The Lowly Walk, Part 3

Ephesians 4:2

Ephesians chapter 4 is our study for this morning and we're really going to discuss one phrase. I don't know why it is that I get so slowed down in this particular portion of Ephesians but it is just so important. You know, a lot of times it isn't what I plan to do, you know. I always plan things to be done right and to get through everything and I never get there. And I don't know if it's my own stupidity or God but I choose to believe it's God, for obvious reasons. Anyway, we're looking at the fourth chapter of Ephesians and talking about the worthy walk. What does it mean for a Christian to walk worthy. And we've been suggesting to you that walking worthy means living a life that matches your position in Christ. First three chapters of this wonderful epistle deal with the position of the believer, the last three the practice. The first three the doctrine, the last three the duty. How do we really learn to live up to who we are. How do we walk worthy?

We said the word worthy, last week, has to do with balance. It's a word that's used of equalizing a scale. We are to equalize our behavior in accord with our identity. We are to live as who we are.

This is a basic principle of the Word of God. We are to live in accord with who we are. We are to live up to our position.

Now how do we do that? How do we really walk worthy? Well the answer comes in verses 2 and S, let's look at it. "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." Now the way we walk worthy is in all lowliness and meekness and long‑suffering and forbearing love and unity, those five things are the characteristics of the worthy walk. That's where it all begins.

Now humility is basically the overarching principle. It's as if the first word all lowliness really encompasses the remaining four.

They all sort of fit in and yet they are different. And there's a progression. Where there is all lowliness there will be meekness and there will be then long‑suffering resulting in forbearing love with the end result of unity. So there is a...there is a sense in which they are tied together almost like synonyms, in a way, although there are shades of difference, and then there is also a sense of progression. But the key to the whole thing is this concept of humility.

Now humility is a very elusive thing. And we want to talk a lot about humility but sometimes we don't really understand it.

Just exactly what is humility? You know, it's that thing that when you finally gotten it you just lost it. It's very elusive. When you finally say ‑ 1 am now humble ‑ you just forfeited. So, maybe it's when you don't know you've got it that you've really got it.

But that isn't always true either because some of us know we haven't got it because we know we're proud. It's a very elusive reality and yet it is a very necessity ‑ necessary thing. You can see here that it is at the heart of the worthy walk. If you are to walk worthy humility must be a reality in your life.

Now Jesus came into the world and as the high exalted King of Kings and Lord of Lords, He came exalted above any human being who had ever lived. And yet the apostle Paul says in Philippians chapter 2 that He humbled Himself, that He was found in fashion as a man.

That He took upon Him the form of a servant and humbled Himself. So even the Lord Jesus Christ was humble.

In Matthew 11:2g He said ‑ "For I am meek and lowly in heart."

The exalted Lord Jesus Christ, meek and lowly and humble. He was born in a stable. He never had a place to lay His head. He possessed no property. He owned only the garments on His body. He was buried in a borrowed tomb. He was always a stranger, His only home was the Mount of Olives where He would retire in the evening in quietness with the father. He was humbled. The One who, as the song said, left the Ivory palaces and came into a world of woe. Humbled Himself.

And He set a standard for us because in I John 2:8 we saw last time, John says ‑ He that sayeth he abideth in Him ought to walk even as He walked. So however He walked is how we're to walk. And if He walked in humility that's the way we are to walk.

But that's foreign to our world. Our world is not a world that accepts humility. Our world is a world that exalts pride. We don't hear great talks about humility. In fact, in our society as in all society that is generated by Satan, all of human nature throughout all of history has looked down on humility as weakness as infirmity as something to be despised, something ignoble. We think of the humble person as the proverbial Caspar milk toast who is afraid of his own shadow, whose sort of mealy‑mouth, the inevitable Mr. Peepers complex. What is true humility? Is it that? We like to talk about the things we're proud of. You hear people say that constantly.

Well I'm very proud to say...you know, just go to a luncheon sometime and you'll hear it about 5O times. We're so proud of so‑ and‑so.

Well, I'm proud of this, I'm certainly proud of...this is a part of our society. Ostentation, boasting, parading, demanding, exalting, we're forever and a day pinning awards on everybody and his uncle.

