Laying Aside Our Old Man According to the Way We Learn Christ
Ephesians 4:17-24 (b)
Pastor Kerry Kinchen, Bridgeway Bible Church
Please turn to Ephesians 4:17-24. We are continuing in Ephesians 4:17-24. To bring us up to where we are in the context, I will quickly explain that Paul has been teaching on the great importance that God sees in equipping you, and me, for the work of service--particularly in building up the other members of the body of Christ that are around us. Paul's focus has been on the body, and specifically upon our responsibility as Christians to act like Christians. What we have seen is that there is a lot of action that God wants you and I to do as Christians. If you think God has saved you to be passive in your Christian walk, then Paul has been telling you that you are very, very, wrong. God has not saved us to be passive in our Christian walk. He has saved us to walk the Christian walk, and to walk it in a certain way. It is with this in mind that we read our text in Paul's flow of thought. Please read God's word along with me, starting in verse 17,
"17 So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart. 19 Because they are callous, they have given themselves over to lasciviousness for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. 20 But you did not learn Christ in this way, 21 if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, 22 that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old man, [the Greek word is man here, which more accurate than self] which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, 23 and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and put on the new man, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. Ephesians 4:17-24
Last week we considered the question: Am I walking according to the futile Gentile mind? We saw that making it our ambition to walk in the eternal mind of Christ is more than a New Years resolution. It is a command for all time. This morning, I want us to keep that question in mind as we explore the important theme of,
"Laying aside our old Man according to the way we learn Christ" [prayer]
Last week we started contemplating Paul's unique label he has given for people who are of the lost world. He calls the people of the realm of those who are unsaved, "Gentiles." This is an interesting distinction, because the original northern Asian audience around Ephesus is predominantly made up of saved Gentiles. We saw that what Paul is doing is using a figure of speech to indicate that saved Gentiles are radically different people from who they used to be. Unsaved Gentiles only walk according to the futility of the lost, darkened mind. Saved Gentiles, are now the people of God as the body of Christ. As we have been continuing to seek God to teach us from these passages, we also considered the question of whether each of us is personally walking according to the futility of the Gentile mind. Paul says that those people of the world are darkened in their understanding. But we, Christians, are not darkened in our understanding. We are as Paul says in the next chapter: Whereas once we were formerly darkness, now we are Light in the Lord. How many of you realize that you are not darkness any more? You are light in Christ. So you and I are to walk as children of Light, where the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth. This brings us to what we are concerned with now. Paul, at this point, is identifying some traits of the lost, dark, world of the Gentiles that need to be avoided.
In particular, it is sexual sin.
Darkened, blind, hard hearted lost people are categorized together as walking in a state where they have given themselves over to lasciviousness. Lasciviousness is a word that identifies sexual sin. It literally means: purposeful and intentional erotic sensuality aside from God's design for the marital relationship. They have given themselves over to lasciviousness, for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness--meaning they crave these things with unsatiated ambition. This is the first thing I want us to alert ourselves to this morning.
