YouTube video sermon
Ephesians 4:17-24
Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Ephesians 4. I thought long and hard about how to begin today’s sermon. Should I use a joke, break the tension? Perhaps a more serious story or reflection would be better? Even up until coming to the pulpit just now I wasn’t decided on exactly what to say. But seeing as this is Father’s Day, let me just once again offer my thanksgiving to each man who is here today. I’ve gotten to know most of you, and some of you especially so, and I just want you to know that I’m grateful for each of you, that I care for each of you deeply, and what you have taught me and are teaching me even as you age is a treasure.
For you ladies out there, the “old man” is not simply a reference to the male gender or the way that some of you might have referred to your fathers. As you know, and as we’ll see in just a few moments, it was Paul’s way of referring to all of us – male and female – before and after accepting Jesus for Who He is – our Savior and Lord.
Hopefully, you’ve found your spot. We’ll begin reading Ephesians 4:17-24.
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. 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ! – 21 assuming that you have heard about Him and were taught in Him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 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.
“Father, as we come now to the Bible, we earnestly pray for the help of the Holy Spirit to reveal Jesus to us, to reveal ourselves, to show us who we are and what we are outside of Christ and in Christ. Help us, Lord, to think and to believe and to obey. For we pray in Jesus name, amen.”
As is typically the case, I’ve tried to arrange today’s sermon around three points and the first is…
FUTILITY WITHOUT CHRIST
Every time we open our Bibles, we’re turning to a book that understands the world in which we live. If you doubt that, then all you need to do is re-read verses 17-19. In fact, if you take these verses and combine them with what Romans 1 says, then you get a very strong sense and accurate portrait of humanity outside of Christ. For example, just consider the language. Listen to the words that Paul uses in verses 17-19: futility, darkened, alienated, ignorant, hardened, callous, sensuality, greedy, and impurity. It’s not a very nice description. I can guarantee that none of the Father’s Day cards that will be exchanged today contain this description. And yet, it’s a classic description of the natural state of humanity outside of Christ.
And one of the fascinating things (at least to me) is that these words were written by Paul to a church in Ephesus. A city almost half-way around the world from here. And they were written nearly 2,000 years ago. But even with all of the time and distance between then and now, it’s glaringly obvious that humanity is unable to fix itself, unable to mend its disappointments, unable to rectify its flaws and its faults. And it doesn’t matter whether you’re thinking about this from a micro-level (personally) or a macro-level (globally); the world in which we live is broken.
I met with two small groups of men this past week and, in essence, this was the topic of discussion. Society is messed up. The world is broken. Sure, there are moments within all of our lives that are bright and joyful and even hopeful. The same is true for our country. Not every waking moment of every single day is the worst it could be. Thankfully, there are some stories that bring us encouragement. But on the whole, we all know and see and feel that society and the world remains in shambles. And our attempts at fixing that broken world have remained the same for generations.
One of the approaches to fixing the world’s brokenness has, in some shape of form, been to better educate the people. If only we could get them to understand things more clearly, then things would get better. Doesn’t happen. With all of the emphasis on the health dangers of smoking, placing a warning from the Surgeon General on the package, restricting the age limit, placing the product behind the counter, and all the rest, people still walk into a convenience store and say, “I’ll have two packs of those.” Education isn’t a guaranteed solution to our problems.
In the same way, legislation cannot alter the darkness of humanity and the darkness in my own heart. The heart of man is not changed by bills and reforms passed in the halls of Congress or by some parliamentary statement of the United Nations. All of those endeavors after all of this time still cry out: is there any remedy, is there any possibility, how in the world can this thing be fixed.
And, of course, the answer that God is providing to you and to me – through the pen of the apostle Paul – is that any fixing of a lasting and significant measure can only be accomplished by the blood of Jesus Christ. Actually, I’d like to make a statement that some of you won’t agree with, a statement that some might even find offensive, and that is this: the business of Christianity is not to improve the world. There are all kinds of people and groups out there trying to improve the world. But that is not what Jesus came to do. Now don’t misunderstand me, improving the world is a byproduct of the work of Christ. But it wasn’t the primary and sole reason for Him coming into the world.
1 Timothy 1:15 says, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”
In Mark’s gospel Jesus told the scribes and Pharisees that “[He] came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17).
In Luke 19, Jesus tells those gathered at Zacchaeus’s house that “the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10).
Time and time again, in the New Testament, at least 15 times, we read statements made directly by Jesus and others that tell us He came primarily to redeem hearts, to save souls from the judgment of hell, and to create a new kind of humanity, but not to improve the world.
So, the person that calls themselves a Christian, a Jesus-follower, a believer of Christ, is different from a non-Christian. And if you consider yourself to be a Christian, then you know that you’re different from a non-Christian. Not different in the sense that you don’t sin or you aren’t tempted and occasionally give in to sin. No, no. Murray M’Cheyne was a fine minister that died at the age of 29, and he wrote this in his journal, which was later published under the title Memoirs and Remains, “I know that the seed of every sin known unto man dwells in my heart.” He didn’t commit them all, but he knew that he was only one step away from every one of them. And that’s true of you and me.
So the difference between the Christian and the non-Christian isn’t that we don’t still have the capacity to sin, but rather that we’ve acknowledged that proclivity, we’ve had the eyes of our hearts opened to the grace and mercy and forgiveness of Jesus, and we’ve heard the voice of Jesus calling us (as He is right now) saying, “you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.”
IDENTITY IN CHRIST
The contrast to futility without God is both challenging and, at the same time, encouraging. The contrast is found in verse 20, “But that is not the way you learned Christ!” That phrase, “learned Christ” is an interesting one. This isn’t talking about knowing factual information about Jesus. This is talking about knowing Christ as you would your spouse.
