Does anyone remember an old TV show called Are You Afraid of the Dark?
If you grew up in the ’90s, there’s a good chance this just unlocked a core memory. For those who missed it, it was basically The Twilight Zone for tweens: campfire stories, eerie music, just scary enough to keep you watching with one eye open. Classic ’90s Nickelodeon—which means it was equal parts nostalgia and nightmare fuel.
In one episode, there are two brothers—Buzz and Denny—who go out for a hike in the woods. Buzz is the older brother. Confident. Dismissive. The kind of kid who knows he’s right about things. Denny is younger, quieter, eager to help. And Buzz lets Denny carry the compass.
They hike for a while—long enough to lose sight of the road, long enough for the trees to thicken and the sounds to change. Eventually, Buzz decides it’s time to head back. Town is south of the forest. Easy enough.
So Denny checks the compass. Points south. And they start walking. They walk for hours. The sun keeps moving. The light shifts. Shadows stretch. The forest starts to look… familiar. Too familiar. One clearing looks suspiciously like another clearing they passed earlier. The same fallen log. The same bend in the trail.
Finally, as the sun begins to sink, the realization sets in: something is wrong. It only took an hour to hike into the woods. It shouldn’t take eight hours to get back out.
Buzz assumes the obvious conclusion—the compass must be broken. After all, they followed it faithfully. They trusted it. And yet here they are: lost, exhausted, daylight fading, no one else around.
How did this happen? What went wrong? And will these two boys make it out?
Well—it’s a kids’ show, so everything probably turns out okay. But it is the ’90s, so honestly… all bets are off. Let’s put Buzz and Denny in our pockets for now and come back to them at the end. For the moment, turn with me to Ephesians 4:17–24.
Ephesians 4:17-24
17 Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer walk as the gentiles walk, 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. 19 They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 That is not the way you learned Christ! 21 For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus, 22 to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
Prayer
Father, we come before You this morning aware of our need. We confess that too often we trust our own understanding, follow our own compass, and end up walking in circles. Open our hearts to hear Your Word. Open our minds to receive Your truth. And give us the courage to put off the old self that clings so tightly and put on Christ, who alone can lead us home. Meet us here, Lord. Speak to us. Change us. We ask this in the name of Jesus, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Amen.
The Futility of Walking Without God (vv. 17-19)
17 Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer walk as the gentiles walk, 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. 19 They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.
Whether or not Paul knew he was writing Scripture is an often-debated topic. If he did know, then the phrase “Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord” should make us sit straight up in our chairs and pay attention. But even if Paul was unaware that any particular letter would be recognized as Scripture, this phrase is still noteworthy. Paul is responsible for the majority of the doctrinal heavy lifting in our Bibles. And he was the one commissioned by Jesus to bring the Good News to a world that did not have the Jewish Law & Prophets as a background, so when he underlines something, we should, too.
Given the structure of the Greek grammar in this section, we can discern with high confidence that the part Paul affirms and insists on is verses 17-19, because of the strong negative he employs in verse 20. So, let’s get into it.
“[Y]ou must no longer walk as the gentiles walk,” for the note-takers in the room: this ‘must’ does not exist in the Greek. This is a choice made by the translators to align it with other directives issued by Paul in letters like Colossians. But in this case, Paul has been talking about yielding to the Spirit, not taking charge. It is critical here that we see Paul is not telling them to work harder. He is not commanding them to ‘stop’ behaving like the gentiles, he is stating it as a fact. Paul gives no quarter to the idea that we might be walking down two perpendicular roads at the same time. He’s not telling us to make a right at the next intersection, Paul is telling us that the Holy Spirit’s indwelling has already taken us down that path and we are no longer over there. We are no longer traveling that road. If we keep trying to walk east-west when the road runs north-south, then we aren’t going to go anywhere, we’re just going to walk face-first into the buildings that line the sidewalks. We aren’t gentiles anymore.
And what does that mean? What does it mean to walk as the gentiles walk? To behave as the gentiles behave? The gentiles weren’t grounded in anything real. They were anchored in the wind. The Jews didn’t have the full revelation, but they were anchored in the true God; the gentiles had nothing. And since they had nothing, they were left to try to determine what was best in their own eyes. And how did that work out for them?
Paul’s next words seem to indicate that it was not going very well. His first description of their walk is “in the futility of their minds“. Futility is literal uselessness, fruitlessness—it produces no value. The truth is that our minds—no matter how brilliant or capable—are finite and cannot hope to bring us to a full understanding of the truth. Logic and reason—two things that were deeply prized by Rome, which I myself hold in high esteem, and with which the Lord has gifted us—are indeed critical tools in our toolbelt, but without God they will lead us to erroneous conclusions, because the presuppositions and beliefs that undergird those conclusions are faulty without God.
