Jim decided he was going to do it.
He signed up and told his officemates that this year he would join them in Kelowna’s Across the Lake Swim.
Mary immediately raised an eyebrow. “But Jim,” she said, “I thought you couldn’t swim.”
Jim didn’t deny it. But with several months until race day, he confidently explained that he planned to learn. Mary pressed a little further—this wasn’t a pool swim, after all, but a long open-water race. Jim smiled and said he was actually looking forward to the challenge. Everyone would be surprised.
And to his credit, Jim took his training seriously.
That very day he started watching instructional videos on swim technique and open-water strategy. He learned about breathing patterns, stroke efficiency, sighting, and the kind of gear serious swimmers use.
The next day, he began practicing. He rehearsed different strokes and techniques, with and without goggles, getting used to how they changed his vision. He tried a swim cap and liked the way it felt. The wetsuit took longer to get comfortable with—but eventually he did.
After a while, Jim decided it was time to stop playing it safe and head down to the beach. If this was going to be an open-water swim, he needed to prepare for that environment. So he practiced there too—working through different strokes and gear combinations, building confidence.
By race day, Jim felt ready.
He had poured hundreds of hours into preparation. He stood on the beach with the other swimmers, adrenaline pumping, waiting for his first-ever swim race to begin. When the horn sounded, Jim dove into the water and started swimming as hard as he could. He was determined to place well—maybe even win—and show everyone back at the office just how far he’d come.
But only moments into the race, lifeguards sprinted into the water.
Jim was in serious trouble—near drowning—less than fifteen meters from shore.
What happened?
How does someone fail so quickly and decisively after that much preparation?
We’ll come back to Jim at the end. For now, let’s put him in our pockets and turn to Ephesians 4.
Passage
(Ephesians 4:1–6, NRSVue) 4:1 I, therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace: 4 there is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, as we open your Word in Ephesians 4, ignite our hearts with the unity of the Spirit. Strip away pride, impatience, and isolation that hinder your church. Prepare us to walk worthy of our calling—humble, gentle, patient, bearing one another in love. Let this truth transform us from the inside out. Speak now, Lord, through your Scripture and to your people. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Walk Worthy
(Ephesians 4:1, NRSVue) I, therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.
Another “therefore.” And a good question, whenever you see a “therefore” in Scripture, is to ask: What’s it there for?
This is actually a pivot point for the whole letter of Ephesians. Paul shifts from orthodoxy—what we believe—in chapters 1–3, to orthopraxy—what we do—in chapters 4–6.
So when Paul says “therefore,” he means: Because of your shared promise, your shared foundation, and your shared Gospel—the things I’ve been praying for you about—because of all that, I’m begging you to walk in a worthy manner.
But notice how he qualifies this plea. By what authority does Paul put forward this request? Not as an Apostle. Not as a pastor. Not as a leader. Not even as a fellow Christian. Paul grounds his authority in his position as a prisoner.
Why?
Because Paul seems to be saying that the bars surrounding him are incidental to his mission—because God told him they were incidental. It all started back in Acts when Paul felt the Spirit leading him to Jerusalem. Agabus had a vision of Paul in chains and warned him not to go. Agabus was right about the vision—but wrong about the application. Paul went anyway. And ended up in jail in Caesarea, then eventually in Rome, where he’s now writing to the Ephesians.
Sometimes following the Lord will lead us into uncomfortable scenarios. Sometimes it will have a cost. Sometimes that cost will be steep. And Paul wants the Ephesians to know that he’s well aware of that. But his first concern is not himself—it’s faithfulness to the Lord.
So it should be for us. When the truth of the Gospel gets a hold of our hearts, it should drive us to action. The response should well up from a heart overflowing. And the more we allow that response to shape us, the more often it does. And thus, the more like Christ we actually become.
There are two paths we can go down. The path of the world, which we read about back in Ephesians 2:2, and the path of God, which comes up a short time later in Ephesians 2:10. And what’s funny is that the word “path” is almost misleading—because it’s not really like we can become more righteous or more Christlike by exerting a lot of effort. The path is more of a posture we adopt. It’s about submission.
See, the Holy Spirit takes up residence inside of us at the moment of salvation, and He’s working to sanctify us and purify us. He’s the one doing the cleanup work—not us. But what we are doing is interfering. Getting in the way. Allowing our flesh to elbow out the Holy Spirit for room at the decision-making table.
