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- All right everyone grab your Bibles and turn with me to Ephesians chapter 4.
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- Ephesians chapter 4 as we will be continuing on in our series through Paul's letter to the churches in Ephesus.
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- Ephesians chapter 4 and we will begin today looking at the second half of chapter 4 beginning in verse 17.
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- So Ephesians chapter 4 verse 17 and we will be looking at verse 17 18 19 20 and 21 today.
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- And so if you would please stand with me for the honoring and reading of God's holy infallible and all sufficient word.
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- The title of today's message is taught by the heavenly schoolmaster.
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- Verse 17 this is the word of God. Therefore this
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- I say and testify in the Lord that you walk no longer just as the gentiles also walk in the futility of their mind being darkened in their mind alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them because of the hardness of their heart and they having become callous have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness but you did not learn
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- Christ in this way if indeed you heard him and were taught in him just as truth is in Jesus the grass withers and the flower fades but the word of our
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- God endures forever amen amen go ahead and have a seat and get your eyes back on verse 17.
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- As we begin this morning I want to ask you a very pointed question a question that is no doubt probing and a question that maybe you haven't asked yourself before in all seriousness and that question is this are you a
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- Christian? Are you a Christian? And here's a follow -up question.
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- How do you know that you are in fact a
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- Christian? Is it a fuzzy feeling that you have or is it maybe a objective kind of standard that you've created in your head?
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- If you can answer yes to this question is it because you feel as though Christ is everything that he has taught you in him or is it rather that you have tidied up your life in such a way that you no longer look like the guy you used to be or the woman that you used to be before now?
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- Heart posture matters when we answer this question. For instance in Luke 18 there is a parable that is given of a
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- Pharisee and a tax collector and these two people are compared against one another.
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- The Pharisee in Luke 18 verses 11 and 12 goes to pray to God and this is his prayer.
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- I thank you that I am not like other people, swindlers, unjust adulterers or even like the tax collector.
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- I fast twice a week. I pay tithes of all that I get and so you see his heart is one of me me me me.
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- But the other man the tax collector who is commended in this parable in Luke chapter 18 verse 13 has a much different prayer.
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- Standing some distance away from this Pharisee unwilling to lift up his own eyes to heaven because of maybe the shame or guilt that he had felt was beating his chest and he was saying
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- God be merciful to me a sinner. Well the good news is you don't have to wait too long to find out whether or not your answer to this question is one that is right or wrong.
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- This text here in many ways is going to be the schoolhouse of the soul where our heavenly school master
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- Jesus Christ the righteous is calling people through his servant Paul to a life that looks like a life that would be a saved life and this is no ordinary classroom and here in these halls of divine instruction namely the scriptures the lessons come not in textbooks and chalk but from the
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- Holy Spirit as he applies the truth himself a curriculum etched in the hearts and the minds of those who've been called out of darkness and into his marvelous light and so as we look at Ephesians chapter 4 verse 17 though we are most certainly caught up in the flow of an argument and Paul is addressing the
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- Ephesian believers with the weighty urgency that it is to walk worthy right we've already looked at this in Ephesians chapter 4
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- Paul exhorts right all of the Ephesian church members and us by extension to walk worthy of the calling with which we have been called and then he gets into some unifying pieces and shows us why we are to do that and and who we are to do that in and by what authority as we have transitioned from doctrine to duty and here he's going to put some skin on it in a very big way so in many ways though we're leaning into this concept of what it means to be a new man or a new creature in Christ Jesus in many ways it's a continuation of what it means to walk worthy and the way in which we walk worthy according to the text in front of us is to abandon sinful ways in other words people who have been bought by the blood of Jesus Christ people who have been rescued from Satan sin death and hell no longer live in it no longer prize and prioritize it and no longer think like sinners and this is profound it's profound especially in context because the
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- Ephesian church was an Ephesian church that is that it was in Ephesus and Ephesus if you remember was full of carnality full of idolatry full of the worst kind of sin that you could ever even imagine it was the in many ways cultural hub of the
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- Roman Empire everything that it had to offer by way of debauchery was there as a matter of fact one of the seven great wonders of the world there the the temple to Artemis where there was temple prostitution going on and many many other horrible things like sorcery and and whatnot which is why when there was this great revival in the book of Acts in the city of Ephesus they went and burned their books because they were filled with man's wisdom and sorcery and it was not
