Ephesians 4:17-20

I invite you to turn with me to Ephesians

chapter number four and verse number seventeen

.

We are moving to a new section today and

studying this next section is going to be

verses seventeen

to twenty-four and let's just begin by reading

that text. We won't get to all of it today,

but we'll get to some of it. Starting in verse

seventeen, the apostle Paul writes, "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, 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, 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 Christ in this way if indeed you have

heard

Him and have been taught in Him just as the

truth is in Jesus. That in reference to your

former manner of life, you lay aside the old

self which is being corrupted in accordance

with the

lust of deceit and that you be renewed in the

spirit of your mind and put on the new self

which

in the likeness of God has been created in

righteousness and holiness of the truth." Now,

I have concluded now at the age of 56 that it

appears that I will never, for the rest of my

life, get over the sheer amazement that I

still have to this day at the change that

regeneration

produced in my life. I still haven't gotten

over it. I still marvel at it. In fact, I

guess it's

primarily because of my past. It really is

hard for me to identify with anybody who is

not sure

as to whether or not they have been genuinely

regenerated. It's hard for me to identify with

a professing Christian who is like that. And I

'm not talking about those momentary lapses of

doubt that creep into your mind. "Boy, I did

that. Am I a Christian?" We all battle that

sometimes.

But even when you have those times, if you're

a Christian and you're truly regenerated, it

doesn't

take you long in prayer and forgiveness of sin

to get right back to the absolute certainty

that you

have experienced the most incredible, the most

significant thing that can ever happen to any

human being, which is to be drawn effectually

by the Father and have your dead spirit

regenerated

into spiritual life and have been granted the

gifts of repentance and faith and been saved.

There's nothing in all of the human experience

that comes close to that. And it's hard for me

to imagine that you would not be sure about

that, whether or not that has indeed happened

to you.

Because when you come to saving faith in

Christ, you become a totally different

individual.

That's exactly what happened to me. In fact,

think of this. The change that occurred in you

,

when you were regenerated and saved, is

actually more dramatic than the change that

will occur in

you when you die. You know why? Because you

already have right now your new nature,

Christian,

and right now the new you has already been rem

ade on the inside. And you're already in your

inner

man, and always as a caveat, inner man means

mankind, so that's you two ladies. Just always

feel

like I got to say that, but I don't, but I do.

You're already fitted for heaven, Christian.

Right

now you are all ready right now a citizen of

God's kingdom in your inner man. All that

death

does, physical death, is free up the new

nature that you have right now to enter into

the presence

of God in heaven, as I said earlier, not only

with no sin, but with a perfect righteousness.

The

righteousness of Jesus Christ cloaked in that

robe of His righteousness, so the greatest

change

has already happened to you when you were

saved. The only other thing we're waiting for,

along with

the saints who are in heaven right this moment

, are our glorified bodies, and that doesn't

happen

until Christ returns, and He has it yet,

because we're all still sitting in here, right

? Second

Corinthians chapter 5 verse 17, "Therefore, if

anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The

old

things have passed away, behold, new things

have come." So Paul, as you know, works very

hard in

all of his epistles to make this point. In his

epistles he talks a lot about new, a new will,

a new mind, a new heart, a new power, a new

knowledge, a new wisdom, a new understanding,

a

new life, a new inheritance, a new

relationship, a new righteousness, a new

desire, a new citizenship.

He uses all of those words to describe new. In

fact, it can all be summed up in the biblical

phrase, "newness of life." That's what we have

. And you really need to grasp the fact that

your

new nature is not an addition to your old

sinful nature, so now you're walking around

with two

natures. That is not the biblical view. This

is not a matter of addition to your old nature

. It is a

matter of transformation of your original

nature, sinful nature, transformation of that

nature in

totality to a whole new nature. And the first

question that comes to mind in the area of

theology is, "Well, if I have a totally new

nature, why do I still sin?" Right? That's a

fair

question right there, right? And here is where

we run into the nuance of the makeup of every

believer in the world while we live out our

lives in this world until our very last breath

. We're

going to talk about that today. So, listen

carefully. You're my every genuine believer,

your inner man, the inner you, has been

totally, completely transformed into a new

nature. And

listen carefully. One totally new nature but

comma. We live out our lives with this totally

new

nature on the inside, which always desires to

do what is pleasing and right before God. John

McArthur

helpfully illustrates here. We have this

totally new nature, but on the outside we're

walking around

with an old stinky coat. And that old stinky

coat is what the Bible calls our flesh, our

humanness.

