8. Ephesians 4:17-5:2

DON’T PRAY AT START

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The When it comes to football I can talk a good game. I’m one of those avid football watchers, particularly when it comes to Newcastle United.

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I can tell you why we need to keep faith with Anthony Elanga on the right wing.

I can tell you why we still, despite the money spent, have a centre forward issue.

I can tell you that Sven Botman - once a world class centre back - has never been the same since injury.

I can tell you why 18 year old Sean Steur, signed this summer from Ajax, is going to be a risen star in the Premier League.

I can talk a good game. I can sound like I know my stuff. But when it comes to football my favourite place to express my opinions is from my arm chair.

I do like to play football too… but if I set foot on the pitch, SLIDE in the Premier League, with ANY of the players I’ve mentioned (including the once I reckon ‘aren’t very good’) I would very quickly be found wanting.

The same is true for the Christian life, and for the church. It’s easy to TALK a good game.

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And we’ve heard a lot of talk these past few weeks. We’ve heard amazing things these past weeks about what God has done for us in Christ….. how his masterplan for the world is to unite his people together under Christ….. how he has drawn us into that plan by bringing us back from Spiritual death to spiritual life… how he’s drawing many different people together into that plan - into one new glorious community - the church.

We heard LAST WEEK that a growing healthy church is to be one where we all bear with one another patiently… and love each other sacrificially… and display Jesus-like humility.

Doesn’t it all sound glorious?

It’s pretty easy to stand in a pulpit or sit in an armchair and say these things - When it comes to being the church that God calls us to be it’s easy to talk a good game. But step out of the pulpit “onto the pitch” of reality and we know it isn’t as easy as all that to live - particularly to live and love each other in church COMMUNITY.

Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said this...

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"the sacrifice of time and the setting aside of personal wants and desires…. means that community is hard work, as a result many love the idea of community more than the experience of community" Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ‘Life Together’

You begin to see more than ever why, before he began this new section in Ephesians, Paul closed off chapter 3 with a prayer…. a prayer for God’s transforming power. Let me pray that for us now as we seek his help to understand and be transformed by his word.

PRAY

PRAYER FROM CH3

"I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom every family[a] in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” AMEN.

This is a long section…. but the heart of it, the summary is there in v22, have a look….

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Paul says to you and me…

Ephesians 4:22–24 ESV

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.

In the same way you might take off one grubby, soiled football shirt and the end of a match (or sometimes at half time) and replace it with a sparkling new clean one…

In the same way - being a heathy Christian and a healthy church means we need to make a conscious, deliberate action… to take off old habits and old behaviours… and putt on new habits and new behaviours.

If we are to live out our faith… if we are to (as Paul puts it) walk in a manner worthy of our calling… if we’re going to play our part in the masterplan of God for the universe…. where he’s drawing all things to unity under Christ…. forming a great and glorious and growing new community of love and unity…. then this is the way we’ve got to live.

So did you hear the things listed as ??? Read? AS you cast your eye down the passage… off needs to come impurity…. off needs to come greed…. off needs to come deceitfulness and all kinds of unrighteousness and unholiness… off need to come lies and half truths… and unrighteousness anger… and any hint of stealing… AND off needs to come corrupting talk…. that’s the gossip or the slander….. or the unkind words behind the back…

And we need instead to PULL ON, to PUT ON truthful speaking….. and sacrificial giving… and kindness….. and love…. and mutual forgiveness How can we do this? It s doesn’t sound easy...

Notice what comes before that… before our behaviour will change… before we take off old behahabitsviours and put on news ones.

FIRST OF ALL we are (v23) SLIDE

Ephesians 4:23 ESV

to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,

If you want to live the Christian life… if we are to grow and mature into the united church that God wants… it all starts upstairs - it all begins in the mind. That’s how the passage began - did you notice that? (v17).

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Ephesians 4:17–18 ESV

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…

Thinking, understanding, ignorance - it’s all in the mind you see.

PAUSE - BREAK OFF TO FIRST POINT

Two simple points today - and here’s the first.

