Ephesians 4:17-32. Put on Christ

Ephesians 4:17-32

Isaiah 63:7-14

Putting on Christ

I want to start today, by explaining what may have been mis-conceived from last week’s sermon.

If you remember, last week, I encouraged you to use the gifts that God has given you to serve Him and His church.

And remember, God has given us all gifts….. according to his rich grace…….. gifts that we use to build one another up.

I encouraged you to ask people you know, of what they thought your gifts were.

And don’t get me wrong, I still want you to do that…….

………..but at the same time, I don’t want you to become obsessed with “finding” and “exploring” your gifts…..

In some church circles, we can become so obsessed with discovering our “spiritual gifts” that it becomes all about us and not about Jesus. Spiritual gifts can be something which just cause superiority and inferiority complexes, as people start to rank their gifts in order of power and importance.

Instead about being something which glorify Jesus and build His church.

Sadly spiritual gifts become something which divide the church rather than unify it.

Some, perhaps, subconsciously anyway,  try and rank the importance of each spiritual gift. Some, perhaps, even try to separate spiritual gifts, which are the whizz bang, exciting ones, such as miracles and healing, from other so- called “natural” gifts which are more mundane such as helping or administration.

In 1 Corinthians 12:28, the apostle Paul clumps all these spiritual gifts together, healing, miracles, administration and helping…. no rank……no one gift is more important than the other.

The danger we fall into, when we are constantly looking, seeking what gifts we may have, is that we fail to carry out the work which we have all been called to do.

For example, I am a farther.

I am a father of 5 kids- I have responsibilities, I have duties as a father.

Can you imagine, if one day, I said to my wife and kids,

“I am not going to father you, my children anymore, because I feel that I just don’t have the gift of fatherhood. It is just not me”

Hopefully my wife and kids would give me a good slap in the face and say “stop talking nonsense- you are a father- now get on with it”

And sometimes as a father, I do things, which I am not gifted at, but I do them anyway, because I am a father.

Can you imagine if I said to Kari when the kids were younger, “I would love to change nappies, but unfortunately it is just not my gift, I better leave that to you- you are the gifted nappy changer”

After kari, had given me a slap on the face, she would then probably teach mem, show me, how to change to a nappy- and even then, it wouldn’t have prepared me for the projectile changes which ended up with me cleaning the walls of the bedroom.

Friends, in this passage, God tells us- through his servant the apostle Paul-that we all have been called into God’s family and since we are already in God’s family, this is how we are to live.

The apostle Paul is not so much obsessed with using the gifts that God has given us, but he is more obsessed with our holiness.

Friends, let us not be obsessed with spiritual gifts, but let us be obsessed with Holy living.

Or let me put it another way, God is more concerned with who you are, rather than what you do, although what you do should flow from who you are.

Holy living, is living in a manner which shows we are worthy of our calling into God’s family.

And just like me learning to change a nappy, we learn how to live a godly life, it is something that just doesn’t come naturally to us, but it is something we learn.

Look at verses 20-21 with me

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,

Paul told the church in Ephesus that they learned Christ, they were taught about Jesus. Interestingly, this is the only time in Ephesians that Paul calls Jesus- Jesus…. and not Christ, as he does in the rest of the letter. I think Paul deliberately wrote that we learned from Jesus, because he wanted us to remember that Jesus, the king of the universe became a man and showed us how to live a holy life, a life that was truly 100% worthy of his calling. Jesus lived a life on this earth as a human that totally pleased his Father.

We remember in the life of Jesus, that even though Jesus embedded himself in this sinful world, he never sinned himself, he was Holy, he was set apart, amongst the mess of this world- and so we now learn from the example of Christ.

Just like Jesus who was called to live in this world, even though he was not of this world, we too are called to live in this world, but we must remember we are not of this world- we belong to God’s heavenly kingdom, or as Paul tells us in chapter 2, we have already been seated with Christ.

As believers in Christ, we should never just blend into this world, but we will always stand out as different- because we are.

It is clear that even though we have been given the spirit of Christ, and we are different, we don’t suddenly become incapable of sin. It is not like we receive the spirit and we become perfect, No, we still have to learn and fight to live holy lives.

Lives that pleased God.

Even though we have been saved from our sins through the cross of Christ and we have been sealed into God’s family, we will still struggle with sin. There will be times when we will walk in ways which are not holy.

This is what Paul was addressing to the saints at Ephesus, in the first century.

Even though they had been saved by Christ, even though they had been given his Holy Spirit, even though they had been seated with Christ in the heavenly realms, they still had to get up every morning and chose what they were going to wear each day.

