SPEAKER_00: All right, church, this morning we will be in Ephesians chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians chapter 4, and this morning we will be looking at verses 17 through 24, which is all about putting off the old self.
SPEAKER_00: Out with the old, in with the new.
SPEAKER_00: So all of Ephesians up to this point has mostly been theological.
SPEAKER_00: So far, Paul has established doctrine concerning God, the nature of our salvation, the nature of the church.
SPEAKER_00: We saw last time here in chapter 4, in verses 1 through 16, this vision that Paul gives for the church, that Christ gives for the church, that we would be unified, diverse, connected, growing together in maturity, in Christ likeness.
SPEAKER_00: It's this amazing vision, isn't it, when we look over those verses.
SPEAKER_00: All of us together, connected as one, walking towards Christian maturity together.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone is exercising their God-given gifts.
SPEAKER_00: The leaders are equipping the saints for the works of ministry, and the saints are using that equipment to do the works of ministry.
SPEAKER_00: So every body part is functioning as it should.
SPEAKER_00: This vision of looking more like Christ as we head together towards glory.
SPEAKER_00: But immediately after sharing this vision, Paul will now transition to our behavior.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because it's not enough to share a vision.
SPEAKER_00: You could say yes all day to this vision, but you will never get there if you don't say no to a thousand other things.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you an example.
SPEAKER_00: You could have a vision for losing 50 pounds, but you will never achieve it if you eat at McDonald's every day.
SPEAKER_00: You could have a vision for having a successful business, but that will never happen if you're knee-deep in gambling addiction.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way, you can have a vision for being a healthy, stable, contributing member of Christ's body, but it will never happen if you continue to live in your old sinful lifestyle.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine for a moment if I told my wife, honey, I am going to cherish you, I will lay down my life for you, and I will be the best husband I can be to you, but I'm gonna start using drugs and sleeping around with other women.
SPEAKER_00: It's absurd.
SPEAKER_00: It's absolutely absurd.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way, saying yes to Christ is saying no to your old lifestyle.
SPEAKER_00: You can't serve two masters.
SPEAKER_00: You can't be healthy if you're drinking poison.
SPEAKER_00: You can't hope your team wins the Super Bowl if you're a Browns fan.
SPEAKER_00: Yet so many of us try.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: We want spiritual maturity, but we don't want to change.
SPEAKER_00: We want to feel God's blessings.
SPEAKER_00: I know I do, but we continue to drink sin down like it's water.
SPEAKER_00: We want God's power in our lives, but we don't want to give up nasty habits.
SPEAKER_00: As Leonard Ravenhill once said, everyone wants to be clothed with power, but no one wants to be stripped of self.
SPEAKER_00: Throughout the rest of Ephesians, Paul is going to teach us what this new life looks like.
SPEAKER_00: But before he teaches us about how to walk out the spirit-filled life, he starts his entire discourse by telling us to put off the old life.
SPEAKER_00: That's the starting point.
SPEAKER_00: Put off the bad so that you can walk in the new.
SPEAKER_00: So look at how Paul starts the conversation in verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: Now this I say, and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds.
SPEAKER_00: So before Paul gives us any command here, he starts by saying, Hey, I testify in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: What he's about to say, it's not an opinion, it's not a suggestion.
SPEAKER_00: What he is about to command us is from the Lord's testimony.
SPEAKER_00: He highlights divine authority here to let us know that this should be taken seriously.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why would Paul feel the need to underscore authority here?
SPEAKER_00: Because anytime we get into the realm of Christian behavior or holiness, we're really good at kind of brushing it over.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: If a preacher says, hey, God is love in Christ has given us forgiveness, I don't have a problem living that out.
SPEAKER_00: I'll shout that all day long, that I'm a sinner saved by grace.
SPEAKER_00: I will sing that all day long.
SPEAKER_00: But once the preacher starts saying, hey, be holy, stop mistreating your wife, don't gossip, remain sexually pure.
