Ephesians 4:17-32
Ephesians chapter 4, all right, starting in verse 17 today. We are in the midst of a series on the book of Ephesians. Today’s message is titled, True Christians Are Truly Different.
The theme of this book, among other themes, but what I felt from my reading of it this time around is the overarching theme, is that the gospel of Jesus, that is the love of God, receiving the love of God, and walking in who we are in Christ as believers of the Christian faith. If we do that, and I mean do that, I don’t mean talk about it or act like it or fake it, but I mean do it. If we do it, it will radically transform and work its way into every part of our lives, and we will move from darkness into light. We’ll move from shame into freedom. We’ll move from bondage into new life. And that’s what this book is about. We began this book seven or eight or nine weeks ago. I think this is week eight.
And we looked at some of the theology, which is a fancy word for the knowledge of God, knowing about God, knowing who God is, knowing what God is like, knowing how he feels for us and how we then can respond to him. And as we looked at the beginning few chapters of this book, we looked at a lot of the theology, the conversation Paul was having with his church, and he was telling them, guys, this is what your faith means. This is what has been done for you. And this is what is available to you through the power of the Holy Spirit, working in you if you will walk in and receive the promises of the faith. And we’re continuing now, and as this book progresses, we’re now in the second half of this long letter. It’s moving much more into application, and he’s giving some very specific, saying some very specific things about our life. And so this week, I want to talk about being different. If you are in this room and you are a believer, you should not blend in. Life should be somewhat awkward for you because of your faith in Christ. You and I were called to walk a wide road, right? No. We were called to leave the wide road, which is what the world and sadly much of the church is walking, and we were called to walk on a very narrow road. You ever walk on a narrow road? When I was a kid, I used to climb train tracks. And when you get up there, the trusses can be this thin.
And when you’re up there and you’re walking, it’s very dangerous because if you fall either way, you’ll get run over by Nate, who’s a train operator. Only half of you got that. But when you’re walking on a narrow road, you know, it’s hard. And if you, you know, it’s easy to walk on a wide road. It’s hard to walk on a narrow road. We’ve been called to be different. We should not blend in. Peter calls us in 1 Peter, strangers and aliens, and he calls us a peculiar, peculiar people. We’re also called in the Scripture to be the children of light and the children of day, and that is a contrast. I’ve been trying to learn how to sleep better in the last year or so of my life. Does anyone struggle sleeping? I studied sleep on my sabbatical last year, and I learned some things. I learned eight or nine strategies of how to sleep better, and I’m sleeping better than I think I have since I was about five. And one of those strategies is sleeping in a dark room. It’s amazing how much in your bedroom or the place you sleep is not dark. There are so many little things that create light, and the smallest amount of light, it causes you to be awake, and it causes you when you spring awake to be more awake because you see it. Even little things like your LED clock that has the time can keep you awake and you don’t realize it. So one of my strategies has been trying to get the room as dark as possible. And here’s what I’ve learned.
You can turn every light off. You can have the blinds closed. You can have your clock covered by a pillow. Your phone’s away. Every light is off. There’s no nightlights, nothing anywhere. And did you know that these little fire alarms have a tiny little green LED? Even in pitch blackness, that little tiny green LED, it’s not even on the surface. See, I’m really experienced in this. It’s not even on the surface of the fire alarm. It’s embedded inside it. But that little tiny bit of light is enough to light up the room where you can still see. It’s crazy. And I was thinking about the other night. I was lying there looking at that green LED and thinking this, that the smallest amount of light will break through the darkness. And you and I are called to be in a world of darkness. We are called to be people of light. We are called to be different and be noticed and peculiar. So true Christians are truly different.
That’s the theme of the passage today. Let’s pray, and we’re going to read the latter half of Ephesians chapter 4. You ready? Are you ready? All right. This is a challenging message. Let’s pray. Holy Spirit, we welcome you.
Lord, we acknowledge your presence in your church.
We acknowledge that the word of God is good.
May it be truly like a sword that comes into us and divides light from darkness this morning. Lord, as we looked at last week, we want to grow up. We want to grow in you. We don’t want to be static. We don’t want to pretend. We don’t want to fake. We don’t want to be stuck in a place of lukewarmness. So we invite your word. As much as it is comforting, comfort us. As much as it is challenging, challenge us today.
And as much as it is good for us, and we know that it is, we just say that your word is right about everything it says. And we know that you are good. Your love endures forever and ever. And everything you do is for our good. So we surrender to you as we read this morning. We say yes.
And Lord, we ask that through the power of your spirit, you would plow the field of our hearts. It would be soft soil so that the seed of your word could land and bear lots of good, beautiful fruit. We trust that what you’re doing is good in our lives.
As we’re praying this morning, I feel there’s some of us, it’s just this morning, your prayer is, Lord, I trust that what you’re doing in my life is for good. Again, I receive your work, rather than resist it.
So, Spirit of God, come and teach us.
Give us ears to hear you. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen. All right, let’s read Ephesians chapter 4, starting at verse 17.
This I say, therefore, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles walk, and the futility of their mind being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that’s in them, because of the hardness of their heart. 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’ve heard him and 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 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.
Therefore, laying aside falsehoods, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Be angry and yet don’t sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger. Do not give the devil an opportunity. Let him who steals, steal no longer, but rather let him labor, performing with his own hands what is good, in order that he may have something to share with him who has need.
Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, that it might give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice, yes, in the name of Jesus. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has forgiven you. Wow, what a great passage. So he’s speaking to the church, and he challenges them. Isn’t this challenging? It’s challenging to us.
Lord, may we experience that. And he’s challenging them to live in a very different life. And I want to just remind us this morning, if you were here at the beginning of this series, you remember that the book of Ephesians was written to the Ephesians and to us. And the Ephesians, we looked in Acts chapter 18 and 19 a little bit, And we remember the history of that church was that it was a church steeped in pagan ritual. The culture of it was just, it was controlled by this polytheistic Greek worship. And we just talked about some of the things that involved. It involved magic and spells and worship of idols and just grotesque sacrifices and rituals that was part of their worship. So when he says to them, hey, you were this way, but now you’re this way, He’s speaking to people.
These guys didn’t grow up in church all their life. They weren’t squeaky clean people. They were just like you and I. They were fighting through the mire and the muck of life, trying to walk on the narrow road in a world that just throws everything at you, trying to suffocate you and make it difficult to follow Christ. And so the context he’s giving them, again, I just want to remind us that when he talks about it, he says, guys, you’re not like this anymore. Now you’re like this. He’s talking to these people who literally went through a 180-degree transformation and choice to follow Christ.
And we, I think, today are no different. The circumstances are different for us, but at the heart of it, we are no different. So a few challenges and encouragements from this passage. The first is to remember what we’ve left behind. The first is to remember what we left behind, verses 17 through 19. First question for you today. Have you left anything behind for Christ?
Just think about it. Maybe for you it was a day ago, or maybe it was 50 years ago. But when you follow Christ, you leave something behind.
When you follow Christ, you leave something behind. If you haven’t left anything behind, I would question if you are following Christ. Because when we follow Christ, we have left something behind. In verse 17, he says, I affirm this with the Lord, no longer walk in the way the Gentiles do. And he describes what that is like. He’s saying, as we looked at last week, you’ve grown up, so you’re going to be different.
And I would just say to you, there’s many stories in this room that I’m aware of, of people that just in the last few months or year, you’ve gone through an amazing transformation. For example, I was talking to someone not long ago, and they told me that two people actually in this church, that there was a very, very addictive habit that they’d given up, and they’ve been free of that for about a year, and just how amazing that was. And I just thought, that’s huge. It’s huge to be able to have something that maybe you did for 10 or 15 years, and then you’re not doing anymore and going forward. That is newness of life. It’s leaving something behind. And the word he uses here in verse 17 is he says, no, you walk no longer as the Gentiles walk. So this is not a passive thing. It’s an active thing. He’s talking about something that we actively do. There’s a choice involved in this. And then in verse 18 and 19, he goes and he describes, it’s so horrible. Verse 18 and 19 are awful, sad verses because he’s describing the kind of life that we often come out of to follow Christ. And I’m just going to read it to you again.
