What a baffling and confusing world we live in today. So many conflicting ideas and concepts are thrust upon us from every direction and many of them seem directly contradictory. Authorities of equal repute tell us one thing and then another and what they say clashes violently. It is hard to know what to believe today. In the last few weeks people have said to me:

"I don't know what to believe about Vietnam. I don't know what is going on out there, or what kind of a position to take on it." Others say, "I don't know what to make of civil rights, and this civil rights program. I don't know what position to take. There seems to be two sides to this." Others say, "We don't know what to believe about the present political outlook and our present administration." Others are concerned about the philosophy of education of our day, the matter of training children, or the great and pressing issue of sliding moral standards which is brought before us so frequently today. Who knows what to believe? Listen to all the voices around and you will come up with many kinds of conflicting philosophies. No wonder that many are confused and ready to follow any voice that seems to offer a way out. Now, to a Christian living in this confusing, baffling, bewildering world, the Apostle Paul has a very definite word to say. It is not another vague, uncertain word of advice, simply another of the voices on every hand today, but it is clear and precise and right to the point of the problem that you and I are facing.

In the opening verses of the 4th chapter of Ephesians, the apostle has been dealing with the nature of the church and the part each Christian has to play in its operation and its growth. But now, with Verse 17, he turns to the Christian in relationship to an unbelieving world, a world in which that Christian must live.

[Karl Note: It will now be interesting to see what comes next. I am ready to position myself as a "Christian" even though I don't know what this author means by that term. I am now looking for guidance, moral guidance, on what to do about my 14-year old daughter who I have just started taking drugs and having sex with an adult man!! What moral guidance will I get from the Apostle, Paul?]

Though this account was written almost two thousand years ago, it is impossible to read this thoughtfully without seeing that the world today is exactly the same, and the Christian's reaction to it must be exactly the same. Following Paul's usual pattern in presenting a subject, he begins with a general statement, then breaks it down into a more analytical study of the various aspects of the statement he has made. Here is the general statement, in Verse 17:

Now this I affirm and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds; {Eph 4:17 RSV}

Notice the force of that exhortation. The apostle says "I affirm and testify in the Lord." That means this is not merely a piece of apostolic advice. This is not simple human reasoning, this is a result of divine revelation. This is part of that whole revelation of the mind of God that was given to the Apostle Paul in what he calls "visions and revelations of the Lord" {2 Cor 12:1}, when the Lord Jesus himself appeared to him and instructed him as to the message he should give to the church of his day, and, through it, to the church of our day as well. This then is not mere human advice. Paul says, "I testify and affirm in the Lord that this is what must be done." This is the finger of God placed squarely at the root of a human problem.

Well, what is it he says? He says, "You Christians must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds." It would perhaps be helpful to translate the word Gentiles here by the word nations. It is often translated that way elsewhere in Scripture and is the same word. It simply means "the nations," worldlings, those outside of Christ.

[Karl Note. I'm a bit worried now. Is my daughter one of these wordlings -- one of those "outside of Christ?"

This has no reference to the distinction between Jews and Gentiles, it refers to anyone who is outside of Christ. "You Christians," he says, "must no longer live as they do." How is that? "In the futility of their minds." Paul is saying, "The place to start in living as a Christian is to recognize you must think differently than the world does." Notice, he does not start with actions. He is not one of these do-gooders who moves in and tries to change the outward scene only. He starts with the thought-life, with the mind, and he declares that the world's thinking is futile, i.e., empty. This is the vital appeal that he makes to Christians, "You must not think like the worldling does, you must not adopt the world's philosophy of living, or follow the world's systems of value." Why? "Because the worldling," he says, "lives in futility, emptiness of mind."

[Karl Note: OK, I can agree with this, but what about my daughter??]

The word for futility, in the original Greek, means "void of purpose or appropriateness," i.e., pointless. Phillips, in his modern paraphrase puts it very accurately and beautifully: "Do not live as the gentiles live. For they live blindfold in a world of illusion," {Eph 4:17b-18a J. B. Phillips}. The New English Bible says, "Give up living like pagans, with their good-for-nothing notions," {Eph 4:18a NEB}. That is exactly it, "good for nothing." Impressive, perhaps, clever, oftentimes startling, provocative, but pointless! The world in its thinking is pointless.

If this is true you can see why there is such a fundamental cleavage between Christianity and the world, and why the Lord Jesus drew a distinct line of demarcation between the thinking of the world, the direction of the world, the destiny of the world, and those of the Christian. This is why the Christian is told he cannot love the world and the Father at the same time.

[Karl Note: Oh dear! Is he saying that I cannot love my daughter when she is a sinner?]

John makes that crystal clear in his first letter {cf, 1 Jn 2:15}. There is a fundamental difference between the two. This is why "friendship with the world," in the words of James, "is enmity with God," {cf, Jas 4:4 KJV}. Notice, not friendship with the worldling, that is something different, but friendship with the world, with its ways of thinking, its philosophy. That is enmity with God.

Now this needs to be made very clear, because it is a very important distinction. As we all know, fallen man prides himself on his ability to reason. We consider this the highest function of humanity and take great pride in the ability of man to ferret out knowledge and to put various items of knowledge together to produce very practical gadgets. We point with pride to the technological perfection of our modern developments, to the skill with which science has harnessed the forces of nature and made them the servants of man. Man exalts his reason, but the writers of Scripture universally agree, though all this may be very impressive, clever, and remarkable in the eyes of men, in the eyes of God the reasoning of man is pointless, empty, vain. As the Lord Jesus himself put it, "What is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God," {cf, Luke 16:15 KJV}. Now that is putting it very strongly, is it not? That is speaking plainly.

