SE011923
HOW TO STOP YOUR CULTURE FROM DYING
3. LIVE BY A NEW STANDARD
(Title SLIDE)
Remember, in week one we made the point that our culture is in decline. We’re feeling it:
- Financially
- Morally
- Socially
(SLIDE) In stark contrast, Ephesians is God’s renewal manual.
- First renewal of the human heart by spiritual adoption in Christ because of God’s love.
- Second renewal of human community as God makes one new humanity out of a world divided by race, ethnicity, gender, social status.
- Third, this week we talk about renewal of human behavior based on a new standard.
I hope you see how Ephesians is building on itself:
- (SLIDE) New People united into a
- New Community live by a
- New Standard
In contrast to the Old Standard Paul describes as,
o (SLIDE) Eph 4:19: “…They have no sense of shame. They live for lustful pleasure and eagerly practice every kind of impurity.”
MORAL DECLINE:
So let’s frame just how new the new standard is. First, would you say that the state of moral values in our Country are getting better or worse? Gallup asks that question every year and in 2023 we reached an all time high of people who said moral values are getting WORSE:
- (SLIDE) 83%
Now, obviously, every culture and every ERA sins. Never been a time when Americans didn’t sin… a lot.
- Yes, even the squeaky clean 1950’s was a decade full of sin!
o (SLIDE) I mean, girls wore dog collars on their ankles! and
o (SLIDE) the boys were seeing how many humans they could stuff in a phone booth,
…so you know some pretty dark stuff was going on! *
Jokes aside… all cultures are broken, all times, all places. Just take one area, sex. In the 1950’s an astonishing number of firstborns arrived less than 9 months after the wedding of their parents. Wow! So did they have more preemies back then?? Hmm… I’ll let you puzzle that one out.
Meanwhile today, there’s actually less premarital sexual activity among students than there was 20 years ago.
(SLIDE) What’s different now, is not that people are worse people. So what IS getting worse morally that would make this graph go up and to the right? I think it might have something to do with Paul’s diagnosis of the moral climate in Rome. What did he say:
- (SLIDE) “They have no sense of shame”
“Have no sense of shame” is actually one word in the Greek: Apo-lego. We get our word APATHETIC from this word. It means literally “to lose the ability to feel pain.” To be “past feeling.”
What’s different now, is not that do more bad stuff, is that we’re past feeling bad about it. In order to not feel bad you have to invert the moral order. When it comes to sex for example, today people feel that...:
- It’s not wrong to break sexual taboos,
- It’s that sexual taboos are broken and wrong because they make us feel bad.
The changing moral landscape is not confined to sex:
- We think truth is what works or
- Truth is what I feel to be true instead of what corresponds to reality.
- We think what is right is what feels right.
(SLIDE) MORAL RELATIVISM
Another name for this is MORAL RELATIVISM. Where did this moral relativism come from? Well, it’s complicated but the New Atheists certainly played a role.
(SLIDE) Who are the New Atheists?
- Richard Dawkins
- Sam Harris
- Christopher Hitchens
- Daniel Dennet
Also called the Four Horsemen these guys wrote at the beginning of this century right when our world was changed by religious zealots who flew airplanes into buildings. In response, these guys said, “religion poisons EVERYTHING.” And in several best-selling books they made their case that believing in God was irrational and delusional.
What does this imply, we asked the New Atheists? Well, here was the list of implications if God was truly dead:
- No gods
- No spirits
- No souls
- No life after death
- No miracles
- No ultimate purpose to anything
- No ultimate meaning in life AND, critically:
NO OBJECTIVE FOUNDATION FOR MORAL VALUES.
In this way the New Atheists were like the Old Atheists, like Friedrich Nietzsche, only a lot cooler, with Instagram accounts, and one even looks like movie star Ben Stiller (Sam Harris). What did the Old Atheists say was the implication of atheism for moral values? Nietzsche said:
- (SLIDE) “We have unchained the earth from its sun… Whither are we moving now? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? God is dead. God remains dead”
Friends this is the straightforward implication of Atheism:
- (SLIDE) NO FOUNDATION FOR MORAL VALUES.
- We are adrift at Sea, unhinged, unchained, falling, moving we know not where.
But some of these New Atheists aren’t as clear thinking as Nietzsche was. They think we CAN ground UNIVERSAL human morals and values in philosophy and science! Well, AC3, you tell me, how is that possible, exactly?
- “Philosophy comes from the brain chemistry of particular bipedal organisms who evolved by accident for no reason with no overarching purpose or design.”
o Why should we think the brain chemistry of a biological machine should have ANY authority to tell us what is right and wrong?
What about science? Can we ground morals there?
o Take equality. In what way is it grounded in science? By every scientific measure, people are NOT equal.
