Battle Ready: "Don't Be Useless" Ephesians 4.17-19 Pastor Daniel Reese

Good morning. If you have your Bibles we'll be in Ephesians chapter 4 this

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

morning. So just to catch you up real quick this when we got to chapter 4 of

Ephesians we've been talking about Paul has been talking about the unity as

believers in the church. Paul he's kind of taking us through this journey of

what that looks like and and and the reason behind it. The reason behind the

unity of the church and and we're all gifted with certain gifts. We're all

have these different things because Jesus gives them to us because he's the

only one able to give them to us because he is the victor. Now as we grow and

mature in our faith and we understand what our gifts are and the things that

God has given us we tend to grow up into the head of the church which is Jesus

right. It's similar to how a baby has a giant head right when they're born and

they have to be they have to grow into it and so we as new believers have to

grow to be more like Jesus and that happens best when we are unified as

believers in the church. Now today's message is a warning in a sense. Now I

receive warnings all the time. Sometimes those warnings work sometimes those

warnings don't. For instance I had been warned on numerous occasions that I

shouldn't speed. When I was younger those warnings didn't work and then I ended

up getting busted. The consequences of me ignoring those warnings, ignoring the

police, ignoring my wife, was I ended up having to pay my fair share of

tickets right. I've had my fair share of warrants issued for my arrest but now I

try not to speed too badly and I try to pay my tickets on time so that warrants

aren't issued for my arrest. Now the warning from Paul today can be treated

like a warning for a speeding ticket right. You don't want to take this warning

like you would a warning for a speeding ticket. If you want to flourish in your

walk with the Lord we will see here in just a little bit of the cycle in which

we should try to avoid in our walks with the Lord. Alright so we're gonna read

three verses today out of chapter 4 we'll start in verse 17. Paul says 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

the hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to

sensuality, greedy to every practice and every kind of impurity. Now as I read

this text as you read this text I don't think anybody would say that they hope

to live a life this way. I don't think this is the model for which we want to

base our life around. I don't think this is the goal for anyone who calls

themselves a believer but Paul warns us anyway. He warns us because we are all

susceptible of falling back into our old way of thinking, falling back into our

old way of life and forgetting about everything that Paul has discussed up

and to this point. So the first thing we have to do is we have to be aware of how

we walked before we came to Christ. What our life was like before Jesus redeemed

us. If you are not walking with the Lord, if that is your life, if you have not

surrendered your life to Him, my hope is that you will see a better way to live

your life by the time that we are done this morning. But the first thing that

we need to understand in order to not fall back into our old ways is we need

to remember our failure. What Paul is referring to here when he references the

Gentiles is not that we have to convert to Judaism in order to be a believer but

when he references the Gentiles he's saying there was a time when the Gentile

people were cut off from the promise. We who are Gentiles were weren't foreigners

to the covenant of promise. There was a time that we didn't have hope but now

because of Jesus we've been grafted into the promise. Now because of what he has

done for us we are now coheirs with Christ. And so Paul is reminding them,

hey don't go back to a time when you didn't have Jesus. Paul is saying don't go

back to living the life you did before you understood the promise, before you

were redeemed. Now the word futility is the very same word that we find in the

Greek version of the Old Testament particularly in the book of Ecclesiastes

where Solomon describes the futility of living a life that's apart from God.

There the same word is translated meaningless vanity futility depending

on what translation you are reading. Now those are all good words those are all

good words to use to describe the emptiness of a life that is a part from

God. If at the end of the day you feel like your life lacks meaning, if at the

end of the day you feel like your life lacks purpose it is potentially because

you are not walking with the Lord. What was your life like before salvation?

