Welcome to the Reign of Grace
radio broadcast. My name is Bill Parker. I'm the
pastor of the 13th Street Baptist Church in Ashland, Kentucky.
This program is sponsored by the members of Eager Avenue Grace
Church in Albany, Georgia, located at 1102 Eager Drive, Albany,
Georgia. I'll be bringing you a gospel
message of the sovereign grace and glory of God in the Lord
Jesus Christ from God's Holy Word. And now, the message. Now today I'm going to be preaching
from the book of Ephesians chapter 4. I'm going to begin in verse
20 of this chapter and the title of the message is Learning Christ. Now, last week I preached from
these verses, some of these verses, on the subject of a Christian
education in the same, from the same verse, verse 20, of learning
Christ. It says, but you have not so
learned Christ. And Peter's, or the Apostle Paul,
rather, is speaking there to the believers at the church in
Ephesus, which was a Gentile city. It was a city that was
fraught with idolatry. It was fraught with open immorality,
as much of the Gentile world was back then. And he's seeking
to encourage these believers in the church at Ephesus not
to be conformed to their surroundings, to their environment, to the
world around them. Paul had spoken of this before
when he spoke of the obedience of a believer. Now, the obedience
of a believer has to do with being a disciple or a learner
of Christ. We learn Christ, for example,
when we are first converted through the preaching of the gospel and
the power of the Holy Spirit, when we're born again by the
Spirit, where we learn who He is, what He accomplished at Calvary,
why He did it, and where He is now. The gospel of God's grace. We learn then how God saves sinners
by grace, not of works. Paul had written back in Ephesians
chapter 2, not of works lest any man should boast. And then
he defines a Christian in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 10 as the
workmanship of God created in Christ Jesus unto good works
wherein to God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
And so we learn Christ in our conversion when we come to him
by faith. and rest in Him and His finished
work on Calvary as forming our whole salvation, our redemption,
our righteousness before God. We stand before God accepted
in Christ, the Beloved, washed in His blood and clothed in His
righteousness. And therefore, as the result
of God's grace in Christ and applied to us by the power of
the Holy Spirit, we are to continually learn Christ. We're to continually
follow Him. continually seek to be conformed
to him and not be conformed to the world. Now this is what Paul's
talking about. Let me go back up and read verse
17 that I dealt with last week. He says, This I say therefore,
that is because you're saved by grace, and testify in the
Lord that you henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in
the vanity of their mind. The vanity of the mind there
is the worthlessness of the mind that is not set on Christ and
Him crucified. It's the unregenerate mind. It's
the mind that is set on anything but that which is of God and
from God and to the glory of God in Christ. The vanity of
the mind? could describe a person who is
openly immoral and rebellious, or it could describe a person
who is religious but lost. You see, religion without Christ
is nothing but vanity, worthless. He says in verse 18, having the
understanding darkened. The understanding is darkened,
meaning ignorance. That is, they are ignorant of
the true way of salvation. They're ignorant of God's way.
They're ignorant of godliness. The scripture says that even
the Jews, in Romans chapter 10, that they had a zeal of God,
but not according to knowledge, for they, being ignorant of God's
righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness,
have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
Well, what is the righteousness of God, or who is the righteousness
of God? Well, Romans 10 foretells us. For Christ is the end of
the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Now
what that means is simply this, you have to be righteous to be
accepted before a holy God. You have to be righteous to be
saved. You have to be righteous to enter
heaven. You are not righteous in yourself
and you cannot make yourself righteous by your words. How
then can a sinner be made righteous? It has to be by the grace of
God through the obedience and death of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Christ alone is our righteousness. And if we're going to be righteous,
we must lay hold of Him, believe in Him, and rest in Him. Now,
until we do, our understandings are darkened. And then he says,
being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance
that is in them because of the blindness or the hardness of
their heart. In other words, as long as a
sinner who is naturally hard-hearted, naturally blind and ignorant,
as long as a sinner refuses to turn to the God of grace through
Christ and Him crucified, then he is alienated from the life
of God. There's no life there, no spiritual
life. Paul had described that back
in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 1. He said, and you who were
dead in trespasses and sins, yet now have he quickened. And
then he says in verse 19, who being past feeling, have given
themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with
greediness. To be past feeling is almost
like being numb to sin. It's like a person of a reprobate
mind who cannot tell the difference between right and wrong. They
call good evil and evil good. They go about their way in lasciviousness. That is an unbridled sinfulness. There's no checks or balances.
