Identity 3 I I Will Be

I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling wherewith you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with all longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace... (Ephesians 4:1–3)

How should the person whose identity is found in Christ then live?

The Modern and Postmodern Dilemma

Hard to answer, for those who hold a modern or postmodern worldview, are the questions surrounding morality and ethics. If you hold a modernist worldview—that everything came into being through billions of years of random chance and mutation—then you have no foundation for morality, no basis on which ethics are established. If, on the other hand, you hold the postmodern position, then any moral or ethical statement is subjective and relative. Everything boils down to situational ethics: whatever the situation dictates is how you should respond, but there is no absolute standard.

This causes a serious dilemma, and there are an awful lot of people in it. The modern and postmodern positions are the predominant worldviews of Western civilization today, and they leave their adherents without adequate ground for the morality they still try to live by.

Stephen Fry and the Borrowed Morality

This was perfectly illustrated about a week ago on a UK television show called The Meaning of Life, where interviewer Gay Byrne sits down with prominent thinkers and celebrities and asks them about the meaning of life. A short clip went out on YouTube; I even saw people in this church post it on Facebook. In the interview, Byrne sat with British comedian and actor Stephen Fry, who happens to be an atheist, and asked: suppose it's all true—religion—and you walk up to the pearly gates and are confronted by God. What will you say?

Fry's answer stopped Byrne in his tracks. He said, in effect: I'd say to God, "Bone cancer in children? What's that about? How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault? It's utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world so full of injustice and pain?"

The problem is that Fry's answer, as an atheist, makes no sense whatsoever. His answer borrows from the moral ethic of Christianity. To stand as one who denies the existence of a moral Lawgiver, and then to say "How dare you—it's utterly wrong, it's evil," is to have no moral standard from which to speak. Fry was tipping his hand: he believes in an objective morality. He cannot live in a world without an objective moral standard. When he accuses God of being capricious and evil, he is admitting there is a moral law—and therefore a moral Lawgiver.

He fell into one of the great blunders—the first being never get involved in a land war in Asia, this one only slightly less known. Thinkers have pointed this out for a very long time. Seventy years ago C.S. Lewis addressed this very thing in the first chapter of Mere Christianity: "Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real right and wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later." Someone transgresses against him, and he says, "How dare you!"—and in that he admits there is a right and wrong.

A Better Framework

This is why I've maintained over these last three studies that the Bible presents a better and more compelling answer. We at Cross Connection believe the Bible gives a narrative that proposes a better framework through which we can answer questions of morality and ethics. The modern or postmodern person has no basis for the moral standards they still hold people to. For the Christian, it's not a problem—we have a better framework.

Point one on your outline: morality and ethics speak to what is right, what is wrong, and what one ought to do. A large segment of people in the Western world today, holding modern and postmodern worldviews, have no adequate answers to those questions, nor to the questions of identity, origin, and destiny we've examined over the last few weeks in Ephesians—questions to which God gives solid answers.

Now, as we move into chapter four, we look at purpose for the person who finds their identity in Christ. How does understanding our origin and destiny affect our purpose? That brings us to morality and ethics, to the classic question: How shall we then live?

We All Fall Short—But God Is Gracious

We should admit that both Christians and non-Christians fall short of any moral standard. We all fail at the moral right and wrong, which is why we need the grace of God. Lewis writes much about this: God has hardwired into us a conscience that reveals there is a moral law and a moral Lawgiver. Inside us is the understanding that certain things are right and certain things are wrong, that I should do the right and not the wrong—but we all fail. We are totally destitute of morality; that which we should do, we most often do not do. But God is gracious.

In Ephesians 2 we saw who we were: dead in trespasses and sins, enemies of God, walking according to the dictates of the spirit at work in this world. There is more to this cosmos than science can see; there is a spiritual realm, which we'll see clearly in chapter 6. We were governed and directed by the enemy, led about by our lustful desires, subject to the wrath of God. That was our origin.

But that's not who we are anymore. In Ephesians 1 we saw the Christian's new identity—seated in Christ, blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places, chosen, predestined, adopted, accepted, redeemed, forgiven, given revelation and an inheritance and an eternal future—all by grace. And we considered our destiny: not only heaven, but to experience the power and presence of God here and now. We have the Holy Spirit resident within us; Christ dwells in our hearts. We have wisdom and revelation, an enlightened understanding of the vastness of His love—how wide and long and deep and high the love of Christ is.

