Facing Prometheus — Week 23 | “A Worthy Life” | Guest: Pastor Paul Andrew, Barnabas Network & The Pastors Collective
The series has been working through the household codes of Ephesians 5 and 6 for several weeks now. This week the passage turns a corner. Ephesians 4 opens the second half of the letter, and with it Paul shifts from theology to practice: what does it actually look like to live out everything he has just taught? The answer he gives is not a program or a method. It is a posture, one that begins with knowing you are loved and flows outward into the life of a community.
This week’s message comes from Pastor Paul Andrew, founder of the Barnabas Network and the Pastors Collective, and one of The Well’s overseers. Pastor Paul served as Pastor Jason’s youth pastor more than twenty years ago, and today works full-time providing soul care, retreats, and resources to pastors and leaders around the country. From Ephesians 4:1–16, he delivers three challenges to the church that he argues may be more needed today than when Paul first wrote them.
Ephesians 4:1–16
“As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”
— Ephesians 4:1–6 (ESV)
Paul writes this from prison, suffering for preaching the gospel. And from that cell, his instruction is not to survive but to live a life worthy of the calling received. What does he mean by worthy?
- He does not mean earning salvation by works. He already settled that in chapter 2: salvation is the free gift of God, not of works.
- He does not mean proving you deserve God’s love. We can’t and we don’t.
- He does not mean becoming acceptable through virtue or good deeds.
★★★ A worthy life is a life fitting of the grace received. It reflects the identity Jesus paid for with his blood on the cross.
Because of what Jesus did, cancelling sin and death and bridging the divide we could not cross, the new identity of every believer is son or daughter of the most high living God. A worthy life is simply living like you actually believe that to your very core.
The practical picture of that life comes in verse two: completely humble, completely gentle, patient, bearing with one another in love. That is a high bar. It does not sound like the world we live in, and if we are honest, it does not always sound like the church either. Paul does not apologize for the standard. He issues three challenges to the Ephesians, and to us, that show us how to get there.
1. Protect Unity
Ephesians 4:3–6 (ESV) — Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Before getting to our differences, Paul hammers what we all have in common, and he does it with a single repeated word: one. One body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. For all the ways the body of Christ differs, we share one God and one Father.
★★ How is it that we are so quick to judge, attack, condemn, and hate others who have the same God and Father as us?
What destroys unity? Assuming the motives of others. Gossip. Being quick to take offense. Tribalism. Social media trolling. Refusing to forgive. Demanding that everyone thinks exactly like us. Treating difference as threat.
A note on what unity is not: unity is not the absence of disagreement. It would be naive to expect everyone to agree. The disciples disagreed and wrestled with important things but came out the other side united. That is the goal.
★★ Unity is choosing love over the need to be right or the need to win.
What does protecting unity look like practically? We do not walk away from community because of something or someone we do not like. We do not attack people online. We go and talk to them. We do not assume the worst. When we do not understand or are bothered by something, we lead with: “Help me understand. What did you mean by that?” Conflict navigated with integrity and purity of heart tends to produce teams that come out the other side stronger, more united, and more trusting of one another.
But there is a higher reason to fight for it than simply getting along better. Jesus prays for this directly:
John 17:20–23 (ESV) — I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
The standard Jesus prays for is the same oneness seen in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And the reason he gives is striking: our oneness gives the gospel power and credibility to those who have not yet followed him. The world has little reason to think the gospel is compelling if the people who claim it fight, dishonor each other, and act exactly like everybody else. But when they see something different — people who figured out how to come back, forgive, and work together for something bigger than themselves — that peaks the curiosity of a lost and dying world.
★★★ We protect unity because it is the prize and the proof of the gospel.
2. Embrace Diversity
Ephesians 4:7 (ESV) — But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.
Ephesians 4:11–13 (ESV) — So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Having established unity as the foundation, Paul now turns to diversity — and frames it as equally a gift from Christ. Unity is not uniformity. We can be different and yet united. In fact, the differences are the point.
★★ Our gifts make us different, which is exactly why we need each other. None of us has everything. Together we do.
Paul names five gift mixes in this passage — apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers — each wired differently:
- Apostles are entrepreneurial, always advancing the kingdom, starting and moving things forward.
- Prophets are deeply concerned with holiness, the voice of God, faithfulness, and justice.
- Evangelists are always asking about the lost, always wanting to include people.
- Pastors are concerned about the well-being of the people right in front of them.
- Teachers are always drawn back to truth, the word of God, and alignment.
And here is the point Pastor Paul wants to drive home: these gifts were not given so that a few supertalented people could do all the ministry while everyone else follows along. The gifts were given for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry. What happens on a Sunday morning is equipping. The ministry happens Monday through Saturday, wherever you work, with your neighbors, in your school, on your team.
★★★ You are in the ministry.
Diversity goes well beyond the five gifts. Men and women are different. Generations are different. Cultural heritage, socioeconomic background, personality, and political perspective all bring beauty and dimension to the body of Christ. Jesus’ twelve disciples were an almost impossibly eclectic group: Matthew, a tax collector despised by every Israelite for collecting taxes for Rome, alongside Simon the Zealot, a radical political extremist trying to overthrow Rome. Loud, impulsive Peter alongside those who barely say a word in the gospels. Two brothers they nicknamed “Sons of Thunder.” Thomas, who struggled to believe. Jesus brought them all together.
Before writing off someone who seems confusing or opposite or difficult, it helps to pause and remember: they, too, bear the image of God. Every single human carries the imago Dei. That changes how we engage.
★★ The Well becomes stronger when every person here realizes: God gave me something that only I can contribute.
3. Grow Together in Maturity
Ephesians 4:14–16 (ESV) — Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
When the first two foundations are in place — unity and an embraced diversity — the third becomes possible: growing together in maturity. Without them, the result is immaturity: tossed by waves, blown by every wind of teaching, susceptible to the cunning and deceit Paul warns about here.
With them, something different happens. Paul names it: speaking the truth in love.
★★ A lot of people run around with some version of truth and zero love. A lot of people run around with a whole lot of love and have abandoned truth. Both fail. We need truth spoken in a spirit of love.
What is maturity? Paul defines it as growing to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. If Christ is the head and the church is the body, then maturity is Christlikeness. Not the memorization of more verses — you could memorize the entire Bible and still be a jerk, and the Pharisees proved it. Knowledge that does not transform the heart misses the point entirely. The question is simpler than that:
★★ Would the Jesus I see in Scripture say this? Would he do this? Would he treat people this way? That is the rule of thumb for Christlikeness.
The body metaphor holds it all together. A body needs its parts to stay connected — that is unity. The liver does something different than the kidney, the lung something different than the brain and the eye — that is diversity. And when the parts work together in their proper function, the body grows. Maturity says: I care more about the impact of the whole than about the individual part I play.
Verse 16 is the key: “From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”
★★★ As each part does its work. You have a part to play. You have a share to carry. God gave you something that only you can contribute.
Closing
Protect unity. Embrace diversity. Grow together in maturity. Three challenges from a man writing from prison, and they may be more urgent now than when he first wrote them. Living a worthy life is not about earning anything or proving anything. It is about living from the revelation that you are already loved, the way a son who grew up hearing “Hey, I love you” carries that certainty into every hard moment — and then living outward from that love in a way that makes the gospel compelling to everyone watching.
★★ It’s impossible to live this way without Jesus. But with him, the power of the Holy Spirit works a transformation from the inside out that no amount of willpower can produce on its own.
The message closed with an invitation to begin a relationship with God: to surrender, ask for forgiveness, and commit to following Jesus. Hands went up across every service, and all of heaven celebrated each one.