You know, I look at my kids and from the time my kids have been little enough to pick up a baseball bat or throw a ball they've been stacking up trophies to the point where it's almost absurd. They're so honored the only thing is, everybody gets one, you know? Just everybody. They pass them out like peanuts. I have a box in the garage ?with all the broken trophies that came off the shelf in the earthquake. ?y wife said it was the greatest day at our house. She's right. But, you know, we're like that. We're forever passing out awards. I was watching television last night, whenever I don't have any sermon illustrations I turn on a Christian television program.

And...not all of them, but some of them particularly, and they were telling all about the Dove Awards, the new Christian Dove Awards which are now given out to the outstanding Christian of this and the outstanding of that and so forth and so we're really hep on awards, folks. We're very proud by nature and even in Christianity we now have found a way to boast legitimately, we just award each other everything.

It's kind of sad. You know who the most famous man, the most popular man in the entire world is right now? By survey? Mohammed Ali, the most popular man in the world. You know what his famous line is?

I'm the greatest. That's an exaltation of self. That's typical in our society. We say, ‑ well, you know, boy we've got to think positively We hear a certain preacher on television say that all the time. We...

you've got to realize that you can do anything, you're the greatest.

And my son who is not that astute says ‑ Well, I certainly can't do everything, I can't get an A in mathematics. It doesn't always work that way. God has called us to humility but our world throws pride at us incessantly.

You know pride was the first sin ever committed. Do you know that? The very first sin ever committed was pride. And it was committed by an angel by the n?me of Lucifer who decided that he would exalt himself above God. Read it in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, the whole story is in both of those texts. I will, I will, I will, I will, I will he said five times and once God said ‑ No you won't. Threw him out o.

heaven. Pride was the first sin. I will be exalted. I will lift myself.

And in Proverbs 11:2 the Bible says ‑ "When pride cometh then cometh shame. But with the lowly is true wisdom." In Proverbs i8:5 it says ‑ "Everyone that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord." In Proverbs 18:18, "pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall." In Proverbs 2i:4 it says, "A high look (that's the external) a proud heart (that's the internal) is sin." Humility is always the virtue of the righteous and pride is always the mentality of the unrighteous. And it's a grief to the soul of anybody who knows Jesus Christ or should be, to see Christians engaged in pride, to see ourselves engaged in it.

I'll never forget we had a meeting at my house one night and all the seminary students were there from Grace here, we were having a wonderful discussion as we do often at my house. I was sitting on the fireplace and sitting on the hearth and talking and they were asking questions. And one of the students, very serious, said to me ‑ John, he said, how did you finely overcome pride? Isn't that great? Such naive...how did you finally overcome...well, it was two years ago when I finally licked it (laughter) yes, and it's never been a problem since then. So wonderful to be constantly humble, in fact it's just glorious. How did you finally overcome pride? Folks, I don't know how to tell you this, I have not finally overcome pride.

That's a battle everyday, isn't it? Everyday. Satan keeps that one at you all the time.

But just so you get God's perspective look with me back at Isaiah chapter 2. Verse 11 or we better go back to verse 10; "Enter into the rock and hide in the dust for fear of the Lord and for the glory of His majesty." Listen, when you start comparing yourself with God you'd better get under a rock. You're a bug in comparison. You'd better crawl in the dirt somewhere when you see the majesty of God. When you're compared with the glory and majesty of God you'd better get under a rock. Watch. "The lofty looks of man shall be humbled. The haughtiness of men shall be bowed down. The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day." Now, people, here is the crux of the whole issue. Pride is a sin because it is the sin of competing with God.

