Sermon Transcript Tone Analysis

Alright.

Well, I was going to announce I forgot to earlier so we all know Ruth who comes here.

Sometimes what is her last name?

Again truth why she she she went to be with the Lord earlier this week and so her faith is now site.

Her journey is complete and so there will more than likely be some sort of memorial service for her here.

Still looking into the details about that.

So I'll give you more information about that to come but just be praying for her close friends and family during this time, be lifting them up.

If you have your body will turn to Ephesians chapter 4, that's where we're going to be this morning.

Ephesians 4:17.

You know, everyone wants to feel Worthy.

I think that's something innately and us as humans.

Even from an early age children, want the approval of their parents, We grow up and we might join the Work World somewhere and we want to feel like that we add value to the company that we work for whatever our calling is in life, whatever.

Our lot is in life is a student as a, as a mom, whatever it is, we want to feel worthy, we work hard at finding our worth in other people.

But that's not how it works in God's economy you and I cannot earn God's favor.

That's what Grace is.

It's a gift.

And so your motivation in my motivation to walk worthy of the calling that God has called us to is not so that God will love us.

It is because he does love us through Christ.

He proved his love to us when he died for us on the cross.

And as a church, we want to strive for Unity as each individual member walks worthy, right?

And last week, we saw at the beginning of Ephesians chapter 4, Paul talks about this Unity.

This Unity that we are to strive for this Unity of Faith this Unity.

As Believers in the bond of Peace may God has given gifts to the church for the purpose of building the church up in all of these gifts are centered around the word of God, write the apostles and Prophets which made it known to us.

The Evangelist who share it, the pastor teachers, who equip us for the work of the ministry.

And as a result, we see that there will be this spiritual maturity.

This spiritual stability within the church.

This multiplication.

It says that it makes the body grow as it builds itself up in love spiritual growth and numerical growth because of what God is doing in and through us.

The verses that we are going to look at here this morning serve.

If you will as an introductory section to the larger section in Ephesians where we're going to take it out through the end of chapter 6.

But you have these rapid-fire specific commands and he's going and he's going to tell us specifically what does it practically look like to walk worthy.

So what is it practically look like for us to walk worthy of this calling and he's going to introduce this section here.

So if you would stand and we don't just do this as a formality, but to honor the reading of God's word, if you're able to, I'm going to read verse 17 through 24.

So here we go, Ephesians chapter 4, beginning a 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.

They're dark and in their understanding, their alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them.

Due to the hardness of heart become callous and giving themselves up to sensuality to practice every kind of impurity.

But that is not the way you learned Christ.

Assuming that you have heard about him and we're taught in him as the truth is, in Jesus to put off your old self with belongs, to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your mind into put on the new self created, after the likeness of God and true righteousness and Holiness.

Praise God, for his word, you may be seated.

Okay, now the church in Ephesus at this point in time is about 10 years old, okay, and Paul had been with them.

For about three years.

And from Acts chapter 19, we know that he spent about three months in the synagogues, right, cuz the gospel goes first to the Jews and after they were hardened heart and didn't want to listen.

He, he spent about two years in the Hall of tyrannus which was a public place were Gentiles would gather, and this happen for about 2 years and he taught them extensively Acts, 19 shows us that from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. he was teaching in the Hall of terrain.

This would have been the part of the day where there really wasn't a lot going on.

You had to be doing chores in the morning and evening, but from 11 to 4, that was kind of more free time and I guess unless you're working.

But so from 11 to 4, he was teaching the Gentiles.

And so if, if you do the math on that, that's it.

Let's say it was 6 days a week for about 50 weeks, out of the year.

You're looking at about, at 2 years, about 3,000 hours worth of, teaching time, you know, and some of us get weary when we have to go through a study for like, 12 weeks or something, right, 3000 hours worth of instruction and teaching here, But that's because Paul understood some things.

He understood that being on this Earth meant that we have an enemy.

That Satan the temporary ruler of this world.

The father of Lies wants to destroy the church.

That they had friends that they had neighbors that they had families people that they rubbed elbows with on a regular basis who were still living the way that they used to live.

And Paul also knew very well about indwelling Sin, right?

But even after were born again that we still have to wrestle with that old man.

Right is Paul talks about in Romans.

The thing I want to do, I don't do in the things, I don't want to do, I continue to do.

The Paul understood this Paul knew this and so he writes these instructions to him, listen to what John Stott says.

About about this about these that without these versus he says the Christ whom the Ephesians had learned about the Christ, whom the Ephesians had learned about was now calling them to a new set of standards and values which were totally different from their Pagan life.

Their behavior needed to be consistent with the kind of person that they had become.

Hence, the taking off and the pudding on right there.

There were taking off and putting on not, so that we will become a Christian, but because we are a Christian, that's what that's what we're doing.

Salvation is only the start of our journey with Christ.

As a matter of fact, the word that Jesus used for his followers, the people literally means a learner The only way to become a more Godly person is the path of learning.

Imagine if you will, if someone handed you a book on prayer, Is the greatest book on prayer ever written, and it was a short book even better, right?

It taught you all about prayer and all about the different scriptures on prayer and very plain terms.

But it was written in a different language.

And you wouldn't be able to understand it and it would do you zero.

Good.

Because you couldn't learn what it actually said, which means you would not be able to apply it.

Donald Whitley in his book spiritual disciplines for the Christian Life says the word of God must go through your head before.

It can change your heart and your life.

So as we look at this passage, let's engage our minds and let's actually think about what is being said here.

He says this, I testify in the Lord, or in the name of the Lord, same thing.

This I testify in the Lord, you must no longer walk as the Gentiles you in the futility of their minds.

So in order for me to stop walking like the world, I need to stop thinking like the world.

Okay, so what are you saying?

Here is not that you and I should disengage from society and become Hermits.

Because that would distract us from our mission to make disciples what he's saying here is, we need to stop thinking like the world in order to not live like the world at the core of worldly thinking he says, is a futile mind, a futile mind.

This is empty-headed thinking being empty-headed, you know, you know, I love giving examples from the Marine Corps.

Okay?

But this one's a little bit hard to give, but it came to mine.

So I'm going to give it, sometimes they call marines.

What jarheads?

Why?

Because there's not a lot up.

There's just an empty jar, right?

This is empty-headed Marine sinking or like Bruce Lee's philosophy.

Don't think just feel right.

Don't think just don't think about it, just feel, just, whatever, comes natural, just let that happen.

And you might say, well, you know what, I hear what you're saying, but I know some really smart people in the world.

Really successful people thinking people And I say, yeah, I understand that.

But I understand that no matter what degree of success, a person might achieve outside of Christ, their motivation and what drives them is still futile.

It's still empty because it says that they are alienated from the life of God.

And so, therefore they don't have the mind of Christ.

When you became a Christian, when you repent of your sins and Trust in Christ for salvation, you were given a new heart, but you were also given a new mind.

If you want to drop this down, 1st Corinthians, 2:14 3:16 Says that the natural person does not accept the things of the spirit of God for their Folly to him, and he's not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned, the spiritual person, judges all things but is himself not judged by anyone for by no one for, who is understood the mind of the Lord as to instruct him.

And then this last phrase, but we have the mind of Christ.

When you became a Christian, you got a new heart.