What Does Ephesians 4:1 Actually Mean by ‘Walk Worthy’?

From time to time, I hear people say to me, oh, I don't believe in religion. I don't believe in church. Those guys are hypocrites. Have you ever heard anyone say that? You know, and they say Christians are just hypocrites. You know, I know Christians. I know how they are. And I don't want anything to do with church. Well, Paul, actually, as we reach a time turning point in Ephesians chapter four, it's a turning point of this book. Paul is going to begin to give us some answers to that question. How can we be the kind of Christians that people look at? And they don't say, oh, hypocrites, but they look at and they say, oh, glory, I want to know more about this church Jesus that you worship. Amen. You know, I think there's a couple of reasons why sometimes people can look at the church and give that cry of hypocrites. I think there's a couple of reasons why that happens. But let me tell you two things that happen. One is this, that sometimes we just don't understand the instructions. We just don't know the Christian life very well. Biblically, we don't know the instructions. You know, I'm a man, in case you didn't know. I'm a man and I'm married to one wife. That's why I'm allowed to be the pastor. But one thing I know as a man is this, is that when I'm putting something together, when I order something, you know, sometimes you order something, it might be a cupboard, it might be a piece of equipment, and you have to get out your screwdriver and you have to put it together. You know, the kind of thing. I mean, you might order something from IKEA or somewhere like that. It's very important to me, because I'm a man, I don't read the instructions. It's very important that I show that instructions are not required. I'm a man. It's in my DNA to know how to put this together. And if anything should go wrong, I will wait for my wife to leave the room and then just have a little look. But actually, the instructions are there for a reason, right? And God has given us guidance and instructions in His Word. And I think sometimes when people mess up, when people are not living the Christian life, it's sometimes simply that they haven't understood. That could be one reason, Another reason I was thinking about. You know, there's a story. Years and years ago, back in the colonial times in Delhi, they had a massive problem With I can't remember which snake it was. I think it was a cobra. I think there were a lot of cobras on the loose. And so the colonial government at the time said to themselves, we need to do something about the problem with all of these cobras, because it's a real public safety issue. And so they. They decided what we're going to do is we're going to incentivize it. And so they said, what we're going to do is we're going to offer a bounty for anyone who. For people when they catch the cobras. If people will catch the cobras, then that will solve the problem. And this is the incentive. So they gave them a certain amount of money for catching the cobras. So on the one side, you've got the government, and they understand the purpose of the exercise very well. The purpose of the exercise is to incentivize people so they can catch the snakes. And when they've caught the snakes, the snake problem will be over. Now, the general populace understood a little bit better the purpose of the exercise, which was to breed as many snakes as you can in order to make as much money as you can. On both sides. The exercise was there. It was the same exercise. But how they understood the purpose, dictated how they carried it out. And in the same way, sometimes I think people misunderstand what the purpose of the Christian gospel is all about, what the purpose of salvation is all about. Well, now Paul's been telling us about purpose. In Ephesians 1:5, he talks about purpose. He repeats about purpose in verse 9, and he repeats about purpose in verse 11. You can go back later and look over that chapter that we studied earlier on. Paul is very clear that God is not just doing something randomly, but there is a purpose to what he is doing. There is a purpose to the church. There is a purpose to salvation. There is purpose in all of it. And I think sometimes people don't understand the purposes of God. And therefore, with the lack of understanding about instructions and the lack of understanding about purpose, very soon everything is going in a wrong direction. Well, as we come to this passage, we realize that there is a turning point. And as we go through this book of Ephesians, there are two halves. There is the doctrinal part of this book, and then there is the practical part of this book that Paul is writing to these Ephesians. There is a whole council running through this book and something that I think we should be very much aware of, something that I think is really important to the Christian life. And to learning about the Christian life is that we have the whole counsel of God. There is something called the whole counsel of God. You know, we can go and we can hear teaching on a little bit of the counsel of God. Somebody can take one word, not even just one verse, but one word, and they can get so much out of that word. But unless it's part of the whole context of the word