This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanliness with greediness. Let us pray. Father, we ask that you would open our eyes and ears, that you would lead us in the truth, that you would cause us to walk as Christ would have us walk, that we would cease walking in the lie of who we once were, that we would walk as we are now in truth. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Too often and too many times, Christians look at the world with a judgment, a judging eye and say, wow, I'm so glad I'm not that person or like that. Well, welcome to Pharisees 101. Because what happens is Christians forget that they too were once the same. And you're like, but I was born in the church and I don't remember a time. In your crib, you were that. Yes, you didn't have the ability to express it in the open sin and rebellion that we see in the world, but a newborn at 3 a.m. is all about the greediness of the flesh. corruption is there from day one. The chief thing you should see when you look at a lost person is one who is dead. They are dead. And what do dead people do? They fester. They're not, they're not acting Yes, it seems rebellious, and it is rebellious against God, but it is a rebellion rooted in the fact that every thought in their heart was only evil continuously because they are dead in their trespasses and sins, as you once were. We don't have time for the nonsense of eternal justification that, oh, if you're a Christian, you were born. No, you weren't. You were born loving sin and hating God. And that, This would be a great time to segue into why we should be evangelizing. But that's not where Paul's going, so we're going to constrain ourselves to what Paul's doing. When you see a non-Christian, you need to see someone enslaved to their sins, enslaved to the world, enslaved to the devil, as you once were. They are not your enemies. We wrestle not against flesh and blood. They are not even the ones who will cause you the most pain. I know I have suffered much more at the hands of Christians than I have ever suffered at the hands of worldlings. Those enslaved are subject to their sin. It is important to remember that Paul is not describing some group of people way over yonder. In this text, he is describing Christians who are living as if they still were that. He is prohibiting You were born again. You were born again, no longer having, as you once did, a darkened understanding. You were born alienated from God. You were born ignorant. You were born where your heart was blind. You were fast feeling. You were given over to lewdness, and you worked all uncleanliness with greediness. That you once were, but now that you are in Christ, Stop it, in the immortal words of Bob Newhart. It's not open for debate. That's what you were, and there's the temptation to go back. And for each one of us, those are the general categories. Your own species of sin is going to be different. So I can't say, oh, it's this, it's that, because every one of us has different ones that so easily ensnare us. And part of not no longer walking in those things as Paul exhorts here means you have to remember that you were that and you're no longer that. Remember that your identity is now in Christ, not whatever group you wish to somehow suggest you were once part of. You are in Christ. You are a new creation. And Paul's point here is to remind you, you are no longer that and stop living a lie. Notice, as I mentioned last week, the first 16 chapters of chapter 4 set up the rest of the letter. And now he's telling you, and he's going to come back to this command of walk, walk, walk in a manner worthy, don't walk this way, walk this way, because there is conduct yourself or something. I can't remember exactly. It's it's wordy but the idea here is walk is talking about your behavior. You know, the old saying is don't just talk and talk. Walk the walk. Walk the walk. Here, Paul is going to use this repeatedly. If you are no longer a child because the other side is remember, we're being built up in the maturity of Christ and to To live in this way is to live as a child, and you are to live and stop living as a child, cross to and fro, but you are to walk as a child of God. And so, this evening, we're just gonna look at what is the Gentile walk, and briefly, the Christian walk, because we're going to get more at, not only what it is, but how Christ informs it, Lord willing, next time. So, let's look at this passage. Let's look at these verses. And really, this is kind of, if you will, a dry run of what Paul's gonna develop much further in Romans 1, 18 and following. It's the same thing. There is much more specificity. If you wanna see what's going on in the world around about you, you read Romans 1, 18, 19. because of fill in the sin, you know, of homosexuality or greed or whatnot there. Well, Romans one eighteen and following particular twenty-eight to thirty-two tells us that's not telling you that that the wrath of god is fixing to come. That is the wrath of god. You're you're just going to read this from Paul. Romans one eight twenty-eight to thirty-two. One twenty-eight to thirty-two. Even as God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting, being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness. They are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, who, knowing the righteous judgment of God that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same, but also approve of those who practice them." So each time you as one who have been brought from death to life in Jesus Christ, who have been made a new creature, each time you're malicious, each time you're wicked, each time you're covetous, each time you're disobedient to parents, each time you're untrustworthy, unloving, etc. you are living a lie of who you once were under the wrath of God. It doesn't put you under, but it's that original, that remaining corruption bursting out, living a lie. Not living the truth of who you are in Christ Jesus. What's more, when a Gentile, Gentiles, that's