Darkened in Understanding

Good morning, welcome to New Horizon Christian Church! Please open your Bibles to Ephesians 4.

Where we last left off.

V. 11-16- speaks of the importance of the church as a gathered community and their impact in the world through the various gifts of God.

Read Ephesians 4:17–19- “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.”

Pray.

Paul is all about process.

Ephesians 2:1-10.

Ephesians 2:11-22.

Paul likes to show not only the difference that is made from point A to point B, but also what has been necessary to get from point A to point B.

He cares both about the destination and the journey.

1. A broad appeal.

You must no longer walk as the Gentiles do.

Right way of living. Wrong way of living.

All is not permissible.

Eva at the grocery store- I should set the rules.

How do the Gentiles walk, or live?

2. A general definition.

…in the futility of their minds.

Futility.

Meaningless. Vanity.

Ecclesiastes- Everything is vanity, everything is meaningless, all of what we are and possess, all of the greatest of our experiences, cannot accomplish our highest needs and desires.

A person’s right intention for his mind, what the mind was created to do, cannot be accomplished. The efforts of the mind are futile.

Begs the question, what is it that our minds were created to do, that is unable to be accomplished when the mind is in a state of futility?

Harold Hoehner- “The original purpose of the mind was to be able to comprehend God’s revelation, but due to the fall a person’s mind is unable to accomplish this goal.”

Walking in such a manner.

If the mind is unable to comprehend God’s revealing of Himself in Word and character and action, then what is the result?

We walk, or live, according to our own ideas, our own parameters, what feels best and makes sense to the desires of our own hearts and minds.

We take on a selfish existence. Self-focused and self-advancing, according to our own standards.

This is the general definition of life apart from Jesus Christ, but Paul takes what is general and makes it more specific.

3. A specific definition.

Paul takes the general definition of the life of those apart from Christ and makes it more specific with four descriptions of those who are walking in the futility of their minds.

Darkened in their understanding.

Darkened as opposed to illuminated.

Along with this imagery is everything else that accompanies the dark.

Used to wake up standing in pitch black. No reference point. Grasping for anything I can find. No confidence in my situation. This is life in the dark.

Alienated from the life of God.

What was spoken of in chapter 2. Cut off from God, from His covenant promises, from His people, from His purposes.

Paul says here cut off from God’s life.

The very life that God possesses.

Ignorance that is in them.

Complete lack of knowledge.

Kids stating things that are wrong With all authority and confidence.

Hardness of heart.

Parable of the sower.

Understand these in order.

Darkened in their understanding as the cause of ignorance.

This ignorance leads to a hardness of heart which then causes alienation from God.

Perhaps shown most clearly in the fall of Adam and Eve.

What happened upon the disobedience of Adam and Eve? Many things happened, but one that we see immediate evidence for in the change in man’s view of God.

The author of Genesis makes a lot of effort to show this reality.

From delighting in the presence of God, to fearing and hiding from the presence of God. What caused this change?

When man sinned, his understanding was darkened. What Adam thought of God had changed, and not for the better.

As a result of this darkened understanding, Adam can be said to have become ignorant. What he believes himself to know is incorrect, no matter how much he believes it to be true.

Further, the result of this ignorance is a heart issue. Who Adam was, not only in himself, but in the sight of God, has changed. His heart toward God has changed.

No longer tender hearted and trusting, but instead hardened and fearful.

And what is the result of a hardened heart? Terror, running away, hiding, retreat.

Darkened understanding led to ignorance, which resulted in a hardened heart that ended in alienation.

Consider blindness- The blind cannot see, so they are ignorant of the glory of creation, thus they are unable to delight in it’s glories.

The same is true of those who are spiritually blind.

This is the reality of those who don’t place faith in Jesus Christ.

This is still the reality for many of our parents, children, friends, co-workers.

Paul insists that the gentile Christians at Ephesus should not return to such a state of spiritual existence.

Why? Because of where it leads.

4. A terrifying result.

Become callous.

We view things as non-harmful, almost innocent.

And these things take place in our lives over and over and over until we no longer have feeling for what we are doing.

No pause, no conviction. No pleasure.

So we seek more.

Given themselves up.

Constant pursuit of more. Once we have become callous to something, we find we need more of it to be able to feel anything.

Paul states that such a person becomes greedy, or covets after more.

The railings have fallen, the boundaries have been demolished.

All that remains is the corrupted mind and heart, no longer seeking after God and His loving care and guidance, but instead seek after everything that a sinful heart can desire.

For many of us, we are thinking of particular sins. But what if we turn such thinking on its head.

Instead of thinking about the obvious, what if we consider what is less obvious? Those terrifying addictions that go unnoticed.

Drama.

Gossip.

Laziness.

Ignorance of God.

5. A necessary evaluation.

I say and testify in the Lord, that you must…

Huge emphasis given here concerning a self-evaluation.

You have left behind a former life, don’t return to it.

Same challenge is given to us today.

What is needed concerning blindness? Eyes that are given sight.