The NBA trade deadline is coming up on February 8, which means that if a team wants to trade any of their players, they have until the 8th to do so.
Here's what that will mean for some players in the league: February 8 will be the last day they wear their team's uniform. On February 9, they will have a new jersey to wear. On February 9, they will have new responsibilities and a new identity. Someone will no longer be an LA Laker; they will now be a Chicago Bull. They will remove that old Lakers jersey and put on a new Chicago Bulls jersey.
In our passage today, we will find this "taking off" and "putting on" language being used. We put off our old self, and we put on our new self. When we place our faith in Jesus, our team changes. We were once on the world's team, but now we are on God's team. And now that we are on God's team, our responsibility and identity changes. We take off our old way of living and put on our new way of living. We take off our old way of thinking and put on a new way of thinking. We take off our old desires and put on new desires. As Tony Merida summarizes this passage, "When we put on Christ, we receive a new spiritual identity and new corresponding responsibilities. Having put off the corrupt garment of the old self (4:22) and put on the new garment (v. 24), we must live in light of our new identity."
Let's dive in.
"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. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness."
DIFFERENT THAN THE WORLD
At the beginning of this section, Paul says, "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."
Walk is a term used throughout the gospels to describe the act of stepping one foot in front of the other— the act of making one's way through a town or place. Remember, there weren't cars during this time, so "walking" was a term that encompassed all of one's life.
Paul, however, often uses this word to describe the conduct of one's life. It's an individual's lifestyle. In saying, "You must no longer walk as the Gentiles do," Paul is saying, "You must no longer live as the Gentiles do." Put simply, how you live your life as a Christian ought to be drastically different than the Gentiles.
But what is a Gentile? A Gentile is a term used to describe 'the nations' or 'non-Jews' or 'the pagan world.'
So, Paul is saying Christians should live differently than the rest of the world. There are things the world will endorse that we should no longer endorse. There are things the world will do that we should no longer do. There are things the world will say that we should no longer say.
The language we use and the conversations we're a part of should stand out at work. How we do business, as a business owner, should be different than our competitors. How we care for our neighbors should be different than everyone else in our neighborhood. How we interact with the opposite sex should be different than our partners at the gym.
DIFFERENT THAN YOU
Your lifestyle should look different from the world. But not only should your life look different from the world, it should also look different from how you used to live. "No longer" implies that the church did, at one time, walk as the Gentiles walked. So, Paul says that those who have experienced salvation will also experience transformation. The way you live now as a Christian should be different than how you lived before you were a Christian. To confess Jesus as Savior is also to acknowledge him as Lord. To say, "Jesus has saved me from my sins" is also to say, "I'm willing to let Jesus lead me away from my sins."
There should be a distinction between the church and the world, and there should be a distinction between your new self and your old self.
You're missing this fundamental aspect of the Christian faith if your justification for snapping at a co-worker, bickering with a neighbor, or arguing with your spouse is, "Well, I've always been a short-tempered person. Short fuses run deep in our family."
The way you live now as a Christian should begin to be different than how you lived before you were a Christian.
HEART & MIND
Now, I want us to look at how Paul describes the world's ways, "...you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, 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."
Notice the primary emphasis here is on what's on the inside, not the outside. Paul doesn't summarize the world's way as "drinking, smoking, and cussing." No, he summarizes the world as a people who are darkened in their understanding and have a hard and calloused heart toward God.
I believe this teaches us that God cares about our hearts more than our actions. It's possible, at times, to look morally clean with religious actions and still be alienated from the life of God. It's possible to cover up a greedy heart with actions that appear to be selfless. It's possible to look like someone who loves God when, in reality, you hate God.
The heart of the problem is the heart of the person— "Futility of mind, darkened in their understanding, ignorance that is in them, hardness of heart, calloused."
Futility is a term that implies emptiness. It's a word used in the Old Testament 54 times (mostly Ecclesiastes) and three times in the New Testament. It's a term that signifies vanity, purposelessness, absurdity, or worthlessness.
Vanity, vanity, everything is vanity," says Solomon in Ecclesiastes. Similarly, Paul says in 1 Corinthians that our faith would be futile and worthless if Christ had not been raised from the grave (1 Cor. 15:17). In Romans 8:20, he tells us that creation had been subject to futility due to the fall (Rom 8:20), meaning it was created to produce fruit to preserve life, but was thwarted due to the curse of the fall. Similarly, Peter tells us that false prophets utter loud boasts of complete folly (2 Pt. 2:18).
