Sunday, July 14, 2024 Summer Session 7

Learning Christ Through the Word

How these verses hang together as a complete thought, but when we read in verses 20 and 21 about learning Christ, what does that mean? What could you tell that that means from those two verses? What stood out to you?

Pick up on the characteristics of learning Christ. Yes, we know learning is a process. We know that there is some work involved. What kind of work do we have given to us in verse 21? What kind of work is listed for us?

Hearing.

Did you know that it is hard work to pay attention? It's hard work to pay attention, to stay engaged, to be thoughtful about what we're hearing. Not simply switch off or get distracted. Hearing is hard work.

It's labor, but it's how we learn. Yes, and there's a sense of Christ's proximity in verse 21. We're going to talk more about that in a little bit. In verses 22 through 24, getting at the difference, having so learned Christ, there is a difference.

What is the difference between, what are the differences between the old man and the new.

Man?

What kind of contrasts does Paul use in verses 22 through 24, profiling the old man, profiling.

The new man?

Yes. I think there was an intentional use of that word, huh?

Yeah.

As stands out, the old man and the new man, we have a contrast there in those two terms, but what's the difference between them both, other than, so there's the corruption in the old man. There's a renewal in the new man.

Okay.

Does anybody see the terms deceitful and the term true? Do you see that? The old man operates by deceit, deceived and deceiving and being deceived, right? The old man versus something that is true. As you learn in Christ and truth is in Jesus, obviously, truth is going to be what changes.

You.

So, there's a contrast between the former self and then the man who is created. There's a contrast between the corruption in the old man and the holiness in the new man, a corruption between deceitful and true, a contrast between lust and righteousness.

Old man, new man, old man, new man, old man, new man. And so, notice that Paul puts it all down to learning Christ, to learning Christ. He doesn't put it down to keeping the law. He doesn't keep it down to some sort of secret system.

He makes it about learning Christ. So, how do we learn Christ? Now, the text itself may not give us a lot of pointers, but sometimes, just look around in the surrounding context in Ephesians and then grab for what you know in the Word of.

God.

Learning Christ in the Church

But, how do we learn Christ? Where do we learn Christ? What does that even look like?

Yes?

The daily thing. Jesus reminds us that he only ever calls us to live a day at a time. Even in the description of his calling, I will come, follow me, it's a daily idea. I will make you fishers of men.

Well, they were fishing just about every day, so what Jesus was saying was a daily type of following, wasn't it? So that's what it looks like. It looks daily. That's one thing that it looks like. What else do we know about learning Christ?

How do we learn Christ? What does it look like? Where does it happen?

Together.

It's not an individual improvement approach. In the context of Ephesians, I want to have you glance at a couple of things. First of all, in chapter 2, verses 17 through 22, I think we see something that begins to direct our attention to how we learn Christ.

So notice, in verse 17, speaking of Jesus Christ, he came and preached peace to you who were far off and to those who were near. So Christ came and he preached. He came preaching the gospel. He came preaching what it means to be reconciled unto God.

And how did he preach? Have you not read? Have you not heard? He takes up the word of God and declares it. He preaches it in light of who he is and what he has come to do. And he's the cornerstone of our faith.

He came and preached peace to those who were far off and to those who were near, because both the Gentiles and the Jews needed to be reconciled unto God. Verse 18, for through him we both have access by one spirit to the Father.

And notice how it continues, verse 19, now therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. Because of who Jesus is, because of what he has done, considering his message of the kingdom, his gospel of the kingdom, the Gentiles who are in Christ should no longer consider them selves strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.

Having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. What is the chief ministry of the apostles and the prophets? It's not miracle working.

What is it? Teaching, preaching. Apostles those sent out with a message, prophets those burdened with a message. The teaching and preaching of the apostles and the prophets are the foundation upon which we are built, being built up into Christ, Christ himself being the cornerstone.

And so Paul picks up on this information, this idea, in chapter 4 when he begins to talk about who Christ gives to the church. Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, preachers and teachers, right?

What they all have in common, I mean, what about the deacons? Deacons are important. Yes, they are. Why are they not mentioned? Because their primary mission is not the preaching and teaching of the word.

They're still important, still vital for the church. But the emphasis here in chapter 4 is on how do we grow up into the maturity of Christ, the full stature of Christ. And we looked at that together in verses 11 through 13 in Ephesians 4.

