Now Ephesians chapter 4, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, even as you 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. But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore, he saith, when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men. Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth. He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things. And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the slight of man and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive. But speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. We finish the reading at verse 16. The Lord will add His own blessing to the reading of His Word for His name's sake. The book of Ephesians, as you can see, even in what's called the practical part, is a book of deep, mysterious, and mind-boggling expressions. It is not the easiest book to understand in the depth of its meaning. Its general meaning is certainly very clearly set forth, but you start in chapter 1 with one of the most magnificent statements in all the New Testament. The depth of which no man, in my opinion, in all the history of the church, has ever been able to plumb. You continue into chapter 2, And you have the glorious vision of Jews and Gentiles brought together by the one reconciling sacrifice of Christ into one body. In chapter 3, Paul goes on explicating the mystery of the church. And then he reaches the great climax at the end of chapter 3. when he leads us in his second great prayer, the first one being in chapter 1, the second great prayer, the reason for which he bows his knee unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And he reaches the great climax of that, that we might be filled with all the fullness of God. There's a tremendous depth in that doctrinal section, as it's normally called. Now he moves into the practical. You find this is one reason I don't like the division of New Testament epistles into doctrinal and practical sections, because as soon as you get into this practical section, you find that you're dealing with doctrine all over again. Some of the doctrine that he's dealt with before, he's now dealing with from a different angle. But the doctrine here is deep and at times mysterious. And the vision that he has of the church is a glorious vision. He's depicting it as a body, as a man. He's seeing it grow to the fullness of stature. But he doesn't measure that stature in human terms. It's the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. And just think of those terms and you'll see he's piling up term upon term. As I say, there is something deep and mysterious and wonderful here. It's not my job tonight and certainly not my intention to try to get into expounding these things in Ephesians. I'm simply drawing your attention that he has before him this glorious picture of the church. And he sees it as a man that is growing to full stature in Christ. And then he depicts every part, every joint doing its job. No non-working parts in the church. That's his ideal. No arthritic joints in the church. That's his ideal. Every part of the body, the prominent and the unseen, every part of the body supplying What God gives it to supply. Doing the job that God gives it to do. Not getting mad that the head is not the foot, or the foot is not the hand, or the hand is not the ear. But that every part is doing that which God gives it to do. So that what I do, what you do, what somebody else does is rather inconsequential. What really matters is the whole thing coming together. to produce one man dwelling in the fullness of Christ, used in all the parts, but then as a whole by Christ for His own purpose in the world. A man of maturity. A man of strength. One with knowledge. that will not be blown off course by every wind of doctrine, one that will not be carried about by opinions of friends or foes, but that can take issues to the Word of God, can determine truth from God's infallible standard, and not be blown all over the show by the winds that are blowing. He depicts a man. This is the church, not you or me as an individual. He depicts a man that is so strong in the Lord that the gales of doubt may howl, the winds of change may blow, the hurricanes of opposition may come against us. But that man will stand strong, not be moved. That's the picture he has. of the church. A church that's not going to be deceived. A church that's not going to be distracted. Thank God, a church that's not going to be destroyed. That's the vision He has for the church. I want you to get that vision. That's God's will for this church. That is God's will for this church. And God's will for you and me as working parts of it is fulfilling our particular function to produce that result. That's God's will for you. That's God's will for me. Those are incontrovertible truths. That's the apostolic vision of a local church. Now in this chapter, with that great vision in mind, Paul addresses the theme of the walk and the work, and later if you want another W, he deals with the words of the church. I'm not going to deal with those three W's. But you may, as you look at the chapter, you may see how he deals with those things, for he has transient things to say on all of those subjects. The walk, and the work, and later the words of the church. There's a very particular emphasis in all that