Being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that’s in them, because of the hardness of their heart, they became callous and gave themselves over to sensuality and impurity and greed of every kind. And that is a sad, dark, dark place to get. This idea of callousness, that we can be in a place because we reject God and we just take everything the world wants to feed us. And what happens is the word he uses here is callous. And this is a word we also find, I believe it’s in the book of 1 Timothy, when he talks about how a person’s heart can become calloused over these things. And, you know, look at your hands. If you’re someone who works outside, you might have calluses on your hands or maybe, you know, on your feet.
Maybe your heel has a big callus on it from walking around barefoot or walking around in flip-flops or sandals. This is when skin builds up and creates a hard layer. Maybe you have it on your knees if you’ve ever done tile work, you know. But it’s when the skin builds a hard layer that no longer has a lot of feeling and it protects you. And in the same way that word is given to us, that that can happen to your heart. If we willingly take in and walk in this path that is these things that we’re reading here about sensuality and impurity and greediness and every other thing, that a callous can form on our heart and we sort of turn off the voice of God, we no longer are able to hear it anymore.
I’ve, in my experience, not only my own battles, but the battles that I bear and help others fight, I’ve found three things that tend to be kind of always the big three.
and they’re always the same things.
It’s money, sex, and substances. Those are the big three things I see over and over that draw people away from God. The lure for money, more money, the things money can buy, things, possessions, maybe that’s like we could correlate this to the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, I don’t know. Sexual sin of any kind, it sucks us away from God. And then the other one is things that we put in our body, whether it’s the wrong kind of food, whether it’s too much alcohol, whether it’s a drug that is getting us.
But I was talking to my daughter the other day, and we were talking about this, and she reminded me of the story of the tar baby. Do you remember the story of the tar baby? So I’m going to read it to you, and I have a couple pictures here.
So let’s look at the first one.
Br’er Fox, the enemy of Br’er Rabbit. Do you remember this story? He builds a doll out of sticky pine tar and turpentine, dresses it in a hat and clothes, and places it by the side of the road to catch his rival, Br’er Rabbit. The rabbit comes along and politely greets the tar baby. When the figure stays silent, the rabbit gets offended by its perceived bad manners and punches the doll.
Was that a good idea? It was not. His hand gets stuck and then out of rage, he strikes it with his other limbs. The next slide.
Then he, look at the look on his face, guys.
He realizes I’m messing with something that’s not good for me, and I got to get out of here. But when we get stuck too much, it gets harder and harder. And the more he begins to try to fight it, next slide, he eventually becomes swallowed by it.
That’s okay. And he ends up like this. Now, I want to ask you to just look at that picture and remember what Paul tells us here. And this is the moment when I pray for the power of the Holy Spirit to burst through our dead, sleeping, lukewarm soul right now. That would just dismiss all this as nonsense because I want to get back to my compromised life.
And I just want to ask you the question, are you stuck in a tar baby right now? Are you stuck in the old way of life still that has got you? It’s gooped you up and you can’t get out. Because this is what happens to us, guys. And we got to stay away. And Paul is reminding us in this passage, stay away. You’re better than that. Church, I want to tell you this morning, the temptations to walk back into the wide road and throw Christ into the closet and live a lukewarm in name only faith, They will never stop coming.
In fact, I would say that even maybe the deeper you get, look at Peter who walked on water and then denied Christ. Sometimes the deeper we get in the faith, the bigger the demons get. And it never stops. The tar babies are never like not along the road. They’re always going to try to be there and get us. We can lose the slide now. Thank you. And this reminds me of the plagues of Pharaoh. There were 10 plagues.
