Purity Through Change

  • David Fairchild
  • Jul 25, 2010
  • Series: Ephesians

Purity Through Change

Ephesians 4:17-24

David Fairchild

July 25, 2010

 Ephesians 4:17-24 - [17] “Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. [18] They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. [19] They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. [20] But that is not the way you learned Christ! — [21] assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, [22] to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, [23] and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, [24] and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

 We’re more than half a year into 2010. How many of you made resolutions?  How many of you remember the resolutions you made at the beginning of the year?

 Do you remember what you promised yourself in January so that in July you could visit the beach you live 10 minutes from?  I’ve really gotten into that show Whale Wars because I feel safer knowing they’re protecting me

What are the typical resolutions we make at the beginning of each year? Resolutions are all about becoming a new person.  We have an idea of what we want to be so we make resolutions to get there. 

How long does it usually take before you give up on your New Year commitments?  The national average is between 3-5 days.  Why is that?  Why is it so hard to change? 

I wonder if it’s because we keep trying to tack on new things without getting rid of the old first.  Sort of like committing to drink diet Coke with your double-double.  Or, like me, buying size 38 Levi’s labeled “skinny-cut.”  Makes you think doesn’t it?  Or laugh.

So what did your resolutions look like?  What if they looked like this?

-Get rid of inconsistency in my life. 

-Deal with the lies I’ve believed about God.

-Remove whatever keeps me distant from God.

-Surrender my hard heart to Christ.

-Reject my insensitivity towards others.

-Fight against my false identity.

-Get rid of my lustful desires. 

If we committed to getting rid of these things what would our lives look like?  We’d look new.  We would begin to look more and more like Jesus.

But how do you get rid of the old and put on a new?  What’s the first step?  How do we know where to begin?

Turn with me to verse 17 and let’s jump in and ask God’s Spirit to speak by His word. 

Verse 17a: “Now this I say and testify in the Lord…”

This book is not merely a book of religious experiences, a moral and ethical compass, or a history of a man named Jesus.  This book is living and not only reveals Jesus; it is Jesus Himself speaking to us by His Spirit.  Jesus is called the “Word made flesh” who came and “dwelled among us.”  This Word, Jesus, is the author of this letter and the author of every book. 

When was the last time we opened God’s word and said to ourselves, “Jesus is speaking to me through His word”? 

His presence is with us when we read it.  His personhood is revealed as we read it, and He reigns over our lives by it.  This is why Paul could say, “I…testify in the Lord…”  It is Paul speaking, but Paul knew that it was the Lord Jesus speaking through him as he spoke to the Ephesians.

This means that it is no less than Jesus speaking to us as we read it today.  We don’t have to be lost in speculation or conjecture, Jesus is present and is reminding us to listen to what He has to say to us this morning. 

So what does Jesus want us to hear?

Verse 17b: “…that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do…”

We are to live differently now that we know Him.  If our old life full of rebellion was the reason Christ was crucified, it makes perfect sense that He would call us to no longer walk as we used to. 

Paul is looking down the path the Gentiles used to walk and he is insisting by the authority of Jesus that they never again walk as they used to. 

This is a forceful command.  It isn’t a suggestion.  Another way of putting it is this, “I, Paul, am speaking on Jesus’ behalf and insist that you must never again live like you used to.” 

Jesus doesn’t simply want us to be nice, He wants us to be new!  In fact, the entire book of Ephesians is about a gospel-formed identity.  An identity lived out of good news.  It not only reveals who God is and what He’s done, this book tells us who we really are.  It’s a description of what we’ve become by God’s grace.  And through this passage Paul is fighting for us to not slip back into our old identity, the old self. 

This morning your King, Jesus, is calling you to walk in your new self and live out what is already true of you.

The beauty of Ephesians is that it is written to Christians that have come to know Jesus.  Paul spent the first 3 chapters laboring to build a foundation of security so that they wouldn’t doubt that God loves them, has adopted them, forgiven them and chosen them all by His grace and will never let them go. 

With that security in place, Paul now calls them to change by grace.  In fact, without that security in place, they wouldn’t be able to.  Their entire past life was marked by being cut off from God and dead in their sins. 

The temptation to go back to this past life is still very powerful.  Paul is calling us to avoid going back to the old life and he shows us how to avoid it.

Darkened Minds, Hardened Hearts

Verses 17c-18: “…in the futility of their minds. [18] They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.”

Hard hearts and closed minds go together.  In fact, we close our minds to things that are true because our hearts are hardened towards God.  This is the first step to going back to the old life and it’s what causes empty or “futile” thinking.  Listen to Romans 1. 

Romans 1:21-22 - “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. [22] Claiming to be wise, they became fools…”

Even though on the one hand they knew God, because they refused to honor Him or give thanks for His grace, their thinking became futile and their hearts were hardened and darkened. 