Where would you be if he didn't save you when he did? Now thankfully I grew up in

the church. I was saved at a young age much like Jensen. My wife Sina has been

working on getting her license as a biblical counselor. She has been learning

about all the different temperaments that are involved with that make up each

and every one of us. It's just how God wired us to be. Now I highly recommend

that you make an appointment you know with Sina Haggadorn different Sina but

that's always confusing to me. I don't know if my Sina is the other Sina or Sina

Haggadorn. I don't know but there's two Sina's go go make a appointment with Sina

Haggadorn and help so she can help you understand what your temperament is. But

in her study my Sina has learned that I have a temperament that is similar to

every dictator that you read about in history. Names like Hitler and Stalin

are compared to the temperament that I have. She has also said that the people

with my temperament have to come to faith at an early age or it's very rare

that they will do so unless something drastic happens in their life. For

instance the Apostle Paul is used is described with somebody that has my

same temperament as well. But he came to faith later in life how did that happen?

He had to be blinded knocked off a horse and had to see Jesus face to face.

Right? And so I may not have a long history of not walking with the Lord but

the more that Sina is sharing these things with me the more I'm grateful for

my salvation. Now I don't want to go down in history as a terrible person who

uses people to get what they want. So when I think about life with Christ it

isn't so much what he what are where I came from it's look at what he saved me

from becoming. Look at what he redeemed me from becoming. Paul is reminding us to

think about that. If you didn't have your salvation where would you find hope

when things go bad? If he didn't step in and protect you where would your what

would your life look like now? Maybe some of you have stories of radical life

change. Radical life change like Paul when it comes to the Lord and how he saved

you. Others might have a story where you were saved out of a religion and you

felt the burden weakened and weak out of never being able to do enough. All of

your work to be righteous was never good enough and people made you feel like a

failure. If you are able to remember your life before redemption you have a

better chance of recognizing the pitfalls that got you there so that you

can avoid them. Remember your failure. Next we need to recognize the process of

how this works. I say it all the time that you're not gonna wake up one day

and be this holy person right that knows all these things about God that has a

really close relationship with them and is willing to die for their beliefs. It's

a daily process of seeking after him. It's a daily process of understanding his

heart. The same thing is true for living a life of futility. You aren't gonna

wake up one day with a heart and heart towards God. It's a gradual process. I

want us to see the process by looking at another one of Paul's letters. So if you

have your Bibles we're gonna read from Romans chapter 1 here in just a second.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

I'm gonna start in verse 18. I'll give you a second to turn there. Paul says in

verse 18 in chapter 1, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all

ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the

truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it

to them. For his invisible attributes namely his eternal power and divine

nature would have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in

the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew

God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him but they became futile

in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise

they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images

resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God

gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity to the dishonoring of

their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth of God for a

lie and worshiped and served creature rather than the Creator who is blessed

forever. Amen. So when you look at this passage of Romans chapter 1 and you put

Romans 1 · chapter mention

it next to this passage in Ephesians we begin to see the process more clearly.

The first step is Revelation. This is where God reveals Himself to us in some

way. Maybe it's through creation. Maybe it's here on a Sunday morning or you have

some exposure to His Word where you which contains truth. Every single person on

the face of this earth has been exposed to God in some way. God has revealed

Himself through a sunset, through a mountain range or He has placed people in

your life that have spoken the truth of His Word and every single one of us has

to deal with it in some way. You either have to accept it or reject it. Now if

you don't accept the revelation that leads us to the next step in the process

which is rejection. Now as Christians we don't have a hard time recognizing the

fact that believers have rejected the truth of God. That's easy to see. But

remember that Paul is writing here in Ephesians not to unbelievers but to

Christians and he seems to be warning us against doing the very same thing. There

are going to be times in your life that you will be tempted to reject a

revelation from God. I'll give you an example of how I have been guilty of

that. This year has been a tough year for my family. I lost two good friends

earlier this year back to back. I have one teenager and another one not too far

behind so there's that. My son was diagnosed with a non-working thyroid

and then less than two months later we almost lose him to diabetes. I have

been lied to. I've been accused of things that are simply not true plus not

very many things this year have gone very easy. It's like we get back on our

feet only to get knocked back down again. Anybody else been there? I have rejected

the revelation of God at times because I begin to wonder why me? What have I done?

