EPHESIANS # 7
We are working our way through Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Want to know the basics of the Christian life? It’s right here in these 6 chapters.
We are blessed and beloved by our Father who extends favor to us in Christ.
We are enlightened and empowered by the Spirit.
We were dead, but we are now alive in Christ.
We are united in Christ, no longer divided as insiders and outsiders.
This plan was intentional, formed by the wisdom of God before time began.
If we are ‘in Christ,’ we have a responsibility to ‘live a life worthy’ of that calling. “Walk worthy,” another translation teaches us, reminding us that salvation is complete in Christ, but that we must work out what it means in our daily choices.
As His visible Body on Earth, we must ‘keep the unity’ of Christ - humbly, with endurance, even to the point of putting up with others who rub us wrong - for Christ’s sake! We are equipped by the Spirit to be effective, led by people called to lead. The goal is maturity, a graceful Church.
TEXT - Ephesians 4: 17-24 PB 1821
How Do I Know?
What kinds of things confuse you?
We trust the ‘experts’ and too often it is my experience that they are simply wrong.
A month ago a physician put me on an antibiotic that was suppose to clear up the problem.
About a week ago, I started to have intense pain in the tendons in my hands, which spread up my arms, and eventually into my shoulders. I thought that somehow I had hurt myself in a fall, but when it got worse, did some research. I discovered that the antibiotic I was taking had a common side effect - inflamed, painful tendons! And, if a person kept taking it, tendons could actually be weakened and rupture! I wish my doctor had made me aware of that possibility.
There is wisdom we never need to question, One from who we learn whose conclusions will never be revised after further study. We hang onto this affirmation - "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings." (Hebrews 13:8-9, NIV)
In the passage that is our text today, Paul talks about learning to live in the Truth of Christ, an unchanging truth that clears up the confusion that is so common in this changing world.
A summary of the passage is this:
If we want to live the right way, pleasing to God; we have to learn Truth and develop new patterns of thought.
READ
Paul’s evaluation of his world may seem harsh, even loveless, at first glance.
Re-read v. 17
To help us with understanding, let’s clarify a term he uses. “Gentile” A ‘Gentile’ is and was any person who was not Jewish. But, Paul is using the word as a synonym for ‘godless’ or ‘pagan.’ He is not using the word in an cultural or racial sense, but rather in a moral sense.
Simply put, he is saying to Christians - “Stop living like you did before you became a Christian!”
He describes the mind of those who are without God’s Spirit with words that are not very complimentary.
He says that the godless are subject to –
Futility of thinking,
Darkened understanding,
Ignorance,
Hardening of their heart, and
Insensitivity!
Not a great list, is it? In sum, it describes a person who is lost and deceived, who does not even realize their predicament. They are headed for destruction and have no idea what’s ahead.
Does this mean that those who are not Christians are worthless? NOT AT ALL! This passage is not discussing whether humans have worth apart from God. They do, by the way. “God so loved the world that HE gave His Son” the Bible says. It reminds us that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Every person is valuable to God.
Nor is this passage saying that those who are not Christians never do anything of value, that they will never accomplish great things, or contribute to humanity. Of course they can and they do. I am very thankful for the advances in science and technology, some of which comes from men and women who reject the idea of a personal God or the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ! A cure for a disease is no less valuable because it was created by an atheist!
Paul is speaking about the meaning of life and the ultimate purposes of human existence. Apart from the Holy Spirit, Whom we know only through Christ, there are no answers for those questions to be found. Yes, many philosophers of our time, admit that concluding that humanity is subject to futility, that life is a kind of joke.
Nietzsche, a man who lived in Europe as the influence of the Christian church was declining, gave us the interesting phrase, “God is dead.” He did not at all mean that God had actually died. He believed that humanity had advanced beyond the need for a god. We can trust our own wisdom, he insisted. I know I over-simplify, but he drew on the Darwinian ideas of the survival of the fittest and taught that the best and fittest of humanity would push their way to the top, improving the race. One of the greatest evils of the 20th century, the Nazi movement that brought death to millions and destruction to nations, was shaped around the godless philosophy of Frederick Nietzsche!
Not all godless people will produce tragedy on such scale, but ALL those who reject the Light of Christ face a tragic destiny. Millions of Americans, convinced that life is only about what we can see, touch, taste, and feel - are entertaining themselves to death.
