Ephesians - Chapter 4 review
Ephesians · Randy Peterman · Sep 16, 2018
Ephesians (2018-19), No. 34
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261911581214

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

So we're going to look at the summary of Ephesians chapter 4. I said end, lead into chapter 4. I should have said end chapter 5. Apparently I was so concerned about 4 that 5 was too grand a number. But don't worry, we'll talk about 5 briefly at the end.

One of the things that transitions from chapters one through three where we get a lot of theology, things that are true of us as believers in Christ. In chapter four we start to get some tennis shoes, the practical application of doctrine. So I wanted to take a moment to contrast and just kind of outline some of the differences between legalism and the logical imperative. It's one of those things we've talked about before, but I think sometimes if we can articulate the nuances it will help establish in our minds these truths.

So, in the law, in the Old Testament, the people were to be blessed in the land and they must comply with these moral, behavioral, and geographical commands. So when we're talking about legalism in the Old Testament, geography actually comes into play. That's how they know they've been disobedient is that suddenly their geography changes. If we change our geography now, less of a deal.

I mean, well, that's not to say it's not a big deal. But you know, I know Roger lived in his family moved to England for a while. And we didn't all go, Oh, he's outside of God's blessing. The law was revealed once through Moses. Okay, and man must do them by his own strength or face consequences, right? The law brings about consequences, if they don't comply. One of those is a lack of blessing. The people are sanctified through the covenant, but individuals may not be. An individual may choose to disobey. There are provisions for that.

When we talk about the law and legalism, the law, if you're obedient, moves towards blessing. As you see there, that's why the arrows are moving in that direction. When we talk about logical imperatives under grace, you are blessed in the heavenlies already. That's your starting point. So, blessing is the foundational starting point there. And as you abide, you will live out a life with these moral and behavioral directives. That's the goal there. It's a response, not a rigid system. And God reveals principles and commands. He does that through the apostles. But he also will direct us through his word in the Holy Spirit.

We've brought this up multiple times in the past, but there are a whole bunch of properties in the world today that have Jewish inhabitants who do various things to avoid breaking the law that are technological, that the law never touches. Elevators that stop at every floor. ovens where you have to mash a button. If you mash the button and then walk away, a random number of seconds later it will turn on and start cooking your food. But because the buttons didn't have a direct action, the consequence of that is it's not working. So on the Sabbath you just mash the button in Sabbath mode, it works.

But for us in believers, I don't fear technology. Because the Holy Spirit will direct me as I'm abiding, and the Holy Spirit will direct me in the new technology. Because there are rabbis who teach you shouldn't use the internet, because there are no provisions for the internet in the law. I think we would say on average pastors will be telling people, hey have discernment what you're doing on the internet. But the internet by itself is a technological tool, it's not a problem.

And the individuals in the church are sanctified positionally and in the process of being sanctified conditionally. So it's a once and for all secure deal. Once you're in the church, that sanctification process begins. At the very bottom there, man has a will but the law obligates it and grace motivates it.

So we want to consider those things in context. So in chapter 4, we've already moved through chapters 1, 2, and 3 where we saw that we're blessed in the heavenly places, we're blessed with spiritual truth. In chapter 2, we continue to see the blessing and the grace being poured out on into eternity, our God's workmanship. In chapter 3, we see the mystery of the church and Israel, I'm sorry, Israel and the Gentiles coming together in the church, building into chapter 3 with love. as being this 3D thing last week, or two weeks ago, Roger and I were talking, he said, because I did sub for Brad Masson in Fort Collins, and Roger goes, you know, I told him what I was planning on going over, he goes, it's good if you can reuse some of your material so you don't have to, and that's good, I do do that, and I actually took some of what I taught last week and we're going to talk about it this week, but it was just because what I talked then was tying into Ephesians chapter 4 and chapter 3. So those things will be here as well. So when we get to chapter 4, verses 1-6 are talking about walking in a manner worthy of your name or worthy of your calling.