But see how the apostle brings Christians face to face with the fundamental issue? We must face this very squarely. Either God is right or the world is right, one or the other. It cannot be both. The Christian must choose on which basis he is going to live his life. If he is to follow Christ, he must be willing to have his thinking changed.

[Karl Note: OK, with reservations. I feel moral, personally. I don't do drugs or engage in sexual promiscuity. And, I can certainly see that my daughter is not following this moral code. But, my question is still here. What do I DO? Do, I kick her out of the house because she has fallen away from Christ? Perhaps she never made a conscious decision to adopt my moral code? I'm in a pickle. I love my daughter and want to help her. So far this moral code is not giv=ing me any advice that I can use.]

When you become a Christian this is the first issue you face. You must be willing to have your whole fundamental outlook on life drastically altered. Christianity is not merely a change in outward actions, a bit higher moral or ethical level. Christianity is a revolutionary change of government which results in a radical change in behavior. Paul certainly brings this out very plainly here. Now he moves on to analyze more closely this problem of faulty thinking. What makes human thinking so pointless, so without ultimate significance? The answer he gives is in Verse 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; {Eph 4:18 RSV}

He is tracing a chain of cause and effect here. Beginning with the most immediate effect he is tracing it hack to that which causes it. The first step is that worldlings think futilely because their understanding is darkened. Just as a cloud, passing over the sun, darkens the light of it, so the thinking of man in his fallen state is shadowed, obscured, darkened.

[Karl Note: Ok, I got that ! I can see that my daughter has a "darkened understanding" of Christ. So, what do I do? More generally, I can see, so far, that the advice coming here might be something I need to apply to MY life, but I consider myself moral (and so does my daughter). What do I do about others who I love, and who are important to me -- when I see them engaging in immoral behavior?]

Scripture continually uses these terms, light and darkness, as metaphors for truth and ignorance. Truth is light; ignorance is darkness. Paul's figure declares that men's thinking is shadowed with ignorance, it is pointless because it stems from ignorance. That is rather arresting, is it not? We think we know so much, and we do. We know so much, but we never know quite enough. That is what the apostle is saying.

Again this relates to a truth that we find widespread throughout the Scriptures: Man is ignorant because there is a part of his being that does not function. It is his spiritual life. His spirit is blank, darkened, obscured. In that part of his being which was intended to function as the key to his life there is nothing taking place. As a result, all his knowledge is broken, unrelated, incomplete. That is the picture Paul draws. What man thinks, though it may be very clever, does not bring him anywhere, does not produce anything, does not better him. We are haunted these days with the question: Has this tremendous civilization really done anything for us?

[Karl Note: Again, I got all that! Perhaps my daughter has all these blank parts to her spiritual life. I thought I raised her as a good Christian. She went to Church every week. We prayed at dinner! What do I do?]

Last week I wandered among the ruins of an ancient Mayan civilization in Guatemala, viewing half-covered temples just now being excavated from the dirt and dust of centuries. The more archaeologists uncover the Mayan ruins, the more we learn of the remarkable civilization of that day. But modern man is continually haunted with the question, "Are we really any better than they?" We may be better off, but are we any better? Have we really advanced in any way? The understanding of man is darkened and it is especially evident in his thinking about himself and about God. It can be seen in his value systems, his evaluation of the power structures of life, in the way he determines what is important and what is not important.

Illustrations abound for this. Coming back from Guatemala last week I had to go through customs in Los Angeles. While waiting for the plane to be reloaded, I sat in the lounge and picked up a discarded newspaper. (That is the Scottish way of reading newspapers and I take advantage of it every chance I get.)

Reading through the headlines, my attention was caught by an article headed, Religion Fading, says Psychiatry Professor. I read on and saw that the associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California at Los Angeles Neuro-Psychiatric Institute had said that religion is fading away from modern civilization, and he calls this the most hopeful sign of our times. In the article there was this almost incredible paragraph,

The decline in religious feeling among civilized people is an indication that man is steadily becoming more rational and less subject to superstition and therefore less likely to kill and maim those who disagree with him.

That in a day when crimes of violence are at an unprecedented height, when the streets of our cities are no longer safe to walk at night, and when the great cities of America literally seethe with suppressed hate and incipient riot and bloodshed! What a confirmation of the apostle's analysis of human thinking. The mind of fallen man is darkened, blinded, and does not see things as they really are. It can ignore obvious facts that thrust themselves upon us constantly and blithely dismiss them with a wave of the hand to pronounce that man is getting better and better. That is a sign of the ignorance and consequent darkening of the human mind.

[Karl Note: OK, is he now saying that psychiatry, or my daughter's school, is responsible for her falling away from Christ -- and losing the moral code that I thought I had imparted to her?]

This unaccountable darkness is seen in the glib talk today about situational ethics, i.e., morals determined by situation, expediency, also in the relativity of morals, and the widespread acceptance of the idea that sexual promiscuity is an expression of personal freedom, even though those who indulge in this kind of living inevitably show themselves to be increasingly the slaves of human passion, and suffer in their own lives the consequent inevitable restlessness of spirit and torment of heart. How can man be so blind? It is the darkening, the shadowing of the fallen mind:

[Karl Note: I sure agree with this. It appears that my daughter is following the code of "situational ethics." She is in a "situation" where drugs are available, and sex is expected. She responds in a way similar to other girls in her situation. This author is saying that is wrong. I agree with him. But, what do I do about my daughter? Nothing?]

