Pentecost 11 Date: 08/20/06 Text: Ephesians 4:17-24 Title: Live and Let Die

Pentecost 11
08/20/06
Text: Ephesians 4:17-24
Title: Live and Let Die

Heavenly Father, creator and sustainer of all things, we humbly come before you this morning, completely unworthy of any of the blessings you daily give us. If it were not for Jesus Christ and his saving work on our behalf, we could not even approach you. We ask that you clear our minds of anything that might distract us from hearing what you have to say to us today through your Word and Sacraments. Lord, without you we die, with you we live. Amen.
Two weeks ago, I started this series on God’s will for us, by looking at Ephesians 2:13-22. There we found, that God has torn down the walls that divide people of the Christian faith. We saw that even though God tore down those walls we, as sinful human beings, like to take the rubble of those walls and build new walls that separate and divide families, congregations, neighborhoods, states, and countries.
We looked at just why it is that we like to keep rebuilding the walls that Jesus tore down and came to the conclusion that we build walls because we really do not truly believe that God did in fact tear down the walls that separate his people. We are going to continue to build and maintain our walls of separation and division until we truly have faith in his Holy word that the walls that separate God’s people have really been torn down by Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Last week in Ephesians 4, verses 1-17, we found out that we, that is, all people who profess Jesus to be their Savior, are one people in God. We found that we are united in one body, the church of God, the church universal because there is only one spirit, the Spirit of God, and one hope, the sure hope of our salvation through Jesus Christ.
Because we belong to one body, we are not to be divisive in the local congregation, but united in the mission of proclaiming God’s Word, administering the Sacraments, and helping those who do not know of Jesus to know him as their Savior.
According to God’s Holy Word, we are to be humble, gentle, and patient, bearing with others in their spiritual walk, and sparing no effort in remaining in unity. Which by the way is the responsibility of each and every member of this congregation.
Today we are going to look at Ephesians, chapter 4, verses 17-24 so that we might continue to find out God’s will for us. Time is short, so let us get to it.
You might have noticed my sermon title for this morning is “Live and let die.” Some of you might remember that was the title of a James Bond movie that was in the theaters in 1973. It was typical James Bond with all the latest gadgets, chases, close encounters and beautiful women. It is a classic tale of good winning against evil.
That title, “Live and let die” is true, for to live by the world’s standards, its sensuality, is to die, to die an eternal death. How much better it is for us to live by God’s standards, where we die to live. We die to the sensuality of the world to live, so that we will have eternal life with God.
Paul admonishes the people he is writing to, that includes you and me, that we are to no longer live like those that do not know Jesus. They do not know Jesus because they have hardened their hearts. In other words, in their not listening to God’s Holy Word, in thinking they have a better way, they have hardened their hearts, which leads to them being ignorant of God’s will for their lives. This of course means they are separated from the life of God.
This then leads them to such depths of sin that they are beyond feeling as they give themselves to all kinds of sensuality, which by the way does not just mean sexual sin, but all kinds of self-indulgence, a, if it feels good, do it, type of mentality.
Paul tells us, do not be like them, but walk in righteousness and true holiness. The “old man” is part of your past. It is how you lived before you were saved. Now for most of us that is a hard concept to understand, for most of us were brought into God’s Kingdom as babies when we were baptized.
But we are not completely free of the “old man’ for we all know that the “old man” is never content, but grows corrupt according to all sorts of deceitful lusts. The ‘old man’ is like any person that is addicted to alcohol, drugs, food, or anything else that controls their life. There is never enough, there is always a need for more. Something has to fill the hole left by the absence of God.
The only way to keep putting off the “old man” is by setting your mind on things above, by letting God transform you into the “new man” he wants you to be. The same man that God created to be righteous and holy, before Adam and Eve’s fall into sin.
Are you still having trouble with the “old man”? I would not be surprised, for I still have trouble with the “old man”, as he continues to try and tear off the “new man”. We have problems with him, because as verse 19 tells us, “Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.”
One needs to look no further than what is shown on our televisions to see that sex, the body beautiful, food, and material things are the gods of America. The fall lineup of television shows, the commercials, “Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality, so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.” There is no doubt that God in his ultimate wisdom knew that we too needed this warning.
Have we who consider ourselves Christians lost our sensitivity to sin, to the sensual desires of the flesh? I wonder, for take a moment and think back just a few years. I bet you can find examples of things that you do not consider to be a sin now that were sins not too long ago.
Have you gotten use to sin? What do you watch on your TV? What conversations do you take part in? What dirty jokes do you send through the secrecy of the internet? What do you view on the internet in the privacy of your home? What movies do you watch? What advertisements do you chuckle at as they “push the envelope” of decency?
We, the people of God are getting used to sin. We are getting comfortable with it. I am afraid that we all have to admit that for the most part our lives resemble the lives of those in the world more than those that God wants us to live. We are just attracted to impurity, to immorality.
Maybe we do not actually take part in sensual things, but we do vicariously, through the lives of others, as we watch television and movies, listen to the radio, and read books that are not God pleasing. And, unless something is done about our “old man” we are all doomed, for God tells us that we have to put on the “new man”.
Thank goodness something has been done. Jesus Christ came into this sinful world of ours. He never allowed himself to be desensitized to the sensuality of the world. He never succumbed to the immorality of the world.
That is why his crucifixion is such an amazing thing. The perfectly holy man allowed the sensuality, the filth of the world to be put on him, not for himself, but for each one of us, so that we could put on the “new man”.
That is what makes Christianity so hard to believe. To know that you are forgiven, that you are clean, and pure in God’s eyes, all because of Jesus Christ, is truly an amazing thing.
The ways of the world can only lead to destruction, to death. The only way to eternal life is through God’s Word as we are told in verse 20 of Ephesians, “You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus Christ.”
You have put on the “new man” because in Christ you have found the truth, the truth about what is right and wrong, what is good and bad, what is holy and unholy.
With the help of Christ you can rid yourself of remains of the “old man” that so clings to you. For in verse 22 we read, “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self (“old man”) which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires.”
Put off your old self, that part of you that is proud, the part of you that is inclined towards evil and all that is sensual. You can do it, because as verse 23 tells us we are, “to be made new in the attitude of your minds, and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”
You are righteous and holy, so join me in fighting off the “old man” as he tries to entice you to the sensuality of the world. You can do it you know, for Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection has clothed you with the “new man”, and what God has given you, no one can take away. Amen.

