Sermon25-27 Eph4&5 Guide

Ephesians 4:20-5:21 theme verse Ephesians 4:22-24

The praise and honor and glory be to our heavenly Father who seeks true worshipers who worship Him with the Spirit and truth.

In this twentieth Sunday of 2025, I pray that His grace of the application of all the benefits which Jesus earned for our salvation and also the glorious ministry of the proclamation of His kingdom by the power of the Holy Spirit may be full in our life. Last week, we looked at the justification by faith, yet this week, we would like to look at the sanctification together.

1)    First, to summarize today's text of Ephesians 4:20-5:21, it is said that the sanctification is to put off the old self that follows the corrupted deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and to put on the new self that is created according to God in righteousness and true holiness. In other words, in our daily lives, after we put away lying, anger, thievery, corrupt talks, and bitterness rooted in sexual immorality, all impurity, and covetousness, instead we have to live the life of walking in love, imitating Christ, as children of light of God, with wisdom, being filled with the Holy Spirit.

2)    Through today’s text, we would like to learn a few things, looking into more details together. First, here, old self refers to the previous behavioral patterns that follow the sinful nature before being born again. In order words, to the personality that lives under the dominion of the world, that is, thoughts, emotions, will, and deeds, etc., I mean, the self that follows old habits according to false desires. On the other hand, new self refers to the self or new nature being born again or it can refer to new humanity created in Christ so that it can also be seen as pointing to Christ Himself, who is the prototype of new humanity so that it is said that we have to grow more and more in righteousness, truth, and holiness as the image of God.

3)    And secondly, to put off old self means to put off old sinful nature, and to put on new self means to put on new nature, i.e., Christ. Here, two infinitives, ‘to put off’ and ‘to put on’ are the verbs to explain the nature of ‘being transformed’ in verse 23. And yet they are both written in the aorist tense which means that even after the decisive break at conversion, the old habits or sinful nature which remain in Christians have to be put off continuously, I mean, continuous crucifixion of them. Therefore, when impure or unholy thoughts or emotions arise in our thoughts, or hearts, or unholy deeds happen in our lives, we have to put them off, I mean, throw them away, instead to put on Christ, practicing them as our new habits, to be renewed in our minds and hearts.

4)    Thirdly, regarding these two patterns in our daily life, today’s text contrasts two behavioral patterns specifically. I mean, today’s text says that after we Christians have to abandon lustful desires, impurity or greed internally and lying, anger, thievery, corrupt talk, or bitterness, that is, hostility and harshness externally. Instead, it says that we have to walk in love, as children of light of God, and with wisdom as three principles of life. Here to walk in love means to love God vertically and to be kind and compassionate to one another and forgive one another horizontally. And walking as children of light means to act kindly, righteously, and truthfully in verse 9, while walking with wisdom means acting with discernment of the will of the Lord in these evil times, after being filled with the Holy Spirit.

5)    And finally Paul says that the Trinitarian enablers for this life are; God who loves His children, the Holy Spirit who fills and guides us, and Jesus Christ who loved us and gave Himself up as a sacrifice on the cross.

6)    And regarding our sanctification of good deeds, Belgic confession Article 24 confesses as follows. Yet since the article is too long, to confess only the key message, “We believe that this true faith, produced in us by the hearing of God's Word and by the work of the Holy Spirit, regenerates us and makes us new creatures, causing us to live a new life and freeing us from the slavery of sin. … So then, it is impossible for this holy faith to be unfruitful in a human being, seeing that we do not speak of an empty faith but of what Scripture calls "faith working through love,” which moves people to do by themselves the works that God has commanded in the Word. These works, proceeding from the good root of faith, are good and acceptable to God, since they are all sanctified by God's grace. Yet we do good works, but not for merit since God "is at work in [us], enabling [us] both to will and to work for his good pleasure" - thus (our Lord said that) "When you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, 'We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done.'"

7)    And as such, even in the Belgic confession, it is confessed that even if we do good works, we are sanctified by the grace of God without any merits in us because God works in us to will and to do His good pleasure, as Philippians 2:13 says, so that as Jesus said in Luke 17:10, we have to say that ‘We are unprofitable servants and we have only done what was our duty to do,’ when we have done all that we were commanded, because all merits are from God. So, I hope we may participate in this ministry of sanctification that God is doing, to obey to His guidance after discerning God’s will with our intellect by the wisdom of the Holy Spirit so that we may be renewed in our spirits by putting on new self, created by Christ every day and every moment in prayer by the power of God. That’s why Paul confessed that he crucified his old self in Gal 2:20 and that he crucified his flesh, I mean, his old sinful nature, with its lusts and desires in Gal 5:24 and the world in Gal 6:14, and that he lived only in Christ as Gal 2:20 says. Therefore, I pray that this year, we all walk the way of sanctification after the justification in God’s grace of salvation, by crucifying ourselves, flesh, lusts, and the world, and living in the faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us, to put on Christ.

Key Questions as Small Group Activity

Q1 Through today’s text, we became to know that not only the justification, but also the sanctification resulted from sheer grace of God. So, meditating on the sheer grace of God’s salvation, I hope we could share our thought and experience with our team members together to learn from each other.

Q2 Yet, even though the justification is done by God’s sheer grace passively, yet in the sanctification, God invites us in His work with our intellect and prayer and obedience, so that it is 100% God’s ministry and 100% human responsibility. So after meditating on this mystery, I hope we could share our thought and experience with our team members together to learn from each other.

Love you. Thank you. God bless you.

Prayer Note

Dear ( God’s attribute which you found Today ) God!

Thanks for ( something you received through the sermon or  even during the week )

Praise, gratitude and glory be to You, Lord!

Today, I realized my sin (pains) that ( the sin God reminded through the sermon ),

please forgive (or heal) me and help me not to repeat ( the sins you recognized   ).

I learned that ( something you learned through the sermon                                    )

Please help me to live in that (  learned way of life                                                )

I pray in ( Jesus’ attribute you find ) Jesus’ name. Amen