SPEAKER_00: Now we start to become a little bit uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: My flesh will make excuses.
SPEAKER_00: As an excuse, I'll call it legalism.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Our inner lawyer attempts to self-justify.
SPEAKER_00: Which is why Paul says here, this is from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It's not from me, this is from the Lord himself.
SPEAKER_00: And the command is what?
SPEAKER_00: To no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds.
SPEAKER_00: This is principle number one, church.
SPEAKER_00: Don't walk like a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the word Gentile is referring to here.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be like the world.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because you don't belong there anymore.
SPEAKER_00: You once walked like a sinner, you once talked like a sinner, but ever since Jesus Christ He rescued your soul, that is no longer you.
SPEAKER_00: You have been cleansed by the blood of Christ, you've been declared legally righteous in the eyes of God, and you have been eternally adopted as a child of God through the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You are in every sense a new creation.
SPEAKER_00: Next, Paul expounds on the way of sinners.
SPEAKER_00: So what's that mean?
SPEAKER_00: Don't walk like a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: How do lost people walk?
SPEAKER_00: Well, look at verses 17 into verse 18.
SPEAKER_00: So, first, in the futility of their minds, they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, due to the hardness of heart.
SPEAKER_00: The world walks with an empty mind.
SPEAKER_00: Futility, it means meaningless pursuits.
SPEAKER_00: They are human efforts apart from God, and therefore they have no eternal value or significance.
SPEAKER_00: The thoughts of unbelievers are useless.
SPEAKER_00: They have no value because their thoughts are independent, they're self-generated, and they're not considering God.
SPEAKER_00: And if you have an empty mind, then you will have, look at the verse, a darkened understanding.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like having sunglasses on.
SPEAKER_00: Everything that you see and that you perceive in life is darkened.
SPEAKER_00: It's dark because it's disconnected from God in his presence.
SPEAKER_00: All of your moral reasoning will be clouded.
SPEAKER_00: You will have a distorted view on morals.
SPEAKER_00: You will have distorted priorities.
SPEAKER_00: The way that you see life in yourself, it will be twisted.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus talks about this in Matthew 6 in verse 23.
SPEAKER_00: He says, if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.
SPEAKER_00: And the underlying causes are outlined here.
SPEAKER_00: First, it's because you're alienated from God.
SPEAKER_00: You're separated from Him.
SPEAKER_00: The only thing you can do apart from God is sin.
SPEAKER_00: You're without His aid, His love, His guidance, His redeeming benefits.
SPEAKER_00: And secondly, you are ignorant.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, the word ignorant doesn't mean a lack of information.
SPEAKER_00: It denotes this willful disregard of revealed truth.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it means.
SPEAKER_00: You resist reality.
SPEAKER_00: And lastly, your heart is hardened.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have a teachable, tender, sensitive heart towards the things of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's this progression.
SPEAKER_00: An empty mind leads to a darkened understanding, which leads to alienation, ignorance, and ultimately it's a hard heart.
SPEAKER_00: This depicts someone who is no longer sensitive to God's truth, to God's will, his voice, his conviction.
SPEAKER_00: You're no longer stimulated at all to the things of God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus describes this condition for us in Matthew 13.
SPEAKER_00: He he quotes Isaiah and he says, You hear, but you never understand.
SPEAKER_00: You will see, but you will never perceive.
SPEAKER_00: You have shut your eyes and closed, or shut your ears and closed your eyes, is what he says.
SPEAKER_00: This condition, it's like a little kid when you're trying to tell them something, that they just close their ears and they shut their eyes and they just scream, blah, blah, blah, I can't hear you.
SPEAKER_00: That's a hard heart.
SPEAKER_00: In this condition, it's terrifying.
SPEAKER_00: It's describing a heart that cannot be penetrated because sin has so conquered it.
SPEAKER_00: No sense of guilt, shame, morality, just an absolute refusal to heed the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You become stiff-necked, resistant toward repentance.
SPEAKER_00: Your conscience becomes seared.
