I have you turn again this morning to the letter of Paul to the Ephesians, today to chapter 4, beginning in verse 17. We began in June to consider the last half of this letter of Paul to the saints of all ages, by way of the saints in Ephesus, in which we are given God's agenda for Christian living. We began in verse 1 of chapter 4 with the very clear and comprehensive command for the children of God, to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. We saw how we as Christians are to live in relationship to other saints, how we're to preserve the unity of the one body of Christ, even as we practice the diversity of gifts that Christ has showered upon his church. And Paul begins with our text today to unpack and explain and apply God's agenda in very particular and practical ways. Preachers often hear the call for a practical application in their sermons. I would have you buckle your seatbelts because in the months ahead Paul is going to reveal many practical applications to each of our lives. But before he does, he sets us on the right road and he gives us the rules of the road, if you will. In effect, he calls for us to live this way, not as the sons of Adam, but as the sons of God and Christ with vigorous obedience. beginning reading at verse 17 of chapter 4 of Paul's letter to the Ephesians. Here's the word of God. So I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more. You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. Surely you heard of Him and were taught in Him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught with regard to your former way of life to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by His 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. Here ends the reading of God's Word to this day. Paul begins in verses 17 to 19 by telling us to live not in a certain way, not as children of Adam. Chapter 4, verse 17 is the flip side of verse 1 where Paul gave the positive command to live in a manner worthy of the calling you've received. Here he gives the negative aspect of this command that you must no longer live as the Gentiles live. and the Gentile lifestyle he's referring to is a lifestyle that's not worthy of a Christian. It's inappropriate. Now this may seem an odd statement for Paul to make to Gentile believers, to say no longer live as the Gentiles do, unless we remember that he has made it very clear in chapters 1 through 3 that all Christians, whether from Gentile nations or from the nation of Israel, have been brought in together as one people of God, the new Israel, the true people of God, True Jews, because they've had circumcised hearts. See, Paul's not speaking against the ethnic Gentiles here. He's speaking against the unbelieving lifestyle that characterizes all who have not received and believed the gospel of Christ. He's warning against the lifestyle in which his readers had been raised and by which they were still surrounded by family and friends. Now, it's interesting to note, but by the second century, Christians had begun referring to themselves or had come to refer to themselves as a third race. No longer Jew, no longer Gentile, the church of God. In fact, Paul uses language like this in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 32. He says, Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews or Greeks or the church of God. We would do well to have this mind in us, brothers and sisters, that regardless of our ethnicity or nationality, in Christ we are our new people, one body, the church of God. And as such, we are not to live as the Gentiles do, as unbelievers do. We are no longer to live as merely sons of Adam, as though we've never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul continues in verse 17 to remind us how the sons of Adam do in fact live. They live in the futility of their thinking, he says. Now, Paul is not saying that the only thing wrong with unbelievers is that their thinking is messed up. He's not saying that unbelief is merely a matter of not having all the facts or that it's simply being illogical or irrational with the facts. Their thinking is indeed irrational, or is indeed futile, as he says, but only because their mind is futile. In Genesis 2-7, Moses records that the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being. You see, man is body and spirit, material and immaterial, visible and invisible. And it is this invisible, immaterial, spiritual aspect of man that Scripture most generally refers to as the inner man, the inner being, as we saw in chapter 3, verse 16. It's sometimes referred to as the mind, sometimes as the heart, sometimes as the bowel, the soul, the spirit. And with each of these, Scripture speaks of the same thing, the immaterial part of man, but it emphasizes a different aspect of it. And here Paul emphasizes the mind. But as he does so, we must not think that he somehow excuses our affections or our will. The mind of the children of Adam, the mind of unbelievers is futility. In fact, the whole life of unbelievers is a life of futility, of vanity. A self-measured, self-absorbed and self-serving life. As Charles Hodge said it, it's a life of smug stupidity. The preacher of Ecclesiastes says it this way in chapter 1, verse 14, I have seen all the things that are done under the sun. All of them are meaningless as chasing after the wind. See, to live as if this world is all there is, to live as if there is no God who created it and who sustains it and to which each of us is to give an account is to live a life of futility. But did God create man for this life of futility? Did God create man so wicked and perverse? Of course we know not. God created man good and in his own image that is in true righteousness and holiness so that he might truly know God has created, that his mind would not be futile, that he would love him with all his heart, that his affections would not be futile, and that he would live with him in eternal happiness for his praise and glory, that his will would be in line with God's will, that it would not be futile. We were not made for this. And we know what happened, don't we, children? You