The Context of Discipleship
May 5, 2024
Preached by Benjamin Vrbicek
Scripture Reading
Ephesians 4:1-16
1 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. 7 But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. 8 Therefore it says,
“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,
and he gave gifts to men.”
9 (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? 10 He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) 11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all 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, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
For the last few weeks, we’ve been preaching passages from the letter the apostle Paul wrote called Ephesians. Rather than moving sequentially through as we typically do here during our sermons, we’re giving special attention to a particular theme in the letter, namely, walking as children of light in a world darkened by lies. And, as we’ve seen, the lies Paul has in mind are not simply lies out there in the world; they are lies so powerful and prevalent that they affect all of us here.
So far we’ve discussed lies related to human nature and sexuality. Next week, we’ll discuss lies related to race and ethnicity, and the week after that, lies related to the family. This week we’ll talk about the lie that your Christian life is the most effectively lived when you rely most upon yourself.
Now, I admit that the other lies on other weeks feel more provocative than the lie we have in front of us today. But were we to fully buy into the lie that our best life and our best growth and best maturity come primarily from solo, individual effort, that lie would severely hurt God’s people. And it already does.
In a moment I’ll pray. Before I do, with this lie in particular, we need to name something. I expect what I preach to sound like the sorts of things you’d expect a pastor to say regarding the context of discipleship. I’m going to say that Jesus loves his children, and the way we grow is by involving ourselves in meaningful ways with other believers. In short, Christians need a church.
This is the sort of thing you would expect a person who draws his salary from a church to say. Which is why—right now—you need to decide if you believe this is just “pastor talk” or whether you’re open to this being what God actually says. It can be both. And I hope in our thirty minutes I’ll show you it is both. Let’s pray as we begin. “Dear Heavenly Father . . .”
Since we’re talking about lies in our culture, it felt inevitable in this series that one of your pastors would be required to read a few of the iconic lyrics from the 2013 Disney movie Frozen. Apparently I drew the short straw.
The snow glows white on the mountain tonight / Not a footprint to be seen
A kingdom of isolation / And it looks like I’m the queen / The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside / Couldn’t keep it in, heaven knows I tried
Don’t let them in, don’t let them see / Be the good girl you always have to be / Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know / Well, now they know
Let it go, let it go / Can’t hold it back anymore / Let it go, let it go / Turn away and slam the door / I don’t care what they’re going to say / Let the storm rage on / The cold never bothered me anyway
It’s funny how some distance makes everything seem small /And the fears that once controlled me can’t get to me at all / It’s time to see what I can do / To test the limits and break through / No right, no wrong, no rules for me / I’m free
Let it go, let it go / I am one with the wind and sky / Let it go, let it go / You’ll never see me cry / Here I stand and here I stay / Let the storm rage on
(Songwriters: Kristen Jane Anderson-Lopez / Robert Joseph Lopez, “Let It Go lyrics” © Walt Disney Music Company)
I actually like Frozen, especially the character Oaken, who has the trading post with the big summer blowout, yah. But in these lyrics, we see (or should I say hear) aspects of the lie that the way to thrive is to throw off the restraints of others, throw off the restraints of one’s community, throw off the restraints of institutions. Heros are those who live most free from these restraints. I don’t need you, the anthem cries. What I need most is to be who I perceive myself to be, and I’ll do it alone. Let the storm rage on.
Since the movie has been out for eleven years, I’ll give a spoiler. The plot of Frozen actually undercuts the theme of the song. For Else, being alone didn’t lead to her thriving. She became miserable and dangerous. And it’s actually her community, her family even, who has to save her—and does save her.
In the last hundred years, we’ve experienced a massive shift in two things: first, our picture of what a successful person looks like and, second, how that success is achieved. The lie says a successful person is a person who most experiences personal growth and has certain status symbols, like wealth and career and degrees and other awards and achievements. And the way a successful person gets wealth and career and degrees is through personal and individual effort. That is a massive change. Before the Industrial Revolution, success would have been measured by one’s relationship with others, whether their relationship to one’s family and one’s community and one’s church.