of God, we can have an understanding that is confused. We can misunderstand the instructions, we can misunderstand the purpose. And so theologians talk about something called the whole counsel of God. That's why when you come here, most of the time, when what we do is we work our way through the Word of God chapter by chapter, verse by verse, book by book. Because that way you get the whole counsel of God. You don't just hear about blessing, you hear about struggle, you hear about persecution. You don't just hear about what God is going to do for you, but you hear about how you're going to live for God. You hear the whole counsel of God. You don't just hear about the crucifixion, you hear about the resurrection. You don't just hear about the Old Testament laws. You hear about grace and mercy. You hear about what a Christian life is all about from start to finish, the whole counsel of God. And I think what happens is we have a generation where we want that inspiration. You know, we want that feeling that you get of walking on air. We want that feeling that our life is like the TikTok videos and the YouTube videos and the inspirational things that we see. You know, someone did a documentary looking at social media stars and actually going around and they found out what their lives were actually like. And it was often quite a bit different to what they portray. And so we have that idea. We want to be inspired, so we come to church. And so, you know, and I'm not opposed to bouncing around the platform a little bit from time to time. I think it's okay to have some joy, I think it's okay to inspire, I think it's okay to shout. But in the midst of all of that, we have to take you on a journey through the whole counsel of God. There's a reason why God didn't give us a little book, like the communists have a little red book or some other religions have a little book. He gave us this whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation, something that is unfolding and expanding so that as we go on a journey, we find out where we have come from, where we are going What God's plan is, what God's purpose is, the whole counsel of God. And I want to encourage you and I want to urge you, as we look into these Scriptures, to expose yourself to the whole counsel of God. And that's not just on a Sunday. That's getting into your Bibles at home. Have a plan to go through your Bible, have some notes to go through your Bible. Expose yourself to the whole counsel of God. Otherwise you'll be one of those people there with a screwdriver wondering why that piece is missing, why these pieces don't go together. And what will the wife think when she comes in and finds that I was building a cupboard and I seem to have built something that I don't know what it is, but it's not a cupboard, right? Understand it. Expose yourself to the whole counsel of God in Jesus name. Well, today as we get into chapter number four, we're just going to dig down into the very first verse of chapter number four. That's all we're going to tackle today and we'll move on next week. Let's read it together. Ephesians 4. One says, As a prisoner for the Lord, then I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Hallelujah. Paul starts off by saying, as a prisoner. And if you look in the esv, which is the Bible I read, and if you look in the Greek, there's a word there that is translated as therefore. In the esv, it says therefore, I, Paul, as a prisoner of the Lord. And I've always been taught that when there is a therefore. How many of us have the word therefore in our Bibles? Anyone have the word therefore, Therefore. And I was always taught that when you see the word therefore, you've got to find out what it's there for. Because when someone says therefore, you immediately think because of what isn't it. If someone says therefore, because you have annoyed me, therefore I'm not talking to you. That doesn't happen in our house. There is only peace. It's a pastor's house. But maybe sometimes in your house you have such therefores that are going on. You have done well. Therefore, I'm going to cook you a very special meal tonight. Therefore. And Paul says therefore, I, Paul, a prisoner of the Lord, then urge you to live a life worthy of the calling to which you've been called. And this, therefore, this because of carries a lot of weight. It carries the weight of three chapters of Ephesians, chapter one to chapter three. Therefore, because of everything I have just told you in these three chapters, I'm now going to say something else. What is it that Paul's saying? Well, Paul's saying, therefore, because of the fact that I told you that you are a chosen people, because of the fact that I told you that God has blessed you with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Therefore, because I have told you that you are seated with Christ in the heavenly places. Therefore, because I have told you you are dead, but now you are alive. Therefore, because I told you that you have been called with a purpose. Therefore, all of this, all of this blessing, all of this elevation to heavenly places, all of this deliverance from death to life is leading somewhere. I didn't just tell this so that you could frame it and put it on the wall and say, isn't it beautiful