Paul is using Greek logical arguments here. Why do we want to call out that Paul is using Greek logical arguments? There's a principle called the Semitic Totality Concept, which is that in a Jewish or Semitic tradition, if it is true, you do it. When we read Peter, somewhat we see that. When we see James, James is the first book that we know from what we can tell that was written in the New Testament time, and it's very Jewish. James is like, It's true, therefore you do it.

And so Paul is saying, well, you know, we're dealing with a lot of Gentile saints. Let's reason them through this. We'll be logical, we'll follow the process, and we'll talk them through these things. Knowing his audience and his calling was to be to the Gentiles, he is using Greek logical arguments here.

So one of the things we want to say here is if your name or calling is God's name, what does that Christ-life representation look like? So he says, I implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called. What does that look like? Well, it looks like in verses 2, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace, Those are our key things and what's really cool about that is that we kind of have in this chapter a reverse principle of things that we should avoid at the very end of the chapter that kind of look like opposites to that.

The letter of the Corinthians, I mean, it's already said to the Jew Christ is a stumbling block, but to the Greek he's foolishness, right? So this synectic, if you will, transformation of the truth was important for this Gentile audience, right? Yeah. From that perspective. They definitely needed to notice that and know it. And in that true of our own age? Yeah.

I mean, serious conversations with Jews have been frequent in my past, but with the Gentile, we don't go anywhere unless the door is really cracked. I mean, to the Gentile world around us, Christ is foolishness. Paul at Mars Hill, he has to give them a worldview, because their worldview just doesn't even know how to cope with the gospel. So he has to give them a worldview and explain to them a universe in which the unknown God exists and has revealed truth, right?

So here we see these characteristics of humility and these attributes and of course these are directions he's imploring them, he's asking for them as they abide to be considering these things in their interactions. In verse 4, there is one body and one spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

One of the things I think is really beautiful about the book of Ephesians is Paul tells us that all three parts of the Godhead are actively involved in the lives of the believer. Now what's distinctly missing from this passage? Now that I've highlighted that. Chapter 1 was all about the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit working together. Here in chapter 4, he actually talks about the Spirit and the Father, but Those, because of what Christ did, those are the Holy Spirit and the Father there, not the Son. Now, let's emphasize something really quick.

Were the chapter numbers inspired? No. So, it turns out, if we go back up to verse 19, Christ is involved, right? 319. So, look, we don't have to panic. It's not like the Trinity is now the Deity. That sounded funny. So, we have But we have, through Ephesians, all three persons of the Godhood involved with the believer. We have talked about unity from an ethnic perspective, we've talked about unity from a theological perspective, and we have talked about unity from a Godhead perspective throughout the book of Ephesians. And here we see the unity of the Godhead. We can also see here that unity comes from the Holy Spirit. There is one Spirit and He is the one that is actively working with the unity of the Spirit in verse 3, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit has multiple roles.

Hal put together a list that I believe had 19 attributes of the Holy Spirit, and you'll forgive me I didn't include that as a supplement in our handouts this morning. I do think it's worth studying and considering who the Holy Spirit was. As a young child growing up in the church, I actually really never got taught any doctrines about the Holy Spirit. And then in junior high, I got introduced to charismatic teaching, and they were all about the Holy Spirit.

And it was like, wow, you have got to hear about this third part of the Trinity. And unfortunately, it was not balanced teaching. It was not exposited biblical teaching. It was like, here's some teaching from this teacher. Lots of video VHS tapes. Yeah, high tech. At the time it was high tech. Lots of VHS tapes of teachers who would sell them for money and do their thing.

But it wasn't based on the scripture. I've got a few highlights here. The Holy Spirit was actively involved in the revelation of the scriptures. 2 Corinthians 3.18, one that we love to quote. The Holy Spirit is definitely actively involved in the conforming us to the image of Christ. As we know, the Holy Spirit is actively involved.

If we turn to Romans 8, 26 through 28, this is one of my favorite lessons. I mean, it's not like Roger's doing a bad job, but Romans 8, 26, he taught on during the main service years ago, or was it last year? Not years ago. Two years ago. And it just caused me to rethink a whole bunch of things because I had not considered some of the observations Roger had there, but in the same way the spirit also helps our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

God wants to answer prayers, that was one of the emphasis, it just blew my mind, it was so cool, and because I always heard, why should you pray? God already knows. This was why should you pray? Because God prays. Okay, well I'm done. No argument there anymore. So the Holy Spirit is actively involved in our being conformed to the image of Christ.

Galatians 5.16 tells us that if we want to stop doing the desires of the flesh, we need to be walking in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit will inform our walk, instruct our steps.

Romans 8.14, the Holy Spirit proves our faith. for all who are being led by the Spirit of God. These are sons of God. He's going to help prove that out in front of us. So a walk that is worthy of the name that we have in Christ is going to involve the Holy Spirit. I know that none of you are shocked by that, which is good. I think everybody should have that one down.

Then in Ephesians 4, starting in verse 7, We see this transition a little bit in his language. He says, but to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. And when we talk about grace and we say grace is unmerited, unlimited blessings of God due to the totally adequate work of Christ on the cross, how do we know that it's unlimited? I would argue that this verse right here gives us a little...

What was the measure of Christ's gift? It was without measure. It was infinite. So grace was given within the measurement of infinity. So we can say without too much concern that grace is unlimited in that regard. So that's a powerful reality for us to consider. Then it says there when he ascended on high he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men. Now this expression, he ascended, what does it mean except that he also has descended into the lower parts of the earth?

Now I'm going to tell you right now that I think the word into there should be translated to or down to. There have been those who have translated this into, it's a tradition in the King James, and I'm going to tell you right now that it's a place where I would suggest the King James could have chosen a slightly different translation there. Because Christ didn't go into the earth alone, although one could argue that in the grave he was into the earth. But I think this verse here might better explain the idea that Christ came to the earth and then he could go back up to the heavenlies.

He would ascend, right? We're ascended with Christ. But let's step back for a second here. I don't want to jump ahead into 9. When he ascended on high, he led a host of captives. He led captivity. Captive is another translation. The idea there is that were we slaves? We were slaves to sin, right? And what do we know from chapter 1? Let's scoot back to chapter 1 just a second here. chapter 1 verse 7, in him we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace and of course this is a run-on sentence so it keeps going but the idea that he led captives free is I think the principle of what Paul is citing here and so we were once captive but we've been redeemed And that's a powerful, powerful place to consider that when we evaluate our position in Christ as believers, we often see ourselves in our condition. When you look in the mirror, that's conditional you. When you're feeling feelings, that's conditional you. When all the things are going on, when there's turmoil and trials, and there's deadlines at work.

I got four hours of sleep on average this week. It was every night. It was like, this is not my best week for sleep. My boss was like, I think you're joking. And I pulled out my Fitbit. You sleep with this stupid device on your hand. And it's like, see? She's like, OK, you're not lying. Technology, it's really ridiculous.

It's one of those things where when you have all of these burdens, we tend to see condition and we forget our position. Our position is in Christ. He has led us from captivity. We have ascended with him. This is an identification truth. He just snuck it in as a citation of another passage. We are identified.

I mean really what Dave is talking about the victory that is ahead for Israel. Talking about the Lord having 20,000 pieces of armor. I mean it is an amazing uplifting nature for the people who are under law that there is a future in the prophetic nature of Psalms. We need to see that re-quoted here. And Paul appropriates that here in this way. So he's been talking to Gentiles, right? We just said that. But he splashes in these great Jewish scriptures that the Jewish believers that were part of the church would have said, oh, I get that. And what do you want to bet? And I'm not actually promoting betting in the church. Nobody panic. What do you want to bet?

This led to some really cool conversations between the different believers that were in the body. We talked about the Jew and the Gentile being merged in one body, right? So I think this is probably uplifting to the Jewish thing. Yeah, for sure. And so it's a powerful thing.

Now he says, and he gave gifts to men. And so this is part of Paul's emphasis from this passage is that we've been redeemed and he gave gifts to men. And let's talk about these gifts because those gifts are a major key to what he's produced here. The gifts include a new entity, the church, and an order and a structure to equip not only individuals, but also the body as a whole.

