So this morning, if you're taking
notes, you see there in your outline that I've entitled this
morning's sermon as Before Christ, After Christ. Before Christ,
After Christ. That's what we'll be looking
at this morning in Ephesians chapter 4, verses 17 through
24. Let me read the passage to you
and then we'll dive right in. 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. 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. They have become callous
and even given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice
every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned
Christ, assuming that you have heard about Him and were taught
in Him. as the truth is in 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. Father, we bow before you this
morning as we celebrate how great is our God. To you, O God, we
bow our hearts and we pray that you would speak to us through
your word as we learn what it's like to no longer walk as the
Gentiles do, but rather putting off the old. And as you put on
the new, that we would walk in righteousness and in holiness,
which we find only in Christ. And it's in his name we pray.
Amen. Well, in his book, The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis tells
a story of a character who is tormented by a red lizard that
lives on his shoulder. The lizard, which represents
indwelling sin that we all face, constantly mocks the young man. Then the angel comes and offers
to remove the lizard. The young man is initially thrilled
and thinks, I can be rid of this thing that so torments me. So
the young man recognizes that the angel wants to get rid of
the lizard, but also recognizes that the angel glows with a deadly
heat. And that will be the way that
he would remove the lizard. It would be by killing it. And
so the young man suggests that maybe it isn't really necessary
for the lizard to die. And perhaps another time is better
for dealing with him. The angel will not be put off,
though. This moment contains all moments,
he says. The lizard then recognizing the
danger that he is in, also begins to strive for his own life from
a new angle. He tries to unsettle the young
man with doubts and suggestions that any of us who know the subtle
seductions of our own sin would soon recognize. Be careful, the
lizard says, Then the lizard tries to rationalize the character's
thinking by arguing. And here's what C.S. Lewis writes.
The angel can do what he says. He can kill me. One fatal word
from you and he will. Then you'll be without me forever
and ever. It's not natural. How could you live? You only
be sort of a ghost, not a real man as you are now. He doesn't
understand. He's only a cold, bloodless,
abstract thing. It may be natural for him, but
it isn't for us. I know there are no real pleasures
now, only dreams. But aren't they better than nothing? And I'll be so good. I admit
I've been sometimes I've gone too far in the past, but I promise
you I won't do it again. I'll give you nothing but really
nice dreams. All sweet and fresh and almost
innocent. In writing on this, that word
almost innocent is discussed by Brian Chappell in his commentary.
And he says this about this lizard that wants to be almost innocent
within this boy's life. He says, with such assessment,
we often justify our sin and compromise ourselves. We reason it can't really hurt.
And even if it is wrong to be without such flaws is practically
not human. Who could live that way? Only
the warped and legalistic would deny themselves such things.
I have a better understanding of grace than that. God will
forgive me, and I won't let it go too far again. With such words,
we choose to let our lizards live. We convince ourselves that
the remnants of sin in our lives are not really dangerous, and
that almost innocent is safe enough. Well, Paul says that
instead of nurturing such lizards, we should be putting them to
death, right? In this passage, if you're tracking
with this introduction, if you will, it's all about not walking
anymore as the Gentiles do. And there's something in each
one of us, however, that still at times longs for the behavior
and the activity of the Gentiles. And so this passage this morning
that we're looking at is all about no compromise. Don't give
in even for a minute. We are no longer to walk as the
Gentiles did. We have now learned Christ. And if we have learned Christ,
then we should live for Christ. This world and all that it offers
simply cannot and will not satisfy. True happiness comes from truth,
which transforms you and makes you triumphant in Christ. So
this morning we're going to talk about your life before Christ
and then your life after Christ. And it's amazing that while our
world is becoming more and more secular in its thinking, that
the central date of all the world is still founded around Christ's
birth. For over 2,000 years, historians
have used the term BC to refer to that time before Christ, and
then AD, or Anno Domini in Latin for the year of our Lord, to
refer to the time after Christ. Now, in the last A couple of
decades, our society has tried to change those to BCE, before
the common error, and CE, common error. But nevertheless, the
world has been marked in one way or another by the actual
coming of Jesus Christ. And your life has also been marked
by Christ. There are really only two kinds
of people in the world. There are those who are living
the life before Christ, should He choose in His sovereign grace
to save them, and those who are living their life after Christ. And so therefore, our message
this morning highlights the contrast between your life before Christ
and your life after Christ. So this morning, we'll simply
have two major headings, as you see in your outline. And the
first one is this. Let's talk about your life before Christ. Now, you need to know that we
are in that second half of Ephesians. And as we dive in here in verse