SPEAKER_00: This is the way, church, that sinners walk.
SPEAKER_00: They walk with an empty mind, a darkened perspective, and a hard heart.
SPEAKER_00: And this condition will lead to what?
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 19.
SPEAKER_00: They give themselves up to sensuality and greedy to practice every kind of impurity.
SPEAKER_00: This is the progression of sin that we see in Romans 1.
SPEAKER_00: A depraved mind leads to a hard heart, which leads to perversity and immorality.
SPEAKER_00: God, as a form of judgment, will give people over to their evil desires.
SPEAKER_00: He will remove his restraint, if you will, and say, go and do whatever you want to do.
SPEAKER_00: Go and indulge the things that will destroy you and torment your soul.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if any of you have read C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis's series, The Chronicles of Narnia, but in the book, uh, The Voyage of the Don Treader, it's one of my favorite parts.
SPEAKER_00: There's this part in the book where the crew on the ship approached this island where all of your dreams can come true.
SPEAKER_00: It's an island where all of your dreams can come true.
SPEAKER_00: And in the water, near that island, they saw a man.
SPEAKER_00: His name was Lord Roop.
SPEAKER_00: He's in the water, he's fleeing the island, and he screams in the book Mercy, mercy, take me on board, he says.
SPEAKER_00: Take me, even if you strike me dead, take me.
SPEAKER_00: But in the name of all mercies, do not fade away and leave me on this horrible land.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine the response of the crew?
SPEAKER_00: You want to leave an island where all of your dreams come true?
SPEAKER_00: Like, what's so terrifying about that?
SPEAKER_00: That sounds great to me.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but that sounds great.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord Roop, as he explained to the crew, he said, friends, you're not hearing me.
SPEAKER_00: Did you hear what I said?
SPEAKER_00: All of your dreams will come true.
SPEAKER_00: And then they began to tremble.
SPEAKER_00: Imagining how hellish and heinous an island would be where all of your dreams would come true.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, the human heart is desperately wicked.
SPEAKER_00: It's desperately wicked.
SPEAKER_00: Our hearts are so stained with sin.
SPEAKER_00: In the depth of evil that we can imagine and do, it knows no end.
SPEAKER_00: The worst thing that could ever happen to us is if God stopped hindering us from our evil pursuits and said, Go and have whatever you want.
SPEAKER_00: I will no longer create barriers for you.
SPEAKER_00: I will no longer convict you.
SPEAKER_00: Go and have at it.
SPEAKER_00: This naturally leads to sensuality, which means pursuing pleasure and gratification with no self-control.
SPEAKER_00: Sensuality, it often involves excessive physical and sexual pleasures.
SPEAKER_00: It's when someone is totally dominated by their desires and they say, I will do whatever gives me a dopamine hit.
SPEAKER_00: Or I will, my, my God, my cravings will be my belly.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And if sensuality becomes our pursuit, we become, look at the verse, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.
SPEAKER_00: We're like kids at a candy store with unlimited money.
SPEAKER_00: We're trying all the different flavors and the kinds and the shapes, right?
SPEAKER_00: Vanilla ice cream is no longer enjoyable.
SPEAKER_00: We need more flavors to enhance our taste buds.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way, that is how we become with sin.
SPEAKER_00: We become greedy for it.
SPEAKER_00: We progress in sin, in severity and in frequency.
SPEAKER_00: Like Romans 1 says, we begin to invent, we come up with inventions of new sinful behaviors and we we celebrate it.
SPEAKER_00: We are greedy to practice every kind of impurity, trying to enhance sinful pleasure as our life goal.
SPEAKER_00: And do you know why sin is always progressive?
SPEAKER_00: Because it never satisfies.
SPEAKER_00: Sin never satisfies.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe for a short fleeting moment, but just like a drug, we become tolerant to it.
SPEAKER_00: The level of craving increases while the pleasure that we gain from it decreases.
SPEAKER_00: And so we need more.