Okay? Paul says in Romans chapter 7 verse 17,

interesting how he phrases it. "So now no

longer

am I the one doing it, sinning, but sin which

dwells in me." He says the same exact basic

thing in

verse 20. And he's not shifting blame there.

No, that's not what he means. He's meaning

this.

It's not the inner redeemed spiritually alive

me that is sinning or even desiring to sin.

It's not the new nature that sins. And it's

not the old nature because as a Christian

again,

you don't have an old nature. You don't have

two natures. You only got one. You got one new

nature encased in this stinking old coat of

flesh in which dwells no good thing. The Apost

le Paul

also says your new nature has to endure and

struggle and fight with that stinking old coat

of flesh that you have on you and the sin that

dwells in it until it goes to heaven to be

with the

Lord. That, folks, you got to understand it

this way. That is the struggle that God

Almighty has

ordained for every Christian to live in every

single moment of every single day in this life

.

Why? He does that, makes that struggle happen,

ordains that fight between flesh and spirit

as a means to conform us all to the image of

Christ from Romans. That's why he does it.

That's why I stand. It's just not easy street

when you become a Christian as the fake preach

ers

will tell you. Now, are y'all all with me so

far? Because it's critical for you to

understand how

this works in order for you to properly live

out your Christian life in a way that brings

glory

to God. In other words, we're not a remodel

job here. We're not just something to which

something was added. Okay? We don't, again,

say it a hundred times, we don't have two nat

ures.

We don't. Some people teach that. We have one

new nature, a new spiritually alive, inner

redeemed

eye, daily, constantly struggling and fighting

to put off, to lay aside, as Scripture says,

that stinking old coat of our flesh, our hum

anness. Now, Paul is going to attack this issue

starting

right here in verse 17 of Ephesians 4. This

verse, until the end of the book, Paul is

going to

tell us, give us some tips, if you will, on

how to get that stinking old coat off of us.

Okay?

Because getting that old coat off of you is

something you go through every day.

You don't just get it off and it stays off.

You keep putting it back on. You and I do that

. Okay?

We learned all about the new man in the first

three chapters and now we're going to learn

how the new man lives in the last three

chapters and we've been doing that since we

started chapter

four. Putting on the new man, putting off the

old external stinking coat of the flesh of the

old man

every day is the goal here. Just like Paul,

look at Romans 6, 13. He says it well right

here.

And do not go on presenting the members of

your body to sin as instruments of unrighteous

ness,

but present yourselves to God as those alive

from the dead and your members as instruments

of righteousness. That right there is how to

put on a new suit on the outside instead of

that old

stinking coat of flesh for the new man on the

inside, because that new man on the inside

always

wants to do what's right. Always. That's why

the Bible is loaded with their force,

because God desires us to behave in accordance

with who we are in Christ.

Now, when you are balanced in your theological

thinking, and I bring up the subject of living

in obedience to the Word of God, when you hear

that rightly and you hear that in a balanced

way,

legalism never comes into your mind. Ever.

Ever. What comes into your mind when I say

that is that

obedience to Christ and his commands in the

Scripture is only the natural and the right

response of a totally changed new nature. That

's what it is. It's not a burdensome thing.

It's a new desire that you never had before

you came to Christ. You look at the commands

of Christ

and you don't say, have to. That's not what it

is. It's that you want to. It's the difference

between you have to and you want to. I have to

go to my secular job. Okay? All right? I am

great

people, my family, you know? It's great. I

have to go there if I want to eat, right? But

I want to

come here on Sunday. I want to come here on

Wednesday night and pray with the saints.