So I've got here on the next page of the pyramid, which we once drew on the whiteboard. See, I was trying to be sophisticated and put it in digital format. The order there, the establishing and post-New Testament roles, and then the establishing roles, So, at the time of the New Testament, all five of these were in play, but once the New Testament was completed, where you see that line running through the middle of the pyramid, that's where, hey, the New Testament is done, we don't need new scriptures, we don't have any more apostles, and so now we rely on the New Testament New Testament era, we rely on the church age gifts that are still operating in the body with evangelism and pastor and teacher for the equipping.

Now here's the thing, he's going to sneak in a sixth one, but we're not there yet. So be prepared, a sixth one's coming. It's coming. But it's important for us to observe here, he says in verse 11 And he gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.

Until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. And then in 14 is when he sneaks in the secret other person. Are you ready for this? Starting in 14, as a result, we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming.

But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, even Christ. So who's the secret sixth person? No. Us. One another. This togetherness. We sharpen one another. We encourage one another. We strengthen one another. But we have an order to establish this is true, and these things are true, and we pass them along. But then we still encourage one another.

But that means when you come to church, there's no free pass. You still have to talk to people and listen to people. And when I say there's no free pass, I'm making a joke, right? It's grace, right? I'm not trying to bring in legalism. An important question that I kind of introduced with the pyramid. So the next slide here is New Testament revelation and its propagation.

In Acts 2.42 until the completion of the New Testament it was God's revelation through apostolic teaching and the prophets in the church. If you're in a New Testament church and you're in Ephesus and you haven't gotten Paul's letter yet and you're trying to deal with all the stuff You either do like the Jews with the technology where your elevators, imagine the Ephesians with elevators, that would be goofy, your elevators stop on every floor, or you restrict things, or what God did instead was provide prophets to be revealing doctrine to the church to help them live without the law.

And that's really important. We see that the Holy Spirit provided those things, and as a consequence, that fed doctrine and truth to pastors and teachers. It fed edifying fellowship. It fed discipleship. It fed older men and younger men, and older women and younger women, like Titus chapter 2 said. It gave them truth that they could pass on, and they could share with one another.

Now I've got the second side is AD 96 and on, and really the only difference between those two sides is the prophets are not in that second box. All truth is still coming from God, and it's still revealed through the apostles, but it is not involving the prophets. God has completed the New Testament.

I was trying to visualize this, so hopefully that's visual enough, and you look at that and you go, okay, I see what he's doing there. Now the next page I've got here, I am a software developer and I'm going to apologize because this says patterns and anti-patterns, which is one of the nerdiest things I've said in a while. But I want to kind of draw attention to this important thing that has happened that causes separation from God's truth that we can often have. Because remember, God and His revealed truth are there at ground zero, right? There is absolute truth from God and He reveals it right here. Then, the New Testament era apostles were agents of revelation. They were given this revelation that completed the New Testament.

As believers, we need to be studying God's word. Then I've got a line with potential error. This is one of those things where I'm calling this out because I used to work at the Christian bookstore and we sold a whole bunch of Jesus junk. My boss would say, well, we just need to rely on the people having discernment.

They don't. They're sheep. If their friend walks up with a book of 40 juicy secrets about Jesus, they're going to tell their friends, we all need to buy 40 juicy secrets about Jesus. Now, I don't think that exists. I pray it does not exist. But we have this idea of, it's a Christian book. and we go to the secondary layer. And it's not that every Christian book or book that was published... I have a concordance that I rely on all the time. It is a Christian book. It is not the New Testament. It is not the Old Testament. But it is a great reference book.

So the line straddles there with potential error. We want to be careful. We need to have discernment. We need to have the elders reviewing things. We need to have teachers being careful that their teaching what was revealed to the agents of revelation, to the apostles, and not adding more and more secondary sources. Because what happens is we cross this line as we move away, and that's where you start to see, if I were to label groups, you start to see people like the Mormons, and the Jehovah's Witnesses, and Islam.

Remember, Mohammed said that he was a prophet in line with Christ. So he spoke as though he was carrying the authority of God in alignment with Christ and used that in an attempt to woo Christians into Islam. Then they disagreed and then he killed him. That's a different problem. But the idea of new revelation, right down the street we have a church that's an apostolic succession church. They believe they have an apostle and they believe he can carry these things through. The Catholic Church has an apostle, the Pope.