that I am seated with Christ? Because sometimes that's what we do, don't we? We have poster on the wall saying, I am seated with Christ. Then we pass it and we think, isn't that lovely? But that I'm seated with Christ. It's beautiful. But Paul is saying there's not just chapters one, two and three, but when you've been through chapters one, two and three, then you have to inevitably come to chapter number four. And chapter number four is where things turn. Chapter number four is where we find out what the Church is there for. That's why he says, therefore, you see, the Church is at its best, at its absolute best, when it truly understands its purpose. Now, when I say the Church, I have to remind us of this every time. I don't mean the organization of the Church, the charity that we have registered with the Charity Commission. I don't mean the head office in Manchester of the Assemblies of God, Great Britain. I don't mean the building that we are in. I mean us. We are the Church. When that door there is locked, we are still the church. And Paul has explained in chapters one to three the great blessing that he has poured out on the church and how he has turned, taken that church and seated that church with Christ and given it a purpose and giving it a calling. Therefore, he says, because of all of this, it has to go somewhere. There was a purpose in this church. We're coming back to that. But Paul says, therefore I, Paul, a prisoner for the Lord. A prisoner for the Lord. This is just a hint of what is on Paul's heart here as he speaks to the Ephesians. He says, a prisoner, you see, in their mind, and we shared this the other week, a prisoner is something to be Ashamed of a prisoner is a sign of failure. A prisoner means you didn't make it. And Paul takes that whole narrative and he turns it around and he says, no, see, Paul understands purpose. Paul understands that purpose of the church and he says, no, my imprisonment is a sign that it is working. You see, through my suffering, the something is happening. He said this, didn't he, to the Philippians. He says, through my suffering, something is happening. He says, because of my suffering, people are turning to the gospel. Because of my suffering, people are becoming emboldened to preach that gospel. He says, no, no, no, my imprisonment is not a sign of failure. It is a sign of sign that this thing is happening, that this thing is making an impact, that this thing is hitting the powers and the principalities right between the eyes. And he changes the narrative and he changes his expectations. And that's something I think that we have to do as Christians. You see, I don't know about you, but when I got saved, I got saved into the charismatic and Pentecostal tradition, as many of you did, I did as well. And I love the charismatic churches and I love the Pentecostal tradition. I love the fact that we believe wholeheartedly in the power of God. For today, that we believe that Jesus still does miracles today, that Jesus still baptizes in the Holy Spirit today. I love that we believe in Pentecost. I love that we believe that the upper room was not the end, but the beginning, and that we can experience the same things today. You see, I love that. But I also know that sometimes there is this pressure and this expectation that our life is supposed to go a certain way. And so from the day you get saved, no one around you can die, you can't get sick. Your bank account will always increase. Hallelujah. It's biblical. We say, you shall be blessed when you go out, and you shall be blessed when you come in. And we will express that, especially in career and monetary terms, that we shall be blessed. The trouble is, sometimes life seems to work very hard to contradict our theology. Now, whilst we shouldn't build our theology on an experience, you may be experiencing things that you shouldn't be experiencing, we can't. You know, I love the story of Smith Wigglesworth. There was a woman who was saying to him that it was the will of God for her to suffer this sickness. And he looked over and he saw that she had purchased so many medicines that she had purchased. And he said to her, you seem to be trying very hard to get outside of the will of God. Sometimes we mustn't build our theology on our experience, but at the same time, life is full of ups and downs. And there is such a thing as suffering, there is such a thing as trials. And those things often have purpose in them. And so Paul knew that. Paul understood that. And we need to reshape our expectations just a little bit. As Paul was reshaping the expectations that the Ephesians had when they looked and said, no, this is not in the playbook. We are good Pentecostal believers. The prison doors will open. You say, paul, what has happened to you? We remember the days when you were with Silas, and in those days, the anointing of God was mightily upon you. What has happened now? Does this mean that the real anointing was upon Silas? Because now you are in prison alone? It seems that the prison doors are staying shut. But no, Paul understood that sometimes God calls for the prison doors to open, and sometimes he calls for us to go through something for the greater glory. There's no one size fits all. In your walk with God. That's a really