Scripture
Today I am beginning a new series of sermons in Ephesians 4:17-32 that I am calling, “The New Life.”
Paul continued his description of the life that is worthy of those who are called by God. God’s people have been called to be “one” people, and so unity must characterize Christians. Furthermore, God’s people have been called to be a “holy” people, and so holiness must also characterize Christians. Holiness is as indispensable a characteristic of Christians as unity.
In our new section of Scripture, the gist of Paul’s message is clear: now that you have a new life, you must no longer live as non-Christians. He wanted Christians to grasp the contrast between what they had been as non-Christians and what they now were as Christians, between their old life and their new life.
Let’s read about the non-Christian life in Ephesians 4:17-19:
17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. (Ephesians 4:17-19)
Introduction
When a person is born again and thereby repents of sin and trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ, a radical transformation takes place in that person. Paul put it this way in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” It is not that the new Christian has received some new addition but that he has become someone completely and utterly new. John MacArthur put it this way:
Salvation is not a matter of improvement or perfection of what has previously existed. It is total transformation. The New Testament speaks of believers having a new mind, a new will, a new heart, a new inheritance, a new relationship, new power, new knowledge, new wisdom, new perception, new understanding, new righteousness, new love, new desire, new citizenship, and many other new things—all of which are summed up in newness of life (Romans 6:4).
It is important to understand that when a person is born again and becomes a Christian he receives a new nature. That new nature is not added to the old nature but completely replaces it. The Bible does not teach that a Christian has two different natures: an old nature and a new nature. No. A Christian has only one nature, and it is a new nature.
So, the question is rightly asked, “Why, then, do we continue to sin after we become Christians?” Paul answered that question in Romans 7:17, “So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me” (cf. vv. 18-20). The reason that Christians continue to sin is because sin is still resident in their flesh, so that Christians are restrained from giving a full and perfect expression to their new nature. As John MacArthur says, “The believer as a total person is transformed but not yet wholly perfect. He has residing sin but no longer reigning sin (cf. Romans 6:14). He is no longer the old man corrupted but is now the new man created in righteousness and holiness, awaiting full salvation (cf. Romans 13:11).”
In Ephesians 4:17-32, Paul contrasted the non-Christian life with the Christian life. He began by first describing the non-Christian life. Paul said in verse 17a, “Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do.” That is: now that you have a new life, you must no longer live as non-Christians.
Lesson
Ephesians 4:17-19 teaches us that Christians must not live like non-Christians.
Paul wrote that the non-Christian life is characterized by:
1. Emptiness (4:17)
2. Hardness (4:18c)
3. Darkness (4:18a)
4. Deadness (4:18b)
5. Recklessness (4:19)
I. Emptiness (4:17)
First, the non-Christian life is characterized by emptiness.
Having stated that Christians must no longer live as non-Christians, Paul went on to state that the non-Christian life is characterized by emptiness. He said in verse 17b, “… in the futility of their minds.” The Greek word for futility has to do with “emptiness or uselessness.” All actions begin in the mind. So, as far as anything spiritual is concerned, non-Christian thinking is empty or useless. Christians and non-Christians think differently; therefore, they act differently.
John MacArthur has a fascinating comment about this:
In their two-volume book The Criminal Personality, Samuel Yochelson and Stanton Samenow maintain that criminal behavior is the result of warped thinking. Three entire sections (pp. 251–457) are devoted to “The thinking errors of the criminal.” By studying what criminals think, rather than trying to probe their feelings and backgrounds, these researchers use these sections to share their conclusions. “It is remarkable,” they write, “that the criminal often derives as great an impact from his activities during nonarrestable phases as he does from crime. The criminal’s thinking patterns operate everywhere; they are not restricted to crime.” That is a description of the depraved, reprobate mind. “Sociological explanations have been unsatisfactory,” the authors declare. “The idea that a man becomes a criminal because he is corrupted by his environment has proved to be too weak an explanation. We have indicated that criminals come from a broad spectrum of homes, both disadvantaged and privileged within the same neighborhood. Some are violators, and most are not. It is not the environment that turns a man into a criminal, it is a series of choices that he makes starting at a very early age.” The researchers also conclude that the criminal mind eventually “will decide that everything is worthless.” “His thinking is illogical,” they affirm in summary.
My point in bringing this to your attention is that behavior flows from thinking. As MacArthur notes, “Christianity is cognitive before it is experiential.”
So, the non-Christian life is characterized by emptiness.
II. Hardness (4:18c)
Second, the non-Christian life is characterized by hardness.
Paul said in verse 18a-b, “They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them.” And then he went on to say in verse 18c that this was “due to their hardness of heart.” A non-Christian’s mind is futile, or empty, with regard to spiritual matters. They simply are not able to think biblically. This, then, leads to hardness of heart. Kent Hughes writes, “In our text here ‘the hardening of their hearts’ describes inability and unwillingness to respond to God’s truth.”
Tony Evans notes that many people smoke day after day, month after month, year after year and all of a sudden their ability to breathe is impacted and the lungs become hard. A lung is supposed to be soft and pliable but when a person smokes like that, their lungs become hard and the air can’t penetrate them.
You can talk to non-Christians about the gospel and the things of God, but due to the hardness of their heart, they will not respond to God’s truth.
