of the flesh and of the mind,
and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But
God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved
us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together
with Christ. By grace you are saved. Now let's focus our attention
on these words in verse 2. Wherein in time past you walked,
according to the course of this world. Now the Apostle Paul's
writing here to these Ephesian believers and he's writing to
them who were not now what they were before. They were before
in times past. He says, verse 2, there it begins
with wherein, and it refers back to verse 1. They were dead in
trespasses and in sins. So when they were dead in trespasses
and in sins, they walked in death, they walked in trespasses, they
walked in sins. Wherein, in time past you walked. And then it was according, verse
2 says, according to the course of this world. Now the reason
the Ephesian brethren were no longer walking this way, the
reason they were no longer following this course is because God chose
them by His grace, the Son redeemed them by His grace, and the Spirit
quickened them by His grace. They had nothing whatsoever to
boast in. This was all of grace. Verse
4, he says, But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love
wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened
us together with Christ, by grace you are saved. Now brethren,
every believer here, we walked in time past, in death, in trespasses,
and in sins. That's all that we were. But
if we've truly been converted, if we've been quickened of God
and converted, then we're not now what we were in time past. And the only reason that we are
not what we were is by His grace. That is it. It is His grace alone. Every person walks a course.
Now we're either going to be walking a course according to
the course of this world, or the believer is walking the course
of the believer. I've titled this two different
courses and it's going to make up our divisions this morning
just to look at these two different courses. Now the course of this
world is the course of the natural man, the unregenerate man. And
the course of the believer is the course that is of God and
of His grace. It's of God in the beginning,
it's of God in the continuance, and it's of God all the way through. He's carrying His people, He's
sustaining His people. is by His power and His grace
alone. All right, let's look at the
course of this world. Verse 2 says, In time past you
walked according to the course of this world. Look at Jeremiah
chapter 8. Jeremiah chapter 8. God calls this man's own course. He calls it man's own course. Now they had God's word, the
children of Israel did, they had his oracles, and yet left
in an unregenerate state, not having been regenerated by God.
This is what he says about them. Jeremiah 8, 6. I hearkened and
heard, but they spake not aright. No man repented him of his wickedness,
saying, What have I done? Every one turned to his course,
as the horse rusheth into battle. His course. Do you see that?
Every man turned to his course. God calls it man's own course.
Look at Jeremiah 17. And what many fail to understand
is this right here, and this is critical. While we were dead
in sins, even when we tried to do something that would be good,
even when we tried to keep the law of God, even when we tried
to do religious things, and tried to do anything that we were trying
to do to make ourselves acceptable of God, it was all sin. It was nothing but trespasses
against God. Let me read you this from Romans
7. When we were in the flesh, the motions of sins which were
by the law did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. That's all we brought forth was
death. That's it. Now look at this, Jeremiah 17
1. The sin of Judah is written with a pin of iron. and with
the point of a diamond. It is graven upon the table of
their heart and upon the horns of your altars." God says the
sin of Judah was cut into their nature, into their very heart,
just like writings engraved in stone. And the same was true
of you and I when we were dead in our sins. Our sin was inscribed
upon our rock-hard hearts as it were written with a pen of
iron, with the point of a diamond. But now look at this. It was
not only there, but our sin was upon the horns of your altars. the horns of your altars. Read
the next verse. Whilst their children remember
their altars and their groves by the green trees upon the high
hills. In Israel, you had the place
where God put His one altar. His one altar. And that's where
His people were to come and the only way God would receive any
of their offerings were if they were offered upon that one altar. But if you walked around in Judah
at this time, you'd go to this corner over here and there'd
be a big steeple letting you know, here's your place you can
come worship. You go around the next corner,
here's another place you can worship. You go up the road a
little piece, here's another building you can worship here.