hard pill to swallow. But God understands that. And here's something that happens when you reframe your understanding and you reframe your expectation. Instead of going through trials saying, oh, God, what have I done? Why are you punishing me? Because that's where that leads. When your expectation is, I will only ever be elevated, I will only ever be enriched, I will only ever have good times, nothing will ever seem to go wrong. Then when you get there, it doesn't fit your theology. And your first thought is the only logical explanation is that God is punishing me. The Bible says everyone whom he loves, he disciplines. Paul understood that. Paul understood. It was wonderful when I was with Silas, and we praised and God threw open the prison doors. But right now, by my staying in here, I'm going somewhere, begin to reframe. What will happen is you'll be going through something, and you'll see purpose. And there'll be something that rises up in you. And you'll say to the glory of God. And you'll say, God is using this. God is using this in me. God is doing something in me. And you see, sometimes you'll praise and the prison doors will open. So sometimes you'll praise and the prison doors will stay shut, and someone will look at you and say, what is wrong with this guy? Why is he praising his way through this difficult phase of his life? Why doesn't he just curse God and die? That was the advice of Job's Wife. And he will say no. Can we not also accept bad things from God as well as good? I know God has a purpose and I'm going to give him praise. I'm going to give him glory. And no one will understand you, but they'll want what you've got. Reframing things is so important. It's important psychologically because I want to tell you that if you see something, so much of what we experience is the way that we see things, not the way they actually are. Let me give you an example. If you get on a roller coaster, who likes roller coasters? Let's have a poll. Who likes roller coasters? Who thinks they're the best thing ever? Who thinks? Get me out of here. Okay. Do you know that when you get on a roller coaster, everyone has the same physical sensations? The adrenaline rises. You get that feeling in the pit of your stomach. So what is the difference between these two groups? Same adrenaline, same feeling. Interpretation. Interpretation. That's what happens. One person, those signals communicate excitement and joy and fun. And you throw your hands in there and you go, yay. And you go on your roller coaster, a different person, same signals, same body chemistry, same things happening. And you raise your hands and you go, we're all going to die. There's no actual objective difference in what is happening. It's how your mind has framed it. When we live with that idea that nothing can go wrong, and when things do go wrong, then I'm outside of the will of God. The devil is winning. We're back to that Nollywood movie all over again. When you think that when you frame it that way, then you're experienced. Experience would be different. But when you frame it, God is in this. I don't understand it, but my hand's in his hands. We're going through this together. We're coming out the other side. I know how the story ends. Then that changes everything. Amen. Yeah. Clap if you're gonna clap, clap. Clap for Jesus. We know how the story ends. And Paul wants to reframe the way that they theologize what is happening around them. I, therefore, because of all these blessings that haven't gone away just because I'm in prison. I, therefore, because you may see me in prison, but I'm seated with Christ in the heavenly places. I, therefore, a prisoner for Christ Jesus. You notice he said that before, right? He says, I was a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles. Now he's still a prisoner for the Lord. And now he's urging them in The Lord. And he's saying, I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling that you have received. Walk. He says, you know, we all walk. Whenever the Bible talks about walking, it's usually talking about the way that we lived. It says in Psalm 1, doesn't it? Do not stand in the way of sinners, Sit in the seat of mockers, or walk. Let's take a look at chapter three, just for a minute. Let's look at chapter three from verse seven. I want to read to you what Paul said here. He said, I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God's grace given me through the working of his power. Although I am less than the least of all the Lord's people. This grace was given me to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God who created all things. And his intent was that now, through the Church, the manyfold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly realms according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ our Lord. Look at that. We walk with purpose. That's what our walk is about. We are not walking aimlessly, but we are walking with purpose. He says, therefore, because of all of this, I'm urging you to walk in that purpose for which your salvation was given. And he says here, that purpose. And anytime Paul's talking to us here, he's always talking to all of us together. He has no interest. If you just want to be a lone ranger Christian out there, he's not talking