It is seen in Communism with its emphasis on the material and economic, and its ignorance of the emotional and spiritual forces at work in mankind. It is likewise evident in American materialism, with its passion for new and better things while ignoring the hunger of the spirit in man, concentrating only on supplying the needs of the body and the soul, especially the body. It is seen in our admiration for aggressive, hardheaded men who get to the top at all costs, and for our belief that power is measured by how many men you control, how many people are subject to you, how many you can get to serve you instead of how many you serve. It is seen, perhaps most clearly, in the naive ignoring of the basic twist of human nature that is evident in panaceas and programs that are continually offered as solutions to the problems of mankind. I read the letters to the editor in the newspaper quite frequently and I am almost amused at how many people offer simple answers to complicated problems. They come out with very idealistic, wonderful sounding programs based on the naive assumption that human beings can be good if they want to badly enough. If they can just be shown that a thing is wrong they will all immediately stop it, yet the record of history is mankind is continually stumbling over its own footsteps. Man is his own worst enemy, and the basic problem is the twist of universal human evil.

In their ignorant blindness, men think themselves all right, and, therefore, fancy they do not need God.

[Karl Note: I suppose this is true. I hadn't realized that my daughter thinks she doesn't need God. I'll bet if I asked her, though, she wouldn't agree with that. But, in any event, I got all this -- where is the advice on what I should do? Or, am I too late. Am I guilty of failing to teach Christ and morality to my daughter, years ago, and now I must suffer the pain of watching my daughter wander off -- cut off from Christ?]

The next step is inevitable. They are "alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them." Paul is not blaming men for this, any more than God blames them for it, he is simply analyzing a situation that exists. Because their understanding is darkened, shadowed, incomplete, in their ignorance they reject the life of God and therefore cut themselves off from the one thing man needs to be man! Both nature and Scripture concur that man is incomplete without God. Man was made to be the dwelling place of God. It is God in man which makes man a man. This was fully demonstrated by the Lord Jesus Christ. It was because he was so fully indwelt of the Father that he was able to be fully and wholly a man, man as God intended man to be. Therefore the life of God is essential to manhood and without it man is blinded, weak, and ignorant. Some of the world's great psychologists have seen the truth of this rather clearly. In a letter to E. Stanley Jones, the great Austrian psychologist Carl Jung wrote:

Those psychiatrists who are not superficial have come to the conclusion that the vast neurotic misery of the world could be termed a neurosis of emptiness. Men cut themselves off from the root of their being, from God, and then life turns empty, inane, meaningless, without purpose. So when God goes, goal goes. When goal goes, meaning goes. When meaning goes, value goes, and life turns dead on our hands.

Jung also saw this evil within himself. He said that the man who used psychology to look behind the scenes of his patient's lives must also use it more especially to look behind the scenes in his own life. If he does not do this, says Jung, he is merely an "unconscious fraud."

[Karl Note: Well, this is going on! I got all this. What am I to do?]

But there is yet more here in Paul's great analysis. If men were cut off from God only because of ignorance of him, they might well excuse themselves, for no man can be blamed for not having what he doesn't know exists, but now we learn the whole truth. It is all "due to their hardness of heart." Man is born ignorant and cut off from the life of God, but he remains in that condition only because of the hardness of his heart.

[Karl Note: Is he saying that my daughter was born a sinner?? Is he saying that neither I nor her school have any responsibility for eaching morality? I didn't think he would say that!!]

A young Christian said to me recently, "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. All of this marks the twisted, shadowed, empty thinking of the world. Paul says, "You Christians must not think this way any longer. If you are going to live a Christian life, the first place it must become evident is a change in your thinking. You must not follow these philosophies, you must not agree with these attitudes, you must not adopt these value systems." For, if you do, you will go on to demonstrate the inevitable outcome, the next step in Paul's analysis here, Verse 19:

...they have become callous and have given themselves up to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of uncleanness. {Eph 4:19 RSV}

He says the same thing in Romans 1, "God gave them over to a reprobate mind" {Rom 1:28b KJV}, that they might practice the awful list of evil deeds that is so frankly and bluntly described there. It sounds like it was culled from the pages of any morning newspaper today. Why do people do these things? Why is moral licentiousness so rampant? Why are our standards so constantly deteriorating? It is because men are futile in their thinking; it is because of this shadowed thinking, this incompleteness, this ignorance from which men operate, even the best of them, even the finest of minds, unredeemed, unregenerated.

[Karl Note: Really! I could agree with all of this. I follow Christ -- I believe in the word of God. I understand that my daughter hasn't got this "truth" yet. But, I love her and want her to do better. HOW!?]

But the good news of the gospel is that God reaches even these kind of people. He draws and softens and melts. The amazing love of Christ penetrates even the hardness of men's hearts. Therefore, we are not to blame people like this, or to withdraw from them.

[Karl Note: Ah! Here is a piece of good news! I am anxious to read on. I see, here, that I don't BLAME my daughter, and I don't WITHDRAW from her -- so what do I do?\

We are to remember that we, too, had the same mind, the same outlook on life.

[Karl Note: Well, I never was interested in drugs or promiscuous sex. But, there was the time I took a cigar from my father, went behind the shed and smoked it. I guess I had a hard heart then, and I "know better" now. So, I can see that God found me!]

As Paul says in Colossians 1:21, "... you who once were estranged and hostile in mind," that is the way we thought too, until God's love reached us. So we are not to be judgmental, not to be hard and harsh toward these who think this way. This is the basic condition of humanity to which the gospel makes its appeal.

