GIBC (18 May 2025)
1.1. Life Has Challenges: Some of us think that the Christian life is one even, continuous journey where we go from strength to strength and when that doesn’t happen, we feel guilty and ashamed, and at times angry. The truth is that the Christian life is one of ups and downs. Those ups and downs come from life and they are sure to come our way. It can be job stress or physical health challenges or relationship stresses or just sheer crazy thoughts that invade our minds. Whatever the challenge, it is naïve to think that life is free from ups and downs. Our moods and circumstances play a big role. Some ancients used to go for the desert experience where spiritually-minded men would live in the desert for years and spend their time either praying or living simply. They were called the desert Fathers. The fathers too would discover just as Jesus did that temptation and stress follow us wherever we go.
1.2. The Disciplines: What has eventually emerged in the centuries of evolving Christian life is the place of consistent prayer and community life where specific times are set aside for community activities and prayer. Therefore, times such as Matins (dawn), Laud (early morning), Prime (morning), Teerce (mid-morning), Sext (midday), None (mid-afternoon, Vespers (Evening), Compline (before retiring); were set to bring order and times for someone who wanted to live a life of prayer. These set times could be legalistic and overly technical but it did provide a discipline for the mind to steer it away from wondering thoughts.
1.3. Being and Doing: Eph 4 speaks to us and we go to a posture of walking and that means we journey into the real-life stuff of relationships and ask how we integrate faith with life?
The first part of Eph 4 is about the church but from 4:17 onwards, we look at choices in life. In 4:14, Paul reminds us that we are no longer children being tossed to and fro by waves of doctrine and deceitful scheme, we are instead, to grow into Christ.
We are back to the basics of what it means to be “in Christ.” In the 2nd part of Eph 4, he reminds us of what we were like when we were not in Christ and compares the before to now, with a total difference in being: i.e. worldview and lifestyle.
The change is not just doing but in being. Elsewhere, he will say we are a new creation (2 Cor 5:17). The difference between doing and being is that “being” means the heavy lifting has been done. “Doing” means effort. What Paul is saying to the people is we have been re-born with new power, new thoughts, and a new heart. The seat of our emotions and thinking has been changed for us. So, let’s figure out what we should be doing as we are now this new creation. If you are a car owner and used to gas driven cars, its quite a fundamental change to switch to EV. Figure out how to drive it.
3 points: 1. Don’t Walk (4:17). 2. Learning Christ (4:20). 3. Putting On (4:24) - W.L.P.
2.1. As the other Gentiles Do (4:17): Paul is a pastor and he writes this part of the chapter not to lay a guilt trip but instead, to encourage the people because he knows about the difficulties that lay in store for them as they now no longer belong to the old ways when they had little choice but to fall into a repetitive carnal way of life.
This means for now, the old patterns and habits of thinking and feeling, which used to dominate our lives, are a thing of the past. Now, we have the means to enter a new way of life. The Ephesians were gentiles just as we are, but he refers to “the other gentiles” i.e. those who are unbelievers and who do not share the new life.
The Ephesian Christians are “born again” and with this condition comes new meaning and a new identity. Consider this: in our previous life, our life was based on the values of the world and for self gratification. Many non-believers have high morals but born- again people have a quality that is better than morality; this new quality is infused into them. It’s called godliness. That means the old laws and ethics, the guardrails are just a guide and what we now have is the presence of God himself and our life’s aim is not the satisfaction of desire, or law, but our life’s purpose and being is about love because God is love. There’s an in-built drive that pushes us to do what we can for our fellow humans and for God’s glory. People who don’t have godliness live in the futility of their own minds.
2.2. Hardness of Heart (4:18) ((Blindness, KJV): The KJV uses the word “blindness.”
Hardness is an alternative description and it describes someone like Pharoah who refused to budge even though he saw the plagues and afflictions, and even after he agreed to let the Hebrews leave, he set out in pursuit.
That describes a fatal condition which arises when people reject what God stands for. This is a rejection of grace. Church-going people can make that mistake too and unrepentant sin has the effect of causing hardness of heart. An unforgiving spirit also leads to hardening because that person does not experience the forgiveness that comes from God.
Paul speaks of the “ignorance that is in them” (v18). A hardened heart ignores the evidence of God’s grace that’s staring them in the face.
I’ve often looked at the time lapse between pronouncement of judgment and implementation. In the case of the rebellion in the wilderness, they were given 40 years but still the hardening continued.
In King Saul’s case, we see in 1 Sam 13, the prophet Samuel’s pronouncement of God’s rejection of Saul but it is several years before his death. Some sources estimate it took 10 years. Why didn’t he repent? There’s another instance of hardening and this is hardening by a nation. In Lk 13:34, we read of Jesus’s lament over Jerusalem: