Paul's admonition to the church through the letter to the Ephesians is to live a life worthy of the calling that we have as Christians. It is to live a life of maturity which will bring glory to God. In chapter 4 we saw that there were gifts given to the church in order that we may be equipped and grow up in this way. Today he declares to us that if it is indeed our desire to be like Christ, there are some patterns of lifestyle that we must openly reject, and some that we must objectively pursue. It is amazing as he discloses the negative patterns how similar they are to the general pattern of the world today. I believe that he goes into great detail here so as to prevent us from becoming confused as to what some of these things are. For Paul, these are more than a few suggestions. He is emphatic as he says, "I must insist that you avoid this kind of lifestyle. The lifestyle of the gentiles, or the pagans." To this end the old adage, "When in Rome, do as the Romans" is seriously flawed. Paul would have to say that for the Christian, there is never and occasion to merely "do as the Romans". We are always to do only as the Lord.

So that we do not have any excuses, Paul begins by warning us that there is:
I. The Reasoning that Curses.

Ephes. 4:17-19 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. [18] They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. [19] Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.

Notice firstly there is:
1. A Darkening of the Mind.
Their thinking goes nowhere. People who have yet to be enlightened by the Spirit of God are incapable of understanding the truth. LeRoy Lawson said, "They can't see ahead (they live without vision and purpose). They can't see around or over (their troubles thus defeat them). They can't see through (they are easily deceived). They can't see in (they don't even really know themselves). They can't see up (even God is hidden from their blind eyes)."

The Bible tells us that the natural man does not understand the things of God. We have brilliant men in our universities who spend their lives trying to refute the truths of Scripture, because they are meaningless to them. They will never understand those things. I wish our Christian young people in these colleges will understand this. You don't have to stand arguing with your agnostic professor that evolution is a lie. You are wasting your breath. He will never understand the truths of God while darkened in his understanding. And nothing he says will change the truth. There is a darkening of the mind.

Secondly, there is:
2. A Hardening of the Heart.
When the mind refuses to accept truth, the heart becomes hardened. The sense in which this word is used here is that the heart has become stiff and callused. The word is taken from the verb poroo which means to petrify. To coat with stone. It is a process. It is not something which happened over night. It is something that gradually, through consistent denial of truth and turning away from God, has now caused a stony crust to dull their understanding and anaesthetize their feelings. They are unfeeling in their hearts. Because of this ignorance, there is an absence of the divine life. Someone said that there is a spark of divine life within the heart of every man. Not true. 1 John 5:12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. This is true.

This hardening of the heart comes through constantly ignoring truth and the pangs of conscience. This is what futility of thinking leads to. Our thinking slips to agree with action, or action slips to agree with an error of mind. We begin to rely on our feelings in order to determine right from wrong. This is the beginning of a hardening of heart. For me to know right but to do wrong will result in either repentance or hardening of heart. One way or another, I will find a state of escape from conscience. It may come through compromise and a decision to live with sin. It may come through adjusting either my thinking or behavior to bring it in line with God's Word. Two routes to inner peace; two very different results. The one will result in the Christ life, the other will result in an unharnessed escalation of depravity, or in the third place,
3. A Reckless Indulgence.
Because of their condition, they have become callous. If you refuse to follow God, you become insensitive to Him. And because of this insensitivity, people who adopt this world view have given themselves over to sensuality, for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. In our age, this is an apt description of the lifestyle being promoted. Every sin, which was unthinkable even a few years ago, is now being promoted as if it is normal. Perversion is masquerading as acceptable behavior, and those who stand against it are somehow labeled as narrow. This is the result of callous, hardened hearts. A teenager once asked, "Why is it, when we have the world's greatest product, it is so hard to sell?" The reason is because man resists the truth, rejects light, turns from God's love, clings to his error, and thus renders his heart gradually harder and harder and more unable to respond.

This is the danger that Paul warns of. This is the reality that must be avoided at all costs. The opposite of this is to respond to the Truth of God. To be moved by the Holy Spirits conviction to repentance. There is a reasoning that curses, but in the second place we see that alongside of this reasoning, there is:
II. The Reality that Confronts.
Ephes. 4:20-21 You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. [21] Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus.
The truth that is in Jesus. We cannot get away from it. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life. This continues the thought of last week, that it is in looking at the life of Jesus that we come to understand the truth about all things. Col. 2:2-3 My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, [3] in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. In Jesus prayer to the Father in John 17:17 He prayed, Father " …Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth." This was a prayer that Jesus' followers in seeing the Truth that was in Him, the living word, would be confronted by it and would be sanctified by it. That the Truth would reveal the error that exists and that we would be changed as a result. Many people today do not know what truth is. This is an age old problem. Pilot asked a universal question at Jesus' trial. "What is truth?"