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1. Put Of Your Old Self

I wonder if you’ve ever heard those crushing words from a non-Christian…. perhaps you behaved in a way you shouldn’t or spoken in a way you wish you hadn’t and the unbeliever says ‘….. and you call yourself a Christian??!!’. Christians should behave differently, even the unbeliever knows that.

That’s what Paul is driving at here… before you were a Christian, says Paul, before you knew Christ… your behaviour was driven by wrong thinking… your understanding was darkened… He says, v18, you were ignorant or God - it’s all in the mind you see.

And the way we think leads to the way we act… and so our lives werenot given over to the worship of God… we were instead (v19)

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Ephesians 4:19 ESV

19 …given [over] to sensuality, greed[y] to practice every kind of impurity.

In other words, (and we’ve seen this in Ephesians before) if we don’t worship and follow God…. we don’t exist in a vacuum… If we don’t find our satisfaction in God we will search for satisfaction and fulfilment everywhere else…. we in sex or money, or popularity or success or any one of 100 other things.

When you’re separated from God you think wrong thoughts…. and your wrong thoughts lead you to seek for satisfaction in the wrong things and when your insatiable appetite isn’t satisfied you strive and crave for more and more and more of whatever it is you think will satisfy…. you keep looking, and search, and filling up….

That’s how v19 ends - you end up full of greed - always wanting more because nothing satisfies. Isn’t that modern Britain? This is a challenge to our culture….. but it’s also a challenge to us isn’t it? How often are you and I, even if we’re Christians, drawn back into these old ways of thinking…..

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Barry Humphries - who died in 2023 and famous played the character Dame Edna Everage wrote in his autobiography (Which was entitled ‘More Please’.) he said…

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“I always wanted more… I never had enough milk or money or socks or sex or holidays first editions or solitude, or gramophone records, or free meals, or real friends, or guilt-less pleasures, or neck ties, or applause, or unquestioning love. Of course, I had more than my fair share of most of these commodities but it always left me with a vague feeling of unfulfilment, ‘where was the rest’”.

· When you’re separated from God you think wrong thoughts….

· and your wrong thoughts lead you to seek for satisfaction in the wrong things

· and when your insatiable appetite isn’t satisfied you strive and crave for more and more and more of whatever it is you think will satisfy…. you keep looking, and search, and filling up….

AND SO…

We need to think differently… thinking differently, in the end, leads to axting differntly… there is conscious effort and real determination required. We need to PUT OFF our old self - if this were some automatic process which required not inut from us Paul what not give the instruction to PUTT OFF this old self, but he does.

Put off your old self.

secondly

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2. Put On Your New Self

And again, where does it all start? You’re getting it now - living as a Christian it all starts in the mind…. it’s about what you

Just cast your eye down (this bit’s not on the screen).

v20 - it’s about what we have LEARNED in Christ.

v21 - it has to do with what we were TAUGHT

v21 - what we were TAUGHT in him as the TRUTH in Jesus

v23 - again t’s about being renewed in MIND

It is a simple point. Of course, if you’re a Christian - then that’s how you became a Christian int he first place - somebody TAUGHT you the gospel - a friends, a teacher, a minister, a Sunday school teacher, your parents… somebody taught you - that’s how you began…. but it’s also how you go on in the Christian life - you keep on having you mind straightened out, renewed to think God’s way.

How does this happen? We’ve already seen (end of Ch 3) that we need to pray - do you remember what Paul prayer? that we would grasp the extent of God’s love - in other words he prayed for our minds. Can I ask - are you praying this way? Am I praying this way? asking God to change your thinking… to see things more and more the way he does.

Secondly though we can help one another with this in the community that is the church. Look at v25

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Ephesians 4:25 ESV

25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbour, for we are members one of another.

Now look, this certainly means that we shouldn’t be telling straight lies to one another but telling the truth…. that much is obvious. Sometimes we do need to hear that.

Avoid the straight up, big fat porky pies…

But I guess most of us aren’t going around doing that in our church. Of course, lies can be much more subtle… we can give a false impression of our Christian commitment… it’s pretty easy to do that isn’t it? We can pretend we’re doing well when were not.

