NORTHSHORE CHURCH OF CHRIST

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that
you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do,
in the futility of their minds.
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.
They have become callous
and have given themselves up to sensuality,
greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

When Paul says Christians should “no longer walk as the Gentiles do,” he reveals a couple of truths. First, we who name the name of Christ used to walk as the Gentiles. We were among the nations of the earth, “following the course of this world” and “carrying out the desires of the body and the mind” (Eph. 2.1–3). Second, the Gentiles continue to walk this way. We are surrounded by men and women who have veils over their hearts, who do not understand spiritual things, who are ignorant of things concerning life, and who have wholeheartedly enslaved themselves to their own senses and pleasures.

We should never wish ourselves back in that situation with the world, and we should pity those trapped by their own passions and lusts. They are bound in absolute slavery. A slave to an earthly master can be free with regard to the Lord—he may own nothing of physical value but own everything in Christ. Likewise, one who has never been a slave to another man may be in a locked box constructed of his fleshly desires, impure thoughts, and sensual passions—he may be the richest man in town yet in abject spiritual poverty.

Notice the state of their minds. Futility. Darkness. Ignorance. Their minds are locked in this futility because their hearts are hard toward the Lord and towards his righteousness.

Notice their way of living. They are callous, having built up hard skin to shield themselves from the pain of guilt and the warning of shame when they break God’s holy law. They give themselves up to whatever makes them feel good at the time and then block out the nagging conscience trying to break through in the background of their minds. They lie to themselves. “She eats and wipes her mouth and says, ‘I have done no wrong’” (Prov. 30.20).

But that is not the way you learned Christ!—
assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him,
as the truth is in Jesus,
to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life
and is corrupt through deceitful desires,
and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,
and to put on the new self,
created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Notice how we have escaped that life of slavery to sin—we learned Christ, we heard about him, and we were taught in him. The truth is in Jesus! Our minds had to change from being focused on pleasing ourselves to being focused on pleasing our Lord. We learned true freedom this way.

We learned to take off that old man, to stop walking in our old ways. We repented of our sins and our old manner of walking.

But simply taking off the old jacket will not suffice—we still get cold. Therefore, we must put on a new self. The old way of walking must be replaced by a new way. It starts with a renewal of our minds in Christ, and then we can put on the new self which is created in the likeness of God himself! We learn what true righteousness and holiness are because the truth is in Jesus.

If the new self is “created after the likeness of God,” is this something we do unilaterally (by ourselves)? We do not create—God reserves that power for himself—so this creation is something God does in us. But we do take off the old self and put on the new, do we not? Yes! This walk with God is something we do together with him. Once God has shone his light of grace into our hearts (2 Cor. 4.3–6) and woken us up from our spiritual stupor, then we joyfully walk beside him in repentance, even as he continues to work on us, creating a new heart and a new mind—renewing us in Christ Jesus.

It happens as we learn, as we hear, as we are taught in Christ.

In the next installment, I plan to consider specific activities we should take off and what we should put on to replace them, as we finish Ephesians 4.

Newton’s Laws of Motion teach us that objects move only when force is applied to them. We live in a world of many forces, such as gravity and friction, slowing and stopping moving objects. If I throw a frisbee as hard as I can, it may fly a long way, but gravity and wind resistance will slow it down and eventually bring it to the earth where it will come to a state of rest. Someone must pick the frisbee back up and hurl it again to get it to fly once more.

Our three Laws of Thermodynamics teach us the amount of energy in the universe remains constant, but it changes from one form of energy to another. It takes work (powered by some form of energy) to create heat (another form of energy). In my house, it takes work to make dinner, and dinner results in dirty dishes piled up beside the sink. The food we eat gives us energy to do work. Should we spend some of that energy cleaning the dishes? It takes work to keep the kitchen clean.

This world tends towards disorder. It takes a lot of work and energy to keep things organized, dishes cleaned and put away, clothes washed, house repaired, lawn picked up and mowed, garden weeded, car engines oiled, etc.

God started this earth with his own work. His power started everything and now sustains all processes that are going on, which is awesome! At the center of our Solar System he placed a yellow dwarf star we call the Sun to provide the energy (via light and heat) our world uses to survive.

