Saying No to the Old Life (Part 1 of 2)

What does it mean to be a Christian? I invite you to turn with me to Ephesians and to chapter 4, and we'll read from the seventeenth verse. 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. Amen. A brief prayer. Now, Spirit of God, descend upon our hearts, wean them from earth, and through all their pulses move, and speak to our weakness, mighty as thou art. And help us love thee as we ought to love. For Jesus' sake. Amen. Well, those of you who are visiting with us will discover that we are here in Ephesians in our studies, and it is important that as we keep coming back to the book that we keep the context pretty clearly in our minds.

It's always possible for us to begin to disengage a piece or a section or a couple of verses and treat them in a way that actually is quite harmful. And so we remind ourselves that Ephesus was a city in the first century. It was a large place. It had a large population. It was the richest of cities. It was part of the most prosperous region of the Roman Empire at the time. It also housed one of the seven wonders of the world, namely the temple of Artemis or the temple of Diana. And that particular structure, along with the theater and with the library of Callas, tended to dominate the skyline of the time.

If you visited Ephesus, you've been able to go into what was really the Roman sports context or to see the crumbling edifice that was once a library, and to realize, well, just as you squeezed your eyes together, how magnificent this must have been. It dominated—that is, the temple dominated the society not only architecturally but also, if you like, philosophically or spiritually—insofar as those who had heard the teaching of the apostle Paul and had become followers of Jesus found themselves to be a minority in the vastness of that city. And Luke records how on one occasion the vast crowd had essentially drowned out those who were seeking to tell the story of Jesus by chanting in a prolonged fashion, Great is Diana of the Ephesians! Great is Diana of the Ephesians! And the implication being, we know about greatness, and we don't need to hear about your Jesus.

The opposition to the church at that time was strong, and it was threatening. And Paul has written to them in order that they might realize just where they fit into the vast scheme of things. And if you can think all the way back to when we began with that great symphony of praise to the electing grace of God and how Paul tells them, you know, you have been predestined for adoption as sons to the praise of his glory, and you've obtained an inheritance that can't fade, and eventually he builds on and on, and you've been seated with Jesus in the highest places. You're in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

So just keep looking down from the vantage point in which you find yourselves. As he goes through the letter, he's reminding them of the wonder of what God has done in making them his own. And most people, if they only know a couple of verses out of Ephesians, know verses 8 and 9 of chapter 2, for by grace you were saved through faith, and this not your own doing. It's the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

And then not everybody goes on to learn verse 10, which is equally important. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. And it's not a common picture, but it is a metaphor that Paul employs when he speaks of the church, describing it essentially as a workshop. As a workshop. I don't have a workshop, because I don't work. In the shop, that is. I mean, someone give me a saw.

It's only a danger to me and everybody around me. But I do admire people that have workshops, and I have bits and pieces around my house. I was looking, as I studied yesterday in the afternoon, just at a tiny piece of wood about that size that was up on a shelf, and it made me think of dear Byron Nelson, the late Byron Nelson, the golfer. And he had made these little pieces of wood to give to the members of the United States Ryder Cup team, and had stamped a Sam on the back of it.

And it was just cut. And I thought, Oh, how nice, and how wonderful, and how it was representative of the grace and the commitment of the one who did the work in the shop in order to produce that. Well, the picture is of God Almighty, as it were, painting, if you like, painting the likeness of his Son on the canvas of the lives of his children. You are his workmanship. He is fashioning you according to the likeness of his Son. What is God doing with those whom he has redeemed? In essence, he is making us like Jesus.

That's the whole plan. And he is doing it not in isolation from one another but in relationship to one another. And that's why, after Paul gets to the end of chapter 3, he begins chapter 4, I therefore, a prisoner for the LORD, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called. God is painting on the canvas of your lives, he says. Therefore, when you walk out into that Ephesian culture, make sure that you walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called, so that the people who see your work, who hear your words, who witness your deeds, will have some kind of inkling of the fact that Jesus Christ is alive and is able to change lives, because they will see that your life has been changed.

And as we've gone through these early chapters, we've seen again and again that there is a great need for this—a need in Ephesus and a need in Cleveland this morning. What we have in this little section—and I'll outline it, and we'll work our way through it slowly—in verses 17 to 19, he is basically reminding the folks who are now part of the church of their lifestyle outside of Christ. It's a general description.

Not everybody would fit every specific of it. It is a description of life lived with no interest in Jesus or in the purposes for which he's come. So he's going to remind them of what they wear outside of Christ. And then in verses 20 to 24, now he says, Let me tell you what you are. This is what you are.

