Living Your Faith

9/13/2009

Living your faith

Ephesians 4:17-28

Introduction

It is great to see Teri and Ron Orendi here today. I believe they are an example of what I want to address this morning.

People living their faith.

People where God put a burden on their heart, and they put feet to it.

Kindness seems to be a thing of the past. Everyday we read or hear about how mean and cruel people are to each other. Inner anger, people hurting each other because they skipped in line or looked at them funny.

What does the Bible say about it?

What is the correct way for us to live as professing believers in Christ?

What image are we sending to those that are struggling to find their relationship with God?

Ephesians 4:17-28 read.

The first thing that Paul shows us is that there is a difference between those who have a relationship with Christ and those who don’t.

One group is separated from God because of darkness, ignorance, hardening of their hearts, and their lack of understanding of the things of God.

The other one is being children of light- Jesus being the light. They were taught the way of Christ, and that you have to put off the old way, and put on the new way.

One you have no sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, and you continually lust for more of the impure things of this world.

The other you should be lead by the Holy Spirit in regard to getting rid of the corrupt and deceitful desires and be more in the image of Christ.

If we are going to live for Christ, have a relationship with Christ, we have to do two things:

1. Put away the old way

2. Put on the new way.

What does that mean?

You have to get rid of your old way of life that is not pleasing to Christ.(v25) “therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully.”

The problem today is some are trying to hold unto the old life .

Those things that they are not willing to get rid of and they continually are having a battle between Christ wanting to make you more like Christ and your self nature rebelling.

Part of throwing out the old ways is to put it in the spiritual garbage can and leave it. We have a lot of Christians doing “Dumpster Diving”. Going after things the Lord has told you to throw out.

Your former life , though you should not forget it, it is not a trophy case. Whereby like a athlete you keep looking at it and “Oh, the good old days” “What Memories” I’m not able to do that anymore, but boy I remember”

losing sensitivity by allowing the world to influence you instead of you influencing the world.

Throw them out And stop picking them back up. Stop throwing out the same bag of garbage every week. The old man (the old you) has a problem processing God’s truth.

Illustration-

July 15, 1993 the port authority of New York and New Jersey ran a help-wanted ad for electricians with expertise at using Sontag connectors, it got 170 responses even though there is no such thing as a Sontag connector. The authority ran the ad to see how many applicants falsify resumes.

We get dubbed into catchy saying and phrases:

Famous Fibs (nice word for lies)

The check is in the mail.

I’ll start my diet tomorrow.

We service what we sell.

Give me your number and the doctor will return your call.

Money cheerfully refunded.

One size fits all.

This offer limited to the first 100 people who call.

This hurts me more that it hurts you.

I need five minutes of your time.

You get it. James Buchanan makes the comparison:

What if the things that should change your life doesn’t?

1. What if you got married and after the wedding the bride goes back to her parents and the groom does the same thing.

2. You get a promotion and they give you a beautiful corner office, and you say no thanks, I’ll just stay in my basement cubical.

3. College graduate- you don’t take the new job because it involves talking to new people.

We think, I’ll never do that.

That is exactly what it is when you do not throw out the old ways and put on the new things in Christ.

You always live life at a level less than what Christ wants you to.

Okay enough for a moment of what the old man looks like.

Truth be told, a lot of us know what that man looks like because we struggle with it everyday.

So what does the new man look like and how do we get there?