Now the apostle goes on to trace one other thing. The only hope of helping these people is to demonstrate a wholly different pattern of thought, a wholly different set of values. The implication is clear that if we live like the world lives, even though we are Christians, there is not a thing we can do to help them, not a thing!

[Karl Note: Is he saying what I think he is saying?? I do not do drugs or sex. I am already leading a life of a good example to my daughter. Is he saying there is NOTHING I can do?? This is a terrible piece of advice. If that is all Christ has to offer, it sure doesn't help me. Perhaps it is this guy's opinion of Christ that's at fault. Now I'm really confused. I wish I had some moral code that made common sense!]

You remember the story of the boy who thought he would teach some sparrows to sing like a canary, so he put them in a cage with the canary, hoping the canary would teach them to sing. In a few days he found the canary chirping like the sparrows. This is always the case, is it not?

[Karl Note. Ugh! I'm beginning to get agitated now. Is he saying that because my daughter does drugs and sex, and because I continue to love her, and because she still lives with me, that I will soon start doing drugs and sex?? That's stupid!]

If we give ourselves to the attitudes and ways of thinking of those around us, we will inevitably do the same things, there is no avoiding it. The only way to help them is to demonstrate a completely different level of life. Many of us have been astounded this past year at leaders who have gone through moral breakdowns. Why? Because somewhere along the line they succumbed to the futile thinking of the world. They gave way in their thought life. This is what makes a man turn from the things of Christ to pursue materialism or personal ambition: He succumbs to the philosophy of the world around. But now we come to the reason why Paul speaks so strongly. He says, in Verse 20,

You did not so learn Christ! -- assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus. {Eph 4:20-21 RSV}

In other words, you must not live like the Gentiles because you need not. In Christ, you have a different principle of living, a different way of thinking. In Christ, you have the truth by which you can test everything else, the truth as it is in Jesus. That is a wonderful phrase. That ought to form the basic concept of all Christian thinking. You have found in Jesus Christ the truth, the simple truth: About life, about yourself, about the world, about the makeup of science and nature, about human behavior. "In him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," {cf, Col 2:3}. You have found in Christ the truth. I wish to stress that, for this is the point the apostle is making.

[Karl Note: Well, I'm really turned off by this guy, now! In the first place what does Apostle Paul have to say about drugs and sex? What advice does he offer for a mother who discovers her 14 year old daughter is doing drugs and sex? Is there no hope in Christianity? Or, at least, in this author's view of Christianity? By the way, I suspect that others, speaking in the name of Christ, would have different views of what causes immorality. I suppose that many different people would claim that the "authority of Christ (or God)" is behind THEIR pronouncements on moral issues. I'll bet that these people have no special channel to God, but are only spouting out what they think will sound good!]

The Lord Jesus said these challenging words. "If any man follow me, he shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life," {cf, John 8:12}. That means a Christian does not need to walk in uncertainty about things, in lack of knowledge. It means that, in Christ, we have the truth that reveals. It is popular today to think that nothing can be known for sure. That is part of the futility of the world's thinking, to think that there are no final answers, no ultimate knowledge, no ultimate truth. Recently I heard even a Christian pastor say that all knowledge must at last be reduced to the tentative, we can only think we know but we never know for sure. Now Christianity repudiates that concept utterly. The New Testament denies that. Christ has come that we might know -- not everything, that is true. We do not become paragons of knowledge automatically spouting out revelations of ultimate truth about everything. We do not know everything, but what we do know, we know. Christ said to his disciples, "If you continue in my word ... you shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free," {cf, John 8:31b, 8:32}. That is what the truth always does, it sets men free. Truth, even though it is hard truth, difficult truth, is realistic and therefore it sets us free and tears away the veils of illusion.

Perhaps I should add this qualifying word here. Not everything a worldling thinks is wrong, because obviously God's truth is at work in the world as well, and the world has picked up a good deal of it. The world knows quite a bit of truth, but the point is, it is so intermingled with error that it is indistinguishable until you lay it alongside the truth as it is in Jesus. That is the only measuring stick we have. How can you tell what is true? How can you tell what is wrong? How can you tell what is error?

[Karl Note: Yes indeed! These ARE the questions which I have. What is moral? What moral guidance can I find. I sure haven't found any from this author -- yet -- is there any hope in the remaining text?]

There is only one way, the truth as it is in Jesus. That truth is always to the point, it is purposeful, it leads to significant, useful, appropriate living. It is this the apostle is stressing. We must learn to test all our thinking by what the Lord Jesus has revealed, either directly himself or indirectly through the apostles whom he has sent to tell us the truth: The truth as it is in Jesus.

[Karl Note: I just had a terrible thought. Isn't the Rev. Jessie Jackson one of these Christians? Isn't he one to whom I should be able to look for moral guidance? What did I hear on the news that he has fathered a couple kids by women who were not his wife? Is that the example that a Christian Minister is setting for me. How am I to know what "example of Christ" is living a moral life? Just the ones with the title, "reverend?" My goodness, I am more confused than ever -- I have a simple problem. My 14-year old daughter, I've just discovered, is doing drugs and sex. I don't think that is right for her, or for anyone that age. In fact, I don't think it is right for anyone to do drugs and promiscuous sex. I don't do those things -- I never did. I don't think I've taught her that type of morality. What do I do now??]

