So…Live On Another Level
Pastor Jim Luthy
Ephesians 4:17-24
You’ve pursued understanding and received grace. So what?
That’s a great question: "So what?" We’ve reduced it to be the question of the lazy and uncooperative: "So?"
But the truth is, people who make a difference ask that question. I was at a Godfathers restaurant with a few other families after church, playing a rather sanctified game of pinball, when one of my brothers in Christ—John—noticed my son Connor choking on a piece of hard candy. Although he didn’t ask the question audibly, I’m grateful that he asked himself, "so what?" The answer to his question: so grab the boy and dislodge the candy. He might have saved his life.
When you or I are confronted with the facts of a matter, we would do well to ask, "so what?" The right answer to that question is always the right course of action. That course of action might be inaction, but it is the right course of action nonetheless. Got it?
So?
So, if you have pursued understanding and sought the grace of God, then there is a right course of action. That course of action is what Paul uncovers in the rest of the book of Ephesians. That right course of action is living on another level.
I cannot understate, though, the value of the foundation Paul has already laid. If we were to have at our disposal only those passages of Ephesians from chapter 4, verse 17 and on, the Christian life would be a senseless burden to us, a new list of laws we would inevitably fail to follow. Consider these words:
"Put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor."
"In your anger, do not sin." (Yeah, right!)
"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth."
"Be kind and compassionate to one another." (Obviously written before freeways, traffic laws, and creative gestures.)
"Be imitators of God." (Which is a whole lot different than, "Act as though you are God.")
"Live a life of love."
"Among you, there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed…"
"Live as children of light."
"Do not get drunk on wine."
"Submit to one another…"
"Wives, submit to your husbands…"
"Husbands, love your wives…"
"Children, obey your parents…"
"Fathers, don’t exasperate your children." (Okay, whatever that means. But can I duct tape them to the wall for just a couple of hours?)
"Slaves, obey your earthly masters…"
And finally, "Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power."
Ha! After reading that list and checking it twice, I have no time to be strong in the Lord. In fact, I’m exhausted just thinking about it. If I need to follow this list, and then, finally, be strong in the Lord, let me tell you, strong in the Lord is just plain never gonna happen.
But, if we understand what Christ has done for us and we have received his grace, this list is not a burden but a joy. Obedience to this list is our act of worship, to be sure, but it also is the outpouring of his very life in us. If we love him, we will choose to obey his commands. But if we have him, we will be able to obey his commands.
So, live on another level!
"So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are (implied: as you once were and ought not to be) darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 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." (4:17-19)
Paul is telling us, as sure as he told the church in Ephesus in that day, that we are no longer to live like we used to live. Paul screams at us from the pages of Scripture, "Don’t live on the familiar level!"
You see, those on the familiar level do not have understanding. They are darkened in their understanding. We don’t need to live in that old familiar way. God has shed light on our understanding. We understand we are blessed. We understand that we can know Jesus and he is our prize. We understand that we are God’s workmanship, created to do good things. We understand that we have a part in the great drama of God’s story. We don’t have to live like the lights aren’t on! Yet so much of the time we do. So much of the time we hurry and worry to avoid pain and we strain to grasp every ounce of pleasure out of this miserable life as though we have no idea that God has greater things in store for us.
That’s the way I used to live. Before I met Christ, my budget consisted of 3 categories: Bills, Poker, and Pizza and Beer. It probably would have had a fourth category, except for the fact that after a few beers the sex was free. I was living for the day. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. But God has shed light on that darkened understanding. I don’t live like I used to live. It’s not just a matter of getting older. It’s a matter of understanding that changes your life. Without understanding, we fail to live on another level.
Those on the familiar level have also not received grace. They are separated from the life of God. Christ doesn’t dwell in them. They don’t know the grace to proclaim Christ. They cannot participate in the grace to present Christ.
Are you living on that familiar level? We ought not to live that way anymore. Jesus died, was buried, and the Father raised him from the dead so you could live differently. There is another level on which we can live. In Ephesians 4:20-24, Paul lets us know how we can get there: put off your old self, be made new in the attitude of your minds, and put on the new self.