Sexual sins are a very important issue with God, and so that is why they are such a major concern throughout the Bible in respect to our sanctification. Years ago, I led a Doctor to Christ. Immediatly he became an astuete student of God's word. Sometime after his salvation, I was in his clinic, and he commented to me, that in his studies of the Bible, he noticed that sexual sin seemed to be one of the biggest problem manifestations of the sin of humanity throughout all of history. A cursory reading of the Bible reveals that among every generation since the fall of Adam and Eve, sexual perversions of God's intended design for sex, have been practiced, promoted, and pushed on God's people. Sexual perversion of God's intended design for sex, (which is sin), has been, and is, used in worship of false gods. It has been, and is, used to hurt people, manipulate people, enslave people, and degrade people into objects of sexual desire, to be used for sexual desire. Sexual perversion of God's intended design has also been used to legitimize our own bodies as objects that must have every sexual desire satiated as a matter of some self proclaimed right. How many of you have heard someone say, "It's my body--it's my life--I'll do what I want to with it" and what they are talking about is sexual sin? Sexual sin is used to satisfy the flesh that is driven by hormone responses, by romantic feelings, and by notions of need. But it is very important for us to recognize that sexual sins are also governed by intelligent minds that purposefully plan, and purposefully seek, to satisfy desires that feed selfishness at the rawest level of our humanity. Part of the battle against the futility of the Gentile mind can be seen in what lost people argue from their inteligent, yet futile minds. Lost people throughout history, and in every society, argue that sexual sin is not really sin at all. What they say, is that it is really just a matter of innocent preference. Our modern society, and our contemporary culture in general, is no different. Lost people, and some people who claim to be Christians, in error, argue that sexual sin is not really sin at all, but is really just a matter of choice. In fact, people who wish to throw off God's constraining mandates concerning sexual sins, try to convince others that morals of the past, that have held on until today, were merely instituted by men because women get pregnant, and people get jealous. Since there did not used to be birth control methods, such as the pill and so forth, to get pregnant was a natural, and somewhat easy thing to accomplish when one was being immoral. So, it is assumed by humanists that this meant that humans began thinking that responsibility needed to be assumed by sexually active people for the babies that are reproduced. So, atheists and false Christians claim that moral rules evolved into becoming the norm to govern the actions of people in respect to responsible reproduction. Since jealousy leads to fighting, violence, and often death in respect to relationships between males and females, then it is said that this consideration also contributes to the whole supposedly man made notion of sexual morality. So now that we have birth control, and we have legalized baby murder by abortive methods, and because marriage is no longer held in honor in our culture, sexual sins of every kind are not only accepted, but they are now condoned, and promoted, as simply preferences of a healthy, active, and robust mind. These are the ramblings and musings of men who have become futile in their speculations, where their foolish heart has been darkened. They profess to be wise, yet they are fools, in the same legacy of those of Romans 1:21-22. But according to revelation from our Creator, who is called "the only wise God" in Romans 16:27, all such fictional dreams are lies that put the cart before the horse, so to speak. God's revelation is what drives our understanding of what proper sexual relationships between partners is supposed to be. God tells us what is undefiled sexual activity, and what is defiled sexual activity. So, my doctor friend was right in his observation; wrong sexual practices are a huge sin problem. It is a huge sin problem that is addressed on so many pages of the Bible, and it is permeating our culture all around us. We live in a sin saturated society where sexuality is the big fascination of our age. You can't go anywhere without being mentally raped by this consequence of the futile Gentile mind. Books are written about immoral sex. Advertising campaigns are built around immoral sex. Movie scripts hardly make it to film that don't have it served in ample doses. Clothing styles are designed around the sexual desirability of people's body shapes. Fashions are developed around thinking of, and looking at, people as sex objects. Much of contemporary clothing which originates from the darkness and futility of the Gentile mind, of verse 17, helps to transform people into objects of erotic desire. Everywhere we go, what God has designed for the privacy of the secret, and sacred marriage bed, is on the scene in some exploited, unholy, aspect for all to see, for many to experience, and for way too many to be corrupted with. What Paul says of the hard hearted Gentiles of his day, is true of our own neighborhoods. Looking at our passage, we notice that Paul says that,
"they have given themselves over to lasciviousness for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness." Ephesians 4:19
In the midst of all of this wrong sinful futile Gentile thinking about God's beautiful creation of sexual desire, and experience, our task is to be intensely aware that God wants us to be separated from sexual sins. We are directed in 5:3, to do the opposite of what futile Gentile minds do in 4:19, where Paul says,
"But do not let immorality or any impurity or greed even be named among you, as is proper among set apart ones;" Ephesians 5:3
Not only are we to avoid it, but we should not even let such things be of those things that can be identified as being among the church. This is how God wants you and I to live as Christians. In the parallel epistle of Colossians, we read,
"Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry." Colossians 3:5
Sexual sins are purely selfish, where self is appeased as the god that demands to have fulfillment. Adultery, and fornication, is purely self centered selfish fulfillment of a sinful desire, which is a perversion of the pure, clean, and right sexual desire that God has gifted humanity with. To fantasize about doing sexual things with someone who is not your spouse, is purely a self centered sin. Group sex is purely self centered sexual selfishness. Homosexuality is purely self centered sexual selfishness. Molestation, pedophilia, seduction, pornographic addiction--all of it amounts to idolatry where one's own earthly body is considered worthy of idolatrous devotion for being satiated no matter how the sexual sin is packaged. But, sadly, in spite of this fact, we have so-called Christian leaders who try to undermine this from two different military fronts. We need to be aware of the enemy that is in our own camp.