to that. He's talking to us, the church. And he says in chapter three, here there's a purpose that through us, the powers and the principalities will understand the purpose of God. They're not happy about it. That's why they fight back. Sometimes they're not happy about it, but they understand something they never understood before. You see, they thought in the Garden of Eden they put a spanner in the works. They thought at the cross that they thwarted God's plan. But actually it was his plan all along. And suddenly now they look around at the church and they see God's plan. It was not what they expected. I went to Florida years ago and I'd just become a Christian. I barely knew who I was in Christ, but I'd already booked it before I left. And I went to stay with a friend there, and he didn't have a spare bedroom, so I was to sleep on his Front room floor. So he put out a thing for me. And they have those giant spiders, you know, the ones as big as your hand, big, big plushies that come to life and walk around the room. And so my idea with this was to beat it as hard as I could with a newspaper. But apparently I was informed, don't do that because they have smaller spiders, baby spiders, and if you squash it, they are all going to come out and scatter. I often think that's how it was for the devil. He said, I'm going to crush this Jesus. And he didn't realize that when he crushed this Jesus. Suddenly we're everywhere. Jesus is everywhere. You know that Jesus is in you. Jesus is in me. Everywhere in the world. Today, Jesus can be found inside the lives of believers. There's a purpose. He says that you and I, as the church, are supposed to walk in. He said, I urge you to walk in in a manner worthy of that calling. You know, it's possible to walk in a manner that is unworthy of the calling that God has placed upon our life. And I find it happens most often because we have misunderstood the instructions or we have misunderstood the purpose. We don't realize that. That it's so much bigger than what we have been taught. He says, walk in a manner worthy of that great purpose. When we get that into our minds, when we meditate upon it, how amazing it is that you and I are part of something that is supposed to change the world, that is supposed to turn. Turn the world upside down. If we could get that inside of us. Told you before, you know, if you want to know what keeps me up at night, it's like, come on, church. Understand the purpose that God has put in you, that there's some greatness in you, that the God who created the universe lives in you. That there's this purpose, that this world. When you look around and you say, oh, my goodness, what a mess. What a terrible mess. Look at what the people that are leading. Look at the wars that are going on. I'm not going to vote for that guy next time. I think we should put more money into the armed forces. I think we should put less money into the armed forces. I think we should go on a march. I think we should lobby the parliament and all of that. And you don't realize all along that. That the answer is in us. The answer is in us. One prayer. Have you heard that saying where it says that the devil trembles when the weakest of Christians is on his knees? Do we not believe that God has given us the power to change things, and yet we walk around like we have nothing. Or I'm just a simple Christian. No, you have more power in you than any politician, because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. Amen. Amen. And the same same Jesus, or rather the same same Holy Spirit who was in Jesus when he raised Lazarus. The same Holy Spirit that was in Jesus is in you. If you're a believer, do we, He says, I urge you to walk in a manner that is worthy of your calling. That's the other word we've already touched on, isn't it? Is that word calling. You see, we need to not only reframe our expectations, but. But we need to reframe our theological language. Now, I believe that the Bible says that all who call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. I believe that. I believe that when you come to Jesus, you are saved. Theologically, that just means that every human being is in this place where there's separation from God. Because of Adam's sin, all of humanity was separated from God. And we're in the grips. Human beings are in the grips of evil. They are in the grips of sin. And that's why the world is in such a mess. And Jesus came that we might be saved from that. I believe in salvation, but I also understand that the New Testament talks more about calling than being saved. And that's so important because God saved the Israelites. Do you know that he saved the Israelites from Pharaoh? He saved the Israelites from bondage in Egypt. He surely saved them. But what does it say? It says, out of Egypt, I called my son. I called them out of Egypt and into the promised land. You see, salvation is not just a ticket heaven. It's not just something like an affidavit that you can lift to the judge and say, no, no, no, no, you can't send me to hell. I have this piece of paper. It is not something that saves you from judgment. It is something that calls you out of the thing that brings judgment. God is, you know, we understand the judgment of God falls upon sin, doesn't it? We