Paul’s words might have been written to us in our culture. Listen to the way that those who are caught in their own futile thinking live. "Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more." (Ephesians 4:19, NIV) "They have no sense of shame. They live for lustful pleasure and eagerly practice every kind of impurity." (Ephesians 4:19, NLT)
And so it is. We trust the ‘wisdom’ of pretty faces from the movie industry. We allow our children to learn endlessly at the feet of those who create television programs. We worship the rich who often have gathered their stores at great cost to those without power or voice.
“But,” Paul says, “that is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ.”
He draws a line and says, “You have crossed this line into a new life. Your new life grows out of the revelation of Truth that you once could not access but in which you now live! You've crossed that line and there's no going back. In futulity, darkness, ignorance or insensitivity of those old ways contradicts what you have now become by the work of the Spirit.”
Christian friend, we cannot over-emphasize the importance of learning and living in Truth!
Too many people play endless games with themselves and others. They let themselves live in denial. They avert their eyes from what is real, preferring a fantasy.
Ill- I read about a horse racing in China. Until very recently in that country betting was illegal so what went on at the track was given the name of ‘horse intelligence competition.’ Those who predicted the race outcomes most accurately are not said to ‘win a bet,’ but to be rewarded for greater intelligence.
OK, we laugh, but what lies do we tell ourselves about things we do?
Right living follows right thinking. Right thinking comes when we gain the mind of Christ!
So, how can escape confusion and live with the confidence available to those who are ‘in Christ?’
A. Learn to think!
One of my main issues with many Christians is their disdain for the mind. Mark Noll wrote a book 20 years ago with the title - the Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. He assesses the problem with this probing statement - “the scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.” Are we thinking people or just reactionary people? Do we buy the banal proclamations of mass market preaching or do we dig deep into Scripture and wait long on the Spirit to learn from Christ how to be the transformational Church He desires?
Paul says, “be made new in the attitude of your minds.”
Many of us are content to reduce our great faith to a sentimental experience. The primary way we evaluate choices is not what’s true, but rather what feels good, what appeals to us.
No wonder so many wander into sin and disgrace. Our emotions are a valuable gift and we do not glorify Christ by becoming robotic, Bible quoting persons. However, we must not shrink from the Truth.
It is important that we apply Truth to ourselves first.
Let’s not be among those who claim to be speaking Christ’s truth while taking potshots at the world around them. There is much in our culture for which we rightly have no use. Greed, unbridled pursuits of pleasure, sexual madness, and selfishness are epidemics in America.
But, we must start to think critically in our own house. Until the Church is willing to deal with Christ’s claims on her, until we are willing to deeply consider our own compromises, we have no platform from which to speak to others.
Are you a thinking Christian? Do you read widely, think critically, and commit yourself to the Spirit for ever greater discovery of who you are and what He desires of you?
B. Live your baptism!
“Put off your old self ... put on the new self.”
When you were baptised into Christ, it wasn’t a bath. It was a burial!
Most of us bath everyday, because somehow grim, sweat, and grit make us feel unclean. Those around us appreciate our efforts when they are not assaulted by the stink of an unwashed body. If baptism were like a bath, we would have to baptised weekly or maybe even daily.
The Truth declared to us is this:
"For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him." (Romans 6:4-8, NLT)
Some Christians keep the old corpse around. They continue to love the sins that ought to be past tense, making allowances for those ways.
One writer asserts - “Rebirth without dying is Christian nonsense, and so is new creation without crucifixion. Dying with Christ and to self- is necessary for Christian living. But, dying is not the end of the sequence. In putting on the New Self we participate in Christ’s resurrection. Our lives are restored to God’s original intention. We take on the character of God, in His image, as we were originally created.” - Snodgrass
Walk worthy of your calling by learning the Truth, living the Truth, loving the Truth.
The Spirit says to us - "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." (Romans 12:2, NIV)
Walk worthy of your calling by putting aside, taking off, the old self and it’s corrupt ways.
Walk worthy of your calling by putting on the New Self which is created to be like God - truly holy.
Pray and ask Him to do it.
"Lord, renew my mind with truth - about who You are, about what life means, and about who I am in Christ.
May that revelation change my thinking so that I will no longer be deceived by the old self,
but daily put on the new self which is created in the likeness of God.
Then I will find myself strengthened to walk in a way that makes Christ visible;
that shows He lives in me.
In this others will see You and be drawn into Your kingdom.
I ask all this in Jesus’ Name.
Amen.”
