Hello, friend, and welcome back!
In lesson 14, we learned from Ephesians 4:29, the importance of speaking words that build up and give grace to those around us. We learned that our words flow out of what is in our hearts and understood that if we want to transform our speech, we must fill our hearts with the gospel truth of Jesus who is pure and lovely. Finally, we learned that we could speak words of life to our spouse by centering our conversation in the gospel.
Gospel-centered speech is loving, kind, compassionate, hope-filled, and restoring just as Christ’s death on the cross was an act of love, kindness, and compassion which provided hope to a lost and dying world and restored us to a right relationship with the Father. But this manner of speaking does not come naturally to anyone; it is a supernatural way of communicating.
By nature, we all respond to our circumstances according to the flesh. When someone sins against us, perhaps we say mean things, give the cold shoulder, deliver dirty looks, bang pots and pans, or withhold affection; this is how the flesh responds to offenses. But as followers of Christ, we are called to walk in the gracious Spirit of Jesus. So, for these next several lessons, we will focus on identifying what needs to change and how to make the change.
We will study the biblical principle of putting off sinful actions and responses and putting on gospel-centered actions and reactions. Jesus put off His righteousness and put on our sin so that we might be made right with God. In response, we must put off our sinful ways and put on His righteousness.
Please read Ephesians 4:17-24 and answer the questions that follow:
“Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”
Writing to the Church in Ephesus, Paul describes the Gentiles or unbelievers as hard-hearted, dark-minded, ignorant, separated from God living futile lives of impurity. And it is into this unbelieving way that we are all born. And the sad part is that even after we come to faith and new life in Christ, we might still act or live like unbelievers.
When I first found out about my husband’s sin, I reacted to the news as an unbeliever with anger and frustration. I responded to my husband’s sin as a woman of fear, not faith. I was self-centered, devoid of grace and mercy.
Question 1. What about you? Can you remember a time when you lived or acted in a way that an unbeliever might? Please share.
Log in / create an account to enroll or continue where you left off.
Clearly, the Church at Ephesus was struggling in this area too because Paul writes, “You must no longer walk as the Gentiles...that’s not the way you learned Christ!”
Question 2. According to Ephesians 4:22-24, what are we to do?