Let me take you to the beginning of the world of Harry Potter. Now, I know a few of you, as Christians, feel uncomfortable with Harry Potter and think that it is not helpful for Christian kids to be reading books about the world of magic and whatever. If that is you, please do not switch off and fail to hear the rest of this sermon because of that one thing. I am not endorsing the books; I am simply using the storyline, which has become part of our lore in this country, to introduce the sermon and nothing else.
But one day, the unwanted son of Vernon and Petunia Dursley wakes up to discover that he, in fact, has magical powers and is from one of the most famous families in the wizarding community. That discovery would change the entire course of his life. Over the course of his life, he would make new friends, wear some very new and strange clothes, take up some hobbies he didn't know existed — Quidditch, whatever that is. He'd find himself in some dangerous positions, and he would acquire new words in his vocabulary that are very strange and sound like mashed-up Latin.
He discovered that he had a status and a privilege that he had never dreamt of, and with that came a whole new way of life that would unfold for the rest of his days.
When you become a Christian, you discover that you have got a status and a privilege that you never dreamt of, and it opens up for you a whole new way of life that will unfold for the rest of your days. So if you're here this morning as a Christian, the question for you is: what's involved? What is this new way of life that is going to start to unfold?
And if you're here this morning still looking into the claims of Jesus, not yet on board as a Christian, the question for you is: what would be involved? Is this whole new way of life that I would embark on attractive?
Well, Ephesians chapter 4 will tell us the answer to those questions. The heading over the whole passage that we had read is actually from chapter 4 verse 1:
"As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received."
Everything else that comes in Ephesians 4 and Ephesians 5 is Paul explaining what it looks like to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.
So to make sure we hear verses 17 to 28 correctly, we need to note a couple of things from verse 1 before we go any further. This is about living out our calling. What is the calling we have received?
Well, the earlier chapters of Ephesians have told us. Chapter 1 verse 3:
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ."
These blessings are focused on our hope, on the future. Chapter 1 verse 18:
"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in (or among) his holy people."
We were once dead — spiritually dead. Verse 1 of chapter 2:
"As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins."
Verse 4:
"But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ in order that in the coming ages we might experience the full extent of God’s kindness, as he lavishes everything on us that he just longs to bless us with."
We are those who know God’s plan for the universe. We know where human history is heading. We get to be part of the Church, which is right at the heart of God’s plan for the universe. This is an amazing life to be given, and it changes your life. That’s the calling we’ve received.
What we need to do is to live worthy of that calling — not make ourselves worthy of it. The calling we have received — these wonderful blessings to be a Christian — they are a gift, and the lifestyle is what flows out from that gift. You don’t make yourself worthy to have these blessings; they’ve just been given to you. And as a result, your life is transformed. Both the calling we have received as Christians and the lifestyle that flows out of it — they're just both wonderful.
Well, our reading has been split by the editors of our Bible into three paragraphs. So what we’re going to do is look at each one separately, because each paragraph has a slightly different focus on the new life that we get to live.
Get to live. Some people say, “Why, if I want to be a Christian, why do I have to change my life?” It’s like — no, no, no, no, no. You don’t have to change your life. That’s not the way to think about it. You get to change your life. It’s a privilege — not something that you kind of suppose, "I better make some changes, then." No, you get to change your life.
And there are three foci of that in the three paragraphs that are here.
Don’t Live in the Dark (17-19)
"So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed."
The Gentiles — he must mean non-Christian Gentiles, because most of the people who received this letter were Gentiles (that is to say, not Jewish). So it can't mean "you Christian Gentiles". It must mean: don't live any longer as the unbelieving Gentiles do.
Now, if you think of people you know who are not Christians, we tend to think of them as generally pretty enlightened people. Certainly, they think of themselves as pretty enlightened — you're kind of, you're perhaps an atheist in public life, someone who writes a column in a paper or a blog on the web, an opinion piece — not a Christian. They're rather enlightened. Your friends, your family who are not here this morning because they’re not Christians probably think they have a sort of fairly switched-on opinion about life.