When in reality I shouldn't be surprised by any of it because God's word says in

this world you are going to have trouble. James says to count it all joy as you

face various trials and I'll be real honest with you I haven't counted

everything as joyful. That is rejection of God's revelation to me because I

shouldn't be surprised by any of it because he promised me it would happen.

But if you are surprised by it that leads to the next step which is spiritual

ignorance. Spiritual ignorance gets reflected in our actions. Sometimes I

think we unwittingly push unbelievers away from the church because we expect

them to speak and to act like Christians. We expect them to fit into some mold

that we've created but they just are not capable of doing that. But the same

thing can certainly happen to us as followers of Jesus too. Once we choose

to reject the truth of God we begin to develop spiritual ignorance in our

lives as well. We begin to lose hope in the goodness of God. We begin to think

that we are being punished. We can even begin to think or be unaware of the

good things that God gives us each and every day. If we fail to see the

spiritual reality of our lives every single day then that could lead us to

the next step which is the hardening of our hearts. Now the word hardening is a

word that means to cover with a callus. When I was working as an

electrician years ago and I formed this really thick callus on the inside of my

fingers. I mean after months and months and months of just turning wire nuts on

to a bunch of wires over and over again it just kind of built up this really

thick skin on the inside of my fingers to the point where I just didn't have any

feeling there. If you lift weights or work with your hands you know exactly

what we're talking about. That's exactly the picture that Paul is using here. The

more we reject the truth of God and the more that we become spiritually

ignorant the more calloused or hard our hearts get. And the more calloused they

get the harder it is for us to even sense just how far away from God we are

getting. Think about Pharaoh in the Old Testament in the book of Exodus. Pharaoh

saw the revelation of God didn't he? Moses comes tells him who God is. He heard

it, rejected it. He saw God's revelation through all these plagues. He rejected it.

He didn't accept it. And the Bible says that his heart became hard. He saw it and

rejected it. Is your heart hard towards the things of God? Is your heart hard

towards people? If the answer is yes to either one of those questions it will

disrupt the unity of our church. If you don't begin to soften your heart it can

eventually lead to the last step which is separation from God. Again we can we

can easily see this in unbelievers who want absolutely nothing to do with God

but the same is true the same danger is true for those of us that claim to be

followers of Jesus. The more hardened our hearts become the harder it is for us to

even sense the separation that results from us turning away from God. We don't

even see it. If we don't break the process somewhere along the way we will

inevitably come to a point where God will just turn us over to our sinful

desires. I mean that's what we just read about in Romans chapter 1. We come to the

Romans 1 · chapter mention

point that we have completely lost all sensitivity that we no longer even care

if others see us live the sinful lifestyle. Are you in the cycle headed

towards separation from God? Now keep in mind this is not God leaving you but

this is you choosing to live a life that does not honor him. This is you turning

your back on him and failing to surrender to his ways. If you are on this

cycle if you feel like you are separated from God if you feel like you've

disappointed him if you feel like you failed him if you feel like you're

spiritually ignorant I want to remind you that there is nothing that you can

do or will do or have done that can separate you from the love of God but

you have to know where you are in the process in order to get out of it. You

have the choice this morning Paul is outlined the process which which is

revelation from God and you can choose to accept it or reject it. Those are your

only options. Are you going to continue to walk in spiritual ignorance or are

you going to get plugged in to see how we can help you? Are you going to continue

to live with a hard heart or are you going to begin to pray that God would

soften it? The easiest way for you to get stuck in the process that leads to

separation from God is to not be attached to his body the church. I'll say it

until it sounds like a broken record but you need to be in a discipleship

relationship. You need to do life with people in a way that makes you more like

Jesus. This isn't a show up on Sunday and leave and never touch base again that's

not how this thing works. You need to do life with people. We have blind spots and

