Life in Christ

Ephesians 4:17-32

Pray

Allistair Begg, a pastor that I have grown fond of over the years says this, “The main things are the plain things and the plain things are the main things.” I hope in the next few months we can cover some of those main things in the Christian faith.

Because we are a mix of biblical knowledge, like I said last week that we have baby Christians and seasoned saints all together, I feel like this is a good time to go over the basics. These are the things we are going to plant our flag on as a Church that follows Christ.

Today we are going to be talking about the life in Christ. There are beliefs that are fundamental in our theology so that we can believe rightly the things that are taught in Scripture. Last week we covered the inerrant, infallible Word of God. Go back and listen to it if you have questions on how the bible came to be and how we know that we can trust it. In a few weeks we are going to look at the doctrine of the Trinity, that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are all three distinct persons but one being and one God. We will be talking about the role of the church and a few other topics in July. All of these build on each other.

If we can’t trust the bible then we can’t trust what it says about Jesus and then it falls apart, but if we can trust the bible, which all the evidence points to we certainly can, then what does the bible say about Jesus? If all of those things are true, then what does it say about our life? How does the truth of the Gospel impact how I live my life day to day?

Explain the circle…..On the table you will find our statement of faith and see what we believe. That leads to a life change…

There is a progression that we go through as believers. The first step in this progression is that we sin.

Scripture says that from the womb we are sinners. Psalm 51:5

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

All who are not in Christ are “sons of disobedience” Ephesians 2:2-3 and we were by nature “children of wrath”. We are born sinners in our very nature. God did not create us this way, but He created us upright. The human race fell into sin by our father, Adam, in Genesis 3 and the seed was sown and produced fruit in every generation since.

Babies are cute, but if you have ever raise one, it doesn’t take long to see the sin that exists in that child. They take things they want, they hit, they bite and until righteousness is taught it’s quite the rodeo.

This sin is a problem. This sin separates us from a Holy God. When I say holy, I mean completely set apart. Perfect. The only way to reach him is through perfection, but since we are born in sin we can not reach Him on our own. We have the stain of guilt from our sin that the Lord cannot be near so there is a space between us.

Humans used to walk together with God in the Garden, If you haven’t read this, take a look at Genesis 3 and see how God is interacting with Adam and Eve. In verse 8 it says, “And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.” This is what we once had. A relationship with a God that was physically present with His creation not vailed. When sin entered, He veiled himself as to not destroy us.

Some people walk in this distance from their Creator their entire lives and then they die and they are continually separated from God. Some of you are in this spot today. You like your sin, you do not want to change. Really what you are saying is that you do not want anyone but you to have authority over your life. You do not want a God because then it would dethrone you from being Lord of your life. You like your friends, you have enough money, you say things like, “this is just how I am” and it is likely you will never come to know God, but look out because one day He may do something in your heart and suddenly your sin does not seem good to you anymore. That comfortable life will start to be less comfortable. In fact, you will hate it and hate what the sin has done to your life and you will be miserable. If God is gracious to you he will show you that life is tough when the party ends and you are left with the bill.

This is the part of your life when you should come into the recognition of your sin. This is where most recovery ministry starts, “Admit you have a problem.” Most of the time people think, “I’m ok. I’m not addicted to drugs or alcohol.” That may be true and it may be God’s protection on your life, but are you enslaved to anger, lust, pride, over eating, spending outside your means, are you lazy, are you selfish, bitter, do you fear what people think over what God thinks of you, do you have sinful thoughts, do you hate your neighbor, do you hate the current political administration?

Your sin is much more than the big ticket items that you can compare to the next guy. Recognizing your sin is realizing that you are not just sinning against and hurting those around you and your self, but you are sinning against and hurting a holy God. That part is what should grieve you. The fact that you committed those sins in direct defiance of Him should bring a Godly shame.

