Ephesians: The Good Church (Week 3) - When You Heard Christ

So when I was in high school, I was what they call a band nerd.

Are there any band nerds in the room?

A handful of band nerds, yeah. So we went on a marching band

trip to Arizona. We, we marched in the fiestival

parade. It was it was a just definitely

a highlight of my high school career.

But we were supposed to go see the Grand Canyon while we were

in Arizona. And so we got on the tour buses

and we started making our way towards the Grand Canyon.

And believe it or not, we got stopped by a Blizzard in

Arizona. It's just like wide out.

And so we had to turn around and go back home when they're back

to the hotels. We we couldn't, we couldn't make

it to the Grand Canyon. And to this day, I've still

never seen the Grand Canyon. But, you know, I've seen a lot

of pictures of it though, and I've even seen videos of it.

I've heard a lot of stories about it from people that have

been there. I even know some people that

have like hiked it and stuff. And so in a way, maybe you could

say I do know the Grand Canyon, right?

I mean, I've seen pictures and imagine, imagine for a moment

that I even went and like learned a bunch of facts about

the Grand Canyon. Like I had memorized this

latitude and longitude and depth and history and width and all

that stuff. Like I just knew everything

there is to know about the Grand Canyon.

Let me ask you, would I then know the Grand Canyon?

I mean, in a way I would, right? But in another way, I'd have no

clue. Every time I ever cease talk to

somebody who's been to the Grand Canyon, all I ever can say is

like, dude, pictures cannot do it justice.

They can't do it justice. In other words, listen, there is

a big difference between knowing about the Grand Canyon and

encountering the Grand Canyon. And am I right?

And the reason I bring this up is because I believe that this

distinction between knowing something and knowing about

something gets to the heart of what Paul's talking about in our

passage in Ephesians today. Now, Ephesians, of course,

there's a letter that was written by the apostle Paul.

In our passage today, Paul has two very clear distinctions.

He's going to talk about what life looks like for those

outside of Christ, and then he's going to talk about the

transformation that happens when we encounter Christ.

And so in verses 17 to 19, Paul summarizes the life of those who

are outside of Christ, right? People who live however they

want. He says that their hearts are

hard toward God, and so they live in darkness.

They are separated from God. They're driven by their senses

and by their greed and by impurity and all that stuff.

But then in verses 20 and 21, Paul makes a very definitive

break. Here's what he says.

He says that, however, is not the way of life you learned when

you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with

the truth that is in Jesus. So Paul is making very clear

break a very clear distinction here.

They live like this, but you live like this.

Why? Because you quote heard about

Christ. He says now in that phrase,

there's a very key point that I want you to notice.

I need you to lock in just for a second with me here because this

matters for my sermon today. Listen, that word about you

heard about Christ. That word about is not actually

in the Greek text. My NIV translation says that

this is not the life of way of life you learned when you heard

about Christ. But that's actually, that word

is actually something that English translators added to

help us make sense of the passage.

In fact, other translations don't have that word in it.

The NASB says you have heard him.

The King James Version, Old English, ye have heard him.

My simple point here is that strictly speaking, the Greek

does not say you heard about Christ.

It says you heard Christ. There's a New Testament scholar

named Lynn Kohic, and she thinks this is important.

She says that Paul's not simply saying that when the Ephesians

heard the gospel, they were merely hearing about Jesus.

Paul's telling them that they heard it.

She says Paul's unusual expression captures the reality

that Christ Jesus is alive and in relationship with his church

and individual believers. And so here's where I'm going

here in this in the passage, Paul is talking about this

incredible transformation that happens in a Christian.

He he says that that is how the the pagans lived, the Gentiles.

But here's the transformation that you can have in Christ.

He even compares it to taking off an old self and putting on a

new self. It's complete transformation

here. But how does it happen?

Well, it doesn't happen by a bunch of stuff about Jesus.

It doesn't happen by knowing a bunch of stuff about Jesus.

It happens by encountering him. To the Ephesians.

They didn't just hear about Jesus.

They heard Jesus when the gospel was preached to them by Paul or

whoever it was. It wasn't just some man's voice

that they heard. They had an encounter with the

living Christ in that presentation of the gospel.

He was there. He was in it.

The real presence of Christ was there.