It was all these groves and these different places. This little
group disagreed with this group and so they went off over here
and they built them an altar in the groves of the trees and
they worshipped here. This other group went over here
because they didn't agree with the other group. They worshipped
in an altar over here under this grove of trees. Just like we
do today. Just exactly like we do today.
But the point of the matter is There was just one altar where
God would receive a sinner. And all those other altars were
just... It was just vanity. God said,
I don't recognize any of it that's going on. None of that do I recognize,
He said. Because the scripture says, altars,
plural. And He gave one altar. He gave
one place that we could worship. And the fact of the matter is,
when we were in our sins, All our religion was vain and we
had not just one religion, we had many. We believe this today,
somebody else come along tomorrow with this idea about God and
we pick up on that too. And we just believed anything
that came along and we had all these different deeds we were
offering up to God and all these different things we were offering
to God and it was all vanity. The scripture says, we have an
altar. Whereof they have no right to
eat that serve the tabernacle. You serve the flesh when you
serve the tabernacle. That's what it means. When we're
serving the flesh, those who are serving the flesh. I was
looking at some websites this week. And this is something that
occurred to me while I was looking at these church websites. Every
church website I looked at talked about what we're doing. That's
what they all talked about. That's what I looked at our church
website and our church website is it don't say a thing about
what we're doing. It has scriptures you can read
you can read scriptures you can read articles you can listen
to sermons and they don't have anything about what we're doing
and if you listen to those sermons it's all about what God's do.
And you see there's a difference there. When you're serving the
fleshly tabernacle, you're serving your flesh. And you're worshipping
with your flesh. And they have no right to eat
at our altar. Our altar is Christ. And everything
we offer through Christ, God receives as having been done
as perfectly as Christ did. This is how God describes those
who walk after the flesh. Peter said in 2 Peter 2.10, they
walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, this is what
he was describing preachers, false preachers and those that
follow them. He says they walk in the lust
of uncleanness, they despise government, that is rule, they
despise it. Men who are in religion, where
you are being yoked and told to do this and that and this
and that and that, you don't like it. When you were in it,
did you like it? You don't like it. And they don't
like it either. They despise it. And the people
who are doing it to them despise government too. They despise
God's government. They will not bow to God, the
head of His church who has the rule over His people and teaches
His people in the heart through the preaching of the gospel.
They would rather be busybodies in everybody else's business
instead of just preaching the gospel and waiting on God to
do the work in the hearts of His people. They despise government. They're presumptuous. Oh, we're
all going to heaven. We're all going. They're going
to heaven the same as we are. We differ a little bit, but we're
all going to heaven. Presumptuous. Self-willed. Oh, I can do what I will. I came to God by my will. I stay
by my will. I give by my will. I do everything
by my will. Self-willed. And not afraid to
speak evil of dignities. Dignities means God. His Christ,
His preachers, His people, as well as those that God's put
in roles of authority in civil government and in the household.
Not afraid to speak evil of dignity, of authority. When we're not
governed by Christ our head, the course of this world is our
walk. In the walk of the natural man,
Paul described it when the Corinthians were doing this. And the ones
Paul was talking to in the church, who he called carnal, were carnal. They were not believers. He said,
you're carnal. There's among you envying and
strife and divisions. Are you not carnal? Do you not
yet walk as men? That's the course of this world.
It is envying and strife and division. That's what it is.
Well, look back at our text. It describes further the course
of this world when it says, It says, they walk according to
the prince of the power of the air, that is Satan. The spirit
that right now is working in the children of disobedience.
