Connect: Holiness Together
Notes
Transcript
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
Three weeks ago, we started this series “Connect.” On that first Sunday, I made a statement and asked you a question. Do you remember?
“You have changed. You are changing.” Then, I asked you, “In the last two and a half years, how have you changed?”
Have you thought any more about that question? How have I changed?
Look, the reality is, you have changed through this series as we’ve gone through Ephesians 3 & 4. How has God changed you through His word? Some of you have heard the call to be connected in small groups and you’ve taken a step of obedience. Some of you have heard Paul’s call to grow in strength, faith, love and in the fullness of God and you have asked God to change you in those areas. Some of you have heard God’s call to live out your spiritual gifts within the body and you have responded in obedience.
Some of you, though, this month, have walked out and done nothing.
GOD WANTS TO GROW OUR CHURCH AND THAT BEGINS BY CHANGING (GROWING) YOU.
GOD WANTS TO GROW OUR CHURCH AND THAT BEGINS BY CHANGING (GROWING) YOU.
17 Therefore, I say this and testify in the Lord: You should no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thoughts. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them and because of the hardness of their hearts. 19 They became callous and gave themselves over to promiscuity for the practice of every kind of impurity with a desire for more and more. 20 But that is not how you came to know Christ, 21 assuming you heard about him and were taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to take off, your former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires, 23 to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on, the new self, the one created according to God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth. 25 Therefore, putting away lying, speak the truth, each one to his neighbor,, because we are members of one another. 26 Be angry and do not sin., Don’t let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and don’t give the devil an opportunity. 28 Let the thief no longer steal. Instead, he is to do honest work with his own hands, so that he has something to share with anyone in need. 29 No foul language should come from your mouth, but only what is good for building up someone in need, so that it gives grace to those who hear. 30 And don’t grieve God’s Holy Spirit. You were sealed by him for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness, anger and wrath, shouting and slander be removed from you, along with all malice. 32 And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ. 5 Therefore, be imitators of God, as dearly loved children, 2 and walk in love, as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God. 3 But sexual immorality and any impurity or greed should not even be heard of among you, as is proper for saints. 4 Obscene and foolish talking or crude joking are not suitable, but rather giving thanks. 5 For know and recognize this: Every sexually immoral or impure or greedy person, who is an idolater, does not have an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2020), Eph 4:17–5:5.
MPS: The gospel is the power of God’s salvation that brings change and demands change.
MPS: The gospel is the power of God’s salvation that brings change and demands change.
1. When you got saved, something changed.
1. When you got saved, something changed.
Gentiles — NOT a racial or cultural or national distinction— this is a spiritual distinction.
Paul describes the life of a person who is lost. He juxtaposes the life of one who is outside of Christ and one who has been born again in Christ. He holds them up for us to see the vast differences.
Paul seems to be depicting the terrible downward path of evil, which begins with an obstinate rejection of God’s known truth. First comes their hardness of heart, then their ignorance, being darkened in their understanding, next and consequently they are alienated from the life of God, since he turns away from them, until finally they have become callous and have given themselves up to licentiousness, greedy to practise every kind of uncleanness. neb has ‘They stop at nothing to satisfy their foul desire’. Thus hardness of heart leads first to darkness of mind, then to deadness of soul under the judgment of God, and finally to recklessness of life. Having lost all sensitivity, people lose all self-control.
John R. W. Stott, God’s New Society: The Message of Ephesians, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1979), 177.
This is pretty consistent with how Paul describes our life separated from the life of God in other passages. In fact, just earlier in Ephesians 2, he says,
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
When you get saved, God works the miracle of the new birth in your life. Your problem and my problem isn’t that we’re people who do “bad things” and we need to start trying to do better things. That’s not the point of salvation. We are dead people who need life.
So, when these four young ladies passed through the waters of baptism this morning, what they were doing was physically representing a spiritual reality.
There are some who believe that salvation and being a “Christian” is simply having a “religious experience.” Or, it’s changing your life or habits and becoming a better person. Or adding religious things to your life and taking bad things away from your life.
I echo Paul — “That is not how you learned Christ!” This is not the gospel of Jesus Christ! There are churches that don’t preach sin. There are pastors that don’t preach repentance!