At this point it’s important to understand that the “calling to which you have been called” isn’t the thing you do for work—it’s the call to come up and out of the grave with Christ. I think Paul makes this quite clear in Romans 8:
(Romans 8:28–30, NRSVue) We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
And so because Jesus has called us up out of the grave and given us the gift of the Holy Spirit, our job is not to work to become holy people worthy of that great grace. No. Our job is to yield our flesh to the Spirit so that He can lead us where He needs us to be—even if it may sometimes be into trouble—and so that He can transform us from the inside out, rather than our feeble attempts to transform ourselves from the outside in.
Our righteousness is trash. What God wants is a yielded heart that leans into the works of grace and flees from the works of the flesh. Let’s keep reading and see how that yielding is done.
Practicing Yield
(Ephesians 4:2, NRSVue) 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,
Here is how the yield happens. Two sets of two. Humility and gentleness. Patience and bearing. And each of these words holds a depth you might not realize, so let’s look at them in turn.
Humility.
The Jews valued humility already, though some could—quite ironically—turn their humility into a point of pride. Nevertheless, because of God’s self-revelation throughout the Old Testament, humility was seen as a virtue among the Jewish population.
Not so among the Romans! Humility was seen by the wider Roman culture as a vice. It was a dog-eat-dog world. Survival of the fittest. Humility was a weakness that would get you stepped on and stepped over. It was foolishness. Like so much of the Gospel, it seems ridiculous to a world worried about me and mine. The idea of putting yourself last seems downright dangerous when it feels like the rest of the world is already trying to do that.
But even in spite of that mentality—which is still alive and well today—who are seen as the heroes? The ones who laid themselves down or put it all on the line for someone else. Universally. No one looks at Harriet Tubman and says, “What a chump!”
And you might say, “Well, my hero is Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos” but I don’t think that’s a hero. That’s an idol. You don’t care about them. You just want their bank account or their lifestyle. That whole mentality is the me-first ROman mentality. There’s a pride in it that says “I don’t need anyone else”
Not so with humility; Humility gives us the ability to receive help.
Next up is gentleness. Now, are you ready to have your mind blown?
This word “gentleness” is often seen as soft, mild, shy, or placid. It’s a very non-threatening word. So what of it? Is Paul telling us to be non-threatening? No, actually. Check this out: in the ancient world, gentleness actually carried the idea of proportionate anger. Too much anger? Bad. Too little? Also bad. Essentially, one was considered “gentle” if they could correctly balance and employ this emotion.
Humility gives us the ability to receive help. Gentleness gives us control of our most explosive emotion.
What about patience?
Patience is super cool. It comes from the Greek makrothymia (μακροθυμία), which is a compound word from makros meaning “long” and thymos meaning “wrath.” Literally, “long-wrath.” For the note-takers in the room, patience quite literally means “long fuse.” This is an attribute of God Himself. In 2 Peter 3:15 we read about the patience of our Lord Jesus, and in Exodus 34:6 we read that God is “slow to anger.”
I recently saw a clip online of a fellow who said, “I often ask the Lord for patience rather than strength. Because if I ask the Lord for strength, then I’ll also need to ask Him for bail money.”
Church, we do not often make the best decisions quickly. This is very rare. Take the time to pray it through and feel a peace in your spirit. Have the humility to recognize that your first reaction might not be your best one.
Humility gives us the ability to receive help. Gentleness gives us control of our most explosive emotion. Patience gives us time to make the right decision.
So we come to bearing with one another.
We are not independent islands, church. We were never called to be that. Like we talked about last week, community is part of who God is—it’s intrinsic to His nature. And because we’re made in His image, we have that need built into us. We need to be around people. They’re critical to our flourishing, and we’re critical to theirs.
This means, of course, that we will interact, and spill, and clash. There will be times when it’s rough or awkward or irritating or sharpening. And so it’s pretty darn good that we have all this humility and gentleness and patience to help us in those encounters! Because we are called to carry each other’s burdens—so bear with one another.
Humility gives us the ability to receive help. Gentleness gives us control of our most explosive emotion. Patience gives us time to make the right decision. And all of it happens in community. And all of it comes from love.
Love for Christ that yields to Him so that He can grow us in love for one another. Someone give me an amen! Amen!
Now let’s take a look at verse 3, where Paul turns everything on its head!
Maintain, Not Make
(Ephesians 4:3, NRSVue) 3 making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace:
Did you catch it? Do you see where the whole verse suddenly flips upside down?
It’s the word “maintain.” What do I mean by that? Let’s flesh out the rest of the verse to make sure we understand it completely before we come back to the maintenance.
