The Lowly Walk of Our High Position

Ephesians chapter 4. We come now to the second great section of this marvellous letter written by Paul to the churches, really in Asia Minor, one of which was the church at Ephesus, and we’ve entitled this first section the lowly walk of our high position. It’s a tremendous passage and we’ll be spending the next few weeks just looking at the first six verses. Its import and its impact, so rich, we’re going to take our time in gleaning everything we possibly can. When a person joins a certain organization or a certain society, he obligates himself to live or to act in accord with the standards of that society.

He obligates himself to function according to the aims and the objectives and the goals and the drives and the purposes of that society to which he attaches himself. It can be illustrated in many ways. As an American citizen, a person who chooses to live in the United States of America, you obligate yourself to abide by the principles, the standards and the laws that govern this society. As a person who is permitted to work in the place where you work, whatever place that is, a business or a plant, a shop, an office, a school, whatever it is where you work, you work there on the premise that you conform yourself and cooperate with the standards and the goals and the objectives and the principles that are a part of that particular organization.

If you choose to join a service club, you obligate yourself to function in reference to that service club in the manner that they prescribe. If you join a secret society, whether it’s the elks or the moose or the goats or whatever other things they’ve got, whatever you happen to join, you automatically obligate yourself to cooperate with the standards that make up the organization. If you want to become a part of a certain cult, a certain athletic team, a certain assembly line, a certain religious order, a certain business, I don’t care what it is, there are certain principles that you pledge loyalty to uphold.

That’s the way human society is made. And if you choose not to cooperate, and if you fall out of the line of conformity, you will lose your place within the framework of that organization. If a person fails to become what that society feels is necessary, if he fails to fulfill its purposes and aims, it, he becomes a hindrance to that society and is dismissed from it, set aside. It can be seen, for example, in our own situation in the government. If you do not conform to the standards of the government, the laws the government has set down, you will be taken out of the society, and you will be incarcerated somewhere, where you will no longer be able to hinder the ongoing of the function of society.

If you identify yourself with a certain organization in business, and you fail to live up to that expectation that the organization sets, and you fail to conform to their standards of operation, you will be fired. And that’s the way it is in society. You are called upon to function in accord with that with which you identify. That’s just standard fare. I can’t tell you how many lectures I’ve heard from coaches through the years, in athletics, that have said, look, if you’re not going to do it our way, then get off the team.

Now, that’s a pretty standard approach to anything that we align ourselves with. The old story of marching along with everybody else in the army, and keeping in step, is a part of human society and mentality. Societies, which we identify with socially, economically, politically, demand cooperation and conformity if we are to maintain a place within it. Now, this can become so binding on people that it’s amazing what they will do to conform. I’m utterly amazed at how people will become the organization man to fulfill whatever the organization tells them to fulfill if they think it’ll get them a raise or push them up the ladder a little higher.

I’m amazed at the loyalty of some people to the various lodges and secret societies and things that they belong to and service clubs so that if they miss something somewhere they’ll walk across the burning desert on hands and knees 12 hours in a row to get to a meeting to make sure they don’t violate the code. It’s amazing how people prescribe themselves into such binding things, but that’s part of human society. We love to belong because belonging gives us acceptance. From the time we’re very little, we’re identified with uniforms. We want to be a cub scout, not because we like what cub scouts do, but because we like to have shirts like other cub scouts have, with little things hanging on them.

We want to be in the Awana program because we get a little shirt. We want to be a part of the team because we get to wear the uniform, and I’ve been through it with my kids. The greatest day in our house is the day they give out the uniform for the next thing. Everybody wants to be a part of the team. That’s just part of the human desire to belong and to gain some acceptance and a sense of identity, and it’s amazing how binding it becomes. It can actually trap people in a very bad way.

Let me illustrate that by having you look at the ninth chapter of the Gospel of John. The Lord Jesus Christ had done a wonderful miracle in the ninth chapter of John. He had healed a man who was born blind, and he had healed him for the glory of God, and it was a wonderful thing that he had done. The man had been blind all his life. Jesus spit in some clay and made a little bit of mud and put it on his eyes and told him to wash in the pool of Siloam, and he did, and he came back seeing, and it was a wonderful miracle.

And then, of course, the leaders began to try to investigate the miracle. It’s pretty sad when unbelief investigates a miracle. You never get the right results, and they were very antagonistic to what Jesus had done. And, of course, they first of all wanted to talk to the blind man’s parents to find out what they knew. We come to verse 22. These words spoke his parents because they feared the Jews. What had they said? Verse 21. We don’t want to answer for him. He’s of age. Ask him. He’ll speak for himself. In other words, they wouldn’t acknowledge anything about how he was healed.

They wouldn’t discuss how he was healed. They wouldn’t give credit to Jesus Christ. They wouldn’t give glory to God. They didn’t want to get involved in it at all. And the reason is here. They feared the Jews, for the Jews had agreed already that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue. They were so strictured by the desire for acceptance in the society they had chosen that they would not confess that the sight of their own beloved son had come at the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ, for fear they would lose their social status.

Now, that’s a pretty binding thing, isn’t it? They would not confess the reality of the miracle of their own blind son, because they feared they would get, the Greek says, unsynagogued, excommunicated. And the thing that mattered most to them was not the truth, but it was belonging to the society which they had decided to identify with. And people can identify with things that become so binding to them that they literally become blind to the reality of what they ought to know and ought to be a part of. Had they been thinking they would have immediately wished to identify with the sun and with the one who had made the blind to see, for there was the real power.

Over in the 12th chapter of John and the 42nd verse we find a similar occasion, John 1242. And, of course, the Lord has come and fulfilled prophecy in all of this, and it says in 42, Nevertheless, among the chief rulers also many believed on him but, and that’s a tragic but, because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue, for they loved the praise of men more than, what, the praise of God. The same thing again, they had made such a firm commitment to the society they had chosen that there was no way that they were going to restrict the function they wanted within that society.

They actually damned their own souls to adhere to the code. Incredible. But that’s how it is with man’s willingness to conform to the standards of the group to which he makes his allegiance, and from which he gains a sense of identity. That’s the negative. I can look back in my youth and see myself wanting to belong to fraternities and to certain clubs and athletic letterman’s clubs, and they made us go through some of the most incredible initiations you can ever imagine that I wouldn’t even talk about because you wouldn’t feel good if I did.

And you look back and you say, why would I even bother with that kind of thing? But the drive and the heart of a man is very strong and of a woman to belong, to be a part of something. And in the world it amazes me that when people identify they lock in and they’ll do anything to conform. They want to abide by the principles, they want to be what they need to be, they want to get that acceptance. And you know what happens? When you translate that into the church, something goes wrong.

You get tons of people who come, and a lot of people who want the blessing and the rights and the privileges and the honours. But somewhere along the line they never make the commitment to conform to the standards. It doesn’t seem to be nearly as binding. And maybe it’s because in all of the world’s things Satan is in there, holding it together. But in the church, he’s there trying to rip it apart. And it’s tough to stick with it. Thank you for joining us in this exploration of the lowly walk of our high position.

Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way. [tr:trw].