? But the equality of people is REQUIRED to have objective moral values!
o I can’t murder you, IF you’re of equal value to me, even if I have more money and Facebook likes, or friends in gov’t.
o I can’t steal your stuff, only if what belongs to you is inviolable because YOU are inviolable: you are sacrosanct, a holy thing.
So the New Atheism failed to give us a foundation for Moral Values, but they captured the minds of a generation starting in 2001. So is it any wonder why the next generation – even if they didn’t become atheists – did become irreligious in record numbers and grew up saying,
- (SLIDE) “Well, that’s your truth. I’m going to live my truth.”
- “You gotta do what’s right for you!”
- “No one can tell you how to live!”
- “What feels right?”
o Friends, this is the standard of ethical thinking in the world around you.
(SLIDE) A NEW STANDARD
Against this God presents us something NEW! EPHESIANS is the antidote to the MORAL RELATIVISM that surrounds us and defined the Roman world. The New Standard for Christians isn’t this soup of subjectivity! This New Standard is grounded in God. You say,
- “OK, here it comes: God’s the boss, He makes the rules, which he doesn’t live by, he just commands from on high and we do his bidding!”
No, actually. Well, yes, our new Standard of Living IS grounded in God’s commands, but even more so in God’s EXAMPLE. Wait, what? Yes,
- (SLIDE) we live not just by what God expects, we live by what God exhibits!
- Not just by what God demands, but by what God demonstrates!
Check this out. We’ll begin in the middle of the section on Christian living.
- (SLIDE) Eph 5:1:
- Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.
This tells you how critical it is that Christianity is unique among world religions. Our Faith says God doesn’t just give ideas to Prophets and Moral Limits to Law Givers. No, God actually showed up! What difference should that make to you in living by his New Standard?
- God says, don’t do what I say, do what I DO!
So Jesus’ identity as Son of God, one with the Father, changes the ballgame in terms of the power and force of the Christian’s new marching orders. He’s not some prophet who says, “do what I’m telling you God says.” In the Gospel of John Jesus says,
- John 14:9 & 13:15: “if you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father… Now I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you.”
What I’m doing is exactly what the Father is doing.
- IE God does not just tell you to do stuff, I’m SHOWING YOU!
Paul just is all over this exact idea here:
o (SAME SLIDE: Eph 5:1,2) A) teaching us that: to follow God’s example is to follow Christ’s example. For Christ is the divine Word made flesh. And
o B) to follow God’s example is fundamentally defined by living a life of sacrificial love.
What a difference this would make! My moral code isn’t defined primarily by a code but by an EXAMPLE!
LIVING LIKE OUTSIDERS
But sadly, Christians often don’t seem to buy into the Ephesians program. We often talk about “taking back the culture” but in study after study, Christians today ARE they culture!! They look exactly like their outsider neighbors. In what ways?
- Marriage health
- Debt
- Parenting styles
- Rate of Divorce
- Use of Language
- Views on Sex and Money
- Broken Relationships
It’s like the Church is saying,
“We’re gonna pull everyone out of the quicksand.” And then jumped IN the quicksand along with everyone else!!”
The antidote is here. Eph 4:17 Paul gets practical and application oriented and says:
(SLIDE – Bible Program) 17 With the Lord's authority let me say this: Live no longer as the ungodly do, for they are hopelessly confused. 18 Their closed minds are full of darkness; they are far away from the life of God because they have shut their minds and hardened their hearts against him. 19 They don't care anymore about right and wrong, and they have given themselves over to immoral ways. Their lives are filled with all kinds of impurity and greed.
(SLIDE) 20 But that isn't what you were taught when you learned about Christ. 21 Since you have heard all about him and have learned the truth that is in Jesus, 22 throw off your old evil nature and your former way of life, which is rotten through and through, full of lust and deception.
(SLIDE) 23 Instead, there must be a spiritual renewal of your thoughts and attitudes. 24 You must display a new nature because you are a new person, created in God's likeness — righteous, holy, and true.
Be New! There it is, over and over, Be NEW! Not like you used to be. Not like your neighbor. Not like how it was BEFORE you knew Christ, before faith in him saved you by Grace.
WHERE THE CONTRAST BEGINS
But NOTICE, where does this contrast begin? Where does the newness start?
- In behavior
o or in attitudes?
- In the body; what it does, where it goes;
o (SLIDE) or in the mind; how it THINKS and its ATTITUDES?
Clearly, it’s the latter! AC3, the new standard we live by doesn’t begin with a new list of to-dos; a new rules sheet. No! It begins with our minds’ renewal. In the act of repentance when you turned to Christ, that was it. The great turning point! You changed your mind.
Actually, probably the best way to read this is in the past tense:
- (SLIDE) not imperative, “throw off,” but past tense, “YOU ALREADY THREW OFF” the old nature. The NIV captures it better: “when you heard about Christ” past tense, “You were taught…put off your old self…put on the new self.”