There's no inhibitions. It's just all open. If it feels
good, do it. That's what it is. And that could
be in immorality, sexual immorality. It could be in religion, whatever
it is. It's anything that's not based
on God's Word. And it's greediness because it
fulfills the lust of the flesh. In other words, there's no good
to anyone else there. There's no glory to God. It is
all in self-fulfillment. But now here's what Paul says
in verse 20 to the Ephesian believers. He said, but you have not so
learned Christ. Now to engage yourself and your
attitude and your walk and your conduct in such behavior, that's
not the way a believer has learned Christ. In other words, a believer
has no excuse for sin. Now, it's not that a believer
does not and will not sin. We're still sinners. I've said
it so many times on this program, there are only two types of people
in this world. There are lost sinners, lost
in their sins, and sinners saved by grace. And a believer, a sinner
saved by grace, has to fight the warfare of the flesh and
the spirit. We've been delivered from the
condemning power of sin, the damning power of sin, but we
have not been delivered from the influence and presence and
contamination of indwelling sin. That's why we're involved in
a warfare. That's why we have to strive to walk after the Spirit
and not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Many times in Scripture
you'll see believers who have fallen into sin. They didn't
lose their salvation, but they fell to the flesh, and they have
to be recovered and brought back. That's why we need the blood
of Christ today as much as ever. I'm in need of the blood of Christ
for the forgiveness of all my sins today as I ever was in my
Christian life. But you see, a believer has been
delivered from the damning power of sin, but he must fight the
presence of indwelling sin. Now, how do we do that? Well,
we do it not in order to be saved. That's a legalism, you see. That's
mercenary religion. But we do it because we already
are saved. The motivation is not earned
rewards or earned blessings or earned salvation. The motivation
is blessings, salvation, given already freely by grace in Christ. You don't do it in order to become
righteous. Your righteousness is in Christ
if you're a believer, if you've learned Him. So we continually
learn Him. And it says in verse 21, "...if
so be that you have heard Him and have been taught by Him as
the truth is in Jesus." Have you heard Christ, the voice of
Christ? I mentioned this last week, not
an audible voice or a vision, but the Word of God, the Gospel,
in the power of the Holy Spirit. You say, well, how do I know
if I've heard it in the power of the Holy Spirit? Well, are
you convinced of it? Are you convicted of your sins
and convicted of the glory and the power of Christ to save you
from your sins? Do you believe in Him? Do you
love Him and rest in Him? And do you follow Him? And that's
what Paul's talking about here. And here's what he says now.
Look at verse 22. He says that you put off concerning
the former conversation the old man which is corrupt according
to the deceitful lust and be renewed in the spirit of your
mind and that you put on the new man which after God is created
in righteousness and true holiness or literally holiness of the
truth. So what is he saying here? Now
if you truly learned Christ and if you're continually learning
Christ If you've tasted the gift of God, if you've been brought
to faith in Him, then you're to be engaged in a conduct, in
a lifestyle that continually puts off the former conversation. That word conversation covers
a lot of ground. It means not only what you say,
like in conversation with a person, but it means your whole walk,
your conduct, your attitude, And what he's saying is, if you've
learned Christ and if you're learning Christ, don't walk like
you used to walk before you knew Christ. That's what he's saying.
And he calls it the old man. Now that term old man, sometimes
you'll see the term old man, for example, in Romans chapter
6. There in Romans chapter 6, the
old man means the former standing of condemnation in Adam. And
he says that that was crucified with Christ when Christ put away
our sins. Here the old man means the unregenerate
man. That's what I was before I was
born again by the Spirit. And what he's saying before I
was born again by the Spirit, I was ignorant of God's grace. I was ignorant of the true and
living God. I was ignorant of His Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ. I was ignorant of His way of
salvation. Now my particular ignorance showed
forth itself mainly in false religion, but it also showed
forth in other ways too. How your particular ignorance
showed forth may be some other way, but here's the point. Here's
the point. You didn't know Christ. You didn't
know him crucified. You didn't know the power of
His grace, the power of His truth, the power of His Spirit that
would motivate you and energize you to learn Him and to walk
after Him and to follow Him. You didn't rest in Him. And you
acted like one who didn't know Christ. You may have thought
you knew Him, but you didn't. And that's what he says, put
off the former conversation, the old man which is corrupt
according to the deceitful lust. In other words, that corruption
That corruption was according to a deception and unlawful desire. In other words, it was an unlawful
desire that deceived you. You were deceived and you didn't
know you were deceived. Now that's the nature of deception, isn't
it? A person who knows they're deceived, they're not deceived
anymore. But you see, you were deceived by your own ignorance,
by your own will, by your own darkness. You sought salvation. in some other way but Christ
and Him crucified. You flittered away your life
in your lasciviousness or your immoral behavior. In some way
you didn't glorify God. And he says stop doing that.