/1/
One tactic that is used, according to the futility of the Gentile mind to undermine the fact that what God calls sin is really sin, is to simply say that it is not really sin.
/2/
The second tactic to undermine what amounts to idolatry in respect to the futile Gentile mind influencing the church, is to simply say that sexual sin does not matter anyway.
These are important weapons of the futile Gentile mind that are being rallied against the mind of Christ on a moment to moment basis. Let me explain what the tactics are so that we can quickly identify what is going on, and fight it. Under the one tactic of saying that sexual sins really are not sins, people will try to argue about the definition of certain sexual practices by saying that particular Biblical references used to identify them as sins, are passages that are really meaning something else. What they are doing is a lot like the disgraceful attempt that ex-president Bill Clinton did when asked about his sexual encounters with an office aid. Clinton kept attempting to redefine his sexual activity by couching his answers in such a way as to try and relegate sexual activity outside of marriage to ambiguity and personal definitions. Many different types of people from various backgrounds, who have one thing in common, which is that they think according to the futility of the Gentile mind, will do this too. A few years ago, I preached a sermon series that exposed the beliefs of Islam for what it really is by simply quoting, in context, various passages from the Qur'an, called suras, along with Muslim Haddith commentaries, and historic facts concerning Mohammed. It was an energetically tense sermon, as we had Shiite Muslims, Sunni Muslims, and Nation of Islam Muslims show up to hear what I had to say about Classic Islam as taught and practiced in history, versus Classic Christianity as taught in the Bible. During the sermon, I mentioned the facts concerning Aisha. How many of you know who Aisha was? Aisha was the little girl--a little child that Mohammed married, as stated in the Haddith, which was written by the ancient Muslim authority by the name of Bukhari. Let's read the words of Aisha right now, to see what shameful facts were brought out about the inventor of the religion of Islam:
Quoting Aisha,
'"Narrated A'isha:
A'isha (Allah be pleased with her) reported: Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) married me when I was six years old, and I was admitted to his house when I was nine years old." Sahih Muslim Book 008, Number 3310:
And then in another passage from the Haddith,
"Narrated A'isha:
that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e., till his death)." Sahih Bukhari Volume 7, Book 62, Number 64
Mohammed, who was driven by a sin filled, hard heart, according to the futility of the Gentile mind, was 54 years old at the time he indulged himself with a 9 year old child, and onward for 9 more years. Needless to say, Muslims are not happy when you point out Mohammed's pedophilia. Afterward, an Islamic man approached me to argue about the sermon, and in the argument, he mentioned that he had an 8 year old daughter. His claim was that she had no sin in her. You see, what he was trying to argue against, was the fact that we are all born with a sin nature. In other words, he was denying the fact of original sin that we are all born with. In the midst of our conversation, I asked him if it was considered to be pedophilia for a 54 year old man to marry a 6 year old girl and then have sex with her when she turned 9. He dodged my questions like Bill Clinton, but he got my point. The point is that the lost world of the selfish darkened Gentile mind only has a standard when it wants to have a standard. Otherwise the standard changes. Shortly afterward, in my daily news readings on a particular conservative news site, I came across these three stories from the culture of the Gentile mind: A 44 year old New York man molested and impregnated an 8 year old girl. He faces 20 years in prison. In a love letter that the girl wrote to the man, she said that she wanted to marry him. Then a few months later, there was an Associated Press report of a 29 year old woman in Connecticut who had relations with an 8 year old boy. She was arrested and faced 20 years imprisonment. The next year, a 28 year old man in Washington State impregnated a 10 year old girl. She had the baby at age 11. The man was arrested, and prosecuted. The point is that Mohammed, if he lived today, would be treated as a criminal by the man I argued with in respect to his own daughter. Yet, he must justify Mohammed's actions according to his allegiance to the futility of the Gentile mind according to his false religious system. The reason why I share these stories with you, is because the