Walk This Way

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. We are in the second week of this series called The Way, and I'm excited about it. It's both challenging and rewarding to be studying something for a period of time and to kind of wrap ourselves around that verse from the Gospel of John where Jesus said to his disciples, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And so each week we're kind of focusing on what that all means. Today we're looking at the way that we have been called and the way of that calling, how we walk in the way. From Ephesians chapter 4, verses 1 to 3, our passage is short for a change. And it says this, I therefore, prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. Though it's short, this passage, what's behind it might be simple, but it is profound and I think it's life-changing when people realize the depth and breadth and width and height of the calling that God has in their lives. So we're wrapping ourselves around this, right? G.K. Chesterton said this one time. He said the Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found difficult and left untried. What he said a couple hundred or a hundred and some years ago is still true today. A lot of people hear the words of Jesus and keep him at a distance and think about it from a distance and go, isn't that interesting? That might be nice. I like some of what he has to say, but Jesus doesn't give us that option. Jesus says, I am the way, the truth and the life. And when he says those words, he's calling to us. He's inviting us into a relationship that's personal and deep and intimate. It's another way that he says, follow me, trust in me, rely on me. Now, like I said at the beginning of the series last week, each sermon is kind of building on each other to an extent. At least that's my intent. I don't know. We're going to try to do that. We're kind of seeing the multifaceted way Jesus is the way and what is the way that we lead. So each week we're going to be looking at God's ways in our life and how that works, the ways of God and how he calls us to follow. And then we're also going to be seeing the dead ends, the ways that we try to go and how they are dead ends. Today, we're just looking at two aspects of this passage in Ephesians. First of all, the way of calling, as I mentioned, we have been called versus, I think, the dead end way of a career and thinking about career in our lives. OK, and then secondly, we're talking about walking in that way versus just kind of knowing about it from a distance. So let's look at the way of calling. I don't know if you realize this. You have been called. You are called by God. Do you realize that? Do you know what the calling really means? You've been called by the gospel. And it's so different from just having a career or an occupation or a job or just trying to figure out why am I here on planet Earth? I'll tell you, it's fascinating. This next week in my leadership class at FGCU, we're going to be looking at this question of purpose and meaning in life. Most people today that I have met, it's been a shift. It's been a shift from 20, 30 years ago to today. Most people are not even asking the question, what is the purpose and meaning in my life? What direction am I really going? Most people are just trying to get a job and to get by and to have a good time. And I think it's by a shift because there's been a shift throughout this world ever since in Western civilization, at least. We've gotten into this period called the Enlightenment, which was to kind of cast off the authority of anyone above us, whether it's the government or kings and queens, etc. And also the church that would tell us what to believe or to do. And now we're going to figure it out for ourselves. We have found that it's kind of like a puppet cutting his own strings. Our lives are kind of a little lost and powerless and we're not quite sure. There's a man named, and I brought this up before, Martin Heidegger. He was a philosopher. Very hard to understand. I really don't get him that much, but he lived in Germany in the 1930s, etc. And he said the common experience of human beings in this world, he tied up in this German world called Geworfenheit. It's kind of like Farfignan and all those other words, you know, you just kind of like, wow, German can put these words together. How do they do that? Geworfenheit, which meant that the experience most human beings have is to be thrown out into this world, just like cast out like a dirty rag or just thrown out into the middle of this chaos. It's like, there you go. Good luck. Figure it out. And so when I asked the students to come up with a purpose and meaning in life, the best, fir...