In the five first plagues, it says that Pharaoh hardened his heart. But beginning in the sixth plague and onward, it says that God began to harden his heart. And I think that shows us the natural consequence of callousing our heart to God. It’s about consequence. If I choose over and over to ignore God, eventually the consequence of that is that my heart starts getting hardened. I’ll give you an example. If I choose over and over, we talked earlier about the temptation of sexual sin. If I choose over and over to just ignore and become casual about what pops up on my phone or on my laptop or on my iPad, what happens is something that used to bother me no longer bothers me. And then I go into something deeper, and then I become casual with that, and then that no longer bothers me.
And before long, I’m involved in some sort of gross, addictive sin that’s just got me, and I don’t even know it’s got me anymore. And it works the same with anything. This applies to overeating. It applies to drinking. It applies to drug use. It applies to our addiction to media. It applies to our addiction to validation. It applies to our addiction for attention. It applies to our addiction to our phones.
It applies to our comes on us and then the consequence of that before we know it, we don’t even recognize and fight the battle anymore. We’ve given up to it. And this is what Paul is telling the church here. He’s saying, guys, you’re not like that anymore. You have the capacity because of what Christ has done for you and the work of the Spirit in your life, the commitment you’ve made. You’re better than that. You’re not like that anymore. You can walk free of that. Isn’t that what you want? Don’t we want that? Don’t we want to be different? Don’t we want to be light and not darkness? And the capacity there is for us.
And I want to tell some of us in this room right now, some of us in this room, you feel like I’ve had a 1% or like a 2% change in my life in the last three months. I want to cheer you on. If maybe like giving money away was hard for you and you started giving money away, that is incredible. Maybe your temptation level of X sin, whatever it is, used to be here, and you’ve been trying to wake up and read your scripture, and you’ve been trying to come to church, and you’ve been trying to treat your spouse correctly or whatever it is, and you’re kind of feeling like, I feel just a little bit lighter.
And I want to tell you, if that’s the case, God is moving in your life. He’s doing something amazing. That’s not the natural tendency. The natural tendency is not to get better. The natural tendency is to devolve and let the world crust us over. So if you’re experiencing some of that revival, I want to cheer you on and say, great job. Like, keep going in that direction. It’s small and incremental, but it happens. The next part of the passage we’re looking at, the point I want to make is that action is required. Lay aside that and put on this in verse 20 through 24.
Did you ever buy anything from Timu? Who’s bought a Timu?
I think I’ve unknowingly bought some Timu.
Some assembly required, right? And the screws don’t fit and the, you know, the holes don’t line up. And it’s some assembly required, isn’t it? Well, that’s how the Christian faith is. It is some assembly required.
He says in verse 22, you have to lay aside this thing. And in verse 24, you have to put on this thing. And I don’t know about you, but as I was reading this, I was thinking, boy, Paul, thank you. It really is comforting to me that he’s telling this church years later, hey, guys, it’s going to be work. Doesn’t that give you encouragement? Like, God does not expect us to just have everything together. There’s going to be, it’s going to be a battle. He’s reminding them to put one thing aside and pick up another thing. But renewal will never happen if we keep the old on. Renewal will never happen.
Some of us are wondering, why is my faith not progressing? Why do I feel numb to God right now? How long will this man keep talking? Why don’t I ever grow in Christ? Why am I back the same place I was a year ago? I’m going to tell you the reason. Paul tells us right here in verse 22. You have to lay aside the old. You have to. You can’t worship Christ and Belial, it says in Corinthians.
You can’t concurrently worship God and money, it says in Luke. You have to lay aside. There’s action. God will not coddle and baby you and tap you forever. Like we looked at last week, we must grow up. And that involves action on our part. It’s a choice to say, I’m going to lay aside this thing that is not good for me. And some of us in this room, if you’re struggling to grow, and right now you wish you hadn’t come, because I’m getting all up in your business, but I’m telling you, it’s the best thing for you. It’s the best thing for you, and it’s the best thing for me.