Pentecost 10 08/13-06 Text: Ephesians 4: -16 Title: One for all, all for One.

Pentecost 10
Date: 08/13/06
Text: Ephesians 4:1-7; 11-16
Title: “One for all, all for one.”

Heavenly Father, creator and sustainer of all things we humbly come before you this morning realizing that we are not worthy of any of the gifts that you bestow on us. Thank you for sending to us Jesus Christ, your living breathing Word. Calm our minds by taking away all distracting thoughts so that though your words we will be shaped and molded into the vessels you want us to be. Amen.
My sermon this morning is based on God’s Holy Word in Ephesians 4. Would it not be great if our congregation, if the Christian Church throughout the world, were made up entirely of spiritually mature people? It would be wonderful, but as we all know, it is not, and never will be, that is, until the day the Lord comes back.
You have all probably seen, or maybe been involved in situations, in which two very intelligent and sophisticated people just could not work together for the good of the whole because they had different beliefs and contrasting ideas about how things should be done in the congregation. These intelligent and usually loving Christians, who both proclaim their love for the Lord will tie into it, all because each one thinks, they are right, that they are correctly following the Word of God.
There are many reasons behind that behavior, but the main reason is without a doubt, that there are too many people in the average congregation who consider themselves to be independent thinkers, who know what is best for the congregation.
They generally feel that the rest of the people are not spiritually mature enough to understand how the church should worship or do its mission. They are like the Lone Ranger, who as you might remember preferred to work alone. He would single-handily rescue the town from the bad guy, and then with a “high ho Silver”, he would ride off into the sunset to rescue someone else.
Our scripture points out this morning that a congregation that professes to follow Jesus is not meant to be a collection of brilliant Lone Rangers, as well meaning as they might be, but a collection of Musketeers, who work together for the common good, as they proclaim, “One for all, all for one.”
Working together in unity is a much bigger task than you might think, for just studying and working to become well-informed and mature as individuals does not create unity. It is hard to do because to become united is something that none of us can do on our own. It requires a community of people united in a common faith and mission. It requires each one of the community to work for unity.
Our Epistle reading for this morning does not leave us in the dark concerning the matter of Christian unity. Verses 4 and 5 tell us that “we are one body and one spirit because there is one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” I do not see any exceptions to the truths that God had Saint Paul write down that day in jail.
Paul is, as I mentioned earlier writing from prison, so he could write, “As a prisoner of the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling your have received.” In other words, live, as God wants you to live, not as you want to live. He continues, “Be completely humble”. In other words, do not think of yourself as being better than anyone else in the congregation.
As Paul continues to write, he tells us that Christians are to also be gentle. In Greek thinking, gentleness only came after being broken and trained. I want to spend a little time on the concept of gentleness only coming after being broken and trained, for it has implications for congregations today.
There are two ways to break and then train an animal. The first is what most of you are probably familiar with, the breaking of a wild horse. You tied the horse up, threw a saddle on it and then kept riding it until the animal learned that it could not throw you off. You had to break its spirit or will, which was always a painful experience for the horse and cowboy.
In breaking its spirit or will you could then start to train it to do what you wanted, although it would never perform its task willingly, for it was being forced to do what it was doing. It never would become as we say a team player.
In our Wednesday night Bible study each week we discuss the text that I am going to talk about the following Sunday. During our discussion Sue and Chuck Kraeger told us how they use to break and then train the miniature donkeys they used to raise.