Tested by this, we discover there is much we must reject today. I do not have any problem with this "God Is Dead" movement. It does not bother me in the least. I know it is one of those things that sweep like cyclones across the landscape of human thinking and then is gone again, to be replaced next year by something else -- one of those fads or fashions in theology that come and go. But do I give any credence to it, do I think it has any weight or merit? Of course not! For the Lord Jesus has said that God is not dead. God is an eternal Father, God is Spirit, eternal, immortal, invisible, constantly underlying all of life. Measured by the truth that is in Jesus all such nonsense is immediately rejected as unworthy of consideration.

There are so many things we can measure this way. Today the theological world, and many Christians, are troubled by the rise of the idea of universalism again, the hope that all men will be saved, that no matter what they do, all are redeemed, all will be saved. But, measured by the truth as it is in Jesus, we reject that statement -- much as we would like to believe it. For, you see, Jesus says something different, and, though it is hard, he is the authority we accept. Reading an article in His Magazine recently on this very subject, I found deep agreement with these words. The writer says,

I am deeply impressed by the argument of brilliant thinkers like Tillich, Ferre, Bultmann, Bruner and Barth, not to mention John of Damascus, Thomas Aquinas, the Pope, Nietzsche, Feuerbach, Bertrand Russell, and many more. But what do these men know? What are the data on which they base their judgments? When it comes to the important question, "What is man's destiny after this life?" I prefer Jesus Christ, the God-man, to Paul Tillich, as my authority. I prefer Jesus Christ to Rudolf Bultmann. And above all, lest you misunderstand me, I prefer Jesus Christ to my own blind human guesses based on woefully inadequate data.

Exactly! Christ is the authority. The truth is revealed in Jesus, therefore We reject all philosophies that urge the necessity of "getting even" as a way of living with one another. We reject all philosophy that says that trials are tragic occurrences for which we ought to feel sorry for ourselves, and act as though we have been offended when they come into our lives as though we had been specially singled out for difficulty. We are to remember, in the light of the truth as it is in Jesus, that these trials and sufferings are part of the program, part of God's ministering to us, part of that which it takes to make us what God wants us to be.

We are to reject the common philosophy of the day that others are to blame for our weaknesses, that if we lived in different circumstances, with different people and had to face different problems, we could be different. The truth as it is in Jesus says that there is adequacy in Christ for any situation, any place; that God has put you where you are because he wants you to live the Christian life right there; that those around you will never have the chance to see the tremendous, revolutionary difference that being a Christian makes unless they see it in your life right where you are right now.

[Karl Note: Well, people are not going to learn about Christian morality from my daughter just now. And, I don't see how people will learn much about Jesus from ME. I am moral. My daughter is not. I suffer. She will too, but right now she doesn't think she will suffer -- she is having fun! What is going on here! There is something wrong with a code of behavior that can say nothing more or better than what I've heard so far!!]

That is where we are to begin to live, and this is why Paul says we "must no longer live as the Gentiles do," in the emptiness of their minds, for we "did not so learn Christ." There are resources in him far greater than any worldling every dreamed of. There are possibilities of fruitfulness and glory and grace in Jesus Christ which, if they begin to manifest themselves in your life, will set your neighbors and friends saying, "What has this person got? "What kind of a faith is this? "What do these people have that makes them able to live like this?" Now, that is the challenge the apostle sets before us.

[Karl Note: Ah! I see it now. He is saying that I have to go out and live a much more Christian Life so that my daughter will see, in my example, how much she needs to change. Well, first, I don't know how much more I could do?? I could volunteer more time at my Church. I could give them more of my money. I could go out on the streets and sing hymns in front of the bars?? What should I do? Really, I just want to get my daughter straightened out. This guy is saying that the only thing I can do is to live a better example of Christ. Well, that seems rather an empty promise for solving the problem I have.]

In the rest of this chapter he will detail it for us in specifics, bringing it right down where we live. As we go through this, we shall see that what we do is itself witnessing, telling what we are. Therefore, what we are must be what Christ is, for that is the only life that arrests and changes and challenges men.

[Karl Note: Ah! I see, there is another Chapter where the real advice will be provided? I think I'll pass and go look elsewhere!]

If YOU, the reader here, want the next Chapter, click here, and then write to me and let me know what you found.

PUTTING OFF, PUTTING ON

by Ray C. Stedman

source

One way or another, put in their own way, Christians everywhere are asking the same question. They do not ask, "How can we be sure that when we die we will go to heaven?" Those who are newly introduced to Christian life are concerned in these areas, and quite properly so. But for the most part Christians are everywhere increasingly aware that there is far more to Christianity than a promise that when we die we will go to heaven. They are not even asking the question, "How can I know that the sins of my past are forgiven?" Again, this is an area of proper concern to those first entering the Christian faith. But the question I find Christians asking, arising from a deep concern evident almost everywhere, is this question: "If Jesus Christ can really live and love through me, then how do I let him do this? What is the process, what must I actually do, to have this happening in my life?"

I am greatly encouraged by the fact that question is being asked, for it reveals that Christians are getting away from the concept that Christianity is merely a way to escape hell and go to heaven some day. True as those facts are, they are not the essential issue in Christian faith. It is very encouraging to see Christians becoming aware at last of all the great provisions in Jesus Christ for living today, right now, that this is what he is primarily aiming at in our lives. Christianity is intended to change men to love differently in the midst of the kind of world in which we are now living. There is a hunger being created by the Spirit of God everywhere for this kind of life. There is a spreading discontent with mediocrity and it is a very welcome change. There is a dissatisfaction with the anemic, pallid, lukewarm, lusterless Christian living that so many have experienced for so long and which is disgusting both to men and to God. In the book of the Revelation the Lord Jesus puts it plainly to the church at Laodicea. He says, "because you are lukewarm I will spew you out of my mouth," {cf, Rev 3:16 RSV}. That kind of Christianity is the reason for the restless movements of our day which challenge and charge the church with impotence and irrelevance.

