Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to roots of faith. In today's episode, we're diving into Ephesians 417 19, where Paul exhorts believers to live lives distinct from the world around them. Paul emphasizes the need to no longer walk as the gentiles do. He warned against the futility of worldly thinking, darkened understanding, and hardened hearts. As Christians, we are called to put off our old selves, live in the light of Christ, and reflect his righteousness. Join us as we explore how this passage challenges us to live worthy of our calling in Christ.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: This morning I'm taking us back to the book of Ephesians and the fourth chapter. We're coming almost to the close of that chapter, and I want to remind you of chapter four and the first verses where it says, as a prisoner for the Lord. Then I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Now we skip over to the verses that we're looking at today in verse 17, and you go to verse 17 of chapter four, and it says so, or it can be translated in some translations. Therefore. Therefore, I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the other nations, the gentiles do in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding, separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their heart. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed. Verse 20 says that, however, is not the way of life. You learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught with regard to your former life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires, to be made new in the attitude of your minds and to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. We're gonna be looking at these verses 17 to 24, both this week and next, because when I started out, I don't know about you, but when you were in school, some of us, it takes longer to remember back that far. Others, not so far. But did you ever learn to do sentence diagrams? You had to find out where the noun, the subject was, where the verb was, where the direct object was, and you got to remember all of those words. And I never learned them until I took Greek.
But, you see, when I sat down with this passage, I started diagramming because in some places, it was kind of hard to follow. And I really wanted to make sure I put it together the way Paul spoke it. And by the way, verse 1718 and 19 in the original is all one sentence. So I'm going to get through one sentence today, I hope. But what I want to share with you is this picture of what Paul was communicating by the spirit of God to the church. And like I said before, it was too, basically all the churches that were in Asia Minor. This letter was addressed to Ephesus, but it was also going to Laodicea. It was going to other places, because it was a picture of what christians and what the church ought to be. It was what was on Paul's heart by the spirit of God saying, people, this is what I want the word of God to go out and proclaim to you as what my body of believers, the people who fellowship with me, ought to be. Now, in the context of this passage and in the other letters that were going around, that Paul was writing, like in his church, his message to the church at Galatia, he was troubled because there were people coming into the church at Galatia. They were coming in and they were saying, hey, you got to be jewish first before you could be a Christian. Nope, that's not what scripture said. So what should the church be like? What do we need to understand about the church? And the church is simply christians living a life in balance and worthy with being called children of God. Saint, that's what you're called. We all know what halos are like. And you know what happens when a halo slips six inches and it goes down? It becomes a noose. God doesn't call us to be somebody walking around with a halo. We are called saints because what that word means is you are set apart unto Christ. That's what holy means. You are made holy because God comes to live in the life of every Christian. We've said this a number of times as we've gone through this study, but Paul's heart and concern here was he was going back and picking up what he started in verse one, where he says, you're supposed to be walking worthy, bringing your life into balance with what you're called to be. You're called to be a Christian. You're called to be a child of God. And then he went on in his statements saying what we should be, what the oneness should be in the church of Christ, what we are as one in Christ, and that God has supplied gifts to equip the church, to equip the body of Christ so that we can walk and live as we ought to live before Christ. Unless you think that that gets to be too much. Just remember there was Peter walking with Christ. There were James and John walking with Christ. And that fellow walking with Christ would, on the day that Jesus was betrayed and turned over to the authorities, would deny Christ three times. James and John and the other disciples in their walk, they were saying, ah, I'm gonna be proud. I'm gonna be the best. I'm gonna be the one next to them. You see, they're just like you and me. They walk just like you and I do. They put their shoes on and they walk just like everybody else. When Paul comes to this 17th verse and these three verses, 1718 and 19, he talks about, and he says, I say this and testify in the Lord, literally saying, you know, I'm saying this to you, and I want you to know emphatically that it's because of my relationship to my master. He says, I say this and I witness or verify this to you in the Lord. The kuriu is the greek term, and it meant a master. It meant the one who was in charge. He says, therefore I call you alongside. That's literally what he was doing. He says, I'm exhorting you. I think that's the way it's translated here, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do. I'm calling you alongside and exhorting and earnestly begging you is what Paul said in verse one, was saying the same thing. He says, I'm a prisoner. Does that mean he was already in chains? Well, probably he was, but Paul didn't consider those chains to be bad. Paul counted that as a great testimony, a privilege to be bound over for the Lord. And he says, I'm earnestly begging you. And he said, I myself a prisoner in the Lord. Same words as verse 17, to walk, weighing the life you're living compared against the calling by which you've been called in Christ. So we're to be walking, and it says in verse 17 that we're no longer to be walking. And I think the original translates a little bit differently. It's because it says you're no longer walk. The Niv says, even as also that's not word salad. Those words were all there. But it comes along to mean in the same manner as just like you should, so you're to no longer walk in the same manner, just like you would be as the rest of the nations walk. The word nations there is the word that we get our english word ethnic from. So it's all the peoples all of the nations walk. And what he goes to do here in verse 17, 318 and 19, he talks about, how are the other nations walking? Cause I remind you, verse 20, he goes on to say, this isn't the way you were taught to walk. Why would paul have to bring this up? Because he wanted to make sure that the church, that individual believers that are fellowshiping together in Christ are walking, and they know the distinction of that walk. So this morning I want to take a look at what those characteristics are of how the rest of the nation, literally, it says, the rest of the nation's walk. And the first characteristic, he says, is that you must no longer live as the gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. Like I said, I had to diagram this so that I could really think through it. And I was digging words and what it means. What are you filling your mind with? How do you think people come to you and say, what do you think they want to know? What your mind has done to put things together. So how does the rest of the world put things together? It says in the vanity of their mind that that's the word that says here in the NIv, the futility. But literally, it means vain things or empty things. And that same word, empty or vain is the same word in the Old Testament. Same meaning empty. That's translated idols in the Old Testament. You see, in our thinking, we start to put empty things, idols in our mind and in our thinking. And that's the way the rest of the world think. It says that their ideas and conception of God has no real value, no intrinsic value, when they think of God. But people, I think there's a lot of people who go and sit in church and sit in the pew and have no better concept of God, because what they've done is they've substituted the idol of doing things. And that's exactly what the Judaizers are trying to get them to do. In another way. The Judaizers are trying to make those in Asia Minor believe that they had to follow all the jewish rules, would have taken away my ham sandwiches and my bacon. They wanted to substitute, and people, people in churches substitute the sitting in pew, the singing of hymns in the same emptiness, the same emptiness. Because what this does is it comes to challenge us and say, why am I here? What should my thinking be filled with? The word means to be idle, resultless. There's no results of their thinking. There's certainly no results of their thinking concerning God. There's a book, I think I've mentioned it before. That's entitled the Unsaved Christians. Wait a second. I've been a Christian. I'm a Christian. I know I'm saved. There's a lot of people who are going through this empty, resultless life and thinking. It expresses aimlessness, all which has not God, for the true end of its being is vain. It's empty. They don't know what to do with a living God. Now we come together and we fellowship together, and we, for the stated purpose, come together to come to know a living God. We studied the word of God so that we might know him. That's what we've been saying in verses before this, that we might know God. And the word that's used there in the original language has the idea of knowledge with experience.
