Sermon Tone Analysis

Good morning and welcome to Mission Church.

If I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting you ....my name is John and I serve Mission Church as the lead pastor.

I am humbled and honored to be with you this morning…especially as we continue our journey through Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.....

A journey that we’ve entitled, “God’s Plan for God’s people.”

Now....If you would, please grab your copy of God’s Word and open it to Ephesians 4.

I find it absolutely mind blowing and even encouraging to know that God has invited us to be a part of His plan for the world.

This is especially true when I consider my own brokenness and weaknesses!

But.... God…He made a way for broken sinners…like us...to be reconciled to Himself and to each other!

You see....He made us new creations, He has adopted us as sons and daughters, and now ....He is using us…the Church.... to transform the world for His glory!

Today....our text is a continuation of last week’s exhortation .

A few verses earlier.....Paul instructed us to stop living like those who don’t know Jesus and…instead....we are to live out the new identity Christ gave us when He saved us.

And...this morning we are going to see five practical illustrations of what it looks like to live as new creations who are no longer under the influence of our old deceitful desires that had at one time....defined us.

Essentially Paul is continuing to lay out for us a new pattern of living.

In fact I have entitled this mornings sermon, Living the New Life

Now....if you are able to …I would like to invite you to stand for the reading of God’s Word.

Ephesians 4:25–32 (CSB)

25 Therefore, putting away lying, speak the truth, each one to his neighbor, because we are members of one another.

26 Be angry and do not sin.

Don’t let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and don’t give the devil an opportunity.

28 Let the thief no longer steal.

Instead, he is to do honest work with his own hands, so that he has something to share with anyone in need.

29 No foul language should come from your mouth, but only what is good for building up someone in need, so that it gives grace to those who hear.

30 And don’t grieve God’s Holy Spirit.

You were sealed by him for the day of redemption.

31 Let all bitterness, anger and wrath, shouting and slander be removed from you, along with all malice.

32 And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ.

This is the Word of the Lord.

Let’s pray.

You may be seated.

* Authentic belief will always effect and determine how you live your life.

And.......You never know how much you really believe something.... until ....what you believe in becomes a matter of life and death.

It’s easy to look at a chord and believe that the chord is strong…especially if you are just using the chord to tie your shoes or to hold up your pants.

But suppose you are to hang by that chord over a canyon.

Only then would you discover how strong you really believe that chord to be.

One of my favorite stories of revealing authentic belief is the story of Charles Blondin, the French tightrope walker.

On June 30, 1859, he did his most famous act when he became the first person to cross a tightrope stretched across the mighty Niagara Falls.

The tightrope was more than a quarter mile long.... suspended 160 feet above the water...and he walked across it several times, each time in a different way: once on stilts, once on a bike, once blindfolded, and another time pushing a wheelbarrow!

As you can imagine.....a large crowd gathered to watch, with each feat bringing louder applause.

The crowd oohed and aahed as Blondin carefully walked across; one dangerous step after another, pushing a wheelbarrow holding a huge sack of potatoes.

Then at one point, he asked the crowd, “Do you believe I can carry a person across in this wheelbarrow?”

The crowd enthusiastically yelled, “Yes!

Yes!

We believe!

You are the greatest tightrope walker in the world.

We believe!” “Okay,” said Blondin, “who wants to get into the wheelbarrow?

.... Crickets....and the crowd began to dissipate.

You see…they said they believed, but no one was willing act on their belief.....no one was willing to get into the wheelbarrow…which proved the fact that they really didn’t believe.

In the first three chapters of Ephesians.... Paul talks about the deep ideas, truths, and doctrines of God....he details what it is we are to

believe about God.....and then…as we have seen over the last few weeks.....Paul discusses how those truths of God are to be displayed in our lives as we pursue a life that loves Jesus, lives like Jesus, and leads others to Jesus.

What you believe will effect and determine how you behave…and if you profess to believe what Paul lays down in ch.

1-3 then you will pursue a life that looks like the one Paul describes in ch.

4-6.... if not…then perhaps you don’t fully believe.

You see...If you’re not pursuing a life of holiness and righteousness then perhaps you don’t know Christ like you think you do.

But....we have to recognize the pitfalls that lays before us.

There is a danger that comes with chapters 4-6 of Ephesians.... which is thinking that somehow ...without Christ and without our salvation ...that we can somehow do what Paul instructs us to do.

That somehow we can be good enough or that we can work our way up to God.

We cant separate devotion from doctrine.

You see....what differentiates Christ and Christianity from every other religion is that everything else points you to a path of working towards God but Christianity is God working towards us and doing the very work for us that we could never do ourselves.

Another danger is that we can begin with grace…meaning.... we believe and declare that we can not save ourselves.... we begin with grace but then we live as though we are sustained by our works or our behavior.

Paul address this pitfall in Galatians 3, where he asked, “Who tricked you into believing that you now....somehow live this life of following Jesus based upon your own strength?”

So .....when we talk about living the New Life...when we discus the putting off of the old and the putting on of the new...we must qualify that we don't behave this way out of our own goodness or capacity ...we can’t.

But ....we pursue a life of Holiness and righteousness because Jesus saved us …He made us new creations and He gave us His Spirit .

In other words....because the grace of God has renewed us and is empowering us, we should live as those who are being renewed by his grace.

The gospel that makes us right with God plants within our lives the life of God.

You see....

Not only do we live our lives “in Christ,” but God in Christ lives in us!! Consider 1 John 2:3-4

1 John 2:3–4 (CSB)

3 This is how we know that we know him: if we keep his commands.

4 The one who says, “I have come to know him,” and yet doesn’t keep his commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

So rather than dismissing the notion of duty and demand…the gospel of God’s extravagant grace provides both an understanding of Christ’s love for us and the call to pursue personal holiness.. And.....In our text this morning Paul specifically calls us to live like Christ in how we speak, how we think, and how we act....and he does so by providing

Five Motivations for Living the New life

Beginning with #1… We are motivated to live the New Life by the fact that....

1.

We are members of one another.

(v.

25)

look at v. 25

Ephesians 4:25 (CSB)

25 Therefore,....or....because you have been given a New Life in Christ Jesus you should be...... putting away lying, speak the truth, each one to his neighbor, because we are members of one another.

Paul says, “As you pursue a life that lives like Jesus…stop lying.”

Now....understand... Paul’s words were extremely relevant to his audience....... lying was like second nature to the Greeks.... and as people were saved and joined the church..the practice of lying began to creep into the Church.

And ...Paul…well…he wasn’t having it!

Paul ....he even regarded lying as the dominant characteristic of the old life.

Consider Colossians 3:9-10

Colossians 3:9–10 (CSB)

9 Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self.

You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator.

In other words....there is no room for lying in the Church.

And let’s be honest…this message is no less needed today.

For....we too are immersed in a culture that oozes with deception and falsehood.

I heard a story about a baker who suspected that the farmer who was supplying his butter was giving him short weight.

His suspicions were confirmed when he carefully checked the weight of the butter for several days.

Extremely upset... he had the farmer arrested.

But the judge threw the case out when the farmer explained that he had no scales...so he used a one-pound loaf of bread that he purchased from the baker as his counterbalance!

Deception is the water our social media culture swims in…we live in a time and space in which we so care about what everybody thinks of us that we represent ourselves and our lives as something and someone who is way more impressive and awesome than we really are.

Falsehood is the air we breathe.....we cant see an advertisement or a commercial without being lied too....

I saw a commercial that claimed that if I used their toothpaste my teeth will glisten with animal magnetism.

I saw another that promised that If I drink their sports drink I will have the athletic ability of the football star promoting it.

We are even entertained by lying as the most popular TV shows over the last 20 years ....are gameshow like Big Brother and Survivor which are built around lies and deception.

You see.....whether on Main Street ...Wall Street…Hollywood…or Pennsylvania Ave..... our culture is in an ethical crisis of lies and deception.

But …as Christians we must remember that we have been united to Christ in His death and resurrection and we have been rescued from the Kingdom of darkness…we no longer serve the father of lies..the devil..(John 8:44)..But rather...we have been brought into the kingdom of light and love where Jesus Christ…the Truth…is King (Col.

1:12-13; John 14:6).