These physical processes astonish and often baffle us, but they also reflect spiritual reality. It takes work to increase in faith and produce the fruit of Christ’s Kingdom.

Paul says we should walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which we have been called (Eph. 4.1), and he tells us the Christian walk is a new life in Christ. We once walked like the nations around us, in the futility of our minds. Their minds are dark, they are ignorant of God’s ways, and their hearts are hard (Eph. 4.17–18).

Indeed, without some form of spiritual energy to raise him up, everyone falls, as spiritual forces of evil pull him downward and stop any forward movement. He finds himself at the bottom of a bottle, in a dark pit, in a depression. It takes work and energy to rise and move forward, but where can he get that energy?

The world says to pull that energy from inside yourself. Be the truest you that you can be. Be authentic. You do you. Love yourself. You are powerful. You are beautiful. You are wise.

Funny thing is, we are none of those things by ourselves and certainly not while under the influence of the spiritual forces of darkness. While we buy the fiction (lie) that we have a well of personal energy deep within our own breast, we will never find the strength to rise and move forward. Our power and energy come from the same source as our Sun. We don’t worship the Sun; we worship the One who lit the Sun on fire. As the Sun powers the earth and everything in it, so our Lord powers our souls and lights the fires of our lives.

“Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this [Jesus] said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. (John 7.38–39)

The Holy Spirit empowers us to not only have life in ourselves but to have that life flow out from us to affect others around us!

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15.4–5)

The only way to bear spiritual fruit is to be connected securely to the vine, Jesus Christ. He provides the power and energy for us to do any good work.

It takes work to clean up messy lives like ours. It takes energy to walk each day in the Spirit. It takes power to fight against the schemes of the devil. Praise the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit who supply us constantly with the spiritual energy to do God’s work and keep walking in a manner worthy of the calling to which we have been called!

Jesus told a parable to the Jewish leaders concerning a master of a house who expended a lot of effort to develop a property, cultivate it, and plant a vineyard. He then appointed tenants to take care of his property while he went off into a far country. When fruit season rolled around, the master sent servants to collect the fruit from his vineyard, but the tenants mistreated them and even killed some. The master sent more servants, and they did the same to them. Finally, he sent his son thinking they would surely respect him, but in their evil and twisted minds, they thought they could gain ownership of the vineyard if they killed the son. They dragged the son out of the property and killed him.

Jesus flat-out asked the Jewish leaders what the master would do to those wicked tenants. They answered, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their season.”

Good answer.

But then Jesus brought home the point:

“Have you never read in the Scripture: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? Therefore, I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.”

The Jewish leaders, the self-appointed “builders” in charge of God’s people, had rejected this stone (Jesus). It’s as if they said, “This one is no good; we don’t need it.” But that very stone has become the cornerstone (the first and chief building stone from which the whole building is measured). How? The Lord did it; the Lord said so.

The Jews would no longer lead the kingdom of God. God would take it away from them and give it to another people. They would produce fruit for the master, unlike the Jewish people.

What fruit does God expect?

Isaiah 5.1–7 contains another parable about a vineyard. In Isaiah’s parable, “the vineyard of Yahweh of hosts is the house of Israel and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting.” God expected grapes from his vineyard, but it yielded wild grapes, so God decided to make it a wasteland and destroy the entire enterprise. What did the grapes and wild grapes represent? God “looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, and outcry!”

God expects justice and righteousness—those are the good fruit he wants from us.

When a people do not produce justice and righteousness, they provoke God to lay waste their country. Expect judgment, all who are violent, lovers of bloodshed, and arrogant. Many nations have fallen because they trampled the poor and powerless instead of protecting and helping them. Many countries are no more because their leaders accepted bribes and twisted truth.

But this parable is specifically about the people of God. Are we his? Do we produce this fruit in ourselves? Are we concerned for justice, fairness, doing what is right? God’s law can be summed up in this word: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Said another way: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Let’s live in such a way that, when the Master returns, he will find us working for him.

Amen!
Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving
and honor and power and might
be to our God forever and ever! Amen.
(Revelation 7.12)

Doors have always opened for me, and I praise God for that. I am not the kind of guy who grabs life by the throat and forges my own way through life, though I’ve often wished I were. Rather, I tend to plod along my path until a different one opens. Sometimes I take the new path, and sometimes I don’t. There have been times in my life where I wondered if another door would ever open. But God has created a world full of opportunity and good things to fiddle with.

