Sermon Tone Analysis

We will be spending most of our time together in Ephesians 4:17-24.

Years ago, Francis Schaeffer referred to Christians as the final apologetic.

The world should be able to look at us and see that there is something substantially different from us than from anyone else in the world.

The way that we respond to the issues of today will tell the world a lot about how we will stand for Christ.

Our duty as Christians is to not conform to what the world says is normal when we know that the Bible speaks differently about those things.

We also need to make sure that we don’t alter the Gospel in such a way that it removes its teeth.

The problem with the world today is the same problem that has plagued mankind since the very beginning.

We read in Exodus 5:2 “But Pharaoh said, ‘Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go?

I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.’”

That question, “Who is the Lord?” continues to be asked and it isn’t because God hasn’t revealed Himself.

It isn’t because of ignorance on the part of man.

Romans 1 makes that incredibly clear that man does not have an excuse when it comes to knowing the Lord.

It is entirely because we live in a fallen world with fallen people that have rejected their Creator.

They have blinded themselves to the Lord of Hosts.

We also see this same attack in John 18:38 “Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”

After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, “I find no guilt in him.”

That question is under attack today because society continues to move the goal line as to what truth is.

You hear statements like this all the time, “Well, I’m just living my truth” as if truth could be altered to fit individual people and individual circumstances.

Truth doesn’t matter to people who have no desire to live holy and righteous lives.

Truth doesn’t matter to people who are motivated solely by their own prosperity and sinful lifestyles.

Christians need to be able to have an answer to the question of what is truth.

But they don’t just need to know the truth, they need to be able to articulate it and defend it.

The Church stands before the eyes of a watching world.

Martin Luther famously said, “If I profess with loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except that little point which the world and the Devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ.

Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.”

What areas are being attacked today?

What are three areas of identity that teenagers are struggling with that should be addressed?

What I would call the three most pressing areas involve sexuality, gender views, and race or racial issues.

What is the Bible’s answer to these three issues and how should we as Christians respond to these issues?

What I want to do is go ahead and read our main verses because I believe that they will give us some solid footing to stand on.

I’ll speak on what Paul is saying and then we will see how what he says lines up with how we as the Church should respond to the three issues.

Paul writes in Ephesians 4:17-24

Exposition of Ephesians 4:17-24

Here Paul refers to two distinct peoples: the Gentiles and those that have learned Christ, or Christians.

Now we have to understand the audience that Paul is writing to.

He is writing to the church in Ephesus which was a church in Greece that was made up of predominantly Gentile believers.

While there were certainly Jewish men and women that would go on to become Christians that lived in Ephesus, Paul is likely writing to a predominantly non-Jewish audience and when I say non-Jewish, I mean that he is writing to those that were not born of Jewish nationality.

For Paul to say in verse 17, “You must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds”, he is basically saying, you have not been saved to walk in the ways that you once walked.

You haven’t been saved to be the person that you were prior to the moment you came to Christ.

He is saying that one’s nationality does not trump his allegiance to the People of God and the Church.

When Paul refers to Gentiles in this context, he is referring to all that are not Christian.

What then is a Christian?

He is someone that has been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and Christ has brought that person into the family of God and as the Christian joins this family, they become a member of the Church eternal.

We Christians stand shoulder to shoulder with a long line of witnesses.

Our allegiance is ultimately to Christ and this family.

When we come to Christ, we must understand that all other relationships pale in comparison to this one.

If it comes down to choose between our physical family and Christ, we must choose Christ first, even if this risks alienating us from others.

Jesus in Matthew 24:9 says, “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake.” and Luke 21:16-17 “You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death.

You will be hated by all for my name’s sake.”

Now if we look in Ephesians 4:17-24, we see that there are two ways of living: in a way that is honoring to God and a way that is not.

There is a way that the lost live and there should be a way that Christians live.

You have heard me say before that the reason that lost people act lost is because they are lost.

In some ways, they don’t know any better, it’s natural to them, even though the Law of God is written on the heart of every man, woman, and child.

Here we find the root of mankind's problem.

