Ephesians 4:17-32

  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. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 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.
  Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

-----

In this morning’s text Paul addresses the issue of ethics—what is right and wrong in how we live our lives. But as we learned with the Terry Schivo case, and are learning with numerous explosive issues in America, different people gain a sense of right and wrong from different perspectives.

Thankfully Paul gives us a framework in which to understand how we are to live our lives, much beyond “this is good, do it” or “this is bad, don’t do it.” I want to spend the bulk of our time and mental exertion on understanding Paul’s framework for ethics, then simply hit the highlights of the commands that naturally flow from that.

I see the framework Paul sets up not only in this morning’s text, but every time I drive to seminary and church. As I drive east on Thomas toward Phoenix Seminary, I am at one point between two buildings that represent two entirely different worlds. On the south side is a large “Gentleman’s Club,” whose sign promotes its main attraction, while on the north side is a church, donning the cross of our Lord. Our own church building is only a stone’s throw away from a “Metaphysical Center,” housing a psychic who relies on demonic forces to advise people. This contrast exists in the worlds of radio, television, movies, magazines, Internet, books, blogs, and fine arts—two opposing sets of assumptions, philosophies, allegiances, and ethics, with one underlying difference: God.

Where is God in the picture at these neighborhood buildings? Those who pursue pleasure at the strip club are pursuing pleasure apart from God, while many come to church to find satisfaction and fulfillment in God. Those who consult a psychic are seeking life direction with no reference whatsoever to the Almighty, while we come to church, I hope, with hearts submitted to the Sovereign Lord who promises to direct the paths of all those who trust him. These are two realms, two societies, two kingdoms, two humanities mingled in the same city, neighborhood, and sometimes in the same house.

These two humanities are the focus of Paul’s exhortations to the Ephesian church. For the sake of continuity, I am going to talk about these two realms as the “old humanity” and the “new humanity.” And the core issue that distinguishes one from the other is the question of relationship to God. Look with me at verses 17-19 as Paul describes the old humanity, “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. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.”

Before Paul even mentions the issue of behavior, he addresses the issue of God. The old humanity is tragically described by the phrase, “alienated from the life of God.” And it comes naturally, doesn’t it? When Adam and Eve ate the fruit in the garden, they were initiating alienation from God. They gave their declaration of independence to their creator, and in that act they cut themselves off from the one true source of life.
This is the distinguishing mark of the old humanity—I am at the center of my world. My decisions, attitudes, and behavior are all centered on what I want and what I think will make me happy. I set myself up as God, having told the true God that I want nothing to do with him.

Now, to bring this much closer to home, let’s not make it sound like strip clubs and psychics are the only places where the old humanity exists. It’s easy to look at a Hitler or Stalin or the terrorists that attacked our country four years ago today and think, “those are the ones who are darkened in their minds, hardened in their hearts; they are the old humanity.” But what do we do about a family member or neighbor or coworker who enjoys gardening, takes care of his or her elderly parent, attends the symphony, reads Dostoyevsky, and maybe even attends church occasionally, but doesn’t give the first thought about God in how they live their life?

At this point we have to look carefully at what Paul is saying, and be reminded that the central issue at hand in distinguishing the old humanity from the new humanity is relationship to God. It is not how helpful to society one’s actions appear. Many atheists have improved our quality of life. But God is the Creator of all things and therefore the rightful King of all. All those who reject him as King and set themselves up as ruler of their life—whether dirty old man or disaster relief worker—are in the realm of the old humanity.

But over and against that old humanity is the new humanity. Read with me verses 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.”

I have to admit that as I was studying this text, one nagging question in my mind was, “How am I going to teach the church how to put off the old man and put on the new man? It sounds good, but how does it work practically?” Thankfully as I spent more time in the text, I realized that the question itself misses the point of the text. Look carefully at verses 20 and 21—do you see the tenses of the verbs there? You learned Christ, you heard about him, you were taught in him. These are all past tense verbs. In other words, Paul is talking about the Ephesians’ conversion.

So does that mean that when we lead someone to Christ we have to lead them through this spiritual change of clothes? Absolutely not! It is in retrospect that we understand all that happened when we embraced Jesus Christ as Lord, Savior, and Treasure by faith. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t take biology class until 8th grade, and even then all the details about how babies are born didn’t make sense. In the same way, most of our understanding about what happens at our spiritual birth doesn’t come until we mature in the faith.

Understanding that putting off the old man and putting on the new man happens at conversion still leaves the question, “But what does that mean?” As we explore this question, remember that all three of these components—putting off the old man, being renewed in our mind, and putting on the new man—are contained in one act of conversion, much like a single explosion contains a series of chain reactions but is really one event.

When salvation through faith in Christ is offered to a person in the old humanity, both repentance and faith are required for that person to accept the offer. Repentance is turning away from the world in which he or she is Lord of their life and faith is trust in Jesus to forgive their sins and to be Lord of their life.

Easy enough, right? Wrong. The old humanity is not ready to give up so quickly. Remember the story of Lot in the book of Genesis? Two guys show up one night and say, you’d better gather your family, because the LORD is going to destroy Sodom. When Lot spread the word to the young men who were engaged to his daughters, and told them to leave the city immediately because destruction was coming, what did they do? They thought he was joking! “No way we’re leaving Sodom,” they must have said, “What’s wrong with this place anyway?”

