Sermon Tone Analysis

As we’ve said in previous messages, Chapter 4 marks a critical transition in the letter to the Ephesians.

The first three chapters of this letter presents a profound theological explanation of the astounding spiritual mystery that exists in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now we are leaving the theological understanding of the spiritual significance of the gospel and moving into the practical aspects of being called a child of God.

There are significant and contemporary qualities that should be evident in the Christian life.

So for the remainder of his letter, Paul presents a series of exhortations towards godly living.

The division between chapters 1 through to 3 and chapters 4 through to 6 is, in some senses, illustrative of that division within modern evangelicalism.

There are some who lean sharply toward the foundation of doctrine.

While others place a greater emphasis on the praxis of Christianity.

Paul is not providing us an either/or narrative here, but a because of this, the results should be demonstrated as this.

Specifically, what Paul is telling us in his letter to the Ephesians is connected right back to the first word of this transitional chapter, “Therefore.”

For the sake of clarity, let me underscore this a little more before we get into today’s text.

And so on.

All throughout this letter, Paul is unveiling the richness of God’s eternal blessing available to you who call Jesus Lord.

Now once again, we look here at verse 17.

Therefore - because of all of this:

The Weight of Warning : Your Salvation Means Something to the Rest of Your Life

Paul starts this passage with the words “Now this I say and testify in the Lord...” What Paul is about to say is life and death.

The words have eternal meaning and eternal consequences.

Don’t miss the point of what I’m about to say...”

As I sit here and write this message, the world is falling into deeper despair.

To read the headlines we come to a realization that there is little hope in world.

There are continued unchecked horrors of war happening in Ukraine, not to mention the atrocities happening in China, Ethiopia, and a continued growing list of human suffering.

A little closer to home, we have a growing mob of people who are demanding the legalized murder of unborn and newly born children.

People who celebrate their participation in the murder of babies, while decrying the acts of removing a bird’s nest.

There are impending food shortages, a manufactured energy crisis, increasing racial divides, surging lawlessness at our border and cities, sexualization in our kindergarten classes, and perversion in our children’s cartoons.

The growing list of how this world is abandoning God’s moral law is distressing.

I think it would be a fair question if someone were to ask, "So why do you focus our attention on such small, personal matters when there are large social and global issues to be concerned about?”

My answer would be that the Christian message of salvation places the condition of the world on the sinful nature of man.

In other words, the effective influence of the gospel on the world and the righteous ministry of the church go hand in hand.

Some people ask how they know for sure they are true Christians.

(we’re going to talk about this over the next couple of weeks).

To be born again under the power of Christ is a life-transforming event.

If you once went to an altar or said a prayer and left that place without the transformative power of God wrecking your sinfulness, I would implore you truthfully, but as lovingly as I can, to evaluate the your salvation and to get right with God.

Now.

And the reason I say that is because of the message of Paul to the Ephesian church and what the Gospel means.

Your salvation means something to the rest of your life.

When the righteousness of Christ enters into and takes over your life, the new life given to you hungers and thirsts after the things of God and abhors the things that grieve the Spirit of God.

The Gospel is about rebirth.

Undoing the power and bondage of sin and resurrecting a completely new man who has put on the very nature of Christ.

The first place that takes place is the mind.

The Christless Life is Empty; Salvation is Transforming

Ephesians 4:17–20 (ESV)

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, due to their hardness of heart.

19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!—

Paul’s description of the unregenerate person is a description of meaninglessness and futility.

Look at the descriptors of the person who lives without Jesus: Futile, Darkened, Alienated, Ignorant, Hardness, Callous, Sensual, Greedy, Impure, Corrupt, Deceitful.

The Apostle Paul is not being personal or dafamitory, but waning the Christian to see the distinctiveness and spiritual transformation that takes place in through our rebirth in Christ.

Instead of futile we become fruitful; instead of darkened we are inspired; instead of alienated from God we are united with God; instead of ignorant we are educated; instead of hard-hearted we have understanding; instead of callous or proud of their perversions we are sensitive to the Holy Spirit, instead of greedy and unrestrained we are poised and conservative; instead of impure we are holy; instead of corrupt we are honorable; instead of deceitful we are truth-seeking.

A life lived in denial and rejection of the gospel has both moral and ethical consequences.

The way we think effects the way we feel which effects the way we act.

The unbelievers walk is, therefore, characterised by hardness of heart and callousness.

This hardness of heart and callousness is a result of sin and leads to further and increasingly outrageous degrees of sinning

The Results of Salvation are Transformed in Our Living

Remember that Paul is writing to the Church.

The believer in Christ is not someone who has added Christ to a list of positive changes he’s made over the years.

Christ is not a god we add to the closet of preferences in our heart.

Christ is the center and Lord of everything within us.

If we are indeed reborn in him and by him and if our purpose is the glorify him forever, then we must walk differently, interact with the rest of the world differently, and think differently.

Christians, do not live like the rest of the world.

Christians, do not become futile in your thinking.

Do not become obsessed with the pursuits and promises of this world.

Be single minded, focus upon the glory of the gospel of Christ.

Christians, do not become darkened in your understanding.

Do not exchange the counterfeit life offered by this world for the abundant, joyful and eternal life in Christ Jesus.

Christians, do not allow your hearts to become calloused and hardened.

Christians do not sacrifice your lives in pursuit of sensuality and impurity.

This renewal as a result of removing our hope in ourselves and the world and putting our full hope in Christ alone changes everythign about us.

How we act, treat oru family, understand the world around us, how we pray, how we treat others.

It is complete renewal of the mind that the world cannot understand

This is why the Bible reminds us time and time again that we are students of God’s Word.

We are to be educated in our understanding and the things of God.

Paul reminds us that we are not to return to the old ways and habits of doing things, but to follow after the pattern Christ set before us when he walked on this earth.

That means that the things we desired, things that appeal to the flesh be it sensuality, substances, or certain behaviors are no longer part of the Christian’s life.

The way he illustrates this is by taking off the “old self” and putting on the “new self”

The call of the gospel is to leave the old things, the sinful ways, behind.

The “why” is found in the “Therefore” at the beginning of this chapter.

Because the sin is abhorrent to God and therefore it should be abhorrent to you.

Conclusion

What is the result of hearing the gospel and being redeemed by God in you today.

Jesus said, John 5:25 “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”

Your life is no longer futile and dark.

You are no longer alienated from the life of God.

Jesus Christ has spoken this morning in the truth of his Word.

If you have heard my words today, but are still living in darkness.

Come to him.

Without Christ, your life is empty.

The Christless life isn’t life at all.

It is living under the deception that sin will one day give life.

In Christ, you are a new creation, a partaker of the Divine nature having been given the gift of eternal life.

You are still connected to mortality in this body and that’s where sin remains, but that is the part of you that will one day die.

The question is, to which are you going to serve?

Admit that you are a sinner

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ

Confess Jesus as Lord