Walk Unified to God and Each Other

Walk Unified to God and Each Other

Trinity 17 T Ephesians 4:1-6

INI

For modern man, walking is either a form of exercise or leisure. When someone tells us to walk, we hardly think past the idea of using our legs as a mode of transportation from one place to another. Yet in ancient times, to walk was more of an image to describe the life of faith lived under God’s Word. This walking and journeying sort of language echoes the stories of journey from Scripture – like when Abraham obeyed God’s Word to journey to another land God had promised for him. Or when the Israelites journeyed from Egypt, through the desert for 40 years, and then walking to the promised land. These journeys were less about the actual journey itself, but it was more about the test of faith in their walking – a testing of their behavior, their confession, and their obedience to God’s Word.

St. Paul in his letter to the church in Ephesus encourages them to engage in this sort of walk. Because they aren’t pagans anymore – they’ve been baptized in the Triune name, bought with the Holy Blood of Jesus. This now makes them different – their walk, their cadence changes now that their Christian. They’ve been called to walk unified to God and each other!

I.

            The walk Christians are to engage in should be in accordance to their calling. Hence, Paul says, “I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” Now, typically when we hear that word, “calling”, we think that God is calling us to do something – whether it’s to do a specific kind of job, or to do a specific kind of good work for your neighbor. That’s typically how we hear that word “calling”. But Paul means something way different, and immensely more significant. And really, anytime you hear the word “calling” in the New Testament, it’s never to DO any specific thing, but to BE someone. What Paul is telling them, and us is to BE a baptized Christian, to WALK as a baptized Christian. Through your baptism, God hasn’t called you to DO but to BE!

What has He called you to be? You’ve not been called to rampant individualism – to go out to live, walk, and BE who YOU want to be. Acting as if coming to church is just one of the many myriads of things you DO. That’s actually not walking according to the calling to which you’ve been called – that’s Paul’s point to Ephesus, and to us. God hasn’t called us to do the occasional holy action, but to actually BE holy. Thus, we shouldn’t compartmentalize the faith – that in these four walls, we act a certain way, to go outside these walls into another community to act, behave, and walk completely different.

In Ephesians 2:2, Paul reminds the church how they once walked, that they once walked according to the prince of darkness and disobedience. They once WERE a part of the darkness, willingly engaging with it. But now that through their baptism, they’ve been called to the light! They’ve been called to be one in Christ! They’ve been called to live in the holiness of the forgiveness of sins! Meaning, their old sinful flesh and its desires ARE drowned in these waters to be left for dead! And through the One Spirit of God, they are called to a new life, a new walk! And this new walk is more encompassing than just living a moral life – it’s more than just doing – but it includes all aspects of faith – like a genuine confession of our sins, a genuine repentance – not just a show, and a willing obedience to hear and WALK in God’s Word. Thus, they walk as people unified in the name of the God who’s called them. That’s what it means to BE baptized. Because you’re given new NAME. You’re given a new family. You’re given a new walk. You’re given a new heavenly Father, who fixes His holy name on you.

II.

            Since you’ve been called into a new family – that is, the family of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – that means that in baptism, we’re given a multitude of brothers and sisters who all share this very same name. Look to your left and your right – these people share your name. They’re your family, bonded by the Spirit of peace – which is a stronger bond than your own flesh and blood families.

God has called you to a certain walk not only in relation to Him, but your fellow brother and sister in Christ. You’ve been called to a display of gentleness, humility, patience, and bearing with one another in love. These qualities in which St. Paul urges us to walk, were despised qualities in the Grecco-Roman culture. These qualities displayed weakness, enslavement, and pitiable behavior. These qualities demanded that you completely deny yourself and your individuality for the sake of strengthening the harmony in the body of Christ. That means, if your brother or sister in Christ needs help, you deny yourself and your comforts, and you help them. You dismiss your pride, and walk in self-sacrificial love. This is the calling to which you’ve been called. That includes coming to church regularly – not only to be renewed in God’s gracious presence through Word and Sacrament, but also to check in with your family. Even if you think you got this whole “walk” thing figured out, not everyone does, and they need your help.

St. Paul also implies this point to the Ephesians, that to walk against the harmony of the Church is to walk against the baptismal calling. To walk in the virtues of the Grecco-Roman world is to walk in strength by putting yourself and your desires above God’s desires for the benefit of the community as a whole. To walk in this way lets pride seep into the heart. We may say we want harmony with this or that person, but if unity is defined by US, that is, getting others to bend to OUR will, our walk contributes to a further fracturing of Christ’s body. But if we truly walk as St. Paul urges us to walk – with humility, bearing the faults of others with patience, love, and gentleness – and I’ll also throw in there too, with truthfulness that aligns with how God commands us to walk. When we display these virtues, then we will remain eager to maintain the unity Christ has given us according to our baptismal name.

III.

            It’s imperative to remember – this unity with each other is rooted in DIVINE unity, not our efforts. We walk together as one because the God who has given us new life is one! He is three persons, yet One God – He is trinity in unity and unity and trinity. It’s against His very nature and essence to be divided and at odds with Himself. Just imagine if Jesus swelled up with pride and didn’t follow the Father’s will? It’s unimaginable! We wouldn’t have the atonement through Jesus’ blood on the cross! We would still be dead in our trespasses and sins! We’d have an even more fractured world and church. But since God is ONE, and Jesus walked in unity with His Father, He’s won for us a life of obedience according to His own merits. Like Jesus, we walk as one with God and one with each other. Not according to our DOING, but according to our BEING – because through our baptismal grace, God has granted the forgiveness of sins won by Jesus’ sacrificial love. God has called us to BE, to live, to walk, to subsist in the wounds of Jesus. Only when we are this, can our walking be unified with the Body of Christ itself.

Again, this unity isn’t held up by our own efforts. The programs we run, the good that we do for the community, the personalities that comprise the body of Christ here at Zion, and whatever other bright ideas we can come up with – these things won’t hold Christ’s Church together. These things don’t give us Christian, baptismal unity. Our unity is held together by Christ Himself, and it’s given to us as a gift. Because of this, no one can split the Body of Christ. It’s unable to be split because I don’t hold it, and you don’t hold it – God holds it. Certainly, we can stray away from the walk God Himself has called us to – falling back into the former manner of living and behavior. In that way, we can cease to become members of the body of Christ because of our pride against God. But since God is one, His true church shall always remain one. And our walk together shall always be together and unified as One.

St. Paul urged the Ephesian church to live in harmony with their baptismal calling, emphasizing that they should BE baptized Christians, not just doers of good deeds. Their walk involved confession, repentance, and obedience to God’s Word, manifesting gentleness, humility, and love towards fellow believers. This unity stems from God’s divine oneness and is a gift, impossible to break. As Christians, let us cherish this unity, reflecting God’s unity in our faith and actions.

INI

Pastor Joshua Ralston