17, we need to be reminded that the first half of Ephesians is
all about your position in Christ. In fact, look back at Ephesians
chapter 1, verse 3, where we read, blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ
with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. So the
first part of Ephesians is all about your position in Christ. the fact that you have a high
calling. And if you have a high position in Christ and a high
calling in Christ, and the Bible's also called us to a holy practice
and to holy conduct. In fact, look at Ephesians chapter
4. There we see the hinge where the book begins to give a little
bit more emphasis on the imperative instead of just the indicative,
where Paul writes, I therefore, a prisoner of the Lord, urge
you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've
been called. And so what we looked at in the
first 16 verses of chapter 4 was that we're to be walking in unity,
that we all have different gifts, we all have a different part
that we play in the body of Christ, but we have one Lord, one faith,
one baptism, one God. And so we're to walk together
to grow up and mature in Christ as the body builds itself up
in love. That's what we spent a little
bit of time talking about in verses 1 through 16, walking
in unity. Now what we're doing is looking
at verses 17 through 32 where we're going to talk about walking
in holiness. We're called to walk in holiness. So look there at verse 17 in
chapter 4 and we read this, 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. So notice your first blank there
in the outline is that you suffered from the futility of your mind. So he's challenging us. Remember,
he's writing to believers, both Gentiles and Jews, in Ephesus. And he's reminding them that
when they were a Gentile before Christ, they were walking in
the futility of their mind. Notice the text starts off here
in verse 17 with the conjunction now. And so Paul is connecting
us with what he already said in verses 1 through 3 of the
same chapter. Notice where he wrote again that
we're to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which we've
been called. Verse 2 says, with all humility and gentleness,
with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain
the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. And then he kind
of goes off in verses 4 through 16 and explains what that unity
is. And so now in verse 17, this
word now, this conjunction, is connecting us back with verses
1 through 3, the kind of walk that we're to have. And so he's
telling us that in order to walk in a manner worthy of our calling,
not only do we have to walk in unity, but we also are called
to walk in holiness. We're not to be walking like
the Gentiles, we're to be walking in the holiness of Christ. And
so this statement is, in verse 17, is about how the Gentiles
walk in the futility of their minds. And this is something
that Paul noticed in verse 17. He's testifying about this. He's
testifying in the Lord about this. And in this context, the
word testify is not an oath with the Lord, but rather it is Paul
solemnly declaring his exhortation from a staunchly Christian worldview. And so he's challenging us to
consider, again, what it means to walk in a manner worthy of
the calling, both in unity and now in holiness. And in a sense,
Paul is urging us that we would no longer walk as the Gentiles
do. In other words, if you have been
saved, then you have come out of that lifestyle. Paul is challenging
us to never go back. You don't want to fall back into
the habits you had before because it was all futile. It was all
for naught. It was all in vain. In fact,
do you remember Paul describing our life before Christ in chapter
2? Look back at Ephesians chapter 2, where we were reminded that
we were dead in the trespasses of our sins, that you used to
walk like this, right? Following the course of this
world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit
that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we
all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the
desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of
wrath, like the rest of mankind. So that's describing your life
before Christ. That's describing how the Gentiles
walk. That's describing the fact that
we were dead, but now we've been made alive. And so he's reminding
us again in chapter 4 that we ought not walk that way because
it's unregenerate. It's how the Gentiles walk. And
so here in verse 17, the word Gentile simply is a reference
to any unbeliever. any unregenerate or ungodly person. Throughout the New Testament,
Gentile could refer racially or ethnically to all non-Jews,
but here it refers to all non-Christians. And he's simply saying, don't
walk like these unbelievers, these pagans who were walking
according to the world. If you remember some of our introductory
material about Ephesus, Ephesus was totally dominated by Greek
philosophy. It was totally dominated even
by the economy of the goddess Diana and the temple of Artemis,
where there was lewd practice of all sorts and kinds. And so
the Ephesians really acted based on knowledge and on sensuality. And so knowledge in some ways,
for some, kind of trumped everything that they did. They really respected
the fact that you could have real intellect. In fact, Ephesus
isn't all that different than Athens, not that far from Athens,
certainly not that different in the thinking. Remember what
Paul learned when he went to Athens, that the Athenians spent
all their time doing nothing except telling or hearing something
new. They just wanted to sit around
and talk. and philosophize. They just wanted to spend time
talking and gaining more intellect. But the Bible tells us that this
kind of knowledge, that this kind of intellect, that this
kind of mindful focus is futile. And that word futile means empty.
