Markham Baptist Church Sermon

Preached in Markham Baptist Church, October 24, 2004

During this series I have stated again and again that we cannot show the world what God is like in His moral image without having Christ by His Spirit live in us.

Now this morning I want us to understand that since it is true that Jesus Christ lives in us we should not get to feeling that we can simply cruise through life saying that it’s all of Christ and not of me.

This is the an emphasis that we find in the book of Ephesians. It is clear that God has done everything for us – as you read through chapter 1 you discover that truth. Paul makes it plain that we have been blessed with “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3) And he goes on to list all the blessings that are ours ending at verse 13 and 14 with the truth that we have been given the Spirit of Christ to live in us.

What is Paul saying there? He is saying We have everything we need to live the Christian life, we have everything we need to fulfill the purpose for which we have been created.

So does that mean that we can simply glide through life saying it’s all of Christ and not of me? No. We come to our passage in Ephesians 4:22-24. "You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."

One preacher compares the Christian life to owning a car.¹ We all have cars sitting in the parking lot right now doing nothing. Why? The car has everything it needs. The salesman when you bought it told you, “This car has everything it needs to get down the road. But it also needs the discipline of getting into the car, turning the key, putting it into gear, pressing down on the gas peddle. And you steer it down the road. And as your car goes down the road, what is the making the car go? Is it the engine or is it the driver?

It’s both. The engine under the hood is the power that takes the car, what the driver is doing is simply enabling the power of the engine to reach the wheels and turn the vehicle down the road. So there are two aspects of the Christian life. You have to know there is an engine under the hood, the Spirit of Jesus Christ is in you. But you have got to learn to drive.¹ That’s what we are looking at today.

And we come to Ephesians 4:22- 24 and Paul says, "we have everything we need to live the Christian live, now we are called to live the disciplined life." In essence he says, become what you are. God has made you a new creation, now live like it.

Paul makes this point in verses 17 through 19. He says, "now that you are new creations, don’t live like you used to - like the Gentiles." Now, he will make some generalizations here about the life of Gentiles, but just as there is a life that typifies the Christian so there is a life that typifies those outside the faith.

He says they are separate from God, hard of heart, given over to sensuality and impurity. You can almost trace a downward spiral in their lives, as they live separate from God their conscience has grown dull and their hearts hard against the goodness and purity of God and are given to every kind of impurity.

But Scripture says at verse 20 that you however are different. Instead of downward spiral, we have an upward spiral, You know Christ, (Verse 20) You heard Him (verse 21) and were taught in Him (verse 21). Notice it doesn’t say, “you know about Christ” or “you heard about Christ”. No, you know Christ, you have a relationship with Jesus Christ! You have everything you need to live a Christian life. You are different now so don’t live like you used to when Christ did not live in you.

Just to continue the car metaphor - Can you imagine having a powerful Ferrari engine under the hood of your car but never taking it out on the highway? Always driving on the back streets of Markham. Going 40, then 20 over the speed bump. Going 40 and then 20 over the speed bump. Going 40 and then 20 over the speed bump. And all the time we have this great engine in our car!

Some people live like that their whole lives. They have Christ in them, everything they need to live the Christian life but they continue to live lives as they did before Christ was in them.

Listen, you have everything you need to kick that filthy habit that is damaging your body and destroying your credibility as a Christian. Yet you still indulge in that habit.

You have everything you need to develop a Christ like character in you but we still participate in gossip, and harbour jealousy, and foster revenge, and hold on to anger and nurture bitterness.

You have everything you need to make your marriage work, Christ is in you, to enable you to forgive like Christ, to love like Christ and care like Christ. Yet you don’t take advantage of the fact.

We have everything we need to fulfill our purpose in life, to show what God is like, but we don’t take advantage of it.

Now all of this takes discipline, that’s what Scripture says in verses 22 through 24. It takes first the discipline of obedience.

“You were taught with regard to your former way of life to put off your old self.” This speaks of obedience, where once we used to obey the way of sin, our old selves, now we obey the way of Christ who is in us. It was Dr. Alan Redpath who said that it is not “more truth that we need but obedience to the truth that we already know.”²

Are you living a life of obedience? You can, you know – not because God is up in heaven threatening to strike you down, but because the Spirit of God is in you enabling you to obey. Are you living a life of obedience, is the spirit of God prompting you do something but you refuse to do it? Are you continuing in a sinful habit? Is there a relationship He is calling you to repair? Is there an action He is calling you to take? Is there a mission field He wants you to visit? Is there a ministry He wants you to undertake?

Scripture puts it very bluntly in I John 2:4 "The man who says, 'I know him,' but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”

To live the Christian life takes both you and Christ. He comes and takes up residence in our lives, and we offer our lives in obedience to Him. And Paul describes what that obedient life looks like in verses 25 right on through to the end of the book. But certainly he sums it up in 5:1 where he says, “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children.”

I can’t stress this enough. We Christians are to be different than those who are not Christian. We have fallen into the trap of thinking that we want to be like non-Christians so that we can win a hearing for the gospel but my fear is that we have become so much like non-Christians that they can see no discernable difference. We are to be imitators of God, the standard is that high. And we it is as we give ourselves to Him in obedience that we are able to be imitators of God.

But this life of discipline requires not only the positive action of obedience, it also requires the negative action of resistance.

“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.” (verse 22) There are times in life when we will be tempted to do things that are not Christ-like. We will all be tempted – our Lord was tempted again and again when He was in the wilderness. Being tempted is not a sin, but falling into temptation, carrying out that temptation is a sin.

