Mfusuludzo: Living the New Life in Christ

Text: Ephesians 4:17-5:5

Preacher: Thobezweni Sithole

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

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 their hardness of heart. They have become callers and have and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ. Assuming that you have heard about him and you were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life, and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor. For we are members, for we are members one of another. For we are members of one another, be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that we may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were filled for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and splendor be put away from you, along with all my light. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Moving on to chapter 5. Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. A fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness, no foolish talk, no crude joking which are out of place. But instead, let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. This is God's word.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Right? And and so as I was thinking about that, and uh Paul uses a very interesting metaphor that's gonna get some of the ladies in the room very, very intrigued and talking. I mean, like last week's Sunday, we had a lunch at my home with some of the uh folks here at the church, and um, you know, Sunday, there's Monday coming, so people are sort of like, okay, we're having these conversations, small talk, big talk, and then, but there comes a time where someone just gets a bit anxious to say, okay, tomorrow is Monday. I need to get out of here. So there was something like that until we got to the kitchen, and my wife and uh uh I won't mention her name, started talking about fashion. And there we are folding our hands, waiting for them. The very people who were so rushed to go, they were now having this long conversation around sheen, uh fashion, street fashion, whatever. And I'm like, fashion is a theme for specifically for ladies. I don't know about gents, but there's a sense on which we spend a lot of time on how we look. And and Paul plays on that metaphor in chapter 4, verse 17 to 5, verse 5. The picture of putting on and putting off. And and and and and the point I'm trying to make as I introduce and have us go into this text is that what we wear and how we present ourselves is is basically uh a matter of how we care about how we are perceived. In a city like ours, we've learned how to get that right. The outfit, the image, the manala, as Bonang, I forgot her surname, would say, the the presentation of um what uh Ricky Rick would say, uh Sitlaini Ukotin. This whole picture that man, we're obsessed with with image because it's a reality that we want to be perceived a certain way in how we we look. And that's not a new thing, friends. Paul Paul's day society was built on the idea that you are what you were. That was the culture in the first century, Paul's context, people uh prized, even like policy-wise, that this is how we identify who you are. Prostitutes looked a certain way, noble people looked a certain way. And and the point is, because friends, we you we have this culture of you are what you wear, underneath all of that, the deeper question, as one high-end fashion rapper slash creative would say, uh, how who are you when it all falls down? Who are you when it all falls on? How how do you want to be seen? But the question is, who are you when it all falls down? And here's the truth, friends, you can fix the image and still feel undone inside. You you can look put together, successful, composed, and still carry a deep insecurity. Seeing and comparison and a sense of a quiet uh emptiness. We buy, friends, into the promise of uh new clothes and a new you, a kind of rebirth through uh image. But but friends, while clothing can polish our image externally, it can never polish our souls. So let me ask you: who are you when it all falls down? When the image is crack, where when the version of yourself you've carefully curated doesn't hold together. What becomes of you, what's left when everything falls apart? And and that's exactly the question Paul in Ephesians 4 uh will meet us at, will answer. Inside Ephesians 4, Paul shows us the problem is not just what we wear on the outside, it's who we are underneath. Apart from Christ, we are wearing an old self, a life that is not just broken, but actually decaying. But but here's the good news, friends: God is not here to improve your image. He's not here to to to to to to improve your external image, as it were, he's here to make a whole new you. That's what suluto is a a real renewal, a real makeover. Through the daily renewal of our minds by the Holy Spirit, we are called to strip away, strip off, take off these old clothes and put on the new self. And so, friends, I have four points today to get us into that. Let's look at verse 17 to 19 quickly. The need for renewal. In other words, recognizing the old self. In other words, you need to recognize what you need to take off. Funny picture. Um, yesterday, therefore, was uh one of the guys here at the church, he was wearing socks written Saturday, and then he shows his son and then they chuckle. So um the whole picture there is like he's got a sock for each day, and he used to trick his son to wear like the wrong socks. Maybe it's a Monday, and he's wearing socks that are written Sunday. And