What We Should Be

So how does all this affect the way we live—our purpose today? We come to a section of Scripture about what we should be as recipients of grace.

...He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love... (Ephesians 1:4)

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10)

I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling wherewith you were called... endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace... that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro... This I say therefore, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind... that you put off concerning your former conduct the old man... and that you put on the new man, which is created according to God in true righteousness and holiness... For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. (from Ephesians 4–5)

In these thirteen verses, across Ephesians 1, 2, 4, and 5, we have the foundation for the ethic of the Christian—what the Christian should do, how they should live. And we must state, as we prayed, that these things are based upon God's strength at work in us. He has enabled us to do what He calls us to do. Some of His commands may look impossible to the natural mind still clinging to the old life. But as I was reading again in Mark, that which is impossible with man is possible with God. So when He says, "This is how you are to live," it is perfectly acceptable for Him to say so—and He begins with what seems impossible.

A New Morality and Ethic

The life of the Christian is not only a new comprehension—an enlightened understanding, blind but now seeing—it is also living out something new. Our lives, our interactions, our responses, our conduct are to be conducted differently.

Point two: those who are identified with Christ ought to live according to a new morality and ethic. The Christian life is not some ethereal mindset lived only in your head; it is a practical reality, a transformation of the way we live. If your identity is found in Christ, you should be identifiable by Christ's likeness, so that people who don't know Him see that there is a transformation. The apostle John says those you used to run with think it strange you don't run with them anymore. That difference shouldn't mean you shun them, but that they see a practical change in your life. If that change isn't there, there hasn't truly been the new birth.

As I said weeks ago, you must have an "I was" to your current "I am," or you're not saved. Paul says in Ephesians 5:5 that no fornicator, unclean, or covetous person—who is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. A person who continues to live as they lived before finding Christ indicates they have not truly found their identity in Christ.

Holy and Without Blame

The Christian ethic—"I should be"—first appears in Ephesians 1:4: we should be holy and without blame before God in love. Some translations render this "without spot" or "without blemish." This language connected with people in the first-century Greco-Roman and Hebraic world in a way it may not for us. We don't regularly offer bloody sacrifices, but they did. In Ephesus you might sacrifice to Diana or Apollo; in Jerusalem a Jew would offer a sacrifice for sin at the temple. That sacrifice had to be without spot or blemish—blameless—and the Levites were to inspect it.

"Holy" here does not mean perfect, but consecrated—set apart for the temple, for the sacrifice. Consider a savings account. When you set aside part of your paycheck for a vacation or a car, that money is consecrated; it's not to be used for anything else. Being self-employed, I have to withhold my own taxes and write a quarterly check to the U.S. Treasury. My CPA, Jim Vanderspeck, makes sure I sign it. Throughout the year that money sits in savings looking like a lot, but I can't touch it—it says "U.S. Treasury" on it. It's consecrated.

So Paul says: you should be holy, consecrated, without spot or blemish before God, set apart for Him, with nothing else holding on or depleting the resource—fully and totally consecrated. This is what he begs the church in Rome to do: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service" (Romans 12:1). In response to being redeemed, forgiven, accepted, and adopted, your only right response is to give yourself completely to Him.

The astonishing thing is that God doesn't force it. Twice Paul pleads with the Christian to do this willingly. God purchased us—we are His possession, not our own—and yet He has maintained your free will. Throughout the New Testament we see Paul, Peter, and James pleading with believers to willingly offer back to God what is rightfully His.

Walking in Good Works

In Ephesians 2:10 Paul reveals that as those offered to God in Christ, we should walk in the good works God ordained before the foundation of the world. Before God created you, He had a plan for you and prepared good works for you to walk in. Why should we?

First, it is pleasing to God. Colossians 1:10: "that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work."

Second, it is glorifying to God. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, "You are the salt of the earth... You are the light of the world... Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:13–16). When we do what we were created to do, it exalts Him.

Practical Holiness, Not Ritualistic Righteousness

Point three: the worthy walk is practical holiness, not ritualistic righteousness. There are sacraments Christians observe, just as the Jews worshiped God through rituals at the temple. But God said through Samuel to Saul that He has less desire for burnt offering and sacrifice than for obedience: obedience is better than sacrifice (1 Samuel 15). David echoes the same in the Psalms.

Because of our fallen nature, we love religious ritual—it makes us feel holy. Acts of penance make us feel holy. But God has a greater desire to see practical obedience. So Paul describes the worthy walk in Ephesians 4:1—not "with all prayer and fasting" (good as those are), but "with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."