So, here in Ephesians, Paul is saying that there is something fundamentally wrong with the mind of the world; it's unable to function the way that it was intended to function. There's a way that might seem right to the world, but in reality, it's empty and worthless apart from God. There was a way that seemed right to us before Christ, but in reality, it was empty and worthless apart from God.
Paul adds that they are "darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart." So, they walk in the futility of their minds because their understanding is darkened. But not only are they darkened in their understanding, they are far from God.
Paul, in Romans 1, tells us that "what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they 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. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen."
So, God has made himself known to the world, yet the world has rejected him. They did not honor him as God. They've distanced themselves from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them. Therefore, God has given them up to the lust of their hearts. Their hearts are hard. Using Paul's language, they have become "calloused and have given themselves us to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity."
This is the world; this was you. Their minds are futile; your mind was futile. Their understanding is darkened; your understanding was darkened. Their life is far from God; your life was far from God. Their hearts are hardened toward God and full of ignorance; your heart was hardened toward God and full of ignorance. They are calloused and greedy to practice every kind of impurity; you were calloused and greedy to practice every kind of impurity.
LEARNING CHRIST
"But!" Paul says. Something has changed in you! He says, "But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus…"
Learned is an academic word. It's a word that implies one being taught something. So, Paul is telling us that when they learned Christ, transformation began to take place, which teaches us that teaching and learning are fundamental aspects of the Christian faith. They heard about Christ and were taught in Christ.
Community is important. Being present in one another's lives is essential. I think a healthy church does things together. We want to be friends with one another. We want to laugh with one another; we want to cry with one another. But, we short-change community if we neglect discipleship. Jesus called his disciples to go into the world to make disciples, and teaching is a fundamental element of discipleship. Discipleship is teaching a Christian how to think, feel, and act like Jesus. So, to be a disciple of Jesus, we must learn about Jesus.
There's something interesting here that 99% of us will miss. Paul, in his writings, often refers to Jesus as "Jesus Christ," or "Christ Jesus," or "Lord Jesus," or "the Messiah, Jesus." But, here in Ephesians 4:21, we find the only mention of just the name Jesus in Ephesians. So, Paul seems to be intentionally drawing his reader's attention to the historical person, Jesus. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The life of Jesus isn't a fabricated story; it's a historically accurate story about the person and work of Jesus. A fundamental aspect of discipleship is teaching one another about Jesus. Jesus is the subject of Christian teaching.
But our teaching isn't merely intellectual; it's also relational. As we grow in our knowledge of Christ, we should grow in our relationship with Christ. The fundamental difference between the world and the church is our proximity to God. The world is alienated from God; we are with God in Christ. The world worships man; we worship God. The world loves self; we love God. The world serves its own desires; we serve Christ. As we commit to learning about Christ, we commit to walking with Christ. We want to know him both intellectually and relationally.
NEW CREATION
Paul then says that we are to put off our "old self, which belongs to [our] former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds."
To embrace Jesus is to adopt a new way of life. We're taking off that old jersey and putting on a new one. And this new way of life starts with our hearts and our minds. When we trust in Jesus, the Holy Spirit moves into our hearts and gives us new desires.
Think back to when COVID was running rampant through our world. One common effect of having the virus was a change of or a lack of taste. Things that we once loved, we no longer love. Things we once craved, we no longer have a taste for. Some of us, for example, were addicted to coffee, got COVID, and then no longer liked coffee. No one could explain how it happened, but something happened inside us that changed our tastes and desires.
Friends, this is the Christian life. Something changed within us when we learned Christ and placed our faith and trust in him. Our thinking changes. Maybe not instantly, but over time, our desires should begin to change. As our minds are being renewed, our affections are transformed. Things we once craved no longer sound appealing. Things our hearts once longed for don't quite have the same hold on us as they once did.
We put off our old self, and we "put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." Church, when we trust in Jesus, we become a new creation. Galatians 2:20 says, "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Colossians 3:1 says, "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God."
We are a new creation. Our old self has died, and we have been raised with Christ. And this new self has been created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
In Christ, you are declared righteous, truly righteous. You are justified before God, meaning you will stand holy, blameless, and above reproach in his presence. And, now, those whom the blood of Jesus has made righteous should begin to pursue righteousness by the power of Jesus in them. In Christ, you are made holy, set apart from the world. And, now, in Christ, you are called to pursue holiness.