Heavenly Father, thank you for gathering us together to glorify your name. We trade our sin for the freedom we have in you. God, how beautiful it is to have salvation from heaven move us into this newfound holiness. Thank you so much for your son, Jesus Christ. If it were not for his life, death, and resurrection, we would have no hope. Thank you so much for his wonderful gift to us, so we can testify to your infinite glory. Lord, we worship you as your sons and daughters, please receive our worship as worthy because your spirit is upon us sanctifying our actions.

Father, fill us mightily today with your Holy Spirit. We need your Holy Spirit to fill us – we recognize our weaknesses. We need your spirit to live righteously and empowered. If we grieve your Spirit in anyway, forgive us, and rejuvenate us with his presence.

Look into our hearts and if there is sin in us that remains unrepentant and undiagnosed, expose them today. We want to repent and be changed into your likeness. Let your kingdom come and your will be done in us and through us. We pray all these things in Jesus precious name. Amen.

We’re in Ephesians 4:17-32 this morning.

¹⁷ 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.

²⁵ Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. ²⁶ Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, ²⁷ and give no opportunity to the devil. ²⁸ 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. ²⁹ 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. ³⁰ And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. ³¹ Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. ³² Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

(Ephesians 4:17-32 ESV)

We need to start applying this truth to our lives beginning today.

Big Idea: Our lifestyle must be different than the world and our past

• If the way you carry yourself in life is no different than your life prior to your salvation in Jesus, then his death was a waste.
• If the way you carry yourself in life is visibly no different than a non-Christian, then your life is purposeless.

Our lifestyles must be different than the rest of the world and our past!

Now, I thought about this a lot this week, the reason some of us are not any different than a non-Christian or from our former lives is because our definition of normal living is still predicated by the spirit of the world and not by the person of Jesus Christ. Let me explain that.

All people functionally operate governed by what sociologists or anthropologists call “social norms.” Norms are the unwritten moral standards and codes for how people are expected to behave to be normal and appropriate in a culture. For example, saying hello, covering your mouth while sneezing, not cutting the line at the grocery store, having the latest iphone, never asking a woman her real age, I think my mom’s been 49 for since 2007.

It’s because of our norms we think the way we do, and subsequently behave the way we do. And some of us, even though we have been adopted into the family of God still have not adopted the norms of God’s family. We are not practicing the norms Jesus, the son of God, taught and embodied.

Back when I was in high school, there were a style of pants called baggy jeans, and wide-legged jeans. Anybody remember those things? Owning a pair of either of those styles of jeans made you socially acceptable, at least with other teenagers at my high school. Unfortunately for me, I only owned assorted colors of sweatpants and my one pair of my Sunday’s best, suit pants.

In an attempt to conform to the norm and be socially acceptable, I got a job so that I could buy a pair of baggy or wide legged jeans. But here’s the thing, when I started working, my definition of normal changed. I no longer cared about being socially acceptable to the people at my high school. I cared more about being socially acceptable to my customers. I was earning commissions and not being acceptable to my customers affected my bottom line and my bottom line mattered more than my peers!

When our norms are not the norms Jesus teaches us to live by, it’s because the world is still more important to you than Jesus. Why are we still living that way?

• Don’t you know you are chosen to have a brand new life, set aside for the purposes of God?
• Don’t you know the moment you accepted Jesus in faith, the world already rejected you?

Shouldn’t you choose a normal that doesn’t vacillate with changing times, nor bends to whatever micro-cultures are trending on social media?  Shouldn’t you choose the version of norm pegged steadily and wholly on a God who was, who is, and who forever will be the same? If you find it too much pressure to keep up and care about everything else the rest of culture wants you to care about and adhere to, then make the choice, chose to live different – adhering to the norms of God for your new life with Christ. This seems to be an obvious point, but this is actually difficult in practice.

That’s exactly the reason God gave us the Bible. When we study the Bible, the Word of God testifies to what our Father deems as normative and what a normal relationship with him is like. And unlike politics, culture, fashion, and whatever else in the world, it doesn’t change because the times change. It doesn’t bend to whoever is headlining the news. We are saved to be different than what we once were. Let’s pick up our passage again and see how we live out the totality of our lives in the norms of God and his kingdom. Verse 17.

