Walk Differently in Newness

If you would turn with me to Ephesians chapter 4. We'll begin reading at verse 17. Ephesians 4, 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. 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 have 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. Let's pray together. Father, your word is deep and beyond our comprehension apart from the work of your spirit in us. We ask now that your spirit teach us that you illumine the word, that you quicken it to our hearts, that you transform and renew our minds and our heart through the truth of your word. May Christ be exalted. May your people be edified. May your church be built up. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

You may be seated. As we've been journeying through this exhortation of Paul in Ephesians 4 through 6, teaching us how practically to live the Christian life, we need to be reminded that all that he tells us in these three chapters is grounded in what he spoke in the first three chapters. The doctrine that was given there declaring to us our position in Christ Jesus. And just by way of reminder, to think back on that, first of all, God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ. God has chosen us in Christ and adopted us as his children in him. God has accepted us in Christ. In Christ, we have redemption and forgiveness through his blood. In Christ, we are made one. In Christ, we've obtained an inheritance.

In Christ, we are sealed until the day of redemption. And on and on it goes, the powerful message of those first three chapters, what God has done for us in Christ Jesus. And then we come to chapter 4 and he begins to apply that and to exhort us to a life of holiness and blamelessness before God. And we saw the last time we were in Ephesians looked at the fact that God's primary purpose is that we be one in union with each other and with Christ and with the Father. That is his purpose that he declared back in the first chapter in verse 10. He said that he might gather together in one all things in Christ. That is his purpose for us. And now in verse 17, we come to a new division. We run into that therefore word again.

The ESV says now, the NASB says so then, several translations, therefore. But Paul is saying because of all that has gone before, those first three chapters all the way up through verse 16 of chapter 4, because of all that, I say now and I testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds. This new division answers some questions that arise for us as we go through the earlier verses. We begin to ask the questions, how is it that we grow up into Christ?

How is it that we come to full maturity? How do we come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God? How do we keep that unity of the Spirit that we are to endeavor to keep?

Paul's answers to these questions comprise really the rest of the book of Ephesians from verse 17 of chapter 4 right out to the end. And so he says then, now this I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their mind. You are a new creation in Christ. You're created to walk in good works. You're joined in Him with other believers as a dwelling place for God Himself, raised to a new life from the dead and to walk no longer in those dead works in which you once walked, following the course of this world, the course of the prince of the power of the air.

We are now to walk in newness of life. Paul uses the put off, put on phrase here in this passage. And we are to put off the old man which is corrupt because of the deceitful lusts. That corruption is characterized first of all by the futility of mind, the vanity of the mind. He says that the other Gentiles walk in futility of the mind. In futility as opposed to in the Lord which is how we're to walk.

Paul says I'm testifying in the Lord that you're to not walk that way anymore. This futility and vanity of the mind is really rooted in our rejection of the knowledge of the true God. We're reminded this morning of Paul's words to the Romans in chapter one of Romans where he says, 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. These who are still living that life of the old self are darkened in their understanding. Their minds are futile. The intelligence, the mind, the perceptions of reality are skewed by their own ignorance and the darkness and hardness of their hearts. They look at the world in a way that is not real.

What they see and understand is false. Paul says that they have a darkened understanding. They're alienated from the life of God. That alienation happened way back in the fall. In the very beginning when Adam turned his back on the word of God and disobeyed, there was an alienation that took place.

Our sin, our iniquity separates us from God, from the life of God. We're alienated from God. And because of that, there's ignorance. This word that he uses here speaking of their ignorance, I think we tend to think of that probably as just a lack of information.

They didn't know. But that's not the reality of our life apart from Christ. The reality is that God has made Himself known, even in the creation itself, in the general revelation. We have sufficient knowledge so that we are without excuse. The truth is that we have chosen not to believe. We have this inclination to ignorance. We suppress the truth and do not acknowledge the reality that God has revealed to us.

There's ignorance because our hearts are hard. The word that is translated hardness of heart or blindness of heart there is a word that literally means a stone. It was a word that was used for a particular kind of marble.

And in the medical field it was used to speak of calluses. Our hearts are calloused and hard so that we resist the knowledge that is available to us So the old man is corrupt, characterized by a depravity of mind, but also a depravity of behavior and conduct. In verse 19, Paul says that the past feeling, part of that callousness, there's just an inability to respond to the things of God. They are a past feeling and have given themselves over to sensuality, to lasciviousness.

