Word of Salvation – Vol. 36 No. 26 – July 1991

 

^{Ungodly And Godly Restlessness}

 

Sermon by Rev. M. C. DeGraaf on Eph.4:17-24

Reading: 1Timothy 3:3-16; Isaiah 57:14-21

Singing: BoW 357, 65, 474, 358, 256

 

Brothers and Sisters,

As any parent knows the development of young children is an exciting thing to watch.  Though some of them are a little quicker and some like to take their time each basically moves through the same steps to adulthood.  They drag themselves around on their stomachs, then they crawl, then they move around furniture, then they take their first steps, and before you know it they’ve walked out the door with a desire to explore the big, wide world.  As I’ve said, some take a little longer than others.  And yet, basically, in each human being there is always that desire to move on to the next stage.  There is a restlessness that intuitively recognises that all is not yet what it is meant to be.

That restlessness, of course, in many of us, does not just disappear when we become adults.

The history of the world makes that clear enough.

*  The people of Europe restlessly looked for new lands and the whole world was explored.  In this century we’ve even seen this restlessness move on into space.

*  Carriages had horses put in front of them, and then engines.  Cars changed shape and are still changing from year to year as new developments are incorporated.

*  Small peasants’ huts became great palaces, or modern homes with micro-waves and colour television.

*  Paintings on cave walls became the paintings of Rembrant, or Picasso, or Pollock.

*  Small backyard companies become world-wide corporations.

Everywhere we turn in history or within the lives of ordinary people, we see that restlessness, that desire to look over the next hill, the next frontier!

You can see why so many people believe in evolution.  Personally, I see it more as a response to what God told Adam in Genesis 1, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it.  Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground…!’

The Lord created man to be constantly looking for a new challenge, a new way in which to show forth the image of God within him.

That this God-given restlessness has also been corrupted by The Fall, is of course, obvious.  Nations are not satisfied with what they have within their own borders and desire to create empires.  And everywhere we turn we see individuals whose lives have also been corrupted by sinful restlessness.  Men and women looking for some new experience, some new thrill.

As Paul says in our text: ‘men and women have given themselves over to sensuality and a desire to indulge in every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more.’

The frontiers are always pushed further and further.  The experiences always need to be greater and greater, and satisfaction seems impossible to find.

Looking at all this you can’t help wondering why it is like this.  What are people looking for?  What hunger are they trying to satisfy?

A little earlier in our text Paul speaks about those who have hard hearts and darkened minds.  Looking at other parts of Scripture we see that a hard heart is one in which God no longer works.  The word Paul uses here is related to the one used for marble.  The heart has become like a stone, it is petrified, immovable.  The Spirit finds no light, no communion within it.  When the way of God is shown to this heart, it is rejected and considered irrelevant.  There is a stubbornness and a refusal to bow the knee before the way of God.

When sin enters this person’s life it is treated without feeling.  The conscience says nothing; there is no guilt.  Prayer life is empty.  No room for spiritual communion, just a hardness.

Because of this hardened heart the mind becomes darkened.  It becomes impossible to discern what the right way is.  And God is pushed further and further away.  Because of that, other forces begin to work in that life.

We all need meaning, and direction, and security, and comfort, and all the rest.  Without the true God other avenues are explored.  Other gods are installed.  That sinful restlessness we were talking about very often becomes the main force in our lives as we try to fill that God-shaped void with something else.

*  Young folk hope that experimenting with drugs or sex might give them the meaning and sense of belonging that they obviously need.

*  Marriage partners look beyond the bounds of marriage for some new satisfaction.

* We hope that we’ll find more meaning and security as we are promoted up through the corporate ranks.

There are people who want lots of change, for they find everything old and boring.  Others want no change because that robs them of their sense of security.  But neither have peace because they don’t look for it in God himself.

Paul speaks of an insatiable and uncaring desire for more sin, an inability to say no.  They are people who are completely open to the way of the world and, ultimately, to the way of death.

In verse 20, Paul contrasts all this, by saying: ‘You however, did not come to know Christ this way.’  You are different.  Your heart and your mind have been filled with Christ, your heart and your mind have been given life through His Spirit.

In the verses 20 and 21 he uses three terms which seem to come straight out of school: Firstly, a Christian has learned Christ.  He or she is well acquainted with the basics of the faith.  Christ came, died and rose again.  And more importantly, he or she has learned that Christ now reigns over all of life.  The basic priorities of life have changed.  Secondly, you heard Christ (not: heard of him as NIV has).  You actually heard him in the Word, in the voice of your teachers and parents, in many ways.  Christ has spoken to you; His Spirit dwells within you and, of course, thirdly, you were taught in Him, not only have you been taught about Him, and taught by Him, you were also taught while dwelling within Him, within the context of His power, in the spiritual presence of the Most High.

And what is the result of all this?  Believe it or not, it is a restlessness, a desire for change, a movement forward.  But now it is something that is completely different.  The hungering for sin is replaced with a steady, spirit-powered, growth and recreation.  The old self, the old ways, the old priorities, the old lusts, are to be put behind.

A new way forward is to be followed.  What that new way involves we’ll see in the chapters ahead when Paul spells out what it means to live as a believer.

But for now He talks generally about a new creation and we think of Christ rising up on that Easter morning filled with God, filled with the priorities of the kingdom, filled with a desire to follow the way of obedience (as He had just done).  There was, as the song says, no shadow of turning with Him, no desire to find meaning elsewhere, no desire to look beyond the bounds of the kingdom for hope or joy, for a new thrill, for a partner to unequally yoke himself to.

He was a new creation just as we one day will be, and just as we already now are becoming.  Paul describes the old as something which is corrupted (it is rotting, on its way to destruction).  It is dominated by lust (a hunger for meaning and fulfilment in sin), and interestingly he finishes by calling it deceitful.  The old way was the way of deceit over against God, our fellow man, and ourselves.

It was kidding itself, pretending all was fine, all was the way it was meant to be.  The new way is not dominated by lust it is created in righteousness and holiness.  It is not deceitful; it is guided by and filled with the truth.

The new person has a mind that is being renewed; filled with the direction, the power, and the wisdom, not of this world, not of television, not of our friends, but of the Spirit.

AMEN