I'd like for you to turn back
with me now to Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4 is a call
to the church and each individual in it to walk consistent with
their calling. To live a life that is consistent
with the vocation wherewith you were called. He tells us that we are to walk
with lowliness. What does that mean? We use that
term all the time, sing it all the time. What does it mean? What is it to walk in lowliness? Well, Paul uses this word in
Philippians 2, verse 3, and he defines it. He said, Let nothing be done
through strife or vain glory, but in lowliness of mind let
each esteem other better than themselves. Boy, that's tough,
ain't it? Huh? That's tough. Somebody's talking to you and
you're not listening to anything he's got to say. What you're
doing is thinking about what you're going to say when He quits
saying. We're to esteem others better
than ourselves. We're to automatically think
that He knows more than we do. That He has more gifts than I
do. That God's done more in Him than
He's done in me. Esteem Him better than ourselves. Believers are men and women rescued
from a fallen race. Did you know that? When God called
us and saved us, He rescued us from a fallen race. Now my friend,
we like to talk about sinners, and we get into Scriptures and
we begin to describe these sinners. But let me tell you what a sinner
is. He's the son of Adam. He's the son of Adam. He was
born into this world. David said, I came forth from
the womb speaking lies. And so did you. And so did I. All you have to do to be a sinner
is be born. Just to be born. We're born with
a corrupt nature. We're born in a cursed race. And for God to save you, to call
you, to do a work of grace in your heart is to rescue you from
a cursed race. This race is doomed, John. This
world is doomed. God's going to burn it up. Why?
Because it's full of sin. Now, I'm not saying that God
sends good people to hell because there's none good. There's none
good. You can just throw that argument
out the window. Well, you don't believe that God would send a
good little Nazarene boy to hell. If there was a good little Nazarene
boy, no. But there's no such thing. There's
none good. You see, our calculations, our
figuring, our mind's not right. It's not right. The basis on
which we think is not right. And when God comes down, He enlightens
the sinner. And He rescues him. He rescues
him A fallen race. A race fallen and depraved. A
race condemned to walk in darkness and ignorance. Both Jews and
Gentiles, Paul said, are all under sin. Over in Romans 3 verse
9. He said, we've before proved
both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin. One had the light
of conscience. The other had the light of God's
Word. And neither one, they didn't benefit from either one because
they're all under sin. They're all under sin. And he
said, we've already proven that. And part of what that means,
he goes on to describe, is that there's none that understand
it. None that understandeth the way
of peace," he said, they've not known. No fear of God before
their eyes. His mind is enmity against God. And God the Holy Spirit shows
him this and convinces him of this in his calling. It's what
we call Holy Spirit conviction. People say, well, boy, the Holy
Spirit's convicted me of my drinking. No, He convinces you of sin.
And drinking will be the last of your troubles if He ever shows
you what your sin is. Shows you that you have a heart
that's nothing more than a cesspool of iniquity. Out of the heart
proceed evil thoughts and murders and adulteries. All of these
evil things, they all come forth from the heart. That's what defiles
a man, not what he puts in his mouth. Drink too much, it'll
make you sick, but it won't send you to hell. It gets cast out
into the drop just like anything else. But sin, sin that's in
this heart, that's what defiles a man, this sin. And when the Holy Spirit of God
convinces us of what we are, convinces us of our sin, convinces
us of what this heart and mind really is, that it hates God,
that it's condemned, that it's helpless and hopeless. There's
no way out. It can't climb out. It can't
work out. It can't get out. When He convinces
you of this and then shows to you the sweet mercy of God in
Christ. Oh, that man will walk in lowliness. Lowliness. He's not proud. He's not proud. He walks softly. And then, this
is what Paul uses next. He talks about lowliness and
then he said meekness. Meekness. A meek man does not
bully his way around. He walks softly, quietly, does
not call attention to himself. Meekness in the Old Testament
is associated with poverty. Go back and read those places
where he uses that word. It's always associated with poverty
and oppression and affliction. And it's the spirit produced
under these experiences. And in the experience of grace,
we see our spiritual poverty. We see our spiritual diseases
and afflictions. And it leaves us meek and lowly. And then he uses this term. Long suffering. Long suffering. The man or woman who has suffered
the most, experienced the most, he'll be the man that will put
up with the most. Because he looks back in his