So, the non-Christian life is characterized by emptiness and hardness.
III. Darkness (4:18a)
Third, the non-Christian life is characterized by darkness.
From hardness comes darkness, as Paul said in verse 18a, “They are darkened in their understanding….” Non-Christians simply cannot understand the gospel and the things of God. They are incapable of seeing the glorious light of the gospel because they are darkened in their understanding. Paul said the same thing about non-Christians to the Romans in Romans 1:21b–22, “…they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools.” Kent Hughes writes:
The full effect of such a darkening is seen, for example, in actress and occult leader Shirley MacLaine’s standing on a Malibu beach with her arms flung open to the cosmos, shouting, “I am God! I am God! I am God!” One day, if she continues in her darkness, she will stand before God as he judges her and will say, “Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!” But it will be too late.
So, the non-Christian life is characterized by emptiness, hardness, and darkness.
IV. Deadness (4:18b)
Fourth, the non-Christian life is characterized by deadness.
Paul said in verse 18b, “They are… alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them.” Non-Christians are spiritually ignorant. They do not understand the gospel or the things of God. Spiritually, their minds are empty. Their hearts are hard. Their understanding is darkened. And they are spiritually dead. They are alienated from the life of God. What a devastating decline.
But, if you became a Christian as an adult, as I did, you know that Paul’s analysis of the non-Christian life is spot on. Before I was born again at the age of nineteen, and as a result repented of my sin and trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ, I did not understand the gospel or the things of God. My mind was empty. My heart was hard. My understanding was darkened. And I was alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that was in me.
Nobody wants to admit ignorance, do they? Non-Christians claim that they have knowledge about spiritual matters if they even claim to have a belief in such things. But the fact is that they are utterly ignorant of God, the Bible, the gospel, Jesus, and the things of God. And they hate to admit their ignorance, just like the following letter in Time magazine:
Some years ago I attended a lecture by Hungarian-born artist Gyorgy Kepes. The audience didn’t have the faintest idea what he was talking about in his thickly accented English; some actually thought he was speaking in Hungarian and that an English translation would follow. But I have never seen a more successful lecture. Nobody wanted to admit ignorance, and the final ovation was thunderous.
So, the non-Christian life is characterized by emptiness, hardness, darkness, and deadness.
V. Recklessness (4:19)
And finally, the non-Christian life is characterized by recklessness.
Do you see the decline that is characteristic of the non-Christian life? Emptiness, hardness, darkness, deadness, and finally, recklessness. Paul said in verse 19, “They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.” In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he has a similar—and fuller—description of the decline of non-Christians. He wrote in Romans 1:24–31:
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
Our non-Christian culture is so determined to hold to their spiritual error that they will not change, even though they are being ripped apart, spiritually speaking, for their belief. John MacArthur tells the story that according to an ancient Greek story, a Spartan youth stole a fox but then inadvertently came upon the man from whom he had stolen it. To keep his theft from being discovered, the boy stuck the fox inside his clothes and stood without moving a muscle while the frightened fox tore out his vital organs. Even at the cost of his own painful death he would not own up to his wrong.
Non-Christians would rather die than admit that their way of life is in fact the way of death.
So, the non-Christian life is characterized by emptiness, hardness, darkness, deadness, and recklessness.
Conclusion
Therefore, having analyzed the non-Christian life in Ephesians 4:17-19, let us live the new life in Christ.
If you are a Christian, you have a new life in Christ. You have been completely transformed by the Holy Spirit. As Paul said to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
And how will you know if you are a new creation in Christ? You will love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. You will love God’s Word. You will talk to God in prayer. You will tell others about Jesus and the new life that is found in him. You will glory in God and in the things of God. In his commentary, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes:
There is a story which, to me, illustrates all this perfectly. It is about William Pitt the Younger, one of the greatest Prime Ministers which this country has ever had. He was a friend of William Wilberforce, the liberator of the slaves. But there was one great difference between them: William Wilberforce had undergone an evangelical conversion, and had become the saint that he was; William Pitt, of course, was a nominal Christian but it did not mean anything to him. Now in London at that time there was a great evangelical clergyman and preacher in the Church of England called Richard Cecil, and it was the delight of Wilberforce’s life to go and listen to the preaching of this man. He was also anxious that his friend Pitt should go with him. He often invited him and there was always some excuse, affairs of State, being busy, and so on. However, a day came when William Pitt said to William Wilberforce, I am find free and that I can come with you next Sunday. Wilberforce was eagerly looking forward to it and was praying for his friend, praying that a shaft of light might come to him. When Sunday morning came they went to the service. Richard Cecil was preaching at his best, under the unction of the Spirit, and Wilberforce was lifted up to the highest heavens. He reveled and gloried in the truth, having a feast for his soul, his whole man being moved to its depths; occasionally he wondered what was happening to his friend. However, the service ended and as they were walking out together, and even before they had got out of the vestibule, William Pitt turned to William Wilberforce and said, “You know, Wilberforce, I have not the slightest idea what at that man has been talking about.”
That statement perfectly captured the thinking of a non-Christian. Ask God to give you the new birth so that you can repent of your sins and believe the gospel. Amen.
