Transcript is AI generated, expect errors.
So a habit my kids have kind of hopped into, literally, over the past few years is starting from a young age, they’ll find my shoes. And they’ll put them on, and they’ll stomp around my house. At this point, the act has become so robust that now they’ll even put on a voice of, I’m daddy, and I’m reading in my nook. And so they’re wearing two big shoes. They’ll put on my glasses, two big hats. And then they’ll try to walk around our home. And as I looked at our text this week, this image just kept coming back to me because it’s a very sweet and somewhat funny picture of what God calls the Christians to do, which is to put on... the righteousness we have in Christ, and then walk in light of that reality.
We’re going to stumble at first, but we’re going to get better as our feet grow into the shoes, but yet we’re putting on the righteousness of someone else and trying to walk as they would. Those are the themes we’re going to see in the text today. We have to put off the old self, put on the new self, and walk in Christ.
And so our big idea is to walk in Christ by putting off our old self and putting on our new self. Underneath of that, we’re going to see three supporting points. The first is that unbelievers walk in darkness and ignorance. We’ll see this in chapter 4, verses 17 through 19. That Christ transforms us to walk like him. This is chapter 4, verses 20 through 24. And finally, walking like Christ changes how we use our mouths, our hands, and our hearts. That’s what we’re going to see in the text today.
When I say walk, that means live according to how we go through life. The way scripture uses the word walk is a manner of living. And so we’re going to start with our former selves the way that we were. Unbelievers walk in darkness and ignorance, verses 17 through 19 of chapter 4, which say this.
Now, this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding and alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. This section of the text begins with a now, which operates in a similar way to a therefore.
So in light of what’s come before, and then he goes on to say, because of the authority that the Lord has given him, Paul, he is testifying to this reality. So he’s essentially taking a beat, taking a breath, and saying, I’m about to tell you a whole bunch of things about the transformation that’s come over you as Christians and how you ought to live in light of that. And I do not say that on human authority. I say it on the authority of the Lord. It’s meant to prepare them for this is not just my opinion. This is not just thoughts that I have. I testify to this reality in the Lord. Amen. And the first reality that Paul’s going to point to is that these Ephesian Christians are no longer who they used to be. The audience of this letter are a bunch of Gentiles who have come to Christ. They become Christians. Now, there are Jewish Christians living here as well. there’s a huge transformation for those who lived according to the world as Gentiles who’ve become Christians. So when he uses the phrase Gentiles, he’s thinking about unbelievers here. And some of these Christians he’s writing to were Gentiles, and now they’ve become Christians. And what he’s telling them is that you aren’t who you used to be. And because you aren’t who you used to be, you can’t live the way that you used to.
Scholars have some bit of debate around the word must here. You must not live as you used to. The question is whether this section here, now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, is this sentence supposed to be an imperative, which is a fancy word for a command, or is it an indicative, something that’s describing a reality? So my fun way of scooting around that entire debate is that it works in both ways.
The Ephesian Christians must not behave as they used to, command, and at the same time, it describes the reality of who they are. Because in Christ, Christians are no longer who they used to be. They’ve been changed. Who they were is... unable to walk according to Christ. They can’t obey his commands because they don’t understand. The text says they have a futility of mind. Unbelievers can’t see. They don’t have categories for spiritual things. 1 Corinthians 2 testifies to this reality that the natural man cannot understand the things of God because they are spiritually discerned. Meaning for the unbeliever... It’s dark. They can’t see. They don’t know what they don’t know. They have no ability to perceive the reality of the gospel and who Jesus is.
