EPHESIANS 4.1-16
AN EXPOSITION FOR
THE 10th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
2009
Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from Almighty God, the Father, @
the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The reading that we shall look at more closely this morning is in
Ephesians 4 where St. Paul writes, "...In the Lord's name, then, I say
this and insist on it: do not live any longer like the heathen, whose
thoughts are worthless, and whose minds are in the dark... That was
not what you learned about Christ! You certainly heard about Him, and
as His followers you were taught the truth which is in Jesus. So get
rid of your old self, which made you live as you used to – the old
self which was being destroyed by its deceitful desires'.
On Thursday morning I read the following in the newspaper: “Eternal
life does NOT depend on works. If it did, we will all be in hell.
Christ paid for EVERY sin, so how can I or you be judged BY GOD for a
sin when the penalty was ALREADY paid. People judge but that does not
matter...”
Quite an amazing quotation, not just for the Tribune-Review, but for
any media source. But who actually wrote that articulation of the
Gospel? I think many of you know. It was from the blog of a mass
murderer who gunned down room full of people exercising in a
Bridgeville health club last week.
A very confused individual, obviously, this man seems to have learned
some of the truth about Christ, but still lived like the heathen,
pining with discontentment turned to rage and resenting the lack of
casual sex in his life.
It is too late for him. Turning his own .45 on himself, he saw to
that. But it is essential for us, in a world where people like this
lone killer can misunderstand the Gospel, that we hear today the words
of St. Paul, who writes, "...In the Lord's name, then, I say this and
insist on it: do not live any longer like the heathen, whose thoughts
are worthless, and whose minds are in the dark... That was not what
you learned about Christ!”.
The pastor of Tetelestai Church, frequented by the murderer, was quick
to deny to the police chief of Oakmont that he had taught that “a
person could commit mass murder and still go to heaven”. But, whatever
his pastor taught, we know from the murderer's writings on the
internet that he continued to live like the heathen and never got rid
of his old self – the sinful nature that ultimately destroyed him even
as it lured him with what today's epistle reading calls “deceitful
desires”. That was his fatal mistake!
Believe that Christ paid for all sin and that eternal life does not
depend upon works, but then continue to live as though what we do does
not matter? God's word tells us “grace also might reign through
righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
(but) What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may
abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? (ESV
Romans 6:1-2) “shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but
under grace? God forbid!” (Romans 6.15).
"...In the Lord's name, then, I say this and insist on it: do not live
any longer like the heathen, whose thoughts are worthless, and whose
minds are in the dark... That was not what you learned about 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”.
In God's name – get rid of your old self! You cannot have eternal life
and at the same time live like the heathen who are being destroyed.
This is the true message of God's word and it could not be more
emphatic!
He goes on to say that being a Christian means more than knowing that
Jesus redeemed us by His blood and paid for out eternal life. Yes it
means more than that! It means “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”. (Ephesians 4.24)
By using the name 'Jesus' to refer to Christ the Lord, (and St Paul
only rarely did this) the apostle reminds us of how the Lord Himself
underwent a total transformation for our sakes. Being incarnate as
'Jesus' of Nazareth meant a complete departure from the heavenly glory
to which the Son of God had been accustomed. As he wrote to the
Philippians: 'Christ Jesus, Who being in very nature God, did not hang
on to His equality with God but emptied Himself, taking the very
nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and, being found in
appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death
even death on a cross'. (Philippians 2)
In view of what Christ had done, St Paul urged his readers to change
their lives, too, and he wasn't kidding! And to make his point, he
used Jesus Himself as an illustration: 'Live as you used to before?'
'That was not what you learned about Christ! You certainly heard about
Him, and as His followers you were taught the truth which is in JESUS'.
So what is the apostle demanding that we give up with such urgency
that he 'insists on it' 'in the Lord's name?' It is simply this: 'do
not live any longer like the heathen, whose thoughts are worthless,
and whose minds are in the dark...'
Once you Christians know something about Jesus and are enlightened by
Him Who is the Light of the world - Once you have knowledge to replace
your ignorance of spiritual things - don't 'play dumb' as though you
didn't! Don't live as though what you know about God through your
hearing the scriptures makes no difference to your life!
Perhaps one of the reasons why we find it hard to not live any longer
like the heathen is because though we acquire more and more of the
grace of Christ, though we learn from God's word, we do not, at the
same time, get rid of the heathen rubbish that characterized and
cluttered our old selves before we learned what we learned from Christ.
Sometimes our lives resemble a cluttered loft full of things we should
have thrown away long ago. Like the person who has had electric
heating installed throughout the house but clutters his loft up with
the rusty hulks of his old gas fires. Do we as Christians really need
to hang on to as much as we do?
Now that we know God has revealed His loving plan for our lives in the
Scriptures do we really need to keep reading the stupid horoscope
predictions in the papers? Now that we know that Christ crucified and
raised for our justification has removed our debt of sin and taken
God's wrath and anger away from us, do we really need to hold on to
that old grudge we have against someone in our lives?
Now that we know that all eternity is provided for us freely as rest
from our earthly labours, do we really need to spend all of our time
and money seeking rest, comfort and pleasure in this world as though
this earthly life is all there is?
If we know that God has a better plan for interaction between men and
women do we really need to continue exploiting members of the opposite
sex or supporting the pornography industry?
St Paul insists we don't. With all his apostolic authority he urges us
in the name of God's Son, Jesus Christ '...get rid of your old self,
which made you live as you used to - the old self which was being
destroyed by its deceitful desires'.
Why? Because the old desires are no good and they never were any good.
You notice how he calls them deceitful desires? That is because, in
the end, all sinful desires merely lie to us when they promise us
fulfillment if we give in to them. They are deceitful, and it is high
time Christians recognized this.
We Christians should know better. Certainly when we appreciate the
sacraments that incorporate us in Christ, that should remind us that
our Christian faith is no mere abstraction that has no impact on us.
Baptism is a sensational experience with even more sensational
results. That's why it is written in Scripture, "How can we who died
to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been
baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were
buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just
as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too
might walk in newness of life".
Likewise we who eat and drink the sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood
have it re-enforced in our understanding that our bodies are the
temples of the Holy Spirit. To illustrate this, St. Paul says, "Shall
I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a
prostitute? Never!" Why never? Because of the change that Jesus
Christ brings to us when He brings us salvation and eternal life.
This is the knowledge and understanding created by God's word, the
Holy Scriptures. As for the heathen who have trashed the Bible - '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' (v.18b)
May God grant each of us the wisdom simply to live in repentance,
refusing to follow the deceitful desires that the heathen follow and
do as St. Jude writes, “build yourselves up in your most holy faith;
pray in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting
for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And
have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of
the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment
stained by the flesh” (Jude 20-25).
And may each of us make it our goal to gain such knowledge from God's
word that we will be able to fully benefit from the light that He has
shed so abundantly on our lives in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you
blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only
God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty,
dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.
The Revd Dr Jonathan Naumann,
Pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church & School
1261 Pennsylvania Avenue,
Oakmont, PA 15139-1195
Internet site:
redeemer-oakmont.org
e-mail:
[email protected]
Tel. (412) 828-9323 Ext. 10
Cell. (412) 983-9922
Home: (412) 826-8833
The Manse
782 15th Street,
Oakmont, PA 15139
Informal blog:
engelein.blogspot.com
