April 18, 1999 - LESSON: Ephesians 4:17-21

SERMON TITLE: School Days

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INTRODUCTION:

1. There are some people that you might not want to be around.
1. A man called a travel agency furious about a Florida package that they had done for him.
1. The agent asked what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando.
2. He said he was expecting an ocean-view room.
3. The agent tried to explain that is not possible, since Orlando is in the middle of the state.
4. He replied, "Don't lie to me. I looked on the map and Florida is a very thin state."
2. You may have heard about the inventor who a low-cost spaceship to travel to the sun?
1. When told by the scientist that it would be incinerated long before it got close to the sun,
2. the man replied, "No problem. We'll go at night."
3. Or perhaps you might have read the sign posted by an elevator
1. Button for the ninth floor is out of order.
2. Please push 5 and 4.
4. You might not want to hang out with these people.
1. They have a deficiency
1. They don't know what they are talking about.
2. They do not know what is needed or necessary.
2. Their education is incomplete.
2. Education never ends! School Days never end?
1. Sing along with me.

School Days, School Days
Dear old Golden Rule Days
Readin' and writin' and 'rithmatic
Taught to the tune of a hickory stick.
You were my queen in calico
I was your barefoot bashful bo
I wrote on your slate, "I Love you so,"
When we were a couple of kids.

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School Days We thought they would never end.

Wasn't it great to get your diploma so you could get on with life.

But we learn that the school days never end.

1. The education may not be formal.
2. It is educational, never-the-less.

In our world there is a whole group of people with whom you may desire to exercise a great deal of caution.

They have great influence.

They seek to corrupt the most pure of persons.

Their teachings are negative

Their influence is destructive.

To understand you might take a long hard look at what Paul has to say to the believers in Ephesus (Ephesians 4:17-24, NRSV).

Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer live as the Gentiles live, in the futility of their minds.

[18] They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart.

1. Ignorance comes in two classes
1. Inadvertent
1. The lack of knowledge is simply one of omission.
2. It may be easily remedied with study.

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2. Hardness of heart is something else.
1. My mind is made up, don't confuse me with the facts.
2. For their own reasons, they reject the obvious
3. When Jesus was asked why he taught in parables he replied:
1. 13 The reason I speak to them in parables is that 'seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.'
2. 14 With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says: 'You will indeed listen, but never understand, and you will indeed look, but never perceive.
3. 15 For this people's heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn--and I would heal them.'

[19] They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

1. They have lost all moral sensibility.
2. The moral law is either ignored or so compromised that it has little or no effect.

In addressing the concerns that Paul has for Christ's community is remonstrants:

1. [20] That is not the way you learned Christ!
1. That is not the way that I taught you.
2. You know what I have taught you.
1. [21] For surely you have heard about him
2. You were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus.

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2. [22] You were taught to put away your former way of life,
1. your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, [23] and
1. Like the Gentiles that Paul describes
2. They did not know
3. They did not want to know
2. to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, [24] and
1. to become teachable
2. To be willing to be taught
3. to clothe yourselves with the new self,
4. created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

School Days never end.

The advantages are

1. We continue to learn
2. We continue to develop
3. We continue to grow

It all depends on our attitude.

1. Dr. John Maxwell tells the story of being in a small plane with a pilot friend and noticing the "attitude" indicator. ⁽¹⁾
1. Not understanding how an aircraft could have an attitude, he questioned the pilot and got an education in life.
2. Yes, a plane does have an attitude; it is the aircraft's position in relation to the horizon.
3. When the nose is pointed up, it is called a nose-up attitude.
4. When the nose is pointed down, it is called a nose- down attitude.
5. The attitude of the plane directly affects the performance of the plane.

So it is in life.

1. Nose down is negative, critical, pessimistic.
2. Nose up refers to a person with their nose to the wind, political, correct, accommodating.
3. The correct attitude is nose straight ahead positive, encouraging, enthusiastic.
1. Do what you do with the nose straight ahead and the enthusiastic attitude, and the performance of whatever you do will be dramatically affected for the better.
2. Those who do their best and accomplish the most in life invariably possess this contagious characteristic of enthusiasm.

 

1. Landrum P. Leavell III, The Profile 16 (15 March 1995), 3.

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