So the emphasis once again is on the preaching and the teaching of the word. How is it that we are brought up into maturity into Christ? Verse 11 of chapter 4, and he himself gave some to the apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.

What's the whole goal? Till we all come to the unity of the faith, in other words, what? And of the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

So when he went down here in verse 20, when there's like the shorthand learning Christ, and how do we learn Christ? He's already said how we learn Christ. It's through the preaching and the teaching of the word, the building up of the body into the full measure of who Christ is.

That's how that occurs. To only emphasize this, we have the metaphor of marriage in Ephesians chapter 5, where Christ washes his bride with the water of his word. Not with his sacraments. Not with his servants.

Not with his miracles. But with his word. Is how the church is edified. How the church is sanctified. How the church is brought up into something more beautiful than what she once was. So that's how we learn Christ.

The Inner and Outer Life in Ephesians 4

And the emphasis is still here in Paul, what Jesus had in his teaching and preaching ministry. There was such a focus on what happened on the outside. For the scribes, the Pharisees, the leaders of that second temple Judaism in that day, why don't you wash your hands?

Why don't you publicly fast? Why don't you pray the way we pray? Why aren't you giving alms to the temple? So all this external focus. Why are you not tithing your dill and your mint and your cumin? Why aren't you walking around with phylacteries, boxes filled with little scraps of scripture tied to your head and to your hand?

Why are you not doing all these external things? And Jesus would time and again put the attention upon the heart. And he reminded the Samaritan woman, the Samaritan adulteress woman, how more unclean can you get by the way?

A Samaritan adulteress. And she was unclean by her own city standards, and they were Samaritans. And he says, it's not about going up that mountain or another mountain, it's about worshipping God in spirit and in truth.

So there's this emphasis on the inner life and how that has an impact on the outward.

Behavior.

Jesus is concerned about outward behavior. He is, but not exclusively. And he identifies that the problem lies within the heart. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. So it is what's on the inside of the man that defiles him.

So he points that direction. And Paul is doing the same, identifying that the problem that needs to be solved is not externals but the internals. That doesn't mean that we then take up the ideas of Greek thought and then say, it doesn't matter what's on the outside, and it doesn't matter what's in the world around us.

And it's just a spiritual journey of Jesus and me. And I can't wait till I get rid of this body and I can go be a floating spirit somewhere. Now, that is a Greek gospel, but that's not a Christian gospel.

Our hope is in the resurrection, the resurrection of the body. And that was foolishness to the Greeks, a stumbling block to the Jews. But our hope is in the resurrection of the body, fully glorified. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

And that is a wonderful stopping off point until we get to where we're headed. So keep in mind the ultimate goal, the ultimate hope that is given to us. So there is an emphasis here about holiness, about godliness, that is twofold.

It's not simply the inner man, but there's also an outer man focus. Notice that in verse 22, that you put off concerning your former conduct, the old man, which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.

There's something about conduct, which is external, that has to do with deceitful lusts, which is internal. Verse 23, be renewed in the spirit of your mind, that's internal, and that you put on the new man, which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness, which cannot be quarantined to the inner man, because righteousness and holiness is obvious.

There's evidence for that. So there's a both and here. There's an emphasis on the inner man, as Jesus rightly put it, however, both are involved. And that is a Christian conviction. So when we're thinking about this passage in light of the larger context of Ephesians four, our whole goal here is to talk about who makes for unity in the church, what makes for unity in the church.

We find this call to unity in verses one through six of chapter four, a sevenfold exhortation followed by a sevenfold confession of our oneness in Christ. But this is followed up very quickly with a discussion about maturity.

The idea of our unity is not one in which is static, the unity of a stone, but the unity of a living, growing, acting body, a dynamic type of unity in which the various members are not the same. Various ways of serving, various giftings, and even though we're different from one another, we're all unified.

And the only way to understand how that works is by growing up a little bit. Understanding the nature of Christ's gift and then how we are to be ministering to one another according to the grace of Christ, to be all growing up together, not into the vision of the hand or the vision of the nose or the vision of the knee, but into the measure who is Christ, the whole man, or being unified and built up into him.

Thus, Christ calls us to renewal. Now verses 17 through 19 shows us what we must move away from because this is only going to lead to division. We need to repent from the old ways, expose what is foul.

And then here in verses 20 through 24, we are encouraged to essentially naturalize faithfulness. Now notice how Paul expresses this, but you have not so learned Christ, so what is he contrasting with, verses 18 and 19, which is the details of this heading, the futility of their mind, the way that the Gentiles walk, the way that those who are cut off from God walk in the futility of their mind.

