Our text is from Paul's epistle to the Church of Ephesus, chapter 4, verses 17 through 24, as we continue our series through this epistle, beginning with verse 17. So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, you must no longer live as the Gentiles do. In the futility of their thinking, they were darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them due to the heartening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, I have given themselves over it to sensuality, so as to indulge in every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more. You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. Surely you heard of Him and were taught in Him according to the truth. That is in Jesus. 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, to be made new in the attitude of your minds, and to put on the new self, created to be like God, and true righteousness, and holiness. This is the word of the Lord for us today.
In the book of Ephesians, it is a letter that Paul wrote to the church of Ephesus when he was in prison in Rome. It is not the kind of letter you would expect when if one wrote it in prison. It is a high letter, it is a majestic letter, it is a happy letter, it is speaking of all that Paul has, all that the Ephesians have in Christ is not a downer, it is an upper. It is a great, great letter, as we have seen. We are in the middle of the fourth chapter. We will look at verses 17 and following in just a few minutes. Jesus was there in that prison cell when Paul wrote that letter, that same Jesus is here this morning. Let us ask him to teach us what he had Paul wrote here. Let us pray together. In our Father in heaven, you know that this is not religious rhetoric on my part. I father you know my heart, and you know that I know that I am helpless now to communicate this in such a way that people would grow, be changed from the inside out, people would be changed in heart and soul. I can't teach that way. No one that stands behind this desk can teach that way. But Father Jesus is here, faithful to His promise, and He can teach that way. So we pray that in these next few minutes that we would hear His voice in our hearts. I follow this amazing thing, what happens, that we believe that Jesus Christ really does speak. We have heard His voice, we are not the same people, we were. He has changed this, and we prayed in these next few minutes that we would hear Him once more, and that maybe some here would hear Him for the first time. That is our prayer. The name of Jesus Christ, for His honor, and for His glory, right here and right now. Amen. Christ, the great divide. In verse 17, Paul began to contrast the life of the pagan in the world to the life of the Christian in Christ. Look at verse 17. So I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do. He's speaking to Christians. He said, don't live like the Gentiles. Now, he was speaking to former Gentiles. This was not a racial slur about the Jewish call. Being Gentile was synonymous in their minds, and then Paul's mind was being pagan. Paul was speaking to the Christians in Ephesus, most of whom some of them had been Jewish, but most of whom had come from Gentile and pagan backgrounds. He was saying, you can no longer live as pagans. You can't live like that. Then Paul spoke for just a moment about the pagan life in the world, like walking down a spiral staircase. Paul enumerated and he found the steps. Here's step one, here's step two, here's step three, that a pagan takes as his life spirals spiritually downward. We talked about that two weeks ago, when we were in this passage, the last time we were in this passage. The first step, Paul said, was the mindset, a mindset based on untrue. He said, their whole mindset is not based on truth. They have gods of pleasure and gods of money and gods of power and gods of sex and gods of self. He said, their mindset is wrong. The second step in this spiral staircase was a misconception of daily of this. They look around and they can't see God at work because they're blinded to God. They can't see God at work in the world around them. The third step down that staircase was a life with no reference to God. They go to work with no reference to God. They go to school with no reference to God. They go to the God course, to the tennis court, to the club with no reference to God. Then the fourth step down that staircase was an insensitive conscious. Their conscious becomes hard. Their mind and heart become hard toward their sin. Evil doesn't bother them like it used to and then their heart also grows insensitive and hard toward the things of God. You see, it spirals downward. And then the fourth step was an insatiable, sensual appetite to live for pleasure and you can't ever get enough. You go back and you look at those last verses in verse 19. It just really describes our society having lost all sensitivity. They have given themselves over to sensuality as to indulge in every kind of infurity with a continual lust for more. And right there, at the end of that awful sentence, Paul sets a contrast, Paul sets down an exact contrast. Staring at the hedonistic Godless life of the pagan, he says, You have not so learned from Christ. You have not so learned Christ. For she's saying, you cannot learn such a worldly life from Christ. You can't say, well Christ taught me in a little world, will it be a life like that? And then he begins to talk about the Christian life. How can this Christian life be summarized? How can we describe the Christian life succinctly, concisely, and yet, completely, it only takes one word and Paul said it here. Christ's only one word. That is where Paul began in this passage. Now, for the next few weeks we'll see him talking about the Christian life. But where did he