand what God in Christ has done for you?

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Do you appreciate the blessings that have been lavished upon you? Do you see the privileges that have been bestowed?

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Do you think of all the great testimonies of what we have in Christ Jesus? What it means to now belong to the family of God?

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Because of that, the way that we behave either brings honour or dishonour to our

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God. It's not so much then about what men think about us, insofar as they may mock us or scorn us.

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It's more about how we reflect the very character of the God whom we serve.

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What men think really only matters insofar as it reflects upon God. And so they might, as they did with our

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Saviour, despise and forsake us. They might disdain us and disregard us.

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They may scorn us and persecute us and even kill us. But our great question must always be this.

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What does my conduct say about the God whom I serve? When I speak, when

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I make decisions, when I act on those decisions, the way that I deal with the Church of Jesus Christ, are these properly reflective of the calling with which

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I have been called? Having been brought to God in Christ by His Spirit, is everything

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I am and everything I do now pointing back to that saving reality and the new identity that flows out of it?

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If so, when we are beseeched to walk worthy of the calling with which we have been called, we will readily respond.