He's trying to figure out how he can get revelation about sexual scandals right now. Let's be honest, he's trying to figure out what he can do to fix that problem. But he doesn't teach the abiding principles, so he's never going to have a victorious method for those that are under his tutelage.

So when we say patterns and anti-patterns, we want to look at, if we go to the scriptures first as our primary source, the anti-patterns are not a problem. We want to escape error. Alright, this next grid is one, I'm actually bringing this up because of a question that Pat had a few weeks ago, and this is a diagram I created years ago in Photoshop, and I no longer own Photoshop, so I can't make a higher quality version of this picture. It kills me to have done this. But it contrasts position and condition in the will to try to show them linearly in parallel, because if we're all growing together, which is the point of this passage, how does that happen? How does that work? As individuals and then together. So our position is solid.

It is either A or B. You're either in Adam, or maybe we'll say A or C. You're in Adam or you're in Christ. Our position is in Christ as believers and that's important. Then when we get to condition or earthly experience, We only know sin up until the time of salvation. Our sin nature rears its ugly head. The flesh is really kicking it in and being nasty. And then at the point of salvation, we begin growth. Now I've oversimplified this in a big way. You'll see there's only two dips, which if you talk to any believer, is optimistic by miles.

This was my morning when the dogs came out. I was watching my mother-in-law's dogs. We've been watching them over the last couple of weeks while they're in Africa. And her dogs are giant and my house is little. They take up like eight people spaces in our house and they have big, wavy, waggy tails. And so it's just like they walk by and their tail goes, BAM! And you're like, ahhh.

And the flesh is rare. And you're like, that's not Jesus. I know that. I know it's not. I have my own dogs, but they're tiny for my tiny house. They're proportional. They're scaled down. They're going to listen to this. I love you, Linda and Claire. And I even love your dogs. That's why they're in my house. But they came out this morning, and so did the flesh. It turns out. So I had to stop, and I had to repray and refocus, because I had to focus on my lesson. So it was like this, with dogs.

But the idea is that our relationship is solid. That's our position. But through fellowship, we have spiritual growth that comes. And we may have seasons of sin where we're walking in the flesh. The Lord, through this process that he's revealed here in chapter 4, is growing us as a group, not just as individuals. We're growing one another together, and that sanctification process happens. The bottom there is a diagram showing the will, where I've got in parentheses, reckoning.

Romans 6.11, reckoning, that's how I would tie that in. Your will is exerting itself only, we want to be careful how we use will in those things. But the idea is that you're focusing on the Lord rather than focusing on the flesh.

So Randy, another thing to think about is what's our citizenship? That's our position in our citizenship, that's our focus. When we fall short and the sin of nature shows up, which it does so frequently in all of us actually, you remind yourself of where we're placed and where we're positioned. That's what Ephesians is all about, the positional truths of who we are in heavenly places. So that's kind of a soft pillow for a tired head, isn't it? Yeah, well our citizenship, that's our goal. We rest in that position. Otherwise, it's very easy to get distracted by the conditional things. The thing that Paul is emphasizing is not just the individual believer's growth, but also our growth together. The togetherness of our maturing. That we would all grow. That Greek word is pass. And it's funny because the funny thing about past is every time you see past you probably shouldn't pass up why it's there. Right? It's like, oh, why is he saying all? Well, all matters.

So we're talking about growing up the believers that we would all reach this maturity to the fullness of Christ. And we're no longer children and we're no longer tossed here and there by waves and carried about. Now the funny thing is, I'm going to call this out here, No longer being children is going to be tough if a church is growing and you're evangelizing and there's new believers coming in because you're constantly going to be drawing those people in. But they'll be equipped, right? They're not staying infantile. So on the next here, Christ's gift of the individual to the body is important. So we have individual growth and we have collective corporate growth as a body. So we have new believers that are coming in.