It could mean vanity, purposelessness, absurdity, even worthlessness. And this is a word that's used,
this word futile, is used a couple of other times in the New Testament.
It's used in 2 Peter 2, verse 18, where Peter says, for speaking
loud boast of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh,
those who are barely escaping, those who live in error. So speaking
of false teachers, he's saying, look, they boast, but it's full
of folly. That word folly is the same word
for futile. It's empty. It doesn't have any
value in it whatsoever. That's what false teachers, that's
what Gentiles fill their minds with, futility. This word futility
is also used in Romans 8 20 as a reference to how the creation
is subject to futility. That the earth was to produce
fruit to preserve life, but was thwarted due to the curse. And
so now the earth is unable to do what it was created to do
without God's sovereign grace. So the idea here is that Paul
is saying that the thinking of the world is totally futile. If you don't hold to the truth
of Christ, then you don't have any true purpose. If you don't
know Christ, you don't have truth. If you don't have truth, then
your life becomes vain. And when your life becomes vain,
you begin to chase anything in this world that begins to appeal
to your depraved nature. And the Bible tells us in Ecclesiastes
that this is a chasing after the wind. And so we're learning
here that not only are Gentiles suffering from the futility of
their minds, but secondly, our point B, he says that you suffered
from being darkened in your understanding. Not only do they have these empty
minds thinking that they're building themselves up in knowledge, but
the Bible tells us they actually don't have true knowledge because
they're darkened in their understanding. The idea here is that it's the
idea of being clouded or having a darkened mind in contrast with
an illuminated mind. It's actually in the passive,
which kind of reminds us that they're darkened by something.
We could say they're darkened by their own depravity, or they're
even darkened by God. That God, as we're going to see
here, gives them over to their own reprobate condition. And
so Paul warns us of unbelievers and false teachers who really
have this kind of darkness in their mind. In fact, turn with
me, if you will, to 2 Timothy chapter 3, and look at verses
7 and 8 where we read about this desire to gain knowledge, but
not really gain it. 2 Timothy 3, 7 says that these
Gentiles are always learning and never able to arrive at a
knowledge of the truth. So they're always searching,
always learning, always trying to gain some kind of knowledge,
but they're never able to get there because true knowledge
is only revealed by God. True knowledge only comes through
Christ. The ability to know and believe
the truth comes through Christ, not your own effort to arrive
at some kind of knowledge that doesn't exist outside of Christ. In fact, this same word, darken,
is also found in Romans chapter 1. Turn with me, if you will,
to Romans 1, and you see, again, the word darken, or this idea
that these Gentiles, or you and I before Christ, were not able
to come to the truth, to have our minds opened when we were
walking in our depravity. And so here in Romans chapter
1, verses 21 through 23, we read this, for although they knew
God, They did not honor him as God
or give thanks to him, but they became, what, futile in their
thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. You see the parallel
of these words here as Paul writes to Ephesus and he writes to Rome. He's saying, look, these people,
they acted like they knew God, but they became futile. They
did not honor God. They became futile in their thinking,
and their foolish hearts were darkened, verse 22, claiming
to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the
immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals
and creeping things. The idea here is that when your
understanding is darkened, then you begin to do things that are
illogical. Things that are illogical, like
worshipping the creature instead of worshipping the Creator. I
mean, it's illogical that you would worship an animal instead
of worshipping the one who made that animal, and yet Romans tells
us that's exactly what they did. They began to exchange God for
images of man and images of animals. So their mind was so darkened,
they were doing things that just doesn't make sense. Not only
worshipping the creature instead of the Creator, I read an article
or heard about, rather, on the briefing this week from Al Mohler,
thinking about the unregenerate mindset, about the idea of trying
to make decent-tasting food out of marijuana. So there's a movement
right now for various chefs on the cutting edge to try to add
cannabis to their menu in order for people to get high by coming
and eating at a restaurant. The problem is it doesn't taste
good. And so these chefs are working all kind of ways that
they can to somehow mask the real taste of this cannabis in
order that people could eat it. Well, it's just illogical. It's
illogical. No chef would ever try to put some substance in
his dish that doesn't taste good unless they're being completely
illogical. I'll tell you another form of
an illogical doesn't make any sense is the idea of what happened
one week ago when a 10-year-old girl was strapped with a bomb,
turning her into a suicide bomber who killed 16 people in a Nigerian
market exactly one week ago today. It's just illogical in the name
of religion, in the name of peace, in the name of Allah that someone
would attach to a 10-year-old girl a bomb. that would blow
up and kill 16 people. It's completely illogical. It
doesn't make any sense. It's an example of those who've
been given over thinking to be wise. They've become fools. And so before Christ, you walked
as the Gentiles who suffered from the futility of mind, and
you were darkened. I was darkened in our understanding.
