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November 4, 2020 7:05 am
In a day when the value of physical beauty has become exaggerated.
It's natural to give undue attention to our appearance as a result, many of us are self-conscious about her weight wrinkles and other attributes that feed our insecurities today on Insight for living will give our attention, not to a physical makeover to a spiritual one is time to shed our negative self-image. Replace it with something new. In Ephesians 4, Paul reminds us that we are created in God's light title today's message. Here's how to how things look rather than what they are. If you notice that image has become everything. Or so the saying goes off of the same is true of ourselves. When we worry so much about our appearance, our appearance before others are appearance when we go to try out for a job our appearance before the church rather than the condition of our hearts, which guide our thoughts and direct our deeds. The apostle Paul was aware of this tendency, and people even back when he lived, so we shouldn't be surprised that he encouraged the believers in Ephesus to throw off the old self by that he meant the ones stuck in darkness, impurity and greed and to put on the new self, like a new garment, the one characterized by holiness and righteousness, because only in this way will we begin to look like Christ's followers both inside and out.
What a great thought and that's the very subject for today's message. Our passage is found in Ephesians chapter 4 verses 17 to 24 yellow Bible Handy get it and follow along with me as I read for you. Beginning in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 17 so this I say and affirm, together with the Lord that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk in the futility of their mind being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them because of the hardness of their heart and they having become callous have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity, with greediness, but you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard him and have been taught in him, just as truth is in Jesus that in reference to your former manner of life you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth to search the Scriptures with Chuck Swindoll.
Be sure to download his searching the Scriptures. Studies by going to Insight world.org/studies and other message.
Here's how to get dressed. Mrs. remain standing before him. Our heads bowed in adoration of him in the multitude of sounds and noises that surrounds us. Our father is wonderful to be silent before you in a world full of people who no longer sing together created is that at least once a week. We join our voices in unison and in harmony and praise to you as the psalmist commands us to holiday Lou you praise Yahweh. Thank you father not only for being great but magnificently great for always being more interested in quality. Never in quantity for character never image for our growing deeper, not larger in number not busier, and so father thank you for your forgiveness as we have hurried far too much this week giving attention to the tyranny of the urgent rather than the significance of the important, thank you for reminding us over and over again that your work is excellent.
Never mediocre, always in abundance never just adequate. You deserve our father not good, you deserve the best and we have with heartiness and passion and earnestness song our songs to you. You have become the object of our worship in the subject of our praise. We love you, father left because we have received and received and received from you.
Help for our bodies. Strength for work. The pleasure of an occupation. The joy of earning a good living and being entrusted with more money than we need. It's only right Lord, that we today at this one time of the week give gift to you. We don't do it to earn any favors.
We don't do it to impress someone sitting near us or even you would do it because we can help do it. It just comes spontaneously from us and therefore we do so with joy and generosity and finally Lord I thank you for your nearness. You have come not only alongside to help you have, within us, to reside in.
Thank you for the pleasure of carrying God around with us. We do so with great gratitude in the quietness of this moment of worship.
Thank you for being near nearer. You really could not be for in the person of your son you are is near as he is in his name we worship we give and we express these words of praise and all God's people traveling abroad always include some special challenges and among them the whole issue of packing what you take, how much do you take how light the impact is it going to be a hot weather is it going to be cool.
Whether you often don't know. Will it be a dress-up occasion that you forget to take something for our present all casualty just don't ever know for sure.
And of course if you care about things like this then you give more time and attention to it than if you were a man to brag about how they could put three weeks of clothing for travel to the carry-on bag and the usually look like it about the second week of the travel women are different. Just something about him. I love to tease Cynthia say it's amazing we have five suitcases and 1/2 of one is mine. One of yours issues. One is cosmetic and about that time, a sort of blackout. I don't remember what was said next, we were having fun. It Ben Yehuda Street you traveled in Jerusalem know the spot we shopped early and we were sitting the other at a coffee shop with a group of friends from Stonebrook Community Church who would go on the trip with us. Recently we have more fun laughing as always, and one of our men said the funniest thing I heard in the trip. He said what the big deal is about all the close people bring with them on a trip that I've solved the underwear problem. If I cannot carry one fourth of the underwear I used to carry out he was telling us things we didn't really need to know what occurred to me. He said you can you can get four times the wearout of every pair of underwear so simple and will coursework hanging on these words, wondering what he had in mind.