Now Paul gives the answer to this basic Christian question in the fourth chapter of Ephesians. He has declared already that the place to begin living the Christian life is with a change of thought. We saw before, in Verses 17-20, that we must begin by having our mind changed. Our thought life must become different. We cannot go on thinking the same way we did before we were Christians. We cannot imitate or adopt the thinking of the non-Christian with regard to life in general, the thinking of the world. Paul showed us why. He traced the darkened, pointless thinking of the world and he bluntly terms it "ignorance."

Now that is a hard word to many to accept There are those who ask, "How can you say this in the face of the intellectual achievements of men today? How can you deny the tremendous accomplishments of science in our day and age? How do you dare say this in a community which has more Nobel Prize winners and Pulitzer Prize winners per square inch than perhaps any other place on the earth? How can you say that the thinking of the world is ignorance? How can you set aside so easily the careful study and impeccable logic of the great thinkers of the world?" The answer, of course, is: "We are not attempting to deny logic or brilliance of intellect at all." These are very obvious in the world's thinking. The aspect which the apostle is challenging is not the world's logic, but its premise, i.e., its underlying assumptions and goals, what it is aiming at, what it thinks will be accomplished by its present thinking. Therefore, there must be a change in our thinking, for the thinking of the world is faulted, it is imperfect, shadowed, darkened with error.

Any of you who have learned the clever art of balancing a checkbook (I never have mastered it myself) know how one error can change the whole picture. You do not have to have a lot of errors in a checkbook, you need only one, one slight transposition in figures, one error in subtraction, and the rest of your addition can be absolutely faultless, perfectly logical, arithmetically correct all the way down the line -- but it is all wrong. There is nothing quite as disheartening as to come to the end of a long column of figures and discover that you are three cents off and do not know where it is.

In that same way, error underlies the thinking of the world. There is much truth in the world's reasoning, there is a lot of logic. As we pointed out before, there is much genuine truth which the world has picked up through exposure to the truth of God through many centuries, but it is intermingled with error, and the problem is how to distinguish the true from the false -- how to tell what is false. But the apostle is pointing out there is a fundamental error which has crept into human thinking which reveals itself in the basic assumptions with which people begin. It is here we must start in making changes in the Christian life. Christianity is a totally different way of life and therefore we must think differently.

Now, how do you do this? This is the question. Paul comes to grips with this question in Verses 22-24. In a very practical way he puts the answer before us, as he always does, first in a general statement that reveals the principle involved. This general statement is all we shall have time for now, but he goes on in the chapter to apply this principle to various situations, all practical applications of this basic, underlying principle. Now let us look at the principle itself.

Put off your old nature which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. {Eph 4:22-24 RSV}

Now there it is. You cannot put it any plainer than that. Put off the old and put on the new. That is the principle by which the possibilities which are in Christ can become evident in terms of our experience. It is by following this specific procedure of putting off the old and putting on the new. It only needs to be thought through carefully for us to understand exactly what this means. Notice, first, there is a recognition of the pull of the old life on the Christian. There is the presence of the old nature recognized, this "old man" -- as it is, literally, in the Greek. The admonition of the apostle is to be constantly recognizing and rejecting these false, underlying assumptions which come from the old man, the old life, the old way of living. It is not merely deeds, you will notice, but outlooks, attitudes. This is what causes the problem and this is what we must reject.

The Apostle Paul here uses a very helpful figure in these two phrases, "put off" and "put on." Put off means to divest yourself of something, to take it off. When you go into your bedroom at night to get ready for bed you put off your clothes, you divest yourself of them, and lay them aside. If you have a soiled garment, you put it off and put on something new. He is using the very simplest of terms to illustrate what we must do in the realm of thought, of the attitudes of life. We must reject those basic assumptions which have caused our trouble, putting them off, rejecting them, divesting ourselves of them, just as you would put off your dirty clothes.

We must do this because, from these wrong attitudes, the corruption of life comes. He says the former manner of life is corrupt -- decayed, dead, foul, selfish, unhappy, restless. These are the things which have made life unhappy or miserable. He points out we can recognize these attitudes by the way they operate. They are "deceitful lusts." Unfortunately this word lust is greatly misunderstood in our day. We invariably associate it with something sexual. Lust is sex desire, that is the way we usually interpret it. But this word is much broader than that. It does not mean only sexual desire, although it does include that, but it means any urge or basic drive. We will get closer to the essential meaning of this word if we use the term urge. These deceitful urges are constantly coming to us as we react to various situations in which we find ourselves.

For instance there is the urge to fulfill yourself by indulging in an orgy of spending. That is one kind of urge he is describing here, the urge to make yourself happy by owning things. Such an urge is deceitful, as the Word of God tells us, for man was never made to be satisfied with owning things. Yet who of us does not daily experience this kind of an urge? We flip through the pages of a magazine and see the beautiful gadgets and remarkable gimmicks that science has made available to us. We look at the drab, worn out gadgets and gimmicks in our house and we feel an urge, do we not? We want to go out and buy a color TV set. We cannot any longer be satisfied with that black and white set which once so enthralled us when we first got it. We simply must have a new car -- the old one has gotten dusty! There is a continual exposure to this kind of urge, is there not? You see how he is talking about life? These basic urges seem to promise much but never deliver. Therefore they are deceitful, they do not come through, they do not really satisfy. It is possible to live our lives, as many Christians do and as worldlings invariably do, trying continually to satisfy these urges which never satisfy.