They’re not going to like Ephesians chapter 4 — because he says that they are in the dark. He says that they are ignorant. It's pretty offensive stuff. Why?
Well, he says it’s because of the hardening of their hearts. He says they are separated from the life of God. You are never more alive than when you know the God who made you. You were made to know him, and when you know him, you are maximally alive. But to be separated from the life of God, therefore, is for you not to be alive — it’s for you to be in the dark.
You see, when God turns the lights on in your life, suddenly you can see clearly. You can see who you are. You can see what life is all about. You can see where you're going. It’s lovely.
But the person who's not a Christian — who doesn’t like the God of the Bible — well, when God turns the lights on for them, they don’t like what they see. It's a bit like if you're in hospital and you have to have your blood pressure taken at three o'clock in the morning. So you're fast asleep, and suddenly all the lights come on and you go, “Oh no, turn it off! It’s too bright!”
That’s what it’s like if you're not a Christian but God turns the lights on for you: “I don’t like this, turn the lights off!” So what does God do? He says, “All right, then,” and turns them off.
That’s how the hardening of your hearts leads to you being in the dark. You’re in the dark. There’s no objective standard by which to live your life. So all you do is live for pleasure. He says in verse 19: you give yourself over to sensuality, to indulge in every kind of impurity, full of greed.
Now again, that might sound like a harsh assessment of someone who's not a Christian. After all, you might be saying to me, “I know some very kind people who are not Christians. Lovely people — in fact, I've got non-Christian friends who are nicer people than, frankly, many of the Christians that I know. They're nicer people than you lot!”
True — maybe. But there’s no objective reason for them to be nice or kind. There’s no reason why they should be. They've got nothing outside themselves to navigate life by. So if they're kind, I don’t doubt that — the only reason they’re kind is because, for whatever reason, it suits them to be that way. So for selfish reasons, they’re kind.
If you wake up in the night, you want to go and get a glass of water — whatever — the first thing is, you get some light. Especially if you’re somewhere with blackout blinds or you've got no street lights. You don’t try and go and get yourself a glass of water without a torch or a bedside light. Otherwise, you’ll trip over something, step on something, hurt yourself. The two most painful objects known to mankind — and both are found in bedrooms — are Lego bricks and upturned three-pin plugs. And the only way to avoid them is to have some kind of light.
Okay. And Paul says: if you are a Christian, part of your calling is that you know God, and therefore you will be in the light. He’s made known to you the mystery of his will.
So he says: don't walk in the dark. Fling open the curtains. Let the light in. Don’t just live for pleasure. Don’t just live for what you fancy and would like. Don’t let your appetites drive your life. Instead, let the Bible — the word of God — inform your priorities, the things that matter to you in life. Let God, by his word, inform your perspectives — the way you see how life works — and live for the God that you now know.
Don’t Live in the Past — Put On the New Identity (20-24)
Don’t live in the past. Put on the new identity. If you change the team you play for, you change the kit you wear. That’s his point. If you change the team you play for, you change the kit you wear.
I’m told that in domestic football — soccer, for the people from other countries amongst you — it’s the transfer season, when people change which clubs they play for. The new season starts in August.
It would be strange, wouldn’t it, if someone switched from playing for one team to another but went on the pitch wearing the strip of their old club? That would be a bit odd. Even more odd if, in this evening’s match in Wembley, one of our England footballers chose to go out in German strip. That would be really odd.
And Paul says: when you start to follow Jesus, you start playing for a new team. You’re on his team now. So put on his kit. Wear the uniform — the outfit — for the team you’ve joined.
So, verse 22: it is off with the old.
"You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires..."
We've thought about that—how our desires corrupt and destroy and mislead us. Get rid of that. Take the kit off instead. 23: on with the new kit, to be made new in the attitude of your minds. How do you put on the new kit for the team of the Lord Jesus Christ? By having your mind renewed.
Now just—just pause to see how that works, briefly. God's agent for change in the world is His word. He spoke the world into being—even if you believe He did that through the thing scientists call the Big Bang, He still did it through His word. His word lit the Big Bang up. He sustains all things through His powerful word.