own experience, and he sees how the Lord put up with him. Do you ever think about that? Do
you ever think about God putting up with you? He does. Every day of our lives. He puts
up with us. He puts up with us. Long-suffering, that's what it
means, putting up with. And it means to tolerate. To
tolerate. And then He tells us this, forbearing
one another in love. Forbearing means to exercise
patience and indulgence. The man, whatever his station
may be, whether it's an apostle or a prophet or an evangelist
or a pastor, the man or woman, whatever their calling of life
is, whether they're a husband or a wife or a daughter or a
son, whether they're married or single, the believer, whatever
his calling is, can only be honoring to God by this kind of walk. Because this kind of walk is
produced by the grace of God working in him. You see that? We can't honor
God in our works because all our righteousnesses are filthy
rags. We honor God by faith. We have
a righteousness in Christ by faith. And our walk is the result
of what we know in our minds and in our hearts. I'm talking
to you this morning about the attitude of grace. We talk a
lot about the doctrines of grace, but the doctrines of grace won't
do you any good apart from the experience of grace. And the
experience of grace is God working in you. And when God works in
you, the result is lowliness, meekness. Go back and read those
Beatitudes. Those attitudes are not talking
about something we aspire to get. This is talking about a
done deal. Blessed are, that's what it says,
not blessed shall be, it says blessed are the meek, the poor
in spirit. Now I want you to look back to
our text where I began reading to you a while ago. In verse
17 of the text begins with a warning. He says in verse 17, This I say
therefore and testify in the Lord, that ye hence not walk
not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having
the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God
through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness
of their heart, who being past feeling, past having a disturbed
conscience, have given themselves over to lasciviousness to work
all uncleanness with greediness. All unbelieving men and women
walk in the vanity of their mind. Brother Scott Richardson, pastor
up at Katie Baptist Church up in Fairmont, West Virginia, I
was up there one time and talking to him in his office and I looked
over there on the wall and there's a most unusual picture. Have
you ever seen these old dressers? This was back before they had
furnished bathrooms. All of our bathrooms was outside.
We didn't have anything in the house. But they had a little
dresser of a thing and it had a place for a chair where you
could put your legs up on it and it generally had a little
round mirror on top of it. That was a vanity. That was in
the lady's bedroom and it was a vanity and she could sit down
there and put on her makeup and brush her hair and all this stuff.
Well, I looked over at that picture and here's a lady sitting down
looking in the mirror, beautiful lady, and she's brushing her
hair and putting on her makeup in that picture. And I looked
at it and I thought, what in the world does he have a picture
of a woman brushing her hair in his study pole? And he said,
that picture caught your eye, didn't it? And I said, yeah.
He said, go over a little closer. When you walk up close to it,
it's a picture of a skull. It's a picture of a skull. Now this is what I'm telling
you. From far away, from a distance, it looked like something that
it wasn't. And that's how Gentiles, that's how unbelievers, that's
how the heathen walks in the vanity of their mind. They think
they see one thing. But a close look reveals what's
really there, nothing but corruption, nothing but dead men's bones,
just dead men's bones. All unregenerate men and women
walk in the vanity of their mind. They imagine themselves to be
something when they're nothing. They imagine themselves to be
wise, yet are fools. Romans 1.22 says, professing
themselves to be wise, they become fools. They change the truth
of God into a lie. They didn't like to retain God
in their knowledge. Being haters of God, they become
inventors of evil things. Unregenerate men and women walk
in the vanity of their minds, believing they have a natural
goodness and righteousness. Well, there's a little bit of
good in all men. Not according to the Word of
God, there's not. You remember that rich young
ruler came up to the Lord and he said, good master. Boy, Christ
stopped him dead in his tracks. He said, why callest thou me
good? There's none good but God. Huh? There's not a little bit
of good in all men. There's no good. The Lord Himself
said, He opened up the windows of heaven and searched from one
end of this world to the other to see if there was any good,
and there was none. That's what He said. None. That's walking in the vanity
of your mind to suppose that you have a goodness in you. You're
not good. We're sinners. We're sinners. He says, all thy righteousnesses. Huh? That's walking in the vanity
of your mind to think that you can produce a righteousness.