Before Christ, you also, look at C, you suffered from being
alienated from God. you and I were alienated from
God. That word alienated means to
be a complete stranger, like you don't know God, like you
don't know him or understand him at all. In fact, this word
alienated has already been used here in Ephesians 2, 11 and 12.
Verse 11, where we read, Therefore remember that at one time you
Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is
called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands,
remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated
from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants
of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. And so when we were Gentiles,
we were alienated from God. We were outside of the covenant
of promise. We were outside of the knowledge
of God. We were outside of anything good. We were strangers to our
Creator because of our own sin. Not only this, but verse 18 here
in chapter 4 says, they are darkened in their understanding, alienated
from the life of God. And then we're given a couple
of reasons of why it is that we were alienated from God. The
first is, is because of our own ignorance. See that there in
verse 18, alienated to God because of their ignorance that is in
them. So your next blank there is because
you're alienated because of your own ignorance. This word ignorance
means a lack of information that may result in reprehensible conduct,
exercising a lack of discernment. So it's being without knowledge,
but the cause of that without knowledge leads you to a reprehensible
conduct, a complete lack of discernment or any rationality. In fact,
turn with me, if you will, to Isaiah chapter 46. And Isaiah
chapter 46, I think, is a helpful illustration, again, of people
who have zero knowledge of God. And so having no knowledge of
God try to make a God in their own image, or to make a God with
their own hands. Here, this passage is referring
to, actually, the Babylonian Empire, who fell to the Medo-Persian
Empire. And look what Isaiah writes in
Isaiah 46, 1, "...bell bows down, Nebo stoops. Their idols are
own beast and livestock. These things you carry are born
as burdens on weary beasts." So again, he's talking to the
Babylonians who worship Nebo and who worshiped Bel. Okay, that's an early form of
Baal, right, of Bel. But the idea is that they're
following these idols who had to be carried around and they
became burdens on these heavy beasts. Look at verse two, they
stoop, they bow down together, they cannot save the burden,
but themselves go into captivity. So then he's writing about, well,
look, these gods, didn't have any power because the Babylonians
then got overtaken by the Medo-Persians. So they had formed these gods
of Nebo and of Bel, but they had to carry them and they weren't
able to save them. In fact, they just became a burden.
And then look at verse 3. Listen to me, O house of Jacob. So he goes from addressing the
Babylonians, and now he's addressing his own people, the house of
Jacob. He's addressing Israel. He says, listen to me, O house
of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel who have
been born by me from before your birth, carried from the womb. Even to your old age, I am he,
and to gray hairs, I will carry you. I have made and I will bear,
I will carry and I will save. You see what's going on here?
He's comparing, you either have a choice of carrying your own
God around or God can carry you. You can either carry your own
God, your own desire, your own idol of your heart that has no
power to bring you happiness or to deliver you from your sin
or from the enemy. Or you can receive the message
from God this morning, even as He spoke to Israel in the Old
Testament, that you've been born by God. And before your birth,
God carried you from the womb. Even to your old age again, He
says, and to gray hairs, I will carry you. I have made you. and I will bear, I will carry,
and I will save." What a great reminder. It's illogical to say,
no, no, no, I want to carry my own God around and hope my God
will save me. Or you could submit to the supreme
God who loves us, who desires a relationship with us, who sent
his one and only son, Jesus Christ, to die for sinners. so that you
could turn from your sin and God could carry you. It's the
message of Christ in the New Testament in Matthew 11 28 where
he says, come unto me all who are weary and heavy laden and
I will give you rest. You can either carry your own
God or you can be carried by God. And my friends, it is illogical.