I’m not telling you anything that I don’t tell myself all the time. If I’m not growing, it’s because I’m choosing to stay in the old. I’ve chosen not to lay aside the old. I want the new. It’s attractive to me. I want to put on Christ. I want to put on purity. I want to put on holiness. I want to put on kindness. I want to put on generosity, but I can’t do that because I’ve chosen to hang on to the old, and I’m not leaving it.
And the Lord says, I’m not going there. I’m not going to go there when you’re wanting both. That’s a lukewarm, fake, pretend Christian. So we have to make a choice to take the old off, to put the new on. And I love in verse 22, a little phrase here he uses. He says, in reference to your former manner of life. And so it’s neat how these little phrases here, in reference, what he’s saying, he’s saying, hey guys, remember all that junk you’re dealing with from your former life? And I would tell you in this room again, I want to speak to your soul. If there’s storms and waves that you’re struggling through, that’s good.
Paul says it. He says in reference to the old you. I’m teaching you to lay that aside. He’s saying, I know it’s there, and I know you’re fighting, and the fact that you’re fighting it is amazing. The fact that you’re in a battle at all is incredible because you’re choosing to acknowledge that I want to take this one thing away from me, and I want to find something new that’s better.
I want to put a quote on the wall, a little story, and read this to you. This is another conversation. You know when you have kids, and your kids at some point get a lot smarter than you? I don’t know if it’s that I just forget things, but my kids’ minds are fresh. And my daughter was studying some fables and folk stories in school, and she told me about this story, so I asked her to send it to me. I’m going to read it to you. One cold night as the little Arab sat in his tent, his camel thrust the tent flap aside. I pray thee, Master, the camel asked, to let me put my head within, for it is cold. By all means and welcome, said the Arab.
The camel stretched his head into the tent. If I might but warm my neck also, he said presently. Put your neck inside, said the Arab. Soon the camel was turning his head from side to side.
It would take a little room if I put my front legs in within the tent.
He puts his front legs in. The Arab moves away. You may also put your legs in, said the Arab, moving to make room, for the tent was small. May I not stand wholly within, asked the camel. Finally, I keep the tent open by standing as I do. Yes, yes, said the Arab. You can be warm and well, as well as myself. So the camel crowded into the tent, but the tent was too small. I think, said the camel, there is not room for both of us. It will be best for you to stand outside, as you are the smaller.
And with a push the little Arab made haste to get out. It is a wise rule to resist the beginnings of evil. Guys, you have a tent, okay? You are a house and in your house is a soul and there are other things trying to get in there.
And the moral of the story is don’t even let it put its head in because after the head comes the body, the front legs, the whole thing and then it kicks you out of your own soul, and you become owned by someone else.
And when Paul tells us here, take off the old and put on the new, he’s telling us, you are made for something else. God has something better for you. So put it on. Well, how do we do this? Well, the last section of this, unfortunately for us, we can lose the picture. Thank you. But fortunately for us, you might say, well, this all sounds great. I realize I had an old way of life, and Christ is calling me out of that. And guys, I want to just like let us not realize it’s not a situation where God is ever scolding. I’ve never felt the scolding voice of the Lord. I remember as a brand new Christian, I was talking to a friend who was kind of a mentor of me. And, you know, take this for what you would. It may not mean anything to you.
Or it may. And I was telling him about all my struggles and sins, and I said, I just feel like God is so disappointed with me. And he said, Jeff, God doesn’t experience disappointment with you. Now, that doesn’t mean that he is not grieved by bad behavior, but disappointment is when someone says, I said you’d be this way and you weren’t, so now I’m very upset with you. And I don’t think in the personality of God that sort of shaming exists. And I remember for me that was a turning point of understanding I can grieve the heart of the Father, but He’s always cheering me on. His love is always there. He never lays shame on top of me when I fail. Instead, He lays invitation. And it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t grieve his heart, but he’s always for me. He’s never doing this sort of thing at me. That was very pivotal for me to understand that.
