The Walk Worthy Of Our Calling

“I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” —Ephesians 4:1–6

In chapters one to three, we have been studying the doctrinal section of this letter to the Ephesians. We now take up the practical part, that which has to do with our lives as those who, through grace, have been made members of Christ. Notice how tenderly the apostle leads us to this. He says, “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.”

Wherever grace rules in the soul “I command” is changed to “I beseech.” You do not find the apostle lording it over the faith of the people of God but graciously, tenderly pleading with them rather than sternly ordering their behavior. He speaks of himself in a way that certainly must have gone home to the heart of every one who read this letter in its original setting for these Ephesians had been brought to know the Saviour’s love through his ministry, and the link between a preacher and those who have been brought to Christ as a result of his ministry is a very real one. Hearts are very closely bound together when they stand in that relationship. How they must have felt to realize that the man of God to whom they owed so much was lying in a Roman prison, and he was there not because of any ill-doing on his part but because of his faithful proclamation of the Gospel which had meant so much to them. He was a prisoner of the Lord and from his prison cell he writes this letter beseeching them to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith they are called.

Our vocation is, of course, our calling. Paul refers to that which he has been previously opening up in these other chapters. He has been putting before us the blessedness of the new life, that all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ are members of that one body of which He is the exalted Head in heaven and that all such have been builded together for habitation of God by the Spirit. In view of the fact that we have been redeemed to God by the precious blood of Christ, in view of the fact that I am a member now of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones, in view of the fact that I am a living stone built into that temple of God by the Holy Spirit, that temple in which He dwells, my behavior is to be ordered of God, I am to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith I am called. Elsewhere we are told to walk worthy of God and of the Lord.

“With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love.” I spent quite a little time over this verse. It went home to my own heart, for every expression in it was a challenge to me and I kept asking myself the question, “To what extent have I risen to the standard that is here set forth? I must present this to others as the divine standard for a Christian’s behavior. To what extent am I measuring up to it?” And the more I carefully examined every expression both in the English and in the original Greek, the more humiliated and ashamed before God I was as I realized how far short I have often come—I am afraid, I always come—from living out what we have here. Every word is important.

“With all lowliness.” That word is found only once elsewhere in the New Testament and that is in the epistle to the Philippians, chapter two and verse 3. “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.” The original word means “modesty.” This is, an utter lack of self-assertiveness, that which is so characteristic of us as fallen creatures. We who have nothing to be proud of and yet are sometimes proud of our very crudity and ignorance. A young minister arose in a Methodist conference and said, “I am against education. I don’t believe in education; I haven’t got any education. I read no books except the Bible; I don’t profess to know nothing about literature or anything of that kind. I am just an ignorant man but the Lord has taken me up and is using me and I am not at all interested in schools or colleges or education. I am proud to be just what I am.” An old preacher arose and said, “Do I understand that our dear young brother is proud of his ignorance? If so, all I have to say is that he has a great deal to be proud of.” Most of us are that way, we are proud of the very thing of which we ought to be ashamed. We begin to boast of our attainments and abilities even as little children. One of the first things parents must learn in training their children is to curb that natural tendency for boastfulness. But as Christians, how completely we should be delivered from this. We have nothing that we have not received. Every blessing we have we owe to divine grace. With what modesty, then, should we behave ourselves.

The word “meekness” is found eight times in the New Testament. I should like, if there were time, to turn to every one of the passages but I would remind you of this, that it is used of our blessed Lord Himself. The apostle says, “We beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ,” and Christ says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls” (Matthew 11:29). The root of the original word really means “humility,” a spirit that never takes offense. Somebody says something unkind about me. I flare up in a moment. Why? Because I am not meek. They said of Jesus, “He has a devil,” and He meekly endured it. They said, “Say we not right that thou art a Samaritan?” But He answered them not. “When He was reviled, He reviled not again; when he suffered, He threatened not.” That is meekness.

And then the next word, “longsuffering.” This is a favorite word of the apostle and we also find it used twice by the apostle Peter. It is found twelve times in the New Testament. It means literally, “to endure with unruffled temper.” Do you know very much about longsuffering? “Well,” you say, “I would not mind if what she said about me had been true but when I know it isn’t true, I can’t stand it.” Therefore, the need of longsuffering. That is the flesh that talks like that. That does not come from the new nature but from the old. Many years ago, I had a friend, a little odd German brother whose name was George. Sometimes he would fly off and lose his temper but it always brought him back to Earth if one looked at him quietly and said, “Is that old George or new George talking?” In a moment, the tears would come, and even now, though he has been gone thirty years, I can hear him say, “That’s old George; new George would never behave that way. I must take that old George and inflict punishment upon him. He has no right to behave like that.” Yes, the old nature is quick to take offense, quick to flare up if I am not properly appreciated but the new nature just bows in meekness and lets the waves and billows pass over and is undisturbed thereby.

The last word here is “forbearing.” “Forbearing one another in love.” This word occurs only once otherwise in the New Testament and that is in Colossians 3:13. There we have a very similar expression to that which his before us here. “Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.” Literally, forbearance means “to put up with.” Now taking all that into account, I thought I would try to translate that verse myself. I am going to give you the Authorized Version first and then my own translation. “With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love.” My translation is, “With all modesty and humbleness of spirit, with unruffled temper, lovingly putting up with all that is disagreeable in other people.” That is a literal rendering of the original. That is the Spirit of Christ. As we meditate upon it and think of all that is involved in it, how can we do other than hang our heads in shame and confess that in many things we all offend, but seek grave that we may be so yielded to the control of the Holy Spirit of God that these things may indeed become real in our lives.

The apostle goes on, “Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Others have translated it, “Giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Observed, he does not say, “Giving diligence to keep the unity of the body.” We do not have anything to do with that. We do not have to preserve the unity of the body. God is looking after that. He has bound every believer up in a bundle in Christ, has given His blessed Holy Spirit to dwell within, and He links them one to another, and to the blessed Head in heaven. The body of Christ is always complete as God looks at it. People talk about “these heartless divisions that rend the body of Christ,” but they do not rend the body of Christ. You see the body of Christ is not composed of  all the difference sects and denominations. If you were to gather all the different Catholic sects together, the Roman Catholic, the Greek Catholic, the Chaldean Catholic, the Anglican Catholic, the Coptic Catholic, etc., and then gather all the Protestant sects together and unite them all in one big church, that would not be the body of Christ. That would contain a great many people who are in the body of Christ but it would also include a great many who are not. On the other hand, after you had gathered all these denominations and sects together, there would be a great many outside that would be members of the body of Christ, for the body of Christ and the church, which some call the visible body of Christ, are not the same thing. The body of Christ consists only of those who are regenerated and born again by the Holy Spirit and linked to Christ in glory by the Spirit’s baptism, and all the divisions in Christendom cannot rend that body. But what have they done? They certainly have destroyed the unity of the Spirit, and so he says, “Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

The Spirit unites us to that body which He has formed and now He says, “I want you to recognize it.” When you meet with fellow believers, do you endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit, do you realize that you belong to them and they belong to you? “But,” you say, “they do not see things the way I do.” If they belong to Christ, they belong to you and you to them. We are to do this in the uniting bonds of peace. Some years ago, I was taken ill in the midst of a series of meetings at Minneapolis. After my fourth address, I went out one Sunday noon to take dinner and right after the meal, I tumbled over, and when I regained consciousness, I had a fever of one hundred two degrees and was ill with typhoid. I was down for six weeks. As soon as I had strength enough to start home, my friends got me down to the station. I could not walk alone but they helped me and the porter was very courteous. He made up a berth and put both mattresses on and let me recline there all day long. The very first morning, as I lay there with a lot of pillows behind me, I took out my Bible and was getting my morning portion. Of course you never start the day without at least a little portion from the Word of God, do you? You do? Well, that is why you have so many bad days. I was reading from the Word of God when a rather stout looking German lady came walking by and she stopped and said, “What’s that? A Bible?” I said, “Yes.” “Well, you have your morning worship all by yourself? Wait,” she said, “I’ll go get my Bible and we’ll have it together.” She came back and plunked herself on my bed and said, “What are you reading?” A little later, a tall gentleman came by and stopped and said, “Reading the Bible! Well, I think I’ll go get mine too.” He was a Norwegian, and he came back with his Bible and in a few minutes I was amazed at the people who crowded around. They did the same thing every day and we had a delightful time all the way to California. I would get my Bible and then they would begin to come and sometimes there would be as many as twenty-eight Bibles. The conductor would go all through the car and say, “The camp meeting is beginning in car number so and so. Any wanting to take advantage are invited.” They sometimes got so full, they would start a hymn, sometimes we would have a little prayer, and sometimes it would be only the Bible reading, and they would ask questions. That went on until we reached Sacramento where some of the cars were to be cut off and go down the valley. So the people from the other cars came in to say goodbye, and this dear German sister came and said, “Oh, it has been just like a camp meeting all the way. It has fed my soul. I am going to Turlock but I want to ask you, what denomination are you.”