A very simple illustration of what this looks like, an experience we’ve all had. If you walk into a room in the middle of the night and you turn off the lights, there’s about three to eight seconds where you can see nothing. Pitch black. For the unbeliever, that’s what they see spiritually. They can’t see the reality of Christ or what God has done on their behalf. So they have nothing to guide them. And this ignorance leads to a hardness of heart. The text uses the word callousness, hardness of heart. Other places in Scripture you hear it described as a seared conscience. What does any of that mean? Well, the Lord in his kindness has made all human beings in his image, and as a result of that, they have what’s called a conscience, some sense of right and wrong. But as we continue to operate in ignorance and pursue sin, that sense of right and wrong gets smaller and smaller and smaller. It leads to a total lack of sensitivity to the spirit. Perhaps you’ve had this experience when you do something that you know is wrong and for the first time you’re horrified, mortified, you’re just overwhelmed with a sense of guilt and shame at what you’ve done. But the second time it just gets a little easier. And the third time it gets a little easier. And the hundredth time you don’t even think about it anymore. This is how the Ephesian Christians used to live. In futility. In darkness. In darkness. with a seared conscience.
And so they give themselves up to whatever their sinful desires want because they can’t perceive any differently. They don’t have spiritual understanding. And their base desire dominates them. Romans 1, 21 through 25 gives a parallel description of what’s happening. Here Paul says, “...for although they, unbelievers, knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking.” And their foolish hearts were darkened. John Owen, a famous Puritan, described the process of sin enslaving us this way. He says that the first step is that deceit begins in the mind, pulling us towards sin. The heart is then entangled. Emotions and affections start yearning to do the sinful thing. Then our will gives consent. Yes, I will do that. That’s when sin becomes action. And the repeated act of unrepentant sin enslaves us, leading us to ruin and ultimately spiritual death. This is the state of the unbeliever living in darkness. Their hearts yearn for the wrong things. Their mind tells them the wrong things. Their will is unable to resist the wrong things. And the more they do those sinful things, the more they get entangled. And that’s what we see in the description of the Ephesian Christians before they knew Christ. Callousness and a greed for sin. At the end of this section, it says a greed for sin. This isn’t referring to greed for money, though that would fall under the category of sinful things we can desire, but rather this endless, relentless pursuit of of sin that enslaves. Can’t get enough. Gotta have more. This is how sin enslaves us. It’ll never be enough. Whatever sin you’re pursuing, if you tell yourself, well, I’ll just do a little bit more, and then I won’t want it anymore, it’s not true.
The Bible will tell you that it will continue to enslave you until you turn to Christ for hope. This would have been the end for the Ephesian Christians. They would have continued walking in darkness and ignorance, but Christ intervened. And this is what we see in chapter 4, verses 20 through 24. Christ transforms us to walk like Him. Christ transforms us to walk like Him. This is what the text says. But that is not the way you have learned 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, and 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. But... How often is this word a beacon of hope in the scriptures? We’ve seen it in Ephesians before. So were such of some of you, but God. The Ephesian Christians aren’t in this ignorance anymore. They do not have futility of mind. They are not enslaved to their sins. Why? Because their eyes have been opened because they have learned Christ already. This word learned is interesting. This is not a simple Sunday school lesson. This is an information transfer. This isn’t a test that you’re getting graded on. Learning Christ is knowing Christ. What’s changed for the Ephesian Christians is that they’ve met Jesus. It’s relational. They’ve been changed by him, and now the light switch has been turned on. They’ve heard the gospel, been taught the gospel, and by the Spirit known that the gospel is true. Everything changed. They aren’t who they were anymore. I’m going to use a little fancy word here. I promise every fancy word that anybody ever uses in a sermon or otherwise means something very easy to understand. But it’s helpful in this sense. The Ephesian Christians have been changed ontologically. What does that stupid word mean? It simply means they’ve changed in their being, their essence. They’re now a creature of a completely different order.
Now, for those of you who know your Bible as well, you might be like, oh, hold on, what do you mean? All humanity is made in the image of God. Genesis 1.27 testifies that every human being, regardless of gender, regardless of national origin, regardless of culture, all made in the image of God, and that is true. Okay, but what’s different here? How have the Ephesian Christians changed in their being? It’s not fleshly speaking, but spiritually speaking. They’ve been spiritually transformed. What was dark is now light. Where they were enslaved, they are now free. They are changed in their spiritual being. There’s a bit of a catch here, something that’s hard for us to understand. We’ve been made new. We’ve put on the new flesh in Christ as Christians. We’ve put off the old, but we’re still stuck in many of our old ways. Everyone here knows exactly what I’m talking about. Paul himself testifies to the reality that he does the things he does not desire to do. So hold on, if you’re telling me, use this big fancy word to say that I’m a different essence, but I’m still doing the old stuff, what’s the deal?
