Join Aaron Budgen as he delves into Ephesians 4, exploring the transition from religious legalism to a relationship built on the New Covenant God established through Jesus. Aaron discusses the common misunderstandings surrounding spiritual growth and how true growth is reflected in our internal transformation, facilitated by the Holy Spirit. This insightful episode encourages listeners to consider their relationship with God beyond mere obedience to laws, emphasizing a more profound, intrinsic connection to their faith.
Shema Yisrael Welcome to the broadcast outreach of Living God Ministries with Aaron Budgen. Aaron discovered Jesus is his Messiah while preparing to be a rabbi. He now teaches for several organizations and is the teaching pastor for Living God Ministries. Strongly distinguishing between the Old and New Covenants, Aaron presents the scriptures from a Judaic and historical frame of reference. Join Aaron now as he reveals the reality foreshadowed and the new life we can now experience because of what the Lord Jesus accomplished for us.
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Thank you for taking the time to listen to this program. Do also go to our website, livinggodministries.net, and read through the recent testimonials page that we have there. There you will see the effectiveness of this ministry and discover how we have cleared away many of the common barriers that keep them from knowing their God, growing and maturing in their faith. Again, you can find this page at livinggodministries.net and know that as you listen to these programs, you will likely find something that will be significant for you to grow and mature in your relationship with your God. I’m presenting a verse-by-verse study through Ephesians, and in the previous message I was in Ephesians 4, verse 16, which says, “…from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share,” causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love and in the previous couple of messages I’ve been talking about growth in the context of Growing to know the Lord of growing to know your God to know him personally Now, Paul is making a transition from verse 16 into verse 17. And from verse 17 to pretty much the end of the chapter, Paul makes a transition and starts speaking about things that people could look at and say, this is a measurement of growth. And in some ways, I will agree. But what these passages can imply is that the growth of a believer is is going to be measured by how well they control their flesh. That is what people tend to do when they go through Ephesians chapter 4, is they end up looking at this as a description of how we will know that a person has grown in the faith We will know because here’s the list of things that we would expect people to do and the list of things that we would expect people not to do. And so this is how we measure whether or not a person has grown in the faith because they will or will not have grown. gotten their flesh under better control than how they behaved beforehand this is what people tend to do now i will of course say that i deeply believe that if a person knows the lord there will be a change within their person such that they will see a reduction of sin in their lives in some way. But what I do not see, what I just simply do not agree with, is that it is necessary or that it is an appropriate way to measure the growth of a person. There are a lot of reasons why I take that position. And I’m not going to get into those reasons at this time. I just wanted to mention that this is the approach that most people take when it comes to Ephesians chapter 4. I will not be taking that approach because I do see these passages differently. And while I do, again, I do expect that there would be a change in a person’s life, I personally believe that this will be a manifestation of the Holy Spirit doing a work within them, and that this is not about a person making a committed decision to stop sinning, to get their flesh under control, to follow what I like to call the list, because that’s what we’re going to get to. We’re going to get to a number of verses down here below that can easily be described as a list. But it’s important to remember what he said in the previous three chapters and that what he is saying here at the end of Ephesians chapter 4 is to be understood in the light of what he has already said in the previous three chapters. And what happens is that people either do not understand much of anything of what he talked about in the previous three chapters, or they are intentionally just simply ignoring it. And then using these passages as a way of saying that we are now to live a life in obedience to God instead of living a life of resting and trusting in the inheritance that we have received as his children as a result of his death. Those are two completely different ways of life. One way of life is to live on the basis of what you have. to live with what you have been given by God as a part of salvation. And the other way of life effectively becomes a life of living your life in a way that you will hope to obtain something from God, that perhaps you will be blessed by God in some way or rewarded by God because of your repentance and obedience. which is what was promised and what is expected through the law and what people will naturally expect as they attempt to live their lives in this way. So it’s important to understand the first three chapters really well before you get into the end of chapter four. And so for those of you who have not taken the time to listen to the programs that I recorded on Ephesians chapter one, two, and three, Please do keep this in mind that I’m doing these recordings here in chapter four, assuming that you are really familiar with what I already described in Ephesians chapter one through three. And of course, all of these programs are available for free in the Living God Ministries radio archive on the website livinggodministries.net. All right, now with all of that, let’s proceed into verse 17. In Ephesians chapter 4, verse 17, he says, “…this I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk.” in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart. That’s verse 17 and verse 18. All right, now in verse 17, he says that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk. Now, just so that there isn’t any confusion here, it’s important to remember that this does not automatically mean that they should be walking like the Jews walked. I have to say that because I have encountered a lot of people over the years who kind of take that position. They think, well, gosh, you know, we just need to learn how the Jews walked and walk like they walked in a sense, you know. Jesus was a Jew. The more we are like a Jew, the closer we’ll be to Jesus. I’ve heard people actually say that to me many times. This is not an unusual way to describe what they think the Christian life is about, right? And so when he says, do not walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, do not default to, well, I guess that means that we’re supposed to walk as the Jews walk. And so what do people do when they think in those terms? They think, well, how did they walk? Well, they had the law of God. They had the law that was given through Moses. So we live by the law of Moses. That’s how the Jews walked. The Gentiles didn’t walk that way. They didn’t live that way. The Jews did. So let’s find out all we need to know about the Mosaic law. and then we will live according to the Mosaic law. Now, of course, in the Christian world, there are not many groups who take that to that kind of an extreme, you know, to say that we’re going to observe the entirety of the Mosaic law to the best of our ability. There are not many groups that take that approach. Most people take the approach of, well, we’ll just do the Ten Commandments. You know, we’ll just look at the Ten Commandments. And as long as we do those, then we are close enough to not walking like the Gentiles walk because we have ten of the commandments of God. You know, they don’t realize that the only reason why there’s only 10 is because God couldn’t get past the first 10 before the people said, we don’t want to hear anymore. You know, as soon as he said, don’t covet, they said, OK, that’s it. You know, I mean, the other ones are fine. The first nine we can do. But you want to bring up that? We already know we’re not going to be able to do that. And so if you’ve got anything more to say, you go talk to Moses outside the camp. You go talk with him. And then he’ll tell us what you have to say, because we’re just not going to even go any further with this at all. That was part of the issue as to why we only got 10 of them before God said, OK, that’s it. We’ll give the rest to Moses. You know, he made it that far until the people said that’s enough. And this is what the Christian world will tend to do. They tend to look at that and say, OK, you know, this is enough. We’ll just go with this. We’ll stop at coveting. We won’t talk about that one a whole lot. We’ll just emphasize the other ones, like don’t murder anybody, don’t commit adultery, and don’t steal things. And when it comes to the Sabbath, we’ll call it Sunday. Some people can call it Saturday. I suppose it doesn’t really matter as long as it’s one day a week. This is the kind of attitude that a lot of people have, and I’m not going to discuss the issues related to that. I’m just wanting to emphasize the point that this is how people will tend to define not walking as the rest of the Gentiles walk. They say, okay, the Gentiles did not have the law of God. We do. So let’s walk according to the law of God. In effect, let’s walk as the Jews walk. But folks, how did that go? You know, I mean, take a look at what Jesus told the people when he was conducting his ministry. With men, this is impossible. His disciples eventually asked him, after he was teaching the law for quite a while, he taught it to the point where he showed them that that there was no way that anyone was ever going to make it into the kingdom of heaven by walking in a way that was different than how the Gentiles walked. And he explained to them, you know, with men, this is impossible, which was the introduction to the fact that there would have to be another way, another way of life entirely. There were, of course, many Jews who did not live in devotion to the Mosaic Law. If you think everybody did, then you definitely have a distorted view of reality. There were people, of course, there were very devoted religious people, but just like in every society in the history of humanity, this is always a small group of people, it’s not the majority. the majority of the people, they lived, in effect, in a similar way as the Gentiles lived. You think everybody who’s born into Israel, who were born as a Jew, would have a deep conviction of even the existence of God at all? If you think that, you are very much misinformed. And so even the Jews themselves would qualify for a statement like this in verse 17. If we were to put this in the context of the end of Jesus’s ministry, we could put the Jews in here and say it this way. And so don’t be disoriented by Paul mentioning the Gentiles. He was talking to the Gentiles. He was talking to the people who were within the Gentile community in the Gentile world. Ephesus was a very large community of all kinds of people. There were Jews there, but predominantly there were non-Jews, which means a Gentile. But even if it was an environment filled with many Jews who were definitely the predominant group of people in the area, if you think that he would say, make sure you walk like everybody else does… then you need to start over with something like the book of Acts. And I do have a verse-by-verse study on the book of Acts that you can find in the Living God Ministries radio archive. And follow that up with a letter that he wrote to the Galatians, which I also have a verse-by-verse study for. You’ve got a long way to go. For him to say this in this way, he could easily say it in the same way if he was writing to people in Jerusalem, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Jews walk in the futility of their mind. Consider verse 18, looking ahead a little bit, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God. That’s an important concept. I’ll come back to that in just a moment. Alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance. that is in them. Ignorance would be better defined as someone who has been confronted with the truth and who is ignoring, who is deciding to ignore the truth that is obvious in front of their face. The end of verse 18 says, “…because of the blindness of their heart.” Let me start with that, the end of verse 18, and then come back. “…the blindness of their heart.” Did the Jews know their Messiah when he was there in front of them, living with them, dwelling with them, teaching them, having conversations with them, listening to what they had to say? How many people recognized him for who he really is? Not very many people. Look at the end of his ministry. Who was left? Hardly anybody was left who would identify themselves as one of his followers. Of course, things began to change a little bit when he resurrected from the dead. But before that, who saw? Who really knew? Who really understood? Their understanding was darkened. They were alienated, separated from their God. They didn’t know him when they saw him. They were blind in their heart, in their mind, in their being. They did not see their God. When he was there, they did not know him. And for hundreds of years ever since, the Jews continued. Most all of them continued with how they were and how they lived before Jesus came. And if at any time Jesus decided to stop by again, they still wouldn’t know him if they saw him. If they figured out who he really was, then they would likely try to kill him again. So to say that the answer will be found in being like a Jew… or the answer will be found in turning back to the law of God which was fundamentally how the Jews would define their relationship with God if they were going to have one at all or what it meant to walk in their daily lives that they would walk in repentance and obedience to the law of God and to think that that is going to make a difference so that people will not be blind in their heart so they will not be ignorant anymore so that they will have the life of God and their understanding will be illuminated this is wishful thinking that will go nowhere absolutely nowhere folks it’s easy for me to say this because this is where I started you know before I became a Christian that was my life that was my devotion that was my commitment and so I can say this with great conviction and sincerity because I know what it is to walk without my god and yet in a life devoted to the mosaic law in a life devoted to wanting to know my god and to be a part of what he is doing in this world i know the difference between walking as the jews would have walked and walking in the new covenant that our God has established through the Messiah. I know those two different ways of life very well, and I can tell you with absolute conviction that to pursue a life of repentance and obedience is definitely not the way to go. It’s a dead end, and you will find yourself very much alienated from the life of God. And I’m saying this with so much determination because this is exactly what I find the majority of the Christian world occupied with, you know? This is what I have seen ever since I left the synagogue. I have seen time and time again assemblies of people doing what I would call Levitical light, you know, a lighter version of it. They’re not that committed. They’re not that sincere. They don’t really have the conviction that they suggest that they might have. It’s not really there. It’s a good try, you know, but it’s just not really going to come close. And yet they advertise themselves as if they are the people of God, you know, because they don’t walk as the unbelievers walk. They don’t walk as those who do not have the knowledge of good and evil like they have. They have the knowledge of good and evil. They know what’s right. They know what’s wrong. And they talk about it every Sunday morning about what is the sin that you need to repent of next. And if you’re not sure, don’t worry. You can set up an appointment with the pastor and he’ll interview you with his little notepad and he’ll write down all the little sins that he suspects you’re dealing with in your life. You know, some of the ones you know about, others that might be considered to be secret sins. And that is his relationship with you. You know, it’s to identify the sins in your life and to make you feel as guilty and as ashamed as possible or as is necessary to in order to get you to stop doing it this is a popular example and there are of course many others this is just the most common that I have personally seen thinking that this is what the Christian life is about it’s about obedience and you know I understand look You know, this is being broadcasted on radio. It’s on this radio station. And I know that there are many others who