They tamed their donkeys with love shown through kindness. The process would start the minute the donkey was born. They would hold it as they dried it off, help it to its feet, so that the newborn donkey would know that they loved it and wanted to do right by it.
As the animal matured, they stayed in close contact with it. They continued to show their love by petting, brushing, providing shelter, good food, playing with it, and rewarding the donkey when it did what they wanted it to do. The result was that they had a well-behaved, gentle, loving donkey that wanted to please them.
I share this with you this morning for many people think that the only way to become a true follower of Christ is to be broken, thus they live in fear of being punished by God. Oh, they know that Christ died for their sins, but they still are afraid of being punished, if they do not do everything just right.
That is not how God wants us to live. He does not want us to live in fear. He wants us to know the power of his love, for after all he came down to be one of us, to die for us, so that we can live in peace with God. God does not stop there, for he gives us what we need from birth to our death. Notice, I did not say what we think we need, but what he knows we need.
He gives us, his people, “one body and one Spirit, just as you were called, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” We are united in the oneness of God.
God does not just tell us that we are to be in spiritual unity, and leave us with that. He tells that we are to also “be patient, bearing with one another in love.”
What does it mean for those in the Christian Church, to be patient, bearing with one another in love? It means that we are to recognize that not all people in the congregation are spiritually the same. There are some who are just starting out on their spiritual journey. They are as God’s Holy Word tells us, spiritual babies, still drinking spiritual milk, while others are more spiritually mature, getting into the meat and potatoes of faith, with a whole bunch more somewhere in between.
You cannot expect a new Christian to behave and know everything a more mature Christian does and knows. Just like those donkeys, we talked about earlier, they have to be treated kindly and shown the right way, all done in love.
The Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a wonderful example of how one remains an individual while being in unity. As we confess in the Athanasian Creed, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are in perfect unity, but each is not the other. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Father, and so on.
The same is to be said of the Christian community, for in that community our individual personalities, and spiritual gifts are not destroyed, but united in one God, each of us using the gifts God has given each of for the common good of the congregation, God’s church.
The Three Musketeers proclaimed “One for all, and all for one”. We know that in sports it is important to be a team player, to be “One for all, and all for one.”, but for some reason in most congregations that “One for all, and all for one” mentality does not exist, or at least to extent it should and that is sad.
It is sad, because we have the one thing that no other organization has, whether it is a sport team or business team. We have the Spirit of God. We do not have to create team spirit from scratch, for God has given it to his church. It is the Holy Spirit who holds us together, builds us into one team united in one mission, the mission that God has given us, the people of God.
When each one of us, as part of this Christian congregation come to truly believe that “we are one body and one spirit because there is one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”, will we become the people that God wants us to be.
For it is only in God that you can become gentle, as he channels your selfish energies from yourself to caring for others in the congregation. It is only in God that you can have patience with others. Not just ordinary patience, but long-suffering patience as you spare no effort to be in unity.
We must all remember that we are called by God in our baptism to be one, and the realization of what that oneness means for us can help us to grow toward it. Every day each of us can grow, even if just a bit, in faith, hope and love. Every day the whole body of Christ can grow toward the fullness of Christ. Every day we need to be focused on what God intends, the unity of all things in the life of the triune God. For it is only then that we can join together as we sing out, “One for all, and all for one.” Or better yet, “God for all, and all for God. Amen