Listen, I don't care how many facts you know about the Grand

Canyon, OK? All that is meaningless compared

to encountering the Grand Canyon.

We're talking about two very different kinds of knowledge

here, aren't we? Now listen, Whether or not Paul

would have meant for us to put the word about in our English

translations, I don't really know.

But there is no doubt in my mind that he would agree that we

can't just know about Jesus. We got to know Jesus.

It's the difference between knowing the measurements of the

Grand Canyon and encountering the Grand Canyon.

One of my favorite philosophers. I like to read dead people.

I don't read. A lot of people are still alive.

One of my favourites is a guy named Zorn Kierkegaard, and he

was a 19th century Danish writer and thinker and Kierkegaard had

a very interesting life. A lot of people today actually

misunderstand him. A lot of that's his fault.

He was hard to understand sometimes, but one of the key

areas of his thought was what he called objective thinking versus

subjective thinking, Objective thinking and subjective

thinking. Objective thinking is where we

think about stuff, something outside of me that I can study

and measure and that sort of thing.

It's when we treat things as an object that we observe.

Subjective thinking, on the other hand, is is is where that

it matters for how I live. So objective is inside as

outside of me. Subjective involves me.

So here's an example. It's like the difference between

using math to solve an equation versus using math to design A

bridge that I'm going to have to drive over.

OK, now it involves me, right? That's the difference between

objective and subjective thinking.

The math isn't objective, it's subjective.

When I'm designing a bridge, I'm not just thinking about the

numbers. I'm thinking about my life and

my loved ones and my neighbors who are going to have to make it

safely across that bridge. See, knowing facts about the

Grand Canyon is objective knowledge.

Being at the Grand Canyon, that is subjective knowledge.

Kierkegaard looked around at 19th century Denmark and he

noticed that there were a lot of people who called themselves

Christians, but really they just knew about Jesus, didn't really

know Jesus. And, and we're talking about a

time in history where in order to be a Danish citizen, you had

to 1st be baptized into the Danish Lutheran State Church.

That that's what we're talking about here.

I mean, they took their Christianity very seriously on

one-on-one hand, in one sense, but in another way, like they

didn't actually know Jesus. In fact, Kierkegaard tells a

parable about a man who started to doubt his faith.

This Danish guy and, you know, grew up in church his whole

life, was baptized and everything.

But he starts to doubt his faith and he it troubles him.

He goes to his wife and he says, honey, I'm not sure I'm a

Christian anymore. And she laughs at him.

And it says, honey, don't be silly.

Of course you are. You're Danish, aren't you?

And so that's kind of the that's the kind of world that he was

living in. He lived in a time where

historical scholars started raising objections about the

truth of the Bible. We're kind of making like,

textual discoveries. And people were starting to say,

hey, maybe this isn't so inspired after all, or maybe

it's not so accurate after all these sorts of things.

And so and so the theologians of the time were rushing to build a

defense of the Bible, trying to prove, no, actually it is true.

We can demonstrate its inspiration or its accuracy

through like historical arguments and these sorts of

things. Of course, we still do this

today. And Kierkegaard, he saw all of

the all of this happening. And he would say, hey, you know,

that's nice. But just remember that knowing

facts about Jesus doesn't mean you know Jesus.

And that was essentially his entire authorship.

What's that phrase right there? In fact, he said, imagine the

theologians were successful, that somehow they they solved

every Riddle and they proved that the Bible was completely

trustworthy, not a trace of error or contradiction.

And Kierkegaard asks, he says, well, if that were to happen,

have we come any closer to actual faith, though?

And he says no, because you still only know about the Bible,

not the God it points to. And so listen, there's a big

difference between knowing about Jesus and encountering Jesus.

And I just want to ask you the question, when was the last time

you went to the Grand Canyon? You know what I'm asking, right?

The last time you encountered Christ, Like when was the last

time you were in a room And you were like, I ain't the only one

here. Because unfortunately, I worry

sometimes that a lot of a lot of us, a lot of Christians, we, we

just don't expect it anymore. We come to church and we think,

well, I'm going to learn about God today.

No, I mean, sure, but let that not be all we expect throughout

the New Testament. When you look at the moments

where people come to faith in Christ, it's often surprisingly

abrupt. People are often just kind of

minding their own business and then bam, blinding light on the

side of the road, right? And now I got to deal with that.