SPEAKER_00: We need to try harder, stronger, weirder things to chase fleeting pleasure, trying to enhance satisfaction, which is never enough.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul commands us, with the Lord's authority, do not walk in this way anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Church, don't walk in this way anymore.
SPEAKER_00: This is your old man.
SPEAKER_00: This is the way of sinners, and they're heading towards hell.
SPEAKER_00: The day Jesus Christ came into our lives, he buried this old man.
SPEAKER_00: So why would you try to resurrect him?
SPEAKER_00: And the fact that Paul commands this, it implies that we are still capable of such things.
SPEAKER_00: Do Christians still sin?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we do.
SPEAKER_00: Will we ever become sinless?
SPEAKER_00: Not on this side of heaven, right?
SPEAKER_00: But should Christians continually live in and be dominated by sin's power?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: But it is possible, right?
SPEAKER_00: But it is possible.
SPEAKER_00: It's possible for Christians to be stuck in old sinful patterns, spiritually depressed, misrepresenting Christ on earth.
SPEAKER_00: We see it all the time.
SPEAKER_00: Walking in the old ways of the old man, which is why Paul says this.
SPEAKER_00: Don't walk in that way anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Can we not all relate?
SPEAKER_00: You're in this sweet season with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You're in his word every day.
SPEAKER_00: You're praying a lot.
SPEAKER_00: You feel close to him.
SPEAKER_00: You've got Shane and Shane worship music playing in the car on your way to work.
SPEAKER_00: And then time passes.
SPEAKER_00: Then you start slacking a little bit here, a little bit there in your daily devotion.
SPEAKER_00: Next thing you know, instead of praying on your way to work, you're worrying about things.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of Shane and Shane on the playlist, all of a sudden ACDC's on there.
SPEAKER_00: More time passes, you can't even remember the last time you got in the Word, let alone just talk to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Your thought life starts to become a little darkened.
SPEAKER_00: You start checking out at home, just being lazy and doom scrolling on your phone.
SPEAKER_00: You're getting more frustrated with people around you and your spouse.
SPEAKER_00: You start looking at forbidden things.
SPEAKER_00: Old sinful habits that you thought you you conquered, they're back.
SPEAKER_00: They're back.
SPEAKER_00: You're lusting again.
SPEAKER_00: You're worried about money again.
SPEAKER_00: You're easily angered again.
SPEAKER_00: You're criticizing other Christians.
SPEAKER_00: You're resisting spiritual authority, trying to control people.
SPEAKER_00: You're craving fleshly things.
SPEAKER_00: And it's like he's back.
SPEAKER_00: He's back.
SPEAKER_00: The old self is back.
SPEAKER_00: He's controlling the ship.
SPEAKER_00: Your perspective is dark again.
SPEAKER_00: God seems distant.
SPEAKER_00: Going to church feels like a chore.
SPEAKER_00: Sharing the gospel with someone is the last thing on your mind.
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, what happened?
SPEAKER_00: Just a few months ago.
SPEAKER_00: I was so close to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It's like now I'm right back doing all of the sinful things that Christ died for.
SPEAKER_00: Things that I thought were gone and forgotten.
SPEAKER_00: What do we need to hear in these seasons?
SPEAKER_00: Stop walking like a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: You're not a heathen.
SPEAKER_00: You're not a pagan.
SPEAKER_00: You don't belong to this world anymore.
SPEAKER_00: God the Father no longer sees you as a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, don't look like one.
SPEAKER_00: Stop acting like one.
SPEAKER_00: Because Paul says, look at verses 20 through 21, that is not the way you learned in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Assuming that you have heard about him and you were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is destroying any form of teaching that promotes perverted grace or licentiousness.
SPEAKER_00: It's an old heresy.
SPEAKER_00: It's still around today.
SPEAKER_00: And it says this since you're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, since you're not saved by your works, and since there's nothing you can do to earn or keep or maintain your salvation, live however you want.
SPEAKER_00: Sin all you want.
SPEAKER_00: Christ's blood will cover it.