The gospel is plain and the gospel is unchanging. Every single one of us—all of humanity—are born in sin and, if we remain apart from Christ, we remain under His wrath.
But, when you got saved, you were crucifying the old man to Christ and Christ raises you to newness of life with Him.
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
Do you need to be born again today?
When you got saved, something changed…and that something was your standing before God and your identity. What changed is that you were spiritually dead and now you are made alive with Christ. What changed is that your heart of stone, says, is removed and you are given a heart of flesh. What changed is that you were blind to the things of God. You were lost in your sin and now your eyes have been opened to the gospel and you have been set free from the chains of bondage and slavery to sin. What changed is that you—as Paul says here—were excluded from the life of God but now you have been reconciled to God and He has adopted you as His Son/Daughter.
The portraits Paul paints of both ‘men’ balance one another. The old was corrupt, in the process of degenerating, on its way to ruin or destruction; the new has been freshly created after the likeness of God. The old was dominated by lusts, uncontrolled passions; the new has been created in righteousness and holiness. The lusts of the old were deceitful; the righteousness of the new is true. Thus, corruption and creation, passion and holiness, deceit and truth are set in opposition to one another, indicating the total incompatibility of the old and the new, what we were in Adam and what we are in Christ.
(John R. W. Stott, God’s New Society: The Message of Ephesians, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1979), 181–182.)
2. As you walk in salvation, you should be changing.
2. As you walk in salvation, you should be changing.
Now, remember, we are picking up this morning right in the middle of a stream of Paul’s thought. At the very beginning of chapter 4, he urges the Ephesians believers to “walk worthy of the calling” they have received. This picture of living out the Christian life as “walking” is something that Paul uses a whole lot in this letter.
So, in 4:1, he says “this is how you should walk...” with humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love, in unity.
Now, in verse 17, he says, “this is how you shouldn’t walk. You shouldn’t walk the way you used to walk. You put the old man to death when you died with Christ.
Paul gives the same command several times throughout these verses. He says to “Take off...” and “Put on...”
Now, I want to make sure that you understand what Paul is saying, here. He says that when you got saved, something changed. We’ve just unpacked that. You didn’t cause or bring about that change. God did it. God is the one who gives you life and transforms you. Salvation and rebirth are God’s work. The Bible calls it “justification.”
But, you and I know that even though we are saved and made a new creation in Christ, we still wrestle with sin and the flesh. We still — every single day — are at war wtih the old nature.
Think about it. For most of us here today we came to Life Group and worship because we are saved. We’ve been reconciled to God and we believe that the Word of God commands believers to gather regularly for corporate worship and life together. So, again, for most of us, we are here today because we are saved. But…let me ask you this — how many of you have sinned today? Maybe in the car on the ride here. Maybe you’ve sinned against your spouse before you even left the house. Maybe you have allowed thoughts of lust to control your mind this morning—even during this time of worship.
So, while your justification—your standing before God has been settled and cannot be changed — the battle between your spirit and the flesh is still raging.
A present command rooted in a past event.
One of the greatest acts in American history — the Emancipation Proclamation. For our AA brothers and sisters in this room—you now (presently) walk in freedom because of something that happened a long time ago.
Justification — the act of God…I had a seminary professor who used to say that sanctification is becoming in practice what God has declared to be true.
Again, the inward change results in the outward change.
Imagery of changing clothes (working at Paper Mill — I didn’t DARE go near Kristy in those clothes).
Christ has called us to holiness in every area of our lives.
Speaking the truth — put away lying.
Sinless anger.
Honest living (no stealing) and Generous Living (greed)
Pure speech that gives grace (also 5:4)
Not grieving the Holy Spirit
Vs. 31
Kindness, compassion, and forgiveness
Sexual immorality
Impurity
A pretty extensive list, isn’t it? But this covers so many areas of our lives that are constantly a struggle (at least for me!).
3. The whole point of change is Christlikeness.
3. The whole point of change is Christlikeness.
Paul says, in verse 1, that as God’s dearly loved children, we should imitate our Father.
As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
In the context of holiness...
In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.