Why Do Vows Matter?
How do we spiritually mature to handle the vows we accept in our life?
Scripture: Ephesians 4:1-6, 11-13
If I were to ask you: "did you murder anybody this week?" I pray the answer would be a swift "no, of course not!" According to the law of the land that you live in, you've made a vow that you would not kill anyone. I hope that everybody reading this would agree that you were supposed to keep that vow.
What if we ease off the intensity and ask whether you stole anything this week. We might have 9.5/10 readers respond that they did not. Maybe you stole something big, or more likely, you took something smaller. You might try to define or defend your reasoning. "It was just a pencil from work." Or "they'll never know it's missing." But again, we are called to make vows in this world, both in our secular world and in our spiritual world, that we will not steal. It's in The Ten Commandments, after all.
Now, let's try it another way: Have you been faithful in your marriage? This one gets a little more personal, doesn't it? Some of us would say, "We've had struggles though." Jesus defines this in a more specific way when He talks about the infidelity of our thoughts, but we're not talking about that. We're referencing the fundamental vows of marriage. Were those suggestions on your wedding day? Again, we take those seriously, even if we have fallen or are struggling.
So why is it that churches spend so much time every year trying to convince you to be a good steward? You wouldn't kill anybody. "Thou shalt not murder." You're not supposed to steal. "Thou shalt not steal." But if you have been confirmed, if you have been baptized, or if you have joined the church, you made a vow. At that moment, you said, I will support the church with my prayers, presence, gifts, and service. It was not a suggestion; they were vows.
As humans, it's easy to forget vows when they're not in front of us all the time. We're not even talking about giving and being good stewards of a budget right now. If we are committed to the vows that we made as members in the life of our church, then our budget is going to be okay.
If we took these vows, it means that we're going to be present for one another in difficult times. We're going to walk with each other and gather in community together. We're going to spend time building the depth of our spiritual roots. We're going to know Jesus more so that we can be His hands and feet in the world.
As a member of a fellowship, but more importantly, as a member of the Body of Christ, why do the vows you made matter? You didn't take them to a pastor, staff, or an administrative council. You made them to God. Just as I asked, did you murder anyone? And you would say, "Well, gosh, no, Shane, I would never do that." How is it then that we can decide that other vows we've made are just not as important?
“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 bodyand 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)
“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.” (Ephesians 4:11-13)
We come to church to worship because of the community of faith bound together and what it means for the Body to be together. When you go into the world, go to work, and go to play, you are no less a Christian, and you are no less the Church. When you became part of the family, you were given a gift, you were given a place, and you were given a part of what it means to belong to the Body.
What are the vows of a Christian life?
1) The Christian life is about being unified together as the Body.
How many times does Paul talk about a body that becomes dismembered? To have something dismembered from the Body is painful, and it isn't easy. But, being one unified means you have a fully equipped body that is there to accommodate, support and prosper the other parts.
2) The Christian life is about growing up.
One day we all have to grow up. We call it 'adulting' in our house. I'd much rather live in my Xbox world, where I can win national championships, but ‘adulting’ requires great expectation and responsibility. Growing up means developing your spiritual walk with Christ. It also encourages you to find people to hold you accountable to ensure you're upholding your vows.
3) The Christian life is about being stable in your walk with Jesus.
Paul gives the example of this as being a boat on the ocean tossed back and forth. Do you feel that right now you're living disabled or unstable? How many of you think right now that you don't have any solid ground under you? You wonder what's coming next in your life. Paul says you don't have to live that way forever. But the way that you grow up is to learn how to follow Jesus. Through learning to follow, our Christian life comes together. We are more willing to grow up and be unified in the Body.
On multiple occasions, I've told my children, "I would sometimes rather be back in my mother's house, in my little bedroom in the back, where I knew that I didn't have to worry about paying the bills." But to have the blessings of what adulthood brings, we have to learn how to take that responsibility. And that's precisely what Paul is saying to the Ephesians in today's scripture: Stop acting like children, mature in your faith and commit to your vows.
How do we spiritually mature?