When we invite people to embrace Jesus as Lord of their lives, we are telling them that the country where they are citizens is going to be soon destroyed, so we invite them to be a citizen of Heaven—a place that will endure eternally. We are at the same time offending them by talking so negatively about their home and loving them by offering them an eternal home with God.

The transition of loving your home to abandoning it for a new home requires a serious change of mind, doesn’t it? That’s why in verse 23 Paul says that we were renewed in the spirit of our minds. That is, in the old humanity our minds were darkened, ignorant, hardened, and stuck in a perpetual cycle of futility—continually seeking pleasure and guidance in places that only offered imitations of the real thing. But then in the midst of that cloudy mess, something happened. Our minds changed. All of the sudden, we saw our way of life to be the corrupted, worthless death that it was. And the offer of life in Jesus looked incredibly precious. And we said, enough with this old humanity—I’m going to embrace Jesus and the new way of living with him as Lord! So we see that putting off the old man, being renewed in the spirit of our mind, and putting on the new man is what happens at conversion—it is the leap from the old humanity to the new humanity.

Let me reiterate that the key difference between the old humanity and the new humanity is the question of Lordship. Rule. Or, as Rachael and I taught our 2 and 3 year olds in Sunday School, the central question is, “Who is the boss?” Is Jesus the boss or am I the boss?

This question helps us segue into the next section of our text because if I am the boss, and alienate myself from the life of God, then my own interests and desires are going to be central to everything I do. But if Jesus is the boss, then I am connected to the life of God, and I am necessarily part of the community of people who are connected to God.

The old humanity is a collection of self-seeking, isolated individuals whose existence is, in the end, hollow, futile, and tormented. But the new humanity is a collection of people where individual identity is actually discovered in love for God and love for other members of the new humanity. The old humanity thinks “I,” while the new humanity thinks “You [È] and we [ÁË].”

For this reason Paul launches into a series of commands regarding life in the new humanity. But the sheer fact that our citizenship has been changed does not prevent us from living like we did in the old country. So Paul lays forth the way this new country lives—not as a means to get connected to God, but as a standard for those who are already connected to him through Christ.

As we look at verses 25-32, note that each one of these commands is grounded in community life. They could all be summarized by the question, how will my words, thoughts, attitudes, and actions affect other members of God’s new humanity?

Paul has already set us up for this in Ephesians. In chapter 1 he talked about us being adopted into God’s family. Well, when you are adopted into a new family, you not only gain a new set of parents, you also gain new brothers and sisters. And it is assumed that you live in a certain way for the good of those brothers and sisters. Paul has also, earlier in chapter 4, given us the picture of a body, where the body only functions properly when each member does its part. The foot can’t decide to go on strike simply because it’s having a bad day, because that action affects all the other members of the body. No single body part can think of itself as a self-contained identity. It acts out of submission to the head and for the good of the entire body. And so it is with God’s new humanity.

Let’s look at verse 25: “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.” Why do we strive to be truthful in what we say? Because we are all members of the same new humanity. We have been initiated into God’s society, and this is a society of truth, not falsehood.

Next, verses 26 and 27: “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.” Obviously this is a sermon in itself, primarily around the question of whether it is OK to have righteous anger. Here is my short answer: I don’t trust myself to discern what the line is between “righteous anger” and “sinful anger.” James tells us, “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” I only know one man who knew what pure, righteous anger is—the God-man, Jesus Christ.

Beyond that issue, the main point of this text is that the devil gains leverage in corrupting our sweetness of fellowship with one another through anger. I don’t confess my anger to my wife merely because it keeps me from sleeping with the dogs but because we are part of God’s new humanity, and when unresolved anger exists, we cannot enjoy the life God has created in Christ for us to enjoy.

Next, verse 28: “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.” Again, this is not Personal Morality 101. It is Community Life 101. We work rather than steal, not only because stealing would be detrimental to others in the community, but because by working we can provide for others in God’s new community. And, while we are still in an age when old humanity and new humanity are mingled on this earth, we extend this mercy to those in the old humanity, both because it is our way of life and because we desire for them to come to Jesus and join the new humanity where he is Lord.

Finally, verses 29-32: “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

This is too dense to give full treatment in our remaining minutes, but let us walk briefly through this. First, notice in verse 29 that not only are our words to be truthful, they are supposed to be helpful. The standard here is much higher than good over evil, the question is, “Will what I am about to say benefit this person?” This is a good question to put on a mental sticky note in our brain—does this fit the occasion? Will these words impart grace?

Verse 30 talks about not grieving the Holy Spirit. Paul has told us earlier in Ephesians that the Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance. He is the guarantee now that God’s promise to save us from the final judgment is true. And he enables us to live this new humanity lifestyle, so when we act maliciously toward one another, we are grieving the Spirit that God has placed in our midst and in our hearts.

The Father has set the pattern for forgiveness and patience with us, offering us reconciliation even when we did not deserve it. So verse 32 tells us to show this same kindness to one another—not becoming easily frustrated with each other, but being tenderhearted and quick to forgive. The example the Father has set for us reaches its apex in Christ, who suffered on a Roman cross in order make forgiveness possible, both vertical and horizontal.

As we close let me encourage you that the day is coming, when Jesus returns, that doing these things will be as natural as breathing, and for eternity we will dwell in perfect harmony with God and one another.

Challenge the church: read verses 25-32 every morning this week. Marinate your minds in this text, and allow the Spirit to transform any individualistic tendencies to community thinking in relation to how we speak and act toward one another.