Welcome to Truth for Life, where today we begin a study in the fourth chapter of the

book of Ephesians.

Alistur Begg introduces the study by considering the foundational doctrine behind the

Apostle Paul's exhortation to walk in a manner

worthy of the calling.

So what comes first in the Christian faith?

Our belief or our behavior?

Let's find out.

What we're going to discover as we work our way through the balance of the letter is that

all of these imperatives, exhortations, calls to activity are the outworking of the instruction

which is contained here just in one verse.

I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling

to which you have been called. He wants those who are in Christ to live out their lives

as the followers of Christ. He identifies himself as at the beginning

of Chapter 3 as a prisoner for the Lord. He is in prison. He doesn't make a fuss about it. It

is a fact of his existence at this point. He doesn't ask for sympathy. In actual fact,

he writes and he wrote a great deal, and his

urgent sense is not for his discharge or for his release, but is for those to whom he writes

here in Ephesus to become all that God intends for them to be. Now, I want us to notice just a few simple things regarding

this, and the first is that the order is important. He doesn't start with the practical,

he starts with the doctrinal. He starts by explaining what is true in Christ, what it means to be in Christ, before he then calls

them to live for Christ. And as we work our way through, that will become apparent. And indeed,

...