we need other people to point them out to us. Maybe you can relate to

this. There's been many times many times that I have been driving

somewhere and my sweet wife is sitting next to me and we're just kind of

cruising down the road and my wife will have this big gasp and flinch gets my

attention immediately right? I'm focused on what I'm doing I'm looking around I

got both hands on the wheel now right? I'm like what's happening what am I

missing? I forgot my chapstick. Any of your other wives do that? It's like this

big this big source of panic that we forgot chapstick and but it makes me

think that somebody's about to hit us. Many times that happens. My point is is

that even when she's doing that she's helping me focus all of my attention on

our journey so that we are safe. Now not everything is an oncoming car sometimes

it's I forgot my chapstick but she helped me focus. We need people in our

lives to help us regain our focus as we journey with the Lord. Finally the third

step to not walking in our old ways we need to renew our minds. Paul tells us

in Romans 12 that we should not conform to the pattern of this world but be

transformed by the renewing of our minds. If we don't want to get back to where we

once were and conform to the pattern of this world it has to start with our

thoughts. What's going on in your mind? I have to renew my mind daily. Now obviously

that is a topic that we could spend several weeks on. We could we could

break down different characteristics but but let me leave you with just one

practical step that you can take this morning. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians

that we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge

of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ. So how do I do that? How do

I take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ? As thoughts come into

my mind as thoughts come into your mind we have to evaluate those things and we

have to determine is this thought in fact consistent with Jesus is it

consistent with his word is it consistent with what he's telling me? If my

thought meets that standard then I allow it to enter through my mind and I allow

myself to dwell on it. But if that thought is not consistent with Jesus if it's

not consistent with his word then I need to reject it but that's only the first

step. Once we reject it we have to replace it with something that's consistent

with the truth. The truth is is that even though I hated to see my boy sick in a

hospital bed the truth is he doesn't belong to me. Years ago when he was a

baby we stood before our church we stood before the Lord and we dedicated him

back to the Lord. I don't know the amount of hair he has on his head but God

does. I don't know how many days he's going to live on this earth but God does.

I don't get to decide the boundaries in which he lives the rest of his life but

God does. I have to trust that the God who knows when every bird falls out of

the sky can take better care of my boy than I can. That's the truth I have to

hold on to. I had to renew my mind I had to take some thoughts captive because the

thoughts I had going through my head a couple weeks ago were not good thoughts.

Too many people and maybe you're in this room too many people live their lives

like God makes mistakes. They let Satan take over and they fail to trust the

promises of God. I've heard too many people say that the world would be a

better place without them. God didn't think so because he created you. He placed

you here with purpose. I've heard too many people say that they are worthless.

God didn't think so. He sent his son to die in your place. He says through the

prophet Isaiah that you are precious and honored in his sight. You need to

renew your mind. Again you can't you can't do this on your own. You need others

to walk beside you. You need others to speak life into you and speak these

truths over your life. There are times when you need an errand and a hur to

hold up your hand so that you can be victorious. There are times when we need

those people. If you are tired and weary. If you are at the end of your rope

maybe you need to sit down and let others carry this load for you for a

season. We are not created to handle this life on our own. We need others. You can

begin to renew your mind by stop putting yourself as number one. Stop being

selfish. Although our culture urges us to look after number one. Paul has

consistently emphasized throughout this his letter that the church is a body

where every member is a part of the body for the overall good of the body not

just for themselves. Obviously now we receive many benefits from being part

of the body. We receive many benefits from being plugged in and attached and

as you're an integral part of the body that's fantastic but the body does not

exist to serve my needs. It doesn't exist to serve your needs. It exists to serve

