The Heart of Everything

Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. Ephesians 4:32-5:2

Intro: A thought occurred to me a couple days ago

I haven’t worked through it yet, so I’m not certain it’s true
– however, it does have some biblical support

It has to do with authentic spiritual communities
– first, how they are formed (whether monasteries, home groups, churches, etc.)
• people who find themselves drawn to God are also drawn together
◦ like lines converging on a single point
• attempting to satisfy our thirst for God we meet others who share a common  devotion
– then, the community drawn to God becomes as crucial to our development as One who draws us
• a spiritual community provides us the first opportunities to live what we learn
◦ to practice it with real people

. . . for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also. (1 Jn. 4:20-21)

• What I’ve learned on Wednesday and Thursday nights:
◦ that how God works with you is as helpful to me as how he works with me

I’ve taken a step backward

I wasn’t happy with how I finished last week
– the last verse in chapter 4 is too profound to treat lightly
• in fact, I doubt my ability to do it justice
• but at least we can benefit from simply spending more time with it
– these two verses may be a summation of the essence of this whole section
• like the way Jesus sums up all the law and prophets in two commandments (Mt. 22:34-40)

In verse 17, Paul began writing a negative checklist
– this could be characterized as the do’s and don’ts
• but notice he begins verse with “Be” – a shift in emphasis:
◦ from “what we do” to “who we are”
• the doing is automatic to a thing’s being
◦ e.g., an orange tree automatically grows leaves, blossoms and oranges
◦ Jesus said that a person is known by what he does (Mt. 7:16-20)
– “Be” is “become” or as A. T. Robertson has it, “keep on becoming”
• we cannot instantly change ourselves — for example, into “kind” people

John Chapman observed that the beginner is not “expected to show at all a high degree of perfection. God does not show the soul all its faults nor all it has eventually to give up. It gives up something, and in time He will ask more. Meanwhile, it has faults which are obvious enough to others, though probably not to itself.”

“Tender-hearted” is a move inward Continue reading →

The Gradual Death of the False Self

Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Ephesians 4:25

Intro: Paul begins where he left off in the previous verse

He explained why our spiritual transformation is not instantaneous
– we are tugged at by the gravity of two potential selves
• the old self and the new self – or the false self and the true self
◦ the conflict is described well in Galatians

. . . walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. (Gal. 5:16-17)

◦ essentially, the ethical challenge is to “put off the old self and put on the new”
• we learn today that we do this piece-by-piece
◦ similar to the way we “put on the whole armor of God” (ch. 6:11-17)
– “laying aside [or “putting off”] falsehood” is one of the pieces of the old self that we strip off

If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his [soul] will lose it, but whoever loses his [soul] for My sake, he is the one who will save it. (Lk. 9:23-24)

• Christian spirituality begins at the cross and is made possible by the cross
◦ the soul we lose at the cross is the false self and the soul we gain is the true self
◦ we lose the false self day-by-day (“take up his cross daily“)
• the new self does not develop automatically
◦ we have to learn how to walk and talk and listen and so on
◦ that’s what this whole section has been about, beginning in 4:1, Walk!

Later, Paul paints a picture of Jesus with his bride, bathing and beautifying her,

. . . that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. (Ep. 5:27)

• we cannot perfect ourselves
◦ but we can break some bad habits, make some changes
◦ we can wash the window of our hearts and rinse our eyes (Mt. 5:8; 6:22-23)
– as we make our way through this passage, keep in mind: Paul was addressing Christians
• you may find yourself identifying with a behavior in the negative column
◦ remember that other believers do too
• this struggle is the spiritual journey and to stay in it is to take up our cross

V. 25, There’s a speech issue between the old self and the new self

“Falsehood”–pseudos–has been an underlying theme in this section
– awhile back,a  man represented himself to me as friend
• the way he showed interest in me was by asking a lot of personal questions
◦ for several years I assumed that we shared a genuine friendship
• after confiding in him all those years, the lesson I learned the hard way was that:

Curiosity is not necessarily an expression of love

Rowan Williams argued, “It is an unscrupulous rationalization of the lust for power which can be hidden in curiosity, the diabolical thirst to know without loving, to substitute knowing for loving.”