There's nothing that could stop me from coming

here unless I get hit by a bus and I die. Okay

?

So let's get down into this text. I'm going to

show you some of this further. If we do,

I want you to remember now. Paul started out

this fourth chapter, remember, imploring us to

walk in

a manner worthy of the calling with which you

have been called. So we've been doing that for

16

verses, looking at what that looks like. We're

still getting examples starting here in verse

17 of what that looks like. So look at it.

Myth me there, verse 17. So this I say. Now in

other

translations, that's translated, this I say,

therefore, which puts greater emphasis on it,

and affirmed together with the Lord that you

no longer, that you walk no longer just as the

Gentiles

walk in the futility of their mind. So here

Paul is saying directly, walking worthy is a

different

walk. He's telling us that we are to live,

daily living, differently than the world lives

.

And this therefore moment, if you will, is in

response to all that he said in the first 16

previous verses. I'm going to go back all over

that. You can go back and listen to it if you

want to

on the internet. It says, if he is saying big

picture, big picture, hey, God has created

this amazing, unique entity in the world that

is known as the church, the church of Jesus

Christ.

And because of this unique creation with a

unique lifestyle that it has of humility,

with a unique unity that we see in no other

institution that has a unique love for others.

And it's led by uniquely gifted men because of

this miraculous creation that God has designed

in

the world, which has spawned all of the

wonderful things have come in grace down

through history,

hospitals and schools and all the things that

we know. Because of what God has done and you

are

in the church, this is how you are to walk as

a member of his church. This is how you're to

live.

And in principle number one of your Christian

walk that he's giving us here, he's saying,

don't walk like the rest of the world walks.

This Christian life is a uniquely different

life, very different from every other

lifestyle that exists on the face of the earth

.

You church are a unique group. You are not

only in the local church here, you are in the

church of

Jesus Christ in the world adopted by grace

into God's family. The world is proud and full

of pride,

but you are humble. The world is hateful, but

you understand and practice love according to

God's

definition of love, not the world's definition

of love and certainly not Hollywood's

definition of

what love is. And consider this, the world

doesn't know absolute truth. The world doesn't

even understand

the big picture reality of who we are and who

God really is and why it is we exist as a race

of human

beings or any any aspect really of the reality

of the whole spiritual dimension. They have no

understanding of that, but you do. Through the

Word of God, through his bringing you to

spiritual life,

through one of the roles of the Holy Spirit,

illuminating the Word of God to you. From God

as

we learned a few verses back, ordaining and

giving to the church gifted men to be able to

teach you

the Word of God. And what Paul is getting at

is because of all these things and more and

because

of God's design of your uniqueness in the

world, this is how you are to live. This is

how you are

to walk. You walk differently than how the

Gentiles walk. He says specifically here, look

at verse

17 and let's get into the term Gentiles for

just a second. First, it's used in the New

Testament,

very simply to speak of all people who are not

Jews. That's every ethnicity on earth that is

not

Jewish. That's pretty easy to understand,

right? That covers everybody, right? But

further than that,

it has a religious meaning. I want you to look

over at first Thessalonians chapter 5 and

verse,

I'm sorry, chapter 4 and verse number 5 for an

example of what I mean. And how we are to not

walk like it says here, not in lustful passion

like the Gentiles walk, who do not know God.

So on the one hand, Gentile in the Greek, eth

nos, from where we get our word ethnic, refers

to all

non-Jews in that ethnic sense. But also, as we

see here in this verse in 1 Thessalonians 4 or

5,

it speaks of a people notice who do not know

God. And so back to Ephesians 4, 17. Paul is

saying,

do not live your daily manner of life as

people who do not know God. You know God.

So don't live like people who don't. That's

what he's saying. Let me tell you, this was a

challenge

for believers in Paul's day because the lif

estyles of the Gentile pagans in the city of

Ephesus

were extreme and they were right in front of

them every single day. And so many of them had

come

from that life. And for the Ephesians, it was

really very similar in a lot of ways

to how we have a society here in America today

, albeit in a very different way. Because think

about it, for us, we are constantly inundated,

especially through all forms of social media

with everything that this fallen world has to

offer. All that you can imagine and that you

don't want to imagine is in the palm of your

hand every day. We've never had a society like

this.