Stop following that kind of lifestyle and engage yourself in the lifestyle
of grace. He says first in verse 23, be
renewed in the spirit of your mind. Now, the walk of a believer
begins in the mind and the heart. You know, the Pharisees were
good about religiously trying to clean up the outside of the
cup, Christ said. And this is what he says about
all false religion. They can make a person look clean
outwardly, but they can't change the heart. They can't change
the mind and the conscience, the affections and the will.
They're like the little boy who wouldn't sit still in church
one time, in a church service. And his mother made him sit down. And the little boy said, well,
I'm sitting on the outside, but I'm standing on the inside. You
see, religion can make good the outside of the cup, make it look
good. Christ said of the Pharisees,
they appear righteous unto men, but it cannot clean the inner
man, the heart, the mind, the conscience. And when he says
be renewed in the spirit of your mind, he's talking about continually
learning Christ. Now the mind is renewed in spirit
by the Holy Spirit when the conscience is cleared of all guilt and defilement
when a sinner looks to Christ for salvation. You see, up until
that time, the guilty conscience stirs people up to trying to
establish a righteousness of their own. But when a sinner
turns to Christ, The mind, the heart is purified by faith. We
look to Him and we see what He accomplished on Calvary. To be
renewed in the spirit of your mind is to continually, first
of all, be reminded of what Christ accomplished and to continually
learn what it is He would have us do from His Word. Read His
Word, study His Word, follow His Word. And then he says in
verse 24, and that you put on the new man which after God is
created in righteousness and true holiness, or holiness of
the truth. The new man there is the regenerate
man. It's what a sinner is in Christ,
who has been born again by the Spirit, who has seen his sinfulness
and his wretchedness and his need of grace and mercy in Christ,
and who has believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, one who has ran
to Christ and who rests in Him and clings to Him and seeks to
follow Him. And he puts on the new man by
continually realizing what he is in Christ. I know this continually,
that the law of God can never condemn me again. You see, the
Bible says, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?
It's God that justifies. In other words, it's God Himself,
the Judge of all, who has declared me righteous in Christ. He has
made me accepted in the Beloved. And then it goes on in Romans
8 to say, Who can condemn us? For it is Christ that died, yea,
rather it is risen again and seated at the right hand of the
Father, ever living, to make intercession for us. When we
put on the new man, We continually realize and remind ourselves
from His Word by the Spirit who we are in Christ, that we're
holy, harmless, undefiled in Him, that we're clean and righteous
in Him. And this new man, was after God,
in other words, salvations of the Lord. I didn't create Him,
you didn't create Him. He's created in righteousness.
That is what Christ accomplished on Calvary by the will and purpose
of God and in true holiness or holiness of truth. Now what I
believe that's saying is this, that's speaking of the work of
Christ on Calvary as the ground of our salvation and the work
of the Spirit within us in the new birth as the fruit of our
salvation. Christ, what He did on Calvary,
in His obedience in death, is the ground, the cause. You see,
what the Holy Spirit does in us, in salvation, in giving us
life and bringing us to faith in Christ, is the fruit, the
effect. And it's the holiness of truth
because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. In other words,
He's going to guide us to all truth. But Christ said, I am
the way, the truth and the life, No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. So if the Holy Spirit guides
you in all truth, where is He going to guide you? He's going
to guide you to Christ and Him crucified for all of salvation.
I heard a person make the statement one time, they were talking about
conviction. And they were talking about someone
who was continually sorrowing and crying because of their guilt
and their sinfulness. And they made the statement,
said, I believe the Holy Spirit is convicting that person. Well,
now, we pray and hope that the Holy Spirit was, we prayed and
hoped that the Holy Spirit was doing so. But I'll tell you how
you can know if such tears and conviction over guilt and sin
and defilement is true Holy Spirit conviction. And it's this, where
do they ultimately end up? Where do they find relief from
the conviction of guilt and defilement and sin? You see, a person can
be torn to pieces inside about their sinfulness and their depravity
and their guilt. And what they're seeking is relief.
Some seek relief by avoiding it, just putting it out of their
minds. And it lays there for years and grows like a cancer
until ultimately it reaches up and grabs them and comes out
in some horrendous way. Some seek relief in society. They have other people. They
go to an analyst or a therapist who says, you're alright, don't
worry about it. Some, and most, seek a relief
in religion, in the religion of works. And they'll go give
their testimony, walk an aisle, get baptized, give their tithe,
and they find relief there. And if you find relief there,
That is not Holy Spirit conviction. If it's Holy Spirit conviction,
you'll find relief in one and one alone, and that's the Lord
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. You won't find relief anywhere
else but at the foot of the cross, at the mercy seat where the blood
is shed and where righteousness is established. And that's how
the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of holiness and truth. Well,
He guides you into all truth. He continually guides. and indwells
God's people. He says in verse 25, he says,
wherefore putting away lying. What's he saying there? Simply
quit lying. Don't lie. Speak every man truth with his
name. For we are members one of another. He's specifically
talking about the relationship of believers to believers there.