Going back to Psalm 51 in verse 3 and 4, David writes, “3  For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.4  Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight”

What do you do when the Lord opens your eyes to this sin?… You submit to the one that has the power to save you. Ephesians 2:1-5

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 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

I love this passage. It wasn’t that you were hanging on to a little bit of goodness like a kid in the ocean grasping to a floaty and trying to withstand the waves as if any power comes from you. No, the text says what? That you were dead. Dead in your sins. That is Lazarus in the tomb dead. I don’t know if you have been to any funerals lately but all the ones that I have ever been to, the person in the coffin can’t do anything, except stink. It is only the power of Christ that resurrects that person.

Charles Spurgeon wrote,

Salvation in sin is not possible; it always must be salvation from sin.

In your dead state, you cannot save yourself…… 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:4-6.

This submission is saying, “I realize I am helpless on my own”…..I need you…..

Once you submit to Christ as your Lord and your King, you become justified, which Romans 5:1 says brings peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

What does that mean? It means that once you say and believe that Christ died for your sins so that you could be made one with God and you put your faith in Jesus and Jesus alone for salvation, at that very moment your are made right with God. At that very moment, God no longer sees you in your sin but He sees you through the perfection of His son.

There is nothing you can do to earn it. Many of us are married in this room or have been married. During the ceremony, there was a time when the pastor says, “Do you take this person to be your husband or wife?” When you say “I Do”, you are married. You have accepted the offer of the other person’s love and they chose to spend their life with you. You didn’t do anything other than receive the love from the other person and you decided that life with that person is better than life without. It is a beautiful symbol of the offer that Christ is making to us. He has chosen us, He has shown us his love and his goodness and by us saying, “I do” to him is telling Him and the world that life with Christ is better than life without.

Once we do this, once we are in relationship with Christ, he has called us to grow. He has told us to “go and sin no more”. You remember that part when he heals people of diseases and changes their lives, he often says, “go and sin no more.” You might be wondering what does that mean? I sin. How can I sin no more?

This leads us into a term called sanctification. That is the act of becoming like Christ. In a sense it is a life that is living out Christ’s teachings by allowing the Holy Spirit to move and work in you. Oswald Chambers says that,

Sanctification is not something our Lord does in me; sanctification is himself in me.

When you become a believer, that is sealed in you with the Holy Spirit residing in you. The Apostle Paul writes in Romans 8:9

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

This Spirit unchains us from a life of sin. It allows us to live in freedom from sin our entire lives and makes us no longer slaves to that sin. This is the hard part.

Some of us in this room have accepted the free gift of salvation but never took advantage of the freedom that comes with that. There are people stuck in their sin and their patterns and they are waiting to die to be free of them as if they are still shackled to it. That is not the life Christ wants for you.

My wife mentioned something to me the other day that she had to read for work. She said that she had read that there are two types of mindsets. There is a growth mindset and there is a fixed mindset. The reading she was doing was for the business world but it is applicable here. In business, if you want to be successful you have to grow. You have to maneuver around the different obstacles that the market introduces. You have to learn how to talk to people, what are the best practices for the current days, what is your industry doing. Everyone agrees that to be a better boss or employee it takes a level of growth.

I thought about this in the Christian life. Some of us have a growth mindset with our work and with our financial goals but we have a fixed mindset when it comes to our Christian life. Most people do not do anything to grow in their walk with Christ. I would venture to say that even basic prayer is missed daily by most, daily bible reading is definitely missed by most and killing sin is not something that anyone really wants to entertain.

This wouldn’t work in any other area of your life. If you have a fixed mindset with your marriage, meaning, “I’m married and I’m going to stay exactly the same.” You will not be married very long. If you had a fixed mindset at work, you may not lose your job but you will not be fulfilled. God has created us to do the best we can and to do a great job and when those things don’t happen, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, addictions become part of the equation because you are trying to find happiness in the wrong places.

I heard it said somewhere that the human being is the only creation of God that does not live up to its full potential. Trees grow as tall as they can, animals do all that they can, ants are constantly building and doing what they were designed to do, but we…..don’t.

For some reason, we want to take advantage of the love of Christ and stay as CS Lewis wrote, “half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

There is a life of joy and peace that is unimaginable IN THIS LIFE and it is attainable for those that want to grow in Christ.