Pride lifts me up and steals from God His glory and God says ‑ I will not give My glory to another. And so He says ‑ You'll be bowed down and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. God alone is worthy of exaltation. God alone, I'll say it again, there's nothing you've ever done, there's nothing I've ever done, there's nothing we ever will do that's worthy of glory, that's worthy of honor, in comparison to God. We are a worm. We ought to get in the dirt and get under a rock. That's what he is saying. "For the day of the Lord of Hosts shall be upon everyone," verse i2 says, "who is proud and lofty, upon everyone who is lifted up and he shall be brought low. And upon," and here he uses metaphors to speak of proud people, "Upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, all the oaks of Bashan, all the high mountains, all the hills that are lifted up, upon every high tower, upon every fortified wall, upon all the ships of Tarshish, and all the pleasant pictures, and the loftiness of man shall be bowed down and the haughtiness of man shall be made low, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day." Now you see? He has...he is simply saying that God is going to judge pride, He's going to judge haughtiness, loftiness, setting an exaltation on man is going to be judged. And, you know, dear Isaiah the prophet confronted this in the nation Israel in a very, very evident way, the people paraded like we do in our society. You know, our society is so proud and we all can get engulfed in that, you know?. We want to get the best clothes, the fanciest clothes, the fanciest car, the fanciest house, the nicest stuff and we are to appeal all the time sensually to do that. And we exercise our pride and the reason we buy those things and the reason we have those things is so that we can be better than somebody else. So much of the time that's true.

Now there are things we need, there are things we need to accommodate our families and our needs and our travel and all of those kinds of things but there's a fine line between what we need and what we want that's better than something else for the sake of self‑exaltation, self‑creature comfort, and having it over somebody else. And, you know, as we begin to get things at a certain level, then we begin to despise the people beneath our level. And aspire to the ones above us constantly. This is pride, the wrong perspective.

It manifested itself in Isaiah's day in chapter S verse I8 in some very specific ways. And here he confronts the daughters of Zion, the women in Israel, he says they are haughty, they walk with stretched forth necks. Now that's more than good posture, that's just that cockiness, that lording it over people by your look. They walk with wanton eyes, and actually the Hebrew says with painted eyes. Now don't panic, ladies, that's right here in the Bible. It says they walk with stretched‑forth necks and painted eyes, walking and mincing as they go.

It's just the idea that they strut, see. These women were so proud and boastful ‑ look at me, strutting with my self all dolled up. And they even put bells on their feet, that's in case the sight wasn't enough to attract you, the noise would. And to find out what happens in verse 17, "The Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion and uncover their secret parts." God will drop a sword right down the middle of them. Pretty serious. "In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling anklets, their headbands, their crescents like the moon." Apparently they were wearing some crescents around their necks shaped like a half‑moon. "The pendants, the bracelets, the veils, the head‑dresses, the armlets, the sashes, the perfume boxes, the amulets, the finger rings,"

literally in Hebrew, "And the nose rings." Now I noticed that's even coming in our society. Now I see women with a ring through one of their nostrils. ?The festival robes, the mantles, the cloaks, the handbags, the hand mirrors, the linen wrappers," that has to do with undergarments, special undergarments, "and the hats or turbans and the veils." Now you say ‑ Oh, ahhhhh, I've got it, in verse lS, in verse...

well, this is definitely a picture of an attitude not necessarily saying that anybody who has any of these things has that attitude but the people who have that attitude manifested in the overabundance of these kind of things. There's a loss of simplicity. There's a loss ot propriety. There's a gaudiness, there's an overdoneness, if that's a word. "And it shall come to pass," in verse ?4, "That instead of sweet fragrance there shall be rottenness. Instead of a girdle, a rope.

Instead of well‑set hair, baldness. Instead of a robe, a girding of sack cloth and branding instead of beauty. Thy men shall fall by the sword." They aren't without guilt either.

You see, here was a society that was a whole bunch of show‑offs.

They were lording and exalting themselves and fixing themselves up to attract attention to themselves. When the fact of the matter is everyone in that society should have been simply an instrument to point to God, the God of Israel.

At the end of the book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah talks of something of the same attitude in verse Sl; "Behold I am against thee, O most proud, saith the Lord God of hosts! for thy day is come' the time that I will punish thee and the most proud shall stumble and fall, and none shall raise him up and I'll kindle a fire in his cities and it shall devour all around about him."

And the Old Testament closes with the little book of Malachi. A tremendously important book. The fourth chapter, the last chapter of the Old Testament begins this way ‑ "For behold the day cometh that shall burn like an oven and all the proud, yea, and all they that do wickedly shall be stubble and the day that cometh shall burn them up saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch."

When you come to the New Testament you hear James in chapter 4 verse C say ‑ "God giveth grace to the humble but God resisteth the proud."

