[Jamie Vaughan]...the way life used to be, before they accepted rights.
And then he goes on to tell them that there is a better way, and this morning, that's what we want to look at today,
the message would be entitled, a better way to the Bible,
and here in Ephesians, Chapter 4, we're going to read the beginning of verse 17,
and we're just going to unpack this for you this morning, and hopefully you'll be able to take something with you.
The Bible says in number 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,
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:
Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
But ye have not so learned Christ;"
Father, again, we thank you for the day, we thank you for the blessings you've given us,
we thank you for what our hearts have felt already, we thank you for the choir and those that have sung,
and those that have just served in this service.
God, we thank you for each visitor that's here this morning.
God, we just pray that you would give us something that we can take into this world today.
We pray that you will give us something that we can hold on to, a promise that we can grasp on to
and be able to combat Satan throughout the world, with what you give us.
Again, we thank you and we praise you for all that you do and we pray that you bless the reading of your word.
An this, in Jesus' name, we do pray, amen.
This morning, we can live life in default. "What does that mean, preacher?"
Well, if you've got a computer - most of you have got computers
and you know that the default settings are the original settings - correct? - back to the way that they work.
Well, the default life of humanity is what we are talking about in verses 17 to 20.
And I remember, as a young man, I was in the 8th grade and the - let me get this right -
Desert Shield - anybody remembers Desert Shield?
Desert Shield was just finishing up and we were going into Desert Storm.
And in the 8th grade, my history teacher thought it would be a good idea to get these trading cards
- they were Desert Shield and Desert Storm trading cards, just like baseball cards or anything else -
Well, that's what got me into baseball cards, I tell a lot of people
I would have not any money as a teenager if I wouldn't have sold baseball cards,
but I got into these Desert Shield cards, and I remember going home one day,
and I was counting them, and I was trying to put them in order, so I could make a complete set.
That's what I wanted: I wanted a complete set of these Desert Shield cards.
I wanted a set for Desert Shield and a set for Desert Storm.
And they had all kinds off things, I mean, you know, the ......... copy (3:18)
if you had doubles of him, you were somebody. I mean you could sell them pretty easy,
and the Colin Powell. I remember that stuff like if it was yesterday.
But I was trying to count them and put them in order, and I had them all over the kitchen table.
And my grandfather was real big on - you know, he was, even to the day he died,
he was real big into Fox News and knew everything that was going on, and he said:
"Look, you've got them all over the table. Let me show you a better way -
let me show you a better way to organize your cards.
Now it's going to take some time, but once you get them organized, you're going to know exactly what you've got."
And I believe that Christian life is just about like that. It is going to take time. Our life with Christ is going to take time.
But once we get it right, we can walk with him, and it's going to be the best thing possible.
So we look here and we see that there is a better way, that the default life of humanity, the Bible says, is close-minded.
We can look in society today and see there's close-mindedness. There's close-mindedness all over.
Why? Because we look out for numer one and our idea, our thought are the best thoughts.
So we go around close-minded. You know, I'm sure that as I'm speaking this morning, you can think of at least one person,
maybe five, that live a life that is close-minded. We don't - there's no room for air.
Now in the Christian life, I believe that we don't need to live
- any other doctrine or any other religion or any othe kind of cult coming to our mind -
but I do believe this: I do believe we need to love, and I do believe that we need to show compassion, however not letting it change us.
But they were close-minded here in the Church of Ephesus: before knowing Christ, they were close-minded.
Before we knew Christ, I'm sure that you can testify as I can that we were clo... - I was close-minded. (5:33)
Then it goes on: "through the ignorance" - the Bible says in verse 18 -
"through the ignorance", we were close-minded, we were alienating ourselves from God.
Then it goes on to talk about our heart. Our heart was hardened before we knew Christ.
Our heart was of stone. The Bible talks about the heart being wicked.
Who could know it? WHo could know our motives? Our hearts were hard.
We know people, in our society, that have hard hearts, but we also know that Christ can break through.
We also know that Christ has a way of penetrating the heart. Again, those things -
those that have accepted Christ can testify to it, because we know how our heart was before we accepted Christ.
Now, there are some of us in here that got saved and accepted Christ as our savior when they were young.
And for us they were young - you know, I was saved at the age of 8, so it was not real-
I don't remember my heart just being hard, but I remember, when I was 5 and 6 years old,
my grandfather that wouldn't darken the doorstep of a church, and I remember how hard that his heart was.
And I remember how we shared with him for years and years and years,
and it wasn't until he was 50 years old that he accepted Christ.
And I remember that, but I remember the day that God penetrated his heart.
And I remember the day that God softened his heart. But up until that time, his heart was hardened.
Just like the Prodigal Son, when he left the Father, and he took his inheritance and he went to spend it, he went to live a life of pleasure.
We always hear the saying that life - that grass is greener on the other side, untill we get over there, and then it's crab (?) grass.
You've heard that? That's right. It looks so much better on the other side, and that's precisexactlyely what the Prodigal Son was talking about:
"O, it's going to be great over there, I've got the money, I've got everything that I need,
it does not matter where I'm going. I'm going to go". And that green grass turned into a pigsty.
Sp, living for pleasure is what we did. That's who we were. Why? Because we were ignorant.
The Bible says: "We've given in" in verse 19, before we accepted Christ, everything was whatever we wanted:
the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. All of those things.
That's the false humanity. That's who we are. That's just our flesh, because sin entered into the world,
and death by sin: so death has passed upon our men.
So, with that being said God created, and he created perfection, but because of the Fall of Man,
because o the eating o the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, look what we have: we have sinful nature.
And because of that sinful nature, our humanity, our default humanity, is sinful.
It's not uncommon to have a hard heart. It's not uncommon to have a closed mind. It's not uncommon to live for pleasure.
But look at verse 21: "If so be that ye have heard him," - Paul's talking about Jesus here - "and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus,
that ye put off concerning the former conversation of the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness."
Look: we have been, we had been living a default life; maybe this morning, you're still in that stage.
Maybe you are still living in that default stage: there is not anything wrong with that. (10:02)
However, God has given us an extraodinary life.
Paul talks in 2 Corinthians Chapter 5: "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."
That's what he's saying again here in Ephesians 4. He's also talking about a renewed mind and a renewed heart, he's talking about that in Romans Chapter 4 as well.