SPEAKER_00: No, says Paul, that is not the way you learned in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You are forgiven so that you will sin no more.
SPEAKER_00: God's grace teaches us, Titus 2, God's grace teaches us to what?
SPEAKER_00: To deny ungodliness, not to indulge it.
SPEAKER_00: Christ's grace doesn't just cover your sin, but it empowers you to overcome it.
SPEAKER_00: You're not saved by good works, but you are saved, Ephesians 2, 4.
SPEAKER_00: Good works.
SPEAKER_00: Church, anyone who uses the grace of Christ to condone, excuse, or promote sin doesn't understand the cross at all.
SPEAKER_00: They don't understand it.
SPEAKER_00: They don't understand the very essence of grace.
SPEAKER_00: That is not the way we learned in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That is not the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: According to the true gospel, we're not just set free from the legal penalty of our sin, but we are given enabling grace to overcome the power of sin in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Not perfectly, but we are given that power.
SPEAKER_00: A new relationship with God means that you have a new relationship with sin.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul in verse 21, he assumes that they've heard about Christ and they were taught in him correctly.
SPEAKER_00: Read the Gospels.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Himself taught us to live differently, to have different attitudes, different desires, to be holy, to pursue righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: He explains how we ought to walk and talk and interact with others and the world around us.
SPEAKER_00: Christ teaches us holiness.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus gives us a new life, and he teaches us how to walk in it, and he gives us the power to walk in it.
SPEAKER_00: And that is what Paul expounds on next.
SPEAKER_00: The new man, the new creation.
SPEAKER_00: What is the way of Christ?
SPEAKER_00: What is the life that Christ has called us to?
SPEAKER_00: Look at verses 22 through 24.
SPEAKER_00: To put off your old self, 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, created after the likeness of God, in true righteousness and holiness.
SPEAKER_00: The new life starts by first putting off the old self.
SPEAKER_00: Don't indulge it or embrace it, put it off.
SPEAKER_00: As Paul says in Romans 6, he says, put to death the deeds of the body.
SPEAKER_00: This is justifiable homicide.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, kill the old man in you that wants to rebel and defy God.
SPEAKER_00: Kill him and leave him dead, leave him in the grave.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean to be offensive here.
SPEAKER_00: Please understand me when I say this.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to be offensive here, but I say this all the time because it's a very helpful analogy.
SPEAKER_00: But every Christian, in a sense, is bipolar.
SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is there's the old self and there's the new self, right?
SPEAKER_00: So even though your old man has been dethroned and you have a new life in Christ, the old man still lingers.
SPEAKER_00: Does he not?
SPEAKER_00: There's Jimmy, here I am, I'm Jimmy, right?
SPEAKER_00: The new man, hopefully, right?
SPEAKER_00: Then there's Jimbo Slice, as I call him.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: He's the old man.
SPEAKER_00: Jimbo Slice is not a good guy.
SPEAKER_00: He's selfish, he's narcissistic, he's critical towards everyone, he hates authority, he likes uh putting anything in his body that can manipulate his reward system.
SPEAKER_00: He has a thing for crude, crude humor.
SPEAKER_00: He's greedy, he's stingy, he's manipulative, and he could care less about the needs of others.
SPEAKER_00: He's a nasty guy.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone who knows me closely, they've seen parts of him.
SPEAKER_00: Ask my wife, ask Connor Riedel.
SPEAKER_00: And although I stand here today, saved and redeemed, I'm telling you that Jimbo Slice is still in here.
SPEAKER_00: He's defeated in a sense, but he makes a ruckus all the time.
SPEAKER_00: He tries to take the steering wheel and catch me on a bad day, and he comes out.
SPEAKER_00: On days or moments when I am not surrendered to the Lord, living my life at his disposal, Jimbo Slice will take the wheel.
SPEAKER_00: He will take the wheel, and it's never pretty.
SPEAKER_00: And if I allow him to lead, I cannot move forward spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: I cannot do anything spiritually productive when he's got the wheel.
