How can you be sure that anything is true? Today you can find what seems to be knowledgeable, expert advice on every side of every issue, from economic policy to the use of face masks during pandemics. And where it comes to matters of faith, so many individuals and traditions have mutually conflicting opinions, don’t they?

Well, the good news is that God hasn’t left us to wonder what He thinks and what He wants. Instead, as Paul reminds us in chapter 4 and verse 11, God has given us the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament apostles to record His Word and His will for us in the Scriptures. And God still provides evangelists to take His word to new frontiers, as well as pastors and teachers to help all of us understand it and apply it to our lives.

For when you get right down to it, God’s will isn’t a matter of anyone’s individual opinion. No, there’s only one Lord, one faith, and one baptism (4:5), and that’s because there’s only one God Who made us all, and one Savior Who paid the price for the sins of people from every tribe and tongue and nation all over the world throughout all of history.

But God hasn’t given us His truth just so that we can keep it to ourselves. No, instead of engaging in any falsehood (4:25), or any corrupting talk (4:29), God calls us to speak the truth to one another in love (4:15), sharing the good news of Christ so that we might not only grow closer to Him but to everyone else who also looks to Him in faith.

So even though God has given leaders to His church, we are all called to do the work of ministry (4:12), to spread the truth and the love of Christ with everyone. And as we not only share the gospel but live out Christ’s life of self-sacrificial, unconditional service, well, it will be hard for anyone to deny the truth about Him, won’t it?

Ephesians 4:1-32 (NASB)

I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called,
2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love,
3 being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling;
5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
6 one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.
7 But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.
8 Therefore it says, “When He ascended on high, He led captive a host of captives, And He gave gifts to men.”
9 (Now this expression, “He ascended,” what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth?
10 He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)
11 And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers,
12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ;
13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ.
14 As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming;
15 but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ,
16 from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
17 This I say therefore, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind,
18 being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart;
19 and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality, for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.
20 But you did not learn Christ in this way,
21 if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus,
22 that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit,
23 and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind,
24 and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.
25 Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth, each one of you, with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.
26 Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger,
27 and do not give the devil an opportunity.
28 Let him who steals steal no longer; but rather let him labor, performing with his own hands what is good, in order that he may have something to share with him who has need.
29 Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, that it may give grace to those who hear.
30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.
32 And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.