Walking Tall Meadowbrooke Church

If you are born again, you are alive with Christ! If you are born again, everything listed in Ephesians 1:3-14 is true of you! In those twelve verses the phrase: In Him or in Christ is stated. Before we even touch Ephesians 4:1-3, I want you to marvel over what it means to be in Christ. In Jesus, I can now know the God for whom I was made. In Jesus God no longer sees my sin, but the righteousness of His Son. In Jesus, I am becoming more and more like the person I was born to be. In Jesus, I have redemption and am now a child of God instead of an enemy; here are eighteen other reasons to celebrate what it means to be in Christ.:

In Christ, I am justified freely by His grace (Rom. 3:24)
In Christ, I am now Gods child (1 Peter 1:3)
In Christ, I am forgiven of all my sins (Eph. 1:7; Heb. 9:14)
In Christ, I have peace (John 14:27)
In Christ, I am loved by God the Father (John 16:27)
In Christ, I belong to God (John 17:9)
In Christ, I will never be forsaken or abandoned by God (John 10)
In Christ, I am treasured by God (1 Peter 1-2)
In Christ, I am the righteousness of Christ (2 Cor. 5:21)
In Christ, there is for me NO condemnation (Rom. 8:1)
In Christ, God is working all things together for my good (Rom. 8:28)
In Christ, I have obtained an inheritance that only God alone can give (Eph. 1:11)
In Christ, I am a new creation the old is gone and the new has come (2 Cor. 5:17)
In Christ, I am a son/daughter of God (Gal. 4:6)
In Christ, I am no longer a stranger or alien, but a fellow citizen with the saints (Eph. 2:19)
In Christ, I am a member of the body of Christ (Eph. 3:6)
In Christ, I am set apart for the mission of God (Eph. 2:10)
In Christ, I am loved by an everlasting God (1 John 4:19)


Paul begins verse four with the word, Therefore. When you read your Bible, this word serves as a clue that in light of what has been written, what you are about to read next is in response to what proceeded it. Another way to say it is: In light of Ephesians 1-3, this is how you are to behave. How are we to behave? Since we are alive in Christ, we are to walk as the spiritually living. Since we are not the only ones made alive in Christ, we should walk together as the living. I want to look at both of those points Paul makes in the verses that follow.

How to Walk as the Living
Paul begins with these words: Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, urge you (v. 1a). So far in his epistle this is only the second place when Paul tells his readers to do something. The first time Paul told the Ephesians they had to do something, it was in 2:12, remember that you were. Remember what Paul? Remember who you were and who you now are! In Ephesians 4:1, Paul is not telling these Christians to remember their identity in Christ but to walk in step with their identity as those who have been called out of death into life with Christ.

There are two words I want you to notice that I will call, The Two Ws of the Christian life. The first word is walk, and the second word is worthy. The Ws of the Christian life serve as evidence that you are alive in Jesus and no longer dead in your sins. When Paul uses the word walk in his epistle, he is referring metaphorically to the way a person lives out their life ethically. Paul uses the word walk thirty-two times in his epistles, eight of which are used in Ephesians, and every time it is used metaphorically!

In Ephesians 2:1-2, our walk was governed by a Christless life: And you were dead in your offenses and sins, in which you previously walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. In Colossians Paul also described the way the Christian used to walk, listen to the way he uses the word, walk in Colossians 3:5-7, Therefore, treat the parts of your earthly body as dead to sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath o