What is one of the hardest parts of being a Christian? For most people, I would have to say, walking out their faith amidst an unchristian world. With all the distraction and attractions which pull at our lives, the walk of a believer is tested on a daily basis, sometimes hourly, it seems.
Consider even Noah, were he alive today, would have problems were the Genesis flood to happen today. Here is how that conversation between Noah and God might turn out. The Lord spoke to Noah and said, "In six months I’m going to make it rain until the whole earth is covered with water and all the evil people are destroyed. But I want to save a few good people, and two of every kind of living thing on the planet. I am commanding you to build an Ark."
And in a flash of lightning, He delivered the specifications for an Ark. "Okay," said Noah, trembling with fear and fumbling with the blueprints.
"Six months, and it starts to rain," thundered the Lord. "You’d better have the Ark completed, or learn to swim for a very long time."
Six months passed, the skies clouded up and rain began to fall. The Lord saw that Noah was sitting in his front yard, weeping. ..... and there was no Ark.
"Noah," shouted the Lord, "Where is the Ark?"
"Lord, please forgive me!" begged Noah. "I did my best. But there were big problems. First, I had to get a building permit for the Ark construction project, and your plans didn’t meet code. So I had to hire an engineer to re- draw the plans. Then I got into a big fight over whether or not the Ark needed a fire sprinkler system.
"Then my neighbor objected, claiming I was violating zoning by building the Ark in my front yard, so I had to get a variance from the city planning commission.
"Then I had problems getting enough wood for the Ark, because there was a ban on cutting trees to save the Spotted Owl. I had to convince the U.S. Fish and Wildlife that I need the wood to save the Owls. But they wouldn’t let me catch any owls. So, no owls.
"The carpenters formed a union and went out on strike. I had to negotiate a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board before anyone would pick up a saw or hammer. Now we have sixteen carpenters going on the boat, and still no owls.
"Then I started gathering up animals, and got sued by an animal rights group. They objected to me taking only two of each kind.
"Just when I got the suit dismissed, EPA notified me that I couldn’t complete the Ark without filing an environmental impact statement on your proposed flood. They didn’t take kindly to the idea that they had no jurisdiction over the conduct of a Supreme Being.
"Then the Army Corp of Engineers wanted a map of the proposed new flood plain. I sent them a globe.
"Right now, I’m still trying to resolve a complaint from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over how many Croatians I’m supposed to hire. The IRS has seized all my assets, claiming I’m trying to avoid paying taxes by leaving the country. And I just got a notice from the state about owing them some kind of use tax. I really don’t think I can finish the Ark for at least another five years," Noah wailed.
The sky began to clear. The sun began to shine. A rainbow arched across the sky. Noah looked up and smiled.
"You mean you’re not going to destroy the earth?" Noah asked hopefully.
"No," said the Lord sadly. "People already have.”
While we may laugh at the plight of a modern day Noah, it is no laughing matter when it comes to eternal life decisions we make everyday. The Apostle Paul in Ephesians 4:17-24 lays out the framework for how a believer is to live out their walk on earth, principles which worked then and work today. He beings by pointing out…
I. Believers are to avoid immoral lifestyles. In verses 17-19 he lays out areas which will draw believers of Christ away from their primary mission on earth and down the pathway to destruction. In verse 17, he warns of…
1. Confused Thoughts. Paul writes: “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.” We are familiar with several statements on thinking, “garbage in—garbage out” or the fact there is so much stinkin’ thinking which takes place today. If you want confused thinking, turn on talk radio and run the gambit of stations or listen to some of the callers and it will not take you long to get confused. Today we have revisionist historians, these are people who take the facts of history and change them. Paul tells us not to live like the Gentiles who had confused thoughts, where right is wrong and wrong can seem to be right. Or where right and wrong is determined by the situation not the actions of people. Paul said avoid that lifestyle.
The lawyer in the musical Chicago has a scene where he tells us when the evidence is against you, what you have to do is razzle dazzle them. The world does that well, razzle dazzle. Our nation today is focused on the unfortunate loss of lives by our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Daily the news provides us with a running total of the loss of freedom fighters while they downplay the accomplishments such as the deposing of dictatorships and the development of a democratic nation. And while they post the daily death tally, they never point back to our nation where the daily death toll for innocent children resulting from abortion is much more staggering… razzle dazzle…or where murder and crime across our nation exceeds the daily death toll. Society will razzle dazzle you into confusion as they tap dance their way around issues which are more devastating then those they proclaim.
Romans 1:22 sizes up the situation. It states, “Professing themselves to be wise, they become fools.”