You're just minding your own business.

A strange man walks up to you and says, hey, do you want to be

made well? And your life's about to change

or you're just, you know, trying to see this guy.

So you climb up in a Sycamore tree and then he looks at you

and he says, I'm coming over and your life is about to change.

That's encounter. He singles you out, and now your

entire paradigm changes. You just had an encounter.

You just went to the Grand Canyon.

Folks, I'm worried that in the church today, we are much too

happy with forms of discipleship and formation that emphasize

knowing about instead of emphasizing encounter.

We memorize propositions instead of pursuing in God's presence.

Amen. And the problem with that is

that it has nothing to do with the life of faith.

James even says it. He says, you believe that there

is one God. Good.

Even the demons believe that and shudder.

What he's saying here is like, oh, you know, a little doctrine.

Nice. You know, so do the demons.

Apparently the devil might know more doctrine than me.

The point is that if it's just objective knowledge, if it's

just knowing about it, if it lacks encounter, it is not, It

is not the fullness of faith. I'm not opposed to knowledge,

objective knowledge, knowing about things.

I mean, I'm, I've already told you a little bit, I'm a nerd,

right? I'm the Greek and theology and

all that. I love that stuff.

I'm just saying, let's not fool ourselves and think that that

means I know God. It's not the same thing as

encounter because like I said so often in the New Testament

conversion, it's like a rupture. You know, it's not this slow

cognitive kind of thing. It's like not something you just

figure out on your own. It's something that happens to

you, God shows up and you're not the same anymore.

And so this is the point of my sermon today.

I have a habit. I just, I, I really don't want

anyone ever to hear me preach and be like, what was the point

of that? And so at the very least, I'm

going to tell you, I'm not going to be subtle about it.

Here's the point of my sermon. We must not settle until we

encounter the real Jesus for ourselves.

Amen. Because why, what's at stake?

Why does that matter? Well, let's get back to our

text, verse 22. He says you were taught with

regard to your former way of life to put off your old self,

which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires, to be made

new in the attitude of your minds and to put on the new self

created to be like God and true righteousness and holiness.

So Paul is using some very strong language in this passage.

He says that this transformation that he's talking about, it's

like getting a whole new self. Listen, the church where I

pastor, table Church and the church that you all attend,

presence Church. I already said this.

We're friends, but we're actually family too.

We're part of the same denomination.

I've heard Ben already mentioned it once today, the Wesleyan

Church. And you, you may not know much

about what that means. That's totally fine, by the way.

I don't blame you at all. We're kind of a small tribe, but

mighty, I think, in the Lord. But I want to tell you something

about Wesleyans this morning, if that's OK.

And it's this, Wesleyans believe in the power of the Holy Spirit

to transform your life. We believe in the power of the

Holy Spirit to transform your life.

Look, I'm not saying other denominations don't.

I'm just saying this is what we hang our hat on.

This is like, this is like our thing as Wesleyans.

This is the thing that we are, this is the hill that we are

going to die on, that the Holy Spirit can transform you way

more than you think, right? Like we have a high view of the

power, and we could like to call it an optimistic view of the

power of the Holy Spirit to transform your life.

We believe that when Paul says that you can be made new, like

he says in our text verse 23, he's not bluffing.

He's not being hyperbolic, he's not being symbolic.

You can be made new. We believe that Paul really

means that through an encounter with Christ, you can be made

new. The Gentiles live like this, but

you heard Christ, you've been transformed.

And so listen, what that means is that when God saves us, our

sins are forgiven, right? Amen.

Hallelujah. But did you know that's only

half of what it means when God saves us?

Sometimes I put it like this. I put it like this.

I say salvation happens in two places.

It happens in the courtroom and it happens in the hospital.

OK, So what happens in a courtroom?

In a courtroom, you've got a a defendant who's on trial and at

some point the lead juror is going to stand and they're going

to declare that defendant either guilty or not guilty, right?

That's what happens in a courtroom.

Listen, when God Forgives your sin, it's like the moment that

the lead juror stands up and they say not guilty, it's

incredible. You didn't deserve it, but the

blood of Jesus is shed for you. And so your sins are forgiven,

were declared innocent. That's the courtroom.

