pastor steve: Fight against unresponsive and insensitive heart (Ephesians 4:17-21)

Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon March 1, 2009

We are in a season of God addressing our sin of hypocrisy, the disconnection from what we know and what we do, the disconnection between how we do life in public and how we live in privacy. We talked last week about how we need to fight for grace over shame because unhealthy response to shame such as hiding, shaming and blaming can worsen hypocrisy. As long as our aim is to hide behind the façade of saving face and pretense, shaming others or blaming others without taking responsibilities for our own actions, our spiritual growth will be stunted and we will suffer deeper hypocrisy.

Today, I am going to talk to you about two things. First, I am going to deal with the progression of sin of hypocrisy and shine some light on its cause. Second, I am going to point you back to Jesus to deal with this cause of hypocrisy.

1. Fight against mindless thinking and insensitive heart

When Paul said in Ephesians 4:17, “I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking,” he was addressing the way of life embraced by the majority of the Gentiles in the first century. Here is a remarkable thing about Paul’s address to the Ephesians. It is close to 2000 years old writing that spoke powerfully to the Christians of the first century. Yet, it not only spoke to them back then, it still speaks to us relevantly if we would hear him. The way of life embraced by the Gentiles back then is equivalent to the way of life embraced by the world today.

Paul describes the way of life embraced by the Gentiles as living in the futility of their thinking. You and I tend to think that the problem is in the specifics of sins, but for Paul the big problem is that which gives birth to the specifics of sins. What causes hypocrisy? What causes sin? Paul would answer; it is caused by the unresponsive mind characterized by futility, which is synonymous to meaninglessness, uselessness, worthlessness, ineffectiveness. Eugene Peterson paraphrases “the futility in thinking” as “the empty-headed, mindless.”

For Paul, the fight against hypocrisy must deal with this empty mind that doesn’t respond to God. Paul in Ephesians 4:18 lays out how mind becomes futile and unresponsive to God.

Paul explains that the reason the thinking of the world is ineffective and worthless, unresponsive is because of it s understanding is darkened.
And, understanding gets darkened because one is separated from the life of God.
And, the reason for this separation from the life of God is because of the ignorance.
And, the ignorance is due to the hardening of heart.

Uncritical, empty, mindless and unresponsive thinking is caused by the hardening of heart. Klyne Snodgrass describes this hardening of hearts as “hearts made insensitive to God.”[1] This mind and heart that is unresponsive and insensitive to God is what gives birth to sin. Paul spells out what happens to heart and mind that is unresponsive to God in 4:19, “Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.”

One of the infamous persons in the Bible whose heart was insensitive, hardened, ignorant, separated from God, darkened in understanding, and whose thinking became futile, unresponsive to God was Pharaoh who opposed Moses and God in Exodus.

When Moses and Aaron showed up to demand for the release of the Israelites so they might worship God in the desert, Pharaoh’s heart became hard and he would not listen to them according to Exodus 7:13. Each time, Pharaoh refused to relent to God’s demand to release his people, Pharaoh’s heart became hardened even more.

God said to Moses in Exodus 7:3-5, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt, he will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring my divisions, my people the Israelites. And the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out of it.” God responded to Pharaoh’s hardening his heart by allowing his heart to become even harder. God hardened Pharaoh’s heart by giving him over to the sinful desires of his heart (Romans 1:21-24) because although he witnessed God’s power he refused to submit to God. And, the result was that his thinking became futile thinking that he could outwit God.

According to Ephesians 4:19, Pharaoh lost all sensitivity to God because his heart became hardened and his thinking futile.

Here is another example from recently of one’s mind and heart becoming insensitive to God. Sean Penn won the best actor Oscar in his role of a gay politician and activist Harvey Milk in “Milk.” He said this during the prime time broadcast of the Oscar night,

for those who saw the signs of hatred as our cars drove in tonight, I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage to sit and reflect and anticipate their great shame and the shame in their grandchildren's eyes if they continue that way of support.[2]

When he said this during his acceptance speech, there was a thundering clap from the audience packed with Hollywood powerhouses of actors, actresses, directors, speech writers… and average Americans.

He was speaking against Proposition 8, a California ballot that sought to overturn the California Supreme Court decision that favored same-sex couples to have a constitutional right to marry. Proposition 8 ballet passed added a new section to the California Constitute that reads, “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid of recognized in California.”[3] In Sean Penn’s opinion backed by the leading star powers of Hollywood is that anyone who views marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman is a bigot filled with hatred against the gays and lesbians who and should feel great shame.

I was thinking about Sean Penn’s speech and the scene of the roaring clap from the audiences to his speech at Oscar. Who would you listen to Sean Penn, Brat Pitt who donated $100000 to thwart the Proposition 8, and other Hollywood stars or Paul from the first century?

If it is just the Hollywood, well, maybe we can dismiss it as the opinions from the worldly people. But, when you listen to the discourse from the mainline Christian denominations, you come away confused not knowing if you just heard from Sean Penn or from a professing Christian.

What happens when mind and heart become unresponsive to God’s word? You begin to call sin not as sin but something else benign and even good. Homosexuality is not a sin, but it is now an epic struggle for the civil rights of gays and lesbians just like the fight against slavery and the fight for the voting rights of blacks and women. All that matters now is love. If two people love each other, regardless if it is between men and women or between the same-sex, why should the old idea of marriage restrict the freedom of gays and lesbians, unmarried heterosexual boyfriends and girlfriends to express and experience emotional, physical, sexual intimacy? We may call self-pity as humility, angry and rough manner of speech as righteous anger or zeal, lie as a simply a matter of different perspective, lust as disease…

When you and I begin to call sin as something else, when you and I begin to justify our actions that betrays the truth of God’s word, when the disconnection between what we know and how we live widens, when our mind and heart stops responding to God, we must stop and think soberly for we have gone back to the worldly way of living.

We must fight against mindless thinking that accepts the worldly culture and propositions as how it is even though they contradicts God’s prescribed way of life. We must fight against apathetic unresponsiveness of our mind and heart to God. We must stop calling sin as something other than sin.

2. Fight to hear Jesus and learn from him.

The way we are going to fight against unresponsive mind and heart to God’s truth and his voice is to fight to hear Jesus and learn from him.

Paul says in Ephesians 4:20-21, “You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus.” Paul understood very well that the problem of the futility in thinking and hardening of heart can only be solved by pointing our mind and heart to Jesus.

I want to point you to Jesus. We are now in the season of lent, a forty day period leading to Good Friday and Easter. It is a season when you and I need to pause and soberly come before the cross of our Lord Jesus and acknowledge our unresponsive and insensitive mind and heart. When we turn to Jesus and begin to hear him again, he can move our minds and hearts to learn from him again. Let’s fight to hear Jesus and learn from him.

[2] http://entbiz.blogspot.com/2009/02/sean-penn-wins-best-actor-for.html

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_(2008)