And that next phrase is just remarkable, isn't it? Greedy to practice every kind of impurity. We are in pursuit of the things that are opposed to God because not only does God give us over to our own desires, we give ourselves to those things that are opposed to God and ultimately God gives us a depraved mind and we have no hope apart from what Christ has done. So we're to put all of that off. Verse 22 says that we're to put off the old self which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires. If this is something that we are to put off, the implication is that we too were like that prior to Christ and in fact there's some of that still hanging on, isn't there?

We are still under this burden of the corruption and the depravity that was a part of our old way of life and we are to put that away, to put that off. In contrast to this old self then there is the new man and Paul says that we are not like that, not to be like that. In verse 20 he says that you're not ignorant like these Gentiles are but you have not learned Christ that way. There's a new knowing in this life in Christ.

You have learned Christ. It's interesting that he doesn't say you've learned about Christ or you learned of Christ but you learned Christ, the person himself. Sometimes we use the word to know in different ways. When Libby and I had the privilege of being in language study in the mission field, we learned that in Spanish they have two different words to help them distinguish what kind of knowing they're talking about.

They use the word saber and the word conocer and one means that you just know about something. The other means you know it from your own personal experience and someone might say you know about Paris. Well, yeah, I know about Paris but I've never been there.

I don't really know Paris. I know Clayton, North Carolina. I lived there, grew up there. I know that and the same thing is true in this sense here of knowing Christ. We have learned Christ when we spend time with him, when we're with him, when we get to know him, the person of Jesus Christ. So we are to know Christ, to learn him because we've heard him. Again, the ESV translation, for example, says you've heard about him. The word about is not there in the Greek text.

It's just you've heard him. You ask yourself, well, how had the Ephesians heard Christ? Well, through the preaching of the gospel, they heard the word of God through the preaching of the apostles and we have the same experience, don't we, through the preaching of the gospel. In reading the word and studying the word and meditating on it, hearing it explained and preached and taught, through these means of grace we hear Christ speak to us individually. We hear the doctrine. We hear the reproof, the correction, the training that comes from the word of God and it is spoken, it is the word of God. It is given us in his word and our hearts are softened to the truth by God's spirit and work in us and by the power of his spirit and his work in us, we hear Christ speak. So Paul says you've learned Christ, contrast to the ignorance of the Gentiles. You've heard him. You've been taught in him.

Isn't that interesting? You have been taught in him, not by him, but in him. Christ is our teacher and we learn in him. He is the environment in which we learn.

John Stott has commented on that. He said Jesus Christ is at once the subject, the object, and the environment of the instruction being given. Jesus is himself the embodiment of truth. So Paul says you have been taught in him as the truth is in Jesus. And it's interesting that he switches from Christ to Jesus there. He's focusing on the fact that the person of Jesus, he came and he said I am the truth.

I am the way. It is in him that we are taught that the world is ignorant of the things of God because their heart is hardened. But the Ephesian Christians and you and I as 21st century believers, we are not ignorant. We've learned Christ. We've heard him. We've been taught in him.

We know the truth. So we have this new knowing we are to put on and to develop and to grow in. We have a new mind.

He says that the mind of the Gentiles is one of futility and vanity. We have a new mind. Our mind is to be changed and transformed and renewed. Paul again in Romans 12 says be not conformed to the world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. This renewal of our mind is a work of the Holy Spirit that is done through the Word of God. It's God's gift to us. Back in the first chapter of Ephesians in verse 17, Paul is praying for the Ephesians that God would give them the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him.

Give them a renewed mind. He says that he himself had this understanding and knowledge by revelation. He said the mystery was made known to me by revelation. The mystery of Christ which was not made known to the sons of men in other ages as it is now revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. The Spirit of God reveals the truth, the mystery, the hidden things that we cannot know apart from God's revelation of them to us. So the Spirit works to give us this new mind, this renewed mind. Verse 23 says that we are to be renewed in the spirit of our mind. That is grounded again in what God has done for us in Christ. Going back to the early chapters where he speaks of what God has accomplished in Christ and this renewal is grounded in that.

In fact, Paul says in his letter to the Corinthians that we have the mind of Christ. It's a gift of God to renew the mind. Not only are we to have a new way of thinking, a new way of perceiving things, of knowing, but we are to live in the reality of a new creation. Verse 24 says put on the new self which is created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. This new you which, by the way, at times we begin to question and doubt our salvation because of the way we're living. One thing that's always a certain mark of this is, is there a life in me, something new in me that is not me?