“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.” (Ephesians 4:1-2)
How do we live that life that is worthy of the calling that we have received in Jesus? That sounds like a gigantic task. The first thing he says is to be completely humble and gentle. To find this humility, you must first learn to realize that it's not about you. That sounds a lot like regular adulthood, doesn't it? But that's how good relationships grow: realizing it's not about you.
Let's expand on humility. In Greek, it's the exact opposite of the word that they would use for pride. Jesus knows the lie that Satan tells you is that nothing in your life is more important than watching out for number one. Secure what's yours. Satan doesn't tell you what happens the more you rely only on yourself when things get difficult and heavy. Pride has some advantages in this world, but the downside of pride is that there's no one to catch you except you.
The real measure of your Christian walk is no greater or more shallow than who you are when no one else is watching. You cannot be a Christian in this world unless you are willing to be humble and gentle. Genuine humility happens when there is no one around to enforce your vows. You can sit on the edge of right and wrong, but how you fall is determined by where your heart is.
I wish Jesus would have just given us a few more rules and said, "look, if you keep a B, C, and D…” that would have been so much easier. But Jesus says, you know how people will know that you're a follower of mine? They'll know that you’re a Christian by the way you treat others. We're getting serious, aren't we? Mainly by the way I treat my wife, Pokey. Do you want to know why? Because I stood in front of God and said what? Not that I would sign a contract, but that I made a covenant to treat her a certain way.
Let me take you back to when you were baptized. You made a covenant. It's a covenant, just like your marriage vows. You keep that marriage covenant with your prayers, presence, gifts, and service. So why is it so easy for us to keep one and break the other? Why is it so easy for us sometimes to break them both?
Think about your neighbor, your coworker, or the person you sat next to on the bus. Mentally, tell them that you're going to be the kind of Christian they expect you to be. We all love the statement. I'm going to treat others as I would like to be treated. It is so easy for us to get into the dynamic of either keeping the rules we like or less the ones we don't.
Paul says if you're going to be a Christian, you should be completely humble and gentle. Be patient and bear with one another in love, and make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
There are two relationships where we are asked to be available with each other no matter how much money we have, no matter how smart we are, no matter how good-looking we are, no matter how many troubles we have, no matter how many mistakes we've made. The only two places are when you make that covenant in marriage and to your church. Think about that. Paul said everyone has been gifted a gift. And one gift is not more important than the other. But all of us have been called to live in peace. The word Paul uses is to be 'unified.'
The world is full of disagreements. Someone asked me the other day why were there so many disagreements? I said it's because we do not know how to agree. We will disagree about things in the world, but we don't know how to decide about the most important thing and be together.
We can't even agree on what it means to wear a mask or not wear a mask. Or whether or not we are vaccinated or not vaccinated. It's not whether you've put them on one side or the other. We don't know how to sit in a room and talk about it anymore. When the ultimate goal for my worldly and spiritual brother or sister should be "I may not agree with everybody on every situation, but certainly we can agree that we don't want something to befall them."
Where did we lose that ability to be at peace?
Sadly, this isn't new to the world. We're pretty good at being discontent and disagreeing. And that's why God sent us Jesus. Because we're not enough. As members of the Body of Christ, we do not know how to agree because we have forgotten what it means to follow Jesus. It is that simple. The world will not know how good a Christian you are by your ideology or political leanings; they will only know how good a Christian I am by how I treat my brother or sister.
You've been called to be the bride of Christ. When you stand at the altar, you make certain vows. Even more important than the vows you made to your actual bride or groom. And it's not until death does us part because Jesus has made way for that. He conquered the grave. He's given us new life.
One day, when we gather in heaven, we'll be brothers and sisters. But together, we will be the bride of the Savior. And those vows that you made about your presence, prayers, gifts, and service, they matter right now.
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About Christ Church Memphis
Christ Church Memphis is church in East Memphis, Tennessee. For more than 65 years, Christ Church has served the Memphis community. Every weekend, there are multiple worship opportunities including traditional, contemporary and blended services.
