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.

John Piper preached Psalm 127 on July 27, 1980 (just days over 30 years ago).  In this Psalm, Solomon talks about the van­ity of engag­ing in labors of any kind apart from God.  Expand­ing on this idea, Piper high­lights four ways to labor in vain:

1) If God isn’t with you – like the builders of the Tower of Babel in Gen­e­sis 11, God may sim­ply refuse to let you finish.

2) If the build­ing col­lapses in a year – like the man who built his house on the sand in Jesus’ para­ble, you may fin­ish your project only to have it come tum­bling down shortly after com­plet­ing it.

3) If you die before enter­ing – like Solomon iden­ti­fies in Eccle­si­astes, you may work your entire life to build some­thing only to die and leave your efforts for some­one else to enjoy.

4) If it becomes a house of tragedy —  like Solomon, you may build a beau­ti­ful house that stands for decades or even hun­dreds of years, but have a bro­ken mar­riage, rebel­lious chil­dren, and a life­time of difficulty.

If we labor apart from God, the ques­tion is not, “What if I encounter dis­as­ter?” but rather, “When will I encounter dis­as­ter?”  The only labor that has eter­nal value is labor done with God.  You can read the rest of the ser­mon or down­load the audio here.

Tonight we will be study­ing Psalm 127, which was writ­ten by King Solomon.  Solomon was likely the wis­est man that has ever lived, but he did not always apply his wis­dom.  Against God’s com­mands, he mar­ried for­eign women, he sought secu­rity through intim­i­da­tion, and he failed to instruct and dis­ci­pline his chil­dren.  As a result, he squan­dered the many bless­ings that God had given him and brought judg­ment on the nation of Israel.  This evening we will see the folly of man’s effort apart from God and the wis­dom of God’s effort through man.  We hope to see you at 5 pm!

Last week we con­sid­ered Paul’s prayer for spir­i­tual strength for the Eph­esians.  He asked, among other things, that they would com­pre­hend the love of Christ so they would be filled with all the full­ness of God.  Today we will begin chap­ter four, where Paul tran­si­tions to prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tions of the­ol­ogy for the church.

Verses 1–10

Paul begins by urg­ing the believ­ers to walk in a man­ner wor­thy of the Lord, not­ing that he is in prison for doing exactly that.  Walk­ing in a man­ner wor­thy of the Lord includes humil­ity and gen­tle­ness, patience, bear­ing with other believ­ers in love, and demon­strat­ing eager­ness to main­tain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.  Spend some time eval­u­at­ing your own life.  Are you walk­ing in a man­ner wor­thy of the Lord in these areas?  Ask your spouse, your child, your friends, or your room­mates.  Do they see these evi­dences of God’s grace?

Next, Paul notes that there is one body (the church) and one Spirit (the Holy Spirit).  Upon con­ver­sion, every believer becomes part of the uni­ver­sal church and is sealed with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:4–6, 13–14).  There is unity because there is on Lord, one faith, one bap­tism, and one God and Father of all.  Chris­tians world­wide are united through faith in the one true God.  Some take this to mean that the local church is unim­por­tant; the uni­ver­sal church is all that mat­ters.  How­ever, the dis­cern­ing believer real­izes that, apart from the local church, we are unable to do what Paul has called us to do in verse two in any kind of a mean­ing­ful way.  If I can sim­ply pick and choose which believ­ers I will be gen­tle with and patient with, and which ones I will bear with in love, and which ones I will choose to deny my pref­er­ences with for the sake of unity, then I can sim­ply float around with­out ever actu­ally prac­tic­ing these com­mands.  The local church is the con­text in which we prac­tice and grow in patience, bear­ing oth­ers’ bur­dens, and unity.  Are you com­mit­ted to the church only in the­ory, or in prac­tice through mem­ber­ship and active involve­ment in a local church with other imper­fect believers?

Verses11-16

God has given spir­i­tual gifts to every sin­gle believer.  No believer has all the gifts and some believ­ers have more gifts than oth­ers, but every believer has spir­i­tual gifts that are given by God “to equip the saints for the work of min­istry, for build­ing up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowl­edge of the Son of God, to mature man­hood, to the mea­sure of the stature of the full­ness of Christ…” (vv. 12–13).

Spir­i­tual gifts are ulti­mately for serv­ing the church.  Are you famil­iar with your  spir­i­tual gifts?  If not, I rec­om­mend med­i­tat­ing on other Scrip­tures such as Romans 12 and 1 Corinthi­ans 12, pray­ing for dis­cern­ment, and speak­ing with your pas­tors, small group lead­ers, or other who know you well.  I find that many peo­ple do not know which gifts they have, and oth­ers believe they have cer­tain gifts, when in real­ity the Holy Spirit has cho­sen to give them other gifts for God’s glory and the good of the church.  Paul teaches that the gifts, specif­i­cally, are to ensure that the body of Christ (the church) grows and matures as it should (vv. 14–15), and requires the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the entire body (v. 16).  How are you using your gifts to serve the church?   Take action through prayer and con­ver­sa­tions with oth­ers, then serve for God’s glory and the good of the church.

Next week Paul will walk us through the impli­ca­tions of our new life in Christ in 4:17–32.