A New Way to Live

Intro: We have been going through Ephesians and have been tracking with certain themes. we have looked at a Christians new identity, we have also looked at the believers new community. This week we are going to look at a new theme, our authenticity.

People love Authenticity, being authentic, being real. You can google authenticity and find hundreds of articles about being authentic. The word authentic means something that is genuine or original. It usually referred to something, like Authentic Chinese Food, many of you have seen Mike’s beautiful 57 chevy, he works at keeping the vehicle authentic, which means original to when it was released.

But what does it mean to be authentic when it comes to people? What does our authenticity mean?

Can we take a minute and look at one of the kings in the Old Testament. The king we will look at is king Saul, in 1 Samuel 15 he is given a command from God through the prophet Samuel, to destroy the Amalekites and all their belongings because of how they treated the Israelites when they were in the desert. Saul went out and destroyed the Amalekites but they took the king hostage and they kept some of the best animals for themselves. When Saul was confronted by Samuel, Saul told him we kept them to sacrifice to the Lord.

We discover because Saul rejected the word of the Lord, the Lord rejects Saul as king of Israel and the Lord tells him this through the prophet Samuel;

1 Samuel 15:22 (ESV)

And Samuel said,

“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,

as in obeying the voice of the Lord?

Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,

and to listen than the fat of rams.

Y Samuel dijo:

¿Se complace el Señor tanto en holocaustos y sacrificios como en la obediencia[a] a la voz del Señor? He aquí, el obedecer es mejor que un sacrificio, y el prestar atención, que la grosura de los carneros.

What is God looking for? Is he looking for someone to just go through the motions? is he looking for someone to follow a list list of religious duties?

“to obey is better than sacrifice and to listen than the fat of rams”

What is God after? What does he mean when he says that?

When you turn to 1 Sam 16, God sends the prophet Samuel on a mission to look for a new king and he is sent to the household of Jesse, who is the father of David. When Samuel is looking at Jesse’s sons, he sees and is thinking surely this guy is the next king of Israel, he has all the physical features to be the next king. What does the Lord tell him?

1 Samuel 16:7 (ESV)

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

Pero el Señor dijo a Samuel: No mires a su apariencia, ni a lo alto de su estatura, porque lo he desechado; pues Dios ve no como[a] el hombre ve, pues el hombre mira la apariencia exterior, pero el Señor mira el corazón.

The Lord looks at the heart, now we are getting somewhere, when the Bible speaks about the heart it is referring to the control center of who you are, the center of your thoughts, desires emotions, purposes, motivations. the Lord doesn’t just want your religious duties, he looks at the heart of a person, he wants all of you, your affections and your obedience, he wants authenticity because a heart which has been transformed by the Lord whose focus is on the Lord, will be a heart that joyfully says yes to the Lord.

The difference between Saul and David, was the heart, Saul’s heart led him to disobedience and unauthentic worship, he was just going through the motions. He was more interested in building up the kingdom of Saul not the Kingdom of God. David’s heart led him to obedience and authenticity before the Lord.

We have two kings of Israel, one who went through the motions and was disobedient and unfaithful to his calling. The other whose desire was to please God and live faithful to his calling. One the Lord rejected and one the Lord accepted.

This leads us to our passage today in Ephesians, and we will begin to look at what it means to live the Christian life, what it means to be authentic now that we have a new identity and a new community, how does that impact how I live out my life now, how does it impact our authenticity.

Ephesians 4:17–24 (ESV)

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.

17 Esto digo, pues, y afirmo juntamente con el Señor: que ya no andéis así como andan también los gentiles, en la vanidad de su mente,18 entenebrecidos en su entendimiento, excluidos de la vida de Dios por causa de la ignorancia que hay en ellos, por la dureza de su corazón;19 y ellos, habiendo llegado a ser insensibles, se entregaron a la sensualidad para cometer con avidez toda clase de impurezas. 20 Pero vosotros no habéis aprendido a Cristo de esta manera, 21 si en verdad lo oísteis y habéis sido enseñados en Él, conforme a la verdad que hay en Jesús, 22 que en cuanto a vuestra anterior manera de vivir, os despojéis del viejo hombre, que se corrompe según los deseos engañosos, 23 y que seáis renovados en el espíritu de vuestra mente, 24 y os vistáis del nuevo hombre, el cual, en la semejanza de Dios, ha sido creado en la justicia y santidad de la verdad.