And what does that look like? Verses 18 through 19 give us a pretty thorough picture of what it looks like to be alienated from the life of God and to be enslaved in sin, but there's a contrast to that.

But you have not so learned Christ. Things are very different for you, Paul is saying. He says you may be Gentiles, but you're not Gentiles, that's what he's saying. You may have all of these cultural affinities and ways of thinking and doing that were once true of you, but you have absolutely no obligation to that and no loyalty to that at all.

You're learning Christ. You're not learning a better version of being a Gentile, you're learning Christ. To apply that in a global sense, as Christ has been building his church now for 2 ,000 years, is we're not in the business of becoming better versions of our culture, we're learning Christ.

So, our brothers and sisters in South Korea, one of which who we were encouraged about, who went to South America and preached in Spanish to natives deep in the jungle and so on and so forth, you know, this South Korean does not come to Christ and go to South America and preach to natives because he's trying to become a better South Korean.

No, he's learning Christ. And we're not Christians trying to become better Americans, we're learning Christ. So whatever the ways are in which people walk, we have no obligation to it, no loyalty to it, we are learning Christ.

And wherever we find our brothers and sisters throughout the whole world, what we find is the best version of humanity as we're growing into the very stature of what humanity is, the image of the invisible God, Jesus Christ himself, which is why Christians always make the best citizens no matter where they're at.

But it's not about being of a particular culture, it's about being of Christ. Now, if we have indeed heard him and been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus. Now notice, there is no preposition about, it's not indeed you have heard about him and have been taught about him, do you see that?

It says, if indeed you have heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in.

Jesus.

Christ, Truth, and the New Man

Now these Gentiles living in Ephesus, they were not walking with Jesus through Galilee and Judea in his three and a half year ministry. They weren't there by the sea of Galilee. They weren't there with him on the road into Jerusalem.

But somehow they have heard Christ, notice the directness of it, and they have been taught by Christ, notice the directness of it. How are we to understand that? Paul has a similar turn of phrase, a similar idea in Galatians when he says, before your eyes Christ was publicly crucified.

How is that? How is it that Christ directly taught these Ephesians? How are we to understand that? We're not moving away from what we've already observed, have we? About the word of God, about the scriptures.

How is it that we learn Christ? How is it that we grow in Christ? We're not saying anything different, are we? That Jesus Christ is alive, he has risen from the dead, he has ascended to the right hand of the Father, and he has sent forth his Holy Spirit, and all the scripture is breathed out by God, profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be adequately equipped for every good work.

This is God breathed, and it is given, it is applied to us directly by the Spirit in the authority of Jesus Christ. I am not to open the Bible and say, as a secularist, as somebody with a hermeneutic of suspicion, well it seems to me that one possible reading is this, right?

How cold! No, this is the very word of God, holy men born along by the Holy Spirit brings to us what the Father says of the Son, Jesus Christ is our shepherd, he feeds us, he nourishes us, he teaches us, he leads us, so I can say that I am hearing from my Savior Jesus Christ by his Spirit when I read his word.

Yes, yes. Communion with Jesus Christ, what a comfort for Christians, what a comfort we are given time and again that we are in communion with Jesus Christ, and that he is teaching us, he is nourishing us, he is leading us.

And so, Paul is saying this of these Gentiles in Ephesus, that you have learned Christ, you have heard him, you have been taught by him, and the truth is in Jesus. I love that, when we think about that truth is in Jesus Christ.

We are given that very idea in John chapter 1, in John chapter 1, the first few verses, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God.

All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made, and him was life, and the life was the light of men. The idea there is, if you are in the light, you are in life, and if you are in the darkness, then you are in death.

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it, or in other words, overcome it. In verse 9 of John chapter 1, we read that Jesus Christ was the true light, which gives light to every man coming into the world.

How do we understand that? Just this, we don't understand who anyone is, except in the light of Jesus Christ. It's not that every single man who was born into the world is born again, we know that's not true.

It's not that every single man that comes into the world has perfect understanding and lives and is enlightened, that's not what it means. But Jesus Christ is, in him is life, and that life is the light of men, and he gives light to every man coming into the world, meaning he's shining his light on everybody.