“Well,” I said, “I belong to the same denomination that David did.”

“What was that, I didn’t know that David belonged to any.”

“David said, ‘I am a companion of all them that fear Thee and keep Thy precepts.’”

“Yah, yah,” she said, “that is a good church to belong to.”

Why, dear friend, I suppose if we had interrogated those people, we would have found that we belonged to a dozen different sects but the blessed thing was, we found we were all one in Christ. Oh that we might “endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bod of peace.” Not in contentiousness, not in quarreling, but all alike seeking to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour.

In the last three verses the apostle brings before us a sevenfold unity. Notice, “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” Seven different unities all linked up in one. One great confession, and yet it is easy to see that there are three distinct spheres indicated, becoming larger and larger. Verse four speaks of that unity which is absolutely vital, “there is one body.” That is the body of Christ, and, as we have seen, that body is composed only of people who have been washed from their sins in the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, regenerated by the Word and by the Spirit and thus made members of Christ. Then in the second place, “There is one Spirit” and this is the one Holy Spirit by whose operation we have been baptized into the body of Christ. We read in 1 Corinthians 12:13, “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.” “One body, and one Spirit” and then, “one hope”—”Even as ye are called in one hope of your calling.” All believers have the same blessed hope, the hope of some day, some day soon, beholding the face of our Lord Jesus Christ and being transformed into His image. All real believers are included here—one body, one Spirit, one hope of your calling.

But now the second sphere is a little bit wider. It does not necessarily include only those who are born again. It may include those who have made a profession which is not real. “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.” You see there are those who say, “Lord, Lord,” who have never been born again. Jesus says that in the day of judgment many shall come to Him and say, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? and in Thy name have cast out devils? And in Thy name have done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” Take, for instance, this great Christendom of ours. What do people write at the head of their letters? They write 1936. And what does that mean? It means in the year of our Lord 1936. I suppose every racketeer and gangster in Chicago dates his letters that way. “Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). There are lots of hypocrites in the church that call Him Lord and yet show by their lives that they have never been born again.

Then there is the one faith. This is not the faith by which we are saved but the faith of the Christian church, the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. It is the one standard of truth that God has given to be proclaimed in the world, it is that which the apostle calls, the faith. Faith in Christ is confidence in Jesus but the faith is the body of the Christian doctrine.

Then, there is baptism, the outward expression of allegiance to Christ. Some say, “Do you think that baptism here is water baptism or the baptism of the Spirit?” I say without a moment’s hesitation, “Water Baptism,” for we have seven unities. We have already had the unity of the Spirit, one body, one Spirit, and we do not have the Spirit repeated here. If it were the baptism of the Spirit, you would have only a sixfold unity, but baptism is the outward expression of allegiance to Christ. A man may profess to belong to Christ and be baptized but that does not prove he is really born again. The mark of Christ has been put upon some men and yet they have never truly received Him into their hearts. What a solemn thing this is. I wonder if any of you are in the wider circle, you have never been born again, you are not in the first circle but are among those who have made profession whether real or not and, therefore, are in the second circle. Can it be that you have made a profession of Christ, that the mark of Christ has been put upon you, that you have been baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and yet have never trusted Christ? What an awful thing for a lost one in the pit of woe to have a say, “I bore Christ’s mark on Earth; I was baptized in recognition of His death and suffering and yet here I am lost for all eternity because I did not trust that Saviour who suffered for me.”

Notice the third circle. This is very much wider than the others for it takes in God’s relationship to the entire creation. “One God,” and as such He is in relationship to all His creatures, “and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” This is not the modern doctrine of the universal Fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man but it means that God is the Creator of all men. “One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” He is a distinct personality. This is not pantheism, not God as a principle, but God, a divine Personality, and yet eminent in grace, not far from any one of us.

He is the living God, the divine personality, the transcendent God, God over all, pre-eminent, directing all things, pervading everything. He is “in you all.” That is the distinction between God’s attitude toward the world as a whole and toward those who have been born again—“in you all.” If you have accepted Christ, if you have trusted Him, God dwells in you. What a wonderful truth, what a marvelous thing this is. He says, “I will dwell in them, I will walk in them.” As we walk the streets, we can realize that God is walking with us, and so we may well come back to the exhortation with which we began, “Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.”