EPHESIANS 4:17-24 - A New Set of Clothes

Introduction

Well here we are again at the end of the summer break—DuBois went back to school last Wednesday, and Penn State starts tomorrow. Where in the world did the summer go??

This is the time of year when everyone gets their new wardrobe for the school year—gotta have new clothes when you start the new year, right? For the younger kids it’s pretty much a necessity; nothing that they started last year fits anymore! And I suspect older students are motivated by not wanting to be wearing last year’s cool clothes—gotta keep up with the fashion!

Meanwhile I have the opposite problem—I have way too many old clothes in my closet that I can’t bear to part with; there was one pair of jeans that Jodee inexplicably kept trying to throw away; they were the most comfortable jeans I have ever worn in my life, but she insisted on throwing them out just because they had a rip in the crotch… No matter how comfortable they are, there comes a point at which you have to say goodbye...

As we pick up where we left off earlier this year in Ephesians, we come to a passage where the Apostle Paul is continuing to describe the new standards which are expected of God’s new society (Stott)—God’s blueprint for living as new creations in Christ. At the beginning of Chapter 4 he calls for unity between Christians who have come from different backgrounds (Jew and Gentile in Ephesus). The old animosities and grudges and hatreds of the past must be put away, and we must embrace one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.

Beginning here with Verse 17 Paul teaches that God’s blueprint for living calls for a walk that is fundamentally different from the world around us. The way we act, the way we make decisions, the things that motivate or restrain us—our “walk” through the world must be transformed:

Ephesians 4:17 LSB

Therefore this I say, and testify in the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind,

Paul is carrying the distinction he made earlier in his letter; specifically that Christians are now part of the same family whether they come from Jewish or Gentile backgrounds. So he refers to unbelievers—those who are outside the covenant promises of Christ—as “Gentiles.” His point going forward in these verses is that when you come to Christ for salvation, you are given a new mind:

Ephesians 4:23–24 LSB

and to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and to put on the new man, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

So just as back to school is a time to “put off” the old wardrobe and “put on” a new one, so we are called day by day

Ephesians 4:22 LSB

to lay aside, in reference to your former conduct, the old man, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit,

When you come to Christ for salvation, you are given a new mind (v. 23). The Greek word that is used for “mind” here, (nous), refers to the non-material part of our humanity—the part of us that believes things, feels things; the part of us that predisposes us to act in a particular way, the part of us that determines what we value and what we love. It is this “mind” that guides us in our “walk”—that determines how we interpret the world around us, how we respond to it and others that we meet, and shapes our decisions and our reactions.

The great work of the Christian life is to continually put off the old mind and put on the new. But just like those old ruined jeans or those outgrown school clothes, we have a tendency to keep putting that old corrupted mind back on. It’s comfortable, it is easy—it takes no effort to slip back into those “lusts of deceit” that used to govern our walk before we came to Christ.

But there is no time or place for Christians to “walk in the futility of the fallen mind”—we are called to put off that worthless mindset and instead be renewed by the work of the Holy Spirit in the New Birth.

And so as a way to spur you onward to that work; in order to give you courage and confidence to continually put off the old man and put on the new, I want to show you from these verses this morning this glorious truth:

Christ has FREED you from the FUTILITY of a FALLEN mind

Do not be deceived—though sometimes it feels for all the world like you are trapped in that old futility, that old worthless way of thinking and believing and deciding—you have been promised by God that you have a renewed mind that is free from all of that darkness and anxiety and corruption.

Look with me at the first two verses of our text, because I want us to begin by considering together what Paul says about

I. The RUIN of the futile MIND (Ephesians 4:17-18)

Ephesians 4:17–18 LSB

Therefore this I say, and testify in the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their mind, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart.

Paul says that the mind of those who are outside of Christ is futile—literally in Greek “worthless” or “incapable of producing a result”. Picture something like a GPS app that constantly crashes or creates wildly inaccurate routes so that you find yourself driving down a gravel path in the snow trying to find the New Year’s Eve party you were invited to! The natural mind of man, apart from the renewal of the New Birth in Christ, is worthless for guiding your life.

Paul gives three descriptions of the futile fallen mind in Verse 18—

It is a DARKENED mind (cp. Rom. 1:21)

“...being darkened in their mind...” Paul uses the same word in Romans 1:21, where he writes of those who do not acknowledge God that

Romans 1:21 LSB

For even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened.

A darkened mind is one that is either unable or unwilling to acknowledge God’s presence in the world or His rule over it. God simply does not enter into their thought processes.

Paul goes on to say that

It is an ALIENATED mind (cp. 1 Cor. 2:14)

That old futile mind is “alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them” (v. 18). The unbeliever’s futile mind wants no part of the life of God, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 2 that the unbeliever

1 Corinthians 2:14 LSB

...does not accept the depths of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually examined.

