If you were to make a list of the things you’d like to change about yourself, what would be at the top of the list? Are you addicted to food? Late-night snacking? Or is it a more serious issue? Do you hate you? Do you have narcissistic tendencies? Do your relationships frazzle quickly, and no one wants to be around you?
The Bible says a Christian is a changed person. The Bible calls on every person who follows Christ to have a distinct life. Keep your Bibles open to Ephesians 4.
Jesus called His followers to be the light of the world (Matthew 5:14). I want to clear up some of your confusion about how we change and why we change as believers. For the next few moments, I want to speak to you what Jesus referred to as being a light to shine before others (Matthew 5:16). We know a Christian is supposed to be different than everyone else. But there’s a lot of confusion in Christianity at this point.
1. Two Areas of Confusion
Look at verse 17 with me: “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” (Ephesians 4:17). You can substitute the word non-believers for “the Gentiles” in verse 17. There should be a sharp distinction in their attitudes and behavior when you compare a believer’s life versus a non-believer.
1.1 A Change Happens
God designed the Christian to be someone with a contrasting before and after story. Like HGTV and the fixer-upper homes, a Christian is to have a “before and after” in their story. Our “after” is supposed to be really different than our “before.” After you convert to Christianity, your behavior should change. After you embrace Christ by faith, your attitude should change. Again, there’s a lot of confusion about this. I want to explore two areas of confusion people have regarding how Jesus changes us.
1.2 Confusion #1: I Should Change Before I’m a Believer
Some think you have to change your life before you come to Christ. There are so many who feel you must clean up your behavior in order to come to Christ. So many of the world’s major religions teach you are “made ok” by your behavior. And many people assume the Bible must say the same thing as every other world religion. So the goes like this, “If you to get on God’s good side then go to church, quit your cussing, your pornography, your stealing, cheating, and lying. And if you do this, then you’re successfully religious.” To get inside the entrance of Christianity, many people feel they must change their behavior before they enter. But note the command in verse 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” (Ephesians 4:17). Circle the word “now” in verse 17. NOW that you have become a believer, you must no longer walk as non-believers do.
1.2.1 Cleaning a Fish
Imagine if I told you to catch a fish before you cleaned it. You catch the fish, and then you clean it. You never clean it before you catch it.
1.2.2 A Spiritual Sin Extinguisher
The Bible teaches that you change AFTER your conversion. When you convert to Christ, you’re equipped with the Holy Spirit inside you (Romans 8:9). The Spirit acts as a sin extinguisher. If you’re going to fight a common household fire, then you need a fire extinguisher. If you’re going to fight sinful tendencies, take advantage of the sin extinguisher God gives you – the Holy Spirit.
God designed the Christian to be someone with a contrasting “before and after” story. Like a radical diet program where you have lost 50 lbs. or more, a Christian is to have a “before and after” in their story. Again, after you convert to Christianity, your behavior should change. Not before you come to faith in Christ but after. Again, after you embrace Christ by faith, your behavior should change.
Confusion #1: I Should Change Before I’m a Believer
Again, there’s so much confusion on this point of behavior change for believers.
1.1.2 Confusion #2: I Don’t Need to Change Because I’m a “Believer”
Some hear the message of grace and think, “It doesn’t matter what I do. I can do anything I want to do. I can steal what I want. I can sleep with who I want. I can say whatever I want. God forgives.” God is seen as a benevolent gentleman with a long, flowing beard whose primary job is to be nice.
D. A. Carson tells about his time as a student in Germany. He was there with an engineering student working on his doctorate from French West Africa. The two men ate together a couple of times each week. Carson says as he got to know him a bit, he discovered that he was married. He was studying in Germany while his wife was studying medicine in London. Carson said that he discovered that he would go to the red-light district in town and pay his money and have his woman a couple of times a week. By this time, he had gotten to know the engineering student pretty well, so one evening when they were out for a meal, he asked him, “I don’t mean to be too intrusive, but what would you say if you discovered that your wife was doing something similar in London?” “Oh,” he said, “I’d kill her.” Carson replied something to the effect of that being a bit of a double standard. The African man said, “You have to understand, from the part of the world I come from - in our tribal structure - she would be dishonoring me. It would be a matter of honor. I would have to kill her.” Carson continued, “But you told me that you were brought up in a mission school. You were taught the Bible. You know that the God of the Bible doesn’t grade on a curve-one set of standards for men and one set of standards for women.” And then the man said in French, “God is good. He’s bound to forgive us. That’s his job.” If you think this guy is a genuine believer, I have some ocean-front property for you. I wouldn’t trust this man’s Christianity any more than I think I could safely land a 777 jet airplane on the tarmac at DFW. Yet, this kind of thinking is really popular. Where God is nice and forgives if you but ask and you can do whatever you want. This is a corrupted way of thinking that makes the cross of Jesus a license to do evil and wrong.
Confusion #1: I Should Change Before I’m a “Believer”
Confusion #2: I Don’t Need to Change Because I’m a Believer
Again, God designed the Christian to be someone with a contrasting before and after story. No wonder your Bible says, “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” (Ephesians 4:17).