- When did you do that? At your conversion and baptism.
o The old person in you was taken to a water grave and killed. (Dec 10!)
o And when you came up out of the water, you were putting on Jesus, like a new coat, and you became a new person INSIDE.
(ILLUS) Now, like a newly minted millionaire who has just inherited a fortune, you only slowly start to live like it. Only slowly do you realize you now have resources you didn’t have. You have a status you didn’t have before.
It takes a second for the millions you have in a bank somewhere, to make their way into your life. But the new behaviors start in your mind:
- Realizing that you are now rich.
o Beyond your wildest dreams!
? You have to believe it and know it first.
The Bible uses this metaphor over and over:
- Live up to what you have already attained.
- Live a life worthy of the calling you have already received!
- (SLIDE) HERE: Vs24: Display a new nature because you are already a new person!
So standing out in the world doesn’t begin in self-effort! It begins in a renewed mind. A mind that embraces a boldly scandalous idea about itself: God lives in me, by his Spirit, now. Not tomorrow, NOW. That means I’m God’s child with access to:
- his love,
- his acceptance
- his forgiveness and
- his power to display God’s likeness which is righteous, holy, and true.
This is what you were taught, Paul says. This is what you became – a new person on the inside, with a new nature, like God.
!! Ah, nobody talks like this, AC3!!
Now, what is the New Standard of Living my New Nature demands? He gets practical:
- (SLIDE) 25 Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body. 26 “In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, 27 and do not give the devil a foothold.
o Why do you lie? Isn’t it because we’re trying to impress or avoid trouble or conflict?
o But you’re one with your brother and sister and fully accepted by God!! Where’s the need for pretense? for hiding? for impressing? It’s gone! You’re new! So you can come into the light AC3! And get free!
- (SLIDE) 28 Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need.
o Why do we cut ethical corners to make more money? Why would you go cheap on your employees? Why do people cheat and get lazy and sponge off the system? Because we’re afraid we won’t get ours! Or just plain greedy which we justify… "well the boss won’t miss this."
o But we have every spiritual blessing in Christ! Our future is secure, and we have been lavishly loved. So we can work and we can share and not grumble… because we know that rich kids who complain about stuff are gross – and in Christ, you’re already rich.
- (SLIDE) 29 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
o The word “Unwholesome” translates “sapros” which is often translated “evil” and comes from a word used of rotten trees and rotten fruit.
o So what is “rotten talk”? Well, whatever it is, it must be the opposite of what Paul contrasts it with: talk that is helpful, builds others up, benefits your hearers.
o Why would we speak in a rotten way? Isn’t it because we are apalgeo – apathetic, we lost the ability to feel pain, the pain careless words cause others.
? Do you know who else feels pain when we are careless with our words? Paul tells you: The Holy Spirit. (A person!).
- (SLIDE) 31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
o Here’s six things that are UTTERLY below the New Standard we live by:
? Bitterness: an embittered and angry soul who refuses to reconcile to people or to events.
? Rage and Anger: we use anger to go about trying to fix the injustices of the world; to show off how much we hate them with passion - well that doesn’t wind up fixing anything.
? Brawling and Slander: seen any of this on Social Media? Oh, not with fists, words are enough… Trolling SM to incite anger, that’s brawling. Calling out people you know nothing about, that’s slander.
? Malice: to wish someone harm. Yes, even your enemy.
• Every form of all 6 vices have to put off… like you take off a coat. It’s not you anymore.
Well, if that stuff is NOT you, what IS you? What standard fits you, you who have run to God and His Christ? What is it that reflects the Newness inside you; that reflects the Spirit of Christ who is inside you?
AC3. think of the example Christ set, the things Christ did for you.
- He was kind to you.
- He was compassionate on you.
- He forgave you.
CONCLUSION
And so the standard has been set. Not so much by God’s commands but by God’s CHRIST!! The Messiah he sent into the world, he sets the standard of moral living. He defines Truth and Goodness. His Word, His example:
And so we end where we began. Next Verse:
- (SLIDE) “Imitate God. Follow the Example of Christ”
- You look like him, you’re his child. There should be a resemble.
(ILLUS) Well, imagine you’re a solider in a fight. And you hear the sergeant say, “We just got word from the General to march, boys. There’s a tough fight up ahead. Before we get there, he wants us to repair two bridges, and once there, we’re facing a fierce enemy.”
- And you go, but under your breath you think about that General sending you into harm’s way. What battles has HE ever fought? You resent the General.
- Now, imagine on the road ahead you see a figure, already repairing one of the bridges. It’s the General! You help him until job’s done on both bridges; then He goes away.
- Further up the road, you see the battle has been joined. But again, you see someone there already leading the charge, caring for the injured, engaging the enemy, embracing danger. It’s the General – again!
Well, doesn’t that change the heart and energy of your obedience to the General? Don’t just do what God says, do what God DOES!
- Do what you see the father doing.
o And walk a walk of love.
