Worldliness is not a battle that is unique only to the contemporary church. Every church in every age has faced the temptation to accommodate the world. As one example, take a letter written by John Newton to another pastor —
…the progress of wickedness amongst the unconverted here is awful. Convictions repeatedly stifled in many, have issued in a hardness and boldness in sinning which, I believe, is seldom found but in those places where the light of the Gospel has been long resisted and abused.
In other words, Newton’s ministry was in a world where the world seemed to him particularly perverse with hardened and bold sinners. He could be writing about our own day.
His testimony serves to reinforce Paul’s words not to live like the unbelieving (Gentiles). There is nothing good and everything bad to be expected when a believer lives like an unbeliever.
Having concluded our examination of Ephesians 4:17-19, let me offer some implications from this passage:
- The descent into worldliness is through the degradation of the mind; the ascent into holiness is conversely through the transformation of the mind. This is why we quote verses like Romans 12:1-2 and 2 Cor. 10:4-5.
- Be ignorant about the world. There are some things we just shouldn’t know (like the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden).
- Cultivate a heart of grief and sorrow over sin (especially your own sin); don’t be callous.
- It is possible for a believer to live like an unbeliever. The temptation is real; recognize it.
- Sin will never provide ultimate satisfaction and sin will always demand more sin. Sin will always take you further than you want to go, cost you more than you want to pay, and provide less (nothing!) than you hope for.
- There is power for the believer not to live like an unbeliever. Unlike an unbeliever, you do not have to sin any longer. This is Paul’s confidence in 4:20 — “but you did not learn Christ in this way…”
- When you are counseling an unbeliever or a believer trapped in sin, they are there because that is what they want. No matter their protestations, that sin is their choice; in their greedy hearts — at the moment of decision — that’s what they want. You must exhort them from that perspective.
- When you see an unbeliever ensnared in a worldly lifestyle, have the same kind of pity on him that Christ had on you — they need to hear the truth of grace and hope just as we all did.
- If you see believers living like unbelievers, they need the gospel. If they are trapped in the temptations of the culture, they need that same gospel as unbelievers, applied to their hearts on a daily basis.
The temptation of the world is around us everywhere. The culture is no safe place to find rest. Our flesh is ever prone to succumbing to worldly desires. Yet this truth supersedes all those statements: Christ’s death and resurrection is enough to pay for the penalty of our sin and provide the power to resist that sin. In Christ, we have what we need to live separately from the world, even while we remain living in this world.
Words of Grace 