1. If I like it, it’s mine. 2. If it’s in my hand, it’s mine. 3. If I can take it from you, it’s mine. 4. If I had it a little while ago, it’s mine. 5. If it’s mine, it must never appear to be yours in any way. 6. If I’m doing or building something, all the pieces are mine. 7. If it looks just like mine, it’s mine. 8. If I saw it first, it’s mine. 9. If you are playing with something and you put it down, it automatically becomes mine. 10. If it’s broken, it’s yours. Sound familiar? These are the toddler property laws that govern every toddler’s claims to toys, food, or just about everything else. It is evidence of our inherent depravity. Now, depravity is a long word. It means our sin nature. It means that our hearts are inherently evil. That is not a popular message to hear, and yet it is true. David tells us that in sin did his mother conceive him. That means that from his earliest existence, he was a sinful creature. Paul, while acknowledging this depravity very clearly here, calls us to abandon that depravity. We cannot do that on our own. But if God changes the heart, then we are able. This sermon might be somewhat dark. But there is always light in the Gospel of Christ.
Paul starts out with a very solemn statement: “I tell you this, and insist on it.” Literally, he is a witness for what he is about to say. In other words, he wants us to listen up, because what he is about to say is very important.
What he says is that our walk must look a certain way. In saying this, he is resuming what he was going to say at the beginning of the chapter. There, he said, “Walk worthy of the calling you have received.” But then, as so often happens in Paul, he interrupted himself to talk about the one body, and the one Head of the body, and the gifts He has given to the church. The implications of the context are that God has given many things to the church so that we can walk in such a manner. Now Paul returns to that idea here in verse 17.
Paul says that the Gentiles are futile in their thinking. Lots of people today believe that education is the answer to all our problems. If only we can get our schools to be better, then our social problems would simply go away. This is wishful thinking, since they believe that education is somehow neutral, and that our minds in our thinking are somehow neutral. The problem is that the heart influences the mind. If the heart is evil, then the thoughts will be as well. There is no escaping this conclusion from Scripture. Paul clearly says it here: Gentiles are futile in their thinking. The word “futile” here means “unable to accomplish the goal for which it was intended.” To illustrate, if you own a combine that was manufactured to harvest grain, and the combine is broken beyond repair, then you have a “futile” combine. That is, it would be worse than useless to try to use that combine for harvesting grain. It cannot achieve the end for which it was made. The same is true of our minds. Our minds were intended to know God. That is the highest and best knowledge to which we can attain. But our sin in Adam prevents us from knowing God as we ought. Our minds are futile without Christ. Paul is using the term “Gentiles” here to mean “heathen,” not “people who are not Jews.” In other words, Paul is taking over a Jewish form of expression, and changing its meaning from a physical marker (someone who was not a Jew) to a spiritual marker (someone who is not a Christian). So these “Gentiles” have futile minds that cannot know God. Why can’t they know God? Because they are alienated by their culpable ignorance.
Many people also want to say that since they are ignorant of the law of God, that therefore they ought to be let off the hook. But such is not the case. Their ignorance is a willful ignorance. Paul describes it as an ignorance that is due to the fact that they have hardened their hearts. It is a lot like Pharaoh, who hardened his heart so that he would not know the Lord, the God of Israel. They have hardened their conscience to the point where sin no longer bothers them. I sincerely hope that none of us are in that state where sin does not bother us anymore. If that is where you are, then beware! You have a hard heart, and your only hope is in Jesus Christ to change your hard heart into a living heart of flesh.
Notice that Paul says that such people are alienated from God. That means that they have no relationship with God. Obviously, you have to know someone to have a relationship with that person. And if you are willfully ignorant of that person, then you can have no relationship with that person. Knowledge of a person and relationship with that person go together. You cannot have the one without the other. This is especially true of God. How much do we know of God? Do we know that He is one God in three Persons? Do we know that all three persons have acted together to procure for us life and salvation? Do we know that He is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, glory, holiness, goodness, mercy, and truth? Do we know what He has done for us? Do we know that out of His pure love, He sent a Savior for us that we should no longer be darkened in our understanding, but might know the only wise God through Jesus Christ, the Son?
If we do not know God in this way, then what verse 19 says will apply to us. We will lost all sensitivity. That is, our consciences, which tell us what is right and wrong, will become dull. Then we will give ourselves over to all kinds of impurity, sensuality, and greed. Paul does not give us an exhaustive list of sins here, but we have the idea: people without good consciences are willing to engage in any and every sin. They are given over to it. Romans 1 tells us the same thing, only there it is even more scary, since it is God who gives them over to their reprobate minds. The reward of sin is more sin, and the culmination is death. In that process, the conscience slowly withers and dies away. As someone else has said, “She won’t listen to her conscience. She doesn’t want to take advice from a total stranger.” The trouble with the advice, “Follow your conscience” is that most people follow it like someone following a wheelbarrow–they direct it wherever they want it to go, and then follow behind. In such a way, people suppress the truth in unrighteousness, as Paul tells us in Romans. We have not thus learned Christ, as Paul will go on to tell us in verse 20.
The point here is that we have to face our own depravity squarely in the face, and not deny it as most people do. We have to acknowledge the fact that we are sinners in the sight of God. We must look at the worst person in the history of the world, and say, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” It is only then, when we have faced our own depravity, the bad news, that we can go on to see the good news of Jesus Christ. To say that we really aren’t all that bad is to say that Jesus really didn’t need to come. And that is blasphemy. Christ died to save sinners. And we should not be blind to our own depravity. Satan wants to blind us to that fact, but our conscience must show us that we are sinners.
As I said, this is a somewhat darker sermon today. I make no apology for that, since it is precisely the same tone that our Scripture passage has. That darkness should make us yearn for the light of the pure Gospel.
So, do not stifle your conscience. Instead, you should make it stronger by a careful study of God’s law. That will always make the conscience stronger. Then your conscience will convict you of sin, and direct you back to your Savior, Jesus Christ. And, as Paul says later in the passage, we are to put off our old selves, and put on Christ. It is a continual act as well as a one-time act. When we become Christians, we put on Christ in a one-time act. However, there is also a sense in which we must continually put on Christ. We must continually put to death the old man that is dying and as good as dead within us. And we must put on the new man, the Holy Spirit working in our souls. Then we can say, “There, because of the grace of God, go I into heaven.”
David Gadbois
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paigebritton
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Ron Henzel
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