and they so he the son was like, oh, now you're wearing the correct socks, and then they were they were they were laughing. But but but the point is, there's a sense in which, friends, you need to recognize what you're wearing, you need to recognize uh the old self. Look, look at verse 17. It says, You must no longer live as Gentiles do. Now, now this I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do. Again, Paul brings up the word walk. Walk means this shouldn't be your way of life. In the futility of their minds. You you your walk, friends, your life, your patterns, your rhythms, your direction, he says it must be different. We use the language of countercultural. You don't move with the flow of the culture, you move against its current. Paul is saying here, there's a way of living that no longer fits who you are in Christ. But say with Sabu's language, you have the wrong fit. You have to change your fit. And here's where it gets friends uncomfortable because we live like spiritual chameleons, blending in, adjusting, camouflaging to match the world around us. But Paul says, that's no longer you. Verse 18, look at it quickly. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. The idea of chameleons is that we we we walk in the rhythms and the current of our culture, and and but here's what Paul unpacks and unfolds about the reality of this culture. He says uh the problem is is deeper than behavior. It's a problem of the heart. Do you see it again? It says, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them. And the point of that is due to, or the reasoning behind that is what is the hardness of what of the heart. They are darkened, separated from God, hardened. And and this is what life without God looks like, friends. You you are alive physically, you are active socially, but you are disconnected spiritually. There's no life for God in you. And and and and friends, the danger is this, you can look completely fine on the outside, but be completely empty. Be completely far from God. And and for some of you, friends, that's the reality. I'm using my soft voice. I'm very passionate when I preach, and not because I'm shouting at people. But this text, we have to use that. I have to be very conscious of my tone. Not because I'm trying to soothe you, but I'm trying to say, look, we have to distinguish the fact that the culture is going a certain direction, but that's not who we're called to be. We we move countercultural. We move as people who want to redeem those who are in that in that wave. And say, man, there's a better life, there's a better way. And and and and and and and the sense in this verse 19, the the word there coloused. Hey, I like that word, colouse. It's a loss of all sorts, sorts of sensitivity. It's having lost all sense of what? Of sensitivity. There's a picture here of saying, man, uh, we were having a Life on Life on Friday, and this lady says, Man, like um, you know, I used to be so invested in the current of the culture that I could no longer distinguish what is morally flawed. I could switch on Netflix and binge over a show that that that promotes um um the the the the the the subject subje uh subjectific subjectification of women. I know I'm against those things, they're not in my value in general, not even as a Christian, but I'm so immersed in the culture that I could sit and watch a show that that that that speaks so demeaningly of women from hip hop to to to to to social media to different uh means of of of of communication, we can be so immersed in the culture that there's a sense in which I I could put it like this like for some people it's like oh okay, uh here's a traffic cop. Without blinking an eye, without kind of because you're so immersed in the in the culture, in the wave of the culture that you propagate the very thing that we have Madlanga commissions for. So for others, friends, there's a sense in which we we are being made new, you've been made new. Praise God for that. But but for some of us who've been in this Christian journey, we we could be very well slowly drifting back to coloureness, having lost all sensitivity. And and there's a spiral here. There's a picture of blindness, hardness of heart, emptiness, excessiveness. It's a life that that keeps reaching and reaching for satisfaction. Look at it, having given themselves to sensuality, ready to practice every kind of impurity. It's it's it's it's like uh I have a picture, two pictures here. One is like, man, have you been thirsty on a hot day? And then he has that beautiful uh not coke in a bottle that is a uh plastic bottle, but coke in an actual bottle, like dripping with just like um um um the it's hot, and you you see that it's just like it's it's you see, if only I could just take that coke down, I'll be okay. But you don't realize that coke has no capacity to quench your thirst. The more you drink it, the more you want more, and the more thirsty you become. You actually need a glass of water. Now there's a picture, one commentator puts it like this that the idea of callousness, the idea of greedy for for every practice of of impurity. Um he paints a picture of a sailor stranded at sea. Right? He's trying stranded at sea and he has no drinking water, but there's water all around him. And the sailor starts starts looking at the water. The water looks great, it looks clean, right? It looks like it feels like this water will give me the very life I need. But friends, the water is salt water. So he he digs in. And the more he drinks, the more the water is killing him. It's