You can get to present things and see things

and hear things and read things on that little

device

in your hand that no other culture in the

history of the world has had that kind of

thing ever.

And I mean, there are atrocious things that

you, if you want to dig and find, there are

absolutely the worst elements of humanity

inside your phone if you want to pull that up.

But let me tell you a little bit about Ephesus

and it's going to give you some parallels

to what we have. This, of course, is the city

of the church at Paul's writing here too, Eph

esians

written to the city, the church in Ephesus.

And it was a very evil city. So I'm saying the

most

evil city in Asia Minor at that time. And it

was also a pagan religious center or Mecca,

if you will. There were multiple temples in

this giant city. There were idols,

but everything really was primarily and most

focused on the temple of Diana,

also known as Artemis, same God, little G God.

And if you are sitting there when I say that,

and you're thinking about a statue of Diana

that looked like Princess Diana in a statue,

let me tell you, because it was a big black,

horrific looking thing that scholars debate

that this statue either had multiple breast or

multiple sacrificial bull testicles on its

chest.

They can't figure out which one of the things

that it was. If you go Google it, you'll see

why.

I won't go into all the details of why they

had the debate. But it supposedly fell out of

heaven

and the pagans worshiped it. The temple of

Diana was the seventh wonder of the world.

And it had an art museum. We were talking

about art in sunny school this morning. It had

an art

museum that was with few equals in the world

at that time. And it was also an asylum for

criminals

because one quarter mile around the outside of

the temple was like what we have now stupidly,

the sanctuary cities for illegals, but they

had a sanctuary city for any kind of criminal

one quarter mile around the temple. So and

they were safe in that zone. So you can

imagine the

crowd that was collected around that temple.

At the same time, interestingly, I found that

the

temple itself was a good place for a bank

because security was hard to come by in those

days. But

putting a bank in the middle of the temple was

a great idea because all the people would be

afraid

to go in there and rob it, lest the God come

down on their head. So they would have temples

into

banks and there was a lot of money in these

temples. And the pilgrims, they would come

from miles and

miles around and droves to go to these temples

for worship. And there's no other way to say

it.

What was happening in the worship were orgies,

massive, with hundreds of people at one time.

I mean, if you invent a pagan religion that's

based on sect, you don't have a problem with

membership numbers in the Gentile pagan world.

Everybody's ready to sign up. And it was also

big business because including all these

little idols that they would sell. And you

could bring

the little idol God home and you could put it

on your shelf and the necklaces and jewelry. I

mean,

there was a lot of commerce and buying and

selling happening. So Diana was a goddess of

fertility

and sex. And so the temple was packed with

priestesses and prostitutes and singers and

dancers. And let me tell you something. It got

as wild and as literally anything goes

as you can possibly imagine in your mind

inside this temple worship. And I won't go

into detail because this is a family show. So

you can just get the gist here. The music

worked people up literally into frenzies. And

I have no doubt there was demonic

possession going on in these deals. But they

would engage in mutilation and self-mutilation

.

That's a sign of demonic activity. Heraclitus

of old said about this, about this temple.

It was the darkness of vileness. The morals

were lower than animals. And the inhabitants

of

Ephesus were fit only to be drowned, he said.

So you got all that going on. And imagine the

little church in Ephesus. It was on its own

little island in the middle of this virtual

cesspool of immorality. That's why Paul is

preaching so hard to these Ephesians about

these issues that we're looking at. And that's

why Paul says in verse 17, "Hey,

you have got to be different from what's going

on around you. You can't walk like they walk.

You can't do like they do. Living this new

life is not easy. Nobody's telling you that it

's easy,

but it is necessary. As you are representing

the church of Jesus Christ in the world here

in the city of Ephesus." Peter says this in

first Peter chapter 4 and verse 3. He's kind

of getting

at the same thing. "For the time already

passed is sufficient for you to have carried

out the desires

of the Gentiles." In other words, you got

enough of that stuff in your past life. That

time is gone.