Rick Warren has two excellent chapters on how to deal with temptation, but what I want to stress this morning is that temptation comes from within us. James asks,

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?” (James 4:1) “Where does sin come from?” he asks in the same letter (James 1:13,14). They come from your own “evil desires” he says. This is what Paul says in our text where he says that our old self is being corrupted by its deceitful desires.

And that means we have a choice to make we can fall prey to the temptation or we can resist the temptation. How do I do this? It is a discipline of resistance where I refuse to let my feet take me to places where I know I will sin. By refusing to let my eyes watch television programs that will lead me into sin. By refusing to allow my fingers to take me to places on the internet that I know are sinful.

So this disciplined life is a life of obedience, a life of resistance, and it is also a life of repentance.

“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.” (verse 23) This speaks of the discipline of repentance.

The word repent literally means "to change the mind". The Greek word metanoia is a combination of two words - meta meaning "to change, to renounce" and noia meaning "the mind". So repentance is not something that feel, it is something we think. It is an understanding. This is what our text is saying - we are made new, we are transformed not by some spiritual sizzle down our spine or some climatic spiritual experience. There is no shortcut - you can have every wonderful spiritual experience you want, but it won’t make you holy. That won’t happen until our minds begin to conform to the truth of God.

So we read in Romans 8:5: “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.”

This brings us to the last discipline, the discipline of persistence – of persistently coming to God in prayer and in the reading of His Word.

“And put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” (verse 24) This speaks to me of the need for a daily quiet time. A time set aside to read the word of God and pray to God.

We need to be feeding our minds with God’s Word. Do you want to be more Christ-like? It’s no mystery, my friends. Feed your mind with the Word of God. So David asks the question, in Psalm 119: “How can a young man keep his way pure? He answers the question, “By living according to your word.” (verse 9) There’s no mystery to that. “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” (Psalm 119:11)

It is as I open His Word that I understand His leading and guiding. It is as I read His Word that I am washed of all that is ungodly and impure in my life. It is as I read His Word that I am equipped for spiritual conflict. Jesus was only able to meet the temptations in the wilderness because He had fed His soul with God’s Word.

My friends, many of you here say that you love God, say that you want to be like Christ, but you never open your Bible to read it, you never pray to Him unless your are in trouble.

The daily quiet time takes persistence. You will find the most vicious attacks of Satan in your life will be directed to robbing you of that daily time with God. And you will have to persistently guard it.

So do you understand? The Christ-like character is never the product of discipline. Discipline enables the life of Jesus Christ to be released in you.

So He is able to operate in a life that obeys orders, in lips that say that He wants, in hands that do what He wants, in feet that go where He wants. He is able to operate in a life that resists sin and offers the parts of our bodies to righteousness. He is able to operate in a life that has its mind set on the things of God. He is able to operate in a life that is filling itself with His Word.

Now one last word and I am indebted to the thoughts of Charles Price for this idea.³ This past summer I saw a small boy climb into his parents' car and pretend to drive. He stood on the seat and turned the steering wheel and made all the sounds of a car. This is the picture of many Christians.

Some of us try to learn the techniques of driving without realizing that there is an engine under the hood. And so we sit behind the wheel, so to speak, knowing we are supposed to obey God’s commands, we are supposed to avoid temptation, we are supposed to read our Bibles, we are supposed to go to worship, we are supposed to pray, we’re supposed to give our money, we supposed to do this and supposed to do that, So we sit behind the wheel and we make all the right sounds.

You sit behind the wheel, you do all the right things, you do all the good things, you do all the Christian things, you think you are living the Christian life but why aren’t you going anywhere? Why are you so stationary? Why does your life seem so dull? It is because you haven’t realized that Christ in you is your hope of glory.

But there are other Christians who know that there is an engine under the hood and boy, are they excited. They sit back, and put their foot on the gas pedal (the car is in neutral, of course) and the car is revving at a great rpm, the exhaust is pouring out the back and every window on the street is rattling. But they look out and they say, “Why aren’t I going anywhere? Hallelujah! Praise the Lord. But why aren’t I going anywhere? Why isn’t my character changing? ”

It is because although they have learned that there is an engine under the hood, they have never learned “to put off your old self; to be made new in the attitude of your minds and to put on the new self created to be like God.”

These two ideas, Christ in us and the disciplined life, don’t contradict they complement.

You can live the most disciplined life there is, but if you do not depend on the indwelling Spirit of Jesus Christ your Christian life won’t go anywhere. And you’ll become legalistic.

OR if you simply get caught up with the Spirit without obedience and disciplined living, you’ll end up disillusioned and always looking for the next spiritual high.

There is a better way. It is this - as we live in dependency upon the indwelling spirit of Christ, and everyday as you wake up you say, “Lord Jesus thank you for blessing me with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms. Thank you that there is nothing that will take you by surprise today. Thank you that is nothing for which your wisdom and understanding is not sufficient. There is nothing for which your strength is not adequate. There is nothing for which your indwelling presence will not be enough. Thank you! I trust you, I depend on you. Now, what is it that you want me to do? How is it that you want me to be today? How can I obey you? How can I give myself to you? What sin in my life do you want me to overcome today?"

My friends, dependency and discipline - it is the key to showing the world what God is like.

ENDNOTES:

1. Charles Price in a sermon delivered at the Toronto Spiritual Life Conference, 1999.

2. Quoted by Stephen Olford in Not I But Christ, (Wheaton Illinois; Crossway Books, 1995), p. 97.

3. Charles Price in a sermon delivered at the Toronto Spiritual Life Conference, 1999.