In the office, we discussed this with Tony, who’s preaching next week, and he made it so concrete. He said, picture a man with a nice car and nice clothes and nice career and nice title. That looks like success to us. But we don’t know about his family. Are they cared for? Is his community served? Does he serve civic and religious institutions that are higher than himself? We don’t know. We don’t care. Because the lie says a successful person is a person who most experiences personal growth and obtains status symbols. And the way a successful person gets these is through personal, individual effort.
Maybe that’s easy for us to name. Yeah, that’s not success, you say. But what if I pivot slightly to ask what a successful, mature Christian is and how does one become mature?
I bet many of us would speak of spiritual maturity in very individualistic ways and that we achieve spiritual maturity in very individualistic ways. “What’s a mature Christian?” we ask. “Well, a mature Christian is someone who knows their Bible and probably prays, and that person becomes mature by reading the Bible and learning from teachers.”
But is this what the Bible says? What’s missing? Other people. In the Bible, maturity is measured and forged in community. The local church is the primary context of our discipleship.
That doesn’t mean we don’t read our Bibles. Surely we must. But when we do read our Bibles, the Bibles we read point us toward thick community for our maturity.
Now I’m getting way ahead. But this is where Ephesians 4 is so helpful. Paul wants to help you grow and thrive. And he gives two ways for this to happen. First, Paul says that Christ builds us through striving with people who share our unity. And second, Christ builds us through sharing gifts with others. We’ll spend ten minutes on each.
1. Christ builds us through striving with people who share our unity
As we look at vv. 1–6, we see that God wants to build us through striving with people who share our unity. In our moment it’s easy for us to see Christians as so divided and ununified that what divides us is so much greater than what unites us, so much greater than what we share. But look what Paul writes in Ephesians 4:1–6 and what we share.
4 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
You’ll notice in v. 1 that Paul tells them to walk in a manner worthy of their calling. That does not mean we must earn God’s love or forgiveness. It means that since Jesus has lived and died and loved and risen and extended forgiveness and called people out of darkness into light, then we should now walk in a manner that fits such a great and undeserved salvation. That’s what he says in the first three chapters of the letter. Since we have been saved by grace, we should walk worthy of the gospel, Paul says.
Now, we could think of this as a very individualistic effort—it’s just me and Jesus, just my calling and the one who called me. But look what Paul says next in vv. 2–3: “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
If walking worthy of our calling involves humility and gentleness and patience and bearing with others in love and eagerness to maintain unity, what does this imply? It implies the context of discipleship is community. It implies the call of walking in the light means walking among others and walking in such a way that we are actually close enough that we can and will sometimes annoy one another. To bear with others means you might have to bear with others. You don’t need to know everyone here; we’re not a huge church, but we’re too big for you to know everyone here. But you do need to know a few people, and they need to know you.
You can’t obey these verses primarily through a livestream. We do livestream our services, and I’m so glad we do because it lets people who miss church every so often stay connected. And the livestream lets people who have health challenges and can’t be here regularly stay connected. That’s great. Love it. What a blessing God’s given us. But even when it’s great, a livestream is lame. You can’t bear with one another and be eager to maintain unity through a livestream. (And if you’re watching our livestreamnow, and you can’t be connected because of your health or something else, I’m not talking to you at all. I’m glad you’re tuning in.)
Last summer I was standing along the sidelines and talking to a friend and fellow parent about life and work and parenting and church and all of that. I just asked about his own church attendance and belonging at his particular church. And he laughed at me. When I asked about church, he just laughed at me and told me he was too busy for church. Like how could I not know that? He’ll just grab a podcast here and there. And what’s so odd about that conversation to me is that, if you asked him, he’d tell you he’s a mature, godly Christian who is obeying his Bible, even though he has no one except his immediate family whom he could point to and say, these are the Christians who know me, and I know them, and together, we bear with one another in love and, together, we are eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit.