I've said, summing up Paul's teaching, on the idea not only of maturity, but of oneness. Actually, I think as you look at this passage, you could say that there are four things that Paul has in mind for the church, and we should certainly make the matter of prayer for our church. These are things that I think we ought to be daily praying for. I know that this has been the burden of my own prayer for this church, day by day and week by week, and will continue to be. This is our prayer. Ask the Lord to do four things for the church. Number one, to sanctify it. He says we are to walk worthy. of Christ's calling. We're to walk worthy of the calling of Christ. We're to walk in holiness. Now you will see from verse 17, we didn't read that far, but he says you're to walk henceforth not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their minds. He's talking about a Christian's walk as being fundamentally a separated walk. You walk different from the world. Why? Because you think differently from the world. You'll see that very clearly. He goes on talking about the vanity of their minds, talks about the understanding darkened. Because they're alienated from the life of God. But if you're not alienated from the life of God, if you have, as the old Puritans like to say, the life of God and the soul of man, good description of regeneration, if you have that, then you ought not to be walking as people who are cut off from the life of God, who are still dead. You don't think the way they think. At least you shouldn't think the way they think. And of course, there's a big difference between what we do and what we should do, what we do and what we shouldn't do. Big difference a lot of times. But Christians and churches are called to walk in separation. Now, I have news for you. Mr. Farr mentioned this a little bit on Friday night when he was giving the financial report. And I want you to pay attention to it. The longer we live in this world, the more odd, peculiar, and despicable we are going to appear in the eyes of the world. The more we live, the longer this world goes on. Those who are wanting to live in separation unto God are going to appear and they're going to be lampooned as lunatics, bigots, self-righteous Pharisees. And I'm going to spill my guts to you in this tonight. I am sick, sore, and tired. I'm thinking of one person as I say this. That you people are proud Pride? Why? Because you don't want to live the way we want to live. You want to take separation a whole lot further than we want to take separation. Well, let me tell you, my friend, if Carnal Christians want to take separation as meaning little or nothing. You can be as like the world as you want to get and call me proud because I believe in personal separation, in holiness from an unclean world. Then let them say that. But I repudiate their attack. Now, you can be a Pharisee living in separation. I admit that. There are people who get a pharisaical spirit as what the scripture calls holier than thou. But that's not separation. That's sin. That's not holiness. That's pride. But let us not be put off by that. There is a sanctity that separates you from the world And from the vast majority of professing evangelicals, in the way you think, the way you dress, the way you walk, the way you talk, what you do, where you go, what you allow in your home, how you raise your children, those are all areas that are going to set you off as an oddball in the sight of the world if you're going to do things God's way. And you'd better get ready for that. Holiness has never been popular. Separation has never been popular. Now, I'm the first to admit that many, a so-called separatist, has actually just been a schismatic. I admit that. I have heard shoot from the hip preachers that would separate from their own mother for no better reason that they haven't had a fight in a week. And that's despicable. I always remember, and I've quoted these words to you many times from the late O. Talmadge Spence, militant but magnificent. That's the ideal. Contending without being contentious. That's the idea. And that's what we've got to pray for in this church and in the free church to be separated. Unless this church continues as a truly holy. Separated people. It has no reason to exist. None whatsoever. And I'm talking about ecclesiastical separation from the National Council of Churches, the World Council of Churches, the National Association of Evangelic Babies. That's really what they are. When I think of these people, I think of a piece that John Wiley wrote years ago in a column called Youth with a Capital Y. Everybody who got the revivalist in those days turned first to that page to see what Uncle John was saying this month. And he told the story of two skeletons. He was talking about people staying in compromising churches. And he told the story of two skeletons. And they were stored away in a cupboard. And one said to the other, you know, if we had any guts, we wouldn't be in here. Very true. There's a lot of people in churches, and if they had any guts, they wouldn't be in there. I'm talking about ecclesiastical separation. Is it first degree, second degree, third degree, or tenth degree? It's just separation. If anybody's life or compromise is undermining and compromising the cause of Christ and the purity of the gospel, then I'm separating. I'm