That's whose power they're under. Verse 3 says, it's to walk in
the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and
of the mind. And then in verse 3 it says,
it's to walk and to live as children that are full of wrath against
God. Verse 3, we were by nature the
children of wrath even as others. There's only one reason whenever
you were in, if you were in religion or you just weren't in religion
at all, false religion or not in any religion at all, the one
reason that you didn't like to hear about the true and living
God and you didn't like to hear about things that reminded you
of God being sovereign and of God saving through Christ alone
and things like that is because you were by nature the children
of wrath. You were by nature. Your nature
was enmity against God. That's why our our mothers and
fathers are our sisters and brothers our husbands and wives don't
like to hear about the Bible. That's why they don't want to
come to church because their nature is wrath against God. It's enmity against God. And
that's so of folks in religion. That's boasting of their will
and presumptuous and so what have you. They don't want to
hear the true and living God. They get angry. Very fast. Very
angry. Because their nature is enmity
against God. Alright now. Remember this now
brethren. Remember this. If you see in
your loved ones, you see in your friends, your children, that
they have this nature, they have this way about them. It seems like there's no possible
hope in them that God would call them and have mercy on them.
Just remember, this was us. This was us. But God, verse 4
says, who's rich in mercy. For His great love, wherewith
He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us
together with Christ, and by grace you're saved. He can have
mercy on them too. He just may do it. He just may
do it. Alright, let's look at the course
of the believer. By God's grace, by the mercy
of God, we've been quickened. We've been given grace by Him.
And now we're in another course. This is the course of the believer.
Note very carefully verse 2, wherein in time past you walked. Look at verse 3, among whom also
we all had our conversation in times past. You see that? Put off the former conversation,
the former course of walk which is corrupt according to the deceitful
lust. I want everybody to listen to
me, every believer. Don't ever misunderstand what
a true gospel preacher means when he says you're not under
the law but under grace. We're not saying that a child
of God has liberty to live in sin and rebellion and trespasses
against God. That's absurd to think that.
We're accused of saying that. As Paul was, he said, as we'd
be slanderously reported. As some say, let sin that grace
may abound. That's not what we're saying.
That's not what we're saying. We declare emphatically without
a shadow of a doubt that the believer is not under the law
in any shape, form or fashion. That God sent Christ and Christ
has so fulfilled the law in precept and penalty for his people that
sin shall not have dominion over you for you're not under the
law, you're under grace. If you be led of the Spirit,
you're not under the law. We're not called, we haven't
received the spirit of bondage again to fear. God's not going
to throw us off. He's not going to cast us off
anymore. He's given us the spirit of adoption so that we can cry
out to Him, Abba Father. So that's what we mean without
a doubt. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believes. But believers
every believer truly converted of God that's truly converted
are turned out of the course of this world where we in we
walked in time past and we're turned into Christ the way and
we're walking after him led of the spirit that the grace of
God. effectually instructs us in our
hearts and teaches us in our hearts that we should live. We
should deny all ungodliness and all worldly lusts and that we
should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world.
And if the world rules our hearts, a believer will see himself as
sinner as a sinner and a believer will fall a lot especially a
new believer. But if we not if we don't mourn
our sin and if we're not brought back to Christ to where we are
constantly confessing our sin and constantly asking Him for
grace to keep us and lead us to where we don't want to walk
anymore in sin. But if the world rules our hearts
to where we can just give ourselves to it and enjoy it with no thought
whatsoever about it, then we haven't been converted. We just
haven't been converted. The desire of the believers to
honor and glorify His Father. My children, They know how much I love them.
If they do, and they love me, then they will try to honor me
in their life. And they understand that if they
get into trouble, it's me that they're dishonoring. And that
makes a child want to honor their father and their mother. That's
what it is with what Christ has done for us. We have the greatest
motive and the greatest constraint more than any kind of legal constraint
or any kind of yoking of men would ever do. That kind of yoking
does not curb the flesh. That's what Paul said in the
last verse of the second chapter of Colossians. It's got a good
show in false humility and of denying the flesh and all that,
but it does not satisfy, does not do what they're trying to
do. It doesn't make the flesh, it doesn't put it down at all.
It doesn't. It puffs a man up in his fleshly
mind. Paul said that about three or
four verses before that. That's what it does. But to be
under law, this is our constraint, the love of Christ constrains
us. Because we judge, if Christ died for all his elect, then
all of his elect were dead. And so that now, We're all alive
that we should not henceforth live unto ourselves, for ourselves,
fulfilling the desires and lusts of our mind, our God being our
belly, but we should live unto Him who died and who gave Himself
for us. To be under law is to be constrained
because you seek to merit salvation. You seek to get a reward because
of what you've done. You're trying to put in an investment
of time to get a return on your investment. That's law. To go
around looking at others and saying, they ought to be doing
this and they ought to be doing that and why don't they do this?
Why don't they do that? That's law. That's law. But to
be under this constraint of love, knowing that the scriptures don't
ever tell me how others ought to treat me. So we can just take
that finger and cut it off. The scriptures tell us how we're
to treat others. That's a big difference. To be
constrained by love, to be constrained by grace. by His mercy, by what
He's done for us. That's what it is to walk in
love and to walk in faith. So the believer does have a course.
We got a course to walk. The Spirit of God says through
this letter to Ephesians. Look at Ephesians 4 verse 1.
Ephesians 4 verse 1. I therefore, the prisoner of
the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith
you're called. Look at verse 17. This I say
therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth, from
here forward, walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of
their minds. Look at Ephesians 5 and verse
2. Verse 1 it says, Walk as children of God, as dear children, and
walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given
himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling
savor. Look at verse 8. For you were
sometimes darkness, but now are you light in the Lord. Walk as
children of light, Look at verse 15. See then that you walk circumspectly,
not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are
evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but
understanding what the will of the Lord is, and be not drunk
with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit,
speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. giving
thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting yourselves one to
another in the fear of God. Paul is going on and on in this
letter. This is what he's concerned about,
walking in the course of the believer. Ever since God's made
me your pastor, I've been growing in love more and more for you. And I made a bunch of boneheaded,
dumb stunts, dumb mistakes when I was a young believer. And I
don't want you to make the same ones. Just like I don't want
my own children to make them, I don't want you to make them
either. So let's look and see what God says about this course
and let's walk this course by His grace. The scripture says,
He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also to walk even
as he walked. Even as he walked, talking of
Christ. That means We ought to study Christ, is what it means. Not one another. Christ. And we ought to set our affection
on Christ and study Him. Christ is made of God unto us
wisdom. He's made of God unto us righteousness. He's made of God unto us sanctification. He's made of God unto us redemption. so that we have nowhere to glory
in but in the Lord. We will not get any more righteous
than we are in Christ. We can't get any more sanctified
than we are in Christ. I told you this before. When
you become a human being, you grow as a human being, but you
don't become more of a human being. And when you are sanctified,
you grow as a saint, but you don't become more sanctified.
Progressive sanctification, if that's what they mean by the
word progressive sanctification, it's wrong. You don't become
more sanctified. You grow in grace and in the
knowledge of Him. Alright? Study Him. He's the
best. Now we don't get more of these
things, but we are righteous in Christ. We are holy in Christ. We have the holiness without
which no man should see the Lord and that holiness is Christ.
But Christ is the best example we can study of how it is to
walk pleasing unto the Lord. He is the preeminent example. In most every epistle in the
New Testament you'll find the the apostles that are writing
those epistles, you'll find them using Christ and saying, walk
as He walked, follow Him, look at Him, study Him. To do that,
we're going to have to study Him. We're going to have to look
into these scriptures and study Him. Listen to this word right
here from John. He said, I beseech you, not as
though I wrote a new commandment unto you, but that which we had
from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is love. that we walk after His commandments. He's talking about Christ. And
He says, and this is the commandment that as you have heard from the
beginning, you should walk in it. Alright, you take a believer
who's dead in sin. God regenerates him. and begins
to teach him the gospel in his heart. What's the first thing
that we hear from the very beginning that God teaches us in our heart?
We start thinking when we see our sin and He shows us our sin,
we start saying foolishly, like those on the day of Pentecost
and like the Philippian jailer, what shall we do? And the Lord
teaches us in our heart, this is the work of God, that you
believe on Him whom He has sent. that you believe on him whom
he hath sent. And then as John teaches us right
here, Christ teaches us from the beginning, and love one another. Love one another. Faith and love
is the course that the believer walks. We walk by faith and we
walk in love. This is the course the believer
walks. Now, look with me at Colossians
2 and hold your place in Colossians. I'm going to come back here Colossians 2 verse 6. As you have therefore received
Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him, rooted and built up
in Him, established in the faith. You see that? Established in
the faith as you have been taught. abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware, lest any man spoil you
through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men, after
the rudiments of the world, that is, fleshly things, particularly
the letter of the law, and not after Christ. Men are going to
come along and they're going to tell you, that's fine to believe
Christ, but now except you be circumcised, except you go back
to the law, except you do this. They're going to come along and
tell a man who Christ has made absolutely perfect in him, not
in ourselves, but in him, and made the righteousness of God,
who's seated at the right hand of God with him right now, and
come along and tell that man, now except you add something,
you can't be saved. That's foolishness. And Paul
says, you walk in faith. You be rooted and grounded in
Him. Trust in Him. Look into Him. With your affections set on Him.
And beware of any man that tries to spoil you. with his vanity,
with his philosophy, with his minding the things of his flesh.
Beware of that, because, verse 9, in him, in Christ, dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete in
him, which is the head of all principality and power. How much better does it get than
complete? See, you get Paul's point here? Walk in faith and beware of fellows
that try to turn you from Him because in Christ dwells all
the fullness of the Godhead and you're complete in Him. So walk
after Him. Walking after the commandments
of Christ that He gave unto us is to walk in newness of spirit,
is to walk in faith, and love rather than in the oldness of
the letter. I want to show you what that is here in just a moment. But right now, let me show you
this. The believer's course is a fight. Now, understand this. When you say you're walking in
faith, number one, you've got an old man of flesh who's a Pharisee,
a self-righteous man by nature. And you're going to constantly
have this voice in your conscience that's saying, Well, you need
to be turning back to this law. You need to be turning back.
You need to be observing this day and that day and doing this
thing. You're going to have to fight
that man. And then, as Paul said, you have these other men that's
going to come along. It's going to have their philosophizing
that they've come up with because it's not according to this book.
And they're going to be telling you, turn back to this or that
or observe this or that or whatever. puffed up in their fleshly mind,
Paul said, not beholding the head from whom all the bands
by joints and bands have their nourishment ministered to them.
When you're a baby and you know where your food's coming from,
who do you look to? You look to the one that's got
that food. That baby's looking to her mother. That child knows
where the food's coming from. Look here in Colossians 2. Look
down here in verse 19. He says the problem with these
fellows who are puffed up in their fleshly mind is they're
not holding the head from which all the body by joints and bands
have nourishment ministered and are knit together and increased
with the increase of God. So if you're dead from the rudiments
of this world, from the touch not, taste not, handle not, Christ
has taken that out of the way and nailed it to his cross and
you know that your nourishment is coming from the head, from
Christ Jesus the Lord at the right hand of the Father. Who
would it be wise to walk looking toward? Who would it be wise
to have your mouth open to all the time, wanting to drink in
the water of life and feed upon the manna from heaven? Wouldn't
it be wise to walk in faith looking to Him, looking to Him with our
minds and our affections set upon Him? I'll never get through
this. I do want to show you one more
thing though. We'll go back and look at this
another time, but turn with me over to Galatians chapter 5. This is one point I want to make
to you very carefully here before I move on. What I'm trying to say to you
is if we're going to do this, we're going to have to give ourselves
to the gospel. This is how He's going to feed
us. He's going to feed us to the gospel and not just come
in here and then go home and not study what you've heard.