In verse 18, Paul points out two things to avoid when he wrote, “They are 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.” One thing is…
2. Hardened hearts. The Greek word can also be interpreted as being petrified such as a stone which was harder than marble. Or being callus, or loss of power of sensation that it has no power to feel anymore. In truth, we have become petrified, hardened to the things of this world. We no longer mourn over the loss of innocence, we call it maturity. We no longer weep over murder, we call it fascination. CSI is the number one program on television because people are intrigued by the crime investigation looking for the killer of people but how often have you though of the person who is laid out on a stainless steel tray over the fascination of finding the clue that will lead to the killer. We have become desensitized to death, only serial crimes garner the attention of the front page and we have lost out ability to feel. Don’t let your heart be hardened.
Paul also wanted us not to have…
3. Closed Minds. When you close your mind, you close off God, not allowing Him room to bring revelation to your heart. My way or the highway. When you close your mind, Paul points out, you darken your understanding. There is no clarity remaining, or room for clarity, your mind has closed off those possibilities. Closed minds never attain what God has for them because they have shut the doors and windows, batten down the hatches and in thus doing so, prevented God from doing the supernatural, believers need to remain open to the possibilities of God. Stop closing your mind to His potential Paul warns. Then in verse 19 he keys in on avoiding…
4. Impure and Greedy Thoughts. “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.
When you have allowed confused thoughts, a hardened heart and a closed mind to take control of your life, Paul states sensitivity has lost its place and you will be swayed over to impure and greedy thoughts, a wanton lust for more and more immorality. In the day Paul wrote, premarital sex, homosexuality and idolatry were publicly flaunted as the accepted norm. Archeological finds show Rome to have been decorated with statues depicting sex and sexual graffiti adorned the walls outside buildings around town. The common practice for Greek boys to be ushered into manhood was by being molested by older men. Not unlike the men of Sodom who came knocking on the door of Lot, turning down the disgraceful offer of Lot of his daughters, instead they demanded the men who had come to his house for the night.
Paul warns that when we give ourselves over to unchecked sensuality, the end result is a loss of sensitivity that will lead to every kind of impurity and it doesn’t stop there Paul said, rather, it leads to a continual lust for more and more. From Sodom to Ephesus, to our world today, it remains the same.
So, what is one to do if they want to walk the life of a believer? Paul taught,
II. Believers are to adopt a Spiritual Lifestyle. He goes on to write in Ephesians 4:20-24, “20 You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. 21 Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”
What Paul is calling for is…
1. Renewal of Spiritual thoughts and attitudes. In verse 20, he tells them they did not come to know Christ by following these acts of immoral living. Jesus Christ is truth and if you want to walk the life of a believer, you need to walk it in truth which means there are some changes which need to come your way.
I talked a little about change last week. Paul tells us to put off our old self and put on the new self. When we ask Jesus to come into our lives, we need a spiritual make-over. The things of the world have pulled us into a deceitful aged lifestyle which is killing us and making us unattractive. Amazingly, the world has blinded the eyes of those who follow after its standards causing people to see it as attractive when in reality it is full of rotting living. When you come to Christ, and put on Christ, your eyes become open to the reality of what is around you, you become once again sensitized, aware, seeing what once looked attractive for what it is. Later in this study we are going to talk about the armor of God because if we do not take care, the world is hard at work to desensitize us once again.
Sin leaves us naked. Remember in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve sinned and hid from God? God confronts them, Adam passes the blame to Eve who hands it off to the serpent who was stuck because he no longer had a leg to stand on. Then, after reviewing the consequences of sin, God does something interesting in Genesis 3:21, “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.” God opened the first Nordstrom’s. He changed their appearance.
There were three things which Paul saw in Ephesus and probably all the other cities and towns he passed. He saw men and women’s hearts petrified, hardened, to such a degree they no longer saw what they were doing as being sin. He also saw men and women so dominated by the sin they indulged that shame had lost its edge and all decency had been forgotten and thirdly, he saw men and women so captivated by their own desires, they no longer cared who was injured as a result of their unchecked lust or whose innocence they destroyed along the way just so their own personal desires were satisfied.
It sounds like out world today. And those who are believers have an opportunity to make a change, to cloth ourselves in Christ, to walk the walk to match the talk, to set an example of how we should live, clothed in Christ, putting off the old welcoming the new change the Holy Spirit desires to make in our lives.
Adoption is a choice. In Joshua 24:14-16 we read, “ 14 "Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. 15 But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."
16 Then the people answered, "Far be it from us to forsake the LORD to serve other gods!”
If you are going to walk the walk of the believer, you also will need to make a choice, as the people answered in Joshua’s day, how will you answer today?
Closing prayer—altar time