But you can’t obey these verses when you live the Christian life primarily alone. And it’s not just these verses. The whole Bible assumes the Christian life is lived with others in a meaningful way, most especially in a local church.
I’ll make this concrete. In high school I took two years of Spanish. So, Hablo español un poquito, I speak Spanish a tiny little bit. So, I can read a Spanish Bible un poquito. But a Spanish Bible is largely unintelligible to me. I can’t make sense of it. I can’t grasp the fullness of what God is saying. Now, if you gave me an English Bible, which I can read, yet if I were to try to live the Christian life by myself, even though I can read the Bible in English, I would tell you that the Bible becomes just as unintelligible if it were written in another language. You can’t make sense of the Bible when we try to read it ripped from thick Christian community. Do you see why this lie is so harmful to God’s people?
Indeed, Paul says we should not just be willing but eager to maintain unity. That means we don’t create our unity. When God saves us, we already have it. We have a bond together. Look what Paul says we share when we share Christ. Look at vv. 4–6.
4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
I’d love to say more about each one of these. But it’s not a sermon on just these verses, so I’ll keep going. The point is that God grows us when we strive with those who share the same faith as us. We also grow when we share the different gifts God gives us.
2. Christ builds us through sharing gifts with others
So, if the emphasis in the first point is about what we share, now Paul shifts to show us how our differences help our growth. Look at with me at vv. 7–16.
7 But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 8 Therefore it says,
“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,
and he gave gifts to men.”
9 (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? 10 He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) 11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all 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, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
Paul uses many contrasting metaphors in this passage: mature manhood with childhood; winds and waves tearing down with building a building and the human body and ligaments growing and working properly.
But before all those metaphors, there is the image of war and victory and captives and giving gifts. That’s in vv. 7–10, which comes from Paul’s reflection on an Old Testament passage. It would take us off-field to look at this too closely, but I’ll mention a few things because it can seem odd without explanation.
The lines he quotes come from Psalm 68. Paul quotes Psalm 68 where God is pictured as the winner of a war, and then after the war, there are lines about gifts and people.
Paul sees this fulfilled in Jesus’s good news story. Paul is saying that by descending to the earth in death, Christ defeats the enemy of death. Then Christ rises and ascends to the throne of the universe, where he pours out his Spirit upon the church, and that Spirit goes about giving specific gifts to each member of the church.
It can all seem confusing with the language, but in its essence, Paul is saying that because Jesus won, he now builds his people by giving them gifts that they then share with one another. Some have one gift, others have another gift, and together they all work together to grow. That’s where all the other metaphors come from, the ones about manhood and childhood, winds and waves, building a building, and the human body and ligaments. We gave the title to our church membership, Each Part Working Properly, based on vv. 15–16.
15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
We all need each other, just as each part of the body needs each other. Think about that. Even the parts that don’t seem necessary or the parts that seem hidden, when those parts stop working properly, we notice.
As an illustration, I’ll tell you where I’m feeling this body metaphor now. Two years ago, I stubbed my toe. With a bare foot I went hard into the thick leg of a coffee table. And not just any toe. It was my pinky toe. And in the process, like half of the toenail broke. For the last two years, it will be fine for a few weeks, and then it will hurt terribly. I’ve woken up in the middle of the night because my sock was too tight on my toe pinky toe. Seriously. Talk about being tough.
And some of you, especially if you’re older than me, you hear my story, and you think, “That aint’ nothin.” You say that because you have an even more seemingly wimpy story of tremendous pain from some small body part. You have some story about how one time you ate something that made your earlobe hurt, and now you can’t eat shellfish without pain in your earlobe. Some crazy story like that. You can come up after church and get prayer for your earlobe, and you can pray for my pinky toe.
I’m being silly, but the fact that we have these stories proves my point—or I should say Paul’s point. Every part of God’s people has a role to play and matters. You have a role to play. Each part working properly makes the body grow. You’re not too young. You’re not too old. Don’t say, Well I’m not him or her, or I can read as well or teach as well, I’m not good with decorating or making meals, or I don’t have kids, or I’m divorced. Each part, Paul says.
