Facing Prometheus — Week 26 (Sacred Lives in a Secular World) | “Your Living Room as an Upper Room” | Guest: Pastor Josh Bingle, Genesis Church (Spokane, WA)
About the series: We’re currently in Facing Prometheus: A Letter to the Ephesians and the Future Church Dilemma, a 48-week look at how Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus can transform our lives. For more on what the series is about, watch the prequel message here.
Paul urges the Ephesians to walk in a manner worthy of the calling they’ve received. We tend to picture that calling as something out there, at work, at school, or in a dream we’re chasing. But this week’s message relocates it entirely: your greatest calling is to the people who occupy your living room.
This week’s message, closing out the summer’s guest teachers, comes from Pastor Josh Bingle, who has pastored Genesis Church in Spokane, Washington, for sixteen years. Working from Ephesians 4:1–3 and Mark 6:1–6, he brings an invitation: to build your home into a place where Jesus is welcomed, the Spirit is honored, and each person is seen as an uncommon gift, so that by grace your living room can become an upper room.
The Text
“I therefore, a 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 in the bond of peace.”
— Ephesians 4:1–3 (ESV)
“He went away from there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished, saying, ‘Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?’ And they took offense at him. And Jesus said to them, ‘A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.’ And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief.”
— Mark 6:1–6 (ESV)
Your Greatest Calling
Paul’s list in Ephesians 4 can feel unattainable at first read: humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain unity. In the flesh we say, “Yes, but you don’t know my boss, my cousin who just moved in, or how my fifteen-year-old has been acting.” The text is not asking you to do it in your own strength. You have been bought with blood and baptized by fire, and the indwelling Holy Spirit empowers this kind of life.
We usually locate our calling outside the home, in the business we started or the career we’re advancing. But we miss the most important assignment we have.
★★★ Your greatest calling is to the people who occupy your living room.
Nazareth vs. the Upper Room
In Mark 6, Jesus comes to his hometown and can do no mighty work there. That little word matters. Not in general. There. In Nazareth, among his relatives, in his own household. The problem is not that Jesus suddenly ran out of power. The problem is the atmosphere, the climate of that place. Nazareth was a place where honor was low and unbelief was high. They knew Jesus according to the flesh (“Is not this the carpenter?”), and because they were so familiar with his humanity, they could not receive from his divinity.
Now set that next to another room:
Acts 1:14 (ESV) — All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
Acts 2:1, 4a (ESV) — When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place… And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.
The same kinds of people, even Jesus’ own mother and brothers, are in both rooms.
★★ Same people. Two very different rooms. Two very different outcomes.
Building a home where the Holy Spirit loves to rest has little to do with how you were born or who you were born to. You can decide today to elevate the rooms in which you live. Nazareth is ground floor: everything interpreted at street level, processed in the flesh, defined by what’s familiar and irritating and common. The upper room is elevated, and it’s not about the location or the furniture but the posture of the hearts in it. Hands are raised, hearts are raised, expectation is raised. The people go up, and the Holy Spirit descends there.
Every home has a “there,” an atmosphere. The question is not whether your home has a climate; it does. The question is what kind. Is your home Nazareth, ground floor and cynical and offended? Or is it becoming an upper room, marked by the humility, gentleness, patience, and unity Paul describes? Honor is a huge part of the difference between those two rooms.
★★★ Honor is treating something as if it were uncommon. Dishonor is treating something uncommon as if it were common.
Nazareth looked at the Son of God and said, “Isn’t this just the carpenter?” They collapsed the uncommon into the common. And when you treat what God has given you as ordinary, you start to miss the gift standing right in front of you. This is what happens in a lot of homes. It isn’t always fighting; it’s that husbands and wives and parents and children have simply become common to one another. “That’s just how he is.” “That’s just our teenager.” Too few of us still see the people in our homes as the uncommon gifts from God that they are.
