Sermon Tone Analysis

Ephesians 4:17-24

What You Were and What You Are

 

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.

But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 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.[1]

Once, perhaps long ago or perhaps more recently, each of us who name the Name of Christ lived in the world.

Now, though we are in the world, we are no longer of the world.

A change has taken place.

Nevertheless, as a Christian, can you remember what that was like?

There was a time when we who are Christians were without God and without hope in the world.

Can you recall those dreadful days?

You have often heard me speak of the fact that what you believe dictates how you live.

What one believes is revealed in how one lives!

Underscore this concept in your minds.

What you believe is revealed in how you live.

As Christians, we are to live godly lives, not just because morality is good in itself (it is) or because it promotes happiness or success (it does), but because of what God has done for us and in our lives.

Because of what we believe about God’s actions toward us through Christ our Lord, we should live as God desires.

His will is clearly revealed through His Word.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones states of this point, “Our conduct should always be to us something which is inevitable in view of what we believe…  If my Christian living is not quite inevitable to me, if I am always fighting against it and struggling and trying to get out of it, and wondering why it is so hard and narrow, if I find myself rather envying the people who are still back in the world, there is something radically wrong with my Christian life.”[2]

James Boice comments that if such failures in the Christian life occur, what should be troubling is not our failure, nor even that we have a problem, but what should trouble us is that we have failed God and His purposes for our life.[3]

Though we may have forgotten what we once were, we need but look at the world about us and we are astonished by what is tolerated, even by what is embraced as normal and natural.

Paul speaks of the Law of God as that which exposes sin, and especially reveals the true nature of sin as unmeasureable (/sinful beyond measure/) [see *Romans 7:13*].

Just so, as we walk with God and grow in Christ, we should be disturbed by what we once tolerated.

We are prone to say that the world has changed—and it has!

However, the underlying attitudes—tolerance of evil and hostility to God—are as ever.

I invite you to engage in a bit of introspection this morning.

Not often do I encourage such introspection, but there is a place for such inward looking reflection.

In particular, I am asking that you who share this service reflect on the life which once was and consider the life which now is.

As you hold your life up to the mirror of the Word, I ask you to carefully study all that you see, courageously changing what needs to be changed so that Christ may shine more fully through your life.

In order to accomplish this admittedly difficult task, focus your attention on the passage under consideration.

Marks of Your Former Life — Perhaps you were engaged in dark and dreadful sins.

Perhaps your former life is so sordid that you don’t wish to even speak of it.

You are so ashamed that you will not even confess to what you once were—some things simply have no place in your conversation.

Perhaps you lived what many considered a good life, though you were unsaved.

Whatever your former life before you came to Christ, certain characteristics marked your life.

The Apostle puts his finger on some of those marks.

The marks of life without Christ which the Apostle exposes are that (1) we walk in the futility of our minds, (2) our understanding is darkened, and (3) we are alienated from the life of God.

Such a statement is surprising since we expect the Apostle to speak of morality and ethics.

Paul’s emphasis as he describes the world system from which we came is on the intellectual aspects of the non-Christian life.

As I review these marks of our former life, I am struck by the fact that God does not focus so much on the various actions of the unsaved.

Perhaps we would be prone to do so, but God peers beyond the moment and focuses on underlying attitudes.

Actually, we should not be surprised at this, since we know that the word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul and spirit, joints and marrow, as it judges the thoughts and purposes of the heart.

No creature can hide from him, but all are naked and helpless before the eyes of the one to whom we must give a word of explanation [*Hebrews 4:12, 13*].

We are no longer raised to think as God wills.

Inhabitants of this dying world are ignorant of what pleases God.

We can no more expect those who live as the world lives to think the thoughts of Holy God than we can expect a chimpanzee to compose a sonata.

Though redeemed by the grace of God, we nevertheless discover that we bring many of our darkened attitudes into the church.