It’s because we’re living in the already, not yet. We’re living between two advents. The first advent we celebrated a couple weeks ago. The birth of a baby in Bethlehem. Christ coming to earth to live a perfect life in our place and die on the cross to pay for our sins. But we’re waiting for the next advent when Christ returns in power and majesty as the king. The king who brings justice and freedom for his people. The song Joy to the World, something we sing at Christmas time every year, is not actually about the first coming of Christ. It’s about the second. Joy to the world. Let the earth rejoice. Let the earth welcome its king. That’s what we’re waiting for. Christ has won. Eternity has started. When I say we’ve been transformed spiritually as Christians, that means the resurrection in you has already started happening. The trick is we’re stuck in these fleshly fallen bodies waiting to put on the eternal weight of glory. And so we struggle with sin, the already and the not yet.
So what do we do in the meantime? We work along with the Spirit to embrace the new walk we have in Christ. So Paul’s telling the Ephesian Christians they no longer live in darkness. So don’t keep living like you can’t see. Live as what you are. The same for us Christians today. We have to put off our old ways. And so much of that starts in the mind. As I was working through this text this week, what I was struck by again and again is historically in my life, I’ve thought of like the fight for holy living and against sin was like the things that I do out here with my hands. And this text hammered it home for me that so much of that begins between my ears and in my heart. So that’s where we’re going to spend a little bit of time talking about. The verse that we read earlier, Romans 12, 2 says, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what the will of God is, what is good and acceptable and perfect. This transformation, this change in being, that means our minds, our hearts, the center of what makes us who we are, has been changed by Christ’s work We start to feel a change. We get a picture of this every time we see a baptism, do we not? We have someone stand right here and say, I used to live this way, but now I want to live this way. I want to live for Christ. It’s a beautiful picture of the change that’s happened. Their affections have changed. What they desire has changed. This is how Christ transforms us internally. Our hearts and our minds are being made new. The struggle is when our minds aren’t acting in such a way that they’ve been renewed. And so we have to come alongside, we have to work with the Holy Spirit to transform our minds.
When we think about God, we often don’t think about Him rightly. We complain, or we’re angry, or we’re bitter, or worse, we don’t think about God at all. We simply think about what I... This is what I think the right thing is to do. This is how I feel. This is how it impacts me. And yet we ought to be thinking about what the Lord says about what we’re perceiving and thinking and doing. The battle against sin begins in the mind. And what we think about God shapes our responses, our feelings towards Him, and how we process the world around us. So we have to think true things. We have to put off the old self and put on the new self. The old self is corrupted by deceitful desires. The new self is renewed through the gospel. So I’ll try to get a little practical. What do I mean when I say the fight against sin begins in the mind? No one talks to you more than you do. You’re having a conversation with yourself inside your head all day, every day, from the moment you wake up to the moment you put your head on the pillow.
Here’s the second part of that. Nobody lies to you more than you lie to you. You process everything around you in a you-centered way. I do too. I got this inner lawyer that’s like, no, no, they’re wrong, I’m right. Like, this guy, nope, I’m good, I’m fine. So you gotta reflect on the reality. What are you regularly telling yourself? What are the regular lies that you tell yourself and then believe? How do you distort reality around you to suit your preferences? Are we regularly applying the gospel to the way that we perceive, the way that we think, the way that we ruminate, the way that the same thoughts circle again and again in our minds? Are we applying the gospel to those thoughts? I’m going to give a few examples of common patterns of thought that I’ve seen.
These are not exhaustive. I only have three. But common patterns of thought that we fall into, that I fall into, sinfully, and then how we fight against such untruths. First example. I’m a failure. I’m worthless. No one could love me. I have no value. I don’t want to live anymore. I have no worth. Something that people fall into, I fall into regularly. But it’s a lie. Because the reality is that I’m beloved by the King. Romans 8.1 says, Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ. 1 John 3.1 says, See what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called the children of God and so we are.