And so when Paul says these things to this church and to us, it’s not to shame us. It’s to tell us, guys, you’re made for something amazing. And the opportunity’s there if you’ll grab it. And so he begins this talking about what we’ve left behind. And then he talks about laying aside one thing and putting on another thing. And then he goes into seven or eight verses that just talk about some really practical things. And you might say, well, what in the world does all these practical things have to do with putting on the new self?
Well, that’s the answer. These practical things have everything to do with the new self. See, it’s not like this. I come to church. I get zapped by the Holy Spirit. Worship was wonderful. Oh, I’m so full, and now I’ll go out and it’ll all be easy. Is that how it is for you? Heck no. Here’s how it is for me.
I come to church. I get zapped. Worship is wonderful. I hug all my friends. I get good coffee. It’s uplifting. I hear a message. It’s pretty good sometimes. I’m motivated. I’m inspired.
I’m convicted. I get dosed up with the Holy Ghost. I leave, and then I have to do something about it. Action is required. So what Paul’s saying here, he says, all these things are true for you, and here’s the nitty-gritty of where it’s worked out. And he just gives us a few, five or six ideas here that I think are sort of a litmus test of this is what it looks like. And the interesting thing, guys, is that everything we’re about to look at as we close this passage, it’s all about the context of relationships.
In other words, me putting on Christ is going to be best proven in the way I treat other human beings. Did you know that?
Our Christian faith is best proven in the way we treat others. And our Christian faith is best disproven by the way we treat others. That’s why it’s important to be very careful about what you say on social media. Everything in this next little section has to do with unity. In verse 25, he says, lay aside falsehood, speak truth, each of you, for you are members of one another. So this idea of truth and lying is a very important thing. And he even goes far to say, he says, speak truth because you’re members of one another. In other words, you guys are interfaced. And when person one lies, it affects person number two because you’re part of each other. And that’s especially important in a family, and it’s especially important in a marriage.
If lying and deception and hiding starts becoming part of it, you think you’re protecting the person, but you’re hurting them. He says you’re members of one another. So when we speak truth, we encourage one another. When we lie, we hurt each other. Then he goes into verse 26 and 27. Be angry and don’t sin, nor let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity. I wrote this in the margin of my Bible. I read this once.
It says, those who lie down in malice make the devil their bedfellow. That’s kind of scary, right? He says, don’t let the sun go down in your anger because when you do, you’re inviting the devil into your bed. He’s going to sleep with you all night. Scary thought. And the opportunity the devil takes is that he wants to steal away the new of you and he wants to put the old right back on you. Then he goes into verse 28. He talks about another very practical thing. He contrasts the person that steals with the person that contributes. And that’s another question for us.
Am I a taker or am I a giver? And then in the final part of this, he goes into speech and he talks about unwholesome words, not speaking unwholesome words, and rather giving grace to one another. He talks in verse 31 and 32 about divisive behaviors. I mean, look at verse 31 and maybe apply the golden rule to this. Treat others as you wish to be treated. Well, he says, if you want to walk in the newness of life, then we have to forsake the bitterness we might have to others.
Let’s talk about that for half an hour.
Don’t worry, we won’t, but we could. All the bitterness that we store up for other people, wrath, anger, clamor, slander, malice, he says, put all those things away from you. And, you know, just those words in verse 31 are things that most of us in this room have dealt with probably in the last day. You’ve maybe dealt with some of those things. And the thing about us, I think a lot of times, is that we want a spectacular way to find God. As I said before, we want a new book. We want a conference or retreat, some way that I’m going to go and I’m just going to get a mega dose from God because this person’s going to be speaking or maybe this musician or this worship leader or this building or this venue. And we chase those things. And the reason is we want to be stimulated out of choosing to not sin. It really is true. We want a high, like we want a Jesus drug that will get us and lift us up for a time so we don’t have to do the hard work of everything Paul is saying here. He’s saying this is hard. It’s not hard to go to a conference. It’s like smoking, you know, weed. It’s real easy, and you just zone out, okay? You go to a conference, you hear someone present someone who’s a great speaker or musician, and you get stimulated. That’s not hard. It’s fun, right? What’s hard is to not be angry at that jerk face that you want to punch, right? That’s the hard thing. It’s hard not to be bitter. It’s hard not to hold anger. It’s hard to forgive. And Paul is saying these are the choices that we’re called to make. And I would just encourage you as we close that the reality, as I look at the end of this passage when Paul talks about putting on the new self, is that God is found in the mundane choices. He’s found in the little choices. I’m choosing to forgive. I’m choosing not to be bitter.
