Their walk, we will find in the book of Ephesians, is a whole life thing. There’s no option given to compartmentalize your life. He’s going to talk about, these are just topics that he’s going to talk about when he says, Live worthily. He’s just basically saying, man, be who you are. Be what you’ve been made to be in Christ. He’s going to talk about our money. He’s going to talk about our eating. This is all in here. He’s going to talk about our marriages, our jobs, our way of talking with people, our way of treating people, our calling to forgive people. He’s going to talk about our emotional lives. He’s going to talk about our sexual purity. —
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Pastor Mark Willey Excerpt taken from “Faithful Saints”
Video Transcript:
If you’re a saint if you’re set apart to God You’re also set apart to a community of people all over the world
And it’s all because of the work of the Godhead in your life But he says something else here. He says this. He says to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus. He says you’ll know them because they’re the faithful ones. And this is really what he’s going to talk about in the last three chapters of the book.
Their walk. I there, this is how chapter 4 begins, verse 1. I therefore, prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. Their walk, we will find in the book of Ephesians, is a whole life thing. There’s no option given to compartmentalize your life.
He’s going to talk about, these are just topics that he’s going to talk about when he says, Live worthily. He’s just basically saying, man, be who you are. Be what you’ve been made to be in Christ. He’s going to talk about our money. He’s going to talk about our eating. This is all in here. He’s going to talk about our marriages, our jobs, our way of talking with people, our way of treating people, our calling to forgive people.
He’s going to talk about our emotional lives. He’s going to talk about our sexual purity. Matter of fact, he’s going to make this statement. Among you, there must not even be a hint of sexual immorality. Well, I’ve told you about the brothels that were at every major street corner. Hundreds of people available to you.
They had their own form of
promiscuity, just like our culture does. Our culture maybe is scarier, because it can be done in total anonymity behind a screen. But he says, if you’re one of these that has been set apart to God, Here’s what he says again in chapter four and five. Among you there must not even be a hint of sexual immorality.
The followers of Jesus must have an entirely different standard of sexual purity than the culture in which we live. Their walk, our walk, is not compartmentalized. The walk is a whole life thing. The old theologians had an expression, it’s a Latin term, It’s Coram Deo. Deo means God. Coram means in the presence of.
Coram Deo was what they called believers to live. And it literally meant to be continually conscious of God’s presence. To see God’s involvement and live for God’s glory in all parts of our lives. This is Coram Deo. That our lives are not compartmentalized. Yeah, this is, this is God’s part. But, I’m not ready to have him over here.
Sylvia Fraser, well known novelist, wrote a book, My Father’s House. It tells of the tributes paid at her father’s funeral. He was a man of proper and regular habits. A Christian man, who didn’t smoke or drink, who helped people with their grocery shopping, who never took the Lord’s name in vain. A polite and neighborly man, Mr.
Frazier, and these are quotes, kept his snow shoveled, his leaves raked, and his bills paid. He also sexually molested his daughter Sylvia from age 4 to 12, threatening her first with the loss of her toys, he’d throw them in the furnace. Then with killing her cat, then with sending her away to an orphanage if she were to disclose their secret.
Mr. Fraser was able to live by compartmentalizing his life. He could seal off one part of his personhood from another just like an ocean liner can sometimes keep afloat, even when damaged, if the crew seals off the flooded compartments. Mr. Fraser is an extreme case of our ability to compartmentalize. But the Bible’s repeated admonition to be wholehearted and to be undivided in our pursuit of God reminds us of the challenge to Coram Deo through compartmentalize in each one of our lives.
When Paul wrote Ephesians, he’s saying, guys, It’s a whole life thing I’m talking about. It speaks to every part. The second thing is, their walk is foundationally an internal thing, ultimately. The focus of chapter 4 through 6 is practical Christianity, but it isn’t just behavioral. It’s heart driven.
Motives, underlying pride, envy, selfish ambition, bitterness, is actually influencing our best actions. As we grow in Christ, and I do believe we need to change habits when we come to Jesus, we need to be continually letting the Lord, redirect us and change our behavior, our responses, whether it’s emotional, whether it’s our relationship, of course He’s changing us all the time.