It's from God that created life in me that's not like the old man. This is what Paul is speaking of here. He says the new you is created after the likeness of God.

That's how it was in the beginning, isn't it? God said let us make man in our image, in our likeness. God created us to be a reflection of who he is, to be like him. And so this new man that we're to put on to develop in our lives is created after the likeness of God. It's created in true righteousness and true holiness. Again, this is grounded in the doctrine of those first three chapters. In chapter 2, verse 10, he says we are created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in. God created something new when he brought us to faith.

So this old man is to be put off, new man to be put on. And so we look at ourselves and think about how we live day to day and we say can I do that? Can I live like that? It seems impossible, doesn't it?

And in reality it is. A lot of people point to the teaching of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount and say this is the model, this is the example, this is how we're to live. The only problem with that is no man can live like that. Christ can and unless his life is in us, we're not going to live like that. We can only live this new life because God has made it possible in Christ. Maybe we should say God has made it actual in Christ. We're beginning to realize it day by day, moment by moment as we grow in knowledge and in grace but this is something God has done. Similar teaching in Romans, Paul tells us to consider, to reckon, to think that what God declares is what really is. It's not what my experience tells me.

It's not how I feel about things. This new life in Christ is not only possible, it's actually what God is accomplishing in us day by day, moment by moment by his mighty power at work in us. This new life is a resurrected life. We are to live, Paul says in Romans, as those who have been brought from death to life. We were dead in sins, he says here in Ephesians, but God has quickened us, made us alive in Christ. And so we're to live as those who've been brought from death to life. In Christ, we have died. Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life, Paul writes to the Romans.

And so once again, Paul's instruction to put on this new man is grounded in doctrine, in the teaching that was given to us earlier in the letter. In chapter 2, he speaks to the fact that we're dead in trespasses and sins. We walk like the rest of the world. We walk following the prince of the power of the air, the devil himself, and we are just like all the others. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ and raised us up with him.

So how is it possible? How can sinful mortals live in resurrection power? We look to the truth, the teaching, the doctrine, what God has declared. Go back to chapter 1, Paul's prayer there in chapter 1, verse 17. He prays that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places. This life is possible because of the power of God that is at work in us, the power that raised Jesus from the dead. There is no greater truth.

There is no Christianity without the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And it is the power that raised Jesus from the dead that is at work in us. All things are possible with God. Our problem is that we live too much in the flawed perceptions of our own experience and not enough in the true realities of what God has declared.

In Matthew 19, Jesus said to his disciples, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved? But Jesus said to them, With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. This resurrection life in Christ is possible because the power of God is at work in us.

That indwelling spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is at work in us and will raise us up. Go back to that wonderful, glorious benediction at the close of chapter 3 as Paul closes out that section of doctrine in chapter 3, verse 20. He says, Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think according to the power at work within us.

The power at work in us. By the power of his Holy Spirit, the power that raised Jesus from the dead, that power called us out of darkness into light, that power by whom we are sealed unto the day of redemption, the power of the Almighty God who is able to do, exceeding abundantly, the King James says, above all that we ask or think, beyond anything we can imagine, that power, by that power we can live as new creations created in the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. And it's all to the glory of God. Back to that benediction at the close of chapter 3. He goes on in verse 21 and he says, To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen.

It's for God's glory. The Word of God is true. It was true for the Ephesians to whom it was first written. It's true for you and for me in the 21st century. It's true for all generations.

Right now it's true for you and me. So put off the old man and put on the new. Change of clothes, get dressed for what's ahead.

We are to put on the new man and in that God will be glorified, Christ will be exalted, the church will be edified, and you and I will rejoice with joy, unspeakable, full of glory. Enough said. Amen.

Put off and put on. Let's pray. Father, we are overwhelmed with what your calling on our lives requires. We are humbled and we're made to realize that we are so poverty-stricken spiritually, so broken that we can never, only by your power, only by your grace, only by your life in us. Father, we can only live in this way. We realize as Paul that we've been crucified.

We no longer live. Christ lives in us and the life that we live is now not our life, but it's a life of Christ in us by faith. Father, grant us grace to daily walk in that way of absolute dependence, of recognizing our need, being broken by that, and putting ourselves at your disposal, resting wholly on your provision for us in Christ. It's in him we have life. It is in him we have joy and peace. It's in him that we are reconciled to each other and to you. And it is in him that we have access to you. And so in his name we pray, in Jesus' name, amen.