I really want to hasten to a later part here, mainly because in verse 19, if you look at verse 19, says that they were darkened in their under. 18 says they're darkened in their under understanding, separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them. Due to what? The hardening of the heart. Where else do you find the idea of the hardening of heart? Well, psalm 95 comes down and says in verse eight, do not harden your hearts as you did at Mirabah, as you did that day at Masah in the wilderness. Wait a second. I know those Old Testament stories. God had brought Israel out of Egypt. And by the way, it's interesting when you read the text, it says that God hardened pharaoh's heart. Hey, that's the first point to realize that God is in control over all the world, and God works in lives for the purpose of his glory. And that's exactly what it says in the book of Exodus, where it says that. That God brought the people of Israel out of Egypt. He hardened Pharaoh's heart for the glory of God. You see, when God took the people out of Egypt, he took them. And if you go back and read through that beautiful Old Testament story, it says that they came to the brink of the river no matter what Mel Brooks did in, what is it? The story of the world, part one. But in scripture, it says that God told Moses, okay, strike the water with your staff. And it says the water separated. The sea actually split apart. And it says that there were walls of water, but there was dry ground going straight across. And all of Israel followed God's leading, followed the cloud. By day, the pillar of fire by night crossed over the river. And Pharaoh had thought, man, I've got them trapped. I got them right here at the river. We're going to take care of them. They didn't want to be slaves. They're going to be dead. And God opened up the water and on dry ground they walked through, crossed to the other side. Now, I just love this because it says that at that point, Pharaoh saw his opportunity. He had all of his soldiers with him and they were gonna, yeah, if they can go across, we can go across. The ground was still dry and so he charged through with his chariots and his men, and God said no, and God caused the waters to fold over them. Now, there's one other thing that happens in our day and age, another empty thing. When you set up science to be the verification for your faith. Well, science proves well. In this case, science serves us. But if you think about it, how long ago was it that Moses led the people across the land into the wilderness? This is 5730 in jewish years, the year 5730. So 5732 years ago or 31 years ago, God did this and he folded the waters over them. 5731 years ago, there was a deposit made on the river that they crossed over and they have found the four spoke and six spoke chariot wheels and remains of chariots in the middle of this riverbed. And the gold overlay is still there. And how did it get there? Well, I've got a biblical account that tells me how they got there. But we don't sit there and take science to prove God. See, that's one of those vain things that's empty. It's resultless. Because no matter how much I look and I can look at science and I can say by the design that God has the infinite universe that all of these James Webb telescope and the Hubble telescope are finding, and they're finding other moons around other planets that they never knew about. And then they say, oh, there's other stars out there, you know, just God knows them by number and name. And it goes down to the deepest, smallest, infinitesimal factors of how an atom is held together. When you study science, it's amazing to realize that to put together molecules, you have to have electrons and you have to have empty slots in one atom. In other words, in order to make you have water to drink, there's got to be an empty slot so that the positive slots in another atom can mix together. And you got h two o and they hold together. But science does not verify God. It is by faith we come to believe, because in the emptiness or the resultlessness of their thinking, they said, well, that's just science. That's not God. There was some explosion and somewhere, some unicellular creature finally grew into something that could walk out on land and start breathing. And then it evolved. My God is the one who spoke in Genesis one, and it was. He created the earth. He created and separated the day from the night, the sky above from the waters beneath. Science doesn't verify God. Science just displays the immense majesty of a living God. It says, by him and for him, all things consist. And now we have science that wants to take atoms, and it wants to take those atoms and make it into a circular path going through what's called a tokamak. That's a big, large sphere that has magnetic properties that are forcing this input of atoms to go swirling around and around and around, and it comes out to be fusion energy. You have the atoms smashing together. That's the new way to make energy. You know, God knew all those properties long before even the world was created. You see, when we look at scripture and we look at the lives, the way people think, there is a sense in which we put up idols. We put up idols of science, we put up idols of money. I've got to make enough money. I've got to reach this goal. It says in verse 17 or 18, rather, their minds having been darkened in their intellect. I want you to look at those verses for a minute, because I want you to understand. This is from my diagram. When I had to sit there and put that together, and I was trying to put this together, I was going back and looking at some other scholars, and I said, well, how does all this fit together? You're no longer to live as the gentiles do. In the emptiness of their