Our quar­terly men’s meet­ing will be held tonight at 8:30 pm.  Our sub­ject mat­ter is, “How to be a Man to a Woman:  Explor­ing Bib­li­cal Com­ple­men­tar­i­an­ism.  We will con­sider what it means to honor women as sin­gle guys, hus­bands, and fathers.  It should be a really great night as we learn from Pas­tor Rusty.  This event is open to mem­bers and vis­i­tors, so be sure to invite  friends!

Last night we learned that God’s bless­ings come to and through those who walk in His ways.  As a  church, we will be blessed as we walk in obe­di­ence to God, rec­og­nize our need for a Sav­ior pri­vately and pub­licly, and sub­mit our lives to God’s Word.

More­over, we will be a bless­ing to oth­ers as we walk in God’s ways.  We looked at Titus 2:11–14 and learned that we have been set free from sin not just for our­selves, but so that we can lov­ingly serve oth­ers through our good works as we share the Gospel with them.

In his book, Plant­ing Mis­sional Churches, Ed Stet­zer says churches must fig­ure out how to reach the lost instead of just rear­rang­ing church mem­bers.   “With­out inten­tion­al­ity,” says Stet­zer, ” evan­ge­lism remains undone” (183).  He goes on to make a solid, bib­li­cal case for community-based evan­ge­lism (what we at New Life refer to as lifestyle dis­ci­ple­ship and evan­ge­lism), and iden­ti­fies self-righteousness and self­ish­ness as the main bar­ri­ers to this approach.  He quotes Mark Driscoll:  “As long as Chris­tians fail to repent of self-righteousness, we will con­tinue to speak of evan­ge­lism in terms such as out­reach, which implies we will not embrace lost peo­ple but will keep them at least an arm’s length away” (188).

“Instead,” Stet­zer argues, “it should be noted that [quot­ing Driscoll again] ‘the trans­formed lives of peo­ple in the church are both the great­est argu­ment for, and the great­est expla­na­tion of, the gospel.  There­fore, it wel­comes non-Christians into the church, not so much through evan­ge­lis­tic pro­grams as through infor­mal rela­tion­ships like Jesus devel­oped with his first dis­ci­ples” (188).

If we are seri­ous about bless­ing com­ing to oth­ers through the church, then we must be will­ing to get involved in their lives.  We must see them as peo­ple, not as projects; as eter­nal souls, not tem­po­rary incon­ve­niences.  How are you embrac­ing the lost in your home?  Your neigh­bor­hood?  Your class­room?  Your work­place?  Let’s apply Psalm 128 and walk in God’s ways before the world so that they will glo­rify our Father in Heaven.

This evening we will con­sider Psalm 128, which states that the man who fears God is blessed, or happy.  The psalmist then states that walk­ing in God’s ways is how we demon­strate, or live out, the fear of the Lord.

We will learn that bless­ings come to and through those who walk in God’s ways.  As indi­vid­ual believ­ers, as fam­i­lies, and as a local church, we are called to walk in God’s ways and be used by Him to bring bless­ing to oth­ers.  We hope to see you tonight at 5 pm!

Last Fri­day we had the chance to con­sider whether or not we are walk­ing in a man­ner wor­thy of the Lord (a sub­ject we will also pon­der on Sun­day evening in Psalm 128) and to think through our spir­i­tual gifts and how we are using them to serve the church and the lost.  Today we will cover 4:17–32 and con­sider how Paul describes our new life in Christ.

Verses 17–24

In his typ­i­cal form, Paul urges the Eph­esian believ­ers not to walk “as the Gen­tiles do.”  This is a bit ironic (and sharp) since Paul is writ­ing to churches that were mainly Gen­tile!  It would be akin to say­ing, in our con­text, “Don’t walk like Aggies.”  And why not?  Because lost Gen­tiles (like lost Aggies) are “dark­ened in their under­stand­ing, alien­ated from the life of God…due to their hard­ness of heart” (v. 18).  Every per­son begins his or her life with dark­ened under­stand­ing and a hard heart.  This results in liv­ing lives that reflect the val­ues of our sin­ful hearts.  How­ever, God in His grace makes dark­ened under­stand­ing light and hard­ened hearts soft (review 2:1–10).   Those who have been changed by God no longer have to (and shouldn’t) walk in those for­mer ways.  Instead, we are to “be renewed in the spirit of your minds” (v. 22).

As we study the Scrip­tures, pray, and involve our­selves in the com­mu­nity of the local church, God gra­ciously begins to renew our minds.  The things we for­merly desired become less and less desir­able, and we are given new desires to know God, serve Him, and share the Gospel with oth­ers.  In what ways do you believe your mind is being renewed?  What means is God using to do that good work?

Verses 25–32

Because we have been given new natures in Christ through believ­ing the Gospel, we are now able (by God’s grace) to:

1. Put away false­hood and speak the truth to one another (v. 25).

2. Be angry, and yet not sin, giv­ing no oppor­tu­nity for the Devil (vv. 26–27).

3. Stop steal­ing and work hon­estly to pro­vide for our­selves and oth­ers who are in need (v. 28).

4. Speak words that are good for build­ing up and give grace rather than words that cor­rupt and tear oth­ers down (v. 29).

Each of these is evi­dence that God has given us new natures (the new self) and is pro­gres­sively mak­ing us more like His Son, Jesus.  Sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion is an ongo­ing process, and we are sanc­ti­fied as we apply the Gospel to our own lives and the lives of oth­ers.  It may be help­ful for you to focus on one of these areas.  Begin study­ing the Scrip­tures to under­stand how the Gospel enables you to walk in the new self in one of these areas, and then seek Gospel-centered account­abil­ity (like in a Fight Club).

Paul closes by urg­ing the Eph­esian believ­ers not to grieve the Holy Spirit, who has sealed them for the day of redemp­tion.  We grieve the Spirit when we choose not to respond to His lead­ing and instead to walk in the ways of the old man.  We must put away “bit­ter­ness and wrath and anger and clamor and slan­der, along with all mal­ice” (v. 31).  Instead, we are to be kind to one another, ten­der­hearted, and for­giv­ing just as Christ for­gave us (v. 32).  I love how Paul ties all of this back to the Gospel.  We don’t change to become bet­ter peo­ple or to earn God’s favor.  Rather, because we have already been for­given in Christ, we love, serve, and obey Him out of grat­i­tude for what He has done.  Are you try­ing to change apart from or because of the Gospel?

Next Fri­day we will exam­ine Paul’s com­mand to walk in love from Eph­esians 5:1–21.

Tim Chester is becom­ing one of my favorite authors.  When I read Total Church in the fall of 2008, I was a fast fan.  The more I read his stuff and get to know him from a dis­tance through our shared con­nec­tion with Acts 29, the more I appre­ci­ate him as a pas­tor, the­olo­gian, and believer try­ing to live out the mis­sion of Jesus in his every­day life.

A cou­ple days ago, he posted some great thoughts from Fran­cis Chan’s book, The For­got­ten God. In the quotes Chester pulls, Fran­cis is ask­ing why we live where we live and whether or not we were truly called there by God.  He asks, “…how would you be missed if you left this place? What would change? Basi­cally what dif­fer­ence does your pres­ence here make?”

I have often asked those same ques­tions.  If I moved out of my neigh­bor­hood, would my neigh­bors notice?  Would they be glad?  Or would they be upset because my fam­ily and I loved and served them well? Mov­ing out­ward, would the city notice if I left?  If New Life left?

If we are lov­ing and serv­ing the city with the Gospel, then we will be missed if we leave.  Want to start serv­ing the city with Gospel inten­tion­al­ity?  You can start today.