Ephesians 4.1–16
A sermon from St Margaret’s Nedlands 6th September 2026
How are we to regard someone who breaks the law as a matter of obedience to God? This question raises its head when we begin our study of the second half of the letter to the Ephesians—because Paul begins it by reminding them that he is a prisoner, but a prisoner, not of, but for his king.
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called …
We are not unaware that there are haters of God who wish to use the law to box in the Church so that it cannot carry out the mission Jesus gave it without breaking the law. The present moves to force Christian schools to employ staff whose convictions or lifestyle are anti-Christian is just one example—stupid, and it moves us a step closer to a situation where a minister like myself, giving a fair interpretation of a Scripture passage could be accused of unlawful discrimination, and face imprisonment. There are such passages in the second half of this letter. Would our church leaders stand up for such a minister, or would the minister find himself barred from ministry even by his church
Paul declares himself a prisoner, facing the possibility of becoming a criminal under the law, and even a death sentence, but “for the Lord.” Jesus warned his disciples that their witness to his life, death, and resurrection could land them in hot water with authorities; he almost promises that it will be so. It was so, and is so in certain parts of the world today.
Paul prefaces everything that he says in the next three chapters with this reminder, that he is ready, if it comes to it, to pay the ultimate price for the truth. What weighs on him in his imprisonment is the continued faithfulness of his churches.
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called …
What is this calling to which we have been called? He has spelled it out in the first half of the letter. It is to be sons and daughters of the living God, chosen to have a share in the new world which is coming.
We are familiar with stories of people being chosen for special missions—astronauts, for example, or players in national sporting teams—and their participation requires of them exemplary conduct. We are painfully aware of those who do not measure up. Christians are urged to walk worthily of our great calling, which is nothing less than to people the world that is coming when this one is swept away.
How then are we to live? Some would label the rest of the letter ethics, or morality; I prefer to call it the Christian life. Paul the Jewish rabbi calls it “walking.”
There is an old skit of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore which is worth watching if you can find it. George and Dierdre are preparing for a family picnic: “Beautiful day, sun shining, birds twittering in the trees. Let’s go for a picnic! But suddenly, ‘Knock, knock, knock’ on the ruddy door. It’s the postman. Letter from Paul. ‘Dear Episceans, stop having a good time, pull long faces, stay inside.’ Signed Paul.” Something like that.
It’s a common perception of Christianity. Dour, fun-less, not for someone who loves life. I hope we have picked up by now that Ephesians is moving towards something very different.
So let me ask a question. What is the first thing you would expect Paul to speak of as he turns to explain a life consistent with our Christian calling? In our society today it would surely be something about sexual relationships. Or equality perhaps, or care of the poor, or maybe prayer, or Bible reading. It is none of these; it is about getting on with each other in the church!
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 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.
This word “humility”—”low-mindedness” (tapeinophrosune) was not a Roman virtue, quite the opposite; it is what Nietzsche hated about Christianity: the demeanour of a slave before his master. No, you want to be assertive, strong, demand your rights; “the will to power” is the fundamental human drive , let the strong prevail, let the weak perish. Let men strive to be supermen, women to be wonderwomen. Paul is not talking about masters and slaves here—he will deal with that later—this is about ordinary life in the church, and it is the first thing that comes to Paul when he thinks about the Christian life.
But why? Our behaviour in the church is the last thing that occurs to us as important. But God has a plan to bring everything in creation under one head, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the church is where it starts. Christ is the head of the community which will inherit the new world. It is the body of Christ, presently embodied in the church, in which Jew and Gentile, and all other human groups, are united as one new human being. Since this is what God is doing, it must naturally come to the forefront of our ethical thinking. We see how different things are in the kingdom of God to the world. What we are and what we do in this little church stands at the centre of God’s purposes. We help or hinder the building of his kingdom by what we do in church. And, of course, looking out for each other, adjusting our behaviour to maintain our fellowship, bearing with one another, these are the last things we do naturally. Maintaining the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace: this was especially difficult in a community of Jews and non-Jews, free people and slaves, as it is in a church of Labor, and Liberal, and First Nation and Greens. There is something much bigger than our natural affiliations, and that is the kingdom of God. Nietzsche’s philosophy led to war; it heavily influences the minds of intellectuals today towards aggressive attempts to re-form our culture. It is helping to destroy the social cohesion of our country. And it is important to see where it is coming from: a conviction that God is dead and man is the measure of all things, and the ultimate goal is the emergence of the superman or superwoman. Paul has his sights on another goal: the emergence of a community of love, that will inherit the earth. God is real and Christ is building a community which will last forever, and we are called to belong, and live a life consistent with our calling. These two ways are not equally balanced. Those for whom might is right will ultimately destroy the followers of Jesus. But this is to forget about death and resurrection, and Jesus’ promise: “the meek will inherit the earth.”[1]
So now Paul wants us to consider what we have in common!
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.
When we believe in Jesus as the Lord of our life, he gives us his Holy Spirit. We all have the one Spirit dwelling in us; he animates the body of Christ and wishes us to be in fellowship. We also share a common hope. Two weeks back, I arrived in Port Elizabeth and accompanied our host to watch the Springboks and the All Blacks on the big screen in a local surf lifesaving club. Everyone except us wore the green jumper, and all had a common hope, a hope that was dashed as the night went on, though the Springboks had their revenge a week later. Such is life with its ups and downs. The problem with the world is that the final swing is down; all our hopes end in the grave.
We also have one king, our Lord Jesus, and we share the same Faith. We wear a common mark of our allegiance, and overarching everything is God, our true and ultimate father—good to remember on this Fathers’ Day.
You will perhaps be tempted to laugh. Is this reality, or a wild fantasy? The last place you look to find unity is in the church. The extent to which this is so, is the measure of how far our churches have drifted from God’s will and purpose.
But Paul is a realist, and unity is not the only thing he wants us to think about.
But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.
Perhaps we should translate this:
But to each of us was given the grace which is in accord with the measure of the Messiah’s gift.
The thought here is that each of us has received a gift from our king and these gifts are different, and they require a measure of grace to exercise them well. Unity does not mean uniformity. There is tremendous variety in the church, and this could lead to conflict; it requires God’s grace for its smooth operation.
Paul thinks of the conquering king who blesses his people with handouts.
Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.”
He is quoting from Psalm 68, where the Messiah is pictured going up victorious to his capital and receiving gifts from conquered kings. He distributes them to his people, of course. So, we are urged to strive to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, at the same times as we are reminded that we are a fellowship of very different people. Despite our differences, we bind ourselves—pledge ourselves—to be at peace with each other. We can be jealous of someone who appears to be more highly gifted than ourselves, or we can thank God for his Spirit in them, and see it as part of our king’s wise provision.
Paul interrupts this line of thought with a aside about Christ—a profoundly gospel aside.
(In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions [of] the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)
He takes up the idea of the victorious Messiah ascending to his throne, and fuses it with the reality of what actually happened when Jesus came from heaven and carried out his mission. His struggle for us with the enemy of God took him all the way to the world of the dead—that is what he means by the lower regions of the earth. As Peter says in his first letter, he went to where the rebellious spirits are kept for the day of judgement, and proclaimed his victory.[2]From the lowest place in creation he has now risen to the highest place, beyond the created heavens themselves, to the place of God himself, and he now fills the universe. There is nowhere where Christ is not Lord. This, as I say, is a gospel aside. Paul is reminding us who we are serving; he returns to the subject of gifts.
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds [pastors] and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ …
He is talking about what we call the gifts of the Spirit (which are the giftsof Christ), but here his focus is more on the gifted people than their actual gifts. The risen Jesus has given gifts to his church, and they are in the form of people: apostles, prophets, and pastor-teachers. These are not the only gifted people he has given his church, but they are the essential foundations, the people the church cannot do without. In other places he speaks of many other gifts and gifted people.[3] What is the role of the apostles, prophets, and shepherd-teachers? They are to equip all the members of the church to be able to exercise their different ministries. The apostles handed on to us the words of Jesus. The prophets—he is speaking of the prophets of the early church[4]—they were inspired by the Holy Spirit to speak the word of God. Together they gave us the writings we call the New Testament. Their ministry was complete within the first-century, and is preserved for us in our Bibles. Their ministry is the foundation of the church of God. The pastor-teachers are the shepherds of the flock of God, whose role is to teach God’s people the Word of God, the word that the apostles and prophets have provided. Check our ordination service in the Book of Common Prayer and you will see this is the Anglican understanding.
The goal of this teaching is to help every member of Christ’s body to discover their own gifts and learn to exercise them for the good of the whole body. We are to grow to maturity, to get to the point where we are no longer in danger of being hijacked by some new teaching, but we know Jesus, know the Faith, and are able to play our part in the building up of the church.
… 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, 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. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 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.
I wish we had the time to explore this more. Speaking the truth in love is surely how we find our way through the complex reality of the church we are part of, and the wider community of our denomination, and the many communities of God’s people who make up the world-wide church.
Christianity has grown old and Christians have many divergent opinions. How do we deal with these? We speak the truth as we know it—not to destroy people or place ourselves above them, but loving them and seeking the best for them. And, of course, it goes without saying but needs to be said, that our own understanding is developing and will contain much that is away from the truth. We listen, therefore, to the other person as he or she explains theirunderstanding of the truth— hopefully also in love—and this is how we grow.
There was to be a Guest Service. I had an idea what subject I wanted to address, but thought I should ask the congregation; they were the ones inviting their friends. Most of them wanted me to answer the question, “Why go to church?” The main reason we go to church is that we arethe church. Those who belong to Christ, belong to his Church; there is no salvation outside this Church. And it is unthinkable that those who love Jesus would not wish to associate with their brothers and sisters in Christ. Then, as the people of God, we strive to maintain our unity; humility is uppermost; we are pledged to love one another. We have so much in common. We also have gifts. They can divided us, but should make us grow to be mature, to be like Christ, to be mature.
[1] Matthew 5.5.
[2] 1 Peter 3.18–32.
[3] Romans 12.3–8; 1 Corinthians 12.1–11.
[4] See Ephesian 2.20; 3.5.