not having anything to do with them. That puts me in a minority. Makes me sound a bigot. Well, I think a little bit of homely honesty is a good thing. When you get men up identifying a betrayal of the Gospel, naming this movement and this paper and this theology is a betrayal of the Gospel. It is an attack on the fundamental doctrine of sola fide, justification by faith alone. It is an undermining of the very heart of the gospel. And your heart says, Amen, I believe that. That's right. You're taking a stand. And in the very next breath, they say about the people who have produced this diabolical mess, of course, we're good friends. We travel the world together. We preach together. We mission together. I put it to you that Naming the betrayal is just trying to cover their rear. And they are personally involved in helping the betrayal by refusing to separate from the betrayers. If a man is betraying the gospel while he does it, he is no co-belligerent with me. That's where this church stands. That's where it has always stood. And by the grace of God, that's where it will stand. We need a church that's walking doctrinally, theologically, morally, pure, walking worthy. of our calling in Christ. And when it would be morally and spiritually acceptable for a Peter or a Paul to bring a Judas Iscariot onto the platform with him, then and only then would it be morally acceptable for us to go down the line with compromisers who are willing to go along with the betrayers of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Pray for this church. The longer we exist, the harder it's going to be to maintain the line of separation. We've got to understand that. But pray that the Lord will sanctify it. Not just ecclesiastically, but in genuine holiness. Now that opens up, I'll not say a can of worms, but it opens up a huge subject. personal holiness. Churches that take a stand against apostasy are just blowing hot air if they don't live in holiness among their own members. If we are not a holy people, we are not God's people. Without holiness, no man shall see God. That's God's Word. Without holiness, we're not even going to see Him. We're damned. Because if God justifies you, He sanctifies you, it's not perfect yet. But He says, Be ye holy, for I am holy. If we're not a holy people, we're not God's people. I don't know if I'll ever do this. I don't know if I have enough years left to live to do it. But I've been tempted to do some messages on a subject that a great old Puritan preacher did a whole, I mean, I mean a long, long, long, long, long series on. First, it seemed depressing. I realized just how important it is, and that is the plague of sin. The plague of sin. He called it the plague of plagues. We sin in thought. You just think of the thoughts you have had today. You think of the thoughts you have entertained about others of God's people without foundation, even today. Think of words. The easiest thing in the world is for churches to become hotbeds of gossip. Think of words. Think of lies told as truth because you believed a liar. It doesn't excuse you from lying. Think of the words. You think of attitude. You think of a hard heart. You think of slighting, cutting off, deliberately ignoring, or otherwise injuring a member of the body of Christ. And I'm talking about deliberately. sins of attitude you think of association you think of the things that you filled your mind with accepting from the world I know I sound like Methuselah every time I take a blast against the time that people spend on computers I'm not talking about people doing their taxes, I'm not talking about people using the programs for their jobs, I do the same. I'm talking about people who are doing things in a computer that if they did in real life, they'd be put to death. Don't tell me it's all right for you to teach your kids to blow the guts out of everything that moves and tell them you're not making violence a virtue. Don't tell me that. You know that's a lie. You know it's a lie. You know it's unworthy of Christ. If you tell me as a Christian that you can honestly need to be, you need to be convinced that training children by your example to blow the guts out of everything that moves is consonant with the gospel of peace, you try to tell me that and I'll tell you to your face you're lying. You don't believe that. You don't believe that as a Christian. Then there's the moral filth. Used to be only men get into that. Now the women are into it too. Only now they can do it in the secrecy of their own homes. And then we come to church and we wonder and we pray so piously, Lord, what's keeping back the blessing? Come on. I can't read other people's hearts, nor am I making accusations against anybody. I'm talking about what is generally recognized as a cancer, not only across American society, but a cancer in American church life. Every survey that I have read has said that churches, evangelical, reformed, fundamental, Roman, Catholic, Protestant, whatever, That there is virtually no distinction statistically between the level of pornography in the church and outside the church. And I'm saying that is a scandal! It's a scandal. We're praying about sanctification. Sanctify the church. That starts with me. Sanctify me. Purify my tongue, my mind, my attitude. Sanctify me. You start with you. I'm not inviting this prayer