– for someone to know you without loving you is terrifying
• it is exactly the danger that is posed by identity theft Continue reading →

“Transformative Education”

But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in [lit. “according to”] God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. Ephesians 4:20-24

Intro: There are several stories in the gospels in which Jesus made side-trips

Departing from his normal itinerary of towns, villages and hillsides,
– Jesus took off with disciples – usually for rest, but also for reflection
• one time, he led them to the northern most area of the Galilee, to Caesarea Philippi
• the beautiful and majestic setting was marked by a history of pagan gods that was centuries old
– there Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”
• they, no doubt, would have heard the gossip — “a prophet,” “the return of Elijah,” etc.
◦ they knew people were merely guessing
• then looking directly at them, Jesus asked them, “What about you? Who do you say that I am?”

I doubt Jesus was overly concerned with how the crowds perceived him
– if anything, he worked at keeping his identity hidden
• but it was crucial to his mission that some knew who he was
• so he tested what disciples’ experience of him had taught them
– the truth that would save them would not be:
• Jesus the prophet, or teacher, or healer
• but Jesus “the Messiah, the Son of the living God”
– Paul grasped this truth as clearly as anyone
• his passion in life was to know Jesus in ever greater intimately (Php. 3:8-10)

In the 1980’s, a phrase was introduced to adult education: “transformative learning”
– we grew up in an educational system that was informative and “conformative”
• that is, we were taught that there was one right answer that everyone had to recite
– Paul’s big idea in these verses:
◦ transformation is exactly what knowing Jesus does (2 Cor. 3:18)

I find it intriguing that in this passage Paul inserts four odd (or at least unusual) terms

Vv. 20-21, The first odd term, “learn Christ”

“But you did not learn Christ in this way”
– “this way” refers to what we went over last week
• that as “Gentiles,” we lived in futility, closed off from God, and driven by insatiable neediness
• Paul contrasts this with our current life in God, which is a transformed life
◦ we’ve been changed from what we were then to who we are now
◦ this has resulted from our spiritual education — we have learned Christ
– Jesus is the curriculum of Christian spirituality

E. K. Simpson, “Usually we learn subjects, not persons” Continue reading →

“Just Walk Away”

So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. Ephesians 4:17-19

Intro: In verse 1, Paul began to focus on the “Christian walk”

Walk is used metaphorically–i.e., how we make our way through life
– Paul’s concern is to emphasize and explore the fact that Christian spirituality requires a practice
• for example, many of us have adopted a practice of silent prayer
◦ we quiet our thoughts to become open and receptive to God for for ten minutes every day
• the purpose of practices like this is to sharpen and deepen our experience of God
◦ practice is one way to make spirituality “practical” — a reality rather than intention
– Paul’s first instruction regarding our walk is that it is to be consistent with our calling
• that would indicate having a practice that is defined by our spiritual identity and destiny

Although the same theme is carried forward here, we now see its negative image
– Paul tells us how not to walk (what he describes seems to be the progression of degradation)
• we can think of this as the “bad news” (we know that gospel means good news)
◦ this is a “walk” that is inconsistent with our spiritual identity and destiny
• in a way, this passage could be an answer to the question, “What’s wrong with our world?”
– it may be helpful if we do not think of Gentile as an ethnic label
• the religious mentality tends to divide humankind into two groups:
◦ good and bad, Jew and Gentile – or even Christian and pagan
◦ but according to Paul, Jews could also be “hardened” and “ignorant” (Ro. 10:2-3; 11:25)
• let’s think instead of Gentile as a spiritual state of being separate from God
◦ and Paul assumed that this letter was being sent to “former” Gentiles (Ep. 2:11)
(and we must remember we’re not entirely free of this ourselves)
◦ with that in mind, what can be said about how the Gentiles walk?

Theirs is a walk characterized by futility

Paul uses the phrase “I affirm” or (literally) “testify in the Lord” – to add force to his words
– looking for the primary source of Gentile condition, what Paul sees is the “futility of their mind”
• this word could be translated “emptiness” or “meaninglessness”
◦ for Paul, this explains what follows, namely, why they live as they do
• a whole course of lessons is devoted to this them in the Hebrew Scriptures–i.e., Ecclesiastes Continue reading →