New Life in Christ" (Part 1)

Shepherdess Edermira Cruz

STUDY #1200 CHURCH IN THE HOUSES Wednesday, June 30, 2021

"New Life in Christ" (Part 1) - Ephesians 4:17-21 Our dear and beloved apostle calls us to a new morality. That set of norms and values that should be the model of conduct that should be followed by believers. The principles, virtues, and qualities of the believer.

I. I say and I pray in the Lord.

A. Remove all traces (trails) of your past life.

1. As if it were a cloak full of mud and to put on the virtues (willingness to act according to certain ideal projects such as good, truth, justice, virtue is opposed to vice (it is every practice, conduct or habit that is considered a fault, a defect, a disease, or a bad habit; failure or defect) and "excellencies of the Lord Jesus Christ."

2. May you no longer walk like the other Gentiles.

3. The Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind.

4. They were no longer Gentiles: they were Christians.

5. There had to be a corresponding change in their lives.

6. The change that does not occur in our lives is what we live stumbling and perhaps, one day it will be sad.

7. Paul saw the world of Christless nations mired in ignorance and degradation.

8. In the vanity of their mind.

9. Aimless, their lives were empty, devoid of purpose, and fruitless.

10. There was great activity, but no progress.

11. They chased the shadows and neglected the great realities of life.

12. (V. 18) They had a darkened understanding (darkness).

13. It is blindness, when living with a blindfold in a fictional world.

14. How much do you aspire to? Can you laugh, eat, celebrate, do laundry, cook, etc. and can you live without the fictional blindfold?

15. The Ephesians had a natural inability to comprehend spiritual truths and then because of their rejection (of spiritual truths) of the knowledge of the true God, they suffered from "blindness" as the Lord's judgment.

16. God must be known as He is, and I assure you that it is simpler than you think of Him.

17. Jesus washed the feet of the disciples, He had food for the crowd, the greatness was another service; for He never, never sought vain glories, the giving of Himself was His great sacrifice of death.

18. Excluded from the life of God, that is, at an enormous distance from Him.

19. He who lives in the vanity of his mind rejects the light of God in the conscience and had thrown themselves into idolatry.

20. Far from what God is, by the hardness of their heart, they reject the light of the knowledge of God, which is not the vain as it is that of one who seeks glories of vanity.

21. If God rejects you and God does not please you, you begin to suffer blindness as the Lord's judgment and there is the turning away from God, they do not have what they expected.

22. (V. 19) They had lost "all sensitivity."

23. When moral feeling is lost, when one denies one's conscience the first time, there is a feeling of pain; there is an audible protest. But if that voice is silenced, eventually the voice becomes less clear and loud; it is now the protest; the pain is less acute, until it is finally possible to "overcome the pain."

24. What once there was repentance, now is silence to evil and the doors are opened to it, then they consciously gave themselves to lasciviousness, vile forms of conduct.

25. (V. 20) How different from all this was the Christ whom the Ephesians had come to know and love!

26. He is the personification of purity and chastity.

27. He knew no sin; He did not sin; there was no sin in Him.

28. (V. 21) If in truth you have heard of Him and have been taught by Him; it is not intended to cast doubt on the conversion of the Ephesians.

29. He simply emphasizes that "all who have heard Christ and been taught by Him have come to know Him as the essence of holiness and piety (compassion, clemency, mercy).

30. Who have you listened to?

31. Who did you learn or have never wanted to hear, is it easier to live from your old life?

32. "To have heard of Christ means to have heard of Him with 'the hearing of faith', to have accepted Him as Lord and Savior.

33. The expression "taught by Him" refers to the instruction that the Ephesians received, to walk in communion with Him after being converted.

34. All truth takes on a different character when there is a personal relationship with Jesus.

35. Truth apart from the Person of Christ has very little power.

36. According to the truth that is in Jesus.

37. He doesn't just teach the truth; He is the truth incarnate. (John 14:6).