When God said, all thy righteousnesses are as filthy bag. And unregenerate men and women
walk in the vanity of their minds believing they have fellowship
with God, that God loves them and hears all their prayers.
Believe that they can live like the devil and bow their head
and say a prayer and God hears it. That's foolishness. That's
foolishness. Paul said, at that time, you
were without God. Ain't that what he says? He reminds
those Gentiles of who they were. And he said, you didn't have
any covenants? Nobody made a covenant with you?
Where did you get the idea of a covenant? You don't have the
promises that was given to Israel. And at that time, you were without
God in the world. And the fact is that man at his
best state, the Scripture said, is altogether vanity. Vanity. Now watch this. Back here in our text, Ephesians
chapter 4, He said, but ye have not so learned Christ. Verse
20. You didn't learn Christ by something
that you were born with. That's not how you learned it. If so be you've heard Him and
have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus, that ye put
off concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt
according to deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit
of your mind, and that ye put on the new man, which after God
is created in righteousness and true holiness." Now I've got
a question for you. How do you put off the old man? Paul said he discovered a law.
He's talking about a principle, an established principle. He
said, when I would do good, evil is present with me. How you put
off the old man and put on the new man. What is the old man
and the new man? There are two significant men
in the history of the world, Adam and Christ. Adam, being
the federal head and representative of all mankind, fell in the garden. And as a result of that fall,
we, his children, have inherited his nature and his curse. Romans 5, verse 12, As by one
man sin entered the world, and death by sin, and so death passed
upon all men, for that all have sinned. And then in 1 Corinthians
15 verse 21, since by man came death. As Adam being the federal head
and representative of all men brought death and depravity upon
all his children, so Christ being the federal head and representative
of all his elect brought to his children everlasting life. As in Adam all die, even so in
Christ shall all be made alive. And in our text, Paul is talking
about our walk. He's talking about our attitude.
He's talking about our character. So when he says, put off the
old man and put on the new, he's not talking about putting off
that old nature. You can't get rid of that nature.
That nature is yours until you die. He's not talking about getting
rid of that old nature. He's not talking about an eradication
of sin out of your life. John said, if we say we have
no sin, we make God a liar. Rather, he's talking about the
dominion of it. He's talking about being a follower
of it. He's talking about being duped
by its lies. Sin allows us to be easily deceived. Satan takes us captive at his
will, the scripture says. It'd be easy for you to make
a blind man believe he's safe when he was standing with half
a foot off a cliff. He wouldn't know the difference.
How would he know? He's blind. And thousands who are in peril
of everlasting damnation are being made to feel that they're
safe and at peace with God by a lie. And they don't know the
difference because they're blind. They're blind. And even so, natural
men are manipulated by Satan and his ministers of righteousness
to believe that they're saved even while being under the wrath
of God. He knows what appeals to this
old nature, and He knows how to use such things to make men
walk in the vanity of their minds. Putting off the old man, as Paul
calls it here in verse 21 of our text, has to do with how
we lived our lives before conversion. Put those things away. Put them
away. It has to do with our ungodly
motives and concepts and ideas about God and our ideas about
man. Put those things away. We walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit who now worketh in the
children of disobedience. The old man is a description
of all men and therefore is described as the course of this world.