It doesn't make any sense. It is ignorant to carry a God
of your own making when you could be carried by the God of the
universe who created you and who desires a love relationship
with you. Well, a second reason why it
is here that these Gentiles are alienated from God, in addition
to their own ignorance, we also see that they are alienated from
God because of their own hardness. Their own hardness. Notice the
end of verse 18 says, because of the ignorance that is in them,
due to their hardness of heart in this word hardness carries
the idea of being rock heart. It is used by some of the physicians
back in the ancient world to describe the calcification that
forms around the broken bones and after healing that That broken
part that was now calcified becomes actually harder than the bone
itself. It was also used of the hard
formations that sometimes occur in the joints and cause them
to become immobile. In this sense, it could be describing
the idea of paralysis as well as the idea of hardness. In fact,
one commentator says this, quote, sin has a petrifying effect. And the heart of the person who
continually chooses to sin becomes hardened and paralyzed to spiritual
truth, utterly insensitive to the things of God. And so that's
what's going on here in this passage. That doesn't describe
what's going on in our culture today. I don't know what does.
That our hearts have become hardened. That our desire is just to remain
ignorant about the things of God because we want to continue
to pursue our own sin. And the last thing I want to
say about this Gentile mindset would be this, is that when we
were in that frame of mind, you suffered from the loss of all
feeling. Notice verse 19 talks about our
callousness. They have become callous and
have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind
of impurity. So the word callousness, as you
know, or callous could be translated literally as a loss of all feeling. Spiritually speaking, there's
the idea that you have literally become dead to the feeling of
the guilt of committing these sins and walking according to
the patterns of this world. That idea of losing feeling reminds
me a little bit of the fact that the human body can suffer different
degrees of burn wounds. You've probably heard of first-degree
burns and second-degree burns and third-degree burns, right?
And part of the idea behind just getting sunburned, you know,
you get sunburned, it hurts, right? You're like, man, that
really hurts. I don't want to get sunburned again. And that just kind of
goes down to the top layer of your epidermis. And so you've
got to get some aloe. You want to make sure you don't
get sunburned again because it's no fun. That's a first-degree
burn. And then you have a second-degree burn. And a second-degree burn
is like when you fall asleep in the sun by the pool for a
few hours in the middle of August. Then you wake up and you have
blisters that are on your face and on your skin. It's a second-degree
burn because now it's gone deeper than just the epidermis. It's
gone down into the dermis, down into that middle layer of the
skin. And it's a pretty bad wound.
It could require special cream from the doctor, that Silvadene
cream and a little bit of extra care because it's a second-degree
burn. Or you could suffer from a third-degree burn. And a third-degree
burn is when it actually goes through the entire skin layer
and it goes down into what's called the subcutaneous tissue.
And what's interesting about the third-degree burn is that
a third-degree burn doesn't hurt at all. It burns through all
of the nerves. It burns through all the way
to the subcutaneous tissue, where you would think that would be
the worst burn of all, but there's no pain sensors in that area. In fact, I'll never forget as
a PA working in the burn unit for a few weeks, and part of
our job was to debride these patients to remove old skin and
yucky stuff out of the wound, right? So they come into the
Whirlpool for treatment, and then after they get out of the
Whirlpool, your job is to take some instruments, like some cotton
swabs, and scrape that stuff out so that the bacteria completely
gets out and it can heal. And I remember the first time
I did this, I was looking at this patient who had several
third degree wounds on his body, having been in a fire. And so
I'm thinking, oh, man, this is going to be tough, you know,
to clean this out because this guy is probably going to get
mad at me. You know, I need to give him a stick to bite on or something.
So I'm scraping this stuff out that I'm going to be safe. And
so I remember starting to scrape this stuff out. And I keep looking
up at him like, is he going to slap me or is he grimacing or
how can he take this? And he just had no look on his
face at all. And I'm like, well, that's interesting. So I start
scraping a little harder, you know, scraping a little harder.
