New Attitudes - Part 1

Not as the Gentiles Live

Ephesians 4v17-18

29^th April 2016

For three-and-a-half chapters, Paul wrote to the Ephesian church about the amazing grace of God, who had saved them out of sin and death, and made them a part of His chosen people. Paul also prayed for them to have power to grasp the extent of God's love for them. Then he wrote:

Ephesians 4v17-18
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.

In the light of all that God has done for us, sending Jesus to die in our place, giving us faith to believe that Jesus paid for our sins, sending us the Holy Spirit, adopting us as His children, and guaranteeing us eternal life, we really should amend our way of life. We must must no longer live as the Gentiles do.

That's interesting, because most of the members of the Ephesian church were Gentiles. Or, rather, they had been Gentiles. They'd been born Gentiles but, as Paul explained earlier in His letter to them:

at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility... Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household. (Ephesians 2v12b-19a)

All of us who believe have been grafted into Israel (Romans 11v17). We are now children of Abraham (Romans 4v11, 16-17). We are part of the Israel of God (Galatians 6v16). We are no longer Gentiles.

Paul explains in Romans 2v29 that a person who is physically Jewish is not necessarily spiritually Jewish. Here, he explains that a person who is physically Gentile is not necessarily spiritually Gentile. That takes a bit of thinking about, but it's so very important that we understand it.

I was born a Gentile but I'm now part of God's chosen people, His holy nation, His royal priesthood (1 Peter 2v9a). And, since He has accepted me as one of His people, I should no longer live like a Gentile.

The longer I live as a Christian, the closer I get to God and the more I understand the Bible (I have a long way to go) the more I see how futile Gentile thinking is. I see what our Government is doing. I watch the BBC (decreasingly) and I see that although most of the powerful people in our country mean well (on the whole) they have no idea what to do. Gentiles live in the futility of their thinking. Gentiles are darkened in their understanding.

And Paul explains why that is. It's because they're separated from the life of God.

If you're a Christian, then the Holy Spirit lives in you. He explains the Bible to you. He brings revelation of the truth to you. He gives you understanding about the nature of man, and about the nature of God, about right and wrong, about life and death. He causes you to love God's holy law. The Gentiles have none of this.

This is because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. All of us were born with sin in our hearts. Even while we're babies and toddlers, we begin to snatch things from other babies and toddlers, to push them over, and to lie about them. We're sinners. And as we grow into adulthood, we get very practised at sin. One person's favourite sins might be different from another's, but we've all got them. And the more we sin, the more hard-hearted we become.

We don't necessarily become less sensitive to the needs of others, but our consciences become less sensitive. We can commit a sin so often that we hardly remember that it's sin at all. And we grow less and less aware of God. And so we become less and less interested in the word of God - the Bible. And, inevitably, our thinking becomes futile.

Since those who are still Gentiles are still dead in their sins (Ephesians 2v5) and their consciences are calloused by repeated sin, of course they won't understand what is the best way to live. But you and I have been saved out of all this, if we're Christians. Our sins have been forgiven, and the Holy Spirit is making us wise (although He has a lot of work still to do in many of us).

There's an important principle here: We will not change the way we live until we change the way we think.

We must not judge Gentiles because they're Gentiles. We were once Gentiles, too, and it is by grace you have been saved (Ephesians 2v5). We don't deserve to be Christians - the Israel of God - and so we have no right to criticise those who haven't yet received the same grace.

But we must not live as Gentiles live.