Every one of your grandfathers would have had how many? You have grandfathers, grandmothers. Four, right? Is that how it works? Or do you have eight? Common, do your family tree in your mind. ![]() Can anybody name all - how many great-grandfathers do we have? Well if you have two grandfathers, how many great-grandfathers would you have? Common, do your family tree. They are the exception.īy and large, you know what you find when you look at your family tree? Do you ever think like this? Great-grandfather, you know, we start losing the names of even who our relatives are right about at that level. You see, the people that have a lineage of Christianity are very rare in this world. You know what Peter is telling us? Take a look at your family tree and you know what you're going to find? You're going to find a bunch of people - and this is typical you can be certain that Peter, by and large, is writing to first generation Christians, as Paul was, and as many in this room are. Do you ever think about your forefathers? Some people love family trees. "Your forefathers" - you know what Peter is saying? You have an inheritance, and he's not talking money, lands, houses. Don't turn there but listen to this: In 1 Peter 1:18, "Knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers." Now I just want you to think for a second. You know in Peter's first epistle, he has something to say about futility. Now notice verse 17, because I want to focus on something this morning: "Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer" - you MUST no longer be like this you must! "You must no longer walk as the Gentiles do," and how do they walk? "in the futility of their minds." And that's our subject matter this morning: The Futility of the Mind. If you've learned Christ, this is what you are not any longer. But notice, Paul's main purpose here is not so much to tell us what the unregenerate man is like, as much as it is to tell us what we no longer are. We all were these unregenerate, without the Spirit, hell bound, without God, without hope kind of people. If we are not this way, we are no longer that way but we were that way. And this is the shape of man by nature as he comes into this world. This is hell bound man without the Spirit. Look, these three verses, this is man who is going to hell. You think of those first verses in Ephesians chapter 2, which was prior to the portion of Scripture we are reading by a couple of chapters, they have descriptions of the lost man as well. Again, we could go over to Romans chapter 3, again we have a very detailed description of the depravity of unregenerate man. In Romans 1 verses 18 and following, you have, through the end of the chapter there, a massive description of lost man. Probably one of the most complete definitions or descriptions of the unregenerate man that we have in our Bibles. But in verses 17 through 19, Paul gives us a description of the unregenerate. Now what Paul does here, in verses 17 through 19, and you'll notice in verse 21 there's a transition. We pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. I pray that these people would be able to promise that they would keep what's found here. Lord, we will ask that these verses would not be just merely ink, print, a dead letter but I pray that Your Spirit would take these spiritual things and teach them to those here who are spiritual. Father, it's with faith that You fill this place and dwell here, hear our prayers, and are a God who answers prayer. But that is not the way you learned Christ!- assuming that you have heard about Him and were taught in Him, as the truth is in Jesus," and what is that truth as it is in Jesus? "to put off your old man (ESV wrongly puts self there but it's the old man) which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self (or the new man), created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." ![]() ![]() They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. Ephesians 4:17, "Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you, Christians, must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.
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