But what you find out, and those of you that have walked with the Lord for a number of years know exactly what I’m going to say. When I say it, you will. You begin to understand That your own capacity to grow in Christ is limited by your own self deception. That we want to hide what is ugly, and shameful, and embarrassing to us, even to ourselves.
But God is determined to free us from that part of ourselves. He is determined to turn us into transparent, vulnerable people that say, I’m really struggling with fear. I’m really struggling with lust. I’m real. I need I need brothers and sisters to come alongside of me. I’ve got issues, some of which I’m deceiving myself to the reality of it.
I’m reading a book that I just love the book. It’s by Rebecca Pippard. It’s called Hope has his reasons with the subtitle. Our search to satisfy our deepest longings. She tells the story of being in a Bible study that she had really enjoyed and I’ll read it to you. There was a delightful woman in the group, someone who taught me a great deal about living for God.
However, she was of the school, though she may not have realized it, that it is a sin to admit one is a sinner. She would, of course, say she believed in the doctrine of sin, but she never spoke of anything but victory. One day, the leader of the study asked us, What do you think controls you that shouldn’t?
Insightful question, actually. We knew one another well by then, so there was enough trust to really be able to speak openly. But the victorious woman spoke up at once. The besetting sin of my life, she said, is that I just don’t write as many letters as I should. There was a long silence. Not surprisingly, no one shared after that.
The lid on the discussion had been clamped shut. Mind you, I did say and believe she was a delightful woman. Yet I wanted to ask her though. I didn’t is that why Christ died because we didn’t write enough letters That seems like a stiff price to pay just because we lacked enough stamps What happens as you grow in Jesus?
You’re able to say I see the seed of every known sin in my own heart I see how much fear has influenced my life. I see how how What I thought was was just strong getting it doing it the right way has so much pride in it I see so many areas that I just deceive myself and God just keeps taking back another layer of the onion and So you grow in the Christian life?
And if you’re really growing the Christian life sometimes you say, you know I think I’m a worse person than when I started this thing You’re not. I mean, I don’t think you are. No, you’re not. You’re just being allowed to see more that Jesus died for, and more that Jesus wants to say, Let me in there. Let me in there!
And watch what I’ll do through my spirit. Paul is saying their work is an internal thing, and last, their war is a real thing. In Ephesians, Paul knew of shopkeepers, town officials, tradesmen, and slaves who had experienced this new life in Christ. In his mind’s eye, he saw them throughout the city and the countryside, the saints in Ephesus.
In the X Men series, X Men series, Charles Francis Xavier, also known as Professor X, is the one that has this, this thing called Cerebro. It’s a database, but it’s connected when you put this, like, helmet like thing for X Men fans. I apologize right now. but This thing enables him to see in the whole world, and it shows up on like a planetarium ceiling all over the world where there are mutants, people that have these special powers that are a little different from humans, and, but it’d be very dangerous if people, if, if people from the evil side, evil mutants, evil humans, were able to see where these people were.
He’s able to see them because he wants to help them, invest in them, some of them get into his school.
We’re like that as believers. We’re scattered. We’re those lights that are all over the world.
The frightening thing is our enemy does know where we are. He can identify all the lights
and his hatred of God is tangible and it’s real and there’s not a lot he can do against God. So he goes to his next option, which is the people that God has set apart for himself. In the book of Ephesians, Paul isn’t going to mince words on the fact that there’s a war going on. There’s an enemy that in this life that Jesus gives us, which is the whole theme of this series, there is opposition.
There is adversary. There will be suffering. You will suffer in ways you would not suffer if you didn’t know Christ.
Paul writes this letter to help us live out the life Jesus gives us. Those doing so live as faithful saints. As those who see the uniqueness of their position in Christ separated to God and from the world as those who are seeking to align their lives under Christ, to glorify him in every part of their lives.
They’re, they’re, they’re trying to live out as faithful, set apart ones. This is the life that Jesus gives us. Lord,
thank you for setting the table in these first couple of verses. They give us a, an intro to all the richness that’s ahead in this book.