The value of an object is set by what the purchaser is willing to pay for it. What is God willing to pay for you? The lifeblood of his Son. Infinite value. Therefore, you are of infinite value. There is no length that the Lord would not go to to rescue you. This is why he gives Christ for you.
Second way that we go wrong and are thinking I go wrong, I am the smartest person in this room. No one here has anything to teach me. Y’all need to listen to me. I should be up here. You all should listen to me all the time. I know everything. I can’t learn anything from anybody. I’m smart. Y’all are dumb. 1 Corinthians 2, as we’ve referenced before, tells us that actually we have no ability to discern anything except for the work of the Spirit in us. 1 Corinthians 4.7 says this, For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? Your life, your breath, your IQ, the amount of money you have, the car you drive, the job you have, the family you’re in, all of it, all of it, has been given to you by God. So anything that you rely on, whether it be intelligence, ability, whatever, that’s actually not yours. It was given to you. And that ought to make us humble, not prideful in our intellect or gifts.
Another one that comes to mind is a sort of judgmentalism. That person over there, that so-and-so, they are evil. They are wicked. They don’t get it. They need to hear this sermon. They got it wrong. They’re a brutal, mean, wicked, twisted sinner. No. We. I am a sinner. I have fallen short of the glory of God. I am the twisted, mean, brutal sinner that I want to judge. And the fact that Christ had mercy on me calls me to have mercy on others. Matthew 18, 21-35, which I will not read, is the parable of the unforgiving servant. The servant, Jesus tells this parable, of a servant who owes a debt so large that he could live for ten lifetimes and not pay it off. And the king forgives him, forgives the debt. And then the servant finds another servant who owes him a much smaller amount of money and says, pay me what you owe. The king comes back and puts that man into jail. The picture here is for a Christian who does not forgive himself. They’re not seeing the huge amount of forgiveness that’s been given to them in Christ. And so when we’re tempted to look at someone else and say, I am morally better than that person, it’s like looking in the mirror and forgetting what you look like in the sense of you’ve been forgiven more than you can possibly imagine at great costs.
Therefore, the Christian should be quick to forgive, ready to offer mercy. This is the fight that we have to have in the mind. We have to fight with the Word of God. So what does that mean? It means this book, this is your life. This is how we win the battle of sin in the mind. We memorize. We read. We listen to the sermon church on Sundays. We look at to know this book as best we can. We don’t do this for empty knowledge or pride. We do this because this is one of the ordinary ways in which God helps us put off the old self and put on the new. In the three examples we just gave, if I tell a lie in the mind, what did I do? I go to the scriptures to prove how that lie is untrue. That’s what we need to be doing internally as regularly as we can.
And... If you can’t seem to stop the pattern of thoughts, the circling of unjust, unrighteous, sinful thoughts even on your own, ask your brothers and sisters for help. If you can’t remind yourself of the truths that God has given to us in his word, ask a brother, ask a sister, remind me of who I am in Christ. Help me apply the gospel to this pattern of thoughts and this struggle that I have that I cannot shake. You are amongst brothers, sisters, family. Ask them for help. Ask them for help in the battle of the mind. Formerly, we’re driven by deceitful desires. We had callous hearts, but now our desires have been changed. We have to fight to stoke the flame of those changes more and more and more. Jonathan Edwards said that true religion consists in holy affections. So we have to work alongside the Spirit to make sure our affections are rightly directed towards God. This is how we put off the old and put on the new in our minds. The text here ends with this discussion of this new self being created in the likeness of God. This is in the likeness of Christ. And it ends with saying we’re in the likeness of God in true righteousness and This is the transformation that happens in us.
And there’s definitely a temptation here to confuse two theological words, justification and sanctification. And I’ll say what those are. Justification is our standing before God. Are we guilty or innocent? We are justified by faith alone. All you need to do is come to Christ, turn from your sins, trust in him, and he gives you his righteousness and you give him your sin. So when God looks at a believer, he sees Christ’s righteousness. That’s your status before God. You are justified. But sanctification is the painfully slow process. throughout all of human life, of being made more like Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit. And so here, in righteousness and holiness, we’re talking about justification, the new self. We are in the likeness of Christ because he gave us his righteousness. We give him our sin.