But here's the thing, I can be declared not guilty and still be

kind of a scoundrel, right? I can be declared innocent and

still be kind of an awful person.

That's why we don't just need a courtroom, we also need the

hospital. Because listen, the courtroom is

where you're forgiven, but the hospital is where you're healed.

The hospital is the part of God's work in you, where you are

made new. It's where you put on the new

self. The Greek word for self is just

the word for human. It's like Paul's just saying

you're putting off putting off the old person, you're getting a

new person. You're stepping into the healing

and the wholeness that comes not just from knowing about Christ,

but from knowing him. Looking, listen, everything that

I've said this morning, you guys already know this, your

presence, Church. Like my point is that the

presence of Christ is what transforms us.

So are you pursuing that? I felt it this morning.

I'm down here worshipping, and I don't know if it's just that I

got to get out of my usual environment or maybe there's

just something special here, but I felt it.

So are we chasing him through prayer and worship and scripture

and community? One of the things I love about

the way that Pastors Ben and Patrick are leading this church

is that this is a community that is committed to deep formation.

Ben's already talked about it this morning here.

What I mean is that you want to be a church that pursues the

deeper things of God, the hospital, the place where our

hearts are mended and we are transformed and our souls are

healed. And I know that Pastor Ben has

emphasized getting into bands. Is that familiar language to you

all? If you're not new here today,

getting into bands, I imagine he's mentioned that a few times.

That is how we encounter Christ. It is in relationships of trust

and vulnerability in the context of the gospel.

That's how we're transformed. Jesus even says where two or

more are gathered in my name, there I am with them.

That's how you move from knowing about Jesus to knowing Jesus.

And so listen, if you're here today and yeah, you've heard all

this stuff that I'm saying about encountering Christ and you're

gone, if I'm real honest, I'm not sure I've ever had that.

If I'm really honest, I'm not sure that maybe you grew up in

the church. Maybe you know the Bible forward

and backward and you're going. I'm not sure that I've been to

the Grand Canyon before. Well, I've got good news for

you. You go to the right church.

They're going to help you in that.

And so my advice to you is just to lean in, lean into the

discipleship processes and growth processes that they've

laid out. Sign up for a band, get on the

prayer team. I don't even know what all you

got going on here. Dig in.

Don't settle for knowing about pursue an encounter with Christ

because that's where the transformation happens.

When I was younger, when I was in high school, I, I was a

musician, as already mentioned, and but I was also a follower of

Jesus And I, I kind of felt like something in my heart was saying

that maybe God was calling me to be a pastor and to go into

ministry, but I kind of ignored it and said, no, I, I want to be

a musician. That was what I wanted to do.

And I ended up going to a large university and got a scholarship

for music and stuff. And I felt pretty cool.

You know, I was a trumpet player.

I was going to be like a jazz musician or something.

And my first night of college, I fell and broke my arm and I

couldn't play anymore. Spent most of the semester just

kind of sitting around. But God spoke to me in that

time. Not only did that happen, but it

was also, I was kind of in a place where people were kind of

hostile towards me as a Christian and towards faith and

stuff like that. And so I was feeling kind of

lousy. And I remember one night in

particular, I was kind of at a low and I was just like, I'm

just going to read my Bible. I was reading Exodus, and

something in my heart told me to turn to the book of James.

Now you may not know your Bible as well as you know a pastor,

but Exodus and James are pretty far apart in the Bible.

But what happened was it was one of those moments where I was

like, OK, and I flipped right to it in one turn of the page, OK,

just kind of fell open to James. And the first verse that my eyes

fell on was James. 112. Blessed is the man who

perseveres under trial because when he has withstood the test,

he will be given the crown of life that God promises to those

who love him. The blessed is a man who

perseveres under trial. Man, I was going through a trial

for 18 year old Phil, right? It was a trial.

OK, I know some of y'all have suffered worse than that, but I

mean there I was just feeling kind of down and bad for myself

and, and boy did God meet me in that moment in that dorm room.

He was there. I mean if I can, I mean I grew

up in the church and I knew about God, but in that moment I

met him. I met him and it and it changed

my life and I transferred from there and went to a place where

I could study for ministry and the rest is history.

And so don't settle for anything less than encountering the real

Jesus.