Worthy?

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Ephesians 4:1 – “Therefore, as a prisoner for the Lord, I encourage you to live as people worthy of the call you received from God.”

Just a note about process. In recent readings in scripture, I have concentrated on limiting my scope to one or two verses. That is, concentrating on a particular thought by the author. Reading slowly, to gain clarity on what is being said. Many times – too many – I have read rapidly (which has some merit) and just run over some key insights because I was moving too fast. This deliberately slow reading has been helpful. Not merely to facilitate ‘meditation’ on the text, but to read with focused comprehension.

And that is appropriate. Ancient writers were pressured into writing brief and succinct prose as writing materials were very expensive. Those writers (generally) needed to say a lot in a little space. A good student, using sound process, will tease out that dense writing to gain additional helpful insights.

Let’s get on with it …

Look at this phrase: “Live as people worthy of the call.”

What’s interesting is that Paul made such a strong statement regarding being saved by grace, yet now – as saved people – we are to live as if we deserved being saved – worthy of the call. We are to live as people who are worthy of the call. God has called us – we all agree on that. Calvinist theology says he did so without any consideration for our works or other merit – and I affirm that.

If it is true – that we did nothing to merit our calling; that it was just placed on us without any discernable worth – then where does this obligation come to live as being worthy of the call? In theological fact, I am not worthy of it. Yet Paul now seems to ask us to live as if we did ‘merit’ salvation.

Well, that’s a lot of fun Theological Geek stuff. Is there a resolution? Yes – of course there is. It is the difference between B.C. and A.D. “B.C.” is commonly known as “Before Christ,” while “A.D.” is an acronym for the Latin, “year-of the-Lord.” As a kid, who didn’t know Latin, I was just told “A.D.” meant ‘After Death’ – meaning after Jesus’ death.

Here is a part of the Good News in the calendar of history. Before Christ (B.C.), I was broken, destroyed, and dead. Remember Ephesians 2:1? We were spiritually dead and hostile to God.

But God.

God did something. He called us - though we had no worth, merit, or leverage – and we were Born From Above (John 3:3), regenerate, a new person. Before Christ, we were helpless, dying, and weak.

But After Death – especially Jesus’ resurrection – we are made new, have a great future hope, and are strengthened by God the Spirit living within us. Now, in my personal ‘years-of the-Lord,’ I am a new person with power to live differently – to live as if, yes, we are worthy of the calling that God gave to salvation.

In fact, I am worthy because Christ died for me and now lives in me (Galatians 2:20).

And here, our non-Calvinist friends help us out. It turns out that Wesley stated that we should be able (theoretically) to completely avoid sin. That is, we have been given the spiritual power to do exactly that. But, in our weakness and folly we choose to give in to the power of habit and fall into temptation and sin.

Paul says, ‘Don’t do that! Understand who you really are, now! You are God-indwelt little Christs – start acting like it!’

What To Do About The Past?

One of the more unexpected things I’ve learned about in revitalization efforts is the role of the past. Initially, it was merely the simple understanding that what happened in the past constituted the building blocks for the present. Understand what happened; understand the present better; gain insight into a likely future. All very straight forward and everybody gets it.

But wait, there’s more!

The next insight on the past is that it shapes us – both individually and in the groups and organizations we are part of. Both the traumas and successes of the past shape us and become the experiences that create the lessons of our lives, the values we live by, and the lens by which we perceive both the present and the future.

In the Bible, there is a concept of ‘generational sin.’ The notion goes somewhat like this: ancestor so-and-so commits a grave sin. That experience shapes him, distorts him, and creates new dysfunction. Having no appreciation for the consequences of that sin, those distortions and dysfunctions get subtly passed on to the next generation where those distortions can become amplified and further shaped. That second generation passes on the dysfunction to the third generation. And so forth. God, in Exodus 34:7, indicates that iniquity passes to the third and fourth generations. There are other passages.

We shouldn’t be surprised by this. Sin corrupts. Why would we think that sin would not corrupt between generations? The western church has believed that the very sin nature of humanity is passed between generations. It seems consistent that specific sin patterns would also be passed along.

But wait, there’s more.

Back about ten years, I was in a seminar with a guy named Kenneth Quick who’ written a book, Healing The Heart Of Your Church. In the book, he discusses one of the barriers to church vitality and that is an unconfessed corporate sin. Specifically, the sin of former leadership. Ken builds a case from scripture that leaders of high character take responsibility for the past sins of their groups – even if they individually had nothing to do with them and the events are separated by significant time.

This was a powerful concept and I later saw it in action. I was working with a church who seemed stuck. We’d tried various exercises and I had remembered that there was a significant church leadership failure several years prior. I asked the question of the current leadership, have you publically acknowledged the former leadership’s failures and communicated repentance to the rest of the church? Sadly, the leadership did not want to hear anything about this kind of leadership. ‘It was a long time ago. We’ll just be picking at old wounds. How do you expect me to be responsible for somebody else’s problem? There’s nothing to be done about any of those issues today.’ And so forth. What was sad for me was the denial of this Biblical concept of leadership.

In an article appearing in Christianity Today (Sep2017), D.L. Mayfield writes “In Memory Of These” about the same concept of corporate responsibility in the area of racial violence and reconciliation using many of the same Biblical sources. That is, that our current generation of believers should recognize, become convicted, confess, repent, and seek reconciliation for the sins of racism committed generations ago.

This message has been heard and acted upon in the last couple of decades in certain Protestant denominations. I applaud the even awkward attempts to express quality leadership in taking responsibility for past, unconfessed sin.

In any reformation movement, you need to go back before you can move forward. Usually, we acknowledge that idea in going back to the founding principles and clearing away the accumulated accommodations that have been reasonably made along the way – but which now do not serve the purpose intended. What also seems to be the case is that we must go back and clear out the ‘Sins Of The Fathers,’ as well.

Conviction.

Confession.

Repentance.

Reconciliation.

It is hard, but the direction is clear:

“Therefore, I [Paul], the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Ephesians 4:1-3.

The Glorifying Church

Ephesians 3:21 – “To him be the glory in all the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.” (NASB)

The local Christian church is a messy place. There’s the old joke about the church member talking to his non-church-going friend. The friend says, “Yes, but I don’t like organized religion.”

The church-goer responds, “Well, then you should love our church – there’s nothing organized about it!”

This phrase, “Glory to God in the church” – is a striking phrase in this prayer or benediction by Paul. This is a man who saw a lot of non-glorifying stuff in the early church. This phrase is arresting for me who worked in the church of the 21^st century. There was sooooooo much in church life that did NOT glorify God.

Yet, the sense is that part is just as true as the next clause, which is that Jesus glorifies God. We know that is true – of course Jesus glorified God. The two clauses are treated as equally true. So, in some way, the church glorifies God.

Lots of questions: with the church continue forever, “to all generations?” And there are others. But the key thought is that the church, as with all things, exists to glorify God.

This was a good thing to remember as I went through the grind of ministry work.