God’s will and His ways are foreign to the old futile mind. And the third description we have in this verse is that

It is a HARDENED mind (cp. Mark 3:5)

Ephesians 4:18 LSB

being darkened in their mind, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart.

This is one of the most common descriptions of a mind and heart set against God—we see it all through the Old and New Testament. I think a good example that captures the essence of a “hard heart” is found in Mark’s Gospel, when Jesus healed the man with the withered hand in the synagogue—Jesus was “grieved” because of the people’s hard-heartedness: They had no compassion on the crippled man, and they had no interest in seeing the glorious work of Christ in the miraculous healing He was about to perform for him. They didn’t care. That is the evidence of a hard heart, and part of what Paul is getting at here in our text—the futile, unregenerate mind has no compassion for those who are struggling, and has no feeling or desire for the promises of God; it does not treasure Him or see Him as in any way valuable or lovely or praiseworthy.

In verse 19, Paul goes on to demonstrate what happens to a person who lives with that kind of futile mind—the ruin of a futile mind leads to

II. The MISERY of a futile LIFE (Ephesians 4:19)

In one verse, Paul sums up what effect a futile mind has on the way we live:

Ephesians 4:19 LSB

And they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.

A darkened, alienated, hardened mind will create

A CALLOUSED attitude

This is the kind of attitude that likes to wear rude slogans on T-shirts or boast about its carelessness. A calloused attitude is entertained by the suffering of others—and even enjoys causing distress and hurting the feelings of vulnerable people. It takes absolutely no account of anyone else’s struggles, never places itself into another’s shoes. Moreover, it is an attitude that finds it funny when others are shocked or scandalized by its immoral or offensive behavior. And the thought that their behavior might offend God never even occurs to them. They don’t care.

Living according to a futile mind creates a calloused attitude. And over time, that calloused attitude leads a person into

A SENSUOUS life

This is the progression that Paul lays out in this verse— “having become callous, they have given themselves over to sensuality...” If you have lost your sense of compassion or caring about others, if your conscience over your language or your behavior or your appetites has been hardened to the point where you don’t care what God or anyone thinks, then there will be nothing to stop you from doing whatever feels good. You can just give yourself over to satisfying your own pleasures, whatever they may be. Any lust or indulgence or excess can always be brushed aside with “Hey—I’m not hurting anyone...” And as this disease progresses, you don’t care if you’re hurting someone by your lusts and “the practice of every kind of impurity”.

And the pursuit of those lusts and practice of those impurities are carried out, we are told, by

A GREEDY heart

See the progression here—a futile mind leads to a calloused attitude that leads a person to more and more pursuit of pleasure and lust and gratification. The word greediness here in Greek has the sense of “never having enough...” No matter how much you give in to your appetites, you always want more. What used to satisfy you isn’t enough anymore; you have to keep chasing the dragon, keep raising the stakes, keep intensifying the feeling. Whatever you have to do, whatever relationship you have to sacrifice, whatever good thing you have to ruin, whatever morality you have to offend, it doesn’t matter. The misery of a futile life is the misery of bondage to your lusts, calloused and hard-hearted indifference to others, and alienation from the only remedy to any if it—because it is alienated from God Himself.

But the Good News of this passage is that Christ has freed you from the futility of a fallen mind! Starting in Verse 20, Paul moves from a description of the misery of a life governed by a futile mind to

III. The RENEWAL of the REBORN mind (Ephesians 4:20-22)

Ephesians 4:20 LSB

But you did not learn Christ in this way—

The mind that you have been given by the New Birth in Christ does not function like that old futile mind! Christ did not come to you by a darkened, alienated, hardened mind—if you have received the New Birth of salvation, you were given a completely new mind! The old, worthless, unreliable, darkened way of life, ruined by sin and in bondage to its own appetites is cast aside

Ephesians 4:21 LSB

if indeed you heard Him and were taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus,

See here in this verse that your old futile mind was cast aside when

You were CALLED by His GOSPEL (cp. John 10:37)

Jesus says that His sheep hear His voice and follow Him. When you had no way of rescuing yourself out of the dark futility of your fallen mind, Christ came to your rescue. He called you when you were not seeking Him, He loved you when you loved nothing but your own lusts; He drew you to Himself for His own possession when you were still His mortal enemy. And when He called you, He did for you the same thing He did for Lydia in Acts 16—he opened your heart to give heed to His call.

And not only were you called by His Gospel, but

You were TAUGHT by His WORD (cp. John 17:17)

You heard Him and were taught in Him—as you fed on His perfect and infallible Word, His Spirit that dwells inside you begins the work of transforming that old futile mind. The lies and confusions and anxieties and pride of that broken and painful walk are increasingly swept away by the truth and light and glory of Christ’s mind in you! As you are taught in Him—taught the truths of His Word—your mind is set apart in holiness by His truth. When Jesus prayed for His followers in John 17, He prayed

John 17:17 LSB

“Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth.