John Piper said, “If we want to escape from futility in the practical affairs and relationships of our daily lives, we have to first of all become deep people—people who look deeply within ourselves for the cause of our futility, and who don’t settle for quick fixes and superficial, upbeat attitude changes.

We don’t want the surgeon to keep back anything!

Tell us everything you found, God!

We want to be healed.

We want to be free from the very root of futility.”

How do the lost live then?

Paul says their minds are futile, their understanding is darkened, they are alienated from God due to ignorance and hardness of heart, they are callous, or cruel or insensitive towards others, finally Paul says that they give them up to sensuality and are greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

These people are not just wandering into sin, they love sin.

They are excited to reach into new kinds of uncleanness and depravity.

John Stott describes these people as those that go from hardness of heart to darkness of mind to a deadness of soul under the judgment of God and go into a totally reckless life and these are people that have really lost all self-control.

This is the way that every human being separated from Christ lives their lives.

This is the way that you and I lived before we were made totally new by the saving work of the Gospel!

John Calvin said, “Having destroyed the sensibilities of the heart, and allayed the stings of remorse, they abandon themselves to all manner of iniquity.

We are by nature corrupt and prone to evil; nay, we are wholly inclined to evil.

Those who are destitute of the Spirit of Christ give loose reins to self-indulgence, till fresh offences, producing others in constant succession, bring down upon them the wrath of God.

The voice of God, proclaimed by an accusing conscience, still continues to be heard; but, instead of producing its proper effects, appears rather to harden them against all admonition.

On account of such obstinacy, they deserve to be altogether forsaken by God.” Understand that sin is never something that we fall into blindly.

St. Chrysostom said that we have no excuse when it comes to sin because it isn’t like we make a false step into it but we work out these horrible deeds in ourselves and make them something that we study and constantly put into practice.

But something happens when we are made new in Christ!

Paul says in Ephesians 4:20-24 “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.”

Paul says, “You know the way that you used to live and that old way does not conform to the way that Christ has called you to live!

If you have been saved by Christ, you aren’t just a polished up version of yourself, you are a totally new version of yourself!

The old is gone and the new is come and with the new comes an entirely new way of viewing things.”

We are to put a way the corrupt and deceitful desires that we once held onto, we are to embrace holiness and righteousness which is brought about as our minds are renewed by the sanctifying work of the Spirit.

In these verses we see a total contrast between believers and unbelievers and these aren’t just little differences, it’s night and day!

Just as darkness is a total contrast from light, Christians are to be a total contrast from the rest of the world!

Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, “Thank God!

In the midst of all the darkness there is a glimmer of light.

Christianity is a protest in that sense; something has happened, there is an oasis in the desert.

Here it is; thank God for it!”

He is saying that even though the world seems dark, and it is, it is never so dark that the light won’t be able to shine forth.

Christians that hold fast to the Word of God are always a breath of fresh air and thank God for that and if you are a breath of fresh air, then you must always answer to God first and society second.

God never takes a back seat to the believer.

God is never your co-pilot, he is the one that guides and leads every decision that you make.

R.C. Sproul writes, “In the final analysis it doesn’t matter what everybody else is doing and it doesn’t matter what the state says is legal or illegal.

We are to march to a different drumbeat, for we are to live according to the commandments of Christ.”

A Christian recognizes where true authority comes from and it comes from the throne of God alone and we recognize that the Bible speaks with all the authority of God Himself.

For Scripture to be God-breathed means that it has been handed down by God Himself and has been brought to man being filled with all the authority, truth, and trustworthiness of God Himself.

The issues that we are about to tackle come down to who has the final authority.

Who has the final say on what man should do?

Does man have final authority or does God have final authority?

This is one reason why it was so important for us last night to talk about creation because if man is simply a cosmic mistake, there is no absolute authority.

If God is not creator over all He is ultimately not the absolute authority over all.

If man is just a byproduct of evolution, he is not accountable to anyone because no one is in a true position of absolute authority.

But, if we are created by God, we must ultimately answer to God and if God is the one that created us, then what He says as Creator is the standard by which all men should operate and if God is the source of authority, what He says in His authoritative Word is to be the final word in all manner of subjects.

What then does God’s authority and our regenerated lives mean when it comes to Gender, sexuality, and race?