SERMON OUTLINE

Careful Living in 2010 (Ephesians 5.15)

The Aimless Life of the Unbeliever Ephesians 4.17

So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live (walk) as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.

Ephesians 4.17

Introduction

> Be very careful how you live/walk in 2010 Ephesians 5.15

> A new life in Christ requires a new walk in the Spirit

> 8 uses of walk in Ephesians; review 2.2,19; 4.1

Ephesians 4.17

> Ephesians 2.1-3, the influences that once controlled us

-the ways of the world

-the rule of the Devil

-the cravings of the flesh

-under the wrath of God

> Ephesians 4.17-19, the inner corruption of sin

-v17, a general description,  futility of their thinking

-v18, the cause of the futility, hardness of heart

which produces ignorance and darkened

understanding and separation from God.

-v19, the consequences, immorality and godlessness

> Ephesians 4.17, thinking/mind means how they view

and assess life, which then leads to the choices made

–futility means empty, not leading to the goal,

aimless, lacking direction. All we like sheep have

gone astray.

The world and the sinner live aimlessly

> Origin of the world and mankind

> Means to happiness and fulfillment

> Views of God and way to heaven

> World problems and cultural advancement

Conclusion

> Being face to face with Jesus Christ will bring absolute clarity about our past thinking.

> You can know the mind and will of God today and have it direct your thinking. You will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom. 2 Peter 1.10-11

SERMON NOTES

Careful Living in 2010 (2) (Ephesians 5.15)

The Aimless Life of the Unbeliever Ephesians 4.17-24

-I want to challenge you from Ephesians 5.15 to be very careful how you live, literally walk, in 2010. Your walk is the understanding, the motives, the attitudes, the choices, and the actions that make up your day in the presence of God. God wants to change your daily walk so that you walk in Jesus Christ and in the Spirit this year. God wants your understanding, motives, attitudes, choices and actions to be in line with His Will and His Word. God has called you to partake in the walk He has designed for you in Jesus Christ. Let me remind you again of the statement in 2.10, “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to walk in them”. God has given you and me a new life in Christ and called you and me to a new walk in Christ. So let’s learn more on how to participate with God in this new walk in Christ in 2010.

-We find 8 references to “walk” in the letter to the Ephesians. Last time we looked at three of them. Ephesians 2.2, tells us “the way we used to walk”. We will review this again this morning. It is important to our present walk to understand how we walked before we came to Christ. Then in 2.10 we learn about the walk that God has prepared for us to walk in. This is the way God is teaching us to walk now through His Word. Then in 4.1, we read of Paul’s urgent call “to walk in a way that is worthy of God’s call” upon our life. God calls each one of us to partake in the walk He has designed for us in Christ. We all have a long way to go, and a lot to understand and to discern in our new walk. Today I want to draw your attention to 4.17f where God tells us how we are to walk this worthy walk, this walk that God has prepared for us to walk in, in Christ Jesus.

-Before Paul teaches us how to walk the new walk in Jesus Christ he explains to us once again how we used to walk before God called us to a new life in Christ. Paul has already described how we used to walk in 2.1-3. There Paul described our past walk in terms of the influences that had control over us while we were dead in our sins. In 4.17-19 Paul describes our past walk in terms of the nature we had as sinners. We were futile in our thinking, our understanding was darkened, we lived in ignorance, we were separated from God, and our hearts were hard like rock. We need to study these verses very carefully to know how sin has ruined mankind, and how far from God we were when God called us. Paul tells us where we came from so we can appreciate God’s Grace and differentiate the new walk in Christ from the walk we used to have as sinners.

-Let me remind you from Ephesians 2.1-3 of the influences that controlled us before God saved us. 1) We walked in the ways of the world. We thought about God and sin and heaven from the world’s perspective and not from the Bible’s truth. We were full participants in the world’s organized anti-God system which is under the Devil’s rule. We adopted the world’s lifestyles and trends and entertainments. If you are a Christian God has delivered you from this present evil world (Galatians 1.4). Sadly we still allow the world to persuasively influence our daily walk and we do not even notice how persuasive the influence of the world upon us really is.

2) We walked under the ruler of this world. We were in the Devil’s kingdom and we belonged to the Devil. Praise God that “He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son, He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1.13-14). Remember that you once were in the clutches of evil with no hope of being rescued. Then God came and gave His life as a ransom for you. Remember that there are still some very nice people in your family and in your neighborhood who are in the clutches of the evil one and need to hear about God’s ransom in Jesus Christ.

3) We formerly walked to gratify the physical, emotional and mental cravings of our flesh. Before we came to Christ we were spiritually dead in our sins. We lived for ourselves and to satisfy our cravings, some immoral and perhaps even unlawful, and some respectable and even commended by society, but all self-serving and self-gratifying. God calls all attitudes and actions done apart from the work of the Spirit in Jesus Christ, works of the flesh. Thank God that He had made you spiritually alive in Christ and given you His Spirit and now you walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh. Sadly we are still too much flesh oriented as Christians.