like saying, it's hot on a summer day in Wichita Falls. but if you are no longer a Gentile, because remember, Paul has three categories of humanity and it's really two. Jews, Gentiles are just two groups that are part of the unsaved and those who are in Christ. And once you're in Christ, you're no longer what you once were. And so, to use a word from this morning, you're LARPing like you're still what you were. And so, let's just look at how Paul's gonna break this down, what it is that you are to flee from, what you are to no longer do, and the futility of their mind. Notice, like we talked last week, last week he did it differently. The first 16 verses, the singular, he was talking about those who are united to Christ. The plural, he was talking about those who continue in their sins. But here, he's going to flip the script a little bit and talk about that there's this kind of high mind amongst Gentiles. amongst those who are dead in their trespasses and sins. For those of us of a certain age, it's like a pack of teenagers going through a mall. There's one mind that directs them and it's not really got anything going on in between the ears. It's just going. That is the dysfunctional mind that Paul has in mind here. The Gentiles are a body, a dysfunctional body, marching to hell with nothing going on between the ears of any substance. As Ecclesiastes describes, the mind of the Gentile is set on those things that are barren, incapable of fruitfulness, that the tiniest wind will blow away. You know, vanity of vanities? The word translated vanity is actually breath. Breath of breath, it's just breath. It's gone. You know, if you go out tomorrow morning, I'm told by the meteorologist, you will get to see how long a breath will last. because it'll be in the 30s. And so, you'll see it, and it'll go. And that's what their mind is set on. I mean, think of the latest trend. My newsfeed last week was filled with all manner of nostalgia for the 1980s, and I'd forgotten how much neon purple and yellow parachute pants but it was here and it was gone. Unfortunately, mullets came back for a little while, but they were there and gone. But we see, that's what the mind gets set on, this futile mind. It's here and it's gone. And you spend all this effort over something that you gain nothing for. Patton once said, never fight a battle that you gain nothing for winning. And that's what this mind is set on. Fighting battles that you gain nothing for winning. living amongst those whose whole life is spent pursuing that which is empty and vain, because their idols are their gods, their stomach is their gods, their futile in mind. Now their foolish heart was darkened because they suppressed the truth and unrighteousness, and you too once did so. causing them to strive after foolish things. It is the sentence and wrath of God wrought in their hearts. And that's why we pity them, we don't hate them. We long for them to hear the truth of the gospel and the spirit of God to transform them, that they can be set free from this futility. And when we go back to our old ways, we're saying, fun as a car accident. But in the moment, it brings nothing. In the moment, it might bring a proof of pleasure, but it's gone in a moment. And they are alienated from God as you once were. Think about that. They're living, you know, we've been talking in the morning in the Pentateuch about the unveiled God and they had that not there was no shining face of God and that's what you have in Christ and to live as such is not just a lie. It is self-sabotage. It's self-mutilation. God instead of you, he poured out his wrath on his son that you might be delivered and then to go back to it is to use So, even after you've been brought to life in Christ, your heart is still desperately evil, deceitful, wicked, evil above all things. You cannot trust it because that remaining corruption which will not be driven out until you are perfected at death or the return of Christ is your enemy. I know, I know we're supposed to say, no, it's good. No, it's not. The heart in the biblical speech is not your emotions. It's talking about the very core of your decision and volitional making devices in your faculties. So, until you cross Jordan's stormy banks at death or when Christ returns, you cannot trust your heart. You can only trust Christ. was more this hardness and blindness of heart leading to being past feeling. It's like you basically put a iron on your conscience. Think about sometimes there are certain mental experiments we have to do that are ones we shouldn't do too frequently. But think about the first time you ever committed a particular sin. Did you get a jolt of something in the fields right away. That was woo. Then you had the aftermath, the hangover of conscience. Next time you got up, you got less of the frision and less of the aftermath. And as you do it more, you get less of both. That's what a seared, past feeling conscience is. There's a reason in the 1950s the US military went from circle targets to silhouette targets in training. Because the number of those in combat units on the line, even up through Korea, who actually would fire their weapons was below 20%. I'm not talking the cooks and the support people, I'm talking line infantry serving personnel, less than 20% would fire their weapons. And so they psychologically seared them through silhouette and the cases of post-traumatic stress disorder begin to tick off alongside. And it's largely that percentage that before would not fire, whose conscience was seared in training, are now firing, are now suffering the aftermath of it. I use that as an example of what sin is. I'm not calling serving the military sin. I'm just using that as a psychological training method that sears the conscience. as you engage and as the world engages in those sins that excite your sensual delights, whether it's porn, whether it's shopping, whether it's gossip, whether it's any of the list, it's self-mutilation, it's destruction from the inside out. They do so because