When you fill your mind and heart with the Truth of His Word, you have solid truth to stand on in place of the shifting sands of that old futile mind. Jesus is your Rock in a weary land, He is your shelter and refuge in the middle of the chaos of your emotions and desires and stresses and anxieties and unbelief. As you are taught by His Word, that renewed mind grows and matures and strengthens so that

You can REJECT the old LIES (v. 22)

Ephesians 4:22 LSB

to lay aside, in reference to your former conduct, the old man, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit,

The great work of pursuing our holiness in Christ begins with this call—repeated throughout the New Testament—to lay aside that old mind. No matter how familiar and comfortable, that old futile mind cannot coexist with the New Birth!

It is a constant work—as anyone who has fought this fight for more than ten minutes knows, those old lies will fall back on you at a moment’s notice. Those old ways of reacting, those old lusts and old habits of pride and anger and selfishness and fear will ambush you when you are least ready to fight, and drag you away. And those old lies will tell you that there is no escape from them. That the only way to ever have peace and contentment is to give in, to go along, that you will never really be free of that old futile mind.

But those lies are just that—lies. This is the great deception of sin, that it convinces you that you are a hopeless case; that you will never escape that darkness, that ignorance, that hardness. But God’s Word has the final word in the life of a Christian. And the final word for you, as you grow each day in the renewal of the reborn mind is that you will find yourself growing in

IV. The DELIGHT of the GODLY life (Ephesians 4:23-24)

Ephesians 4:23–24 LSB

and to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and to put on the new man, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

As your mind is renewed and reborn through the work of the Holy Spirit dwelling in you, Christian, you have a mind created in the likeness of God. You have the mind of Christ, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:16. The gift of the New Birth means that you are no longer enslaved to that old futile mind—you have the ability to “put on the new man”—you are able to govern your walk with a godly mind!

Look with me at the two ways that this new man is described—two characteristics of that reborn mind that is being renewed in you day by day:

First of all, this new mind has been

Created in RIGHTEOUSNESS

The renewed mind is not enslaved to the futility of sin! You are able to rightly grasp Who God is, what He is like. As you fill your thoughts with the way His character is revealed in His Word, you will grow to love Him and delight in Him and treasure Him more and more.

And the mind that is being filled with delight in God is a mind that will grow in its disgust for sin. Not other people’s sin—your own sin. The old futile lies of sin don’t work on you as well as they used to; as you grow in your satisfaction in God, your satisfaction with the things God hates will diminish; as your joy in His righteousness grows, your desire for unrighteousness fades.

That renewed mind is created in righteousness and

Set apart in TRUTH

Ephesians 4:24 LSB

and to put on the new man, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

Surely at least part of what is in view here is that the renewed mind of the new man is set on the truth instead of the world’s lies. It is a mind set on what God says about Himself, about man, about sin, about His character, about the purpose and meaning of this life. And a mind that is set on truth is a mind that is set apart in this world.

The new mind of Christ that you possess, Christian, doesn’t automatically believe everything the world tells you to believe; you are able to think. Not conformed to the way this world thinks, but with a transformed mind so that you can understand God’s will for you (Rom 12:2), so that you can dwell on what is true and dignified and right and pure and lovely and excellent and noble and praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8). The delight of the godly life is the freedom to walk free of the old futile mind through the New Birth in Christ.

But already you are thinking, “Well, that all sounds good, but that’s not where I am right now... The promise of the New Birth may be freedom from the futility of the fallen mind, a growing love of God’s righteousness and a growing hatred for sin, a mind free from the darkness and lies and futility of this world, but I sure don’t see it in my life the way I want to! I still love sin too much, I still love Christ too little. I still have the old futility of that darkened mind clawing at me too much; I am still dragged away and enticed by my own lusts far too often; I don’t see the holiness and righteousness and freedom and light of the renewed mind. The progress I see is so faint, the growth so scarce, the weeds in my soul so stout, I don’t know how this can be true of me.”

Beloved, if that is where your mind is now, look with me again at the beginning of our passage. Paul writes:

Ephesians 4:17 LSB

Therefore this I say, and testify in the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk...

Think of it: Paul is not just giving them an apostolic command of how to walk free of that futile mind, he is testifying to them that it is possible —in the LORD! Think back for a moment of who Paul used to be—he talks about his self-righteousness in Philippians 3, he talks about his wicked, bloodthirsty persecution of Christians in Acts 26, he talks about his constant struggles with sin in Romans 7—and yet here in this verse he testifies that it is possible to walk free of that old mind!