And you've got to understand the replacement factor that's involved. If you have put on the garments of your new life in Jesus, then you better make sure that you're putting off the old stuff that you once wore when you were still pagan, when you were still disinterested in Jesus. And then from verse 25 to the end of the chapter, he is essentially saying, And this is what you have to look forward to. So, this is what you wear, this is what you are, and this is what you're going to be. You say, Well, how much of this will we get through?

Not very much at all. But at least you've got an outline of it, and you can say, Well, that was what we were going to have as a sermon, and look at what we got. But anyway, here we are. Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called. That's how he begins the chapter. He then has a discourse on the nature of the church itself, of the importance of unity—that is, to be maintained—that unity which will then be expressed as the gifts that God has given, the gifts of his Word, are then manifested in the congregation, thereby producing ministry. And as they are involved in ministry, so the body of Christ is coming to maturity. And we have been dealing with that up until verse 16. Now, from verse 17, it's as though he says, Now, the gifts that God has given to the church have been given in order that you might live in unity, and, he says, and also that you might live in purity. And also that you might live in purity.

And he's going to make it very, very clear here the vast difference between the lifestyle of the Christian and those who are yet outside of Christ. Now, it's important we realize—and this is why I say we have to keep going back in order that we might go forward—verse 4 and 5 of Ephesians 2, 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. He has made us alive together with Christ.

In other words, he has regenerated us. It was something that was absolutely necessary, because, he says, we were dead. We were dead. This is a vastly different perspective on humanity than that which we deal with on a daily basis, whereby we're told you're sick or you're dysfunctional. You may well be sick, and I may well be dysfunctional, but the real issue is that I'm sinful and that I'm dead. I'm part of the walking dead, outside of Christ.

I'm part of the walking dead, and the problem is I don't know I'm dead. And so we need the Bible to tell us about ourselves in a way that is, frankly, unpalatable, because it will be only then that we will realize what a wonder it is to be made alive. And he has made you alive, he says. And if he has made you alive, then your life should be manifest in your lifestyle. If you now have the status of a son, or sons and daughters, then there are standards which go along with that status. If you are professing to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, then there is behavior which will testify to the reality of your belief.

Okay? So new life, new lifestyle. New status, new standards. New belief, new behavior.

So that when the standards are not present, when the behavior is absent, when the lifestyle is not there, then we have reason to say, I wonder if I really do have a new life. I wonder if I have the status of a son. I wonder if I am simply believing in an intellectual way but not in a life-changing, heart-rending, renewing way. And what he's really doing here—you'll notice the way he begins. He says, Now I say, this I say, and testify in the Lord. In other words, I'm speaking as the Lord's servant, he says. This comes to you from the Lord himself through me. I want to issue you a warning.

I want you to make sure that you realize just how crucial this is. In saying what he's saying, let's be clear what he is not saying. Paul is not here suggesting that by trying to live like God's children, they can make themselves God's children.

And that's not what he's saying. You can't make yourself God's child by trying to appear like one. Rather, they are to become what they are now by God's grace. You are now part of his family. Then there should be some family characteristics that are obvious. You now have the status of living in this royal household. Then there should be something about your walk, there should be something about your talk, he says, that will distinguish you from that talk and that walk which was once yours, which he's about to describe.

And the challenge, I think, is straightforward. Tomorrow, today, in the next twenty-four hours or so, we will be at various Memorial Day parades, many of us, and it's almost inevitable that there will be some little corsary of musicians—probably pipe bands, people that love the sound of the pipes, not realizing that the Irish sent them to the Scots as a joke, and the Scots never got the joke—but they'll be there, and they'll be playing away, and they'll be playing, essentially, the national anthem too, which is Amazing Grace. If they can't play anything else on the pipes, they always play Amazing Grace, right?

And we will stand in companies of fifties or hundreds or maybe a thousand, and there won't be one person in ten that has any notion of what the melody line is actually conveying. That a slave trader whose mother died when he was seven but who had been so immersed in the Scriptures between zero and seven, that when he found himself as a profligate, slave-trading, captain-cursing, rotten rascal, in the darkness of the storm it was the words of his mother that came back to call him to an understanding of what it means to be embraced by the love of God. And so he wrote Amazing Grace. How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, John Newton! I once was lost, but now I'm found.

I was blind, but now I see. That's what Paul is describing here. He's not talking about a little religious shift in the community to whom he writes, that they have sort of decided to be a little more religious or that they've decided to embrace a different kind of formula or framework. No!

No! They've been radically changed. They have been changed as a result of the power of Christ. You see, it actually addresses the very issue of, What does it mean to be a Christian? What does it mean to be a Christian?