big point is that whether it is Bill Clinton, who wants to legitimize his extramarital sexual escapades, or Muslims who want to defend who they call their prophet, people, according to the futility of the Gentile mind, will do anything to defend this kind of behavior when they have their own personal presuppositions about certain cases where it should be allowed. Make no mistake about it, it is the disease of the sin filled Gentile mind, and it is influencing the church. People who try to do this with the Bible, twist the scriptures in some of the most shoddy, and amateurish exegetical practices imaginable. Bible torture is what they have to do, because there is no other way to manufacture their false doctrines. They do just like anyone who seeks to justify theirs sins. So, what ends up happening is that they mangle the Bible to try and justify homosexuality, pedophilia, prostitution, fornication, and pornography. They start with selfish presuppositions that their sexual activity is not sin (It's circular reasoning) and then they try to proof-text with a cut and paste kind of collage of sentences together to try and convince God's people otherwise. John Shelby Spong, who claims to actually be an overseer in a large denominational church, did this kind of thing in the famous debate that he had with Christian apologists James White a month ago. James White kept going to scripture to exegete the classic and solid case in identifying sexual sins, and the call for Christians to repent from those sins on a continuous basis. Spong, now as a matter of historic record, eeked out his oft spoken, but feeble, and empty, come back to support his perverted views of Scripture. Spong kept saying over and over again in the rebuttal of a futile Gentile mind,
"I hear nothing but judgment here. Your opinions are just based on a judgmental father image imposed on you by tribal norms of your society."--Spong
In a nuanced version of this tactic, there are people who will start out saying that we are in the New Covenant now, and so we are dead to the Law, but alive to Christ who is our continuous forgiveness. How many of you know that this, by the way, is the truth? We, who are in Christ, are dead to the Law, (Romans 7:6, Galatians 2:19, etc.) and we are alive to Christ who is our continuous forgiveness. But, what these people try to say concerning our justification by grace alone in Christ's work alone, is that it is not merely a matter of being under grace when we sin, but it is to say that we are not really sinning anymore since the Old Covenant Law is obsolete. After all, (they say) the Law has been fulfilled in Christ; a new day has dawned where we can all eat drink and be merry, and fornicate to our hearts content, because tomorrow we die and we leave this earth behind for the heavenlies anyway. Such a perversion of the truth denies the rest of New Covenant Scripture that God has given us to urge us to live holy lives, such as our passage under study this morning. A similar tactic that is somewhat like this nuanced one that I just shared is that it is recognized that in the New Covenant, sin still exists. Sin still exists for Christians, but Jesus paid it all for Christians, and so since Jesus paid it all, we are completely under His grace as a gift, which is also true, but like the last piece of bad theology that seeks to justify sinful activity, important facts are left out. And so continuing without the important facts, it is said that since we are under His grace, then, it does not matter anymore whether one practices homosexuality, fornication, pedophilia, bestiality, orgies, incest, or any of these types of Biblically defined sexual sins. They are sins, but, hey, according to these people, it doesn't matter because we are covered by the wonder working power of the blood. But, here is what Paul says to all of those kinds of feeble attempts to attack God's will for the body of Christ. Powered by the wonder working power of God's Holy Spirit, Paul fires a small 9 word torpedo, that we here know as the next verse; (verse 20). It seems so small that if we were to look at the size of the verse, and measure it by its length, we would think it could not be as powerful as it really is. But it is. It is a nuclear warhead that annihilates all the foolish sinful dark philosophies of the futile Gentile mind on this matter. Paul simply says,
"20 But you did not learn Christ in this way,"
I think the wording that God moved Paul to use here is really beautiful. I mean, I just have to say that as I am studying to prepare sermons, and I am analyzing scriptures to get at the meaning of the context, and the flow of thought, and to work out some of the interpretational puzzles that arise, sometimes a statement or a doctrinal assertion or something like that will just reach out and shake my hand, and I'll sit there thinking, wow. This is one of those hand shaking wow statements, where the two words,