This is so important to understand.  Our problems with hopelessness and disbelief aren’t primarily intellectual, they’re moral.  We hide behind the smokescreen of our intellect when the problem is that we refuse to love God and honor Him above ourselves. 

This causes our mind and heart to be dark and we close ourselves off to God.  We begin to entertain lies and believe them over the truth.  But make no mistake, you’re believing something.

Alienation from God isn’t due to our atheism but our idolatry.  Our culture isn’t becoming a culture filled with non-believers; it’s becoming more and more idolatrous.  In other words, it is willingly giving itself to other beliefs and worshipping false gods.

A culture void of the real and living God won’t become atheists; they’ll become idolaters and give themselves to false gods.  Read the next verse in Romans 1:

Romans 1:23 – “…and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.”

What a powerful statement. Because of our hard hearts and darkened minds, we exchange the glory and beauty of the true God for images and created things. 

The natural heart can’t handle the truth.  It doesn’t want it and so it shuts it out and suppresses it in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18).

The heart becomes hardened because we repeatedly make choices to pursue things we believe are better than God.  And when they fail us, instead of rejecting those things, we reject God and our heart grows cold towards Him. 

This is what verse 19 shows us:

Verse 19: “They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.”

The word “callous” means a loss of sensitivity.  In other words, because our hearts are hard towards God, we close our minds to His truth and become insensitive to His presence and Spirit. 

We become insensitive to truth (callous) and will then pursue various kinds of sin. No one holds a gun to our head so that we’ll go back to our old life.  We pursue it willingly.  It isn’t something that happens to us, it’s something that comes from us.   

We willingly give ourselves over to what we worship.  It is effortless.  Have you ever had a day when you were really tired from work and you just wanted to go home, eat and sleep until you friend calls and invites you to do something you really enjoy?  Then, out of nowhere, you get a burst of energy and effortlessly give yourself to it. 

We will always invest in what we value most.  Whether it’s a relationship, work, hobby or body image, we give time to things we believe are important.  If we say that getting in shape is important but we never actually exercise, we have to admit to ourselves that getting in shape isn’t really that important to us.  Our investments show us what we value most. 

Whatever we treasure most, we will worship, and we become what we worship for restoration or ruin. 

If it’s true that our behavior always follows our belief, than our problem behavior is due to our problem beliefs.

Our hope isn’t to simply change our behavior but to change what we believe.  

Verse 20-21: “But that is not the way you learned Christ! — [21] assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus…”

That isn’t the way you learned Christ.  This isn’t how we came as a disciple to Jesus.  You see, our beliefs and behaviors are learned.  The world is teaching us something about God and ourselves.  Our identity is being radically informed by the doctrines of the world.

We are drinking buckets full of identity shaping ideas from the world each day.

This is why Hebrews says we’re to:

“Exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today” so that none of you may become hard hearted by the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13). 

Some of you may not consider yourselves very good listeners or learners.  Yet, since the false identities we have are learned, perhaps we’re better learners than we give ourselves credit for.  The issue isn’t whether or not you’re learning, listening and believing.  The issue is what you’ve learned, heard and believed that is causing you such great struggles.

This is why we need to be reminded of the truth.  Preaching the Gospel to ourselves is a new relationship to truth because of our new relationship to Christ. 

Paul is saying that the truth is in Jesus.  It resides in Him, is found in Him, and can only be fully experienced through Him. It’s truth come in the flesh that is a truth that changes, it’s truth about the story of God who became man to save man from trying to save himself.  

Because truth no longer is a power play but instead resides in a person, we have to see that the truth we hold isn’t so that we’ll have power over others, but so that we’ll serve and be gracious with others as this truth was embodied in the Gospel story.  It will be something we have a relationship with rather than a mere fact we use to hammer people on the head.

When was the first time we believed the lie over truth?  The Garden.  What seeds of lies grew in the hearts of Adam and Eve?  That God was holding out on us.  He didn’t want what was good for us.

What did Satan say would happen if they just believed him?  They would become like God.  Weren’t they already like God?  Yes.  So what was he attacking?  Their identity. 

What did we learn when we’re taught in Jesus?

Verses 22-23: “…to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, [23] and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds…”

Being renewed in the spirit of our mind is like flying by the instruments when we can’t see.  When the fog is thick, our temptation is to be focused on the fog rather than what we know is true.  If you’re flying an aircraft, focusing on what you see vs. what the instruments tell you can be very dangerous. 

By turning to truth in the midst of our darkness we are exercising, even in a small amount, faith to obey what we know is right instead of allowing our feelings or circumstance to dictate what we believe.   

Verse 24: “…and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

Satan attacks our true identity.  Paul’s prescription is to remind us who we truly our in Christ.  Did you hear that?  You were created after the likeness of God!  In true righteousness and holiness.  You don’t have to earn it.  You don’t have to go find yourself, you’ve been found.

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