I think in this connection of riding on the commuter train to San Francisco some years ago, and I saw a young woman sitting across the aisle from me chain-smoking. She lit one right after another all the way to the city, and finally she crumpled up the pack and threw it on the floor. I noticed that it was the brand that has written across the face of it "They Satisfy," and I thought to myself, "I wonder how many it takes?" Thus, these are "deceitful urges."

There is the urge to use others for our own advantage. Did you ever feel the urge to manipulate others, to maneuver them in subtle, devious, cleverly hidden ways to get them to do what you want them to do for your advantage, with little concern for them? You do not have their interests at heart, but yours. Such an urge seems to offer us much. We think if we can be clever at this, or be unusually subtle, we can get people to do what we want, and then we will have the world at our fingertips -- we can have whatever we want. But it does not happen. It is a deceitful urge.

There is the urge to nag others into compliance with what we want. This is a different approach to the same thing. It is the urge to keep after them, pester them, picket them, surround them, hound them, beat them, badger them into getting done what we want done. This is another way of satisfying the ego, ministering to the basic urge of life. It looks like it is going to make us happy because we are constantly feeling this basic urge to satisfy ourselves, to be an empire builder, king in our own dominion. But this is the basic lie, the deceitfulness of life, because it does not work. It never has worked, and it never will work.

Perhaps the urge we feel is the urge to lie or cheat to get by, to gain an advantage. All these are basically urges to do the same thing, to satisfy that basic desire to be in the center of things, the center of attention, the focus of life around us. There is the urge to criticize what we do not understand, the urge to have our feelings hurt and indulge in self-pity, the urge to adopt a martyr attitude and feel humiliated at any failure on our part. There is the urge to be impatient with others, or the urge to be irritated when our opinion is not accepted, and the urge to defensiveness when our position is attacked. There is the urge to fight those who do not think as we do, to despise or to blame others. There is the holier-than-thou urge which makes us feel righteous, better, cleaner, more respectable than someone else. These are the urges the apostle is talking about.

The Christian is to put off these things because he has discovered a secret. He still feels these as strongly as he did before he became a Christian. He feels them as strongly as the worldling does, but he has learned a secret: They are part of the old life, the old man, which was judged on the cross of Christ. That is what the Lord's Supper portrays. It is a pictorial reminder to us that in the cross of Jesus Christ God did an amazing thing. It is recorded for us in Second Corinthians 5:21, "He who knew no sin became sin for us." He became our old life, our old egocentric life. Jesus became that on the cross. If the Word of God did not tell us that we would never know it and we would never be able to understand anything of the depths of the mystery of the cross. Why this terrible judgment on this holy man? Why this awful darkness, why this terrible convulsion of nature? Why these impenetrable mysteries? It comes down to this basic thing, "he became sin for us." He was made to be what we are as born of Adam. When he became sin, he died, he was put to death. The sentence of death was executed upon him. It is God's eloquent way of saying to us that all these urges that arise out of the self life, the old man, are utterly valueless. They do not do anything for us, they are deceitful. They promise much, they deliver nothing.

Therefore, the first step in experiencing what God intends for us is to recognize that. Put off the old, divest yourself of it, lay it aside, refuse to accept it, no longer justify it or give it place in your life. That is the first step, but it is only half the picture. The other is to recognize, as Paul does, the wonderful possibilities of the new life, of the new man. He says (let me translate it a bit differently here) "being renewed, having been renewed in the spirit of your minds put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." In that phrase, "having been renewed in the spirit of your mind," you have the fundamental difference between a Christian and a non-Christian. It is true, or course, that non-Christians sometimes realize that things are wrong in their lives, that the attitudes they show are destructive, and there are things they are doing that are wrong, and so they change them. But they merely change to another expression of the same basic egocentricity. That is the problem. They change the outer form, but the problem remains basically the same. They manifest a different expression of the basic pride of life.

But the Christian, alone of all human beings (and I do not hesitate to say this because it is clearly the teaching of the Word of God from beginning to end), has the possibility of doing something entirely different, living on an entirely different principle, a different level, because he has been renewed in the spirit of his mind. That describes the regeneration of the life by the Spirit of God coming into the heart that believes in Jesus Christ. When we believe in Jesus Christ and receive him as our Lord, our Savior, we are renewed in the spirit of our mind. Our basic, fundamental life is changed. In Verse 22, the RSV translation says, "put off your old nature." I reject that word, "your." It is not in the original. It is "put off the old nature." The point is, it is no longer yours. It is there, but it is no longer identified with you. Christ is your life now, a radical difference has come in. You are now identified with him. If you want to leave that word, your in the passage itself, pick it up and move it out of Verse 22 and put it down in Verse 24, "put on your new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness."

There is the word of deliverance. The new man is in the likeness of God, it is the life of God, it is the image of Jesus Christ, it is his life lived in you. So put on that kind of life because it is available to you, it is yours. If you are a Christian, you have Christ already and these new urges to love, to patiently endure, to understand, to accept even difficult, hard people, to gently correct those who need correction, to be faithful in a difficult time, all these are part of the new nature. Notice how it is described as resulting in a true righteousness in contrast with the false, a pretense, a posture, a facade. But this is real, it is genuine, it is love unfeigned. It is not something put on the for moment, it is not a smile painted on the face with a hostile heart behind it, but it is a genuineness of heart, true righteousness, right behavior that is purposeful.