Now, there’s going to be a whole lot of discussion of sanctification in the next section, commands we ought to pursue, ought to follow. But know that your status as a Christian before God is determined by the sacrifice of Christ. If you’re a Christian, you are justified. You will never be more justified than you were at the moment of conversion. And so if you’re here and you don’t know Jesus, you can be made new. you can put off the old through the power of Christ. If you find yourself repeating the same things, trapped in the same cycles of despair, hurt, broken, struggling with the same sins, you so desperately want to change, but you feel like no matter what you do, you can’t, you can put off the old and put on the new through faith in Jesus Christ. He changes us. He changes us spiritually and forever. Christ transforms us to walk like him. Yet Christ’s transformation of us doesn’t just change our affections, doesn’t just change our interior life, it changes how we speak, how we work, and how we feel.
This is our last point. Walking like Christ changes how we use our mouths, our hands, and our hearts. This is chapter 4, verses 25 through chapter 5, verse 2. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God and Christ forgave you.
Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. So because the Ephesian Christians are not who they were, they’re no longer darkened in their understanding, they’ve learned Christ. Because they’ve been transformed, Paul exhorts them, commands them, gives them a set of things to pursue. There’s a therefore here, in light of all the things we just saw, the transformation in Christ from what you used to be, do these things. There’s three areas of human life. that he touches upon here, mouths, hands, hearts. And he starts with our mouths, where we see he tells us to put away falsehood. Let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Christians put away falsehood. The delusions from our flesh, the lies we used to believe, that is put away.
Our inability to understand spiritual things has ended because the Spirit has given us new hearts. It’s opened our eyes. We know the truth. And since we know the truth of Jesus Christ, and we’re people of the truth, we must say true things. The text says we’re supposed to speak truth with our neighbor. In this context, he means specifically the local church community. So for Emmanuel Baptist Church, for members of this church, the call is clear. Speak the truth to one another. I’m often struck by the push of Scripture towards having the uncomfortable conversation. This may be somewhat of a surprise. I don’t actually love having difficult conversations. I get super uncomfortable. And I’ll avoid it for as long as I can. But in the Scriptures, what we see is if you’re a person who sinned against, the Scriptures call you to go to the person who sinned against you and tell them his fault privately one to another so that they can turn from their sins and you gain your brother. And if you’re the one who’s doing the sinning, and you realize at the altar that your brother has something against you, you’re to leave your gift at the altar and go and be reconciled to your brother.
Those are uncomfortable conversations. The Scripture’s pushing you to have them. So here, at Emmanuel, for the members of this church, have the uncomfortable conversations. That’s the press. That’s the push. Yes, there’s space for overlooking offense, for being gracious to one another. But the Scriptures would have you talk to your brother or sister and try to gain them to repentance. That’s how we serve one another. It’s actually not loving to ignore the sin in someone that you see over and over and over again. You’re turning them over to their own desires. And as we’ve seen earlier, the end of that is slavery. We speak the truth. And it’s not just about sin, sin we see in each other or sin we’ve committed. We speak the truth to each other about the gospel, about who Jesus Christ is, how that applies to all of life. We tell the truth to each other about the scriptures, what it says, what that means, how that applies. We speak the truth to one another about the lies that we see in the world around us. Be not deceived. Spiritual warfare is us struggling against the devil, our own sinful flesh, and the world around us. The world is going to tell you a whole bunch of things that are inconsistent with the scriptures. It’s going to tell you money is everything. It’s not true. Tell you pleasure is everything. Not true. tell you all sorts of things that are lies, and we have to remind each other of the truth that we see in the Scriptures. But the goal of our speech is not just truthfulness, though that is essential. The goal of our speech is the benefit of of the people around us, particularly our brothers and sisters in Christ. When it says, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such that is good for building up as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear, my first immediate thought is I’ve got to stop cussing. Which is true. I do.