Ponder the confusion that happens when believers fail to act like believers. None of us are perfect but a genuine believer who seeks the Lord in the way they live. When pretend believers make themselves out to be the real thing, it brings so much confusion for non-believers.
James and the High School Reunion
James is a believer from Nevada. He was invited to his high school class reunion and wasn’t sure if he really wanted to go to his reunion. The man who had been James’ spiritual father was on the organizing committee of the class reunion. He had led James to faith in Christ, and he led many people to embrace Christ down through the years. Yet, after twenty years of following the Lord, his spiritual mentor renounced Christ. His lifestyle included doing unspeakable things by the accounts of many. James was considering going to his high school class reunion for the purpose of engaging his former mentor.
Pause with me to consider this: how much confusion is this apostate creating in the minds of everyone around him? After walking with the Lord for some time and even sharing Christ personally with friends and coworkers, to turn his back on the Lord and openly engage in behaviors that even the non-religious find offensive… … how much confusion can one person create?
Paul wants you to know that this is really important: “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” (Ephesians 4:17). The word “testify” isn’t something you might do in court in this context. Instead, you could translate that word as “I insist on this.” The Bible insists we make a clean break from the ungodly ways of unbelievers.
Paul circles back to this later in our passage: “to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-24).
Only after you’ve embraced Christ by faith can you put off the old self. Only after the Spirit of God has entered into your life can you put on the new self. Let me ask you a personal question: can you say, “I’ve put off my old self?” Would those closest to you say this about you, “She’s put on her new self. He’s put on his new self. I remember what he was, and he’s different. She’s different?”
Confusion #1: I Should Change Before I’m a “Believer”
Confusion #2: I Don’t Need to Change Because I’m a Believer
Again, God designed the Christian to be someone with a contrasting before and after story. Like a radical diet program where you have lost 50 lbs. or more, a Christian is to have a “before and after” in their story. Like HGTV and the fixer-upper homes, a Christian is to have a “before and after” in their story. God designed the Christian to be someone with a contrasting before and after story.
1. Before and After
2. My Former Life
At the end of verse 17, we see the “before” picture: “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” (Ephesians 4:17b-18).
2.1 Before and After
Every genuine believer can show the difference grace makes in their lives by a “before and after” story. This doesn’t mean your conversion is dramatic, and every born-again story is filled with tears. Do you have a before and after story when it comes to Jesus Christ? Conversion is a dramatic before and after picture.
The Bible uses four phrases for the life of a non-believer. Let’s look at each of these four in some detail to get a better grasp of how the Bible describes our lives.
2.2 Futile
The word “futility” in verse 17 could be translated as meaningless. You have a whole book in your Bible called Ecclesiastes. The message of the entire book is this: life is meaningless if you don’t fear God (Ecclesiastes 1:2). It may seem harsh or even brutal to say a person’s life is meaningless, but the Bible is consistent with this message. The non-believer’s life is described as a futile leaving or meaningless living. To be “futile in [your] thinking” doesn’t mean you’re stupid. Instead, it’s a meaningless life.
DFW Airport
When you go to DFW airport, there are restaurants, coffee shops, and bookstores. But nobody goes to the airport for restaurants, coffee shops, and bookstores. It’s an exciting place to be when you have an exciting place to go. But anybody who wanders around an airport and never plans to fly we need to have a discussion with them. Because that’s a futile life - there is no real purpose to this kind of life. Life is vain without God in your life. Has your experience taught you the same?
2.3 Darkened
Look at the second phrase for life without Christ in verse 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” (Ephesians 4:18).
The Bible says your moral compass is off when you’re not a Christian. Now, education, prosperity, or religion doesn’t exempt you from your condition.
2.3.1 Forgery
A husband and wife returned from a day away from the house to find that the light on the answering service was flashing. The husband went over and pressed play on the machine. His wife’s friend, Janet’s voice filled the room. Janet called to say she had applied for a job and needed a character reference - basically someone who could verify she was honest and trustworthy. Janet then said she had given the interviewer the wife’s name. Before she hung, she added there had been a form for her friend to sign: “But I couldn’t find you,” the friend concluded, “so I forged your signature.”
The Bible declares that this whole world is a moral graveyard where people live their lives. For many of you, you may believe the Bible is too negative in its views of human behavior. But get this: a recent survey indicated that more than 70% of female restaurant employees had been sexually harassed. Another study stated that half of all females experience sexual harassment on a weekly basis. And the Norway Olympic women’s beach handball team was fined for wearing the same shorts that men wear. Yes, they were fined for not wearing bikini bottoms! The Bible is saying America needs another sexual revolution to reverse the first one! And lastly, Nigerian school kidnappers abduct the man who was delivering their $73,000 ransom to free 136 school-aged children.
Our moral compass is off until Christ moves into our lives. Again, the Bible says our moral reasoning is darkened: “They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity” (Ephesians 4:19).
Again, this is your moral sensibility, or your moral compass is off-kilter. Why do we compete with one another and not cooperate with one another? Why are we so prone to envy and revenge? Why is reconciliation so rare and revenge is so popular? Why are so many people motivated to mass shootings in our day? Why am I not inwardly content when I accomplish my goals and dreams?