they're dead in their trespasses. The Christian does it but they're living a lie. A lie that while it cannot bring them to hell, can bring them to ruin in this life. Such uncleanness and what it's like again, rolling in vomit like a dog. That is the Gentile walk, the one that you as a Christian are called flee from. No longer do it. Now, As we look at verses 17 and 19, these verses are aimed at what's called negative virtue. Don't do these things. That is the whole thing to avoid. But, you know, what happens when you tell a child not to do something? What's the quickest way to get a child to do something? Hey, don't eat the ice cream in the freezer. Dollars to donuts, it's gone when you look in the freezer. unless you have a child who doesn't like ice cream. Those are rare. Tell a child and he won't do it. And so, Paul is going to, and I just didn't wanna get us into it, because it's going to develop later, but I just wanna briefly look at the following verses, because in all of this, Christ is the answer. Not the answer in the Sunday school sense of the answer. It's Christ working and preaching and teaching you in the inner man that is the answer to you not walking in this. Left to your own devices, you're going to fall back. Or the words of old, you're going to fall off the wagon. But Christ in you and Christ is your only answer. God is a God of joy and pleasures. The world is great at packaging a sandwich of death to make it look wonderful. Oh, look at this wonderful looking load of death. But here's the thing. Poison in the form of a steak is still poison. Poison in whatever you consider the chief in choices to foods is still poison, and that's what the world is selling. They must be done in a manner that is according to the wisdom of Christ of God's mind, with an illuminated understanding, with God dwelling in the midst of you, and with the knowledge given you in Christ, with a renewed heart, with the law written on the heart, inside and out, and the Spirit enlivening that in you, And so, this is calling you not to some type of rugged individualism to go out and, I'm not gonna do it. I can guarantee you that the minute you say, I'm not gonna do it, whatever sin you wanna put into it, you're gonna do it, and you're gonna do it right fast. Because you're already sinning in the sin of self-reliance when you say that. you've already started walking as Gentile when you say that. And the next two verses, Paul tells you the solution to the Gentile walk, it's you need to learn Christ, you need to hear Christ, and you need to be taught by Christ. Now, there's, and when I say hear Christ, I know it's gonna be disappointing. It's going to, ordinarily, you to hear Him. That is the means, the voice of those preachers. How shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? How shall they hear if no one preaches? And how shall they preach if no one sends them? It is Paul's purpose to set before you how you can be done with The indulgence is in the darkened heart. And the answer is Christ. Christ teaching you, learning Christ because you hear Christ and learning Christ because you're taught by Christ. The worldling tells you that they want to go to hell because all the fun will be there. You said, no, at his right hand, there are pleasures forevermore. Yes, they're not pleasures like the passing pleasures of sin of Egypt, which Moses said, no, thank you. I'd rather suffer with the people of God. It's better to suffer with Christ than to have all the passing pleasures of sin. Because no pleasure wrought from sin lasts more than a nanosecond. It's here and it's gone. And then you have the aftertaste, which is death. The world lies to you that sin and lewdness are fun. They take those good gifts of God and turn them into curses. I mean, every lewd sin is just a twisting of a God-given good in its proper context. Gluttony is taking God's good gift of food and saying, well, I've had one Boston cream filled donut, And so we go on and on and we see that those good gifts of God and we cannot turn them to curses. The only place where you will find joy and pleasures forevermore, pleasure that have no aftertaste, joy that has no kicker is following after Jesus Christ, being led by him, being taught by him, hearing his voice. So come hear Christ. Whether you're deciding how to talk to your wife or how to talk to your child or how to drag your trash down to the curb. In all these things, there is a way that leads to life and joy. You're like, how can there be life and joy in taking the trash to the curb? Because it's done rejoicing in the goodness of God life to be rid of those things. And as you do so, as you do all things to the glory of god, whether it's talking to your wife, whether it's talking to your kids or talking to your parents or or or the way you work, or the way you clean, or the way you interact, or whatever it is, you can do it in such a way that it brings peace and joy to yourself and to the ones you speak, or to the ones you live amongst, which brings honor and glory to Christ. And the only way is learning Christ, hearing Christ, being taught by Christ. Again, I know I'm being vague, because next week we'll develop that. It is the only path that is not a path of bondage and slavery. Yes, your senses tell you, oh, that's bondage, that's slavery. And your senses, having been corrupted by sin, are to be devoutly ignored. Following Christ, because you learn Christ, you hear Christ, and are taught by Christ, is the only path to life and joy forevermore. For in submission to Christ there is life, and every other path there is death. Father, we ask that you would give us life, that you would give us Christ Jesus, that we would hear Him, that we would learn Him, that we would be taught by Him, and that we would cease living the lie of our former walk, that we would follow after him and know that peace and joy and delight forevermore as we walk his steps, knowing that they are the path of pleasures forevermore. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.