And then he goes on to name some of those

behaviors lest they had forgotten. And of

course they hadn't.

Our society in general today is hostile to god

liness, right? And Christ's likeness because

why? It is dominated by pride. It is dominated

by carnal ambition. It is dominated big time

by

selfishness and greed and lust and evil. Its

opinions are wrong. Its aims are selfish. Its

pleasures are sinful. Its influence is

destructive. Its politics are corrupt. Its

honors are empty.

Its smiles are bony. Its love is fickle, but

we are to be different in that in this society

.

We are not to have anything to do with living

like that. Notice how Paul phrases this in

verse 17.

"So this I say and affirm together with the

Lord." He's saying, look, I'm passing this

information on

straight from God. This is God's standard that

is coming straight from him. And Paul's, of

course,

all of his New Testament words were inspired

by the Holy Spirit, but he's just emphasizing

and reminding you, hey, this isn't in my

opinion here. This is coming, what I'm saying

here is

coming straight from God Almighty. And what we

're going to see in verses 17 to 24 is a

contrast

between the old walk and the new walk, between

the old man lifestyle and the new man

lifestyle.

And first we're going to look at four

characteristics of the old walk. And this

is how he's going to lay it out. And one of

the things I want you to notice as we go

through

these verses, and if you have your Bible open,

you can scan through and see this,

how many times we see references to how we are

to think. Not feeling, not emotion,

but the use of our mind. Just in this small

text, we see words like the mind, the

understanding,

learned, taught, and the point is, first and

foremost, you have to think differently

than the unbelieving world. As a man thinks,

though is he, right? When we think differently

,

we will act differently. Salvation, first of

all, is a change of mind. It's a new thinking

process.

It's a thinking that draws us to God that we

didn't have before. Consider right now

how you think differently about sin than you

used to think before you came to cry.

I'm telling you, boy, I sure do. I didn't give

a rip about sin in my teens and early 20s.

Somebody come tell me, "Bah, you sinning." So

what? I mean, I do what I want, right?

After salvation, we think very differently

about sin. We think very differently about

God. We think very differently about Jesus. We

certainly think very differently about

death and about life and about heaven. I mean,

really, when you just boil it all down,

we think differently about all of the very

most important things of life than we used to

think.

That's really at the heart of what the word

repentance means, to change your mind. And in

changing your mind, you change direction to

having a new thinking process. So believers

think one way

and unbelievers think another way. And next

here in our text, Paul is going to give us

four

elements of the thinking of unbelievers. And

you know this one well. We've looked at it

before.

Number one is self-centered thinking. Look

again, verse 17, that you walk no longer just

as the

Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind.

The futility of their mind. Again, the mind is

the

issue. Whatever you think, whatever you want

in life, that's what governs your behavior.

And that

thinking, I don't know if you've noticed

living it here on earth, in the natural man,

that natural way of thinking is always self-

centered. How am I going to get ahead?

How am I going to be number one? How am I

going to get what I want? The Greek word for

futility

here means that which is empty, useless, fut

ile, and vain. Maybe the best word for it is

probably

useless. The thinking of the unbeliever is

useless. You know why? Big picture. I'm

talking big picture

because the thinking of the unbeliever is

going nowhere. It's where it's going. It

accomplishes

nothing. It gains nothing. Not in the big

picture, most important realities of life. It

's going

nowhere. Their thinking is going. I don't care

what they're thinking about or how complicated

it is

because it is therefore useless if it's going

nowhere, right? Would you agree? Think about

what

people talk about in the unbelieving world on

your job or wherever you are Monday through

Saturday

when you're around people who are not

believers. What is their discussion about?

Well, just listen

to it carefully. It's all the worldly things

that are out there that are going to pass away

.