But I think this section of Scripture has so much more in view than a prohibition on using profanity. It’s a total reorientation of our speech. In other words, when we talk to one another, we ought to be considering in that moment what’s best for that person to build them up into Christ. Have you ever thought about conversation that way? I do not. I confess. But as I’m talking to you or one another as friends, I need to think about the words that will bless you, not harm you. That’s the aim of our speech. Now, does this mean the only conversation we’re ever going to have is us preaching at one another forever until the end of life? No, it does not. That’s why the phrase, as fits the occasion, is there. We’re encouraging one another in the Scriptures towards Jesus as fits the context that we are in. To put some flesh on that, if we are at a funeral, we lament, We comfort, we console, we pray, we are present. That’s appropriate. That fits the occasion. At a wedding feast, we rejoice, we give thanks, we joke, we enjoy one another’s company, we eat really good food, and we direct thanksgiving and praise to the Lord for giving us the opportunity to do that. We do what blesses one another in our words as fits things. The occasion. We do all these things for the glory of God and the honor of Christ and the edification and the blessing of the people around us. These types of words informed by Scripture suited to the occasion are meant to help each other towards Jesus. That’s the kind of talk that should mark our speech. It’s the way we should talk to one another.
We must not be marked by corrupting talk. That does include profanity, but it extends to all speech that would harm the community. Slander, gossip, name-calling, boasting, harshness, judgmentalism, these types of things aren’t to mark our speech. Blessing is to mark our speech. All of our speech ought to be meant for the good of the hearer. None of it should harm the hearer. That’s the call to the way we use our mouth. That’s what Paul’s commanding the Christian to do. But it doesn’t stop there. He also has commands for our hands. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, that he may have something to share with anyone in need. In the same way that our words should be for the benefit of the church community, so too should the labor of our hands be The thief harms the people around him by taking, whereas the honest Christian laborer blesses the people around him by giving. One of the reasons we work jobs is so that we can be generous with the people around us. Yes, starting with the household with God, but overflowing into the community beyond that. In both of these instances, you’ll see the same theme.
We are putting off the old... theft, slander, gossip, these things, we are putting on the new, blessing, generosity, so forth and so on. And finally, Paul exhorts us to change our hearts, to live in light of our identity in our hearts. In verse 26 and 27, it says, Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil. It goes on to say in 30, And do not grieve the Holy Spirit by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God and Christ forgave you. Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Hearts. There’s a bit of an oddness at the beginning here. Be angry. Don’t strike anybody as a little odd. As an Eagles fan, I’m always angry. Every other team I’m ever going to play. But not the Cowboys this year. Be angry. That’s a command. Now it’s attached to, and do not sin, so we know that we can’t, we don’t have a pass to berate anybody. But there must be, this must mean that there’s some type of anger that is not a sin. In fact, there must be some type of anger that we’re commanded to do, to have. It’s odd. It’s odd. Somewhat famously, Christ demonstrates righteous anger for us when he turns over the tables in the temple and drives the animals and the money changers out of the temple with a whip made of cords. It’s described in all four Gospels. I think oftentimes there’s a little bit like, whoa, that’s pretty intense. I reference John 2, 13 through 22. If you want to look at that later, that’s where Jesus overturning the tables is described in John 2. And he goes into some detail. He makes a whip, drives out the money changers, takes the money that the money changers have, and he pours it over. Why does he do this? He’s clearly angry. But Christ is without sin, so he’s demonstrating anger without sin. But what’s happening here?
The reality is that... And there’s common thinking, oh, well, these money changers are doing something nefarious in their business. It’s bad business practice. Or the people selling animals to the poor are doing something wicked there. The text is kind of silent on the business itself being wrong in of itself. The problem isn’t the business. The problem is where the business is happening. It’s happening in the temple. Jesus is concerned with the glory of God. The temple ought not be a place for business. It’s a place for worship. So by bringing business into the temple, they’re profaning God’s name. They’re profaning his holiness. They’re making what’s holy common, and they’re distorting the worship of God. So in short, what makes Jesus angry? Impugning or infringing upon the glory of God. That’s something to be righteously angry about. And it drives him to action. Righteous action to remove those folks from the temple who are profaning God’s name. To put a smaller illustration for us, if we were to walk out those church doors today and see a small child being beaten by an adult man, we should be angry. But it’s not enough to just be angry. We’ve got to do something. whether that means intervening or calling authorities, whatever it is, that anger is meant to create action in us. We’ve got to do something. John Stott said this about this passage, I go further and say that there is a great need in the contemporary world for more Christian anger.