Did you know that the infancy of new believers is critical for the growth of the mature believers? just like the dogs, right? I need the dogs at my house because their uniqueness as dogs challenges me to consider my walk with the Lord. My daughters came into my life, and maybe as parents of children, how many times when you run into a new believer, whether they're children or older, where they ask you the question, they ask you why, they ask you, well, what is abiding? And they're like, oh man, I've just been using that word for so long with the assumption of what I know versus how do I dig in? How do I talk about it?

I know you have two beautiful children that are going to hopefully come up and shake shakers this morning in the main service. I guarantee you that as they get older, they're going to ask questions. You have three beautiful children, not two beautiful children. Two children will shake shakers. Allie will not be shaking shakers this morning from what I can tell. The point being that as they grow and as you watch with your three children, The oldest one asks way different questions.

So now sometimes when we get into Sunday school class, somebody will raise a hand and they'll ask, like Pat did, and I'm like, well, let me draw this really complicated diagram because that will maybe explain all the things in a big grid. When your kids are just asking, they're like, where's Satan?

And you're like, oh, wow. I love that my wife works in the Sunday school class because she comes home with beautiful stories of questions or things. I'm going to share this one. It's a rabbit trail, but it's so beautiful it will make your heart swell.

One of the students asked, wait, are you saying God can't be surprised? No, God can't be surprised. And she said, that makes me sad. And we're like, Jessica was, OK. And she's like, I love it when I get surprises for my birthday. And so it was this precious. We were like, we are surprised. And we're like, no, I need a God who's sovereign, who is not surprised. Trust me, I can't handle the surprises. I need him to know. And she's like, I want him to get a present. It was just a beautiful thing.

But God is not surprised. And he uses the children to grow us and to consider us. It causes us to consider new things. He uses older believers to teach us. We have pastors and teachers. We have the word. We have the Holy Spirit. And then we have events and trials. And I think the thing about events and trials is that none of us like them.

When I was up at 3.30 in the morning this week because I had to get some code done and my brain is not working and I'm programming in a language that I don't really know that well, it was like, hey, do you know what you want to be doing right now? Anything but this. Do you know what's going to grow you right now? This. And guess what? I know Pearl way better this week after a few late nights and early mornings. But the growth... I don't think there's any spiritual growth in the language of Pearl, by the way. That's not what I'm insinuating there. The difficulties brings the growth for all of us. We come together and we learn together and we grow together through these things. Now, and then we move forward into this section where we're laying aside old thinking. So, Paul is warning these people, again he's moving towards the Gentile believer's mindset. He explicitly calls that out. He says, no longer just as the Gentiles also walk in the futility of their mind.

The Gentiles, the Greeks, which is where most of our Western American philosophy comes from, unfortunately, had a whole swath of garbage that they cultivated for philosophy. So they needed to instead be renewing their minds and be teaching truth and not error. So one of the things that we see there is absolute truth. This is a Greek philosophy, secular philosophy. This is not biblical philosophy.

Greek philosophy was that absolute truth cannot be known in many regards. It could be observed hypothetically. But it was always, as Paul said, with the dim mirror to the Corinthians, that was the best they could hope for. There was an analogy of the cave where the sun shines and the best thing we could observe is that we're trapped in a cave and we could see the shadows on the wall.

That's as close as we'd get to truth in Greek philosophy. That's pretty depressing. That's sad. Instead, from a biblical perspective, we need to seek truth because it's revealed by God. They didn't call it humanism, but we do. Humanism is another thing. Man is the measure.

How many times when you talk about science, Now, Bob has got the inside track on talking science because he does that for work. If I talk about science at work, it might be computer science, but usually it's something somebody saw on the Discovery Channel or read on an internet article. But a lot of the times when we talk about science from a secular perspective, it's a replacement for God. How can we deduce what is the replacement for God? I think Bob says, how do we expose what God has done in his creation?

Boy, is that a big difference, right? Those are coming from opposing angles. One is not sure, one is sure, even if it's that he's sure that God knows. Postmodernism, which of course the Greeks didn't have, but it's something that we have, and so I want to call this out, because this would be as close in our modern context.

Bill Clinton is considered our first postmodern president, just so you know. If you're not sure what that means, do you remember when he was on trial for having maybe made some poor choices in the Oval Office? And he said the infamous question, what is, is? That philosophy of postmodernism is called deconstructionism. And in deconstructionism, you question everything and you assert that we can't really know anything for sure. What is, is. Done.