He said look at step right sought out wrong side out front words and backwards. You can just wear the same one is toward the end of our second week. No one was sitting next to this guy. Just something about it turns you all and you think clothing is just a thing for adults. The last time you looked in the clothing store that was popular clothing is always full of teenagers wasn't all about adults. I don't know of anyone who cares more about how they look than teenagers and they all want to be. So what you walk out the store looking at that same look and of course women continue to live with the pressure of what they where is it in style. Then the shoes match the personal that Matt Belton is the him the right length and on and on it goes in men as well. You notice manuals for power dressing. Someone asked me if I had read the manual power drill is that you could tell by looking. I haven't written the power manual. There are power suits dark pinstripe suit power shirt button down Oxford white collar and shirt power ties muted colors in certain patterns and I'm thinking good night.
Maybe that's what I've been missing you and I realize the more I address the subject, the more I come up against the reality that clothing may polish the image, but it doesn't polish the character raised with the statement you never have a second chance to leave a first impression.
And let's face it the way you dress does impact the way the interview turns out more often than not, but doesn't really do anything to the inside that's the question then it does not.
Henry Ward Beecher in an old series of sermons announced under the title Proverbs from the Plymouth pulpit wrote in 1887 close and manner do not make the man. But when he is made they greatly improve its appearance.
Oscar Wilde in the picture of Dorian Gray added this thought which I thought was a bit humorous with an evening coat and a white tie anybody, even a stockbroker can gain a reputation for being civilized you were to write that today it would be even a lawyer can gain a reputation for being similar Henry David Thoreau in his fine work economy rights. This, beware of all enterprises that require new close and not rather a new wearer of clothes. I was all this have to do with our study in Ephesians well when you get to the central section of Ephesians 4 the answer is in one word. Everything in fact, the apostle Paul has a word picture that sort of subtly is dropped in on us and leaves us with the reality that it's about clothes, not the external.
But the internal that he's writing is not about what you put on your body. It's what you live out in your life that's important in order to do that to things have to happen you have to discard the old and you have to have a shower you have to have a bath and get cleaned up before you can put on the new. If you like to mark your Bibles drop down to 422 and make note of lay aside the old self and then verse 24.
Mark put on the new self. Can't you picture it.
It's like having worked in the yard through the morning and you gotta make an afternoon wedding. And so you come in and you throw aside the sweaty, dirty garments, hop in the shower and you get cleaned up and you get on the other garments that are clean and pressed and ready for the wedding because appropriate attire goes with a particular setting.
You don't wear tuxedos if you go to work on the ranch through the afternoon you wear blue jeans, cowboy boots and a shirt that you can get dirty or even tear if necessary. You got an attire for that if you're going to an elegant evening for dinner finished off by the time at the symphony, you don't wear a swimsuit and phone you you you where evening attire because that's appropriate for the occasion.
The apostle is just simply talking about what's appropriate, but he doesn't have symphonies or ranches are working in the yard and mine.
It's all about the dinner person it's never about the external are rarely never the words that the Lord gave to Samuel. Remember the story and first Samuel 16, Saul had failed, though, handsome and tall and dark in appearance and attracted to the people around him. He was weak within in the Lord and gotten sick, if you will, and told Samuel to go on a search for the next king and when he came to the house of Jesse, the older brothers were paraded in front of Samuel and immediately he fell for the another tall, dark, and that you think when you see that scene.
He's had enough of tall dark and handsome but he hadn't and we haven't were still impressed with height and stature, and pinstripe suits and muted ties and elegant dress. He said said Samuel. The externals on important. God doesn't see as man sees man looks at the outward appearance of the Lord looks on the heart. He doesn't see the color of the dress. He sees the condition of the heart, the Paul in Ephesians 417 to 24 is addressing how to get the heart dressed, get the life dressed correctly, you will read of it in the any of the papers today, you won't see it in any of the style magazines.
You will hear of it on any of the television shows because this isn't addressed in our day because our day is about inmate it's about looking good, making a good impression. Whether there's character or not, after all, that's how you get elected isn't my hate that the apostle says where to put off have our minds renewed, like you would take a shower and then put on you know the context member basic rule of interpretation always integrate the section you're looking at with its context never just plunge right into a verse always see where you're coming from and look at where you're going, sandwiched between two very interesting and intriguing sections of the Scriptures.
These verses appear what's been before them.
Remember Paul's words, I urge you as a prisoner to walk worthy of the calling with which you have been called so this is about walking the walk. This is about living out the life you claim to believe. Or as James would put it if you say you believe like you should.
Why do you behave like you shouldn't. This is how you can learn to behave correctly and beginning in verse one down through verse 16. The emphasis has been on the unity of the body unit team humility and ultimately maturity. Here's how to grow up as the body of Christ as the family of God.
When you get to verse 17, it's about the purity of the believer not the unity of the body versus 17 to 24. In fact, they end with the words holiness of the true the end of verse 24. This is about dealing with the individual believer in your own life and I've called it. Here's how to get dressed. Verse 17.