You know, it's distinctly possible that you can listen to me or my colleagues Sunday after Sunday and hear language used, and you're sitting there going, Yeah, but I don't really know how to join the dots on that. Well, let me just tell you how—for example, Peter describes the believers to him he writes, the Christians to him he writes, he says, Now that you have tasted the goodness of the Lord. You've tasted the goodness of the Lord.

It's a picture. They have received Christ. Are you thirsty? Are you hungry?

Until you're thirsty and hungry, you never come and taste of the Lord. You can walk in and walk out. Well, that was very interesting. Mm. Remarkable. Boring.

Horrible. Whatever you want to say. But when you come thirsty and you find out where the living water is, then you taste. Then you're changed. In fact, you're changed, and then you taste.

But that's for another time. Paul says, You have been rescued from the present evil world order. So, what does it mean to be a Christian? It means that I have tasted of the goodness of the Lord. It means that I have been rescued from the present evil world order.

What does that mean? Well, you can't understand Paul unless you realize the way in which Paul's statement of the gospel is tied always directly to Adam and to Adam. You know, so, for example, as in Adam, all die, so in Christ will all be made alive. So the great story that Paul is always bringing to bear is the fact that God made a world, and he made it perfect. The world as man knows it is not as God has made it but as man has spoiled it. Man has sinned. Disintegration, alienation, chaos has come into the world—murder and mayhem.

How in the world can this be put back together again? Well, we need a second Adam, another one who will rise up as an Adam who will undo all the things that the first Adam has done and who will do the things that that first Adam has failed to do—namely, love God and serve him and obey him. And Paul says, And this is the wonder of it. As the hymn writer puts it, O loving wisdom of our God, when all was sin and shame, a second Adam to the fight and to the rescue came. Can I ask you this morning, if you were coming for a membership interview here at Parkside Church, and you came to the question on the paper, he says, and tell me how you became a Christian, what would you actually write down there? Would you say that you have received Christ?

You see, don't complicate things. To receive Christ is what John says is the issue. He came to his own, and his own did not receive him.

But to as many as received him, he gave the right to become the children of God. You see, I mean, somebody gave me a book this morning, a gift. It was very, very nice. I like gifts. And the person came to it, and he actually handed it to me like this. Now, I could have told them, I don't want your gift. But I received it. It's now mine. It's no longer his.

I received it. Some of you are sitting out there, you've made this whole becoming a Christian thing so complicated you don't know whether you're up or down. Right where you are today, you may receive Christ. Acknowledge who he is, why he came, what he's done. And the very fact that you have an inclination in your heart to accept the gift that he offers is the indication of the fact that God is at work in your heart. Otherwise, you'd be going, I don't know why this guy says this stuff. You're listening to Truth for Life. That is Alistair Begg with the message he's titled Saying No To The Old Life.

We'll hear more from Alistair tomorrow. Recently, we had an exciting opportunity come our way. Nearly 8,000 college students are gathering for a three-day conference that begins today in Louisville, Kentucky.

It's called Cross Con. And these students will be learning about the gospel, about the local church, God's heart for the nations. Because of the faithful monthly giving from our Truth Partners, Truth for Life has been able to provide every single one of those college students with a copy of the Truth for Life daily devotional. So if you are one of our Truth Partners, thank you. We want you to know that your giving made it possible for us to put God's word in the hands of thousands of young people so they can be encouraged to grow in their faith on a daily basis throughout 2024.

I hope you'll join us in praying, not only today, but in the weeks ahead. Pray that God would use this conference to help each of these students hold firm to the truth of the gospel and to be a light on their college campuses. Now, if this kind of outreach to the next generation sounds like the kind of ministry you support, we'd love to see you join your fellow listeners by becoming a Truth Partner, someone who comes alongside the ministry with prayer and monthly giving. And when you sign up to become a Truth Partner, you're joining the team that brings Alistair's teaching to listeners of all ages, all around the world.

It is easy to enroll. You can visit truthforlife.org slash Truth Partner or call 888-588-7884. One of the ways we say thank you to our Truth Partners for their financial support is by inviting them to request the resources we select each month. Today, we're recommending a devotional book called Refreshment for the Soul. It's a year of daily devotional readings from Richard Sibbes, The Heavenly Doctor. This is a recently published book that presents 365 daily readings inspired by the writing of the Puritan preacher Richard Sibbes. He was known in his day as The Heavenly Doctor, and although his insights were written 400 years ago, they remain immensely practical and relevant in our day. As you read this devotional, your affection for Jesus will be deepened as you explore his attributes. Ask for your copy of Refreshment for the Soul today when you sign up to become a Truth Partner or when you give a one-time donation to Truth for Life at truthforlife.org slash donate. As our culture becomes increasingly desensitized to sin, how can we resist the enticement to return to what we once were and what we used to do? Tomorrow we'll hear the answer. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.