It's always discussions about things that have

no meaning or even going to have an existence

at all in the kingdom of heaven. I mean, just

think about it. And not even necessarily

simple

things. Think about it. People talk about

restaurants that they eat at and movies that

they've seen, sports, the weather. We talk a

lot about the weather. The list is very long

about these things. And I'm not saying that it

's wrong to talk about those things even as a

Christian,

but I'm saying that when that's all you're

talking about, when that's all you've got to

talk about,

that's useless. Is any of that going to play

any role in your existence in heaven?

Everything that we used to think about and

engage our minds in our thinking

in our old, unregenerate life, think about it.

It was all useless from the eternal

perspective.

This can kind of be summarized in that old

saying you've probably all heard. You've never

seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul. You ever heard

that saying? Well, and let me tell you that

normally

people say that because they're talking about

the money or stuff that a person has. So all

that stuff doesn't mean anything. If you're in

the hearse, you don't have a U-Haul behind a

hearse,

can't take that stuff with you after you're

dead. But let me tell you something. That not

only means

your stuff, but it's all the things that are

of no eternal value that can fit into that U-

Haul

that you're not going to take with you. And

that's a long list of things. Uselessness can

categorize

all those things in the big picture. Paul says

in Romans 8 verse 20, "For the whole creation

was

subject to futility." Same Greek word that can

be translated, uselessness. Let me ask you.

Is the stock market going to matter one bit

when you get to heaven?

How about your 401k? Is that going to matter

an inch? How about who wins the Super Bowl? Is

that

going to matter in heaven? Let me tell you,

listen carefully to me. Be balanced. There's

nothing wrong

with having stocks in 401k. In fact, you

should. The younger of us, we're probably not

going to be

any social security. So you better have a

retirement plan. If you want to live

comfortably and eat,

instead of dog food, real food, when you get

to be an elderly person, you should think

about those

things. Isn't that wrong with watching the

Super Bowl? I'm going to watch every minute of

it when

the game comes on. I always do. That's not

what I'm saying. What I'm saying is in the big

picture,

if those kinds of things are all you ever

think about in your little simple box of this

life

outside of Christ, then I'm telling you that

your thinking is futile. Your thinking is

useless.

In fact, people don't like to hear it, but I'm

going to tell you, you are living a useless

life.

You are living a wasted life because all of

those things are going to pass away

and going to be no more one day when we get to

heaven. They won't exist.

That is what Paul is meaning here in verse 17.

But the Gentiles also walk in the futility of

their mind. They walk in the useless things.

It's all they ever think about. For most

people,

most days are like Groundhog Day. Y'all

remember that movie with Bill Murray? And

every morning,

he got up and it was the same day that it was

yesterday, over and over.

Most people who are outside of Christ and have

no relationship with Christ,

they get up and they do the same thing every

day. Get up, eat breakfast, go to work, come

home,

pay, watch TV, rinse, repeat. Weekend comes,

same thing. Go out to eat, da-da-da. Same

stuff,

cut to grass. Once a year, if you're fortunate

, go to vacation to the Redneck Riviera,

come home sunburnt, then do it again next year

. Then do it again next year, over and over,

with absolutely never, ever any thought of the

eternal. And don't talk to him about death.

He won't want to talk about that. I love

talking about death. I can't wait to be in the

presence

of Christ without any sin. I'm ready for it

whenever he wants to take me. Let's go. I'm

ready. Okay?

That should be your thinking as a Christian.

Not that you're saying, "Hey, right now, let's

go."

You know, okay. No, you know what it is for me

? Whenever you want me to, whenever you want me

to,

whatever is your preference, if you want me to

live to be 95, let's do it. If you don't want

me to

make it down Hopper Road to Blackwater Road,

let's do it because it's what you want. That's

how I

look at death. That's how you should look at

death as a Christian. And so, no matter what

even success,

worldly success that you achieve, you might be

an Elon Musk mind and have billions and

billions

of dollars. If you are outside of Christ, that

's a useless life. Think about King Solomon,

richest, wisest of men, the man with the most

prestige of his time, the most money,

the most women. He had everything that his

heart desired and he summed the whole deal up.

After having everything that he could possibly

want at the touch of his fingers,

he said, "Vanity, vanity, all is vanity." None

of that means anything to me, big picture.

