EPHESIANS OUTLINE #26 of 35

EPHESIANS 4

I. The elevating effects of Grace (15-16)

A. In the human body there are certain channels by which the life flows from the head to the members.

1. Even so. there are certain divinely appointed means by which Christ distributes His life to His Church.

(a) The channel by which His life is communicated is found in verses 11-12.

(b) The life of Jesus comes to us in a very concrete way. We often think of it in a very abstract way.

(c) The life of Jesus Christ is communicated in a very simple and practical manner.

(d) Your pastor, the evangelist, is to the believing body the direct means of grace.

(e) However, the believer tn that body doing the work of ministry also convey the life of Jesus to the

other members.

(f) This is especially true of the life of Jesus reaching out into the community of lost people.

2. Wherever I as your pastor fail, the life of this body is in that measure hindered

(a) Whenever you as a believer in this body fail to exercise your gift to the building up of your brother believers. the life of Jesus to others is in that measure checked.

(b) Do you find it a serious matter when you consider that you well could be the clog in the trans-

mission of Jesus life to His church.

B. All is well when things are working well (16)

1. Note that each member doing his or her part makes the body grow and develop in sacrificial and self-giving love

(a) To do that we must he fitly joined (closely joined) and compacted (knit together).

(b) This togetherness cores about through the effectual working (energy) of His life.

(c) This life torte is to every part, each member is imbedded with that like.

(d) The result of this close knit fellowship sharing the life of Jesus is a body of believers building itself In the sphere of love.

II. The divisive element of carnality (17-22)

A. Paul in these verses describes the effects of yielding to the old life.

B. A hardened heart.

1. The word Paul uses (porosia) It come from the word (poros) which was a stone harder than marble

(a) It was used in medicine for the chalk stone which can form in the joints.

(b) It was also used of the callus that forms when a bone is broken and reset.

(c) Finally tile word came to mean the loss of sensation

(d) It describes something so hardened so petrified it has no power to feel at all.

2. The terror of sin is Its petrifying effect.

(a) No person ever becomes a great sinner all at once.

(b) At first sin bothers the conscience and we fail to heed its call. Finally, we can do the most

shameful things without any feeling at all.

(c) What has happened to that person, His conscience has been petrified (Heb. 3:7, 8, 12, 13).

C. A lustful mind (19)

1. Paul says that they had abandoned themselves to lasciviousness (insatiable lust).

(a) Basil defined this word as a disposition of the soul incapable of bearing the pain of discipline

(b) Plato defined as the attitude of impudence.

(e) Impudence is characterized by rudeness. insulting, arrogant, sarcastic. haughty, offensive. obnox-

ious.

2. The man who has this spirit does not care how much he shocks public opinion.

(a) He does not care how much he defies and insults all decency as long as he tan gratify his desires.

(b) Most people have enough decency to hide their sins.

(e) This person does not care who sees his shame as long as he gets what he wants.

(d) Godless living can so master you that you lose your sense of natural shame and become like

brute beasts.

3. A greedy spirit 19)

(a) The Christ less man lives to fulfill his sensual desires.

(b) This word greediness has been defined as that spirit in a person which will sacrifice his own

friends, even relatives, in order to get what he wants.

(c) It is that irresistible desire to have what we have no right to have.

(d) It is that spirit in a person who does not care who is hurt just as long as I get what I want.

D. In summary (Paul sees three things in Godless world)

1. He sees people with a heart so hard, so petrified, they are not even aware they are sinning.

2. He saw people so dominated so controlled by their sin that they had lost their sense of shame and

decency..

3. He saw people so greedy that they did not care whose life they injured so long as they got what they wanted

4. Aren't these the very sins invading our world today?

5. Paul urges believers to beware and begone from this kind of live.

6. He exhorts them to put off their old way of life and put on the new (22-23).

III. The attributes of an undisciplined mind (23, 25-29)

A. We have been admonished to put off the old and put on the new person which is after God. (After God means that God Himself is the pattern).

1. He makes distinct contrasts between the two.

(a) Lying is contrasted with truth (25)

(b) Anger is contrasted with forgiveness (26)

(c) Theft with benefaction (28)

(d) Corrupt speech with edifying words (29)

(e) Bitterness with love (31-32)

(f) Malice with kindness (31-32)

2. Let's consider each of them individually.

B. Lying

1. "He says! Accustom your children constantly to this (the telling of the truth); if a thing happened at one window, and they! when relating it. say that It happened at another, do not let it pass. hut instantly check them; you do not know where deviation from truth will end ... It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world. It was Dr. Johnson's view that we must accustom ourselves to make a deliberate resolve and attempt to tell the truth. It is easy to embroider the details of a story".