Let me mention one other danger though…

Paul has just been speaking of the dangers of following the falsehood of the world. The culture around us… where people don’t know the Lord….he’s said that their thinking get’s darkened and twisted so that folk go looking in the wrong places for satisfaction. Sex with a different partner will make you satisfied…. making more cash will make you satisfied…. and so on and so on… And look… we get bombarded everyday with a thousand of these lies from our culture - the slogans and adverts that want to tell us everyday that that’s the right way to think.

But that is an lie - it is a falsehood - satisfaction doesn’t lie there…. it comes in knowing God. So it seems to me, when Paul says ‘put off falsehood’… As well as the obvious, straight up lying he means this - don’t spread the lies of the world in the church… don’t infect the people of God with the propaganda of our culture. Don’t say things or do things that will lead us or tempt us to follow after the sensuality of the world. - We get that message loud and clear out there….enthuse about Jesus, and the gospel instead….

let’s be a community where a different message gets heard - and not just formally from the front… but in our conversations.

Against a background of culture of greedy sensuality (v19) Let this be a community (for example) where our conversation shows we value faithfulness in marriage…

Against a background culture of greed for money let this be a community where our conversation shows we value the sacrificial giving, and not the selfish gaining of money.

Let this be a community where we talk about the things of God and of the gospel and not just repeat the world’s agenda.

It all starts in the mind…. I guess that’s one reason the apostle Paul spent the whole of the first half of the letter reminding us, re-teaching us what God is doing in the world.

Did you notice, as well, that Paul alludes to the fact that he church is ONE - ONE BODY again?

v25 - we are (quote) ‘members of one another’.

BREAK OFF TO ILL / APPLY

This is my body…. it’s not the best body in the world but it’s the only I’ve got. So I do try to look after it. Morag might dispute that by telling you how much junk-food I like to eat… but I do look after it. I know it needs, at least some sleep…. and like to play football when I can to keep it fit and healthy…. and I do (at least) understand that I should eat salad occasionally.

This is our body here the church. We’re not a perfect body…. but this is the one we have…. lets try and take care of one another should we? Speak in ways which remind each other of gospel priorities and not worldly ones.

There’s more here too…. v26

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Ephesians 4:26–27 ESV

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.

Now there’s good advice here…. put a time limit on disagreements…. try and resolve them before the day is done. I’ve often heard married couples talk about this - and its good guidance in the church too.

But there’s more to that than meets the eye…. this is a quote from Psalm 4.

Psalm 4 speaks of seeking delusions and following false Gods.

Well isn’t that what Paul has been counselling us not to do?

PAUSE - BREAK AWAY - SPEED UP

Theres much more here… I don’t have time to speak about it all… read on (v28)

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Ephesians 4:28 ESV

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.

Again we are being built into a community of unity - stealing brings conflict and division but giving and sharing springs from peace and unity. Again it isn’t just about putting off one behaviour…. (put off the stealing)… it’s about putting on a new behaviour - sharing with those in need.

At which point notice how Paul draws this section to a close from 4.32 to 5.2

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Ephesians 4:32–5:2 ESV

32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. 1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

That’s the summary… that’s the heart of it. It’s all about seeing what Jesus has done and modelling our lives on him.

What has Jesus done?

· If you’re a Christian – he has blessed you

· He Saw you in your need

· He came and died…. poured out his blood….

· He endured the death you deserved…..

· he’s bought you back at the price of his own life when he died on the cross.

· He has made it possible for you, if you’ll turn to him… trust in him…. to be reconnected with the God who made you….. to be drawn into God’s won masterplan for the universe - drawn into the new society he is building - the church.

And remember this is all a gift from him. You didn’t deserve it. You didn’t earn it…. you couldn’t earn it - do you remember, Ch2 - you were spiritually dead.

So when Paul tells us to imitate Christ…. and he tells us to give to those in need…. it’s not a surprise is it? Isn’t that what God did for you in Christ

And when Paul tells us to imitate Christ and show others kindness, it’s not a surprise is it? Isn’t that what God did for you in Christ. He showed you great kindness.

When Paul tells us to imitate Christ and forgive those who wrong you - it’s not a surprise is it? That’s what Christ did for you!

PAUSE - LET HANG…

Fill you mind with all that Christ has done. And then go and do the same.

Let’s pray