"learn Christ"
just moved me in a very profound way. I think it is important for us to consider that Paul didn't say, "But you did not learn doctrine in this way." Paul didn't say, "But you did not learn the Scriptures in this way." Paul did not say, "But you did not learn sexual conduct in this way." Paul said, "But you did not learn Christ in this way." Seeking to justify sexual sin is not Christ. It's some other entity altogether. How many of you realized that when you are saved according to the gospel, which is the good news, and you are in the body of Christ, that the good news is, in one very important sense, Christ? You see, Paul is continuing with his teaching that we have all been gifted in the body, as the body, for the body, to attain to the full measure of the stature of a mature man spiritually. Paul has just informed us that the full stature of the mature man is Christ Himself. You see if you're going to be the body of Christ, then you are going to need to learn Christ. If you are going to attain to the full measure of the stature of Christ, which is the ultimate example of the spiritually mature man, then you are going to need to learn Christ, and you are going to have to learn Christ in the right way. And one thing for sure is that the true learning of Christ has everything to do with the opposite teachings and philosophies of the lost futility of the Gentile mind that is excluded from the life of God, which are teachings that promote purposeful erotic sensuality aside from marital relations; where the world revels in the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. Paul goes on and magnifies upon learning Christ, saying;
"21 if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus,"
Think about this: How are we supposed to be discipled in learning Christ? How do you learn Christ? Or, in what manner are we to have heard Him? How have you and I heard Christ? Have we sat down with Him by a lake with a couple of fishing poles, having a conversation? Did we have some coffee with Him over a breakfast? Did we enroll in a school where He taught us after the bell rang to begin the class? Did we walk with Him in Galilee? We must always answer "no" to these kinds of questions, and the Ephesian Christians were no different. They needed to ask these same kinds of questions. In what way have we been taught in Him, just as truth is in Him. Here is the way; We have been taught in Him, in our position of being in Him, and He in us, as Paul has said, by the people-gifts. Yes, the people-gifts. Remember, the people-gifts that God has given to establish us, are the original apostles and prophets, and the evangelists, and the pastors who are teachers that God has called and gifted to be people-gifts. All the words of the apostles and prophets that God wanted to be preserved as His word to us, are recorded in the canon of scripture. They are the ones who witnessed the resurrected Messiah, and had the teaching sessions with Him. And the word of God preserved is what they have given us to share in the experience, so that we also learn Christ. It is what they were called to do, as Paul has been explaining. Paul even starts out our section this morning at verse 17, saying,
"17 So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk," Ephesians 4:17
If Paul was merely just another man who claimed to be a Christian who was simply sharing his own opinions about life, based upon inventing his own ideas, then why should anyone listen to him? But Paul is an apostle, which means he is one who was sent out by the risen Christ, and so what he says, he affirms "together with the Lord." This is why Paul said that Christ speaks in Him when he taught all of these things, 2 Corinthians 13:3.
Next, Paul goes on to more of the practical doing side of what he is saying. This is where we need to really pay attention to what God is telling us, because the meaning is crystal clear that you and I are to be doing something, and if God tell us that we need to be doing something, then we need to do it. We read,
"22 that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old man, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, 23 and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and put on the new man, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth." Ephesians 4:22-24
Right here we are going to dwell on two important principles in our battle against sexual impurity.
(a)
The first is the biblical identification of our three tenses of salvation.
(b)
The second is the application of the mind Of Christ, in respect to each, in contrast to the futility of the Gentile mind of the lost world.