We human beings compromise with sin in a way in which God never does. In the face of blatant evil, we should be indignant, not tolerant, angry, not apathetic. If God hates sin, his people should hate it too. If evil arouses his anger, it should arouse ours also. Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked who forsake thy law. What other reaction can wickedness be expected to provoke in those who love God? See, Ephesians 4.26 isn’t simply allowing Christians to have righteous anger. It’s commanding it. When you see evil happening in front of you, you should be angry. And if it’s within your ability to do something about, it should drive you to action. It then goes on to say, do not let the sun go down on your anger. I used to think of this verse as advice people give to married couples. Okay, if you’re angry, you’ve got to fix that before you go to bed. Okay. But actually, it’s not talking about unrighteous anger. That is talking about the righteous anger we just talked about. Meaning, if you have righteous anger and you see something evil happening, let’s say a child being abused in front of this church, don’t let the sun go down before you do something about it. Act. Act. The longer you wait, the more you give the devil a foothold to perpetrate even greater abuse and evil on what’s happening in front of you. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea to reconcile to your spouse quickly. That’s not what I’m saying. But what’s in view here is to act upon your righteous anger with due haste. Because delaying that can lead to things like bitterness or apathy or not doing what the Lord has commanded us to do.
And yet it’s still measured. It’s paired with the command to not sin. And in a sentence later, Paul talks about anger being something that can be sinful. We know the scriptures testify to the reality that the unrighteous anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. So what’s the difference? When we’re angry about ourselves, our own pride, our lives being inconvenienced, unrighteous. But when we’re angry about the things that God gets angry about, about his name being blasphemed or injustice happening that he would condemn, that is righteous anger. The text goes on to say, And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom we were sealed for the day of redemption. Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. We began this section with a don’t walk in your old manner of life like unbelievers. Now we end this section with walk like Christ and love. This is the beginning and end cap of this section. Christ is a sign of our redemption. He’s the one who gave down his life. We ought to walk like him. We are imitators of God. There’s a short phrase here that should be really encouraging to us. Imitators of God as beloved children. The Father loves us just as he loves the Son. John 17.23 says, That means God loves you like he loves Jesus. The same. He loves you as he loved Jesus. Ponder that for a minute. It’s a powerful motivation to love well, to love like Jesus, because God loves us like he loves the Son. That should motivate our walk, our walk with Christ. Because Jesus is the model, right? He’s the new self. He’s the new life. He’s the new creation. Christ is the firstborn from the dead. That’s who the Christian is being transformed into. Walking like Christ changes how we use our mouths, our hands, and our hearts.
So the central theme, the thrust of this entire text, is that we’re to give up the old self, things that hurt, the folks around us, and put on the new self, things that glorify God and bless the people around us. We’re to give up harmful words for the benefit of our brothers and sisters. We’re to labor so that we can be generous with the community around us. And we’re to put away sinful internal attitudes and bless people internally as well as externally. Christ is the example of all of this. He laid everything down so that we might have life. He does this in love. Love binds it all together. The way we walk or ought to walk with one another is with patience, kindness, without envy, without boasting, without arrogance, without rudeness, without pride, but with rejoicing, truthfulness, endurance, patience, belief. That’s how we’re to walk. We walk in Christ by putting off our old self and putting on our new self. We’re in this already, but not yet. Christ has begun the resurrection in us, but we haven’t completed it yet. He will at the end of all things. In the meantime, walk in Christ. Someday we will see him face to face, and in that day we’ll be fully transformed. But in the meantime, fight against sin and walk according to Christ.
Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, we do thank you for Jesus who rescued us, who gave his blood for us. We know that you love us because of what Christ gave up on the cross. He endured suffering, pain, betrayal, all of these things because you loved us. And so we do pray that through Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit, we would put on our new self. and put off the old. Help us to live by faith until the day that we live by sight. I pray all this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