as a means of having a go at other Christians. Judging people that you know nothing about in their hearts. I'm not saying we pray this prayer as a way whereby we can go ahead And we can start imagining all sorts of things about brethren and sisters. I'm not saying that at all. In fact, I'm saying the very opposite. If you start with you and pray, Lord, multiply this blessing of holiness through me and through all the members, sanctify this church, make us a holy people. That's where we start. If we're not willing to walk worthy of Christ, we'll never work in any way that Christ will bless. Simple as that. Before you get to working, you start with walking. Walk with Him. Then we pray, unify the church. Now since I took so long on that other, my time's gone. And I really didn't intend to say very much of what I've said all together until now. So I'm really behind behind the eight ball. Is that from Poole, by the way? Is that from Poole? I mean, I grew up in a country where they played billiards and snooker and I knew nothing about that. So I know nothing about Poole. But I think behind the eight ball means you're, as they say in Britain, you're snookered. You've had it. And I'm snookered. I'll maybe come back to talking about unify the church. This is a Trinitarian blessing. Have a look and you'll see the Spirit, the Lord, the Lord Jesus that is, and then the Father. It's a Trinitarian blessing. It's a Christian obligation. It's a necessary expression of the Gospel. Unify the Church. That's a prayer that we should pray. But in this chapter it's not given as a prayer, it's given as a command. There's a statement of fact upon which there's based a command endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace if we're praying unify the church then we're praying lord make me an active member of this body who promotes the unity of the body Unify the Church. Can't go down the line unless united in doctrine, united in stand, united in vision, united in action, united in love for each other, for sinners, for Christ. In verse 11 and 12, you take it, we can pray, edify the church. Build us up. Build us up in Christ. That people will become strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. To be strengthened with all might by His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith. There be an edification of the body. Edify the church through the preaching, through the praying, through the answers to prayer, edify the church through me. Let me just throw something out to you here. Very often, very often, common sense biblical thing. When you're dealing with difficult husband wife relations and there's antagonism, one of the things, not the only thing, but one of the things you've got to do is to get people positively engaged in actually setting out to do something that will bless, strengthen, edify the other. I often tell couples every single day, and I advise them actually to keep a log of this, but every single day ask yourself, what have I done today specifically, intentionally to be an encouragement and a blessing and a help to my husband or to my wife? Now bring that into the church. You're praying, Lord edify. Why don't you ask yourself, instead of talking about it, Lord, what have I done this week? What have I done in this past month? to be an encouragement, a building up, a help, a to the church generally but most of all to another Christian individual or family. What have I done? It might surprise you that all you have done is talk. or thought, or intended. But as far as action, nothing. Now, it may be, on the other hand, that you can honestly say, well, thank God, by the grace of God, intentionally I've done this, and this, and this, and this. Thank you. And I say that sincerely, in God's name. Thank you. And God will bless it. But that's what we need. edify. It's God's work, but He uses us. The last one would be multiply. He talks about the perfect stature, this full-grown church. This church is not yet full-grown. If it's going to grow fully, it's not just that those who are here will mature, but there is a multiplication. And this is the burden of the free church. It's why it's in North America. Do not let us underestimate what has happened. Some of the churches are yet small. Well, even this one, they're all small. None of them is a megachurch and probably none of them, or possibly none of them will ever become a megachurch. I don't know. But they're churches. And in these years, we've seen almost 30 churches established. Well, we don't despise the day of small things. We don't make this bigger than it is, but we thank God for what he's done and for what he is doing and for what he's going to do. But our vision is that the Lord will multiply the local church and multiply the churches across the nation. I would still love before I die to see a church in every state in the Union and every one of those churches becoming a mother of other churches. That's my prayer. That's my burden. That's my vision. I trust that that will be your burden and your vision. Let's pray for it. that the Lord will sanctify the church, unify the church, edify the church, and multiply the church. Let God do that. And we'll go to heaven well pleased with what the Lord has done, even though we may be rightly perplexed with how little we have done. we'd be delighted with what the Lord has done.