This is really key stuff for our lives, so pay special attention. When we are saved, we have experienced something that we all know as being the moment of our salvation. It happened, and so now that it happened, we recognize that we were effectually called, we heard the gospel, we responded in faith, and we were saved. It is our past tense salvation. It goes on forever in eternal spiritual salvation, but there is a time in our salvation history that it initially happened. Typically this is easily remembered with a word that starts with p. This is our position in Christ. To be saved, is to be in Christ. Past tense position. So this is your position that you were blessed with in initial salvation, and it is your blessing that goes on forever. Then the next tense of our salvation has to do with our daily walk, where we walk no longer according to the futility of the Gentile mind. This is known by the p of practice. In our present tense practice, we study the word, and we seek to live out the precepts of the word, where we live out the likeness of God in our saved condition that has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. This aspect of our daily living of the Christian life, is also called our daily condition, where we practice our Christianity. Then there is the future tense of our one salvation. It is known by another word that begins with p. It is our promotion into the afterlife realm of glory for eternity when we leave this world behind for the p of perfection. Promotion to perfection. It is so vital that we understand these because this is what Paul is getting at--past tense position, present tense practice, future promotion to perfection. To see this, we first notice that Paul says,
"22 that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old man, ... 24 and put on the new man," Ephesians 4:17-24
In Paul's contextual flow, the former manner of life that the Spirit is immediately concerned with, that you throw far away from yourself, is sexual sin. He is saying that you are not to walk in those sexual sins of the futile Gentile mind of the lost dying world. Paul says to lay it aside and what he means is that you lay aside all that sinful junk of the old life. You lay it aside like it is some kind of stinky grimy piece of disgusting clothing. This is how we practice our present tense Christianity in our condition. In other words, when we do this, we are practicing Christ in us. This is our everyday current tense of our salvation. In the parallel epistle to this one, Colossians, we read of Paul using the same language for the first tense of salvation that we all have because we are saved. Remember, the first tense is that you are spiritually saved. In the second tense, you do something with your salvation. As I read this, be thinking that God urges us to lay aside the old man, and then to put on the new Christlike man in practice, because Paul says it already happened positionally, as we read,
"2:11 and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; ... 3:9 Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old man with its evil practices, [OK, notice the difference from what Paul is saying in Ephesians. In Ephesians Paul is saying for you and I as saved people in our current condition, to lay aside the old man in respect to our former manner of life. Here in Colossians, laid aside means that you already did lay aside your lostness as your old lost self, in initial salvation. Now Paul is going to say what else we have already done in initial salvation. He says,] 10 and have put on the new man ...
This is the key to what we are talking about, and so now that we have put on the new man already in respect to our saved position in Christ, you and I are to daily throw off the old man of the sexual sins, by repenting of the things of the futile Gentile mind. But there is more in the Colossians text, because Paul distinguishes between our initial salvation, and our daily walk there too. In other words, in Colossians, he goes on with moving from our position, on to our practice, in his very next words, where he says,
"10 and have put on the new man who is being renewed [meaning the renewal is on a continuous, day to day, basis. This renewal is something that occurs by learning and doing the word of God in your present tense condition] to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him--[you see, our goal is to be like the Christ that we have learned] 11 a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all." Colossians 2:11, with 3:10
I hope you are seeing the parallels, because this is an excellent illustration of what Paul means for us to do over here in Ephesians. You see, here in Ephesians, Paul explains that the true knowledge according to the image of Christ that our self is renewed to, is the way we learn Christ in His fullness. It is the stature of Him, as in the measure of Him, because to learn Christ, is to learn what it means to be a mature Christian in the body of Christ, as the body of Christ, for the body of Christ. So, what you and I have a responsibility to do, according to God's call to maturity, is to walk according to the excellence of the high calling, which is according to the true knowledge of Christ, according to the true learning of Christ. The way we do this is in intense verse to verse study of the scriptures, because the New Covenant scriptures explain to us how to love one another according to the true knowledge of Christ. They teach us how to interpret the Old Testament Scriptures, and they urge us to put away sexual immorality in all of its base manifestations.
