The Gift of God’s Increase

Scripture Text: Ephesians 4:1-16

Paul begins this chapter with the words “As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.”
The phrases “as a prisoner” and “live a life worthy of the calling” don’t seem to fit well. Most of the prisoners that I have known over the years didn’t see much worth in their lives behind bars, and they were hardly called to prison, they were taken against their will. But an exceptional few have expressed the thought that their time behind bars did make their lives worthy, that the months and years did improve their lot, as well as that of others, and that, as much as they would never say that they enjoyed their sentence, they did see it as a form of God’s calling them out of their former life.

The second verse in this passage is also interesting, in that it tells us to be totally humble in every way, to be gentle, patient, and bearing each other up with love.
These are hardly the ways of the world – there are no words that even suggest that we seek authority, power, wealth or strength, and as a matter of fact, our “calling” is to let all of those things go! Why? Because the “increases” of earth can never become the blessings of eternity!

A story is told of the time that the devil visited a lawyer’s office and made him an offer. “I can arrange some things for you,” the devil said. “I’ll increase your income five hundred percent. Your partners will love you; your clients will respect you; you’ll have four months of vacation each year and live to be a hundred. All I require in return is that your wife’s soul, your children’s souls and their children’s souls become mine for eternity.”
The lawyer thought for a moment, then replied. “So what’s the catch?”

The catch, of course, is that his gain will only last 100 years, but the sentence that his wife and family would have to endure will be forever. But isn’t a 100 years a long time? By this life’s standards, yes it is, but by that of eternity, it is a mere pittance!

All too often, people, and even many Christians, think that God’s blessings mean glory right here on earth. They strive for the best job, the perfect marriage, personal recognition, wealth, authority, envy of the masses, a successful and easy life. And while some do manage to attain those things, even some Christians, they aren’t lasting, even by earth’s standards. The wealthy and powerful are always looking over their shoulders, watching for that “ladder climber” who just might step on them and knock them down a few rungs.
No matter how good the job, it never seems to be quite good enough. No matter how perfect the marriage, there will always be those difficult times, as there is in every relationship. No matter how great the wealth and authority and power, there is always the desire to get “just a little more:”! No matter much we may be envied for the life we have attained, there is always someone else whose life we envy. No matter how blessed we may be here, there will always be flaws and failures and faults.

In the book “Let the Little Children Come” by Lois Dick and Amy Carmichael, they write:
God works with souls like a jeweler works with gems. Once he finds and brings them to the light, they are cut, polished and placed in a setting of his choice.
In the natural state, diamonds appear as hard, irregular lumps that shine only with a greasy luster and not at all with their finished brilliance. Their beauty is given them by the skill of the stonecutter, who grinds and polishes their surfaces so that they sparkle.
It’s not the size of a diamond, but the light reflected that gives the stone its value. The Tiffany diamond, now valued at $2,000,000, was cut from 287.42 carats down to 128.51 carats, with 90 facets, making it into a [gem type of] sun. When displayed in the Fifth Avenue store window, it could be seen all the way across the street.
The only way the value of a diamond can be increased is by cutting. Experts in Paris studied the Tiffany diamond for one year before a single blow was struck in the cutting ....
Diamond is, of course, crystallized carbon, the hardest substance in existence. It has been through the fire. The diamonds that reflect the most light have received the roughest treatment. Yet the greatest care is taken by the jeweler not to damage the stone in any way. Every flaw must be cut out, even a microscopic flaw. -Lois Hoadley Dick, Amy Carmichael, Let the Little Children Come (Chicago: Moody Press, 1984), 149.

My friends, we are those rough, unpolished, unattractive lumps of crystallized carbon, with our precious value hidden away until the Master Craftsman cuts our flaws away and polishes us to perfection. It will take violence, pressure, heat, and loss before that bit of carbon can move from worthlessness to lasting worthiness. And that definitive worth will never be achieved in this world – this life is the time of violence, pressure, heat and loss.
But the choice is still up to us – do we look to the temporary pleasures and accomplishments of earth, or to the ultimate glory of eternity with Christ? For just a moment, think about all that the early church went through in their “polishing”. The disciples left lives of relative certainty to follow one of absolute hardship. 1st century believers were subject to extreme persecution by family and friends, as well as the government and established religion. They were subject to the words of false teachers who did more to lead them away from Christ than they did to bring them closer. And at times, the church was its own worse enemy – consider our sinful failures in efforts like the Crusades and the Inquisition!
And the polishing and cutting of our faults and flaws continue to continue to reveal more and more, even today. When our lives are subjected to ridicule and oppression through the misunderstanding, and even hatred, of others, will we hold up in faith, or cave in to the overwhelming pressure? When we experience the sinfulness of the world, will we respond as Christ in the world, or as the world alone?
Some misguided Christians come to believe that the best way to preserve life in the “yet to be born” is to end the lives of those who perform abortions. Hardly the way of Christ!
We judge the lives and hearts of those who believe differently than we do, and pronounce a sentence of condemnation on them. Not exactly our job!
We take pride in our “polishing”, and decide that others still have a long ways to go before they even begin to shine as brightly as we do.
We envy the gifts that others have, and even think that we could do those things far better, if only we were given a chance.

But as we read our passage for today, we discover in verse 11 that each of us has been given great gifts for use in this world, and that each of us is to apply those gifts “12to prepare God’s people for works of service”. That is how God increases our value – not by giving us more worth and prestige and possessions, but by preparing us and enabling us to be servants. It isn’t that we are the grand leader, the head of the church – we are the humble body parts, lead by our glorious Head, Jesus Christ Himself.

All too many folks think that our increase is given by the surface luster of Jabez’s prayer (1 Chronicles 4:9-10) – that our influence and possessions will increase, that nothing bad will ever happen to us, that our worth will be based on the world’s criteria. But nothing could be farther from the truth! We must see that prayer in the depth that it is offered - that the increase in territory is really the extent of our service, not the weight of our gold; that the harm that we wish to avoid is, in truth, the divine polishing and cutting of God; that freedom from pain doesn’t mean an absence from discomfort – it is the freedom from worldly fears that hold us back and hold us down.

God’s increase comes to us in our surrender, not in our success.
It comes when we submit to His Will and when we set our own will aside.
It comes in the heat and polishing and cutting that removes our filth and worthlessness, and reveals our God given worthiness.
Our glory comes, not from our being raised up in admiration, but in the strengthening of the whole in 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.”

Any increase that may come from the work of the Church and her people is never for us – it is for Christ and the Church as a whole. While the world looks for individual glory and reward, Christians look forward to simply basking in the glory and reward that is Christ, and allowing the light of Christ to shine through them, to be obvious to the most casual observer, even at great distances.