understand that if that's not too uncomfortable a subject for a Sunday morning before we are going to go maybe and have a lovely lunch. And now Pastor wants to talk about judgment. What an awful thing to talk about when the dinner is almost getting ready. I'm getting ready to have fun. And we're mentioning subjects like judgment. But listen, judgment is going to fall on sin. God judges sin God punishes sin. It's sin and the devil. When we look in the book of Revelation, it says that that pit was created for the devil, not for man. It wasn't created for human beings. Now, I want to tell you that if you ever have the unfortunate experience of being trapped in an aircraft when it has overshot the Runway and you're looking out of the window and there are flames shooting up everywhere, and they open those doors and the chutes go out of the airplane and you want to be saved, very soon you'll understand that being saved and being called out are the same same. To be saved from sin is to be called out of sin. To be saved from the kingdom of darkness is to be called out of darkness. Calling, we are called. And Paul says, live a life worthy of the calling that he has given you. And you know what the word church means? The church is called in Greek, ekklesia. And ek in Greek is a prefix that means out of. And the whole word, when you put it together, is those who have been called out, we have been called out. We are the church. We are the called out ones. He says, you have been called out. You cannot have salvation without being called out. The two things go together. And so Paul brings us to this turning point. He says, everything that I have told you is leading up to this, this turning point. When I'm now going to explain to you what what the called out life looks like, how we walk the walk and don't just talk the talk. I'm going to explain that to you now as I give you my therefore, all this good stuff I've been given to you therefore. And he's going to tell us what the called out life actually looks like. And the challenge to us today is to ask ourselves, am I? You know, we're going to get deeper into it. We're going to give some practical advice as we go through the rest of the chapters. But you can ask yourself this morning, you can challenge yourself this morning, can you? How does my life align? How does my life align with the calling that the Bible says says is on me? Every one of us, I think we can answer that. If we are in the room today and we are saying, oh, I'm a Christian, I've been called out of darkness and into light. I've been called out of the service of the kingdom of darkness, and my life is now about serving God, we can answer that question, how does my life align with. With the calling that God has placed upon my life according to the Bible, who am I Living for? What am I living for? What are my priorities on a Monday morning? What are my priorities from day to day? How am I planning my life? I think we can answer that question. How does my life align with the calling and the purpose of God? And whenever I'm preparing this, and we're closing real soon, whenever I'm preparing for a message, one of the questions that I ask is, what does this message mean on a Monday morning when you're getting ready for work, your kid has vomited all down your best shirt and you changed it and then just as you were eating your egg, it went attacked you, and then you got in the car and it wouldn't start. And you and your wife or your husband, you're still good. But, you know, this morning it's just a bit. How does this apply on a Monday morning? It's all very well, Pastor, that you say to me that I'm supposed to live for the glory of God. Sounds wonderful, Pastor. It sounds wonderful that you all want us to raise the dead and cast demons out of people and explain the gospel of people, and you want us to go into work and you want me to shine like a star. It's wonderful, Pastor. But you don't know about my life. You don't know about Monday morning. In fact, forget about Monday morning. Monday morning is hard, but Friday morning, oh my gosh, by the time I get to Friday, how does any of this speak to my life? Well, Paul's about to tell us something in the following chapters that is really, really important. He's going to tell you that actually your Monday morning, your everyday life, the one you're saying, what about my everyday life? I love to tell people about Jesus, but what about my job? I love to pray for the sick, but what about my overdraft? I love to make an impact and to turn the world upside down. Thank you, Pastor. It's wonderful that you're encouraging me to turn the world upside down. But by the way, what about my visa application? How does it apply to every life? How do I carry this message into everyday life? Well, Paul's about to tell us something in the following chapters that tells us something really important. When we ask the question, does my everyday life really matter to God? He's going to tell us that actually when we talk about this purpose of the kingdom of God and our everyday life matters more, it matters more. Your job matters more. Your family matters more. Your finances matters more. It all matters more. The difference is not that it doesn't matter. It's not that I'm supposed to say, well, my