¹⁷ 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.

The first step in living by the norms of God in our new life with Christ is by:

Point 1. Giving up your sinful thoughts and actions

The Apostle Paul gives us four reasons people live in rebellion to the norms of God. Understanding these reasons will help us root out why we don’t choose to live by the norms of our God and still have sinful thoughts and actions pop up in our new lives with Jesus.

• Futility in our minds comes from not knowing who God is, what he does, and how he is. Paul talks about this in Romans 1 and 2, but essentially:
  • People try to fill the space left by a God’s sized hole in their lives by turning to other things that are not God, to fill that hole in their lives. When we do that, it becomes idolatry. We have sinful thoughts and act sinfully because we have idols in our lives despite claiming Jesus as who we worship.
  • If you don’t believe me, let me give you an exercise to do: What do you fantasize or daydream about? Can you identify a theme or a subject? Is it your kids wellbeing? your job status? the money you don’t have yet? The likes on your social feed?If your fantasies and daydreams are about something other than who God is and your relationship with him, then you have an idol problem. That’s why you still live like the world!
  • It may not be in all aspects of your life, but it’s definitely in the aspects where your idols rule you.
• Darkened understandings – this related to the futility of minds, but when we have idols, our lives become about satiating the appetites of those idols.
  • Our activities are “darkened” or colored by the wishes and cravings of those idols.
  • These are areas where our sinful thoughts and actions look most like the culture of the world and of our previous lives and have not assimilated into the image of Christ.
  • For example, if your idol is approval, we become obsessed with obtaining the approval of a certain group of people, so we daydream about it and everything we do is seen through the lens of gaining their approval, so when we don’t have the approval we crave, we do all that we can to ease, numb, or mitigate that rejection in our life.
  • To figure out what darkens your understandings, ask: “What do you worry about the most? Is it freedom, stress, affirmation, love, standards, control, power, success, winning, influence? 
• Alienated from the life of God – is not placing our hope in God and therefore feeling alone and apart from him. So we go seeking belonging in something else. There is no such thing as a loner. Even loners have a crowd.
  • To figure out what where we’re alienated from the life of God, ask: what click, gang, or crowd do you seek allegiance to? Are Christians too Republican? Or too socialist? Are they too narrow minded or old fashioned?
• Hardness of heart is the numbness that ensues from not understanding who God is or what the world truly is like. We can call it stubbornness or resentment or bitterness.
  • To figure out where we have hardness of heart, ask: where are we willing to trade our faith and trust in God in search of comfort, approval, control, or power.

These are the reasons people give themselves up to what the Apostle Paul calls “sensuality.” Sensuality is sinful abandon. The reason we live no different than the world or our life previous to Jesus is because we have idols masquerading in our lives like they’re God. Hear me: God saved you from the condemnation of belonging to this world so that we would grow up into Christ, as God’s heir, worthy of receiving his kingdom.

Family, how will you live your life?

• Will you live futile in the mind?
• Will you live darkened in understanding?
• Will you live alienated from the life of God?
• Will you live hard in the heart?

Verse 20.

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.

When we receive Jesus as our savior, he gives us the ability to give up on our sinful thoughts and actions. In Jesus we can give up our sinful thoughts and actions by naming and killing our idols. Accepting Jesus fully causes us to think different and act different because he changes our motivations.

Jesus was God, but he surrendered his rights to take on the form of a human to walk in our shoes. In his humanity he lived perfect, so that he could sacrifice himself for our sins, to satisfy the requirements of justice. Jesus, on the cross, became the most acceptable sin offering. His death imputed his righteousness unto us and that act liberated us from sin and death and made us holy.

Jesus’ sacrifice was so righteous, and acceptable that God resurrected Jesus from the dead. In faith, we have Jesus’ righteousness before God. In faith, we are set apart for the good works God prepared for us. In faith, we are holy through Jesus and are becoming holy like Jesus in our thoughts and actions by the Holy Spirit Jesus gave to us. In faith, we have the same hope of resurrection that gave Jesus life on the third day.