know the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of evil. Adam fell. Adam sinned. How it's possible, I cannot tell you, but he did. And he and all his children after him are darkened in their understanding and are separated from the life of God as a result. And Paul says, he continues, that this is because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. All the unbelieving sons of Adam are ignorant about God. And we must be careful here. This isn't because they don't have any information. It's not that they don't know. It's because they deny what they know. And it's always been true since the garden on that perhaps never truer than in our present information-saturated age that we know a lot about a lot of things. We can explore the expanse of space. We can probe the secrets of the genetic code. We observe and we measure and we analyze and we file away information so much that we can't hold it in our minds, we can't hold it in books. It's just beyond our measurement. And yet, the sons of Adam remain ignorant of God. We're ignorant about how the world really is. We're ignorant about who God is and what he's done. All the sons of Adam, unbelievers, one and all, are conceived and born in ignorance of God due to an inherent hardness of heart. They have a willful ignorance because they hate God. And the unbelieving sons of Adam, Paul says, have lost all sensitivity. He says in verse 19. They've lost all sensitivity. Not only have they ignored God, they have denied the conscience that He gave them. The work of the law written on their hearts. They've grown insensitive to the difference between right and wrong. But it's not that they've lost all feelings, so we must not understand that they've lost all sensitivity, that they've lost all feelings. They've, in fact, given themselves over to chasing after feelings, to chasing after passions. Paul writes, and they've given themselves over to sensuality. so as to indulge in every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more, they can never get enough. They've thrown off all restraint, their own conscience, the law of the land, the law of God. And they pursue. They pursue the pleasure of power, the worldliness of wealth, and the sensuality of sex. And no matter how much they have, they thirst for more, Paul says. This is the world in which the Ephesians were born and raised. and continued to live. And indeed it remains the world in which we have been born and raised and continue to live. The names have changed but the guilt remains. The media have changed but depravity continues and technology has changed but the wickedness goes on and on. The sons of Adam, every man, every woman, every boy, every girl is conceived and born in sin. This is the nature of man. ever and always, unless, unless he's born again by the Spirit of God. And we must not miss that in this text. Paul is writing to Christian believers who have been granted new birth. And it's only to the saints such as they who can look back upon their former nature, their nature as sons of Adam and call it their old man, Their old self. For unbelievers, that's the only self they'll ever know. But for believers, it's the old self. And it's the old self, as Paul says in verse 22, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires. It pursues power in this life and it ends up powerless in hell. It strives after riches in this life and it ends up destitute in hell. It seeks after sensual pleasures in this life. And it spends an eternity of hellish agony. It seems to the saints alone that Paul can write this command. Verse 17. You must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking because you are saints. You are to live not as sons of Adam but as sons of God in Christ. Paul writes in verses 20 and 21. We need to look there now. Verse 20. You, he begins, however, did not come to know Christ that way. And I believe the NIV is too soft in choosing the words you, however, to start this verse. Paul is really making a very dramatic and sudden change of direction like he did in chapter 2 when he spoke about deliverance from death. He begins, but you, you of all people, did not come to know Christ that way. You, the saints of God, believers in Christ, you Christians, you know better than to live that way. Surely you heard of him and were taught in him, Paul says in verse 20. He might have said, I myself, an apostle appointed to you. I spent three years preaching the gospel to you, house to house and in public. And I left Timothy, the one I consider as my own son there, to continue working with you. You of all people know, you did not learn Christ that way. And people of God, I trust that in this congregation you have not learned Christ that way. You, as the Ephesians, have heard of Him and are taught in Him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. The Christ, the Messiah, the way, the truth, and the life is none other than God in the flesh, the God-man, Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth. The one and only Son of God made man who came to deliver you. from being a son of Adam. To buy for you a new birth to become a son of God. He came, as Paul says in chapter 2, verses 15 and 16, to create in himself one new man. And in this one body to reconcile both Jew and Gentile to God through the cross. This is the Christ you have learned. This is the Christ you have heard and in whom you've been taught. This is Jesus. And he's the one who came to do what your first father, Adam, could never do, and that's obey the will of God completely and perfectly, always in your place. And to take the wrath of God against your sin that you deserve and I deserve in your place. And to be raised to new life that you may have new life in him. And Paul says, if indeed you have heard of him and you have been taught in him in this way, You've gained more than information. You have been granted understanding of His Word. And you've been granted a willingness in your inner man to obey what is revealed there. By the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, you have been given ears that now hear, eyes that now see, and a heart that is now sensitive to the things of God. As Paul characterizes you in verse 23, you are being made new in the attitude of your mind. Your thinking is no longer futile and your attitude is made new because the Holy Spirit has regenerated your mind, your inner man. He has, as Paul says in verse 24, created or better, recreated your inner man to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Conformed and conforming to the truth that is in Christ Jesus. to become righteous in your relationships with others, to become holy in the presence of your God as the Son of God in Christ. Now from the standpoint of God's work in us, this change is once for all. But from the standpoint of our experience, this is a lifelong, ongoing work of the Holy Spirit as He applies to our inner man the Word of God, preached here, Lord's Day after Lord's Day, displayed and enjoyed here in the sacraments He's given the church and garnered by the work of the Spirit in your private Bible study and contemplation. That's how you're taught in Christ. That's how you've learned Christ. Well, how long have you been taught Christ? How long have you learned Him? One day, a month, a year, your lifetime? How did you come to know Christ? If indeed you've come to know Christ this way, then you know, you know, that you not only must not, but you cannot continue to live as an unbeliever. You must and can live as a son of God in Christ. And if you've come to know Christ this way, then you are taught and will be taught how to make that transition, how to walk this new way. And that's with vigorous obedience. God our Father is not the good tooth fairy. It's not the fairy of the fairy tales that grants you to have all your changes in your behavior right now. In giving this command, I want you to look at verse 17 again. Paul writes in verse 17 that he insists on it in the Lord. He insists on this walk in the Lord. He's not simply handing out good advice that we might want to give a try. He's given a command of Jesus Christ himself, who's the one who told us that he who's not with me is against me. And if you love me, you'll keep all that I command. This is God's will for your life and for my life. And we are to be getting about doing it without delay. It has a deadline. He says that you are to no longer live this way. From now on, starting right now, not tomorrow, not next week, Not when you make your profession of faith. Not when you get married. Not when you're retired and you're not so busy. Now, no longer live that way. And we're to obey this command with commitment and effort. And not just any efforts. Not enough to just be busy. If our efforts are incomplete or our efforts are of the wrong kind, they will divert us from God's will. They will distract us. And if our efforts are without proper purpose, we will grow exhausted and fatigued. And of course, no effort at all is the worst. Because your no effort is absolute effort in the face of God. It's rebellion. Elizabeth Elliot has rightly observed that in our age of godless psychology, we are easily content to struggle with certain things or to be forever working on them. When what we're really doing is delaying obedience to the clear and concise commands of God for how we are to live. We procrastinate. We justify. We rationalize. We're indecisive. We cling to the excuse, well, that's just the way I am. As if that was a good thing. We're satisfied with spiritual laziness and smug in our disobedience. Brothers and sisters, it ought not be this way. Hear Paul again in his insistence in verse 17. So I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do. There's much for each and every one of us to vigorously obey. And Paul's going to give it all to us in the weeks ahead. But before he starts through the many particulars we must address in our own lives, Paul gives us the overall game plan of this process of our sanctification in verses 22 to 24. And there we read, You, sons of God and Christ, you were taught with regard to your former way of 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. And we've already touched on much in these verses, much of the subordinate clauses that really aren't the main point here. The main point of these two verses, three verses, two verses, three verses, I'm sorry, these three verses are found in 22 and 24. The core is that we would be throwing off the old man even as we're putting on the new man. Throwing off the old man, putting on the new man. And in order to tell us how to live as sons of God, it's interesting, Paul here, instead of telling us in a long dissertation, shows us how to do it. It's like changing clothes. Now I know there's some of you children in here today, I know for a fact, got really wet on the 4th of July. And I know for a fact that some of you got really dirty playing in the ball field. And some of you really did it up good, you got real wet and then you got real dirty. So you came home and you walked right in the house and you marched in and you sat down on your mom's nice couch, didn't you? Not a chance. She said, you're not coming in the house looking like that. So, what did your mom have you do? First thing you had to do is take off your dirty clothes, right? Get them off. And then your mom stopped there and said, come on in, run around the house naked, you can have your way with the house, right? I don't think so. You had to take a bath. And you've got to put on some clean clothes. You need to put off the dirty, be washed, and put on the clean. And that's kind of like what Paul's saying here. If you're going to live like the Son of God in Christ, not only do you have to throw off all the attitudes and the words and the deeds that belong to the sons of Adam, that belong outside the house, you need to be washed of all your sins by the blood of Christ. And you need to put on the attitudes and the words and the deeds that are appropriate to the sons of God, that are appropriate inside the house. It takes all three. The process is incomplete without all three. Christ does the washing. He bought it on the cross and he applies it by his spirit. But you, children