broadcast on this station who take the position that the Christian life is all about obedience. And, you know, God bless you. I mean, you know, if that’s what you want to believe, then I’m going to say you need to really believe it. And really embrace that and you just give it your all, you know, because I have the opinion that if you will really be committed to that, that eventually, eventually you’re going to reach the wall and realize that you have absolute despair and hopelessness. And if you don’t, it’s because you’re just not that serious about what you are promoting or what you’re advertising. And then you get to decide if you’re going to walk away from that kind of a message, knowing that the majority of the people who support your work will just simply find somebody else who will tell them that because that’s what people want to hear. In the majority, they want to hear, oh yes, repent and obey, and God will bless me. And there is, of course, a lot that I have said about this in other programs, about why it is that people find the law to be very appealing. There are a lot of things that I can say about that, but I don’t have time in this program. I just wanted to mention that there’s no way that Paul would have been implying that here in verses 17 and 18. There’s no way that he would imply that at all. The answer, I think, is going to be found in the phrase in verse 18 where he says, being alienated from the life of God. In verses 17 and 18, to me, that is a phrase to remind us that we need to hold true to all that he has said in the previous three chapters, that it has to do with not being alienated from from the life of God. It has to do with being close to the life of God. And if we are, then the following things that he says in the following verses are going to be a natural manifestation of not being alienated from the life of God, but being connected to the life of God. Now it’s important for me to say that if you are struggling with any of these kinds of sins that are here in chapter 4 that we could describe as the list, that does not automatically mean that you are alienated from the life of God entirely. we have to start with being connected and close to the life of god the life of god is referring to the spirit of god who dwells within us and our relationship with him is possible because he is there because he is close because he is within It is the spiritual connection between his spirit and our spirit. And certainly these sins can be described as indicators that we are alienated from the life of God. But I have to tell you from my own personal experience, that we have to start with getting closer and closer to our God. And what I have seen within my own life over decades of living in the truth of the Holy Spirit of God dwelling within me, who has forgiven me, who has given me an inheritance, and who has been teaching me and guiding me, how to live my life with what he has given to me I can tell you that there were sins that I struggled with in a big way when I was younger and now as I am older I have discovered that some of those sins have gone away and without question in my heart this is a direct consequence of of not being so alienated from the life of God, but it is because I am close to him, because he is close to me, it is because of the closeness between my God and I. But these changes were not decided by me. These changes were things that I discovered in my own person, in my own heart. Over a period of time, I recognized, my goodness, there has been some change. And many times I have prayed and asked the Lord to show me. How is it that this happened? What did you do? And there have been a few occasions when he has spoken to my heart and shared with me how he did a work within me. And so, yes, these things can be indicators of being alienated from the life of God, but they are not proof. that you are alienated from the life of God. You will be connected to the life of God, and he will make decisions about the kind of changes that he will be able to do and that he will be willing to do within a person’s heart. This has been my personal experience, and so I will speak of it with conviction, and I will continue with this in the next program. Thank you for tuning in to today’s program. This is Aaron Budgen, and I recently released a book titled Building Life. This is for young people who are starting out into adulthood, and it is also for those who have found themselves in a circumstance where they are starting their lives over. I have put a lot of effort into writing this book. It is a short read of about two and a half hours. It is only available directly from me. So if you would like a copy, go to the Living God Ministries website and you will see a link there that says, inform me of Aaron’s books. Fill out the form and I will get back with you as soon as I can. do take the time to go to the Living God Ministries radio archive at livinggodministries.net. The archive is divided up into three sections. The first section is more of the life of Christ, and I provide a lot of historical content there in those programs. And I have made a lot of important contributions from a historical perspective to better understand what was taking place during Jesus’ ministry. In the second section of the archive, I speak about our life in Christ. And in the third section, you will find the verse-by-verse studies. If you would like some recommendations on what to listen to and in what order, do just send us an email to staff at livinggodministries.net. You will find that email on the Contact Us page. And after a conversation with me, I’ll give you a list of programs that I would recommend and in what order.
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