Put Off The Old, Put On The New: Tips For Christian Living In Ephesians 4 Series

What does it mean to be worldly?

“The Bible defines worldliness by centering morality where we intuitively know it should be. Worldliness is the lust of the flesh (a passion for sensual satisfaction), the lust of the eyes (an inordinate desire for the finer things of life), and the pride of life (self-satisfaction in who we are, what we have, and what we have done). Worldliness, then, is a preoccupation with ease and affluence. It elevates creature comfort to the point of idolatry; large salaries and comfortable life-styles become necessities of life.

Worldliness is reading magazines about people who live hedonistic lives and spend too much money on themselves and wanting to be like them. But more importantly, worldliness is simply pride and selfishness in disguises. It's being resentful when someone snubs us or patronizes us or shows off. It means smarting under every slight, challenging every word spoken against us, cringing when another is preferred before us. Worldliness is harboring grudges, nursing grievance, and wallowing in self-pity. These are the ways in which we are most like the world.” -Dave Roper, The Strength of a Man, quoted in Family Survival in the American Jungle, Steve Farrar, 1991, Multnomah Press, p. 68.

As followers of Jesus we must guard against living worldly lives, chasing after money and stuff and influence and popularity. That is the challenge we face as Christians. Though we want to follow Jesus, the influence of the world can get in the way. And we can end up living a compromised life.

But that’s not what I want for you or me. I want to live a true, real Christian life. I hope you do too. So we’re going to search out in the scriptures some of the most practical teachings we can find.

We’re going to look at the dos and the don'ts and hopefully we’ll find a better understanding of what faith looks like in the grit and grime of everyday life.

Today we’re going to delving into a new series called “Shapes of Faith.” And all of this is going to revolve around Christian living. How do I live a successful Christian lifestyle? How do I practice what I believe in my heart? We’re going to be focusing in on a lot of the letters of the New Testament, Galatians, Ephesians, Thessalonians, Colossians, and so on.

The goal is to put the teachings of Paul into structures, shapes, so we can see them in a deeper way, and begin to process and apply what we’re learning. Right now let's focus in on Ephesians chapter 4.

The more we read the word, the more we’ll be in tune with God’s agenda. The more we watch tv, well, we’ll be in tune with another agenda.

“Some years ago, musicians noted that errand boys in a certain part of London all whistled out of tune as they went about their work. It was talked about and someone suggested that it was because the bells of Westminster were slightly out of tune. Something had gone wrong with the chimes and they were discordant. The boys did not know there was anything wrong with the peals, and quite unconsciously they had copied their pitch.

So we tend to copy the people with whom we associate; we borrow thoughts from the books we read and the programs to which we listen, almost without knowing it. God has given us His Word which is the absolute pitch of life and living. If we learn to sing by it, we shall easily detect the false in all of the music of the world. “ -Donald Grey Barnhouse.

It says in our scripture today, in Ephesians 4:17-19: “So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.”

The scripture here is beginning to contrast between the old ways that we used to live in, and the new way we’ve learned in Christ.

We’ve gone from impure before we knew Christ, to now through Christ, we’ve become pure.

But now we Christians on Earth live in a tension. We still live in the flesh, that wants to drag us back to the old way. Part of us wants to get lazy, and drift back toward that darkened way of the world.

But the Apostle Paul reminds us here, verses 20-21, “That, however, is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus.”