Shakespeare said this, "Life is full of sound

and fury, signifying nothing."

That's an unregenerate perspective. The best

that man can do is temporarily entertain

himself

with his toys. And those toys aren't going to

mean anything when King Jesus comes back

to saying straight, big picture. They're all

temporary pleasures and they're all going to

come

to an end. When you sum it all up with the

thinking of the lives of all who reject the

Lord Jesus

Christ, again, their thinking is empty. It's

useless. It's going nowhere and it produces

absolutely nothing that has any real

significant eternal value. In fact, Jesus said

, "Apart from

me, you can do what? Nothing. I don't care how

philanthropic you are. I don't care how many

children homes you bring. If you don't do it

for the glory of God in Christ with that

motivation,

it's all going to burn up one day." Now, the

second thing here that characterizes a Gentile

pagan

lifestyle and the old man is, they are

ignorant of the truth. Not only are they self-

centered and

useless. Look at verse 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." Now,

today, people take being called ignorant as an

insult, of course. I mean, somebody walks up

to

me and you're ignorant. You're going to take

it as an insult. But no society in the history

of mankind

has been more educated than we have. I mean,

we are filled with college graduates. And it's

like

kind of Sonny told Michael and the Godfather,

"Oh, would you go to college? You get stupid

if you

remember that part." And we got a lot of those

. But as the apostle said this, "They are ever

learning

but never able to come to the knowledge of the

truth." I don't care how much chemistry and

biomechanics that they know, all people have a

natural inability to understand the things of

God.

Natural man receives not the things of the

Spirit of God, but they are foolishness unto

him. Now,

as I said, they may acquire a whole lot of

worldly knowledge, a whole lot of stuff.

But in the things that count the most in the

human experience, no matter how much worldly

knowledge they have, big picture again, they

have a useless mind that cannot grasp absolute

truth.

Can't get it. Think it's stupid. Think it's

foolish. Think it's fairy tale. Look again at

verse 18,

being darkened in their understanding.

Literally means to make blind is what that

means. They are blind in their understanding.

Look next, excluded from the life of God.

Other

translations say alienated from the life of

God. Let me tell you, if you are alienated

from God,

you can't know the truth. Not if you're alien

ated from God, you are dead to God. You are

literally

the walking spiritually dead is what you are.

And if you are excluded from the life of God,

then there's no life of God in you. Look next

in verse 18, because of the ignorance that is

in them because of the hardness of their heart

. And that reminds me of what Paul says in

Romans

chapter 1, verses 21 and 22. "For even though

they knew God, they did not honor him as God,

or give thanks, but they became futile in the

speculations, and their foolish heart

was darkened." Same word, professing

themselves to be wise, they became fools. And

then he goes into,

"And God gave them over, and God gave them

over, and God gave them over." If you read the

rest of

that text in Romans 1, in other words, they

chose the way that they wanted to go. And then

God

confirmed them in their choice. "And then

every time that the pagan man acts against God

, every time

he takes another step of willful rejection of

God, another step of willful rejection of God

."

You know what he does? He pours more concrete

into the hardening of his heart. And as he

goes

through life, the heart gets harder and harder

, and he feels less and less guilt about the

things

that he's doing. And he feels less and less

remorse all the way to the point that they

become,

as it says in 1 Timothy chapter 4, verse 2,

all the way to the point of being seared

in their own conscious as with a branding ire.

And that's how verse 18 in our text in,

"Because of the hardness of their heart." You

think of serial killers who have no guilt

whatsoever.

It's slaughtering people. The demonic I am

certain is involved, but it's also the contin

ual

hardening of a heart that feels no remorse at

the pain it's inflicting. Now, there's a third

thing.

Look at verse 19. It starts out, "And they

have become callous." And when they get to

this point

in this progression, they have become

shameless. Callous here means you have become

numb and

desensitized to sin. The King James says, "Who

being past feeling?" They just don't feel

anymore.

They're completely apathetic. They're

completely insensitive. They don't care. They

have no standards.

They don't care what the consequences of their

behavior is. And they don't care and don't

mind

shocking people with their behavior. Have you

noticed any of that in our society today?