I. Stop Living Like You Used to Live Before You Knew Christ

I want you to grasp the urgency of this passage, Paul is writing, but in his writing style he is writing with urgency. He could have said “Now this I say… that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do...” that is not what he does. When Paul writes this portion he starts by saying

Now this I say

Then he adds “and testify”

Then he adds in the Lord

Paul, with the introduction here is saying guys, please I want you to understand and focus on what I am about to say, I am a witness to these truths and I am communicating them to you with the authority the Lord has placed on me as an Apostle and the message Paul wants to communicate in this passage is crucial to living an authentic Christian life. The first part of the message stop living like you used to live before you knew Christ.

A. What does it mean to walk like a Gentile?

Paul says you must no longer walk as Gentiles do, and then explains how gentiles walked.

1. In the futility of their minds - When you look at this word futility, it means emptiness or without purpose. It gives the image of the prodigal Son in Luke 15 who is just wasting and partying away his inheritance his father just gave him. People just wasting their lives because they are not living for the purpose they were created to live, to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

2. they are darkened in their understanding - speak to our condition of blindness to the truth because we are blind we pursue replacement gospels to save us, money, politics, relationships. We cannot see or understand the truths of the Gospel because our minds are darkened.

2 Corinthians 4:3–4 (ESV)

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

Y si todavía nuestro evangelio está velado, para los que se pierden está velado, 4 en los cuales el dios de este mundo ha cegado el entendimiento de los incrédulos, para que no vean el resplandor del evangelio de la gloria de Cristo, que es la imagen de Dios.

3. alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance, this ignorance is not just a lack of knowledge, no this is willful ignorance. What is willful ignorance? It is like a parent telling a child don’t do that and the child continues to do what you just told him not to . It isn’t he didn’t know, the child was willfully ignorant. Paul tells the Romans, “what can be known of God is plain to them” but they suppress the truth and leads to an ignorance about God and the truths of the Gospel.

4. due to their hardness of heart - here we see the problem, the hardness of the heart to the truths of the Gospel. We see the reason for their condition is due to the hardness of their heart to the truth. This is Romans 1:18-25 summarized to the Ephesians. Just follow the argument Paul is making, let me read it to you like this, “due to their hardness of heart, they have experienced the futility of their minds, they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance that is in them.” Do you see the progression?

5. the progression doesn’t end there, Paul continues in vs 19.

Ephesians 4:19 ESV

They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

Here we see a very important truth, the condition of the mind impact your desires which impact your actions. Paul has been telling us, your mind before you were a follower of Christ was futile, darkened, ignorant which led you to lust after all kinds of sin and evil and we gave ourselves up to our lust to live in sin and practice every kind of impurity in thought and actions. We were like Saul, building up the kingdom of me, pursuing and loving things we shouldn’t. Living out our futility, darkened, ignorant ways which separates us from the life of God.

II. Start Living Like Who You Are In Christ

Paul tells us to stop living like we used to live before we knew Christ and says start living like who you are in Christ. Paul says, Eph 4:20-21

Ephesians 4:20–21 ESV

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,

Look at the importance of the mind again, that is not the way you learned Christ, assuming you have heard about him through the preaching and teaching of the Gospel and were taught or discipled in him. Learning, hearing, teaching all are activities of the mind and how we receive information, more importantly how we receive truth. Paul says you did not learn Christ by how you thought, believed and lived before you knew Christ. No you learned Christ via the preaching, teaching, discipling in truth, and who is truth, what did they learn? What did you learn? JESUS! Jesus is the truth and everything we learned about our new identity is the work Jesus in the believers life, which is also truth.

Truth is not fluid, truth does not change, truth is not relative. Truth is objective, firm. I know this concept is challenged in our world today, but do not be deceived there is truth that does not change. The truth of the Bible and the truths about the Gospel is truth that doesn’t change.