He's the king, he's the judge, he's the authority, and any man's assessment of who he is must be done so in the light of Jesus Christ. Verses 17 and 18 says, for the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

No one has seen God at any time, the only begotten Son who was in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him. Truth is in Jesus Christ. This is another encouragement that if we're going to read the scriptures and try to understand who God is, that we must do so in the light of who Jesus Christ is.

Do we want to know what humans are, what a human being is supposed to be? Do we want to understand what marriage is? Do we want to understand what a nation is? Do we want to understand how to live? Do we want to understand anything about who God is?

We know where truth is, don't we? Truth is in Jesus Christ. We've got to see things in the light of who he is, what he says, what he has done. This is a hermeneutic not just for reading the Bible, but for living all of life.

Putting Off the Old Man and Putting On the New

Now, in connection to this, because truth is in Jesus, verse 22, that, notice, that you put off concerning your former conduct, the old man, which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts. Now this term, this word that is picking up on something back from verse 17.

This I say therefore, based on what he's already said in verses 1 through 16 about our unity and our maturity in Christ, this I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk.

Now that's item one, and here's item two. That you put off, not only no longer walk, but completely shed and put off concerning your former conduct, the old man, which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.

But this, again, repentance is always twofold. It is not simply a turning away from, but it is a turning unto. It's not just getting rid of a few things, but it is turning away from and turning unto, and so, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind.

This is picking up on the idea of learning Christ, turning unto Christ. And that you put on the new man, which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. This idea of creation, we hear throughout the New Testament about, old things have passed away, behold, new things are come, that we are new creations in Christ, sometimes translated new creatures in Christ, but the words were new creations in Christ.

We have the idea here of being renewed in the spirit of your mind. A Greek word, which literally, when taken apart, means born again. Born again, that sounds familiar. That you are regenerated in the spirit of your mind, new life from within, a whole new inner man.

This is the focus. So, we are to put on the new man to naturalize faithfulness. In other words, be who you are. Live the life that you've been given. When somebody leaves one country, and their set of laws, and their cultures, their customs, their language, and they go to a new country, you have a few options, right?

You can just stay true to the old ways, and carve out your own little place in a city with others who are just going to speak the old language, keep the old customs, do everything the old way. You might find a middle way of trying to combine the two cultures together, and having a new kind of mix between them.

Or you could simply just naturalize all the way. This is my new language, this is my new laws, my new customs, my new culture, all the way. Completely transform. The encouragement here is to go all the way.

Learn Christ. Don't mix Christ. Don't hold on to the things of the old, but put them completely off. Don't need that language anymore. Don't need those customs anymore. Don't need that culture anymore.

Leave it all behind. Because we're learning Christ, and this is no small thing. Truth itself is in Jesus Christ. This is a whole new creation. It's like a whole new life. We are born again. Now, question.

Why is Paul talking about this in a cascade of logic that begins with the declaration.

Of unity?

What's the connection? The problems of Ephesus, Thessalonica, Corinth are not unique. They are the problems of sin. Same problems that we have today. When we leave off the old man, whatever that is, when we put away what we have, we're all of that which was former, and we all together adopt completely the new language, the new culture, the new ways, so on and so forth.

You know what happens? That's called unity. We're not learning different systems. We're not adhering to different laws. We are learning Christ together. That's why Paul is talking about that in this chain of logic about unity.

If we're all learning Christ together, then we're going to be drawn together, and we're going to see that happen, and we're going to see the maturity that works out when Christ is truly who we're unifying around.

Something to consider. Who's at the right hand of the Father? Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and he is ascended to the right hand of the Father. Therefore, he's the reason why we gather.

He's the reason why we love each other. He's the motivation, the content of how we minister to one another. If it's something else, if we have a different motivation, if we have a different agenda, if we have a different passion, if we have a different type of veneration for something else or someone else, and that's why we come, and that's why we gather, and that's why we talk to other Christians, because we're passionate about this other thing other than Jesus Christ, then we are stating that that system or that theme or that person should be at the right hand of the Father.

And we ought not do that. But if Christ is the right hand of the Father, and he's our motive, and he's our passion, and he's who we worship and delight in, the result will always be unity. All right, let's close with a word of prayer.

Unity in Christ and Closing Prayer

Father, I thank you so much for the time you've given to us. I pray that you would help us to rejoice in your Son. We know that you are well pleased in your Son, Jesus Christ. Help us to be as well, well pleased in your Son, Jesus Christ, so that we would be unified in him as we learn him, and as you transform us in godliness, conforming us to the image of your Son.

We pray these things in his name.

Amen.