of God, sons of God in Christ, are the ones who are to put off and to put on. You're not allowed to do one without the other. Just like our children were not allowed to do one without the other. If you simply put off the old self, you practice base moralism. Don't do this, don't do that. You're not living as the Son of God in Christ because you really haven't put on the new self. You're just running around naked. You're not clothed. And if you simply try to put on the new self over the old self, you're practicing hypocrisy. And you warrant the judgment of Christ who said to the Pharisees, you are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous, but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. You're not living as the Son of God and Christ because you've never put off the old self. put off put on now the change of clothes Paul's pictures here is that simple but it is more specific for Paul would have us picture in our mind's eye here the baptism of an adult convert to Christianity in his day the convert would remove his old soiled clothes be washed by the waters of baptism and put on new clean clothes to signify and to testify to the purifying work of the blood of Christ on His behalf. It's more graphic that way, but that's what happens right here. So just as the death and the burial and the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ are three aspects of one single act of God, so also is the putting off the washing and the putting on a baptism three aspects of a single act. Once the convert stripped off his old clothes, he didn't wait around for a few minutes or for a week or for a couple years before he got washed and got dressed. There's no halfway stopping point. There's no midpoint in baptism where you can stop and take a rest. And neither is there a halfway rest stop in our obedience to the command here in this text. It's singular acts of obedience that no longer practice the old and from now on practice the new that we're called to as children of God. For each attitude, for each word, for each deed that we are to put off, there's another one that we're to put on at the same time, simultaneously. There's no place for waiting to get around to it, to wait for the right opportunity, or to wait for the prompting of the Holy Spirit to get you in the mood. See, not only is putting off essential in order to really put on, but the fact of the matter is, what you're putting on is the very thing you need to put off the old. Even the sons of Adam have observed this in this world. They know that the easiest way to get rid of a bad habit is to develop a good habit. Because if you just put the old habit away, it finds you right away. Unless you've given it something else to do. Now, we're going to just sneak a peek ahead and look at verse 25. It's beyond our text for today, but it gives us an example that I want to discuss with you for just a moment. Verse 25 we read, Therefore, in light of what I've told you, that you're not to live that as sons of Adam, to live as sons of God in Christ with vigorous obedience. Therefore, each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor. And what are we to put off? Falsehood. And is that enough? Can we stop there? Can we just hold our tongue instead of speaking lies? Sadly, many will say yes, but that itself is a lie. The truth is that we are obedient to God's command to live not as sons of Adam but as sons of Christ if we don't try to rest here in the middle of this commandment. This is a one commandment. Two parts. Obedience to this command is not completed until we replace the falsehood not with silence but with truth. And we'll see in the days ahead that even that is not enough if our motive is not right. But that's not for today. At least this much. What you put off must be replaced by what you put on. And the nature of God's command is simple to remember. Put off, put on. But we know from our own experience, I know from mine, it's very difficult to do. In fact, it's downright impossible, apart from the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, who works in the sons of God, to give them the will to do it and to give them the ability to do it. So you see, in the weeks and months ahead, as we consider the detail, God's agenda for our living, the very specific things that He calls for us to do, we must always remember that for the sons of God in Christ, we've been washed by the blood and we are given the Holy Spirit. And we must be encouraged by the prayers of even Paul himself that we've already considered in this letter, chapter 2, verses 18 and 19, where he prayed, that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know, among other things, His incomparably great power for us who believe and in chapter 3 verse 16 he prayed again for us that out of his glorious riches god may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being you see what god commands of his people he gives the grace to obey may this prayer these prayers of paul make them your own as we step forward in particular and practical obedience to our Lord's command to live in a manner worthy of the calling which we've received. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we are reminded this morning of the depravity from which you have saved us. From the futility from which you have spared us. Of the cleanliness, the cleaning, the restoration and recreation to righteousness and holiness that you've granted us in Christ our Savior. And we've been reminded, Lord, that we're not to sit on that. We are to be upheld by that for sure, but you make it very clear here, Lord, that as your children, as sons of God in Christ, we are no longer to walk in a manner in keeping with this world. We know from our experience, Lord, that it is difficult. We fail regularly. And we thank you that it is your Spirit who promises to work this through us. Lord, we are responsible. Grant us your power to know your power, which we already have by your Spirit, to obey, to do what you tell us to do, trusting you to work out all the consequences of that obedience. We ask this in the name of Christ our Lord. Amen.