Be like the Bereans. Go home and study what you've
heard. I may fall off my rocker one
day and get up here and start saying things that aren't even
in this book. Go home and check me. Go home and take what I've
said and look it up. You can get my notes. They're
on Free Grace Media. And go on there and study them.
You can look them up by article. You can look them up by bulletin.
You can look them up by sermon. You can look them up by scripture.
However you want to look them up. And go and study these things.
And study them. This is how He's going to feed
us. Strengthen with all might according to His glorious power
unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness. But here's what
I want to show you. Galatians 5. What is it to walk in newness
of spirit? Look here, verse 16. This I say
then, walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust
of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the
Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. It's a fight. It's
a fight we're in. Paul said, I fought the good
fight, I finished my course. It's a fight. We've got to fight
our flesh, we've got to fight these outside fellas. To walk
in the Spirit is to be giving your full attention, your full
affection to Christ, to His Gospel, to His Word, seeking Him in prayer. The more you study His Word,
the more you'll want to study His Word. The more you feed the
new man, the more the new man will prevail over the old man.
And the more you feed the old man, the more that old man will
prevail over the new man. Feed the new man. Feed the new
man. Walk in the Spirit. All right,
watch this. For the flesh lusts against the
Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary,
one to the other, so that you can't do the things that you
would. But if you be led of the Spirit, you're not under the
law. You're not under law. Now when he says you can't do
the things you would, I want to fulfill the law perfectly.
I want to do everything Christ said and do it perfectly and
never falter in it. But because I've got an old man
with me, an old man of flesh, I can't do what I would. I cannot
do what I want to do. But here's the good news. We're
not under the law. We're under grace. We're under
grace. Now the works of the flesh are these. fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath,
strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness,
revelings, and such like, of the which I tell you before,
as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such
things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Those that live
in these things, those that, this is their meat, this is where
they're walking. That's how we walked in time
past. But now here's what it is to walk in newness of spirit.
The fruit of the spirit is love. joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law.
This is the spirit of the law. This is what it is to walk in
newness of spirit as opposed to oldness of the letter. The
letter of the law doesn't teach love. The letter of the law,
thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt
not bear false witness, It doesn't teach love. It doesn't teach
joy. It doesn't teach peace, long-suffering,
gentleness. Where do you learn these things?
Look into Christ. Look into Christ. That's where
we learn these things. But don't be desirous, he says. Well, verse 25 says, if we live
in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. And let us not
be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.
Now, what does that mean? Verse 12, look at it. This is
what it is to have walk in vain glory. As many as desire to make
a fair show in the flesh, they constrain you to be, and name
it. You name it. They constrain you
by the law. They constrain you to be circumcised. Only lest they should suffer
persecution for the cross of Christ. For neither they themselves
who are circumcised keep the law. They're not doing what they
tell you to do, but here's what they're doing. They're desiring
to have you circumcised that they may glory in your flesh.
Don't desire to try to yoke your brethren into doing nothing,
into doing anything. Don't try to make your sons and
daughters, your husbands and wives, your brothers and sisters,
don't try to make them do anything. If you make them straighten up
and make them have the impression that by that they're now right
with God, You have committed a grave, grave offense against
them. You've given them a false hope.
Don't try to make them do anything. If you want to do something,
tell them the truth. Tell them what Christ has done.
Tell them what Christ has done. Here's the rule we're under,
verse 14. God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me and
I unto the world. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision
avails anything nor uncircumcision. It's not keeping the letter of
the law or not keeping the letter of the law. That doesn't avail
anything. Here's what matters. A new creature. Being made new. Being made to have a heart of
love and joy and peace and longsuffering and gentleness. To be made a
new creature. And he says, as many as walk according to this
rule. What rule are you under, Clay?
I'm under this rule right here. This is my rule of life. Walking
by faith which works by love, not law. Not law. As many as
walk according to this rule, peace be on them and mercy upon
the Israel of God. Amen. I'll never...