If you come to me and you accuse me of something, and I say, I don't even understand the words you're accusing me of, you can't win. Do you know what Bill Clinton did? as part of his career. He taught law. Can you imagine teaching groups of students who are supposed to uphold righteous judgment and make sure the standards are held in place? What is, is? That's terrible! But this is the Greek mind. This is the philosophy of taking on these secular ideas and bringing those in. Paul doesn't want them in the church, as you can understand why.

Does Jesus really love me? Does the Bible really tell you so? I don't think we should sing that song, we can't be certain. Jesus might have existed, and he might have loved me, and the Bible might have said that. That's terrible, but that's post-modernism. That same thinking denies the Holocaust, just for whatever that's worth. Six million Jews killed? Maybe. That's terrible.

So the next one that's on this list, and this is very common, especially if you're into Instagram, which I know with this crowd is a lot of Instagram users. Existentialism, that there is only experience. Look, here's a picture of me having experience that you're not having. With a filter on. Right? Existentialism is all about the experience.

What does it feel like? And I can tell you right now that growing up with a what's-it-feel-like environment that I had growing up was one of those things where it really made things like drugs attractive to my generation. Now I know some of you are from another generation that also liked drugs, but the what's-it-feel-like was part of the question. Feels groovy, right? Feeling. Sexual liberty. Feeling. I mean, I love a good restaurant as much as the next person, but if all I'm doing is gluttony, that's that existentialism. It's that feeling. It tastes amazing. I'm worshipping the feeling.

The last one that's on this list, and it's a subset, it's actually a response to existentialism that is still rooted in existentialism, and it was a very well-known and prominent Greek philosophy that is making a resurgence today that is super important for us to be aware of, and that's Stoicism. We have many letters from Stoic philosophers that have been translated to English and are now being sold on the internet and in bookstores that are very popular.

Do you want to be successful? Be a Stoic. Do you want to trade well in the stock market and not be emotional? You just need to be a Stoic. Do you want to be successful in business? Business is cold. Be a Stoic. Stoic philosophy says you know that garbage is going to happen. double down on the garbage. One Stoke philosopher wrote, I dress like a poor person, wearing odd colors, and I go out to have garbage thrown at me. This is in Greece. So that if I ever become impoverished, I already know I can survive. It's existential, but it's like this weird dark mirror version of existentialism. So, Paul is saying, hey, that's garbage. Don't do it. We don't need that in the church.

We believe in truth. We believe it comes from God. We believe we should teach it. And we believe that we can know it. And we believe that we should learn it. And those are all important things that he's saying, lay aside the old thinking. I didn't even look at the time. Please do. This came up historically in a very fundamental church. this section was being taught and these behaviors were reflected in the lives of many believers as you're alluding to here. I really looked at the passage in context and verse 20 is so critically important isn't it? Yes. Because does the power of the flesh allow us to overcome all these things that relate to those mentioned in 17 and 18? No. But you've not so learned Christ. You did not learn him.

And as a consequence, he transitions in that unto the idea of renewing your minds. If you have old Greek thinking, replace it with God's thoughts after him. Replace it with God's provision that he's revealed through the prophets and the apostles and that he's teaching through teachers and pastors. There's a thing here. It's almost like Paul had a plan. But you didn't learn Christ that way. A critical transition phrase there.

We're learning Him day in and day out. That grace is infinite and we learn by His grace. We learn Christ. That doesn't mean just learn of Him intellectually. It's to learn His nature in us if you look at the Greek translation. It is an understanding that comes through relationship, not just a technical checkbox.

So he says, renew your minds. And he says it in the plural. Again, we said that we grow as individuals, but we're growing together. So he says it in the plural. Renew your minds together, collectively. When you learn a thing that renews a thought and changes it with God's thought, share it. Don't keep it to yourself. The mystery religions that the Romans had would have promoted that secret. Paul's open. We've talked about mystery, but that's chapter three, so we won't go back.