Paul calls us to live lives worthy of the title “Christian.” Then he gives us this sort-of playbook for what this worthy life looks like. It’s one marked by humility, gentleness, patience, and bearing together—all informed by love. Then he tells us what the actual action part of this is. See, the humility, gentleness, patience, and bearing are adjectives—they describe what our lives will look like. The real verb, the action word, is “making every effort.”
It’s pulling out all the stops. Leaving nothing on the table. This is something we should be striving for with desperation. So whatever Paul is trying to get us to do, we need to be like Scotty from Star Trek and “give ’er all we’ve got, Captain!”
And what are we doing with such gusto? Maintaining unity. Paul spent much of the early part of this letter hammering home the critical importance of unity, and I think we’ve felt that as we’ve gone through this book chapter by chapter. And you probably noticed that humility, gentleness, patience, and bearing are all relational words. These are all best exercised in community—some are exclusivelyexercised in community.
But note: Who does this unity belong to? The Spirit. The Spirit is the common denominator living inside of all of us. And He binds us together in the bond of peace.
And like we’ve talked about before, peace is not simply the absence of conflict, but the presence of harmony.
Okay, and here’s where we flip everything upside down.
When we hear that God is making us holy and setting us apart, we think individually. Me. Myself. I. And while, yes, each of us is called to repent and accept Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior, it doesn’t stop there. Paul highlights that explicitly when he gives us a list of attributes that demonstrate a worthy walk—and they all require proximity. They are not achievable alone.
Because we read that God chose “us” in Him before time began back in Ephesians 1:4. Some folks teach that God chose every specific individual who would be saved, but I think the better understanding is that God chose His Church to be saved, to be His Bride. And so when we enter into that personal relationship with Jesus, it comes with membership in the capital-C Church. The body of believers worldwide.
And this means that we should be making every possible, conceivable effort to maintain the harmony and unity of the Church. But that’s not even the best part!
You remember I said the word “maintain” flips our whole understanding upside down? Why? What does it mean to be maintained?
If you have a car and you perform upkeep and repairs, is that maintenance? Yes.
If you have pieces of a car and you’re putting them together on an assembly line to create a new car, is that maintenance? No.
So then, if we are called to maintain unity, what does that imply? Unity is the default position of the Church. Because we all share the same Spirit (spoiler alert for the next verse) and He’s working to transform our hearts from the inside out, this means that unity is the natural state of the church. So disunity, strife, infighting, quarreling, and dissension? Those are our contributions! What Paul is telling us is that we have to work to get out of the way and stop sabotaging the Holy Spirit. We allow a lackof humility, a lack of gentleness, a lack of patience, and a lack of bearing with one another to corrupt the Bride!
Unity is not a goal we achieve—it’s a work of the Spirit that we need to stop getting in the way of. We think we need to strive for goodness. No, church. That’s why we ask Jesus to transform us, give us new hearts, and align our will to His. We are not capable of being good. We stumble over goodness from time to time thanks to the common grace of the Lord, but that deep, transformative work belongs to Him alone. What we are asked to do is yield! To stop trying to run the show and instead allow God to address issues that arise.
Because as much as we love to divide over the security of the believer, or the state of the dead, or gender roles, or timelines, or the nature of grace—all of these are secondary issues. And we should never allow ourselves to become divisive over secondary issues when everything that matters most is common to every Christian. What unites us is so much stronger than what separates us.
Let’s keep reading to see what those things that unite us are.
One in Seven
(Ephesians 4:4–6, NRSVue) There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the 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 all.
Look at everything that draws us together. Look at everything that unites us, church.
One body. The Church. The Bride. We are many parts, many expressions, many backgrounds—but we are one body, together called to glorify God by reaching the lost with the gospel, training them in the Scriptures, and sending them back into the world to continue the cycle.
One Spirit. The Holy Spirit. Andy Warhol once said,
“A Coke is a Coke, and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking.”
Soda might be a crude illustration for the Holy Spirit, but the point stands. You don’t have a better Holy Spirit than I do. I don’t have a better one than you. Presbyterians don’t get a lesser Spirit, and Pentecostals don’t get a premium model. The same Spirit is at work in all of us—guiding, convicting, comforting—at least when we stop fighting Him long enough to listen.
One hope. The hope of rescue. That eternal separation from God we call hell is not the final word for those who confess Jesus as Lord and believe God raised Him from the dead. And if that’s not you today, I would genuinely love to talk with you after the service.
One Lord. Jesus Christ. Born in humility. Crucified in weakness. Raised in power. Lord of lords and King of kings who reigns eternal. Someone say, “Hallelujah”!
One faith. Not many Christianities. Not many gospels. Everyone who calls on Jesus for salvation is one of us.