And you hear John say, "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world and the world passes away in the lust thereof."

pride ‑ God is against. Humility ‑ God is for. Humility is always, as I said, the virtue of the righteous. Throughout the Scripture, we don't even have time to begin to tough base with every scripture dealing with humility. But listen to a few.

Proverbs 15:SS says; "Before honor is humility.

Proverbs ?2:4; "By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches and honor of life."

Proverbs ?7:2; "Let another man praise thee and not thine own mouth.

That's pretty practical. And if you ever get the feeling that you're hot stuff, Isaiah 51:1 said to that same generation of people in Israel, "Look to the rock whence you are hewn and the hole of the pit from whence you were dug." Have you forgotten where you came from?

If you have any tendency to be proud go back to Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 to S and read about yourself being dead in trespasses and sin.

Walking according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that worketh in the sons of disobedience. Read that you there were guided by the lusts of the flesh and of the mind and of the desires of the flesh were the things that motivated you and you were by nature a child of wrath. Remind yourself.

of who you are, when you want to be proud.

Humility is a basic ingredient for all spiritual blessing. Before any honor is humility. The Proverbs are right. God will only bless the humble. You know. I think sometimes that we forget how important this is. Every sin, I don't care what it is, has as its root pride.

Because all sin is a defiance of God and His right to be God and to have holiness. All sin is pride. And I really think that sometimes we grapple on the peripheral and never deal with the issue. For example, there are families that have problems. Their kids are problems, they have problems, mom and dad, husband and wife have problems. And maybe a guy has problems at his work, and there are people with just a lot of problems and sometimes they'll come in and they'll want to...how do I do this, give me a better method to reach my family, or how do I construct a family devotion, or how do I do this, or how can I get my family fixed up when the real issue is just pride because they'll never be unity in the family, they'll never be honor in the family, they'll never be the grace of life in the family, they'll never be happiness in the family until there is humility in the person involved. I don't care what you've done for the Lord, I don't care if you founded churches, founded missions, had great ministries, gone to church all your life, read your Bible, prayed, if you've never walked in humility, .you don't know what it is to walk a worthy walk. That's what God is saying to us. Because the worthy walk begins with all lowliness.

You can't even be saved without humility. In Matthew chapter 18 Jesus said, "Except you become as a little child, you can't enter the kingdom of heaven." And then He said ‑ "You must humble yourself as this little child." You can't even be a Christian unless you come in humility. Until you come to God and say I am a sinner and I deserve nothing and I'm worthy of nothing, you can't be saved. You can't go into God's presence and say ‑ God, it's me, you know, the one You've heard so much about. Would ?you...here's my press release. I have my Master's degree, my Doctor's degree and I have a benevolent merit award from the lililililiil. See. No. You approach God in humility as a sinner. That's the only way to be saved. There's no other way in to the family of God and there's no other way to walk once you're in there.

That's the only way. That's the only standard.

In Luke chapter 18 and I think it?s verse 1S, I'll read it to you, don't need to look it up. "And the tax collector," remember?

The publican and the sinner in the temple? "Standing a far off would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven but smote on his breast saying ‑ Go? be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, said Jesus, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone that exalted himself shall be abased and he that humbleth himself shall be," what? "Exalted." Humility is the standard o. salvation.

You see, the publican who said ‑ I thank thee that I am not as other man are, that I'm not as this sinner, I tithe, and I give all...of all that I possess and I fast twice a week...that man didn't go home justified. Salvation comes to the humble. And the walk of the Christian is to be a walk of humility as well.

Now let's go back to Ephesians and look at the text itself. We know now that the Bible emphasizes humility as over against pride.

And, people, it isn't easy in our society, really it isn't. You know, I see, and I see and I look at our society and I see the temptation in my own life, to just continually pile up stuff that exalts me, that lifts me up. You know, having a better this and a better house or a better car or better clothes or more recognition or fancier stuff of one kind or another to sort of put me up. And then you get the mentality that starts looking down and despising people underneath you. So wrong. And you forfeit God's blessing. You don't walk worthy, you're not going to know His blessing.

So he calls us to the worthy walk in verse i. He says ‑ I beseech you, really. I, the prisoner of the Lord, that you walk worthy of the vocation to which you're called. That's the call to the worthy walk.

