4 Aspects Of The New Way Of Life (Ephesians 4:25-5:2) Series

Over the last couple of weeks, we've seen Paul starting to pull his entire argument in Ephesians together. God is in the process of creating one holy family, who will live in peace with Him and with each other. Or we can say, God is in the process of creating one holy body-- one person-- with Jesus as the body's head. And we are in the process of growing into Jesus, as we become spiritually mature.

Our job, in response to this, is to walk worthily of our calling. If God wants us to be one holy family, we need to live holy lives in community. We need to be a second family to each other, where we care about each other, and where we are committed to each other.

To this end, Paul has used two different pictures to help us understand this. The first picture uses walking imagery. All of life is lived at a fork in the road, and we are constantly faced with the choice of which road we will walk down next. We can choose the old road of selfishness, and hatred, and idolatry. But God calls us to choose the road of holiness, and righteousness, and faithfulness.

Paul's second picture uses clothing imagery. Imagine, for a moment, your own closet. You can see it? It's more or less full. Things are more or less folded, perhaps. If you're married, one side of the closet maybe looks a lot nicer than the other.

Now, there is a certain kind of person in this world, who, when she opens up her closet doors, sees only a vast emptiness. There is this great cosmic void, this black whole of nothingness. A bystander peeking in that closet may see something quite different. The bystander might assume that since the closet is packed, that there must be suitable clothing for any possible occasion. But the owner of that closet, looking inside, says, "I have nothing to wear."

What Paul pictures is a little different from that. There's a different kind of person in this world-- the college-aged male, who isn't too concerned about women. The college-aged male works his way through his closet of clothes, one day at a time, and at the end of each day, the pile of dirty clothing gets a little bigger. Eventually, things start to get a little desperate, and he starts flipping things inside out, that were never meant to be flipped inside out. Do socks and underwear have a clean side, and a dirty side? The college-aged male sometimes says "yes" to that. But in the absence of a mother who washes his clothes for him, the day eventually comes when there's one single clean outfit hanging up in the closet, and there's many other outfits, more or less dirty, scattered on the floor.

It's on that morning, that the college male is presented with the same choice that Paul describes. There is one piece of clean clothing that you can put on. Or, you can grab something dirty, and sweat-stained, and smelly, off the floor. Paul encourages his churches, don't put on your old sinful, stained way of life. Don't go back to that. Instead, every day, choose to put on the clean, new outfit. In Ephesians, Paul describes this as putting on a new way of life. In Colossians, Paul says, put on Christ.

So Paul presents us with two pictures for what this new life looks like. The first, revolves around the idea of walking on a new path. The second, revolves around the idea of putting on a clean, new outfit. These two pictures, of walking, and clothing, were in the verses we read last week. Let's reread them at this point, Ephesians

4:17-24:

(17) And so then, this I say-- and I insist in the Lord:

that you no longer walk

just as also the Gentiles/nations walk in the futility of their mind, (Eph. 2:3)

(18) being darkened in their understanding, (as opposed to enlightened, 1:17-18)

being alienated from the life of God (Eph. 2:12, 19)

because of the lack of knowledge being in them (1:17)

because of the hardness of their heart,

(19) who, having become calloused/despairing, themselves they gave over to self-abandonment

for the pursuit of all uncleanness, while always wanting more.

(20) Now, you did not in this way learn Christ--

(21) if indeed him you heard (about),

and in him you were taught,

just as is truth in Jesus,

(22) to take off the old man of your former way of life-- the one being ruined by deceitful desires--

(23) now, to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, (contrast with 4:17; 2:3)

(24) and to put on the new man-- the one in accordance with God, being created in/with/by righteousness and holiness from/of the truth.