Paul’s testimony is that he used to walk in that futility; he used to be that wicked and vile and hopeless and self-righteous. But, he says, in the LORD it is possible to walk free of that futile mind! Beloved, it is possible—because God has promised to set you free from that futility, that love of sin, those habits of fear and unbelief and misery and self-pity and anxiety.

When Jesus Christ died on that Cross, He suffered the consequences of that futile mind—He was put to death by wicked men whose minds were so darkened and ignorant and calloused and alienated from God that they could not (and indeed would not) recognize that they were murdering the Son of God. Jesus died at the hands of men driven by that dark, wicked futility so that He could set you free from it once and for all.

Christian, you are called to put on that new man as your mind is renewed by the Holy Spirit’s work in you. It does not happen overnight; it does not happen all at once. There are times in God’s providence when a believer is suddenly and remarkably set free from a certain besetting sin when they are saved; sometimes God is pleased to hand out a full-day’s wage to someone who has only been working an hour, in His grace. But He is also pleased to bring His children along step by step, moment by moment, into that growth in righteousness and holiness of the renewed mind.

A number of years ago, my brother-in-law was in his archery stand during deer season when a coyote came out of the woods, sniffing and scratching at the base of his stand. This went on long enough that Todd (who had his furtaker license) eventually shot it. When he came down out of the stand he saw that the animal was severely afflicted with mange—the tail was naked, whole patches of fur were missing. He called a taxidermist friend of his to see if there was any way he could salvage anything at all, but his friend told him in no uncertain terms that he had to bury the carcass, and bury all the clothes he had been wearing at the time! Because all it takes is one or two of those mites to land in those clothes, and next thing you know you have mange throughout your house...

Beloved, this is how you put off the old man. Knowing that no matter how comfortable, no matter how familiar, no matter how sentimentally-attached you are to that old mind, it must be put away! When you recognize the ugliness and stench and filth of the darkness, alienation, callousness, impurity, greed, lust, deceit and malice that resides in those old clothes, how can you live in them any longer? Especially when you have been promised the clean and pure clothing of the new man in the renewed spirit of your mind!

Renewing your mind—putting off the old clothes of the futile mind and putting on the new man in the mind of Christ—is a daily work. Sometimes hourly. It involves taking the truths of the Scripture here in this passage and preaching them to yourself. It’s the difference between listening to yourself and speaking to yourself. Stop listening to the old futile mind’s threats and lies; tell yourself that you have a new mind created in righteousness and holiness of the truth! You have the mind of Christ Himself!

But perhaps you are here this morning and are completely comfortable in those old clothes. The promise of the new man in Christ doesn’t hold any of your interest—you like the sensuality, you don’t consider yourself particularly wicked, but you’re also not bothered by what anyone (even God) has to say about the way you pursue your appetites or satisfy your urges. And if that’s darkness, if that’s callousness, if that’s “impurity with greediness”, then so be it.

If that’s you this morning, then will you let me take you back to one phrase in Verse 18? It says that the futility of the old mind—being comfortable in the “old man’s” clothes—means

Ephesians 4:18 LSB

being darkened in their mind, alienated from the life of God...

I want you to know this morning that, while it may seem a small thing to be alienated from God’s life here and now, the Day is coming when—apart from your turning back from the darkness—you will be alienated from His life for eternity. If you spend this life—this one and only life, this fragile breath—giving yourself over to gratifying your appetites, going your own way from God, ignoring His call to repentance and faith—then the Day will come when you will have what you have sought your whole life. You wanted God out of your life—He will cast you out of His presence forever. You will finally be rid of Him, and you will finally have the Darkness that you say you preferred throughout your life.

And in that eternal darkness and isolation, in the torment of that punishment, you will wish that you had His presence to comfort you. But there will be no way to cry out for Him by then—all the prayers and pleas and cries for mercy that you refused to make during this life will be thrown back in your face in that place, forever. There will be nothing but misery and pain and anguish and black eternal darkness and isolation forever.

Won’t you turn back from that darkness while there is still time? God has made a way for your alienation from His life to be ended—He has made a way through the death of Jesus Christ to forgive all of your darkness, alienation, ignorance, hardness, callousness, lust, impurity, greed and corruption. All of it was laid on Christ, Who took it down into the darkness of the grave and left it there.

Hear Him this morning in this invitation—the Scriptures say that “Whoever calls on the Name of the LORD will be saved” (Romans 10:13). Call on Him this morning in repentance for your sin against Him, lay aside the old man, corrupted with its lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind to put on the new man in the likeness of God, created in righteousness and holiness of the truth through your Savior, Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION:

Hebrews 13:20–21 LSB

Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, our Lord Jesus, equip you in every good thing to do His will, by doing in us what is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.