So when Paul says that is not the way you learned Christ, what is he referring to? He is referring to what comes next in verses 22 - 24. To put off or stop living like you were before Christ, but why does he say this? Because your former way of life was corrupt through deceitful desires. That is an interesting phrase, deceitful desires, those are desires or feelings that deceive you into thinking and living contrary to God’s word. What do you mean?

Our desires, how we feel is leading us down destructive paths, our desires will lead us to pursue relationships that we shouldn’t, our desires will lead us to to pursue addictions, like over indulging in our eating, or alcoholism or drugs. Our desires will deceive us to live a life contrary to God and his word because it feels good, it makes us happy, we fall into sins because we are doing it for the enjoyment of how it makes us feel, we are being deceived by our own desires. Paul says you did not learn Christ that way, instead they they learned to put off the old self because

2 Corinthians 5:17 (ESV)

if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

De modo que si alguno está en Cristo, nueva criatura es; las cosas viejas pasaron; he aquí, son hechas nuevas.

The old me is gone, In Romans Paul goes further and says the old me is dead.

Romans 6:6–11 (ESV)

We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.

6 sabiendo esto, que nuestro viejo hombre fue crucificado con Él, para que nuestro cuerpo de pecado fuera destruido, a fin de que ya no seamos esclavos del pecado; 7 porque el que ha muerto, ha sido libertado del pecado.

When you gave your life to Jesus, you have been set free from sin, we learned in Ephesians 1, we have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus. You are free from sin because through the work of Christ, your old self was crucified with Christ so that sin will have no power over you, you are free from sin because you are dead to sin. This is something Christ has already done in us, but we still live in this body, we still can still be deceived by our desires and our old way of living, which was Paul tell us to put off our old self. This something Christ has already done but because we still live in a fallen world and in our fallen condition this is something we do daily as well.

Saying yes to Jesus means saying no to other things, which is why Pauls tells us put off the your old self, it is almost like if he is telling us, take off your dirty clothes and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. In other words remind your self of the work God has done in your life in Christ, remind yourselves of the truths of scripture and pray for the Spirit to take God’s word and implant it in your heart, so that it begins to change your affections and desires to pursue Christ

Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

8 Y si hemos muerto con Cristo, creemos que también viviremos con Él, 9 sabiendo que Cristo, habiendo resucitado de entre los muertos, no volverá a morir; ya la muerte no tiene dominio sobre Él. 10 Porque en cuanto Él murió, murió al pecado de una vez para siempre; pero en cuanto vive, vive para Dios. 11 Así también vosotros, consideraos muertos para el pecado, pero vivos para Dios en Cristo Jesús.

Now that you have died with Christ and died to sin, you will also live with him. We are no longer in the futility of our mind, no longer darkened in our understanding, no longer ignorant and alienated from the life of God, we are alive to God. So consider yourselves dead to sin and put on the new self. Look it what it is about the new self,

created after the likeness of God - the new self is created to be like Jesus, this is what Paul prayed that you will be filled with all the fullness of God because you are recreated through the work of Jesus to be in the likeness of God.

in true righteousness and holiness - and if we are created in the likeness of God then we were created to live morally right and pure lives. Which is why Paul says, walk worthy of the calling you have recieved. We learned in Ephesians 1 God has called us to be holy and blameless, now Paul is telling us, put on this new self and walk in righteousness and holiness. Paul, in the rest of chapters 4 & 5 will begin to expand on how we are to live in righteousness and holiness

For those of you who are here and have never made that decision to follow Jesus, we would love to sit down and talk, if you have any questions, we have plenty of people here who would love to talk to you, me, Dave, Alfredo, Samuel, or more who would love to sit down and talk.

For those of you who are followers of Jesus, I want to leave you with this thought, you are God’s billboard on this earth, we are created in Christ to reflect Jesus, to shine our light before men that they may worship our Father in heaven. Jesus has transformed our hearts so that now we can joyfully live righteous, holy and authentic lives before him and before the world. Our lives are a walking advertisement, advertising Christ to the world, what is your life advertising today? If you are a follower of Jesus and you don’t like what your life is advertising, the Spirit of God is challenging you this morning to put off the old self and be renewed in your thinking and put on the new self. If you need help with living the new life in Christ, we would love to sit and talk with you as well.