Now this morning I want to share with you the characteristics of the worthy walk, the characteristics of the worthy walk. And I can't get into all of them, there are five of them here. We're going to look at just one, this morning.

The characteristics of the worthy walk. Now I want you to realize something as we look at this verse 2 and S. He says, now you're going to walk worthy. And all of us are saying ‑ Ok, I want to walk worthy, how? He says, all right, here are five ways. Five keys; lowliness, meekness, long‑suffering, forbearing love, and unity.

Those are the five characteristics of a worthy walk. And the goal of it all, verse S, is the unity of the Spirit.

Now the most important thing Paul wants us to know is that God wants unity in the church. He wants unity in the church. The unity of the believers is critical. The first three chapters of Ephesians emphasized it. We are one new man, one body, one family, one household, one habitation of the Spirit. This tremendous emphasis that Jew and Gentile are one in Christ, we're all one, very important.

And it's important because of this; in John I7 verse 21 to 2S Jesus prayed to the Father. And He prayed a very explicit prayer, this is what He said; "Father, I pray that they all may be one as Thou, Father art in Me and I in Thee that they also may be one in Us."

Why? "In order that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me."

Verse 2S; "I in them, Thou in Me, that they be made perfect in one, that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me." In other words, the whole concept that Christ is the Son of God is wrapped up in the unity of the church. Do you see it? That as we are one we manifest Christ to the world. You know, the world is all discord. The world is all disharmony. The world is all animosity and antagonism and bitterness and resentment and into rugged individualism, every guy for himself. And if in the midst of that there is an oasis o. beautiful unity, there is an oasis of beautiful oneness, there is a harmony of peacefulness among a body of people, the world is going to look and say what's that? And that's when we can say this is what Jesus Christ can do. And they're going to say then He must be somebody from somewhere else than this world because nobody in this world could ever do that.

I'll never forget reading a history book, one time, it asked the question ‑ Do you know many...how many peace treaties have been broken throughout history? And the answer was ‑ All of them. All of them.

And the Bible says there is no peace to the wicked. Peace ‑ peace and there is no peace. There's no one in the world that's ever been able to do it. That's why the world is going to grab on to the coat strings of the anti‑Christ. He's going to come along and he's going to appear to be the greatest peace maker. But you see, we can manifest to the world that Jesus is the peace maker if we have a community of peaceful, loving, united people in one mind. Right? This is the heart of our testimony that the world may know that He is sent from God, He's not just another man. No man has ever been able to make that kind of peace. No man has ever been able to relate people to each other like that. He's got to be divine and that's the heart of it all.

So, the worthy walk has as its objective, first of all, unity in the church. That we would walk worthy, the church would be one. Now how do you get to that? Well I'll tell you one thing. If everybody's proud you'll never have unity. Right? If everybody's saying ‑ Well, I'm going to get for me what I want, you get for you what you want, you'll never have unity. You get everybody doing that and we're in a lot of trouble. If everybody's worried about his own thing, well I'm not going to take that anymore...you can't do that to me...then we're not going to have unity. Now watch this; wherever you have humility you have unity. If you have everybody fighting for their own rights, you have terrible, terrible, terrible discord. From whence come wars, James says, they come because you want with your own lusts and you desire to have and you'll do anything to get it.

See. That's war.

On the other hand, where does peace come from? It comes from Ephesians...rather Philippians chapter 2 where Paul says ‑ "Let each esteem others," what? "Better than themselves." You see, you have peace and unity and oneness when we all look on the things of others and not on our own things. When we all esteem others better than ourselves. When we're all involved in meeting your needs, when everybody cares about everybody else instead of themself then there's a harmony and a brotherhood and a peace and a unity that is explicable humanly. That's what God wants. So you say ‑ All right, we're trying to get to the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace? That's right.

we're trying to see the one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God concept of verses 4, 5 and 8. We're trying to see that oneness really living. So the world will know that God sent Jesus, He's got to be supernatural because no man could do that.

But the world isn't going to know that unless we have that unity, we maintain that unity and we'll never maintain it without following these steps.

Let's look at one, the first step. "With all lowliness," with all lowliness. Boy, you know, it's such a hard thing to preach on somethings like this because you look at your own life and you have such a battle with these things. This is very convicting to me.

With all lowliness, the word p?sa. in the Greek, means all, to