begin with one word? He draws a line. He said, there's a pagan life. Do you want to see the contrast? You didn't learn that life from Christ. Christ. Christ, the great divine. That's the title. Two weeks ago, we said, are you going to ask the question of living in the world? Are you living in Christ? We'll ask that again this morning. We could say, what's the difference between the pagan and the Christian or Christ, the great divine and offense? Christ. Let's look at this passage for a minute. You see how Paul describes the difference between the Christian and the non-Christian. He says, first, you will know the difference. Christ is the lesson. Christ is the lesson. Look at verse 20. It'll help you to have your Bible open. You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. Speaking of the world, you didn't come to know Christ that way. Now, the NIV, I know, I just told you, look at it, but the NIV is terribly inaccurate and terribly weak at this point. The New King James is more accurate and captures the real power of the statement. The New King James reads, but you have not so learned Christ. Paul was making two statements negatively. He was saying it's impossible to learn the worldly life of Christ. You can't live a worldly life like some Christians do and say, well, you learned it from Christ. You can. You didn't learn that life from him. But secondly, and this is the positive side and the better side, we'll take off the not side and it says, we are learning Christ. We are learning Christ. In this passage, there are three. We're going to see this morning that there's three words that are related to education, that you would have heard in the Greek schools of that day talking about teaching and instruction. This first one is, am I feet? It simply means learn. Learn. But notice that he didn't say in this passage. Now look at it. He didn't say, son, you didn't say, learn about Christ. He didn't say, learn the facts of Christ, learn the history of Christ. What did he say? He said, learn Christ. It only seems like improper English. Paul would say, what are you doing? What are we doing when we open our battles? He would say, we're learning Christ. What do I do when I go and worship? We're learning Christ. For my first Sunday school and we were, we little children to this present hour. What are we doing? We're learning Christ. When I say, I'm learning French. What am I saying? I'm making French my language. I'm learning to speak French. I'm not learning about French. I'm not learning the facts about the, I'm learning French. In the same way, I'm learning Christ. It means that I'm making Christ my life. I'm learning to see like Christ. I'm learning to hear like Christ. I'm learning to think like Christ. I'm learning to talk like Christ. I'm learning to touch like Christ. I'm learning to feel like Christ. I'm learning to live like Christ. What's the difference? The world learns the world. We learn Christ. So many of us think that becoming a Christian is adopting a moral code. Well, it's going to be a Christian and we adopt a system of ethics. But if that's Christianity, the Bible's wrong. Christianity is living a vibrant, a live relationship with Christ. We're not called to be moralists. Jesus doesn't call us to be moralists. He says, follow me. He didn't say obey, Michael. He said, follow me. What did he mean? He meant be like me when saying follow me to Judea or follow me to Galilee. He was saying be like me. What was he saying? Learn me. Learn Christ. When he calls you or you or you. What's he saying? He's saying follow me. Learn me. That's what a Christian is. He's learning Christ. A few years ago, a young lady said in my office, and we had a conversation that I will not forget as long as I live. There's some moments that you have a conversation and it's so unique and so different. She was not from the Bible, though. She had not grown up in the church. She had just become a Christian. And this thing was brand new. If you had said to her who was Moses, she would not have had the slightest idea. This thing of being Christian was as new and different to her. Well, what if you, as a citizen of the United States, you spoke English woke up and they came tomorrow morning and discovered that you were Chinese. That would be pretty new and pretty different to you, wouldn't it? Well, that's how she was in being a Christian. And she came in with a list of questions and she was sheepish and she said, I'm embarrassed to ask these things but she said, I just don't know. I said, well, say what? Ask your questions. And she said, well, now I have a Christian. And she all she knew was she was a sinner, saved by grace. That's all she knew, that Christ had died first and that was it. And she said, John, can I still dance? I love rocking. I left. I said, what else is on your list? And she said, well, I mean, this may be all wrong. She said, but you've got to tell me, she said, can I still drink Margaritas? She said, I don't drink them during the week, but I love to go out on Friday evening and have a Margarita. Again, I left. I said, read the list. I want to hear it. She said, I've been living with my boyfriend and he's really a nice guy. Can I still live with him? Now how would you have answered those questions? Here's the law. Would you have said, yes, yes, no, no, yes, no, whatever. What would you have said? Here's a Christian list. Here's a 10 commandments. I opened the Bible to the New Testament. I said, these are the gospels. Here's a gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ, written by Luke. You read that this week. Read Luke this week about Jesus and then come back to see me next week at this day. What was I telling you? Learn Christ. It's not the law. It's not a moral kind. If you're here this morning simply saying, I am holding to a Christian ethic. You have missed completely. You have wholly missed the gospel. In fact, it would be hard to miss it any farther than you missed it. Learning Christ, alive, vibrant, relationship. This is what Paul meant in Romans 13, 14. Turn with me to that passage. I want you to see it. Romans 13, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans. It's not hard to find. Romans the 13th chapter, the 14th verse. Paul writing said, Clue yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ. Put on the Knocking James Version, says, Put on Jesus Christ. I love that. What was he saying? He was saying, Learn Jesus. Learn Christ. That's what he meant in Romans 8.29. When he said, For those God, for those, he also predestined to predestined to be what, to be conformed to look like Jesus. That's what it says, conformed to the lives of his son. I love that. We're to learn Christ so much that we actually looked like him out in the world. That's what Paul wrote. When he was in this very prison cell from which he wrote the letter to the Ephesians, he wrote another letter. He wrote it to Philippine. He was talking about the difference in life and death. He was that he, Caesar was about to take his life. And the Philippians were ringing their hands and wondering. And Paul said, To die, that's gain. Of course, I go to feed with him. But you know what he said? Before he said to die as gain, he said, Live is what? Now he looked at his window and he'd seen a Roman soldier go by. And he said, For that captain, that's he was right to live. His strength, his power to live is right in him. Seeing the virtue that came back. To live is money. To live. That's what he meant. We're learning Christ, not to live as the law, not to live as morality. To live as Christ. At the Alamo, there are pictures of the men who died. They are who gave their lives. On the wall near the main entrance of the portrait with the following inscription, James Butler Bonham. No picture exists of him. This portrait is of his nephew, Major James Bonham, deceased, who greatly resembled his uncle. It is placed here by the family that people may know the appearance of the man who died for freedom. Don't you like that? We don't have this picture, but here's someone that looked terribly, terribly like him.
Jesus says, You learn, May. Follow, May. Paul says, Learn Christ until you begin to look like him. That's not blasphemous. He's left a picture of himself in this world. And it's you. It's you. And it's May. Sometimes it's a very poor image, but nonetheless, we are to resemble Christ because of what? We are learning him. It's a high school you can have in life. It's a very high school you desire to be present. It's a high school you could have. It's a learn Christ. One of the great pianists of the 19th century was Sir Charles Halle. The famous Halle orchestra was named for him. But he was known really for the way that he played the music of Beethoven. He was not spectacular or dramatic. Didn't have the flair, but he understood Beethoven. And there was no one in the world that could play Beethoven like Halle. In fact, to hear Halle was to hear Beethoven. In 1888, George Bernard Shaw paid him a great compliment. He said, The secret is that Halle gives you as little as possible of Halle and as much as possible of Beethoven. I love that. That's what Paul was saying. That's what we've been said about Paul. It's a little as possible of Paul and as much as he can of Jesus Christ. St. Patrick in the fifth century understood this. He wrote, Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in the hearts of all that loved me, Christ in the mouth of friends and stranger. What was he saying? Learned Christ. What's the difference between the Christian and non-Christian? The Christian is learning Christ. Non-Christian, the pagan is learning the world. We're learning Christ. Learning Christ. Not the law, not morality, learning Christ. Secondly, I want you to see in this passage that Christ is the teacher of the lesson. Now, we've just heard that Christ is the lesson. He's also the teacher of the lesson. Look at verse 21. Surely you heard of him. Again, the NIV here is terribly inaccurate. In the Greek of the word of is not bad. The New King James Version leaves it out. It should read and you can just mark it out. Surely you have not heard of him, but surely you have heard him. He's the teacher of the lesson. He's the lesson? He's the teacher of the lesson. You know, I had a great math teacher when I was a junior. Only math teacher I ever liked. A great math teacher when I was a junior in Haskell. But she didn't teach me about herself. She taught me math. She taught me geometry. I had a great English teacher in my senior year. And she taught me English. She didn't teach me about herself. The year Christ is the lesson. And he is the teacher. The Greek word here is Eskisate. Eskisate. Excuse me, Eskisate. Eskisate means you heard. And what comes after you heard him? You heard him teach you. What do you say? He was teaching Paul's thing. He taught you just as surely as he taught his disciples. I was reading when I went home last evening late. This had been written. I picked up a commentary at home by one of the old Puritan fathers and began to read this passage. And the Puritan said that, of course, what Paul meant was that Jesus is not really teaching. He's teaching through ministers and teachers in the Holy Spirit. And that man was the man I was reading was a great and godly minister and teacher. Far beyond me. But he got this wrong, in fact. Paul was saying Jesus is the teacher. You know, these people in Ephesus, they had not been in Judea when Jesus was teaching. They had not been in Galilee. They had not seen him. They had never laid eyes on Jesus. But they had heard him teach just like you heard him teach. Why? Because Jesus is the teacher of that himself. Turn with me to John. I want you to see this in John 14. John 14. Jesus is speaking about becoming the Holy Spirit. Look at verse 16 of John 14. And I will ask the Father and He will give you another counselor to be with you forever. The Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him because it needs to cease him or knows him. But you know him before he lives with you and will be with you. Now look at verse 18. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. And he speaks of the Holy Spirit coming. And he speaks of the Holy Spirit teaching them. He then turns it back to himself and just in the Holy Spirit. I will be with you. I will be the teacher. That's why we say over and over and over again in this place every Sunday. Every Lord's day when we come to this point in the worship. I pray and say Father, I can't teach so that men's hearts will be changed. I know what this passage says. Backwards and forwards, I can't teach it to you so that anything will happen on the inside of you. But Jesus is able to teach that way. And that's what I always say. Jesus, you're here. Teach us. Open our ears. Open our hearts and we will hear you teach. Now if you're in the world this morning, I want you to be understanding exactly what I'm saying. If you're not a Christian, this is not just religious rhetoric. Understand this is what the Bible teaches. Paul said in Corinthians, the second chapter, he said all preaching was a demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit, a demonstration of the power of Christ to teach you. You see me. You hear Virginia accent. But if you don't hear Christ in your hearts, minds will go high. Christ teaches. He's the teacher. He's the lesson and he's the teacher. He is an ever-present teacher. You know, the great thing about school is you could leave your teacher behind at 3 o'clock every day. Great thing about going to tell you know, we have a daughter. She's ready to go to kind of, but I want to leave that school. I want to leave those teachers. I want to leave, but teachers at home too. I want to leave my parents and my mother and my father. You can get away from all your earthly teachers, your parents, your teachers in class, but you can't get away from Jesus. If I'm not being the husband I should be, if I'm not cherishing my wife, if I'm angry with her or ignoring her, Jesus is right there. If I'm on the golf course and I want to move a ball or forget a strip, Jesus is right there. When someone has hurt me and said bad things about me and someone has told me about it, I want to tell the person that told me the bad things I know about that person, but Jesus is right there. He looks at my wife and he said, John, you didn't hear that from me. Sometimes we go to Jesus and we say, what do you want me to do? We say that we're sincerely confused about what to do. We don't know what to do in a situation. And we go to him and say, what do you want me to do? I hate asking that question because most of the time when I ask him that question already know the answer, I just don't want to admit it. Because he says stuff like, John, remember I told you to forgive before anyone apologized. You don't need an apology to forgive. You know that and I know that and Jesus has taught us that, had me. He said stuff like, John, you're the love even when you're not treated with love. I don't like to do that. Well, that's what I told you to do. I taught you that. He says stuff like, John, you're supposed to love your enemies. You're supposed to pray for and bless your enemies. You had mentioned your enemies in prayer in a long time. You ever had small children in your home say things that just blew you away because you don't know where in the world they picked up, whatever they just said. You know what, in your house, one day years ago in Virginia, Jill was sitting at our counter, kitchen counter. She was three years old sitting on a stove, she had a head leaning on her hand like this, listening to Janet. Janet was tell talking to her, more like two adult winders. Janet was telling her a story and she was fixing lunch and she got through the story and Jill looked at her and said, Mom, that's the damnedest thing I've ever heard. Three years old. Now the language at the Sartel House, I think you know by now, is not always Victoria. But that particular phrase had not been used by either of us. And Janet and I had one question. Jill, where did you hear that? You didn't get that from us. That's the way Jesus is. We're in his presence and we say stuff like that. And Jesus is child, where did you get that? You didn't get it from me. We're reading Playboy magazine. He said, you didn't get that from me. We're entertaining the idea of adult green or he adds to Jesus as you didn't get that from me. I didn't teach you that. We're hating someone because of the color of their skin. Jesus, I didn't teach you that. There's a question. Do you teach her? Is it Jesus or the world? Which one? You didn't have both. Jesus is the lesson and Jesus is the teacher. His teaching is existential. It's current. It's right now. Sometimes we read our bottles and they say, well, that was a long time ago. He's teaching me theology that still exists today. But we've so seen this vibrant conversation, this vibrant relationship going on this learning and teaching going on right now that I live. And it's there if we would see it. It's current. One day in first of 1997, early in 1997, I was sitting in my office and I was feeling the weight of some personal stuff in the light that was going on the weight of the ministry here. And I didn't know what I was going to do. I was thinking, I just can't do this. I