The other week, Kira and I helped lead a short class for those dedicating their children. We’re doing child dedications in two weeks during the services. In the class we always ask the parents about their children and their names and what’s special. They flipped the question back to me and asked about my children’s names. I won’t give you all of them and all the family connections from both sides, but I will mention my youngest because it pertains to what we are discussing here.
My youngest son is named Salem Robert. His middle name, Robert, is my middle name and my father’s first name and my grandfather’s first name. The name Salem comes from the church we were members of while I was in seminary. While I was in pastor-school, I learned all sorts of things. But when my wife and I always say to each other that we learned what a church was, was not in a classroom but in that church.
I won’t give you all the details, but when one of my other children was born, everything went bad. There was a terrible c-section, a long hospital visit, all of the family got the flu—including those who visited. In the coming week, Brooke got severe postpartum depression. And after a week, I had to go back to work. And the ladies of the church just came. And they came. A lot more happened, but the church was there for that too. And they cared for me. Over the years, they taught me to be a pastor, letting me work in everything from the nursery to the pulpit. A man named Tom Riedy discipled me. And every single Sunday for the last fifteen years, he texts me on Sunday morning to say he’s praying for me, praying for us. I think Tom prays for me and for us more than I pray for myself and us. In short, Salem Evangelical Free Church in Florissant, Missouri, is where we learned what the church could be, and we learned what the church should be—when each part is working properly.
I hope and pray that ten or twenty years from now, we will be known not simply as a good place to attend but also as a place where people learn to be the church.
Conclusion
As we close, I want to come back to those lines about war and battles and victory. I’ll tell you that I’ve been thinking a lot about Timothy Keller over the last few months. Timothy Keller was a pastor in New York and a popular author. He passed away just about a year ago. The anniversary is in mid-May. I was writing something about him, expressing thankfulness for a part of his character. To write that, I went back through some of his material and a biography about him.
I was reminded of an illustration he gave about the victory of Christ. It’s about the word gospel or good news. Maybe I’ve also been thinking about it because of all the stuff about war and cities, whether in Ukraine or Israel. I look at the news footage of bombed buildings and think about feeling fragile in a way that I almost never do. I have plenty of fears, but I never wonder if the outcome of a war taking place just down the street will affect me. But many people in the past lived that way. And some still do today.
That’s were Keller would explain the context of the word gospel. Imagine, he would say, you’re in a village and just over there, just say in the city or in Linglestown, a war is being fought. And you’re back in your village waiting to hear the outcome. If victory, then peace. If defeat, then captivity. Imagine how fearful you’d be. Keller said, the gospel is good news the way that announcement of victory is good news.
Church, this passage, and the whole Bible says, Jesus wins the war against sin and death that you couldn’t win. And it says that even to rebels, he makes them friends if they would only kneel before the Son. That would be good news. But it’s even better, as this passage points out. Our victory doesn’t win and move on, but he gives gifts. And he longs for his people to thrive. If you are in Christ, you are in that community. And to walk in a manner worthy of his calling means walking with others.
Let’s pray as we invite the music team up to close us in song. “Dear heavenly Father…”
Sermon Discussion Questions
How would you know someone is a mature Christian? What role does the person have in gaining maturity and what role does a church have? What side of these (individual or corporate) feels the easiest for you to neglect? Why?
How have you been blessed by the local church? In what ways have you been hurt by the local church?
Have you grown most in your Christian life during seasons of adversity or prosperity? What has been your relationship to the church in each of those seasons?
Paul talks about the unity we share in Christ. What does he list as our unity and where do you see this unity on display in the church?
What gifts do you feel like God has given you? What gifts do you see in others in the church and how do they bless you?
When Christians speak of the gospel as “Jesus dying for my sins,” in what ways does this accurately reflect the gospel? How could this phrase also limit the gospel to merely an individual salvation? How does Ephesians speak to both?