4) Finally we walked under the wrath of God. Before God came and saved you, you were destined for Hell. Now you are destined for heaven and have the Holy Spirit as the deposit that guarantees your eternal inheritance. That is worth getting excited about. All that God has done for us and in us is worthy of changing the way we walk and live each and every day.

-These are the influences that once controlled us when we were dead in sins. These are the influences from which God has rescued us.

-In 4.17-19 Paul focuses on the inner corruption from which God has rescued us. We see in these verses, more clearly than anywhere else in the Bible, the inner life of the sinner and why the sinner needs the work of God’s Spirit in his life to save him.

-Being reminded of our past sinful condition and of the condition that many unbelievers continue to live in, gives those of us who are truly changed by the grace and power of God a greater appreciation of our salvation. A superficial view of sin leads to a superficial view of salvation. Seeing our past walk in sin helps us to know where to rightly concentrate our efforts in our new walk in Christ. Seeing the nature of the sinner also helps us to understand how deeply lost and in need of Christ sinners really are.

-Let me give you an outline of verses 17 to 19. In verse 17 Paul makes it clear that we are no longer to live as we did in the past because God has changed us in Christ by the Holy Spirit. Before Paul describes the new life in Christ, he describes the condition we were in as sinners and in his description shows the impossibility of anyone coming to Christ apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. Only the power and the grace of God can work in such a dark condition.

-At the end of verse 17 we have a general description of the life of the unbeliever. They walk in “the futility of their thinking”. We will look at this statement today.

-Then in verse 18 Paul describes, the cause of this futility. The root cause is a hardened heart. A hardened heart produces ignorance, and this ignorance in turn produces darkened understanding and separation from the life of God. Verse 18 is a key verse in understanding mankind’s separation from God and mankind’s need of spiritual life by the power of God.

-Then in verse 19 we have the consequences of this futility, the immorality and godless behavior that we find in sinners and in our society today.

-The Bible’s general description of those who live apart from Christ is that they walk “in the futility of their thinking”. When Paul speaks of the thinking or the mind of those who do not know God, he is not talking about their intelligence or ability to reason. That is what he is talking about in verse 18 when he says they are darkened in their understanding, but not here. Here Paul means how they view life, how they evaluate life, how they assess what they are doing, their outlook on life, which then directs their choices and how they live their life.

-The thinking of the unbelieving sinner is futile. Futile means empty, a course of action which does not lead to the goal. Futile means aimless, pointless, lacking direction, not bringing you to any goal. Futile is getting on a city bus in the morning, riding around and around the bus route all day long, then getting off the bus in the evening and thinking you have gone somewhere. In reality you have reached no goal, no destination, and have accomplished nothing. It has been a pointless, aimless journey, an exercise in futility.

-To put this in Biblical terms, “All of us like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way.” As sinners we were walking through life in futility and emptiness. That Paul says is a general description of the sinner who does not have new life in Christ. Paul will describe why the sinner is futile in their thinking in verse 18.

-The way the world evaluates and perceives life does not lead to God’s goals and does not fulfill God’s purposes. Therefore those in the world live an aimless life. The world’s thinking and pursuits lack direction and value. The ways of the world are futile and empty in terms of God’s thinking.

-What Paul is teaching us is that the sinner who lives without the Lordship of Christ Jesus over his life from God’s perspective lives a wasted life. The unbeliever may accomplish many things, be involved in many good programs and causes, help many people, reach many personal milestones, but apart from Christ all that is done is aimless, pointless and empty.

–The world we live in is futile in its thinking. Its views on the origin of the world and mankind are unscientific and absurd and when believed lead to the dehumanization of mankind and living by animal instincts. The world’s views on what provides happiness and fulfillment end up leading mankind into emptiness and self-destruction. The world’s views on God and getting to heaven are lies of false peace and will lead many to the shocking reality that they have missed eternal life because they were following the futile thinking of the world. As mankind looks to itself for answers to life’s problems it ends up in bankruptcy. Instead of the great promise of cultural advancement we are in cultural decline. Instead of truth, in their futility the world pursues lies that lead to emptiness. Man today is spending a lot of energy and resources on going nowhere. As the Beatles once sang, “He’s a real nowhere man, living in his nowhere land, making all his nowhere plans, for nobody”. And as Solomon once said, “Meaningless! Meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” The tragedy of it all is that the world does not recognize that its pursuits are meaningless. The few that come to admit that life is meaningless do not seek for meaning in God through Christ but continue down another path of futility. Not until a person comes to know Jesus Christ will the futility of their thinking be changed to wisdom. It is the fool that says in his heart there is no God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

-When you stand face to face with Jesus Christ you will know with absolute clarity if your thinking, and the choices and pursuits and goals you made as a result of your thinking, were futile or reached their goals. You will either be standing before God empty handed or rich beyond imagination. I can guarantee you that what will be of value on that day will be what you did in obedience to Jesus Christ while you were alive. All else will be futility. Why wait until you stand face to face with Jesus Christ for a final evaluation of your thinking and its actions. You can know the mind of God and the will of God now, today, through His Word and you can make your thinking wise, strategic and in line with God’s goals. Your thinking will Not be futile and your end will not be empty when you stand face to face with Jesus Christ. Remember the words of Peter, “My brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 1.10-11)