This leads us then to consider the second important principle. Remember, I said that we need to dwell on two important principles. The first principle is the biblical identification of our three tenses of salvation. The second principle is the application of the mind of Christ, in respect to each, in contrast to the futility of the Gentile mind of the lost world. This is what Paul mentions next. As I read, think about being renewed in the spirit of your mind as the next focus. Paul says,
"22 that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old man, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, 23 and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and put on the new man, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth." Ephesians 4:17-24
The mind is the starting point for putting into practice our salvation. It is both the starting point, and the starting place. This is so important because in our initial salvation, we do not lose our memories. We are not brain washed, and all of sudden have the whole Bible dumped into our minds. We don't get saved, and then all of a sudden forget all our sins, and forget all of the futility of the Gentile mind that we were delivered from. Further, we don't have something that blocks our minds from thinking those old thoughts anymore. In fact, the futility of the Gentile mind is everywhere, and it is constantly flaunting itself in front of us, to influence our saved minds, especially in respect to sexual sins. Let me give you an example of something that happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I was out trying to get some things done on my to do list. It so happens that I was in a public facility minding my own business, but even though I was minding my own business, there were four television monitors attached to the walls, and they were turned on and blaring their business into my business. How many of you have had that happen to you before? Here were these monitor screens, and they were turned on, and they were tuned into a show called "The View." How many of you have heard of a TV show called, "The View?" I had never seen it before, but there was The View in my view. As I was standing there for just a few moments, the only thing I heard and saw was a woman talking to Barbara Walters, and Rosie Odonell, and the woman said that it concerned her when people don't commit in marriage, because studies indicate that children are happier when two people like a woman and a woman, and as she said, "two people like a woman with a woman," she nodded to Rosie Odonell in an affirming manner, as she goes on to say, or a man and a woman commit to each other in a relationship, blah, blah, blah. That was all I heard, and then I left. Now, this illustration hits the contrast of the futility of the Gentile mind that bombards the body of Christ relentlessly, in respect to sexual issues, in a very pronounced way. First of all, we notice the name of this program. It is called "The View." The View has Barbara Walters who claims to be an Israelite, but she rejects the Messiah. Therefor her view on sex is going to be one of an apostate Jew according to the futility of the Gentile mind. Then the other woman is Rosie Odonell, who is a homosexual, who accuses anyone of recognizing that homosexual behavior is sin, and is a perversion of God's intended design for sex, as being homophobic. By the way, homophobic literally means to be afraid of men, from Hominidae and phobia. So it is a misnomer. But what she means is that people who are against preversion are afraid of perversion. It is a clever, but empty, equivocation that is meant to be an ad hominem that distracts from the real issue. The real issue is that Christians fear God, and love Him. The real issue is that Christians agree with God and call what God calls sin--"sin." You also need to know that this Rosie Odonell is the same Rosie Odonell who is famous for stating her view on The View, that, and I quote,
"Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America."--Odonell
In case you are wondering what she means by radical Christianity, she is talking about Biblical Christianity according to the way we learn Christ from God's revelation of Him. It is not surprising though, because even huge multitudes of people who claim to be Christians, think that biblical Christianity is radical Christianity. Folks, this kind of thing is going on at every level of onslaught against Biblically defined sexuality. Because this is the case, we must renew our minds according to God's word. If we don't, then the view of the world that is trying to legitimize sexual perversions by making them appear normal, healthy, and acceptable, will enslave our minds to their futile speculations. Paul says to be renewed in the spirit of your mind. This is the process of being transformed by the renewing of your mind, where you take God's word into yourself, and then make your decisions based upon it, and not upon the views of this lost, dying, decaying culture that is enveloping the church at breakneck speed. It is just another way of saying Romans 12:2,
"... do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect." Romans 12:2
God wants us to make our sexual decisions based upon a renewed mind. He does not want us to make our sexual decisions based upon the futility of the Gentile mind. When you do this, then you are putting on the new man, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth, Ephesians 4:24.
I encourage you to recognize that you aren't going to live out what you have been created into if you don't throw off the dirty clothes of this lost world with all of its evil influences in the futility of the Gentile mind. We are no longer governed by the lusts that are of lies, and deceit, verse 22. We are governed by Christ. Eternal spiritual salvation means that positionally we have already been created in righteousness and holiness, because Christ is our righteousness and our holiness. Living out your salvation, means you put on what you are already, but putting it on daily like a clean and pressed garment for manifesting the Christian life. We put on righteousness, and holiness, (verse 24) which means setting apart by seeing sexual sin for what it is--sin, and then doing everything we can to walk away from it. So my final word to you this morning is to learn Christ. Make it your life ambition to learn Him as you live in Him. And then, in respect to the sexual wrongness that we are all being taught by the lost Gentile mind, be laying aside the old man according to the way you have learned Christ.