We are not lying to one another. We don't have to lie to one another
and pretending to be more or something that we're not. We
don't have to tell lies. We can be honest people, people
of the light. He says in verse 26, be ye angry
and sin not. He's talking about righteous
anger there. There is an anger that is a righteous anger. Now
that doesn't mean we're perfect. Many times we have a hard time
discerning between what's righteous anger and selfish anger. But
you see what he's talking about there is we ought to be on a
warfare against sin. That's what he's speaking of.
In other words, I ought not take a casual view of my own sinfulness. I ought not take a permissive
view towards my own sinfulness. You know, some people may say
this. They may say, well, if you believe all of salvation
is by grace, then it doesn't matter what you do. No, be ye
angry, and sin not. Don't take such an attitude towards
sin. If God has shown you grace, then
you declare war on sin. Be angry at sin. And that's what
he's saying. And he says, let not the sun
go down upon your wrath. He's not saying there that you
shouldn't go to bed angry, even though you shouldn't. We shouldn't
go to bed angry and all that, especially selfish anger. But
what he's saying here is this, that as long as we're in this
life, we are to continually be angry at sin and war with sin. We're never to say, well, I'm
finished. and it's over, I finally made it. The only time you're
going to be finished in the warfare of the flesh and the spirit,
the only time you're going to say I've made it is when you
leave this life and you go to be with the Lord. And then he
says neither give place to the devil. Verse 27. Don't give way
to Satan. Now Satan has been defeated in
the lives of believers in two ways. Now let me show you this. Number one, we've spoken of both
ways already. Number one, at the cross. Satan
is known as the great accuser of the brethren. And here's the
thing, now if somebody were to come to you today and bring the
police and accuse you of a crime, and bring forth evidence that
shows you to be guilty, they would haul you into jail, then
haul you into court, you'd be tried, the evidence would be
brought against you, the charges would be seen to stick, and you'd
have to pay the penalty. But now, what if somebody came
to you and charged you with a crime and you weren't guilty of the
crime? The charges don't stick. You don't have to pay the penalty.
Well now, this is what we're talking about when we talk about
Christ defeating Satan at the cross. Satan is the great accuser
of the brethren. But when he accuses the brethren,
the charges will not stick. Now you say, well wait a minute,
I'm a sinner. Then how can the charges not stick? Well, we have
a substitute. We have an advocate. We have
a surety. We have a sin bearer. And the
charges go to him. and he fulfilled the penalty
of all the charges against me. Again, who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. It's
Christ that dies. Secondly, Satan is defeated in
the new birth when the Holy Spirit brings a sinner out of darkness
into Christ's marvelous light. Satan's hold upon that individual
is broken. But now Satan can still attack.
He can still trouble you. He can still bother you. He can
still enter your life and twist your mind to a point now. He
cannot bring you back under perdition, but he can bother you. And that's
why he says, neither give place to the devil. In other words,
don't give up on the fight and the warfare. That's not how you
learn Christ. Christ was continually opposed
to all that was sinful. Christ declared war on sin, He
defeated sin, and He now tells us to declare war on sin within
ourselves. Don't give up. Don't give place
to the devil. Don't give place to the flesh.
Don't walk after the flesh. Don't mind the things of the
flesh. Walk after the Spirit and mind the things of the Spirit.
Why? Not because we're trying to work
our way into God's favor. Not because we're trying to earn
our salvation or our blessings from God. but because God has
saved us freely, unconditionally by His grace and mercy in Christ,
and He's freely given us all things in Christ. That's how
we've learned Him, and that's how we'll continually learn the
Lord Jesus Christ as we go through His Word. and as we fight the
warfare of the flesh and spirit. We're learning Him, you see,
and we're seeking Him and resting in Him. We have no way out of
this mess ourselves or by our own power. It's in Christ. Now,
I hope this has been helpful to your understanding of the
Scriptures. If you'd like to receive a copy of this message,
listen to the announcer and he'll give you the details. The title
of the message is Learning Christ. And I hope you'll join us next
week for another message from God's Word. We're glad you could join us
for today's message. If you would like to receive
a copy of this message, or if you would like more information
about Eager Avenue Grace Church, remember we are located at 1102
Eager Drive in Albany, Georgia. You can call us at 229 432-6969 or visit our Reign of
Grace website at www.rofgrace.com. Thank you and may the Lord be
with you.