My how we need a reference point for truth in the world today. This was evident again this year while standing in the "Life Chain" Those opposing our stand for the life of the unborn drove by with their slogans asking "Who decides?" I could not understand the mentality of the question until I realized that they have a different point of reference. Theirs is subjective. There is no absolute. Whatever feels good is ok. Jesus confronts that idea. In Him there is an absolute reference point. A moral compass upon which we may establish the course of life. Jesus speaks to the many confusing issues in the world to day and sets up for us a reference point which is established in truth. Take that away then the question really does become, "Who decides." John 8:31b-32 "...the truth shall set you free."

In Jesus we find the truth about man.
The truth about life.
The truth about death
The truth about sin.
The truth about you and me
The truth about families.
The truth about friends and enemies
The truth about how we should eat and live and work and play.
The truth about how we should think.
All of this is found in the life and Spirit of Christ.

The Apostle Peter affirms Paul's words when he writes in 1 Peter 2:21 "To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.:" Christ confronts us with His Truth and we are compelled to respond. There has not been a man or women who being confronted by the Truth of Christ has not had to make a choice to either for Him or against Him. The Bible tells us that there are no neutral parties when it come to Christ. We are either for Him or against Him. We are either gatherers or scatterers. Which will it be as He confronts us with His truth once again this morning. Will we do as those recorded in Romans 1 did and exchange the truth for a lie, or will we accept the truth and change our minds accordingly?
When we do the latter we will experience the third process that Paul callus to here and that is:

III. The Response that Converts.
Ephes. 4:22-24 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; [23] to be made new in the attitude of your minds; [24] and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Earlier Paul says we were taught of Christ. Here he specifies what it is we were taught, and to what we must respond. The responses are a logical progression. The first, is that we must:
1. Put off the old.
We must put off the old self. Lest we perchance are still walking in some of the ways of the Old man, we must put them off. The old self refers directly to our former manner of life. The way we used to live is no longer the way we are now to live. We must put this old way of life aside.

Paul uses three words to demonstrate the urgency with which we must put off the old. The first, "put off" doesn't fully convey the meaning of the original text. There really is a sense of urgency here. "Put off" is written in the aorist imperative tense. It refers to a change which is once and for all. It is really a word used for the changing of clothes. The imperative action suggests not "putting" off, but throwing off. And I don't think this can be emphatic enough. In trying to come up with the feeling of the urgency that is involved in this change, imagine yourself picking up your coat and putting it on. You have just got it nice and snug, and all of a sudden you feel these creepy crawlies all over you. You look at your hands and you see all of these little black things all over you. Your coat is infested with fleas. What do you do with that coat? Do you gradually take it off, or do you "Throw" it off. "aposthesthai" your coat. Throw it off! Throw off the conduct of the old man. In Christ we are new creatures. The old is thrown off once for all. By the way. The next time you see that coat, are you going to want to put it on in a hurry? I don't think so, yet we keep on slipping into our old "garments".

The second word relates to the reason why we must throw off the old self, with all it's encumbrances, and that is because it is "Corrupt" The word corrupt is from the word "phtheiro" which means literally to rot. To decay as in a decaying corpse. Folks, our old body is dead, decaying like a rotten corpse. There is no possible way it the world that we can hang onto it and still be alive in Christ.

That is the first requirement. Once we have made that choice to put aside the things of our old life, we must renew our minds concerning the things that we now ought to do, so secondly we must:
2. Renew Our Minds.
The second requirement of truth is to be renewed in the spirit of your mind. This renewal of mind is a consequence of laying aside the old self. It is dependent upon it. As we turn from the way we used to be, we turn toward Jesus. It is then that this transformation process begins. We experience a metamorphosis of mind. The Word of God becomes real to us, and prayer becomes our lifeline. By the Word of God and prayer, we come to gain the mind of Christ. And from that renewed mind, we live the life of Christ. This is the third requirement.
3. Put on the New
The third requirement of truth is that we put on the new self. The one which is incorruptible. This new self is fashioned in the likeness of God. This is a revolutionary idea. It is literally a call to a revolution of human status. It is not a mere acquaintance with the gospel as biographical memoirs. This is who we are. This is who we are becoming. We are being conformed to the image of Christ. This new self is like Christ because it has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. The character of this new self is wholly unlike the way we used to live. Righteousness, holiness, and truth characterize this new self, whereas deceit, impurity, sensuality, and greediness characterized our old self.

The way we put off the old is to avoid the pattern of life that we were once used to. The way we renew our minds and put on the new is to focus on the things that are pure. The things that are holy. The things that are righteous.

Family, these appear to be hard sayings. For some, they may even be offensive. That is the nature of truth. We will either face up to it and change, or we will run from it, deny it and become callused and reprobate in our thinking. But ignore it we cannot. What will be your response today? You may be saying, "This is impossible. I can never do this." That's right. And that is the only way we can come to this awesome responsibility. We must come with the words, "I can't". Then with our hands and hearts and minds open to the Spirit's cleansing and renewing power, we surrender all that we are to His Lordship, and He will give you a new heart, a new mind, a new nature.