There are five marks here. First, lowliness—a deep sense of your moral littleness, understanding you have nothing good to offer, taking the humble position our culture dislikes but God loves, for He draws near to the humble heart. The best way into this is to behold how great God is, so that you see yourself in His light and realize how far separate the two are. Paul grasped this; in Ephesians 3:8 he calls himself "less than the least of all the saints." Interestingly, his name changed from Saul—meaning "one who is desired"—to Paul, meaning "little." That's a transformation.

Second, gentleness (meekness)—a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:23) and a characteristic of Jesus, who said, "Blessed are the meek."

Third, longsuffering—patient endurance and steadfast constancy through difficult circumstances. Fourth, forbearance—bearing "with one another in love." There's a subtle difference: longsuffering is suffering through difficult circumstances, while forbearance is suffering with difficult people. And it's easier to endure difficult circumstances than difficult people.

Fifth, pursuing unity—"endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." Why? Ephesians 4:4–6: "There is one body and one Spirit... one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all." Seven "ones." There is one body in Christ, and there are to be no schisms, factions, or divisions. But many individuals make up that one body, and if we are not careful, we become free radicals causing division. So forbear with one another—even people in this room you simply don't like—endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit. That is a worthy walk, pleasing and glorifying to God.

Grow Up

Furthermore, as Christians we should grow up. Ephesians 4:14: "that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro, carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting." This maturing process should be evident.

Verse 17 says we should no longer walk as the Gentiles walk. Paul writes to former pagans who are still Gentiles, but now Christian Gentiles. He describes the old walk in verses 17–19: in the futility of their mind, with darkened understanding, separated from God by ignorance and blindness, fully engaged in lewd, unclean, greedy behavior. That's not how you are to walk, because while their understanding is darkened, yours has been enlightened. That's who you was—not who you are.

So we must consciously and intentionally put off the old man, like taking off a garment, and put on the new man, "created according to God in true righteousness and holiness." Next week we'll get into the particulars of the put-offs and put-ons. But how does this begin?

A Mental Makeover

It begins with the renewal of the mind. Romans 12:1–2: present your bodies a living sacrifice... "and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove"—or display—"what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."

How does the mind get renewed? Ephesians 5:25 gives a clue: Christ's aim is to "sanctify and cleanse her, the bride, with the washing of water by the Word." Jesus prayed, "Sanctify them by Your truth; Your word is truth" (John 17:17).

Point four: practical holiness begins with a mental makeover—an extreme mental makeover. It doesn't end there, but it begins with the transformation of the mind. As we move into the next section, we'll see what we can be in Christ by His power: angry and not sin; those who stole, stealing no more; letting no corrupt communication proceed from our mouths. We can be that in Christ because it is His power at work in us—but it begins with a transformed mind.

Be What You Are in Christ

Why is all this important? Ephesians 5:8: "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light."

Final point: we must be what we are in Christ. That may sound grammatically strange, but here's the awesome thing. Because of the righteousness of Christ and His work on the cross, God in heaven already sees you—if you're in Christ—positionally holy and without spot. "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Corinthians 5:21). Yet how many of us recognize that we are not yet practically holy and blameless? So we must become what we already are. You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord—so walk as children of light. That is the Christian ethic.

In our next study we'll consider that we can be that. We can lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us. We can put off the old man and put on the new. Will we ever fall and trip up? Yes—and He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness when we come and say, "I blew it for the 490th time." But He has called us to live in a way that is excellent, so that others in the world look on and say, "They're different"—not because we use funny language, but because we are completely transformed. May God make us what we should be.

Closing Prayer

Father God, I thank You for Your Word; it is clear. We have a moral inclination in our hearts because You have given us a conscience that bears witness with who You are. It accuses or excuses us; it reveals the areas of our lives that are not right, the things inconsistent and incongruent with Your nature. So I pray that as we come in contact with those things, we would confess them to You and that You would make us new. If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, all things have become new. Make that true in my life and in the lives of my brothers and sisters here. Lord, I know there are people in this place today with life-dominating sins, things that make their practical life before You not holy and without spot. I pray that You would enable them, by Your power, to consecrate themselves to You and to experience the transformation of Your Word by the work of Your Spirit and for Your glory, that You would be pleased with the offering of our lives. We ask this in Jesus' name, and all God's people said: Amen.