At chapter 1 verse 13, you became a Christian when you heard the message of truth. That's how God changes things—through speaking. So you need your mind to be made new. So soak yourself in God's word. It's why reading from the Bible, and preaching and teaching and studying it, is so central to our life in this church. We love to hear God speak—to make our minds new, so that that new kit comes on.
But it's bigger than just you, little individual Christian, putting on your new kit. Something bigger is happening here in verse 24. You have a whole new identity to put on.
Verse 24: "And to put on"—here's the changing room language—"to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." Put on the new self—literally, the new man.
Now this is a direct allusion back to chapter 2 verse 15. Chapter 2 verse 15 spoke of how Jesus on the cross took the divided humanity that was split into Jew and Gentile—and it's divided in so many other ways—and He reconciled us to Himself and to each other, broke up, broke away all those divisions. And here's what it says in chapter 2 verse 15:
"He set aside in His flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in Himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace."
So what God did was He took divided and broken humanity, and He created a new human race that is united under the gracious rule of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And then in chapter 4 verse 24, He says, "Put on the new man." Put on the identity of someone who is now part of that new, united human race that God is building. So it's not just about me becoming a new person, me putting on my kit and a load of new kinds of ways of behaviour. It's about me—it's the kit—it's the team's kit. It's me putting on the kit of belonging to the restored new humanity of the people of the Lord Jesus Christ, and living as part of the team.
And all the unity and love and the other things that we've been seeing elsewhere in Ephesians all comes out. It's embracing that—wearing that—in the way that I live. Don't live in the dark. Don't live in the past. Put on your new identity.
Don't live for yourself, love your new family (25-28)
Don't live for yourself, love your new family. It's time to get practical. The language so far—don't be in the dark, don't be in the past, put on a new identity—this is kind of high-level principles of how it works. Let's come right down to earth. And just—so what does it look like in practice?
And what it looks like in practice is a series of contrasts: don't do this, do that.
Now negative commands—"don't do this"—they've got a bad vibe about them. They just feel a bit kind of negative and constrained inside your head. They kind of don't feel great.
"You shall not murder"—it's one of the Ten Commandments, okay? "You shall not murder" sounds a bit negative. "Love your neighbour as yourself"—oh, I like that better, that's positive. But actually, negatives and positives are flip sides of the same coin, and often you need a negative to tell you what the positive really means.
So negative commands are just telling you how to live out the stuff that's positive. So that's why here we get negative and positive pairs—and the negatives really matter.
So here's a negative command for you: "Don't buy more than three bags of pasta." Remember that from the beginning of Covid, when toilet roll and pasta went into national shortages?
Okay, the negative command: "Don't buy more than three bags of pasta." "Stop being so negative!" No, no, it's just a way of putting some detail on the requirement that you be considerate and leave some for the next person. Oh, okay.
"Don't walk on the grass." Why not? "Help us look after this space so it looks nice and green for everybody else. And if you've got some grass at home, give it its annual weed and feed treatment so yours looks nice too." Oh, okay, I get what it's about. Don't do the negative—great way of saying do the thing that it's there to protect.
So here we are. We've got these negatives and these positives, and they're all about turning from a life that's focused on yourself into being considerate to your church family.
And of course it's about that, because in Ephesians we've seen that the church—the new humanity that God's creating, the new united people of God—that's what it's all about. So of course the heart of walking worthily of that is going to be about relationships within our family.
So here are our three pairs of contrasts:
First contrast: not falsehood, but truth.
Verse 25: "Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbour, for we are all members of one body."
So yeah—don't lie. But there's more to this than "don't lie"—speak the truth. So build others up with the truth of God's word. We want honest and open relationships here, where the truth is spoken.
Now don't forget, while we're here—chapter 4 verse 15: "Instead, speaking the truth in love..." The way we live out truth as Christians is in love. So the requirement to speak truth to each other is not an excuse to be unloving, harsh, inconsiderate and unkind. No.
But neither is the desire to be kind and considerate to others an excuse to run away from speaking necessary truths. Not falsehood, but truth.