And, not only that, it is holy. Now there is a word we squirm at, holiness. We usually think of some pious Joe who looks like he has been soaked in embalming fluid. That is our picture of holiness. But let me use another word that is an accurate translation of this word -- wholeness. That means health of being, wholeness of personality, a whole man, as God intended man to be. Now, that results from the life of the Lord Jesus within. But the process to it is twofold: Put off, and put on. Our problem is that we are afraid to put off the old man, for fear we will be left with an empty husk of life. It never seems to dawn on us that the Holy Spirit is simply waiting for us to put these things off in order that he might rush in and fill us with the wholeness that is God's intention for man, the wholeness of Christ.

Putting off the old man is like squeezing the water out of a half-drowned man's lungs. You do not do that because you want his lungs to be empty, you do it because you want the air to get in so that he can live. What the Scripture reveals to us is that this old egocentric life of ours, this old man, the self, has been asphyxiating, killing us. It has been cutting off the breath which we were designed to breathe. The only air we were designed to breathe is God. Yet we find such difficulty believing this and therefore we do not experience it. The whole matter comes down to an appeal to the will. Put off, put on. That is a choice you are asked to make whenever you recognize the deceitful urges that come from within -- put off and put on. Reject the old and turn to the Lord within and say, "Thank you, Lord, for the fact that you in me are able to do through me and in me that which you have desired to do." Put off the old, refuse to let the old nature manifest itself or to have any place, and then the new will be right there to take its place.

Now right here we meet with some timeworn, familiar excuses. Someone says, "Well, I've tried this, but it doesn't work for me. It works for other people, I can see that. But I've tried it, and it doesn't work." Now that statement needs to be very carefully examined, for it is one of the subtle ways by which the flesh, the self-life, blames God for our failure. It is really saying that God is partial, he gives some people help but he will not give you help. He plays favorites. Some he lets in on the great secret, but for others, like you, he makes it so difficult and complicated that you cannot catch on to it. That is a lie. The truth is, you never really wanted it, at least not badly enough to do what the apostle says, to put off the old. You still try to cling to the pleasure of manifesting this egocentric flesh. And as long as you cling to that, then of course you cannot put on God, you cannot put on the new life.

"Well, I do my best," someone says, but from the results, it is not much better than your worst. Your best, you see, is still only refined flesh, the refined old man. That excuse is a way of justifying our unwillingness to give up, our reluctance to reject these ideas and really treat them as what God has labeled them in the cross, sinful, evil, wrong, but under the guise of at least making an effort in this direction. "Well, we tried." But this is not an experimental matter, this is a process that is absolutely sure. There is no question about this, this is not subject to half-way results. This works. Put off, and you can put on. Put on, and you must have put off. There is no other way. These are utterly contradictory principles, but the choice is ours.

Yesterday, in Southern California, a man knocked on my door and asked to talk with me about a problem. He was a Christian man and his problem was this: He had gone into business with some other Christian men and the business, through circumstances that were not wholly his own fault, had failed and he had to go into bankruptcy. Now he was facing the urge within to accept the position that he had before the law and write off his debts and let his creditors suffer the loss. He was facing the urge to take advantage of that. All his friends were telling him it was the thing to do and even his wife agreed to this. But he was troubled. He wondered if he had the moral right, as a Christian, to do this and to ask his creditors to bear the loss. As we went over the Scriptures together it became clear that he did not have that right. The Word of God says, "Owe no man anything, but to love one another" {Rom 13:8 KJV}, and "Provide things honest in the sight of all men," {Rom 12:17 KJV}. As he faced that he was confronted with a definite choice -- to put off the urge to take the apparently easy way out at the price of the peace of God within the heart. As we talked, he made that choice. He said, "I see what I need to do. I will accept this obligation to pay back those men. Not one of them will lose a dime over this business. It will take me some time, but I am going to pay them back." At that his face brightened and he looked at me and said, "What a load has been lifted from my life. I know this is going to be hard to do, and even my wife is not going to accept this, but already I have a sense of peace over this whole matter, and that's worth it all."

Now that is exactly it. The Christian is called to live on a different basis. When he does, he will discover there is an adequacy from God that sustains the inner life, that keeps him poised, adjusted, happy, whole, in the midst of the problems and pressures and demands that are made upon him. That is what Paul is talking about, and that is where we must live.

As we come to the table of the Lord, we are being reminded again, in God's graphic way, that this is the basic principle of Christian living. We are cut off from the old life by the acceptance of the death of Jesus Christ as a valid experience for us, cut off from these false, egocentric philosophies of living. And we are exposed now to the manifestation of a quite different attitude of life, a quite different way of reacting to situations.

Prayer:

Father, grant to us now clarity of understanding of this great principle, as we gather about this table today. May it have new meaning for us. May we realize that this is not concerned only with making it possible for us to go to heaven when we die, but it is declaring something that makes it possible to be free from the inner tensions, the nagging, plaguing, neuroses, the inner divisions and fightings and fears that plague us in our Christian life. Help us to be single-eyed, whole people, manifesting in our lives the fragrance, the love, the compassion, the understanding, the acceptance of Jesus Christ our Lord. We ask in his name, Amen.

Title: Darkness of Mind
By: Ray C. Stedman
Scripture: Ephesians 4:17-21
Date: Unknown date during April - July, 1966
Series: The Christian in the World
Message No: 1
Catalog No: 119

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