We see that underscored as Paul continues to develop his argument: “they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God“. Whether or not we are willing to admit it, we often see ourselves as the hero of the story. Especially before we came to saving faith in Jesus, we were convinced that we were the smart and enlightened ones who saw the truth that others had missed or did not understand. All the while, each of those people viewed us the same way. The great irony is that we don’t even know enough to appreciate just how ignorant we are! And we lack understanding precisely because we are alienated from the life of God, because without God none of it makes sense.
See, we all have lives on loan. From the moment of our conception, the countdown to bodily death begins. It sounds morbid, but recognizing this truth re-centers us. None of us knows if we have 100 years, or 50, or 20, or even lives measured in months or days. And once we appreciate that the only extension comes from God, we can re-evaluate those underlying assumptions that lead us to the one who can help us see the real truth.
But we don’t want to do that “because of their ignorance and hardness of heart“. New Testament scholar Harold Hoehner proposes this paradigm: Hardness leads to ignorance, ignorance leads to alienation, alienation leads to darkening, darkening leads to walking in futility. And the more time we spend walking in futility, the farther from God our hearts become, and the harder it is for us to see the truth. In the same way that listening to the Holy Spirit attunes us to his voice, ignoring or silencing the Spirit tunes us out of His voice.
And that tuning out will ultimately have disastrous consequences, as Paul says, “They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.” Just the phrase “abandoned themselves” is a jarring one. No one would say that they set out in an insatiable and unrestrained pursuit of debauchery, vice, lust, excess, immorality, indecency, and filthiness of every kind, but that is exactly the charge Paul issues! When we are left to our own devices to decide what we will want and what we will value, it leads to disaster. It will lead each of us to do what is right in their own eyes. And without God, who’s to say that’s wrong?
Because here’s the thing: we think that a hard heart is a good thing. A hard heart is safe and protected and controlled. A soft heart is vulnerable and easily hurt, but it is precisely that softness which allows us to be moved and molded by the voice of God. Our intuitions are all too easily influenced by the world and by the flesh, and both are corrupted by sin. God, on the other hand, is the eternally faithful north star that provides an objective truth that anchors us in the rock rather than the wind, which is exactly where Paul goes next.
Learning Christ, Not Your Truth (vv. 20-21)
20 That is not the way you learned Christ! 21 For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus,
What does Paul mean when he says, “that is not the way you learned Christ”? He’s making a crucial point: we did not come to saving faith in the Messiah through an appeal to our internal intuitions. Think about it—I can’t see a scenario where we would internally intuit that we were dead in our sins and doomed to an eternity separated from God and, with Him, every good thing. I can’t see us then intuiting that Jesus would come as God in the flesh to die in our place, and that we would need to trust in that saving work to rescue us from the fate we had earned. Our intuition would never lead us to this conclusion on its own.
The fact of the matter is that for the Gospel to change us—to truly change us—we need to come to the place where we are willing to admit that we are wrong. Not just that we might be wrong, but that we have built our lives on error. That’s not to say there is nothing true or good at all in our pre-Jesus lives, but any modicum of truth present without Christ is only sufficient to delude us into thinking we are doing well, meanwhile the ground under our feet is already giving way.
Correction and repentance are not paths that lead us to truth—they are the gate that, once opened, allows us to follow the path of truth. And notice something critical here: Paul doesn’t say “Jesus,” not even his usual “Christ Jesus.” He says just “Christ.” That is the Greek word for Messiah. For Savior. Paul is not primarily drawing our minds to the historical person of Jesus who was born in Bethlehem and lived in Nazareth. He is drawing our minds to the promised Messiah who lives and reigns and rules from on high, whose Spirit lives within us and whose Word is sharper than any sword, able to divide even soul and spirit. This is the one who revealed the mysteries of God to the authors of our Bible and the one who testifies within us today! He is truth! Someone else testify for me with an ‘amen’ this morning!
And the fact that Jesus is the truth is critical because we heard about Him. At some point someone told us about Jesus. Whether that happened at work, or on a street corner, or at a barbecue, a youth group, or at the kitchen table as a five-year-old—someone told us. And when we acknowledged that truth, we opened our hearts to Jesus, and through the Word of Scripture and the internal witness of the Holy Spirit, He has taught us and continues to teach us. Because that’s what Jesus was when he walked the earth as a man—a teacher, a rabbi. The Gospel came to us from outside ourselves, through proclamation and teaching.
Did you notice how we shifted from learning Christ to being taught in Jesus? We shifted from Christ alone to Jesus alone. From the office—the call, the objective of Savior, the one who served as the greatest, ultimate, and final sacrifice to bring atonement to all who would call on His name—to the man, the person, the one who walked and lived and taught and cared and cried with us. He lived the truth and told us the truth.