We are not blank slates at birth, as a philosopher, John Locke, said. We are not Pavlov’s dogs either. The Bible says our moral compass is off until the Holy Spirit is in us, and the Word is in our hands.
2.3.2 Bribes and a New York City Cop
Pastor Tim Keller tells of a New York City cop that helps us think through our darkened moral compass. He speaks about a New York City policeman who served for about ten years. A New York City cop has lots and lots of money thrown at him – a lot of bribes are offered his way. As soon as he got into the police culture, he realized you always take bribes from pimps. You take bribes from people who are trying to keep you away from what the police called “victimless crimes,” but you would never take money from drug dealers because those are crimes that hurt people. The pimp says, “Here’s $50. Just stay away from the corner of so-and-so and so-and-so a place.” The police would go into a place and they’d come on out to their squad car, and there’d be envelopes of money in their squad car with a note from a certain person saying, “Please tonight on your beat, just stay away from this corner. Here’s how much money. Please, I’m working this corner tonight.” Ordinarily, the NYC cop says you just took the money. Suddenly, this guy becomes a Christian, and he says, “Is this right? Is this a victimless crime?” He begins to think. He gets into a lot of trouble with the other guy in the squad car … a whole lot of trouble. He’s not just a policeman anymore. He is now a Christian first who has a different moral compass. That is a powerful story to tell us what’s wrong with us.
Now, a lot of psychologies can tell you what’s wrong with you and how you got that way. Only the gospel can tell you, “Here’s what’s wrong with you, here’s where you need to go, and here’s the power to get there.”
Again, Paul is layering up word and word in a description of the person who hasn’t embraced Christ.
2.4 Alienated from God
Here’ the third phrase: “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” (Ephesians 4:18).
The Bible says we are alienated from the God of truth. Our default setting doesn’t gravitate toward the Lord but away from Him. We need God to rescue us from us. Perhaps you are thinking the Bible is exaggerating the worse in us.
A 1996 psychology study done by the University of Virginia put together a study of 147 people between the ages of 18 and 71 years of age. These 147 people keep a diary of all the things they said were false over the course of a week. Think of the lies we tell one another: “I’m fine,” “I’ll call you” and “No, you don’t look fat in those jeans.” Again, the study found that most people lie once or twice a day — almost as often as they snack from the refrigerator or brush their teeth. Both men and women lie in approximately one-fifth of their social exchanges lasting ten or more minutes. And over the course of a week, they deceive about 30 percent of those with whom they interact one-on-one. College students lie to their mothers in one out of two conversations.
2.5 Hardness of Heart
“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” (Ephesians 4:18).
The Greek word for “hardness” in verse 18 was originally used to describe how a bone would harden after a bone fracture. The Greek word for “hardness” in verse 18 could also be used to describe something that was petrified. Years ago, I took my family to the Petrified National Forest in Arizona. They were not that interested in seeing petrified wood and gave me a hard time for even stopping there. But it’s a vivid picture for something to be petrified. The Bible says your heart is petrified until Christ moves into your life. The Bible says that your heart is hard left to your own. A doctor may tell you that you have a hardening of the arteries.
Centuries ago, the prophet Ezekiel made this prediction: “And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, 20 that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God” (Ezekiel 11:19-20).
At the moment of your conversion to Christ, something supernatural happens to the believer; you are given a new heart. Now, a lot of psychologies can tell you what’s wrong with you and how you got that way. Only the gospel can tell you, “Here’s what’s wrong with you, here’s where you need to go, and here’s the power to get there.”
Like a radical diet program where you have lost 50 lbs. or more, a Christian is to have a “before and after” in their story. God designed the Christian to be someone with a contrasting before and after story. God works a miracle of grace when He changes you the moment you trust Christ by faith.
2.5 Four Words
So put the four words together for a moment: “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” (Ephesians 4:17b-18).
The Bible calls someone who doesn’t obey Jesus as “futility[e in] their minds,” “darkened in their understanding,” “alienated from the life of God,” and “hard [in their] heart.” Oh, and he also adds that there is “ignorance … in them” for good measure.
What seems laughable to some and brutal to others should cause all of us to pause. This is a description of every single man, woman, and child. This is a description of categorically every one of us, no matter our race, pedigree, or education level. Education, prosperity, or religion doesn’t exempt you from your condition.
2.6 Two Kinds of People
There are two kinds of confusion here. The first confusion thinks all this is really simple. They believe it’s as simple as this: If you want to be a better person, then simply choose to be a better person. No need to bother with religion and a bloody cross. This group believes: If you want to be a better person, then you simply choose to be a better person.
The 2nd group here thinks something like this: now that I am a Christian, it doesn’t matter if I am good. Now that I have experienced the new birth, God’s grace will cover my sins – case closed. So many Christians become lazy and they quit trying.
2.7 Conclusion - The Gospel
But there’s a third way… … once you experience life-changing conversion, you can then put in the work to be a better person. Jesus died to make you compassionate. Jesus died to make you kind. Jesus died to make you honest. Jesus died to change you. Have you experienced this change?