Unless we are taught by the Word of God and the Spirit of the Living God, we will continue in the darkness of our worldly understanding.

How you think and what you think is important.

Where your mind rests when free to think any thoughts is important.

People act out their thoughts.

It is not our actions which finally condemn us, but it is the thoughts and attitudes which condemn us by leading us to mess up.

Our thinking is futile and our understanding is darkened as a consequence of being alienated from God.

Our problems go back to our mind.

This is the point at which the unsaved individual has his greatest problem.

He does not know God, so he cannot think properly.

His sinful conduct reflects his sinful mind.

Edward Gibbon wrote of the Roman period in which the Apostle lived.

He stated that the philosophers regarded all religions as equally false, the common people regarded them as equally true, and the rulers regarded them as equally useful.

That could easily be the view of people today.

The self-satisfied intellectual considers all religions as false.

The common people are undiscerning and thus consider all religions as equally true.

Politicians consider all religions as equally useful.

In the spiritual destitution revealed through observing contemporary society, we demonstrate the veracity of the apostolic revelation.

We could rewrite the Apostle’s words to read /you must no longer walk as/* Canadians * [or *Americans*] 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 practise every kind of impurity.

The first aspect of your prior life is that you walked in the futility of your mind.

Christians should have left behind an existence whose mind-set was so distorted that it was marked by futility and folly.

Because it lacked a relationship with God, our former existence had lost touch with reality and was left fumbling with inane trivialities and worthless side issues.[4]

You perhaps will recall the similarity of what Paul says here to what he said in *Romans 1:21*.

There, the Apostle says of the lost that although they knew God, they did not honour Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Paul’s indictment of mankind in the Roman’s letter moves from futility to foolishness to idolatry [*Romans 1:21-23*].

In fact, the parallels between our text and Paul’s words in the Roman’s passage are striking.

Again, in your former condition, your understanding was darkened.

Human estrangement from God drastically affects the mind-set.

Thus, thinking becomes darkened, so that for all practical purposes the lost are blind to the truth.

The alienation of the outsider is because of the ignorance that is in them.

What is important to see is that darkened understanding is not some transient condition.

The apostolic language teaches that the light of understanding in the lost has gone out so that they are now in a state of being incapable of grasping the truth of God and of His Gospel.

As noted moments ago, their foolish hearts were darkened, but the emphasis here leads us to stress their own responsibility for their abandonment to sin.

Do not gloat, child of God, for it is but the enabling power of the Spirit of wisdom and revelation given to you which enables you to know God better and to understand the truth of His purposes [see *Ephesians 1:17, 18*].

Instead, in humble joy acknowledge that God has graciously equipped you to see what you previously were unable to see.

You were alienated from the life of God through ignorance.

We know that those outside of Christ are dead in … trespasses and sins [*Ephesians 2:1*].

Those who are lost have no hope and [are] without God in the world [*Ephesians 2:12*].

The reason for this alienation is because of the ignorance that is in them.

To know God is to enjoy a personal relationship with Him.

Many professed Christians claim to know God, but they have no intimacy with Him.

Knowledge of God is demonstrated through obedience to Him and a grateful response to His presence.

Ignorance of God is nothing less than failure to be grateful and obedient.

Ignorance describes one’s total stance, including emotions, will and actions.

Not to know God is to ignore Him, to say “no” to His righteous demands.

Peter O’Brien is correct in saying that such ignorance is culpable.[5]

The sinner’s inability to understand the light of God’s truth is no excuse for the lack of relationship with Him.

It is the ignorance that is in them which places the blame squarely on their own shoulders.

Empty minds, darkened understanding and inward ignorance results in people become callused, licentious and insatiably unclean.

Scripture bears an unwavering testimony to the power of ignorance and error to corrupt, just as it also points to the power of truth to liberate, ennoble and refine.[6]

Why did we live in the futility of our minds, darkened in [our] understanding, and alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that [was in us]?