The man was harsh and direct with the religious folks who should have known better and needed to be confronted. But at the same time, He was gentle yet clear with the outsiders who didn’t know better and needed hope. But He didn’t stop with telling—He also showed us by conquering Satan, sin, death, demons, the grave, and hell. His life, death, and resurrection proved that everything He taught was true.
And so the great tragedy is this: that when we allow ourselves to walk in the flesh—as the gentiles did—we reject that revealed truth in Jesus and we reject that demonstrated truth in Christ, and we instead choose our own way. We fight against the Spirit who is trying to bring us closer to sanctification and instead decide to run eastbound—and face-first—into the brick walls of the buildings lining our northbound street. We’re trying to go our own direction when God has already set us on His path.
We cannot allow this to be, which is what Paul argues next. Let’s keep reading.
Putting On the Original Design (vv. 22-24)
22 to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
Here we come to what Jesus actually taught us about getting where we need to go—if we met Him and allowed His Word and His Spirit to lead us, that is.
The first thing that would happen is that we would put away our former way of life. This is the preparatory step for the clothe step that is coming later. Because the truth of Christ doesn’t layer well with other pieces. It is form-fitted. Trying to put Jesus on second, after other priorities and commitments, means we are intentionally creating distance between ourselves and God.
And if we’re going to try and squeeze Jesus on over top of lies masquerading as truth, misconceptions sold as nuance, and a self-first mentality that says you’re perfect just the way you are—you’re gonna end up looking like Joey in that one episode of Friends where he wears all of Chandler’s clothes at the same time. It looked ridiculous on the show, and trying to adopt a smorgasbord spirituality where we take a little of this and a little of that in an attempt to assemble a belief system that we like is the same. You might love it, but it will age as well as frosted tips, black lipstick, and leisure suits.
Jesus is the simple, fitted tuxedo of faith. It’s not flashy or trendy, but it’ll look just as good in 50 years as it looked 50 years ago. And before we can put on that tuxedo, we have to take off everything else we’re wearing—because you can’t wear Christ over your old self. It doesn’t work. It was never meant to work. And that old self? It’s not just unfashionable—it’s corrupt, deluded, and dangerous.
Paul says as much plainly: “your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts.”
This is so good, church! We are not called to adopt new habits, but a new self! This is not merely reform, it is re-creation. This isn’t something we do, it’s something we are, and the extravagant beauty of it is that because we didn’t earn it and we can’t take any credit for it, we get to brag on the One who did. His name is Jesus!
Because the old self was “corrupt and deluded”! There is nothing neutral about this language, church! Paul doesn’t try to soften the blow.
Our old selves are corrupted—twisted, distorted, destroyed, and destined for the incinerator. Like putting motor oil in your water, it’s unsalvageable. The only way to get a refreshing drink is to dump it out, wash the glass, and start anew. Fortunately, that is exactly what is on offer here.
Our old selves are also deluded—duped, fooled, misled, betrayed. The old self believes things that simply are not true, and the biggest one is the lie that we are the hero. We are not the hero. I am no hero, church. I often wish that Paul had not claimed the title “chief of sinners”… because surely that is a title I could lay claim to. And to be frank, if you don’t also feel like you have a strong claim to that title, then you may not fully appreciate the depth of your sin, the reach of God’s grace, and the effectiveness of the self-love trap.
Self-love leads to death, because it makes protection of the self our top priority. Self-love tells us that my good is the highest good—and truth must serve it.
- Self-love withholds forgiveness: “I can’t forgive—because then they get away with it.” Because I am the ultimate judge.
- Self-love avoids confession because my image is more important than the truth.
- Self-love redefines obedience: “God got this wrong… and I think He would agree with me”—because I can best define what is or is not ‘good’.
- Self-love weaponizes authenticity: “This is just who I am.”—this isn’t sin, it’s who I am!
- Self-love measures righteousness by comparison, because “at least I’m not like them.”—and gossip becomes a way to establish our own righteousness.
Notice the English word used for these corrupted and deluded desires: ‘lusts’. It’s a gross word, isn’t it? Have you ever heard ‘lust’ used in a positive context? I can’t say I have. I wouldn’t even say I ‘lust’ for my wife—it feels weird and exploitative. I desire my wife. I am passionate for her. But I do not lust after her. And that’s the key, because in the original Greek, the word for ‘lust’ and ‘desire’ is the same word, and its meaning is determined by context. And so here we see the truth: that lust is desire corrupted.