Now, this matters—because Christians are often terrible at knowing where the line is between pursuing truth and extending grace.
I saw a story online recently about a woman who performed as an “adult” entertainer. She had just been baptized but publicly she had no plans to change her career.
The response from Christians was swift and harsh. Many were quick to declare that she couldn’t possibly be saved.
Now hear me: I’m not endorsing her choice and I would agree that this career choice is ultimately not compatible with Christianity. But what if God is working in her heart? What if she’s at the very beginning, not the end, of repentance? What if the Spirit is calling her forward, and we’re shouting her back?
Church, we all know people like this—people who confess Christ, but whose lives haven’t yet caught up to that confession. What do we do with them?
I celebrate like they’re saved. And I pray like they’re not.
I invite them into Scripture. I ask questions. I make space for the Spirit to do what only the Spirit can do. Because Jesus loves imperfect people—and if Romans 10:9 is true, if all who believe and call on Jesus will be saved, then our job is not to become gatekeepers, but patient companions.
One faith in Christ—though we are all at different points on the path.
One baptism. Some think this refers to water baptism—and it may—but imagine this scenario: someone places their faith in Christ but dies in a car accident on their way to the baptism. Is there some part of universal Christian unity that they are denied? I can’t see that being true.
No, I think Paul is pointing deeper. John the Baptist spoke of a baptism Jesus would bring—a baptism of the Holy Spirit. Every believer, in every generation, shares this baptism. One Spirit. One initiation into new life.
And finally—
One God and Father of all. It’s no accident that Paul lists seven unifying realities. Seven is the biblical number of completeness. And God the Father stands at the climax. And notice—He alone gets descriptors.
Above all. God is omnipotent. His power is unmatched.
Through all. God is sovereignly at work in every circumstance—even when we cannot see how.
In all. God is omnipresent. You cannot outrun Him. You cannot be lost to Him.
This all-powerful, all-present, all-operative God is the one who called us.
And walking worthy of that calling does not mean spiritual heroics. It is not defined by intensity, precision, or perfection. Paul defines it as humility, gentleness, patience, and bearing with one another in love. Worthiness is not demonstrated upward—for God’s benefit—but outward, for the sake of those around us.
Which brings us back to Jim, the swimmer we put in our pockets at the beginning.
Out of the Pocket
You remember Jim. He entered the Across the Lake Swim, ready to wow his coworkers. He trained hard—studied technique, invested time, practiced strokes, mastered the gear. Then he almost drowned just 15 meters in. How? What happened?
Jim never actually got in the water. He practiced swim strokes on his living room floor. He did backstroke through the sand on the beach in his wetsuit. Jim thought he needed to be ready before he could get wet.
Church, this is what we do with community. If you’re like I used to be—slipping out after the amen because people are hard, or you’re “not ready yet”—you’re swimming in the living room. And it’s keeping you from getting better.
We think Christian maturity leads to unity. But that is exactly backward, and Paul says so: Pursue unity first, and maturity follows. Unity is the Spirit’s default—our job is to stop getting in the way and let the good stuff happen. Otherwise we might need to call a lifeguard when we start drowning in the harsh realities of this world.
Yes, it’ll be uncomfortable at first. Awkward. Exposed. Raw. Vulnerable. Good—these give the Spirit room. Humility puts others first. Gentleness tempers anger right. Patience walks the long road. Love bears each other up. From that selfless unity, change comes. And we’re empowered to walk in a manner worthy of our calling.
So next time someone asks, “How are you?”—don’t dodge with “Great! You?” Try vulnerable: “Tough week at work. Felt like giving up.” Woah. Now we can grow. Now we can care. Now we can really be the church.
Here at SunRidge, let’s transform “How are you?” from a mere greeting to an invitation. Let’s embrace raw and messy. Let’s relish the opportunity to invest in each other. Amen? Amen.
Please stand with me as we close in prayer.
Closing Prayer
Gracious God, you’ve shown us today that unity isn’t forged by our striving, but maintained by yielding to your Spirit—the one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one Father who binds us in peace. Forgive us for swimming in living rooms, avoiding the messy waters of community. Empower us at SunRidge to pursue unity first: embracing awkward vulnerability, putting others first with humility, tempering anger with gentleness, walking long roads with patience, and bearing burdens in love. As we step from this place, transform “How are you?” into sacred invitations—raw, real investments in each other. Let maturity flow from selfless unity, equipping us to face the world’s harsh currents without calling for lifeguards. Guard our hearts in this pursuit. May your Spirit thrive unhindered among us, for your glory and our joy. We pray in the strong name of Jesus, our Lord and King. Amen.