it's dehydrating him, it's actually accelerating the dehydration. The more he drinks, the more it destroys him, friends. That that's what sin does. That's what sin is like. It promises life, but it drains you. It promises to to quench your thirst, but it leaves you even more thirsty. The old self, friends, it's not just wrong, it's it's ruinous to you. You have to recognize it. One old writer, uh John Owen, says, be killing sin, or sin will be killing you. The old self is a threat to you. So how how do we change? How how how do we how do we change? Where is the power? Uh let's look at the second point, the the power of renewal. It is in learning Christ. Uh verse 20 to 24. Look at it quickly. He says, but that is not the way you learned Christ. Assuming that we have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus. To put off your old self which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupted through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and to put on the new self created after the likeness of God and true righteousness and holiness. The enemy. Like, like, like sin is not your friend. You know, no matter how much it promises pleasure, it leaves you all the more thirsty. He he's described that. Now he pivots. He he he takes kind of like a decisive turn in verse 20 to 24. He says, but this is not the way you learned who? Christ. There's a sense in which you you did not come to know Christ that way. That's what he's saying. Everything then changes. He's he's kind of saying, Man, you didn't learn a system of self-righteousness. You you didn't adopt a lifestyle, as it were. You you learned Christ. You learn Christ in the school of grace, you learn Christ, Christ as the as the subject of that school, you learn Christ as the teacher of that school, you learn Christ as the truth of that school, you learn Christ as the as the fluency and environment of that school. This is who you learn. Now, Paul is giving us an image to say this is this is who you are, this is who whose you are. You belong to someone else. There's a new owner in town. You there are new clothes available to you. I could imagine someone walking with raggedy old clothes, and a king comes and offers him a new outfit for a banquet he felt unworthy to attend. I think of the Michelangelo and Ramaposa is having a dinner there. And there you are walking the uh in Senten, and you're like, what am I gonna do today? I'm just gonna chill at exclusive books and and and catch up on a book. You're wearing shorts and flip-flops and and and and you get an SMS. Hey, you you are invited to uh the dinner with the president at the Michelangelo, and the first thing is you look at yourself, I'm not dressed for the occasion. I don't have the fit, I don't have the outfit. I mean, even ladies, as soon as you get a wedding invite, the first thing is, what am I gonna wear? You you don't have the clothes, you don't even afford maybe they say black tie event, you don't even have a suit, let alone chinos, and then you have to go there, and then they're like, Oh no, don't worry, the suit has been taken care of. You you you are not worthy to attend the banquet, but but not only that, you've been invited to the banquet, you've been given access, and you've been given the the suit. Friends, learning Christ is saying the righteousness, the righteous life we are talking about here is not your own. He he's given you his own righteousness. He's not calling you to a performance, he's not calling you to a system, he's calling you to say, Man, I've given you an identity. Live in light of that. This is how you learn Christ. The call here is not is not to to improve yourself. Lest we are saved by grace and then uh uh are sanctified by something else. The call is not to improve yourself, the the calling is to say, man, you have a new identity. Take off those shorts and flip-flops. You have a tuxedo waiting for you. And the point here, friends, is that the the engine room of that word is this one. Is that is that Vusuluzzo? It's it's Vusuluzzo is basically saying, man, you have been made new in the attitude of your minds. In other words, the point of renewal is consistently an ongoing work in your life. Every day you need to put on that new suit. As Barney Stenson, I hate to make this uh uh illustration, he'd say, Surah. Every day you need to surap. Every day you need to be applying the gospel of God's grace to your heart. There's a point in an ongoing word that says you you have learned Christ, you need to keep learning and feasting on Christ. It's not a once-off thing. You you wake up and you get dressed again in the gospel. And and here's the liberating truth, friends. When you strip off the old self, you are not losing your life. You're actually finding it. And how does that life look? Let's look at it quickly from verse uh 25 to uh chapter 5, verse 5. How how how does that life look? What does it look like then uh in real life? That's what Paul does here. He he gives us a couple of pictures to say, man, how does a uh this new outfit look practically? Number one, he says, we have to change how we relate to each other. Do you see it, friends? Quickly in verse 25, he says, Um, therefore, having put away all false hood. If I was in the hood, I'd say, Amana. Let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. There's a one-anothering rhythm happening there. It's it's kind of like a relational picture here. Be angry and do not sin. I love that verse. Be angry. Some of us are not angry enough. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. There's a sense in which there's a sense in which you can be angry and not sin and live with the comfort that God will handle it. And give no opportunity to the devil. Hey, let the thief no longer steal. But rather let him labor, let him work, let him find something to do with their hands. Don't steal. Find find something. I know usually says uh no, you it's not get a job, but find something to do with your hands. Start a business, be industrious. Get a job if you can, so that you are generous. Anyway, we'll unpack that now. But the point is the first change that uh Paul speaks about is relational. He he speaks about um the fact that we need to put away lies and speak truth. We need to deal with we need to uh deal with anger before it becomes bitterness. We we we need to move from um taking, as it were, to giving. We we need to replace rotten speech. Let me read that one again. We need to replace what rotten speech with words that build others up. Do you see it, friends? In verse 29, let no corrupting talk. I love that the the doing word there let no corrupting talk. It doesn't say let no corrupt talk, it says let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth, but only such as is good for building up. Are you building people with your your tongue? Paul is pressing in our speech. There's a sense in which Jesus has authority over how we relate to each other. He has authority over our tongues. He has something to say in how we speak to each other. He has something to say in how we we engage one another, from from from speaking the truth in love, from from from not being being angry to the point of uh bitterness. And and then Paul presses deeper quickly. There's a sense in verse 3 of chapter 5 that Paul Paul is saying Jesus has authority over your bedroom. Oh wow, okay, what are you saying? Jesus has authority over every air. If you say Jesus is Lord, he's Lord over your your emotions. Your your your tongue. Your your your your taxi driver cuts in. Yes, you are angry because it's breaking the law, but at the same time, you're like, I'm not gonna sleep with that anger. I'm not gonna be like, I can't believe that the taxi driver is forgotten you. Why are you living with that anger? Your your tongue, but also your Benjamin. Look, look at verse 3. He says, But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you as is proper among saints. Your eyes. Your your your your your what friends? Your eyes. It says, not even a hint of sexual immorality. Or the word he uses in the word of what? Of greed. No, not even greed. Paul is linking lust and greed together. Why, friends? Because both are the have the same root. What's the root? It's a restless desire. A restless desire to take what is not yours and make your appetite your God. Lust, greed, the God of those is what friends desire. Your appetite. And friends, we we need to be honest. I mean, yes, I did say relationship desk is not just about romantic relationships, but but we we need to be honest. Uh, especially, you know, I'm glad there are people, the age is diversifying again in the room. But like we have a lot of young people who who who are, frankly speaking, driven by real desires. God-given desires. God made you for intimacy. That's that's a fact. But but within his design. And outside of that design, friends, uh, desire becomes consuming, it destroys you. And and here's the danger, friends, you cannot fight temptation while feeding it. You you you don't feed the fire of your desire. In our city, friends, it the idea of desire fuels everything. It's it's a fuel everywhere. I mean, I was having a conversation that that that colleagues have conversations about their weekend specials. You you you feed your desire in your feed. Instagram. Yeah, the shows, the Netflix, the that the dating patterns, it all feeds into this lust. Your your conversations. And and the more you feed your desire, the stronger it becomes. So, how do you fight? Paul doesn't say resist, although we have to. Thanksgiving. Why thanksgiving? I'm like, what? Why thanksgiving? Because lust says God hasn't given me enough. That's what lust says. God is not enough. But but gratitude says, God has given me more than I deserve. The pleasure found in the Lord is far greater than any pleasure found in a man or a woman. The lust, friends, grasps you, but but gratitude is is is the sense in which lust is very it wants to grab, grab a hold of everything. It wants to look at every woman, look at every man. It just wants to grasp everything. But but but gratitude receives and and and and and gratitude worships. But lust will consume you. And and friends, when your heart is full of gratitude, sin loses its grip. So so you're replacing the wandering eye, as it were, with the wonder of worship, with gratitude. And and what happens, friends, why why does renewal, um, to what end does it serve? What's the motivation behind that? That's where I'm going with this. That look at it in verse 1 and 2. Um, the goal of renewal is in a way imitating our father. It says, be imitators of who? Of God as who, as dearly loved children. Quick story. My my youngest or my eldest daughter, funny thing she used to do. I don't know, like, you know, when they go to grade one, they start becoming independent and less. That don't embarrass me, type of vibe. But she used to do this nice thing of like, she'd take my shoes and wear them. And then she like, I know we have a funny walk. Uh we'd walk, she'd walk in my shoes, and I just found it kind of like funny that here's this girl with little shoes