Sermon Tone Analysis

A New Life and A New Look

The practical section of the Epistle opened with an appeal to maintain Christian unity.

Paul substantiated it by enlarging on the way in which the body of Christ is built up.

Now, before dealing with specific moral injunctions, he reminds his readers about the kind of life they once lived and the need for a clean break with the past (cf.

2:1–3, 11–13)

The practical section of the Epistle opened with an appeal to maintain Christian unity.

Paul substantiated it by enlarging on the way in which the body of Christ is built up.

Now, before dealing with specific moral injunctions, he reminds his readers about the kind of life they once lived and the need for a clean break with the past (cf.

2:1–3, 11–13)

Look at where you once lived.

Illustration -

Shopping Malls - not hat long ago it was the identifying mark of America.

It was for everyone - children, teens, young adults even seniors.

On Friday and Saturday nights the mall in USA were packed with people eating out, going to the movies ans or course shopping.

Now the malls are nearly empty, some are bankrupt and major stores like Sears, JC Penny and Macy's are holding on for life.

What happened - people think differently now about the mall its a changed way of thinking.

They don't spend there time the way they used to.

This is what Paul is saying to the Christian - you now think differently

B. In His Moral Relationships (4:17–5:21)

1.

A Complete Deliverance (4:17–24)

a.

A New Life (4:17–21)

(1) The Sinner’s Condition (4:17–19)

(a) His Intellect Darkened (4:17–18)

“This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.”

The behavior of a believer is to be radically different from that of the unconverted.

Paul reminded his readers of the blindness of lost people.

Certainly no enlightened Christian should let such ignorant people influence what he believes or how he behaves.

What a collection of words and phrases Paul used to describe the heathen and humanistic thought of his day!

Never were his words more graphically illustrated than in our day.

People who are outside of Christ simply cannot think straight on moral and spiritual issues.

They may articulate the issues, but they leave out the spiritual dimensions because they are blind to them.

Therefore they cannot come to any true conclusions.

In Ephesians 4:17–18 we hear echoes of Paul’s terrible indictment of fallen mankind in Romans 1.

The lost walk in the “vanity of their mind.”

The Greek word translated “vanity” in Ephesians 4:17 is mataiotēs.

It occurs only two other places in the New Testament.

Paul used mataiotēs in Romans 8:20 to describe the disappointing misery of the world of nature as a result of the curse: “The creature was made subject to vanity.”

Nature, red in tooth and claw and groaning in a minor key, is far removed from the pristine bliss of Eden.

Then Peter used mataiotēs to describe the language of apostates.

Although they are “wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever … they speak great swelling words of vanity” (2 Peter 2:17–18).

Man’s thinking, alienated from God, is vanity.

He thinks up all kinds of false religions and philosophies, and boasts of how right he is.

Yet his notions are empty and dangerous.

The understanding of the lost is “darkened.”

Paul told the Corinthians, “The god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Corinthians 4:4).

The nonsense some men believe shows how darkened their understanding is.

Christian Scientists, for instance, believe that death is not real and that pain is an error of the mortal mind.

Mormons believe that they can become gods.

Hindus believe that, depending on how we behave in this life, we might come back as a cow, a cuckoo, or a cockroach.

The scientific community embraces the theory of evolution.

The humanist thinks that man is essentially good and quite able to cope with moral problems.

In practice, humanism licenses lawlessness and lust.

Lost people proclaim lies as truth, immorality as morality, high-sounding nonsense as science, and philosophical speculations as religion.

Their lack of understanding results from “being alienated from the life of God.”

The opposite of life is death.

Men without God are spiritually dead.

No wonder they are unable to think straight in matters of faith and morals.

Man was created to be inhabited by God.

God intended for the human spirit to be inhabited by the Holy Spirit.

The indwelling Holy Spirit was to enlighten the intellect, ennoble the emotions, and energize the will.

Thus the life of man would express, in human terms, the life of God.

The fall ruined all that.

Sin entered and the Holy Spirit left.

Without the life of the indwelling Holy Spirit, the natural man is spiritually dead, “alienated from the life of God.”

The genius of the gospel is that when we accept Christ as Savior, we are cleansed by His blood and regenerated by His Spirit.

The Holy Spirit takes up residence in the human spirit, making it possible for the saved person to have fellowship with God, cooperate with the Holy Spirit, and begin to live the kind of life God intended man to live—a life governed by the Spirit of God.

Before a person receives Christ, he is adrift on life’s stormy seas without a compass, rudder, or anchor.

He is subject to every wind of error that may blow into his life.

The understanding of unsaved people is darkened because they are cut off from the life of God as a result of indwelling ignorance that is caused by deep-seated, inner blindness.

What a vicious circle.

The darkness is self-perpetuating.

The lost move from darkness to darkness in darkness.

No wonder Christians should not walk as “Gentiles walk.”

We must never copy the beliefs, thought patterns, convictions, and codes of conduct of unsaved people.

Even the most brilliant of them are blind leaders of the blind.

Einstein never wanted to believe in God.

Marx was an atheist.

Darwin jettisoned the faith of his youth.

Freud hated Christianity.

Nietzsche hated God.

Nearly all the well-known philosophers leave God out of their reckoning.

(b) His Inclinations Depraved (4:19)

“Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.”

The next step downward from willful blindness and wicked beliefs is wanton behavior, a theme Paul developed in Romans 1.

In Ephesians 4:19 Paul wrote that people gave themselves up.

In Romans 1:24, emphasizing the other side of the story, Paul wrote that God gave them up.

Occurring only in Ephesians 4:19, the Greek word apalgeō is translated “past feeling.”

Those who are past feeling have lost their sense of pain.

The sense of pain is vitally important to a healthy body.

A person with no sense of pain might accidentally put his hand into the fire and not know it until his hand is badly burned.

Many of the terrible wounds that lepers suffer are the result of insensitivity to pain caused by their disease.

People who embrace wicked philosophies soon lose their sensitivity to evil and put their precepts into practice.

They give themselves up to lasciviousness (also see Mark 7:22) in order “to work all uncleanness with greediness.”

The word translated “work” in Ephesians 4:19, ergasia, describes a regular, gainful occupation.

This word is used to describe how the slave owners used the demon-possessed girl they had in their power (Acts 16:16, 19).

Ergasia is also used in the passage about Demetrius and the silversmiths of Ephesus who “brought no small gain” to themselves by making shrines of the pagan goddess Diana; their wealth was threatened by the conversion of many Ephesians to Christ (Acts 19:24–27).

(Incidentally, these confrontations with the slave owners and the silversmiths are the only two occasions recorded in the book of Acts when Gentiles instigated persecution against Paul.)

The word is also found in Luke 12:58 where the Lord denounces the blind leaders of Israel: “When thou goest with thine adversary to the magistrate, as thou art in the way, give diligence that thou mayest be delivered from him” (Luke 12:58, italics added).

Here ergasia means “work hard, take pains, do your best.”

So in Ephesians 4:19 Paul was saying that those who are past feeling work hard at their vileness.

They hope to gain from it and many do.