You can probably look back on your life and trace the bends and forks in the road. Perhaps you thought you had hit a dead end from time to time, but those always turned out to be stop signs or U-turns. There was always more road to travel.

Some of us lost close loved ones along the way, and we had to ride some bumpy roads. Some of us are hitting bumps right now, and they hurt. Yet, even with the bumps in the road, we see God’s blessing and favor towards us.

Thanksgiving Day is upon us, coming up this Thursday. No matter what our current situation, we always have a stack of blessings to count and a multitude of reasons to thank God.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4.4–7)

Thank God for your salvation:

But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness (Rom. 6.17–18)

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Cor. 15.57)

But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere (2 Cor. 2.14)

I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service (1 Tim. 1.12)

Thank God for all people:

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. (1 Tim. 2.1–2)

Thank God for your brethren:

I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers (Eph. 1.16)

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you (Phil. 1.3)

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints (Col. 1.3–4)

We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, (1 Thes. 1.2)

For what thanksgiving can we return to God for you, for all the joy that we feel for your sake before our God, as we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith? (1 Thes. 3.9–10)

We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing (2 Thes. 1.3)

But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth (2 Thes. 2.13)

I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. (2 Tim. 1.3)

I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints (Philemon 4–5)

Thank God for everything:

…giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ (Eph. 5.20)

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. (Col. 2.6–7)

And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Col. 3.15–17)

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. (Col. 4.2)

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thes. 5.16–18)

Thank God for your food:

The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. (Rom. 14.6)

For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer (1 Tim. 4.4–5)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Recently, someone admitted to me he wasn’t sure we could actually obey Jesus’ command in John 15.12–14: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.”

Can we really love people the way Jesus loved us? I mean, he walked the road to Calvary and surrendered to the executioner’s hand – for us.

Doesn’t Romans 5.7–8 reveal the truth about us: “For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”? That basically admits God did something for us that no human would have done for another human—especially not for one we don’t think worthy.

Yes, Christ has called us to a love so high it could properly be called “impossible.” We must remember Jesus taught us, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matt. 19.26). Christ has called us to do the impossible, and we can do the impossible through him.

It’s often said, “Whom the Lord calls he also equips.” That is true. I’ve also been told, “God won’t tell you to do something you are not able to do,” but that puts the shoe on the wrong foot, doesn’t it? God often commands us to do things which we cannot do on our own power…but we can obey by submitting to the direction and power of his Holy Spirit. For instance, God tells us not to sin, but that is impossible. He tells us to love our enemies, but without him we would have no reason or power to do so. “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5.48).

He has told me to love my neighbor as myself, to love my brother as Christ has loved me, and even to love my enemy. How can I possibly do this?

Understand, godly love is not driven by emotion. God has not commanded me to feel warm and close to my neighbor or my enemy (my brother is another story – see Romans 12.10). God uses the Greek word agape to tell us to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22.39) and to “love your enemies” (Matt. 5.44). The “love chapter” (1 Corinthians 13) is all about agape love:

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. (1 Cor. 13.4–8)

This description of love does not lead us to think love is easy, but at least we can get the picture of what God is calling us to do. He’s telling us to do good to our neighbor.

Isn’t love the first fruit of the Holy Spirit listed in Galatians 5.22–23? Doesn’t that mean we don’t have to really do anything; we can just sit back (let go and let God) and the Holy Spirit will make us love people the way he wants us to? No! God certainly works in us to love others, but not without us doing the work. He commands us to love, and he equips us to love while we work at it.

This teaching is too practical, isn’t it? If we are honest with ourselves, it’s easy to examine our love towards others. Are we genuinely patient? Let’s see…I was irritable towards my kids yesterday because they were so slow in getting to bed. I sometimes resent what I have or have not been able to accomplish or what I feel is not fair—usually comparing myself to others. Sometimes I insist on my own way, not caring about others in the process. I have a distance to go in this love business. And that’s with the people to whom I feel the closest and in whom I have the most invested! How shall I then love my neighbor and my enemy properly?

I should constantly pray: “Lord, help me love others like you have loved me.”