It occurred to me, not long after my birthday a few weeks ago, that I’ve been married to Melissa for half of my life. I was telling a group of folks about that the other night and Audrey just laughed and said, “Wait a little longer and you’ll only know life with her.” Of course, what Audrey meant and what many of you know is that you think you know somebody, but you can really only speak about “learning” someone when you can’t speak of your life or your existence at all without the other person being in the story. That’s what Paul is talking about. To “learn Christ” is to embrace Him in all that makes Him Christ.
Jesus is the Lord, and the King, and the Savior, and the Prophet, and the Priest, and so on, and when all of those titles and all the characteristics that accompanies those titles begins to permeate your life and my life, then we’re beginning to “learn Christ.”
John Newton, you recognize the name; the former slave trader and sea captain turned Anglican minister and hymnwriter wrote thes hymn How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds in a Believer’s Ear. Can you imagine what his sailor friends thought when they heard he’d become a clergyman? “Dude, what gives? (Ok, so they probably didn’t address him as dude, but you good for nothing so and so…) You’ve been talking like us and living like us, and now all of this Jesus stuff.” O Jesus, Shepherd, Guardian, Friend, my Prophet, Priest, and King, my Lord, my Life, my Way, my End, accept the praise I bring. What happened? He learned Christ.
Remember when we were in chapter 2, one hundred years ago, Paul wrote, “And He [Jesus] came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.” And people would say, “Wait a minute, I wasn’t here when Jesus preached. When did Jesus preach in Ephesus?” He didn’t. What Paul meant by that statement is that when the Word of God is taught, the voice of Jesus is heard. The mouth of God is in the Word of God.
There ought to be an inward dialogue going on each Sunday between you and God when I preach His Word. Rather, I fear that most of us approach this worship hour (or any worship service) with the mindset that if we can just get beyond the sermon then we can go home. “I wish he would just hurry up and get done already.” And we leave never having heard the voice of God. And while the pastor’s ability to preach and teach varies from pulpit to pulpit, and he may not be the most proficient communicator of God’s Word, we need to be careful that we don’t short circuit the voice of Jesus in the message.
So, Paul says you heard Jesus and were taught in Him, as the truth is in Jesus. We need to be reminded that we believe in Jesus. We haven’t believed a philosophy. We haven’t embraced a religion. We haven’t simply exchanged one set of moral and ethical teachings for another. No, we’ve had a direct encounter with the living God in the person of Jesus. You have come to Jesus. You’ve found the truth in Jesus. Our faith is rooted and grounded in the historical person of Jesus, who was born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried, and was raised to new life and will come again to judge the living and the dead. In a day and age where the church is being tempted, and in many cases embracing the rejection of biblical orthodoxy, we need to remember that’s who we’ve come to trust in. The One who said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).
Why do we support the ministries and missionaries that we do? Why do we pray for families like the Costanzas, if this is not the case? You see, nobody will appreciate the gospel going out to the world unless we’ve learned Christ, unless we’ve heard Him, unless we’ve been taught in Christ. Then, you find yourself saying, “Everybody needs to hear this!” We go to all the world with Kingdom hope unfurled, no other name has power to save, save Jesus Christ the Lord. The need for the sex trafficked woman in Charlotte or Atlanta or Greenville is the same need for the Muslim terrorist, and the same need for you and for me – to know Jesus as our Savior and Friend.
DESTINY BECAUSE OF CHRIST
It’s only when we see the futility of our lives apart from Christ and understand our identity in Christ (as opposed to being in Adam) that we recognize our destiny because of Christ. That’s the flow of Paul’s argument in these verses. Verses 17-19 is his description of life without God. Verses 20-21 are his gospel evangelism, if you will; reminding people of the truth of Jesus. And now, verses 22-24 is the hope and destiny of all that come to Jesus, “to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”
Stanton Gavitt wrote a hymn titled Things Are Different Now. Listen to what he says:
Things are different now, something happened to me
Since I gave my heart to Jesus
Things are different now, I was changed it must be
Since I gave my heart to Him
Things I loved before have passed away
Things I love far more have come to stay
Things are different now, something happened that day
When I gave my heart to Him
I really appreciate this language that Paul uses here. He uses the same exact language in Colossians 3. Our men’s Bible study has just concluded a study of Colossians, so this will sound familiar to some of you. Listen to what Paul says there:
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. (Colossians 3:1-10)
What’s the point? These verbs – to put off and put on – are not new commands. When you and I heard the gospel of Jesus Christ – that apart from Christ we are and will forever be lost and dead in our sin and trespasses, but by repenting of our sin and trusting in Jesus we will find forgiveness and reconciliation – we gladly responded and came to the waters of baptism and said, by virtue of that sacrament, I take off my old man and put on the new man.
Part of our problem is that the pull of the world is so strong. The environment in which we live says, “Hey, what do you care about marriage. Don’t worry about commitment. Just live together.” “What do you care about purity for? What’s wrong with a little dishonesty? Come on. Enjoy the good life. Don’t get wrapped up in reading your Bible and trying to live like Jesus.” No! We wage war against the world, the flesh and the devil and we’re reminded by Paul that we’ve put off the old man, we’re being renewed in the spirits of our mind, we’ve put on the new man created in the image of God.
So, as we conclude this morning, let me encourage you, let me challenge you to never stop running, never stop fighting, never stop growing, never stop putting off what remains of the “old man” and renewing your mind by putting on the “new man” created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Remember, God doesn’t justify those that He doesn’t also sanctify. As a follower of Jesus, your destiny because of Christ is to be holy even as He is holy. And one day, if we don’t give up and give in and throw in the towel of our faith and trust in Jesus, then we will here those most precious of words, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:23).