EMBRACE THE DIFFERENCE

Ephesians 4:17

We need to remember that the Ephesian Christians were still very young in their faith. Paul is writing to them barely ten years after he started the church there. The church is made up of both Jews and Gentiles. The vast majority of the Gentiles were converted out of the cult of Artemis. Following Christ required a huge change in their lives. The Artemis cult had been the focus of their entire lives. Now they were launching out into an entirely new lifestyle. What things did they have to leave behind? How were they supposed to live? How were they to look at their friends and families who were still in the Artemis cult? The passage we are looking at here seems to be aimed primarily at these Gentile believers who had to make such dramatic changes. Very simply, Paul tells them they have to live radically different lives from their friends and he tells them why they must do so.

This passage is intensely practical for us Christians who live in the 21st century. We will see that our situation is not all that much different from Paul’s 1st century readers! Paul calls upon us to live differently from the world around us as well.

Paul begins this section of his letter by saying, “So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.” If Paul was writing directly to us he would say, “Do not live your lives like the rest of society around you lives.” He would say, “You are different so be different! You are a Christian so don’t live like those around you who are not Christians!”

This is something we really need to consider carefully. We need to realize what it means to be a Christian. Being Christian is not what so many of our friends and neighbors think it is. A Christian is not someone who has decided that he needs to start being good. A Christian is not someone who has decided to turn over a new leaf. A Christian is not someone who has decided she needs to quit drinking or quit gambling or quit sleeping around. A Christian is not someone who has decided it is time to start taking his family to church.

What is a Christian? A Christian is a person who has experienced a fundamental change in his inner person. His old person has died and he has been reborn. A Christian is a new creation in Christ Jesus. If you are a Christian then you have been recreated as a child of God and as a child of God you will live differently from those around you who are not children of God. If you are a Christian you will not allow the world around you to bend you and shape you to live just like everyone else. Paul is telling us that Christians may not go on living like the rest of the world lives. He says the same thing in Romans 12:2, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world…”

Notice that Paul says we must “no longer live as the Gentiles do.” No longer! We can never forget that we were at one time in the same boat as all the rest of the people around us. We were in the same lost condition as they are. We lived just like they do. But we are supposed to be different now. We can no longer live like them. Paul is telling us to be different! Embrace the difference between what we once were and what God has now made us! Do we find ourselves attracted by the lifestyles of the people in the world? Do we find ourselves influenced by the values of the world? Are we fascinated by television shows like Inside Edition and Access Hollywood? Or do we find ourselves just wanting to fit in with the rest of the world? Do we want to avoid standing out? Paul tells us that we have to embrace the difference between the way the world lives and the way we are called to live.

There is a very practical question that arises here. If Christians are to live so much differently from the world, why do so many churches work so hard to try to be just as attractive and entertaining as the world? Why do churches try so hard to mimic the world and be cool? Is it an effort to try to make the people of the world feel comfortable in their churches? Are they trying to show the world that they really don’t have to change that much to be part of the church? We are different from the world and we should embrace the difference, not minimize it as much as possible!