mind. They are darkened in their understanding, separated from the life of God and having lost all sensitivity in verse 19, all three of those statements have in their meaning that this is something that is happening and is going to continue to happen. So, in other words, the people that you meet that you want to communicate the gospel to, like Mike said this morning in Sunday school, you think of some person that you want to have come along with you to that great banquet with Christ. And you see, it says that, first of all, the one characteristic is that their minds are darkened. Now, figuratively, in the Bible, what that's saying, or what it's pointing out, is a moral darkness, but it literally means deprived of light. I'd like to suggest to you what it would be like to play a game of blind man's bluff, at least the way I remember playing it. And you would blindfold somebody can't see. You know, I used to be real careful and make sure that you tied it quite tight enough on that person. So that they couldn't possibly wiggle their eyes and catch a glimpse of where you were going. Totally blank, blind. And what if you put earplugs in so you couldn't hear? Put earplugs in. Put noise canceling headphones over the top of the person. And then just for good measure, you gonna take that duct tape and put it over their mouth so they can't speak. And you're going to take them into the middle of Manhattan, and you're going to turn that person around four times. And when they've stopped turning around, the instructions they were given before you blindfolded and put the earphones in and everything else and told them they couldn't speak to anybody, you said, now go home. Find your way home. That's the picture that this brings up. You see, the person that you meet in the world is blindfolded. Has their ears stopped up, and they don't even know what to say to find Christ? That's the world that you and I minister to. The second phrase that goes along with this, and they are the descriptors that go along with it, is that they are being alienated from the life of God. It means to be totally separated from anything that God provides. Now, God can graciously intervene. God does, in a supernatural way, open up our minds to understanding. Otherwise, we would never respond to the gospel. And it says that they are alienated from the life of God. Well, that takes us all the way back to Adam. What happened to Adam and Eve in the garden? They were totally alienated from what God had designed and moved them out. They take no responsibility for their own actions, and it's because of the hardness of the heart. Did you ever hear of cirrhosis of the liver?
Cirrhosis of the liver is. Liver no longer functions. It's. It's hard. It's hardened. That's the word for harden. The heart. You've got a world with cirrhosis of the heart. That's the world that you're. And finally it says, having cast off all feeling. In other words, they have become, as the Niv says, totally insensitive. The word that's used here is the same word that we use for any analgesic medicine. It's where we get the word analgesic, whatever that word is. Tylenol. How's that? And what it's saying is they have become numbed to the pain of living. What do we say about a person who drinks themselves to death. What are they doing? They're numbing themselves. They're self medicating. When we have the great physician, that's the world that you're trying to minister. You see, the Lord, the God of their ancestors, sent word to them. This is what says in two chronicles 30, 615 and 16. The Lord, the God of their ancestors, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on the people and on his dwelling place. You're God's dwelling place. That's why you're called holy. But they mocked God's messengers, despised his words, scoffed at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord was aroused against his people. And there was no remedy. There was nothing to numb the pain. And what it leaves us with is what we find in Isaiah 53 six. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to our own way. And the Lord has laid on Christ him the sin, the iniquity of us all, the only remedy for people in pain that are trying to numb themselves in their existence, even the pain that we feel. We have to be careful because we no longer walk just the same as the other, it says. But this is not the way of life. You learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. Sometime just go through those verses right there from 17 to 20 and take a look at the term lord or master, God and Jesus all there. What you minister to today is a lost and dying world that don't even know what question. And you and I, as a believer, know the answer. Who do you need to go and talk to now? Who is the Lord putting on your heart right now to speak to? Because they're blindfolded, they can't hear, and they're turning around, and they have nowhere to go because they don't even know what question to ask, and they can't even ask you. And I have the only answer. Jesus Christ, our Lord Savior. Let the Lord speak to your heart today and go forth from this place. All you can do is tell witness to Jesus.
[00:27:00] Speaker A: Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Roots of Faith, a ministry of lawn evangelical Congregational Church in lawn, Pennsylvania. We hope today's message has uplifted you and deepened your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, whether you're new in the faith or have walked with him for years, God's word is always fresh and powerful to transform. If you were blessed by this episode, share it with a friend. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an update. Until next time, stay rooted in the word, stand firm in faith and keep growing in Christ.
