There are a few ways to join together two pieces of wood. You can bash a nail into them, or screw them together. But if you wanted to hide the join you would use glue. You take the pieces of wood apply glue to the surface and then put them together under great pressure. In many ways, building the Church is like joining together blocks of wood. We are all individuals but we must be joined to each other for us to be a Church. How does this happen? With glue. It is God the Holy Spirit who applies the glue that joins us together. What is this glue? It is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. Since this is true, as one united family in the covenant community You Are To Live Lives Worthy Of Your Calling.

First there is The Challenge To Live Worthily. Paul throws out the challenge to his readers. He does so from his prison cell in Rome (v 1). This in itself is testimony to his own responsibility to the covenant community. He hadn't capitulated in the face opposition.

The word “then” links the rest of the letter to the first part. Paul has explained the doctrines of salvation and of the Church and now he is about to show how this operates in your life. This should show you that all doctrine is vital to Christian life. You can't live a proper Christian life if you don't have correct doctrine. Wrong doctrine always leads to wrong living. You prove that you know your doctrine not by how you can talk about it, but by how you live it out in your life. This phrase “I urge you” means to beseech, to exhort, to encourage. Notice Paul doesn't wave the big stick at them or try manipulate them. Instead he pleads with them. He puts the ball in our court. He doesn't say “if you do this then God will do this for you”. How will you respond to God's grace? The responsibility is yours.

There is a standard to measure all this by. You do not have to guess about it all.  Paul calls you to live your life, “worthy of the calling you have received”. What does he mean? He is reminding you of what you were, dead men walking, and what God has done for you already. The idea here is that as you walk through life, you are to strive to live up to your high calling. You have been called to be worthy of Jesus Christ. It is a bit like saying that a car is worth $20,000. It is worthy of having that much spent on it. It is the same with you. What value do you place on your salvation? Is it worth you living your life in humble obedience to God.

In one sense the calling that Paul is referring to is your  conversion, that is that moment in time when you believed. But it goes further than that. It is also the nature of what you’ve been called to be. God has called you into the covenant community. This covenant community is viewed in two ways. Firstly, it is one people who are united-Jew & Gentile. Secondly it is a separated people. You are cut off from those who are still outside the covenant. Another way saying this is that the covenant community is a holy people. God, who called us, is united & holy therefore you and I are to be united & holy. Unity & purity are two fundamental features of a life that is worthy of the Church's divine calling.

This challenge of Paul’s will fall on deaf ears unless you are certain you have received the calling. You cannot have the appropriate conduct of the covenant community unless you are in that community. Have you received the calling? Do you trust in Jesus Christ as you only Lord and Saviour?

The Response of appropriate conduct. Paul begins to look at some real situations. He gives us the 5 points of moral conduct. Please take notice of the fact that he doesn't give a program of structures but points to how you are to behave.

1) “Be completely humble”. This quality was as despised in the powerful Roman empire as it is in our day. Yet it is a necessary quality of true Christian experience. This was the experience of Jesus Christ, who humbled Himself to be born on earth for your sake (Philippians 2:3-11). Opposite of humility is pride and this brings division and strife.

2) gentleness (meekness) Now meekness is not weakness. It doesn't mean just letting yourself be walked all over by the strong & mighty. It is strength under control. The word is used for things like a colt that had been broken in or a soft wind, power that is under control. Jesus was meek but also drove the traders out of the temple. He did it for glory God not his own ends.

3) patience & 4) forbearance form a pair. This is exactly how God treated us as sinners. He has been patient with us. You are to be patient with one another in all of life’s situations. There is no escaping this, You and I can't justify our tempers by saying, “that’s just how I am!” God's word demands a change of behaviour.

5) All the above is to be done in love. Love sums up the rest. Love is the cement that binds us together. Love should be the characteristic of the covenant community. This is what Tertullian said about the early Church, “It is our care for the helpless, our practice of loving kindness, that brands us in the eyes of many of our opponents. ‘Look!’ they say. ‘How they love one another! Look how they are prepared to die for one another.’” Could this be said of us?  Do you love others like this? Love is the new commandment (John 13:34-35). You and I must not let the world set the agenda here. Love is not the sickly love of pop songs, TV & movies which in reality is mere lust. Instead it is the biblical love that involves giving selflessly of oneself for the good of others. It is giving, full stop. It is not giving to get back in return. It is not a “I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine” mentality.

Paul views the Church as a community which has its Unity Centred in God. In this passage Paul emphasises the concept of unity by useing the word one 7 times. Why should you “make every effort to keep the unity of peace (v3)”? God Himself is unified, He is the three in one. You and I worship the one God who is sovereign over all. Just as God is one so the Church is to be one. In many ways our part in all of this is relatively easy. It is up to us to work hard to maintain what is already a fact. You are called to keep unity not to create it. God has created it. Look at where man’s attempt to create unity has led. After almost twenty years, our friends in the so-called Uniting Church are still deeply divided. Remember that unity is not uniformity. You can have uniformity but no union. For example in an army, everyone in the same uniform but different personalities. There is often division, sometimes even coups. God expects you to make every effort, to give due diligence, to be eager, to make every effort to maintain this unity. That is every effort short of compromising the truth. This unity is the unity of the Spirit. This is not just talking about outward signs & symbols. Rather, it is about the inward work of the Spirit of God. He has bound us together in one building or body.  This unity of the Spirit is summed up in the the list that Paul states-one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God & Father.