And so we are called to get away from that and “to be renewed in the spirit of your minds.” Renewed. Started over. The old mind was debased in pursuit of lusts that sought to destroy. We are that glass of motor oil and water, and God has done the work to clean out the old and prepare us to be filled with the new. And how? By the renewing of the spirit of our minds.
Now, what does that mean? When we hear the word ‘spirit’ today, we think of disembodied persons, like the Holy Spirit, or even souls like our own or those of our ancestors. But in the ancient world, the ‘spirit’ was not always seen this way. Often the word simply meant the animating principle—that which creates volition and sets direction. Here Paul simply means that which prompts the mind to act. This is the core will or desire that drives the mind to do this thing or that one. And if that core driver is redirected in pursuit of holy desires and passions, then the mind will lead the body that way. And that way is the path of righteousness, which is only achievable when we allow the spirit of our minds to be directed by the Spirit of God, which brings us to the final chunk for this morning:
“[T]o clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” In the likeness of God. Does this sound familiar? It sounds like the creation story, where we see God in conversation with Himself choosing to make humans in our own image. Paul is using creation language—re-creation language. And so the “new self” is almost a misnomer, because the new self is simply a return to the original design.
If you’re of a certain age, you likely remember New Coke. For those who do not remember what I’m talking about: Coke was losing the “Pepsi Challenge” because people preferred the sweeter drink (in small batches). So Coke came up with a new, sweeter product that trounced Pepsi in those challenges. Then they removed the nearly century-old Coke formula and entirely replaced it with the New Coke. It was a disaster of epic proportions. It only took 79 days of calls, letters, and protests for the company to pull a complete about-face. New Coke was discontinued—never to be seen again—and what did they replace it with? Another newer, better Coke? No, they replaced New Coke with the original formula, and they called it what they still call it today: Coca-Cola Classic.
This is what God does with us. He isn’t creating a newer, better version. He did it right the first time. He said it was good. He is just restoring us to the original factory model. Built in the image of God with true righteousness and holiness. No more fakes, frauds, counterfeits, and lies. Because no matter how attractive the lie is—like Coke—you can’t beat the real thing.
Which brings us back around to Buzz and Denny, our lost hikers.
Out of the Pocket
You remember Buzz and Denny—the brothers who hiked into the woods and followed their compass south for hours, only to end up walking in circles. The compass was lying.
Why? What happened?
Once Buzz noticed how Denny had been holding the compass, the problem became clear. Denny had been holding it near his belt buckle, which was interfering with the magnetic field. The compass was giving a bearing based on the individual rather than true, magnetic north.
So it is when we try to orient our lives around ourselves. When we walk according to our darkened understandings, in alienation from the truth of God, in ignorance and hardness of heart, lustfully pursuing every kind of impurity—we become the interference. Our desires, our reasoning, our “personal truth” distorts the compass. And we end up walking in circles, exhausted, lost, convinced we’re headed home when we’re only getting farther away.
But here’s the good news: God has already set true north. He’s given us His Word, His Spirit, and His Son. The path is clear. The direction is sure. We just need to get ourselves—our old, corrupted, deluded selves—out of the way.
So what does that look like this week? Let me give you three concrete steps:
First, identify your belt buckle. What is the one area where you keep trusting your own reasoning over God’s Word? Is it your finances? Your relationships? Your entertainment? Your ambitions? Name it. Write it down. Confess it to someone you trust. You can’t remove the interference if you won’t acknowledge it’s there.
Second, open the Scripture and read it like God is actually talking to you—because He is. Don’t read for information. Don’t read to win arguments. Read to be corrected. Read to be transformed. Pick one passage this week and ask: “What is God saying to me that I don’t want to hear?” That’s where the Spirit does His best work.
Third, take one step of obedience in the direction God is pointing. Not ten steps. One. Maybe it’s forgiving someone. Maybe it’s confessing something. Maybe it’s saying no to something your flesh wants or yes to something it’s been avoiding. Just one step. Because when you move toward true north, the Spirit moves with you.
Put off the old self. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Put on Christ.
Stop trusting your belt buckle. Follow the true compass. Let’s pray.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for Your Word that cuts through our self-deception and shows us the truth. Thank You that You don’t leave us wandering in the woods, lost and exhausted, walking in circles. Thank You that in Christ, You’ve set true north—clear, unmistakable, trustworthy.
Lord, we confess the ways we’ve become our own interference. The ways we’ve trusted our belt buckles instead of Your compass. Forgive us. Renew us. Redirect us.
Help us this week to identify where we’re choosing our truth over Yours. Give us courage to read Your Word expectantly, ready to be corrected. Give us strength to take that one step of obedience You’re calling us toward.
Clothe us with the new self. Restore us to the image You intended. Lead us home.
We trust You, Lord. Not ourselves. You alone are the way.
In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.