Second contrast: not sinful anger, but resolved anger.
Verse 26: "In your anger do not sin"—quoting from Psalm 4—"Do not let the sun go down while you're still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold."
Surprise here, isn't it? The anger itself is not the problem—it's what you do with it.
"In your anger, do not sin." Some English versions even translate this, "Be angry, but don't sin," almost like it's a command to be angry at times, but just don't sin. Or maybe it's concessive: "Be angry, if you must, but don't sin."
But either way—even if all you said is "In your anger, do not sin"—the point is presumably there is a way to be angry without sinning. Anger itself isn't actually the problem—it's what you do with it.
And there's a scale of what you might do with it. So at one end is your anger being an excuse for sinful behaviour—doing, saying things that are not good because you are angry and justifying it because you're angry. So you say something really unkind and hurtful to somebody, and you say, "I did it because I was angry"—as if that makes it okay. No, it doesn't.
But at the other end of the scale is resolving with it—resolving the anger, dealing with it until it's gone and dealt with and removed.
And the reason why that's important is—the longer the anger festers, the more likely it is that you will sin because of it. So be angry—maybe at times it's the right thing to do, maybe at times it's just a reality of life—but don't sin. And don't let it linger. But deal with it.
In our life group, one person shared how this was a piece of advice they were given in their marriage preparation, as they prepared to get married: don't let the sun go down on your anger. If the husband and wife have anger between them, do not go to bed and end that day before it has been dealt with. It's good advice.
If someone in this church has made you angry—deal with it. Fix it that day. Don't let it last longer than a day. Otherwise, you give the devil a foothold.
How can the devil attack you, Christian? Well, on one level, he can't. We've seen that—as a Christian, you're seated with the Lord Jesus, far above all power and authority. He can't hurt you. But what he can do is incite you to live in ways that undermine your Christian calling—to not live as a Christian. And the longer you let anger fester, you are giving him a chink in your armour to do just that.
So: not sinful anger, but resolved anger.
Third contrast: not stealing, but something to share.
"Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need."
Here's the negative: don't steal. The positive: have something to share.
How do Christians steal? Ever thought about that? How do Christians steal?
Well, it's taking anything that doesn't belong to you. So it's anything from the more obvious kind of shoplifting stuff, through to not declaring every source of income to your tax authorities, through to downloading pirated software, listening to music that you haven't purchased the rights to listen to, watching videos that you don't actually own the right to, using somebody else's Netflix login if they don't live at the same address as you—that would be stealing.
But also, look at the flip side: having something to share. So instead of going through life taking what you can, it's "How can I go through life so I have something to contribute to the needs of others?"
Now, don't get me wrong—our society has all kinds of wonderful safety nets in place to genuinely help those who find themselves unable to work for whatever reason—ill health, redundancy. And these systems work with varying degrees of success for different people. And we all know people that have been let down by those systems. And I'm not saying it's wrong to claim those benefits if you need them.
But I'm saying your ambition—or Paul is saying, the Lord Jesus is saying—your ambition, if you can, if you're well enough, if you can find the work, should be to have work for yourself to do, so that you can feed yourself and your family and have something—it's not about you getting rich—have something left over to be a help to others who might need it. That would be a good thing to aim for.
Conclusion
So being a Christian is not about making yourself worthy for God. It is about receiving a wonderful gift—a new life, a new identity, a new future. And then there is a way of life—a walk—that is worthy of that gift. A way of life that is not a burden that the Lord Jesus places on you to weigh you down, but a way of life that is a wonderful thing.
Here's your chance to step out of the dark, to join the team that is the new humanity God is building, and to live to love others in your new family.
If you are not yet a Christian—you need to receive this calling. It's a gift. If you have never yet decided that you wish to start to follow the Lord Jesus for yourself, you can do that today. And if you don't know how to go about doing that, speak to me over coffee. I'd love to find a quiet corner with you and talk you through what to do. Saying yes to Jesus is really, really easy—just as easy as opening the wrapping paper on a present. Just talk to me.
But for those of us who are Christians—isn't this just wonderful? And so I would urge you today to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.