You don't have to look too hard. Shamelessness

. They can't be shamed. No matter what they do,

that's a terrible place for a person to be in

their life. And that leads us to our last

point.

A reprobate mind. Look next in verse 19. "H

aving given themselves over to sensuality for

the

practice of every kind of impurity with greed

iness." Shameless thinking leads to shameless

action.

First of all, you center on yourself as we go

through this progression. And then in that

useless,

purposeless existence without God, you turn

God off. Then that hardening of heart process

begins.

And that gets worse and worse until you point

that you have no sense of shame. And you will

do

anything you can get away with. That's how I

used to live. Anything I can get away with.

Let's go.

And after that point, praise God, He saved me

from this. God turns you over to a reprobate

mind.

Look again at verse 19. "They have given

themselves over." God does this, but they do

this too,

to sensuality for the practice of every kind

of impurity with greediness. In other words,

they can't get at it fast enough. They are

greedy to do evil. A reprobate mind, which we

also learn

about very well in Romans 1, folks, it's a

mind that is no mind. It's a mind that doesn't

think

straight. Do we not see that in our society

today? People that don't think straight?

And you can't even begin to understand how can

they think like that? How can they vote like

that?

People who think a man can change his gender

into being a woman? Those are people who have

reprobate

minds. People who think that the deviant

sexual preference of homosexuality is equal to

an identity

like an ethnicity. They have reprobate minds.

Homosexuality is not an identity like a people

group. It's a sexual deviancy that is an ab

omination to God. Our culture has millions of

these kinds

of people. And it's interesting in the Mac

Arthur study Bible that says this, that some

souls

may not reach the extremes of these verses, 17

through 19, is due only to God's common grace

and the restraining influence of his spirit.

In other words, not every person gets to this

extreme that we're talking about. But listen,

Paul here in this church at Ephesus is wanting

to

demonstrate the extreme because of the extreme

that was happening right in front of these

people

on display in Ephesus. And it's been happening

in world history ever since to different

degrees.

And we certainly have it in our world today.

And he's saying what part should the church of

Jesus

Christ ever have in listening to anything that

those people have to say? The previous

presidential

administration glorified for the whole four

years the thinking of reprobate minds. Don't

ever forget

that they had transgender visibility day on

Easter Sunday with she-men running all around

the White

House law. And some would fake breasts with

their shirts off and they paraded it on TV for

everybody

in order blasphemy with the rainbow flag

flying high. No shame those people had past

feeling.

And what I'm saying is what part should we as

the church ever play in accommodating that

in our society? We should call it out. We

should call it out for what it is. Now lastly,

Yonah got me worked up. Look at verse 20. Paul

turns to the church after saying these things,

but you did not learn Christ in this way. What

part do you have in all?

Put that old man off daily. Look at verse 22.

That in reference to your former manner of

life,

you lay aside the old self. Look at verse 24

and put on the new self which is in the liken

ess of

God as be created in righteousness and

holiness of the truth. Paul's point is this,

you are

different. You are to think differently. You

are to act differently. That is not our life

anymore.

So don't act anything like that. That's what

he's getting at here in this text. Now in the

second

half of this text, putting off the old, he's

going to turn and give us a little bit about

putting on the new. Get that old coat off and

putting on the new suit. But we'll get to that

next time. Let's pray. By the way, thank you

Lord. We read these and I'm sure if somebody

came in

here who was not familiar with Christianity,

they would most likely be horrified by hearing

all this

and rightly so because they don't think

straight. They haven't been given the illum

ination of the

Holy Spirit. They can't think straight. They

have no ability to do so, but God be praised.

These are words of life to us. We as

Christians hear these words and say, "Yes Lord

, amen. That's

right. That's the truth. I want to live that

way in order to bring you glory." How we

should be.

More thankful than anything we're thankful for

. For the reality of this amazing miracle of

regeneration

that causes us to think this new way that we

never thought before. We give you all the

honor and

the praise and the glory for it. In Jesus'

name we pray, amen.