Hey, church family, it is Devo Time. Grab your Bibles. We're going to be in Ephesians chapter 4.

We're going to pick it up in verse 17. Let me give you a little overview of the book of Ephesians.

So what Paul most often does, we've been talking about this kind of a lot. Here's another example

of how identity precedes

activity. What Paul does in most of the epistles, epistles is just a word that means an

apostle wrote it. So when Paul writes to the church at Ephesus, he does this in Philippians,

he does in Galatians, is what he'll do is he starts off the first, basically

in Ephesians, it's like the first half of his letter to the church at Ephesus is the gospel.

In chapter one, it's like the gospel at a 30,000 foot view.

Chapter two, he gets real personal one-on-one with you.

It is by grace that we've been saved through faith, not of works.

He talks about the mystery of the gospel in chapter three,

and then he will shift in the middle of the book of Ephesians,

and now he will talk about how we should live based on the gospel infecting our lives. And so he talks about unity in the body of Christ.

Then he's going to talk about how to live at home and how to live at work, and then he's going

to end Ephesians with an encouragement

on spiritual warfare. So when we get to Ephesians chapter 4, verse 17, you've got to know

that in verse 17, the first word, he says, now, now. All of that before the now is that what I am about to encourage you in the way you ought to live is based on the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Don't miss this.

This isn't just another set of law of the things that we ought to be doing as good Christians.

Paul would say there's no such thing as a good Christian. We were dead, now we're alive.

But living people have a certain way that they act, like they breathe and they eat and they

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