When we're talking about the old man, you're talking about
every unregenerate man and woman born of Adam. And everything
that appeals to you appeals to every fallen son of Adam. Everything
that motivates you motivates every unbeliever. Everything
that seems right to you seems right to everyone else. But Paul said that's not how
you learn Christ. Christ is not the product of
natural men. Jesus Christ is not of this world. God Himself came down from heaven
in the person of a man to be born of a woman, made under the
law. God Himself took in holy union
with Himself the body of a man. When He cometh into the world,
He saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body
hast thou prepared me." A sacrificial body, a representative body,
a man whose coming was to do the redemptive will of God. I
come to do thy will, O God. And in so doing, we're sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
And by that one offering, we're perfected, the Scripture said,
forever. The person and work of Jesus
Christ teaches the believer the truth about God and the truth
about man. He teaches us that God is holy
and just and righteous and will by no means clear the guilty.
He teaches us that only through Christ our propitiation can God
be just and yet justify all who believe. And He is the end of
the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. and
His death justly put away our sins. We learn that grace and
truth came by Jesus Christ. We learn that salvation is the
gift of God's sovereign, eternal, unchangeable grace. That He loved
us and gave Himself for us. That salvation is an act of mercy,
not the reward of man's works. We learn Christ by hearing the
Gospel and by the power of the Holy Ghost, pressing that truth
upon our hearts. We learn Christ as a man chosen
of God. We learn Christ by a man chosen
of God. And He opens to you the Scriptures. We learn Christ as we are born
of God and made meat to be partakers with all the rest of the enlightened
saints. And the influence and effects
of this regeneration is called washing and renewing. A washing away of lies and deceit,
a washing away of old ideas and concepts, a washing away of old
motives and old affections. And it's
a renewing of the mind. Paul said, with the mind, the
mind of Christ, we serve the law of God, but with the flesh,
the law of sin. With the mind of Christ, we're
no more hypocrites. We don't pretend to be righteous.
We are righteous in Christ. It's not as though we're righteous
in Christ. We have a real righteousness
in Him. We don't pretend to be forgiven
of our sins. Our conscience has been purged
by the blood of Christ. We're forgiven of our sins. We
don't pretend to have a holiness. We're all holy in Christ. And to put on the new man is
to acknowledge these things, believe these things, and then
walk that way. Walk that way. See your old habits and ways
for what they are. They are an abomination to God.
And establish new habits, new ways. Let him that stole, steal
no more. Rather let him labor, working
with his hands the thing which is good that he may have to give
to him that needeth. Let him speak such things that
edifies and ministers grace to the hearer. And then he tells
us, "...grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed
unto the day of redemption." Verse 30. The word grieve means
to displease, to provoke. And since the mind
of Christ comes by the Spirit, the lack of it is what displeases
the Holy Ghost. Let all bitterness and wrath
and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you
with all malice. And be ye kind one to another. Be kind. That's so hard sometimes,
ain't it? Be kind. Be kind. One to another. Tenderhearted. forgiving one another. How are you going to do that,
preacher? How are you going to do that? Even as God, for Christ's
sake, hath forgiven you. Be kind, because He was kind
to you. Oh, my soul! You think of the kindness of
God toward you. He could have just left you alone. You know, I heard a few years
ago, I heard some men debating about this thing of God's reprobation
of men and saying that God wouldn't do those things. All God has
to do in order to make you a reprobate is just leave you alone. You're
already a reprobate by nature. Ain't nothing in you but sin.
All He has to do is turn you loose. Just turn you loose. And if you don't sin, it's not
because of any righteousness in you. It's not because of any
free will in you. If you don't sin, it's because
God's restraining hand has kept you from it. And men mistake
that for righteousness. It's not righteousness. It's
the kindness of God and His restraining hand keeping you from doing what
you do. There's no room in the life of
a true believer for these things. They don't go unnoticed and unoffensive
like they do in the unbeliever. They cause him pain, and they
grieve the Holy Spirit, and they cause hurt throughout the body
of Christ. To walk in the new man is to
be kind and tender-hearted, ready to forgive even as God has forgiven
us. And the true attitude of grace
is produced by the mind of Christ, and it's loving. It's kind. It's sensitive to the needs of
others. And it's sensitive to the feelings
of others. God help us. God help us. That's all hope we have. I'm
telling you, if He don't intervene, this is the route we're going
to go. This is the route we're going to go. But oh, if He does. And may God be pleased to help
us to walk with an attitude of grace.