Three Components of Honor
Mark 6 shows honor and dishonor in three places: how we see, how we speak, and how we hear.
How we see
Nazareth saw Jesus through old categories and locked him into who he had been, so they couldn’t receive who he had become. Dishonor freezes people in our old experience of them. It says, “I already know who you are and how this conversation is going to go.” Honor refuses to do that.
Honor says, “I may know your history, but I refuse to limit your future to what I have seen so far. I’m not going to reduce you to your worst habit or your loudest flaw. I’m going to relate to you according to the grace of God on your life.” This isn’t denial. Pretending everyone in your home is perfect isn’t spiritual; it’s called denial. This is about posture. A lot of chaos in homes is not a lack of love; it’s a lack of honor, where we only see each other through the lens of frustration.
★★ Honor is love with its work boots on. It’s how love goes to work.
An upper-room home sounds like, “I may be frustrated with you right now, but I still believe you’re an uncommon gift from God to my life.” Pastor Josh described changing how he sees his own kids: the two youngest still run to the window when he gets home, and what once felt like an interruption to his ten minutes of quiet he came to recognize as the most uncommon gift in his life. It wasn’t the platform or the accomplishments; it was them. All that changed was how he saw them.
How we speak
We shape the environment of our home by how we speak in it. In Nazareth, the conversation itself turned amazement into offense. When Jesus began teaching, the people were astonished, but as they kept talking they moved from “Where did this man get these things?” to “Who does he think he is?” The shift happened as they talked. The way we speak to and about each other builds the ceiling over our home. How do you talk about your family when you’re out with friends?
★★ Your job is not to keep each other humble. That’s the Holy Spirit’s job. Your job is to build one another up.
As Romans 12:10 puts it, we’re to outdo one another in showing honor. That means calling each other up into your God-given identity. Husbands, imagine the atmosphere of your home if honoring your wife became normal, noticing where she shines and saying it out loud in front of your kids, blessing her and not just correcting her. Wives, imagine it if honoring your husband became normal, calling out his courage, effort, and growth instead of narrating his failures as though they were his identity. Parents, imagine your kids hearing more about what’s uncommon in them than what’s wrong with them. An upper-room home still tells the truth about sin and hurt, but it never uses that truth to destroy a person’s identity. It can say “what you did hurt me” without saying “you are a failure.”
How we hear
Learn to listen for God’s voice in one another. Nazareth had already decided who Jesus was, so nothing new could get through. Dishonor dulls your ears; honor opens them. If you’ve already decided your spouse is just a certain way, or your teenager has nothing to offer, or your parents are out of touch, you stop listening. Honor keeps the heart open and says, “Lord, if you want to speak to me through this person, I don’t want to miss it.” What if the wisdom you’ve been asking God for is sitting across your kitchen table? What if the warning you need is wrapped in your wife’s concern, or the courage your family needs is wrapped in your husband’s conviction? If you treat the people in your home as common, you’ll miss the uncommon voice of God coming through them.
Closing
When Jesus walks through the front door of your home, what will he find? A Nazareth, ground floor and over-familiar and offended, with a low ceiling? Or an upper room, elevated by honor, unity, and expectation?
If dishonor has been normal, the way out is repentance and blessing. You don’t explain away the biting sarcasm or excuse the contempt or justify the sharp tongue with “that’s just how I am.” You bring it to the Lord: “That’s Nazareth in my mouth, and I don’t want it in my home anymore. Holy Spirit, would you help me?” And then you begin to bless, speaking out loud what is uncommon in your spouse, your children, your parents, until those repeated blessings rebuild the atmosphere there.
A simple, practical step: sometime this week, sit down with your spouse, and with your kids if you can, and ask one question, “Where have I treated you as common?” Then don’t defend it and don’t explain it. Just listen, repent where you need to, and speak the blessing that’s overdue.
★★★ Don’t let “he could do no mighty work there” be written over your address. Make it a home where the Holy Spirit loves to descend and do mighty works.