They had to choose to take off the clothes of sin and choose to put on the clothes of righteousness.

Look at verses 22-24 with me:

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.

Friends, we have to choose each day to leave our life of sin, we have to choose to squash those deceitful desires- Yes, we squash our deceitful desires, because our desires our deceitful. We may think and feel that our desires will bring us freedom, and pleasure and wholeness, but they don’t, they bring nothing but pain and death.

This idea that we squash our deceitful desires is totally opposite to what the philosophy of this world would teach us. This world would teach the opposite- they would teach that it is actually dangerous to squash any desire you may have, they would teach that you should explore all your desires- no matter if they are deceitful or not.

Learning Jesus and His word, is just foolishness to the world.

In fact, the apostle Paul tells us in verses -17-19, that the world, and when I say world I am talking of those who haven’t been given the spirit, are incapable of thinking that Jesus is awesome, because their minds and hearts have been darkened. Their minds and hearts are so corrupt, that they think Jesus and His teaching is all foolish.

Look at verses 17-19 with me:

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 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.

Friends, the believers thinking and unbelievers thinking are totally opposite.

For example, the atheist, Richard Dawkins, describes the atonement,- “as child abuse and something we should dismiss as barking mad”.

The atonement is the opposite of Child abuse, since Jesus willingly laid down his life for us. It was the plan of salvation that Jesus and His father planned before creation.

Jesus dying on a cross for us, wasn’t barking mad, but it was the only way that God could save us from our sins, since we just can’t save ourselves, no matter how hard we try. The atonement isn’t barking mad, but it is love beyond our understanding.

The believers thinking and the unbeliever’s thinking are polar opposites.

Interestingly here, the apostle Paul tells us in verse 23, that when we take off our sinful self, we are then to be renewed by the spirit of our minds.

What does this mean- spirit of our minds?

Well, I think it shows that we are complete beings, who cannot be separated into body, soul, spirit and mind. It shows that our spirit and minds interlock. It shows that what we think actually effects what we do and how we live. What we think effects how we feel. This is why it is really important that we think, that we learn – Jesus.

Paul also tells us in verse 18, that an unbeliever has both darkened understanding and a hardness of heart. Paul again linked the heart and mind.

And so for people like Richard Dawkins, who make arguments against Christianity and come up with all kinds of intellectual arguments against Christianity, against Jesus, against his plan of salvation, he not only has a darkened understanding but he has a hardness of heart.

This is why we pray that God may not only open the minds of the lost, but that He may soften their hearts- the heart and mind intertwine.

And for us believers, who have had our hearts and minds renewed by His Spirit, we are to choose to get dressed each day ready to serve Jesus.

Each day, we chose to put off falsehood (verse 25), we chose not to lie, we chose not to exaggerate the truth, we chose not to cheat on our taxes, and instead we chose to put on truth, we chose to speak truth with our neighbours, we chose to put off gossip and we choose to put on just speaking honestly with one another.

Each day, we choose to put off anger which leads to sin, we choose to let things go, we chose not to hold onto bitterness, we choose to forgive instead of holding a grudge. We chose to let righteous anger only stay for a little while.

Each day, we chose to put off taking from people, and instead we chose to give to people.

Each day we chose to put on building people up with our words, and chose to put off tearing people down with our words.

Each day we chose to forgive rather than choosing to bear a grudge.

And friends, when we chose some days, to keep our dirty clothes on and chose not to put on Jesus, we are actually making God’s heart ache.

Look at verse 30 with me:

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption

This is perhaps one of the most beautiful and yet devastating verses in the  bible.

In this one verse Paul shows us the heart of God and how his heart is for us.

Just look at what God has done for you first of all.

God has sealed you for the day of redemption by his Holy Spirit.

God’s seal is unbreakable.

The Romans seal which was all powerful, was nothing compared to God’s seal.

This is similar to what Paul wrote in Ephesians 1:13-14, where he tells us we have been sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it.

God has already saved us.

God had already redeemed us- that is, he has purchased us into his family

God has already prepared a place for us in heaven

God has already given us his Holy Spirit.

God loves us so much- He has already done all that for us.

And yet just like a good earthly father who wants the best for his children and yet sees his children spiral out of control, God grieves when He sees us walking away from him, it grieves Him when He sees us putting on our old selves on, His heart aches when he sees us choose sin, instead of choosing his way.

Friends, by the grace of God, let us continue to put on Jesus and take off the clothes of sin.

Let us pray.