the purposes of the head which is Jesus. Every single thing that we do here. And

as we saw just a few minutes ago the last step in this process that leads to a

life of futility is that God eventually will give us over to our own selfish

desires when we become separated from God. And while that might seem like a

really good time. While that might seem like a lot of fun we soon will discover

the emptiness and the vanity and the meaninglessness and the futility of

that kind of life. So when I begin to to be overly self-centered we're all

guilty of it. When I begin to look at everything only in terms of what's in it

for me. How does that benefit me? That ought to be a warning signal to me. Red

lights better be going off that I'm on the road to a place that I don't want to

go. We can also renew our mind when we pay attention to our conscience. God has

given us a conscience to help us understand when we are violating His

standards. That's why when people commit acts when they are doing wrong they do

them in a manner that no one else will see that no one else would discover what

they are doing. I mean even unbelievers are usually not so brazen as to just

commit all these atrocious sins out in public. At least not at first right they

hide. When we continually go against what we know to be true and right when

we when we fail to go against what the Bible teaches it says our conscience

will be seared. Once that occurs it leads to the situation that Paul's

writing about here in verse 19 of chapter 4. Now although that word

sensuality is primarily used to describe sexual sin it describes an

uninhibited indulgence that is committed without shame without concern for

what others think and how they're affected. And as Paul points out once a

person gets to that point and they live a lifestyle characterized by

sin they have a continuous lust for more. Just because we are followers of

Jesus Christ does not mean that we are immune to going that far. In fact we all

probably know fellow believers who allowed their consciences to be seared

and eventually ended up at a place where they were so ruled by their flesh so

ruled by their sin that they no longer tried to hide it. They just needed more

of it both in quantity and intensity in order to satisfy their selfish desires.

So will you take this passage as a warning? We are in danger of forgetting

and going back to our old way of life that had no hope and was pretty meaningless.

Remember that Paul was writing to Christians when he wrote this letter.

This is not him standing in a public square like in the book of Acts trying

to persuade non-believers to understand the truth. This is him talking to a

bunch of Christians and warning us that this is that we ourselves are in danger

of the same kind of lifestyle. The text is in the Bible. This text is in the Bible

because every single one of us is at risk for having our hearts hardened and

rejecting the things of God. We got to fight against it. Do you see that in any

area of your life where you're rejecting the things of God or your heart, your

heart is hardened? Maybe your heart isn't hardened towards God today but maybe

it's hardened towards somebody in this church. Maybe it's hardened towards

somebody in your family. I mean that's where it starts. That's how the enemy

works. We have to take every thought captive and replace it with a truth from

God's Word. So I'm going to pray for us.

And the worship team is going to lead us and I'm going to ask our prayer team to

be available. And I'm going to ask you to examine where you are in the process.

Every single one of us is on the process somewhere. It starts at revelation. We

either accept it or reject it. I'm going to ask you to remember the times that he

has been good to you, that he has been faithful to you and encourage you to give

him praise for that.

In him we have purpose. In him we have hope. In him our life has meaning. If

you're going through life, not sure how to make it through the day, if you're

going through life miserable, I would encourage you to seek help today. We have

many women in this church that would love to walk with you. We have many women in

this church that will will join you on this journey that will help point out

these blind spots to you.

So as I pray, will you pray for yourself? Will you ask God to reveal where you are

in the process? Will you ask God to soften your heart towards him? If you've

never surrendered your life to him?

And you need all your questions answered? May you pray the prayer of the

dad who wanted his son healed? I believe you can do it but help, I'm struggling. I

believe, help my unbelief. Maybe that's your prayer today. So I'm going to pray

for us. We'll sing another song. I'm going to ask the prayer team to be available. So

maybe you respond by just sitting there in your seat asking the Lord to to

soften your heart. Maybe you come and you just help us help you. I can

pray with you. I'll be right over here.

Father God, I pray that as we sing, God, I pray that you will, I pray for soft

hearts. I pray that you will soften them.

God, help us be aware of where we would be without you. Help us remember where we

came from. Help us understand what you saved us from. So Father, I pray that your

spirit will just be in this place. I pray that your spirit will speak to our

hearts. I pray that your spirit will convict us. So Father, we ask you to work

and we ask you to move and we ask you to change hearts and reveal where we are in

this process toward you. And help us remember that there's nothing that we

can do or have done that will separate us from you. So Father, I pray that you will

wrap us in your arms right now. I pray that you will speak to our hearts. I pray that you will change our lives.