And I’ll close with a story. I’ve shared this a few years ago, and I’ll share it again. Maybe you remember it if you were here. This is not gold. It looks like it, though. And this is a a hinge I found one day. I was, years ago, I was reading in the, one of those Old Testament books that you kind of read half of it, and then you find out that you’ve been asleep. You know those ones, Leviticus and Numbers, those hard ones? And I was reading in the book, and it was talking about the, actually, I think it was in Kings, one of those books, and it was talking about Solomon’s designed for the temple. Have you read that? Plog through that stuff. It’s great stuff. And it talks about the pomegranates. There were 24 pomegranates carved of wood, and there were porpoise skins, and there were these wooden carved angels overlaid with gold, and there was the altar of incense, and there was the Holy of Holies, and the inner chamber, and this is all the garments that the priests wore. They had all these beautiful jewels and stones, and they had different scriptures written on them, and it was just stunning to see. And it just goes into minute detail about the temple of God and what it looked like. And one of the things I noticed in there one day is it was talking about the doors, and they plated the doors with gold, and then it went to the door handles and the door hinges. And it said the door hinges will be plated with gold, maybe even made with I don’t remember. And I remember just closing my Bible. I underlined it, and I was like, Lord, this is the dumbest thing you could ever tell me. What in the world am I supposed to get out of the door hinges are made of gold? I mean, who notices door hinges? I mean, how often do you guys look at the door hinges? Did you look at your door hinges this morning when you went to your bathroom? No. You looked at yourself in the mirror. When you walked into the church, did you notice the door hinges? No. We don’t notice door hinges. We never, ever think about them. And I remember just thinking, you know, not really mad at God, but just thinking, what? You’re so mysterious. Why are door hinges made of gold? And then it just occurred to me, the reason is that God notices what no one else notices. In fact, I think He cares about the things that maybe we think no one cares about. He cares about the little things. He doesn’t care about the size of this church. He doesn’t care about how good worship was. He doesn’t care about how you or I feel when we leave here. He doesn’t care about whether or not we all sang, or I don’t think he cares much about how big or small the offering was. We care about those kinds of things.
You know what he cares about? He cares about those small, small issues. Is my heart kind? Is my heart filled with bitterness and anger, or is it surrendered? Am I a forgiving person? Guys, that’s what matters in the church. All that other stuff is secondary. So as I looked at that passage, and I just said, Lord, why are these gold hinges, this thing that no one notices? Why do they have to be made of gold? And his answer, I felt him saying, was because I notice. I notice those things, the things no one else notices.
So not long after that, I was at Lowe’s or Home Depot, and I saw this, and I just bought it. This was $6,000, by the way. I’m kidding. It was like $4. As a reminder of, just to remind myself that God is found in the small decisions, and putting on Christ happens, and we grow as we choose to follow Him in those ways. So guys, be encouraged. There is more for us. The Lord is calling us out of our former way of life. If you’re struggling this morning, you are who this message is for, if you’re struggling.
If you’re not struggling, I would say that’s wonderful. Make sure you have a pulse and make sure you’re awake. Because a lot of times we’re not struggling because we’ve just completely ignored God and we’re just phoning it in. But if we are, then God, I think that He’s so pleased because you’re the exact person this message was written for.
He’s calling us out of dark and into light. Put on the new. Amen.