And I'm like, you can't feel that? You know what I'm saying? I can't feel anything, man. I
can't, I can't feel it at all. Well, that's the idea of having
your conscience seared. the idea that you go beyond a
sense of guilt and you began to openly embrace all types of
sin with no guilty conscience at all. You become so callous
to what God says and to that conscience that he places in
every person to where you're given over, in this text, given
over to sensuality. That's your next blank. They're
just completely given over to sensuality. Verse 19 tells us
that they've given themselves up to sensuality. That word sensuality
does not mean just a little risque. You know, sometimes we'll say,
well, I saw this movie and they have this little sensual part
in there. And we think of it as a little
bit of a, maybe a risque part of sensuality. But the word sensuality
literally means a total lack of self-constraint, which involves
one in conduct that violates all bounds of what is socially
acceptable. So when the Bible uses this word
sensuality, it means that you've been completely callous to any
type of reasonable behavior, and now you've been given completely
over to the sin of no restraint. In fact, hold your finger there
and turn back to that Romans 1 passage, because this is where
this passage goes as well. The idea of this sensuality in
Romans chapter 1 verse 24, picking up where we left off in 23, says,
therefore God gave them up. So the idea here in Ephesians,
the idea in Romans, they've been given up in the lust of their
hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,
because they have exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and
worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who
is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave
them up to dishonorable passions, for their women exchanged natural
relations for those that are contrary to nature. And the men
likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed
with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts
with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit
to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to
do what ought not to be done. This again just completely describes
our culture today. That there's a callousness to
the area of sexuality. That you can do whatever you
want with whoever you want, however you want, and people don't feel
guilty about it at all. Why? Because their minds are
futile. They're empty. They don't understand the truth
of God. They've been given over to sensuality.
There are no constraints. And then the Bible also says
there, number two, that you're greedy for more impurity. The idea here is that they are
given over to this sensuality, greedy, to practice every kind
of impurity. And the word impurity there still
implies a sexual sin. The more you get, the more you
want. You're never satisfied. You step out of bounds a little
bit, you continue to step out of bounds to try to find some
kind of satisfaction, and you just can't get enough. And you're
willing to pay any price in order to pursue what you want to pursue
because you've been overcome with this desire that is ruling
your heart. A couple of commentaries had
an illustration here where they talked about an ancient Greek
story about a Spartan youth who stole a fox. but then inadvertently
came upon the man from whom he had stolen it. And to keep his
theft from being discovered, the boy stuck the fox inside
of his clothes and stood without moving a muscle, while the frightened
fox tore out his vital organs. Even at the cost of his own painful
death, he would not own up to his wrong." And our society is
so determined to not be discovered as being wrong, that it stands
unflinching as its very life and vitality is ripped apart
by the sins and corruption that it holds so dear, acting as if
nothing is wrong. And yet we're getting eaten up
on the inside by our own sensuality and impurity. Well, this again
is the description of our life before Christ. How about you
this morning? Do you recognize the lifestyle
that you've come out of if you're in Christ? Have you ever been
tempted to look back at the ways that you used to walk thinking
that there may be some pleasure in it? Have you ever thought
that you licked some temptation for good only to find it blowing
up in your face years later because you began to set your mind not
on Christ but on the flesh and you were drawn again into the
way of the Gentile? Well, we're reminded this morning
in this text that we are to no longer walk as Gentiles do. It's empty. It's futile. There's
no hope in it. Instead, if we are in Christ
today, we're reminded in 2 Corinthians 5, 17, that if anyone is in Christ,
He is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold,
the new has come. And so just as gross as your
life is before Christ, our life is so wonderful after Christ. And so look at this second major
heading here that your life after Christ. Let's talk for a moment
about what's going on here in verses 20 through 24, where verse
20 starts off says, but it is not the way you learn Christ. assuming that you have heard
about Him and were taught in Him as the truth is in Jesus. And so here we're learning now
that you have learned Christ. You used to be that way, but
now you've learned about Christ, verse 20 tells us. There's this
adversative conjunction, but, to show strong contrast, just
like that but in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 4, that you were dead,
but God, being rich in mercy. And so now we're reading again
about the Gentiles, but there's that but again that's saying
that's the way that you used to be because now you've learned
Christ. That word learn means that you've
gained knowledge, but it also implies that you've acquired
a certain skill. It's not that you just learned
it theoretically, but you've acquired a skill to follow what
you've learned. In other words, if I told you
that I learned how to do heart surgery when I worked as a PA,
you would just assume that not only did I study about it in
a book, but that I actually performed, to some degree, parts of that
operation. This is what he's saying when
he's saying that you learned Christ. It's not only did you just learn
the facts about who Jesus is, but there's an implication here
that you've acquired a certain skill to now walk in accordance
with Christ. We could say that learning Christ
would mean having heard about him. That's your next blank.
Because verse 20 says, assuming that you've heard about Him.
So if you're in Christ, you had to hear about Him. And this word,
hear, also has the implication that not only are you hearing,
but you're obeying. That you're hearing and obeying.
It's the idea that faith cometh from hearing, and hearing from
the Word of God, but then you also walk in the truths of God's
Word. Because you've heard about Him.
Not only have you heard about Him, but verse 21 says that you've
been taught in Him, that you were taught or you were instructed
in Christ because He is the truth. It's not just about Him. You
have to be in Him. I love how verse 21 says again
that you were taught in Him. So it doesn't say that you were
taught by Him, but you were taught in Him because Jesus embodies
truth in Himself. It's John 14, 6, where Jesus
said, I am. the way and the truth and the
life that no man comes to the father except through me. So here's the idea that you've
heard him and you've been taught in him. So if you've learned
Christ, according to verse 20 and 21. Then you also, your next
blank is that you long to follow Christ. In verses 22 through
24 are where that is described with an extremely important concept. Oftentimes in biblical counseling
or just as you grow as a Christian, we just call this putting off
and putting on, right? The idea of we put off old behavior,
old habits, and we put on Christ-like attitude and Christ-like behavior. And so what's going on here in
verse 22 is that we read that we need to put off your old self,
which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt
through deceitful desires. And so if you've learned Christ,
you should long to follow him. And let me give you just three
ways that you can follow him. Number one, put off your old
self. Kind of goes without saying, that's right there what's in
the tax, the idea of you discard it. The idea that you had on
your dirty clothes and you discard them, you disrobe to put on new
clothes, which we'll get to in a minute. But you've got to first
put off the old. And so you've got to take off
your next blank there, take off your old clothes. To put off
your old self deals with taking off your old clothes. It deals
with getting rid, get rid of your old habits, And then third,
we could say, burn the bridge to the old desires. We're talking
here about radical amputation. To put off means you get serious
about getting rid of your old self, which comes through the
gospel, but also there's a requirement in our sanctification that we
are partly responsible for doing what the gospel calls us to do.
It's the idea that Christ gave in the Sermon on the Mount in
Matthew 529. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out.
and throw it away. It says that if your right hand
causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. And then he
gives a reason for both of those, for it is better for you to lose
one of your members than your whole body to be thrown into
hell. So Christ is given a very significant
challenge that if we don't stop sinning and put off these old
behaviors, it will lead to hell. It will lead to continuing to
walk as the Gentiles walk, and it will give evidence that you
were never truly saved. But as we put off our old self,
we're also called, number two, to renew our mind. And in verse
23 we read about that we are to be renewed in the spirit of
our minds. And so our minds aren't to be
chasing feudal information, feudal knowledge of the Gentiles, but
rather our minds are to be renewed. We could say, how do you do that?
Well, by setting your mind on things above. That's what Christ
has called us to do, not to be so interested in all the culture
and all of the gossip magazines and all the stuff that's going
on and what celebrity is doing what with who. The idea is set
your mind on things above. Colossians 3, 1 through 4 says,
if you've been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind
on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth.
So we have to renew our minds. As we do this, we also, secondly,
are being transformed in our thinking. So in order to renew
your mind, you set your mind on things above, and this will
help transform you. Romans 12, 2, do not be conformed to this
world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that
by testing you may discern what the will of God is, that which
is good and acceptable and perfect. And so to put off and put on
requires getting rid of the old, setting your mind on Christ,
and then it requires, number three, putting on your new self.
Or we could say it this way, put on your new clothes. If you
get rid of the old clothes, it's time to put on the new clothes.
