17 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:
19 Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
20 But ye have not so learned Christ;
21 If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:
22 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
25 Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.
26 Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:
27 Neither give place to the devil.
28 Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.
29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:
32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.
Ephesians 4:17-32 (KJV)
There is a change that takes place when a person decides to follow Christ as Savior and Lord. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
Think Differently
Paul describes how we used to think before we let Christ transform our mindset. Before we asked Him to correct our world view, there was futility or uselessness in our thinking. We were ignorant.
But with His indwelling power, that kind of thinking can actually change. We don’t have to embrace the world’s futility anymore. We don’t have to be darkened in our understanding.
People tend to focus their thoughts on self instead of others.
Thinking this way also leads to nothing but loneliness and purposelessness (Mark 8:35). The only way to save your life—the only way to literally get a life, the only way to beat our loneliness and feel fulfilled, is to focus on others. Putting their needs above your own – giving to help others.
This is the right way to think. This attitude is the only way to have a life that is full of joy and meaning. Life is found in focusing on others not on self and Jesus can empower this kind of right thinking.
Our focusing on temporary things instead of eternal things.
This kind of thinking is wrong because the temporary things of this world never satisfy us. (Mark 8:36) Anything that helps more people come to know and follow Jesus, that is where the profit is! When Jesus comes in, He helps us to see this. He helps us to think right when it comes to the things of this world and the next. He helps us to invest in things of eternal significance.
With hope instead of despair.
With His perspective, we begin to think more hopeful thoughts. This is why maturing Christ-followers tend to be more optimistic (Philippians 4:8-9).
Empower us to feel differently.
This kind of flawed feeling manifests itself in two main ways:
- We get to the point that we don’t feel anything regarding the suffering of others. We become callous and indifferent about that kind of thing. And when we let Jesus do His extreme-makeover work, and allow Him to transform the way we feel, we hurt for the people who get abortions; we grieve for the people who embrace a homosexual lifestyle; we grieve for the prideful people and the self-centered people. Our feeling motivates us to pray and give and work to help others.
- This wrong-feeling—this callousness, manifests itself when it comes to our sin. That we do what we know God doesn’t want us to do and the times we don’t do what we know He does want us to do. We become callous to our own sinful disobedience.
When we do wrong things, we do we have two options:
- We can admit that what we have done is wrong.
- We can justify our sin.
Over time, our conscience begins to become seared/dried. But when we invite Jesus to come in, He does His extreme makeover thing and then when we sin, we feel guilty. We learn to listen when the Holy Spirit pricks our conscience. We feel bad for our actions—and we act on those feelings. We confess our sin instead of justifying it or covering it up.
He empowers us to act differently.
Our Lord can change lying lips to a truthful tongue.
When we don’t put away truthlessness, people become afraid to reach out. They become hesitant to move because they don’t know who they can trust.
Turning uncontrolled wrath into righteous anger.
We get angry about child abuse and angry when we see strife and division in the church. Angry when we see people dragging down the name of Christ with their behavior. Bad anger is when we throw a tantrum when something doesn’t go the way we wanted it to or when we lash out at others to hurt them for hurting us. Bad anger is when we try to hurt instead of help. Bad anger is anger that leads us to sin. We mustn’t let the sun go down until we’ve resolved things.
Now, when Paul says this, he’s pointing out two things. First, he’s saying get it worked out before too much time passes and it festers. The devil will take advantage of that kind of procrastination. Don’t turn the light off on your anger. Don’t hide it or cover it up. Is it selfishness? Is it hurt feelings? Is it pride?
When you think about it, our mouths can only be used for two things:
- To bless or to curse.
- To build up or to tear down.
It’s crucial that our speech be pure. But it’s also crucial that it be edifying. How many of you in this room have ever been hurt by the words of others? How many of you have used your words—written or spoken—to hurt?
The Lord has sealed your salvation and is deeply saddened and hurt any time you use your words destructively. We all need God’s help in this area. We need this aspect of His extreme-makeover. We need to pray with the Psalmist. (Psalm 141:3)
We need to let Jesus not just change our hearts, we need to let Him change our mouths. Jesus can fix our actions, even our verbal ones. He can help us to use our words to build up others. He gives us the power of His Holy Spirit to resist the temptation to sin in our lives. He gives us the conviction of His Holy Spirit to remind us when we succumb to that temptation and He gives us the strength of the Holy Spirit to confess and repent of that sin and set up safeguards so we don’t do it again.
Jesus makes truly extreme make-overs possible!