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Holy Trinity Anglican Orthodox Church
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Before and After |
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Ephesians
4:17-32 Nineteenth
Sunday after Trinity October
18, 2009
One of the most popular advertising techniques is the "before
and after" method. It can take the form of testimonials; "Before
I took ate, drank, used, smoked, read, knew, did, drove, or watched XYZ I
was sick, poor, unknown, out of shape, ugly, unpopular, and ... rode the
bus. But after I took ate,
drank, used, smoked, read, knew, did, drove, or watched XYZ I became
healthy, rich, famous, fit, beautiful, handsome, popular, "faster
than a speeding bullet and able to leap tall buildings with a single
bound.'" Even better
than the testimonial method is the before and after picture method, which
has evolved into the infomercial method.
"This is me before trying XYZ; this is me after."
Most of the "actual, unretouched 'before'" photos are
dark and blurry, while the "after" pictures just happen to be
clear and bright. Imagine
that. Of course the photos are getting better due to computer
enhancement and computer graphics. They
can do almost anything with a computer these days, which is why, today,
photographs and videos don't prove anything. And even if the photos are
genuine, we know she didn't get that way by eating XYZ.
So we're a bit skeptical of the "before and after"
approach. But here's one you
can take to Heaven. Ephesians
is a before and after that cannot be falsified and doesn't need to be
because it chronicles the radical and complete transformation of the
entire person by the grace of God.
The "before" part isn't pretty.
It is, in fact, "ugly as sin."
It is sin. We can summarize
it in the words of Romans 3:23, "all have sinned."
We could also put it this way; all are sinners.
"All have sinned." That means all of us in this room and
on this planet, including you, are sinners.
We are by nature fundamentally opposed to God. That is not just my opinion; it is the testimony of
Scripture. "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his
own way" (Is. 53:6). We're
doing life our way instead of God's way, and that is the essence of sin.
I know some people who say, "I'm not bad.
I do good things, I help the needy, I go to church, I do religious
things. I'm not a sinner.
I'm good." Listen,
even your good things are bad if you're not doing them for the right
reason. Anything not done
from Biblical faith is sin (Rom. 14:23).
Even your prayers are bad if you're not right with God in your
heart. If your heart is bad,
everything is bad, and one of the main points the Bible is trying to drive
home; which it repeats and restates time after time after time is that
your heart is bad. "And
God saw that the wickedness of man was very great in the earth, and that
every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil
continually" Gen. 6:5). "The heart is
deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"
(Jer. 17:9). "Their foolish
heart was darkened" (Rom. 1:21).
And, from the Epistle Lesson for today, "Having
the understanding darkened, being alienated from God through the ignorance
that is in them because of the blindness of their heart," (Eph.
4:18). That is the Bible's
picture of a person "Before" Christ.
Sinners by nature and by choice; alienated from God; under the
wrath of God; blind, ignorant; and as Ephesians 2:1 puts it, "dead
in trespasses and sins."
Why does the Bible spend so much time on this point?
Because it is so hard for us to accept.
Because we don't get it. Because
we can never really know God until we first recognise that we don't know
Him. Because until we understand the "bad news" the
Gospel of Christ can never be "Good News" it will only be
information, or, data. Because
until we see ourselves in the "before" picture we will never see
ourselves in the "after" picture.
So the Bible tells us what we were before Christ, and it is bad. But as bad as the "before" picture is, the
"after" picture is that good and better.
All of these old things, the rebellion, the going our own way
instead of God's, the hardness and blindness and deadness of our hearts,
are gone. We have put off the
old, the corrupt, and the sinful; and we have put on a new person, which,
in the likeness of God, is created in righteousness and true holiness (Eph
4:20-24). We have put away
lying, and now we speak the truth. We
no longer allow anger to cause us to sin.
We have put away theft and replaced it with honest work and giving.
Our conversation is edifying, ministering grace rather than
offense. We have put away all
bitterness and wrath and anger, all evil speaking, and all malice.
We have replaced them with kindness, tenderheartedness, and a
forgiving attitude. We have
all done this and are excelling
in it more and more each day, right?
Well, at least we're working at it. But here's the point.
The point is not that in doing these things we make ourselves in
any way acceptable to God. We
can't do that. Only Christ
can make us acceptable because He was punished for our sins.
It is not to gain God's favour that we do these things; we do them
because He has already given us His favour.
Because we have received Christ as our Lord and Saviour we will no
longer live as the heathen live. We
have been made into a new kind of
person, by the grace of God. And
we will live
as new people created in righteousness and true holiness, "by God's
help" ("Holy Baptism," 1928
Book of Common Prayer, p. 278).
Now the question is; how does this new life become a reality in us?
How do we stop walking in the former ways, the "before"
picture, and start living in the new life of the "after"
picture? The answer is found
in Ephesians 4:23, "be renewed
in the spirit of your mind."
The beginning of our new life is that moment, when, by the grace of
God, we finally understand our need for the Saviour, and trust Him with
our lives and souls forever. This
moment goes by many names; conversion, being born again, salvation, and
accepting Christ, to name but a few.
But one of the best terms for it is, "transformation,"
for it is the culmination of the work of the Holy Spirit in which God
changes us in our inner essence from
rebels against God to willing
subjects of God. It is this
change in our being that causes us to stop trying to be our own gods and
start acknowledging and loving God as our God.
It is this transformation of our nature and essence which takes us
out of the "before" picture and places us firmly and forever in
the "after" picture."
But this transformation is not the end of the Christian life: it is
the beginning. And what
Ephesians is talking about in our Epistle Lesson is not only the initial
transformation of conversion; but also the continuing transformation of
our minds by the daily renewing of the Holy Spirit.
This continuing renewal is first of all a decision to allow God to
continue to transform your mind and spirit.
It is a conscious willingness to be renewed.
But there is a second part, for being transformed is no mere
passive operation. It includes our active participation, and our
participation includes the daily engagement and commitment of all our
faculties of mind and spirit to intentionally live in the
"after" picture. This
requires a constant striving, a strenuous effort, to put off the old
person of corruption and sin. That
means to drive it away, to reject it, to renounce it, and to take it off
and throw it away like filthy clothing.
It also means to put on the new person, a new essence of
righteousness and holiness, like putting on new clothes.
It is to dress yourself in the righteousness of God.
And this putting off of the old and dressing yourself in the new is
to be a daily effort, a continuing effort, and a pattern of life every for
as long as God is pleased to leave you in this life.
God grant us grace so to live. Amen.
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