uh wanting to wear daddy's shoes because there's a sense of which she she sees herself in her dad. Friends, be imitators of God as beloved children. God is your dad. Would you imitate him? Would you would you long to be like him? Would you long to be in his shoes, as it were? Not because you you you want uh God to notice you and uh call you a child. No, you already are the child of God. There's a sense in which, man, the beauty of this text is saying that the motivation of living for God, of pursuing renewal, of pursuing holiness is because you have a father in heaven. You you have a father who loves you, who wants you to walk in his shoes. Not because you you're earning a status of being a child, but because you already are. And I know those shoes are heavy. You know, like she do this, and like those shoes are heavy, those shoes are like, just like dad, look at what I'm doing. I've walking in your shoes. Friends, there's a sense in which pursuing holiness and pursuing to be like the father in heaven is not a sense of, it's a continual renewal every day of your life. It of course it's gonna be hard. But there's a pledge of saying the father is looking down and saying, Here's my child, walking like me, seeking to be like me, holy, patient, kind with their words, loving. And it says, and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself for us as a fragrant offering, a sacrifice of God. Jesus made it possible for you to walk in those shoes. The dearly loved Son, the eternal son, the Son of God, the one who was in the beginning, who was in eternity with the Father, who was enjoying the communion with the Father, had to be rejected. Had to had to be seen as an enemy, had to be punished. The son had to be lose the privilege of, as it were, walking in the shoes of the father, but walk as an enemy of the father to bring us near. That's what Jesus did. Was a sacrifice. We don't obey, friends, to become children. That's the point. We obey because we are already God's children. And what does that life look like, friends? It looks like a life of love as Christ loved us. It looks like a sacrificial love, a costly love. It looks like, friends, the goal of renewal is not just that you stop sinning, it's that you your life begins to look like Jesus. It's laying down our garments, as it were. And it's a picture of Palm Sunday that it's laying down our garments and putting down the righteousness He's given us. And my question to you again is who are you? When it all falls down, who are you? What clothes are you really wearing? Are you are you are you that uh so self-conscious? If people have picked up, it's a song called uh all falls down. It says, I'm I'm so self-conscious. He he's flexing about his he's Louis Vuitton bags and whatever, but but who are you really? On Palm Sunday, friends, Jesus rode into Jerusalem not with a horsepower engine, but with a donkey. And and the crowds took off their garments and lay them before him. They laid the road, the the road with garments before him. In a world where clothing was identity, to to lay it all down was to say, I surrender who I am to King Jesus. I'm gonna take off my garments and I'm gonna surrender to Hosanna. But Jesus Prince didn't just come to to receive praise, he came to give his life, to to be stripped naked, so you would be clothed with his righteousness. He takes your shame and gives you his righteousness. He did not come to improve your image, as it were, he came to make you new. And so, what what are you wearing this morning? That's my question. As Jesus comes to you, are you still holding on to the old self? The image, the pride, the hidden sin. Are you exhausted from pretending? And friends, today is the day I say, would you lay it all down? Lay down the false self, lay down the anger, lay down the sin that is draining you, let it go. It's already decaying, it's it's already exhausting you. You you are God's dearly beloved child. Would you step into his light? Would you be renewed by putting on Christ? Genuinely so, would you be renewed by putting on Christ? Friends, again, we all in the same thing in city church is not about performance. And perhaps you're you're not a Christian this morning, like, oh man, these things are hard for me. None of us ever said it was easy. None of us were said, oh man, I can do this. No, none of us can. In and of ourselves, we all fail, we are all unworthy. But we are clothed with the righteousness of Christ that that enables us by his grace to continually long to walk in the father's shoes as imitators of Christ. Now, friends, not anyone walks in those shoes. Enemies don't walk in those shoes, enemies don't have access to the shoes of the Father. It's only children of God. And Jesus has granted that access to step in and walk in the righteousness of Christ that is not our own, but that has been freely given to us. That our lives are no longer a performance to be accepted as children of God, but are a lives lived in response as a gift. Would you step in those shoes? Would you, God is saying, in my son, you have access to me. Because my son had to be crucified, rejected, face all my righteous anger, and satisfy my justice so that I can bring you in here. If you are not a Christian this morning, I would plead with you. There's life in Christ. There are new clothes that you don't have to take out a scent, you just have to believe by faith that Jesus indeed died for me, a sinner deserving of God's wrath. So so that I could be brought near, so that I could be called a son. Let me pray for us. Dear Lord, we uh