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- God's word and Paul is wanting them to understand here like I'm wanting you to understand now that where you are doesn't really matter all that much here's what
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- I mean by that and Paul understood when he said these words that the
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- Ephesus church that was still going to be in Ephesus but now they are also in Christ he knew that the church in Ephesus was going to be among the
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- Gentiles but they were no longer allowed to look like Gentiles and in many ways though we are in Tulsa we are not to act and think like Tulsans though we are in America we are not to think and act like Americans we are citizens of a different kingdom now does that mean that we don't engage the political political sphere and care about what's going on around us not at all but what it does mean is that we have a different walk and that means we have a different pattern of life and so this message is for us today as much as it was for the
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- Ephesians then it is demanding it is convicting it is clarifying but more than that it is
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- Christ drenched and it is beautiful and so as we examine these texts let us sit at the feet of our great under teacher
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- Paul here and as he points to the great teacher of our souls that we might grasp the truths here and that we might receive them with reverence and that we might love them and cherish them because they are what help us walk with God and so look with me at verse 17 the first thing that I want you to see the first thing that I want you to note is the apostolic admonition to abandon sin and I know that's a mouthful the words that start with a are long the apostolic admonition to abandon sin look with me at verse 17
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- Paul begins by really continuing on right because that's how Paul operates Paul says therefore because of the things
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- I have just said of this I say and what are the things he just said well we've just gotten out of a huge huge treaties basically on what it looks like to be the church that we have been saved by the blood of Jesus Christ and that we have been given gifts right we have been given gifts to serve the body so salvation is given we are unified by the spirit in the body of Christ and we are given gifts to serve one another by the
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- Holy Spirit and built up by men gifts or the gifted men given namely shepherds and teachers or shepherd teachers as well as evangelists and we should therefore walk no longer because of that you will see as the
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- Gentiles do therefore because of everything I've just said that you've been saved unified and been given gifts and men gifts this
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- I say and testify in the Lord that you walk no longer just as the
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- Gentiles also walk now I want to pause here because I want you to see that this is no ordinary suggestion but this is in fact a command it's a command uh that carries with it not only apostolic authority but you see here he says
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- I testify in the Lord this word here that's used is the same word that we get our word martyr from but it carries with it the weight of a sworn witness in other words
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- Paul here is bearing witness in the Lord and in so doing is essentially communicating this idea it's as if when he says these words he's standing on holy ground it's as if Jesus is standing right next to him making this same plea children would you look at me
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- I want you to think about it like this have you ever been to or seen a a court where people are trying to figure out whether or not people who have committed crimes are guilty or whether they are innocent well there's usually someone standing right next to him and that person standing right next to him is what is called a lawyer it's someone who has this person who is being tried or standing in front of the judge it's it's it's someone who has his back and has his best interest in mind or you could think and so and so when he speaks it's as if the other person is speaking it's kind of like that it's kind of like that so we must take this command seriously just as the
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- Ephesian church took it seriously and what is the command the command is that we would walk no longer or the
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- Ephesian church and us by extension would walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk in other words
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- Paul is trying to get the Ephesian church and us by extension to understand that we must if we are to actually be
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- Christian if we are to actually be a member in the body to no longer no longer do what we used to do all of us for all of us fall short of the glory of God and for all of us were according to Ephesians chapter 2 dead in our transgressions and sins we were all unable to respond to spiritual stimuli and here the command is to abandon sin to abandon a former way of life to abandon those things in which we used to live to abandon the things that we used to love and cherish and to resolve to cut ties with our sinful nature and why is that but because of Christ we have a new one right we have a new one we have a new heart we have new desires and we have a new way of living life and it means cutting ourselves off from that old life and every bridge of return now before moving further it must be stated and we will state again more plainly the salvation is not a matter of self -improvement or even of perfection of what has previously existed and what i mean by that is when we are transformed by the holy spirit we are not just improved but we are made new we are all according to second corinthians chapter 5 new creations in Christ Jesus that means when the
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- Lord saves us we get a new mind a new will a new heart a new inheritance a new relationship new power new knowledge new wisdom new perception new understanding new righteousness new love new desires new citizenship and i could keep going it's all new
