WRITTEN ILLUSTRATIONS

ILLUSTRATE: Have you ever been out on a sunny warm day (do they have those here?), anyway, on a sunny warm day and you have a picnic and you are eating your food and then you decide to get up and play frisbee or catch or just go for a walk…you come back and discover that you have like a thousand guests that showed up uninvited to your picnic? You look down at your plate and a like a thousand ants are devouring a crumb from your oreo cookie and there is a trail of a thousand more ants carrying in triumph, bits and pieces of crumbs from your lunch that were on your blanket (the ants go marching one by one…). They just keep their head down and follow the one in front of them.

Paul says, you are that ant. That’s you. Just a deplorable, dead man walking following everyone else and the devil himself down the road of destruction to your demise.

Instead of begin caught up in the current of the desires of our bodies that are corrupt…we now plant our feet on or should I say “in” the solid rock of Christ which is the foundation of the river and with our footing secure we no longer get carried away by the desires of the body, we turn and head up stream and we put our old way of living to death. The desires of the body may still be, surely will be, strong and pounding up against you and they are seeking to sweep you off of your feet and carry you away to a flood of debauchary, but we don’t have to give in…because we now follow in the footsteps of the one who has gone before us and paved the way through the valley of the shadow of death and has emerged on the other-side victorious over sin and Satan and so we grow past those things we are formerly known as and walk into the good works that God has prepared before-hand for us to walk in. This is Ephesians.Illustration: Remember when it snowed last December? Who made a snowman? Do you know how you make a snowman? It take some effort right? You take 15 minutes to bundle your kids up…clothes, snowpants, long socks, boots, coat, hat, gloves. Which is more difficult? Putting your toddlers hands in a glove or a boot? Then you are sweating to death as you begin to bundle up yourself and finally you go outside. There is a moment of refreshment as the coolness hits your face…but then it is go time. Unlike Frosty…the snowman your kids want you to create isn’t made from magic in a hat that’s found…it’s made from the tireless efforts from your hands as you get down on your hands and knees and press some snow together and start turning a tightly packed snowball end over end for then next half hour while your nose is running, your body is sweaty and your fingers and toes are numb. I am describing this accuraely right?

Imagine your conversion as if it was the initial gathering of snow formed into a ball. You have this ball of snow…but in order for it to become a snowman, there is a process of pushing and packing additional snow to what is already there. You are converted but there is a progression and accumulation of knowledge that you gather as to how you are to think and act now. You are a Christian and you are in the process of becoming more conformed into an image....the image of Christ. And this goes on for the duration of your life.

And like the three sections of a snowman that must be refined and trimmed of their squared edges in order for them to be more sphere like, all along the way, we too as we follow of Christ, we too are being refined and pruned to resemble Him more.

Finally you stack them on top of one another…grab some sticks for arms, coal for eyes, and a carrot for nose…and whatever you can find in the yard to make a mouth and walla! Snowman. You collapse with exhaustion.

The snow is not longer just snow…it is has been shaped and fashioned into a snowman.

In the same manner, we are not who we once were, Saul turned into Paul, and sinners have turned into saints, and now,

win build equip

And those that have “learned Christ,” heard it from someone else by way of evangelism…they were “won” to Christ and then they were also “built up” in their faith…as they were taught about Christ.

That is what Ephesians 4:21 says...

Ephesians 4:21 ESV

21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus,

Those who “learned” Christ, first “heard” about Christ…then they were “taught” in Christ. They were won to the faith, then they were built up in the faith and then finally we see that the Ephesians are equipped in the faith as they radically pursued renewing their minds.

Ephesians 4:23 ESV

23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,

The Ephesians expereinced an initial renewal that took place when they responded to the Good News of Jesus and and that initial renewal led to a lifetime of continual progressive renewal as the they became more and more conformed to mold, that is the became more like Jesus in the way they thought and in the way they acted.

They grew past those things they were formerly known as.

The Great Commission was on display in Ephesus. A disciple, Paul, traveled to Ephesus in order to make new disciples. He did this by winning, building and equipping disciples…who then could win, build and equip other disciples even when Paul set sail to go to another town after 2.5 years. We looked at that last week. That is the role of church leadership. We win, build, and equip people to do the “work of the ministry,” to do menial acts of self service for the benefit of others. WIN