family doesn't matter anymore. And we just, you know, we go home and we say to our wife, dear wife, you know how much I love you. Yes. And you know, you are the only cockroach in my cupboard. Yes. You know, you're real special to me. You're the love of my life. But I was listening to Pastor, and pastor was talking about how, you know, we should give everything to the Lord. So I booked a flight from tomorrow. I am a missionary in Timbuktu because compared to the kingdom of God, my sweetheart, you don't matter. How do we bring that in? Well, here's the thing. Paul's going to tell us that your family life, that your work life and all those things actually matter more under this scheme. The question is not whether they matter. The question is, have we put the cart before the horse? The question is, when we come to Jesus, when we believe in him, when we understand our purpose in him, the gospel doesn't serve our job. The gospel doesn't serve our family. The gospel doesn't serve our finances, but our family serves the gospel and our job serves the gospel, and. And our family serves the gospel. It comes the other way around. And so it's not about saying, well, you know what, I'm just going to give up and having a family. When I first became a Christian, I had this plan to stay single because all the best holy people stay single. That didn't work out. But, you know, I forgive you. But, you know, we have this idea that, you know, being a super Christian is that God is going to. God is just going to, you know, we're going to go and live in a hut somewhere under a tree, in some place where there's no power and no water and no whatever. And maybe we'll just have to struggle through that. But the truth is, Paul wants us to know that what matters is where he has placed us. These things need to serve the kingdom purpose, and that's what we're going to learn about. And the question is, are you ready to put the horse before the cart? Has your vision of the kingdom been, the kingdom is going to come so I can get a better job. The kingdom is going to come so I can have better finances. The kingdom is going to come so my wife will finally submit. The kingdom is going to come so that my family will prosper? Or is your vision that with God's help, I'm going to be the best mechanic I can be, I'm going to be the best doctor I Can be. I'm going to be the best nurse I can be. I'm going to be the best father, the best mother. With God's help, with his anointing, in order that my life, my work will serve the purpose and the plan of God in some way, it will become entwined with what God is doing through his church. Not only here on a Sunday morning, but in every aspect of my life. The kingdom of God will be prepared, present, and people will begin to see that Christ is everywhere. Listen, if you're a mechanic and someone comes to you and you're 100% honest, you're already. You're already promoting the kingdom of God. When your family. And listen, it's not that your family will never go through trials, right? You know, I know some of you, your kids are always obedient you. And you know, none of them has ever backslidden. You know, you don't even have to tell them to read their Bibles. They just know it by heart. They could actually recite the whole thing. They're just amazing. But, you know, the fact is, our families, none of our families are perfect. But if we can just, you see, it's not about perfection. But if we can bring Christ in our homes, that right there, that's what we're going to hear about. Living our daily lives for the glory of God so that people see and come to faith in Jesus. And when everyone will hear this later in chapter four, when every member does his part, the body grows to the glory of God. Amen. Can we stand up and can we pray together? Amen. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord. Hallelujah. Oh, Father. God, we thank you. We praise you, Lord. We give you all the glory. We give you all the honor. Lord, we thank you that, Lord, you have placed each one of us where we are with a purpose and a reason. Thank you, Lord, that whether we are at home with our family or in the workplace, or whether we're called to travel far as a missionary, whether we're called to serve in a shop, whether we're called to be a doctor, a nurse, a mechanic, whether we're called to be a pastor, whether we're called to be something else, Lord, wherever you have placed us, wherever we stand, we are seated. Wherever we stand, we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places. Wherever we stand, we are there. That our work and our life and the way we are might bring glory and honor to your name, Father. So that people will see in our lives, our families and all that we do, a little glimpse of what life will be like in the kingdom of God. A little glimpse of what life will be like when you return. So, Father, in Jesus name, we pray that as we go out this week, as we face the week that lies ahead of us, that, Father, we will take courage in that. And, Lord, we will say, father, will you strengthen us so that as I walk with you from Monday to Friday, I may walk in a manner that is worthy of the calling that you have placed on me. Father, we give you all the prize and all the glory in Jesus mighty name, and we all say amen.