To put off the old self means to distance yourself from your former way of life. That familiar level is being corrupted by its deceitful desires. Get away from it! How do you do that? You denounce it as wrong. You confess it as sin. You declare to God and all the angels and to the principalities and powers of this present age, "I am no longer that person. I am not ruled by whatever feels good. I am not ruled by what the world and the news and the columnists tell me is good. I have a new master. I am a new man. I am a new woman. The old has gone and the new has come." Put off the old self. Distance yourself from it. Make some space for something and someone new. Prepare the way for the Lord.
Then Paul says to be made new in the attitude of your mind. All this means is that we open up our minds and apply ourselves to the Word of God so that he can change the way we think about him and about life.
I’ve always believed in God. Always. As long as I can remember. When I read the signs on the trees that said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved," I reasoned that I was safe. I didn’t understand who Jesus was or what he did. I didn’t understand the cross. I just had this intellectual assent to Jesus’ historical place and believed that what I believed would save me. The attitude of my mind was that God couldn’t possibly be so arrogant as to expect me to go to church and worship him. I believed that until I understood the good news. Jesus took a hold of me and he changed my thinking. I have been made new in the attitude of my mind. I now know that God delights in our worship of him, not because it puffs him up as I would be puffed up if people worshipped me, but because he alone is worthy of my praise and he is delighted to see that I understand that.
Curran, a new believer, had an intellectual roadblock to the gospel. For years he had heard science tell him there is no God; there is no Creator. But then God started seeking him out. God surrounded him with evidence of his existence. God gave him a few people who would love him like God loves him and who weren’t ashamed of the gospel. Curran wanted to believe but the attitude of his mind was that God couldn’t exist. God broke through and faith overcame reason. Science couldn’t explain God away any longer and Curran has embraced the salvation Jesus offered him. He now tells me he sees holes in scientific theory that he never saw before. He has been renewed in the attitude of his mind.
Put off the old self, be made new in the attitude of your mind, and put on the new self. Putting on the new self is becoming the person God makes of you when he has been given the reigns. It is giving him absolute sway over your eternity and your today. You give him the right to determine what you do and he gives you the power to live on another level. Romans 6:1-14 argues for that way of living . Written to all who have put off the old self and are being made new in the attitude of the mind, it says this:
Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more kindness and forgiveness? Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? Or have you forgotten that when we became Christians and were baptized to become one with Christ Jesus we died with him. (Note the putting off of the old self). 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 as he was. 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. And since we died with Christ (again, putting off the old self), we know we will also share his new life. We are sure of this because Christ rose from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. He died once to defeat sin, and now he lives for the glory of God. So (there’s that word again!), you should consider yourselves dead to sin and able to live for the glory of God through Christ Jesus.
Do not let sin control the way you live (in other words, put off the old self); do not give in to its lustful desires. Do not let any part of your body become a tool of wickedness, to be used for sinning. Instead, give yourselves completely to God since you have been given new life. And use your whole body as a tool to do what is right for the glory of God. Sin is no longer your master, for you are no longer subject to the law, which enslaves you to sin. Instead, you are free by God’s grace.
Do you understand? Have you received God’s grace? Then by that grace you are free to live on another level. These things that Paul is going to instruct you to do are not the means to new life, they are the mark of a new life. They are some of the ways good works God has created us to do. They are our opportunity to use our whole body as a tool to do what is right for the glory of God.
Do you understand you are blessed? Do you understand that God has revealed himself to you as your great prize? Do you understand you are God’s workmanship, created to do good works? Do you understand that you are an important, irreplaceable part of God’s plan to make a dwelling place for him among those he loves?
Have you received his grace? Are you possessing him? Are you proclaiming him? Are you, together, presenting him through the exercise of your gifts?
Put off your old self, be made new in the attitude of your mind, and put on the new self. What an invitation! You don’t have to live like you used to live. You don’t have to live like your deceitful desires are telling you. You don’t have to live like many of those around us are living—in despair and fear and shame, unable to love or be loved and in no way connected with the Living God. You can have a new life. You can put on a new self. One that is able to obey the Lord. One that is given over to his glory. One that knows him and has peace.
A.W. Tozer preached, "If you believe there is fruit that you know you should bear and do not, victory that you know you should have and have not, then I would say, ‘Come on,’ because God has something for you."
Come, live on another level.