This is no insignificant subject that he sort of slides into he has the Lord standing alongside him saying right this the way he opens.
So this I say and affirm together with the Lord not see the word at Furman. It's the word from which the Greek from which we get our word martyr which interestingly means to witness this is the Lord's witness.
This is the Lord's testimony. He's using my pen to communicate it to you. I take it that when Paul was caught up in the third heaven second Corinthians chapter 12 for he received great revelation from God, especially regarding the body, the church, how the church was to live its life and carry out its responsibilities. A part of that truth you received from the Lord. But the Lord testified to him was about this particular subjects of this is no idle matter. This is no yawning concern. This is of crucial importance.
That's why he begins this I say, and I I affirm it with the Lord. He's standing alongside me saying right this that you walk no longer as the Gentiles also walk when you read Gentiles you would normally think he has in mind all humanity that is not Jewish. That's how we use the word today but Paul's use of the term is a lot more specific, more often than not he has in mind the unregenerate person show you an example, older place. Look at first Thessalonians chapter 4 I give you an example of how this word is used with a little statement after it describing the meaning of the term sets.
First Thessalonians 4 verse three. This is the will of God, your sanctification, that is that you abstain from sexual immorality that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor.
That's the positive. The negative not in lustful passion like look at that the Gentiles who do not know God, to the way that read that that reads back in Ephesians 417. That's what he has in mind regarding the Gentile. In other words, verse 17, chapter 4 of Ephesians that you walk no longer as you walked in your unregenerate state that you no longer live out the lifestyle of your lost condition before the cross before you came to Christ in your unconverted state of mind and in your lifestyle of lost nests the way you walk, then, is has nothing to do with the way you're now to walk, but before he gets to the positive drills and drives home the negative.
The Gentile lifestyle for words. I think they might help you appreciate what he's getting it for words. I want to suggest in verses 17 through 19. Darkness did nests record less nests, but let's start with the word hardness so we got these for hardness darkness. Did nests recklessness. Those are original with me. John RW Stott in his fine work on Ephesians suggests them as a bit of an outline. It all starts with the hardness of the heart C-18 being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them and why's that because of the hardness of their heart and they having become callous have given them over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity, with greediness, see the word hardness of heart that's hard.
No pun intended that the heart and center of the problem. The core of depravity is a hard heart.
This is insight for living featuring the Bible teaching of pastor and author Chuck Swindoll.
He titled today study in Ephesians 4.
Here's how to get dressed.
To learn more about this ministry.
Visit us online@insightworld.org this message represents just one of 26 and our comprehensive study through Paul's first century letter is been encouraging to focus our attention on the book like Ephesians during a season in world history marked by fear and uncertainty 2020 will be forever remembered as the year of the coronavirus social unrest in major cities around the world and a politically charged election, the likes of which we've never seen until now. Well as an encouragement.
I suggest you check out the flip calendar created by Insight for living ministries is called quotable Chuck Daly insights from the pulpit is designed to keep God's word front and center in your life as you see it every day on your kitchen counter or on your desk 2021 remains a mystery to all of us will be much better as we shine the light of God's word on the path ahead to purchase the flip calendar called quotable Chuck Collis if you're listening in the United States are number is 1-800-772-8888 or go online to insight.org/store. In closing, let me say a word of thanks to our monthly companions and all those who give generously. You're accomplishing far more than you'll ever know because your gift not only allows us to provide these daily visits with Chuck, a small portion is multiplied overseas in our ongoing pursuit of vision 195 vision 195 is our stated mission to reach 195 countries of the world with God's amazing grace to become a monthly companions go to insight.or/month companions to give a one time donation today go to insight.org or if you prefer to call. Here's the number listening in the US dial 1-800-772-8888. Most of us have been heartbroken.
Witness civil unrest in the public square, eclipsing the urgent medical needs imposed by the global pandemic at Insight for living ministries. We believe there's never been a better time to extend God's grace to those in need. In this emotionally charged era were shouting matches were commonplace for people feel voiceless and overlooked and then would you be among those who give generously so that we can spread the fragrance of God's grace to those desperate for a second chance. We're looking to add more monthly companions to the team become a monthly companion today by calling us your listening in the United States. Call 1-800-772-8888 or go to insight.org/monthly companion my friend more than ever insight for living ministries is determined to serve as a lavish garden for people all around the world longer smell the aroma of God's matchless grace, a safe place where imperfect, sinful people. True and redeem to become a monthly companion, listening in the United States. Call 1-800-772-8888 or go to insight.org/monthly. Chuck Swindoll continues his message in Ephesians, titled here's how to get dressed Thursday on insight for living in the preceding message. Here's how to get dressed was copyrighted in 2000 2001 and 2009 and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2009 by Charles R. Swindoll. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercially is strictly