If you ever had a day where you were working in the yard or maybe
accomplishing some kind of a workout and you got hot and you got sweaty
and your clothes are dirty and they're filthy, then you come
home You take off your clothes and you take a bath, right? You
take a shower, and when you get out, what's the first thing you
do? After you dry off, you put on your new clothes. So it's
not good enough just to take off the old clothes. You've got
to put on the new. Or what about when you get an
oil change? Let's say that you realize that
your car's not running well, or it's time to get rid of the
old oil that's been not lubricating your engine as well as it can.
What would happen if you went and drained all the old oil out
of your car, and then you drove off? How long are you going to
make it? If you don't put new oil in,
it's going to be a catastrophe, right? So the idea is you've
got to get rid of the old, but you've got to put on the new.
What if you were to take your car, And you take off the old
tires, but you don't put on new tires. And you try to drive off,
you're not going to make it very far. So the idea here is it's
not good enough just to get rid of the sin, but we need to be
renewing our mind and putting on. We need to start making new
habits. That's your next blank there.
We've got to start making some new habits here, getting in God's
Word. We've got to start getting some
accountability, start meditating and hiding our hearts in the
truth of Scripture. We need to, third, live your
new life before God and before others. And so this is part of
what it means to put on. You're putting on your new clothes.
You start making new habits. And then you begin to live your
new life before God and before others. Some would say that that
word righteousness there in 24, put on the new self, created
after the likeness of God and true righteousness and holiness,
that this might be referring to your righteous behavior, not
the righteousness of Christ necessarily that is imputed to your account
of salvation, but rather the command that you walk righteously.
It has the idea of you walking righteously, how you act around
others, where holiness is more aimed at the idea of how you
are viewed before God, that you're made holy by Christ. Why? Because
the middle of verse 24 says that you were created after the likeness
of God. So you've been now made new by
God. He has regenerated you. He has
rebirthed you. He has grown you. He is giving
you the power to say no to the things of this world and to say
yes to Him. And it takes work and it takes
effort. And it's not only His responsibility. He's the catalyst in and through
salvation and the power even in your sanctification. But there
are commands. These are in the imperative sense
here that we put off and we put on. I love the quote by Kent
Hughes that I included there in the bottom of your outline
that says, the new man is not our work, it is God's creation
and gift. Paul is commanding a daily appropriation
of that which he already possesses. That if you possess the new clothes
and the righteousness of Christ, that you now walk righteously
in all that you do. in all that you say. It's a work. It's not just sitting around
and this happens with just a quick glance at scripture or an occasional
attendance at church or a little sermon you listen to. It's you
getting busy, working in your own sanctification, resting in
God's power, but working in your own strength to put off and to
put on. And so let's close by just asking
a couple of these questions this morning. Have you ever found
yourself struggling with old temptations that you thought
were in the past? I referred to this earlier, but
I think the reason he's warning and challenging believers in
Ephesus is because he knows that the Christian life is not easy,
and that you still will struggle from time to time with things
that used to be in your past when you were dead and living
like the Gentiles. And so he's exposing that, saying,
don't be like that anymore. Don't walk in that walk. Instead,
walk in holiness. Or question number two, does
your heart have the tendency to grow calluses in certain areas,
or are you still learning? what it means to gain knowledge
about Christ, which keeps your heart soft. Do you have a tendency
to grow callous, to have a seared conscience in certain areas,
or are you walking in the softness and the tenderness of intimate
fellowship with Christ? Third, are you constantly putting
off the old self and putting on the new self by resting in
Christ, but at the same time striving to live a holy life. We're called to rest in Christ
for it's all of his work, but to strive to put off and to put
on because we're not living life before Christ. We're living life
after Christ. Let's pray together. Father,
thank you for the reminder this morning from this important passage
in Ephesians, that we are to put off and to put on. And we
just acknowledge, God, that we cannot do this on our own, that
we, some of us in this room maybe even, are still living and walking
as the Gentiles did. So this morning we pray for a
special grace to grant us the ability to repent and to walk
in the joy of knowing Christ, that we could put on new clothes
this morning that we could walk in the joy and the happiness
of our Savior. We pray, God, that you would
grant us the ability to put off and to put on as we look to Christ
and as we have learned Christ and we've heard about Christ,
that we would walk with Him and experience all the grace and
all the joy that you provide through Jesus. It's in His name
we pray. Amen.