came down to the sanctuary to pray. I picked up the Bible and said, I'm going to read some from Isaiah. I don't know why in the world I picked Isaiah. I said, I'm going to read the first two chapters of Isaiah. What does a prophet that wrote 3,000 years ago, had to say to me, got right to the 22nd, right down to the end of the second chapter, the 22nd verse of chapter 2. And I came into this verse. Stop trusting in man. Who has but a breath in his nostrils? Of what account is it? Stop trusting in man. Jesus didn't speak audibly, but it was like he did. I knew it was him who spoke. He was he spoke. John, stop trusting in man. You're trusting in yourself. You're trusting in other people. And they don't have a strength. And you don't have a strength. I have but a breath in the nostrils. That's it. You have but one breath in your nostrils. That's it. Stop trusting in man. I bowed my head and I said, thank you. Thank you. You see, Jesus is not only the lesson. He is a teacher, a present teacher. You can't get away from it. You see, I can think, I can think teacher, an instructing teacher, a comprehend teacher, and a current teacher. He's a persevering and forgiving teacher. Sometimes when you wandered away, he'll find you. The teacher will find you not to continue but to bring you home. Here's the life of the pagan. Here's the life of Christian. What's the difference? The pagan learns the world from the world. The Christian learns Christ, from Christ. Don't you like that? Is that what's happening in your life? Is that describing here that you're learning Christ? It's so much better than learning a system of ethics. Learning Christ and you're learning from Christ. And thirdly and finally, Christ is the atmosphere, the context, the university in which the lesson is learned. You say, what on earth are you talking about? Look at verse 21. And you were taught in Him. Not by Him, not for Him. You were taught in Him. I really wrestle with that. What is Christ is the lesson? Christ is the teacher, but that's not all. The lesson can't be learned while out in the world. The lesson of Christ must be taught by Christ while you are in Christ. And the third word of teaching that's used here is E-D-Doc feet. E-Doc feet. It simply means you were taught in any ads in Him. That's what I know to describe this is when some of you learn to scuba dive. When I learn to scuba dive, I must be in water. When I learn to vary from the tanks, swim with the tanks, see and operate with the air tanks while I'm in the water. The water is the context. It's the university and the atmosphere of my learning. Now, some facts. What if there's a guy sitting right there where you're sitting there? He had on the wet seat, had on air tanks. He had on mouthpiece, had on the mask, had it all on. He was sitting there. He's sitting there. He said, what are you doing? He would say, well, I'm learning to scuba dive. He said, well, fill it. You need water. You need to bend some water. That's exactly what Jesus is talking about here. You know, it's possible for you to sit here this morning and actually hear Christ's teaching as a pagan, as a non-Christian. But it won't do any good, because Paul is getting back to the first step. What is the very first step? The very first step is to be in Christ. This morning you're either in the world or in Christ. Answer the question, which one are you in the world or in Christ? Nothing in between. I'm thinking about you either in one or the other. If you're in the world, it's impossible for you to learn Christ. You do. You've got other gods. You've got another mindset. Your life does not have a reference point to him. The first thing is to be in Him. That's the starting point. Your Christian, your learning Christ is being taught by Christ as He is submerged in Christ. Now, we may be sinful. We may be feeble. We may be fallen and really bruised up. You may have walked in here this morning, feeling more like the world and like a Christian. You're bruised, you're hurt, you've fallen, you've stumbled, fell flat on your face. Let me tell you something. You know deep in your heart, you're still in Christ. You look at Him and you love Him and you know you're in to Him. This whole worship has been tearing your heart because you're learning Christ and He's the teacher and you know that you're in to Him. Some of you are sitting here this morning and right as I talk, you say, you know, I don't know that. I don't know that I am in to Him. I already did. You ever thought about how significant the calendar is in Western civilization? We have a midpoint in Western civilization. We don't go back all the way in creation and come forward dating the years. We have a midpoint. And from that midpoint, we add years forward. We add years backward. 10 BC, 10 years before Christ. 1700 BC, 700 years before Christ. 15 AD, 15 Anodominate, 15 years in the year of our Lord. What's the midpoint? What's the reference point? Christ. You go back from the beginning, the Jewish calendars from the beginning, the Chinese calendar from the, this calendar from Christ. Is there that kind of calendar in your life right now? If you look at your life, is there a before Christ? And an AD? Anodominate. This is my life before Christ in the world. This is my life after Christ. Is there that kind of division in your life? Get this one thing clear. What is the great divide? What is at the middle of it? Is the great divide morality? Is the great divide that you join the church? Is the great divide the law? No. Jesus is the great divide. He is the lesson. He's the teacher. He's the universe, he's the context of all the teaching. What's the difference between the Christian and the non Christian? So much so. Can you say this word for me to live? And that's why we were saying.