When we live by faith and the norms of our faith, we believe Jesus lived, died, and was resurrected to give us a new life with him to be holy like our father in heaven so we think and act like Jesus.

It’s time to give up our sinful thoughts and actions and put on our “new self”, the head, heart, and hands of Jesus. To help each of us put on the “new self” we put up a playlist titled “discipleship” on our YouTube channel. There are 7 videos on the playlist with each video teaching a spiritual practice that will helps us give up our sinful thoughts and actions. Your homework is to go to our YouTube page and take advantage of the resources there to re-orient yourself to Jesus’ norm, so that it becomes your norm.

If you’re not subscribed to our YouTube channel, you need to do so ASAP. Go to YouTube, type in Cedarbrook Community Church and from there click the subscribe button. You want to do this because we’re going to put more content there to help equip us on our journey of becoming radical Christ followers.

The second step in living different than the world and our past selves, is to:

Point 2. Replace sinful habits with holy habits

Living different than the world and our past selves is not just about saying no to sin; it is also about saying yes to God – to being holy like our Father in heaven is holy. That’s what we just read in verse 24. Living holy requires us to tie our life to our theology. Meaning we’re not just talking the talk or just talking about ideas of God, but we’re walking the talk, and living out what we believe about who God is and how we need to be in relationship with him. When we live out what we believe about who God is, it becomes a powerful witness to the world that we are different. In fact, it makes them question whether their normal is what they want for their lives. Us, living out our faith fully is what changes the world and transform it for God’s glory.

As we read verses 25-32, you’ll see the Apostle Paul list 5 sinful habits we commonly assimilate from the world, that make us no different than the world. He then gives us the theology and practical actions we can take to replace those sinful habits to testify to the world, the norms of God. If we apply these holy habits in the relationships we have with people, especially those people who are not part of the family of God, I believe God would bless those people in ways beyond our wildest expectations.

Verse 25

²⁵ Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.

We need to replace lying with telling the truth. Not only because God hates lies. But because our welfare is tied to one another. Our wellbeing is tied to one another and for the sake of our collective well-being, we tell truth to one another because all lies, even white lies hurt people’s wellbeing. There’s nothing worse than when a friend white lied to make you feel better about yourself. There is nothing worse than seeing that youtube clip of that person who can’t sing and that person’s entire family and friends telling that person, that he or she is a good singer and some strangers on a tv show have to break the news to that person.

Verse 26

 ²⁶ Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, ²⁷ and give no opportunity to the devil.

We need to replace unrighteous anger with righteousness anger. Righteous anger is not getting mad but not cursing. Anger is anger, but the difference between unrighteous and righteous anger is whether the anger manifests itself to throw a fit, seek revenge, or dishonor God in public – that’s unrighteous anger, that’s sin wrapped up in anger.

We’re allowed to be angry, but we need to be angry over the right things: an injustice, and an evil against people, things that grieve God.

And when we get angry, because we will get angry, Paul says don’t let the anger fester, because Satan loves to use the opportunity of festering anger to divide you and make you more sinful.

That means you couples who don’t talk for days after fighting over a toilet seat that wasn’t put back down, stop with the nonsense, you’re giving the devil the opportunity to drive a wedge between you. Go hash it out, reconcile.

Verse 28.

 ²⁸ 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.

Don’t steal! That’s universal, hopefully. But here’s where the sinful habit and holy habit divide. The culture says to work for you and yourself alone. But the norm for a Christ follower is that it’s not enough to work just to earn for yourself, we must work to give generously to others. John Wesley, an 18^th century pastor, had a saying apt for this verse: “work as hard as you can to make as much as you can, then give as much as you can.”

Verse 29.

²⁹ 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. ³⁰ And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Our social media and bifurcated society make this habit too easy. The sinful norm and habit that needs to stop: stop being nasty and judgmental toward other people. We know this is how sinful people operate. Instead, when given an opportunity, we need to speak encouragement and admonishment to people so they can become better people.

The theological reason we need to operate this way is because the Holy Spirit of God can be grieved by our speech. Meaning if we speak in a way contrary to how the Holy Spirit commands us to speak to others or about others, he is going to start withdrawing from us because of our hardness of heart. Unlike the culture that’s prone to cancel and denigrate others, we, in obedience to the Holy Spirit, speak to build others up.

Verse 31.

 ³¹ Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. ³² Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Bitterness, wrath, anger, abuse and public discord is not something we engage in. If this is what Christ followers are known for in culture, we have a problem. In fact, Christians are already portrayed this way in culture. I’m sure that’s why some people you know denounced their faith. Cedarbrook, we cannot be people known for bitterness, wrath, angry, clamor, or slander. Even if that’s the norm in this world that can’t be us.

In situations and circumstances that would normally lead us toward those things, we need to move in the opposite direction: toward kindness, forgiveness, and tenderheartedness, or understanding. The reason we do this is because that’s exactly what Jesus did for us. He forgave us out of his kindness, and his love. He was tenderhearted toward sinful people, which is why he laid his life down for us on the cross. That’s the norm we adhere to. We move with kindness, tenderheartedness, and forgiveness toward all people.

Being filled with Christ love, we speak truth, we love people, we provide for other’s needs, we admonish and encourage people so we can build people up for maturity in Christ. We must live differently than the world and our previous lives. Our norms must be Jesus’ norms. Put on your new self, and embody Jesus righteousness and live holy, in the image of God. I want to challenge you to take your sinful habits that makes you most like the world and practice holy habits in your interactions with people in your life.

Let’s pray.

Heavenly father, we struggle so much to live a life worthy of our salvation. Lord, we want to live different than the world. We want to live different than how we used to live but there are so many things that make us trip and fumble and we look no different than the world you rescued us from.

I ask for those of us struggling to be different but keep getting caught up with our old ways, that you would cause us to remember the sacrifice of your son, so that we would be inspired and moved to your holiness in faith. We want to put on our new self, we want to be in the image of your son.

If there are people here who need you repent and come to you, give them faith to receive you, radically change their lives and their relationships. I ask that these men and women would see how you give them fresh hope that changes who they were into who you created them to be.

Give each of us opportunities to grow into holiness, full of your righteousness so the world would know to whom we belong and would ask how they too can have our normal. Make us sensitive to your Holy Spirit, and let us be obedient to his moving in us each day this week as we move with kindness, tenderheartedness, and forgiveness. We pray all these things in Jesus name. Amen.

Communion

The last Sunday of each month, we have the privilege of celebrating a spiritual meal together in communion. The purpose of this meal is to encourage and admonish all those redeemed by the blood of Jesus and baptized in obedience to his command to remember the sacrifice Christ made for us on the cross and empower us to live like him until he returns.

In 1 Corinthians 11, the Apostle Paul writes, “^23b …. the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, ²⁴ and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” [hold and eat the bread]

²⁵ In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” ²⁶ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. [drink the cup]

We will have four lines to receive communion. The line on the left side of the stage will feature self-contained communion cups for those needing or wanting those. The other three lines will all have bread and juice where you can dip the bread.

Before you come up for communion, take time to reflect, to repent, and seek the heart of God. Once you have received communion, please return to your seats using the center aisle and continue worshipping God in singing with our band or in prayer.

I want to pray for all of us and then the band will lead us in worship as we partake in communion.

Thank you Lord for this spiritual meal we are about to share. We are fed by your sacrificial love; we are strengthened by your life. The calling you laid on our hearts to be your beloved children, we receive it wholeheartedly and without any doubts. Continue to sanctify our hearts and minds. Fill us with your spirit so we can understand how to manifest our relationships with your love. I pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Benediction

We don’t know what the next 7 days will hold, but until we meet again, may the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption reign in your hearts and minds so you can glorify the Father through your kindness, tenderheartedness, and forgiveness of one another, in the fullness of Christ love for us. Amen.