I want to read you the text that is for today,

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.

25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. 26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give no opportunity to the devil.

28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.

29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

We are called to be different. We are called to have that growth mindset in Christ. We cannot be stagnate. We must learn to put away the flesh and put sin to death. It is not to earn or keep the love of Christ but it is because of the love of Christ. Like the last line of the text we just read, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, AS GOD IN CHRIST FORGAVE YOU.” We do these things because He loved us first.

You may have the question, “How?” You may say, “I have been a Christian all of my life but I still feel like I am a slave to sin.”

Are you actively trying to kill the sin? Dallas Willard, the pastor/author wrote, “Saints are sinners still…but are you planning on it?” Most people crave the sin they repeat. They love it. What we have to do is replace that idol that we love with an even stronger love and devotion to Christ so that when those thoughts or actions come up, it’s not that we aren’t tempted, but we know that we have a loving Father who is always watching and a loving redeemer that has paid for my sins and I don’t want to add another to the list. He will also give us opportunities to flee from it.

Walking in freedom and walking in that Ephesians 4 life is difficult. It is a constant war with the flesh, the world and with Satan, but the battle has already been won and they have no chain on you that you cannot walk out of, but sometimes we, as the Church, need help. We need tools to learn this discipline.

Daily disciplines are important. One is daily prayer. In that daily prayer should be daily repentance. When you sin, be quick to repent and bring that before the Lord. When you are tempted, be quick to pray and ask for help. When you wrong someone, be quick to apologize to them and to the Lord. Do you know that when you are praying you have God’s full attention? It is like you are his only child, that is the attentiveness that He shows you. He hears you. Even if you prayers aren’t answered when or how you want them answered, it doesn’t mean He isn’t listening or doesn’t care. Speak to Him. It doesn’t have to be long or drawn out but from the heart as you are talking to a friend.

Daily time in the Word. Jesus says that man cannot live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. You need to think of the bible like it is food. You need food everyday to live. When I say things like this to people I always get, “I don’t know where to start” or “It’s just too confusing”. If you want this relationship and this freedom you will find a way, but giving you the benefit of the doubt, start in John. Read it over and over until it clicks. Start anywhere you want and ask God to open your heart to His truth. There is work involved in this. I heard a pastor this past week say, “Christianity is a religion for grown-ups, child-like grown-ups that desire the sincere milk of the Word.” We must grow up in our faith and take responsibility for our growth.

When you start doing these daily disciplines, that means that something else will have to go to the wayside. If you read the Gospel of John straight through it will take someone maybe 2 hours. Some of you scroll facebook that much a day. I guarantee that time spent in the Word will be more productive than that.

Another tool that I have had the privilege to use is a ministry called Regeneration. My friend, Jeff Crawford, one of the staff members at New Covenant, and I got together about this time last year and saw a great need within the church of people that were struggling with addiction and……really just life. We wanted to find a recovery ministry that we could do with all the churches in town for the body of Christ. We started a pilot group in October of last year and finished a few weeks ago in May. It is a once a week meeting on Monday nights and it focuses on surrendering the darkest parts of your heart to Christ and replacing those idols with Him.

In your handout you will find a list of sins that you could be dealing with. It isn’t just for what society would call the biggies like alcohol or drugs, we do work with people struggling with that, but most people struggle with so much more that has lasting effects on their lives and keeps them away from a full life in Christ.

The results from this pilot group were life changing. The Lord did a great work and we are excited to announce that we will be starting a new group in August. Like I said we meet on Monday nights and there is daily work that takes about 15 min to really explore the depths of your heart. Dan Odle, Sean Brack and others from this church went through this program with me and it was amazing. It is for everybody. It is for the one that doesn’t have it all together and especially for the one that thinks they have it all together.

I want to play a quick video of stories from folks that went through this pilot group.

Show video

I want to close with this. I love you and I want you to live in the freedom that Christ is offering. So much so that when people see you out and about town they see real joy. Real peace. Real comfort. It is available to you.