So, ruining your minds, teach truth, read truth, challenge error, and unify in the Holy Spirit's revelation. This will lead to putting on middle voice the new self, aka reckoning. Now I have a repeat slide here, and that was on purpose. It shows up in the handout, it looks like it's more prominent than it should be. But I want to say we're going to get into some very firm statements, and they're in the context of the logical imperative.

The idea that we've been blessed, that's already taken care of, we are established, that's already managed. This is a grace-motivated behavior change. So, in verses 25-32, since we are united as one body in Christ, personal tension should be... Wait a minute, did I skip a page? I did. That would explain a number of things.

Since we are members of one another, it's only normal that we would speak truthfully to one another. Now remember, culturally that was expected. If you could deceive somebody, you could get ahead. And that was culturally okay. But not inside the church. We might get upset, but not sin in our emotional intensity. We will not let the sun go down in our anger. We will not let the devil have an opportunity to impact the body. We will work in humility so that we may serve one another. We will work in humility so that we may care for one another.

Again, those are logical imperatives. I'm not trying to bring in a new 613. And then he says, and so Roger got to teach last week, and I wasn't here for that. I was in Fort Collins, so I was bummed I couldn't be here for that. But he says, do not grieve the Holy Spirit.

We are sealed by Him. Why would we attempt to violate that bond? What a special thing. Who gets to open the seal? Christ gets to open the seal. It's sealed by the Holy Spirit. This is yours. That's a really powerful thing. Since we are united as one body, personal tension should be subjected, and I have a lowercase l, the law of love.

The root of bitterness and its fruit should not be allowed in our thought life. Anger towards one another should not be a part of our thought life. Excited rioting, and there's a good fun one, that's a political staple, right? That's how you know you really are going to let the politicians know you've got riotous, right? That's not the case. Slander of one another should not be part of the body. I've been slandered and I've also slandered you. Neither one of those is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. We should not desire to injure another emotionally or physically.

And our purposeful interactions should be instead to be kind, to be tender-hearted. And I love that, because tender-hearted is the bowels. And we always go bowels. And we think of biology and modern science, but the idea that your inner person is being expressed in a kind way, in a loving way. Forgiving because you've been forgiven by God.

Randy? Yeah. Just one point here. Sure. This is important, I think, for us to think about. This looks like a list to me. It is a list. It's a bullet point list. It's not a list, it's a life. Well, it's a list of things that should be a result. Right, and it's a list of things that should be a result. I'm putting it into a legal cloak. Well, and that's why I emphasized before we got in that section the idea of logical imperatives rather than the laws. I wanted to make sure we went in and was like, this is going to look like a list, but it's going to look like a list in this context.

Inspired by grace and the Holy Spirit strengthening and energizing, not the flesh trying to perform. But as you so often said, this is abiding by faith. Yes, this is abiding results. So this is what it looks like, right? Yes. This isn't the flesh looking pretty. This is the Holy Spirit moving in us, empowering us to have a Christ life. No, we have one slide left. Can you bear with me for one more slide? It's a list, but it's an easy one.

It's a summary of Chapter 5. Chapter 5, we start next week. We're going to talk about imitation. We're going to talk about doctrinal appropriation. Light versus dark. Wisdom versus foolishness. Drunkenness versus walking in the spirit. Truth versus deception.

Singing, which is a personal favorite. Subject, Submit, Serve, Marriage, and the Eternal Relationship between Christ and the Church. This is a pretty exciting chapter. And as happens traditionally when Bob, Roger, and I split up the schedule, we all look at the schedule and somebody always gets a passage you wish you got to teach. The problem is that Ephesians is a book you want to teach the whole thing. If you can be a selfish Bible teacher, that's how it is. You're like, I want to teach that passage. Chapter 5 is awesome. And no matter who gets to teach it, it's an exciting chapter.

Let's close in prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for Paul's letter to the Ephesians by your Holy Spirit. Thank you that your Holy Spirit empowers us to do these things so that we don't walk in legalism, but instead we abide and we have the Christ life. And we know that we didn't learn Christ this way. And so that love and that affection that we have causes growth and intimacy with you and together. And we thank you in Jesus name. Amen.