SPEAKER_00: So I must first put him off because he's a thing of my past.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the verse.
SPEAKER_00: The old self belongs to your former manner of life, and it's corrupt and through deceitful desires.
SPEAKER_00: I put him off because he belongs in my past.
SPEAKER_00: He's corrupt.
SPEAKER_00: He belongs in the grave and he needs to stay there.
SPEAKER_00: You know, in modern Christianity, I think, I could be wrong on this, but I think we blame the devil way too much.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we'll blame him when we're angry, uh, for giving us bad thoughts or causing me to worry and control things.
SPEAKER_00: We blame the devil when we forgot to set our alarm clock, right?
SPEAKER_00: But most of the time, I think, it's just the old man.
SPEAKER_00: It's just the old sinful flesh, old fleshly habits.
SPEAKER_00: You know the phrase, I am my own worst enemy, it holds true here.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're familiar with scripture, you realize that it's not enough to just stop sinning, right?
SPEAKER_00: So, following the principle of Matthew 12, you can, you know, clean up your house from a demon, but if it returns and your house is empty, seven more will come back.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's not enough to merely put off your old self.
SPEAKER_00: This is just the starting point, not the finish line.
SPEAKER_00: And this, friends, is where so many people go wrong.
SPEAKER_00: I see this a lot in addiction ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Someone will stop using drugs, uh, they they quit getting drunk, uh, they give up old friends, but then they just stop there as if that was the finish line.
SPEAKER_00: This is not true repentance.
SPEAKER_00: True repentance is not merely turning from sin, it's turning from sin and turning towards God for all life, purpose, and satisfaction.
SPEAKER_00: If you stop eating junk food, but you don't replace your appetite with something else, you will begin to starve and you'll end up going right back to the crispy creams.
SPEAKER_00: If you take off your dirty clothes, but you do not put on new clothes, so then you're just kind of standing there awkwardly naked, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's like you'll end up putting on your old clothes because at least you're clothed with something rather than nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Think of a prisoner who's released from prison but still wears his prison clothes, and he acts like a prisoner and not like a free man.
SPEAKER_00: The first thing to tell that person is, hey, you need to put on some new clothes.
SPEAKER_00: And so fundamentally, Paul says that for the Christian, there must be a break with the past so that we can put on the new man, the new creation, the spirit-filled life.
SPEAKER_00: So after putting off the old man, how do we then put on the new man?
SPEAKER_00: Look at the verse.
SPEAKER_00: The starting point is being renewed in the spirit of your minds to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
SPEAKER_00: Look back at the description of Gentiles above.
SPEAKER_00: Where is the starting point for their spiral of depravity?
SPEAKER_00: It started with the futility of their mind.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way, walking in the new man starts with being renewed in the spirit of your minds.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit of your mind, it refers to the believers' thoughts and attitudes.
SPEAKER_00: The mind is the arena where the Holy Spirit constantly works on renewal.
SPEAKER_00: Think of Romans 12, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be what?
SPEAKER_00: Transformed by the renewing of your mind.
SPEAKER_00: The mind is the source of every thought, the seat of every passion, and the judge of every decision.
SPEAKER_00: As one commentator says, physically you are what you eat, right?
SPEAKER_00: But spiritually you are what you think.
SPEAKER_00: As we meditate on God's word day and night, and we delight in the law of the Lord, we become firmly re-established, like trees planted alongside riverbanks, bearing fruit in each season, where the leaves never wither and they prosper in all that they do.
SPEAKER_00: You have no chance of walking in the new man unless you first renew your mind in God's truth.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but I am constantly bombarded with lies that come and go.
SPEAKER_00: I'm never enough.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't love me.
SPEAKER_00: I'll never measure up.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just a loser.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a wretched sinner, I'm an imposter, I'm such a hypocrite.
SPEAKER_00: There's no hope for me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm too far gone, too far broken, I'm uniquely dysfunctional, and I can't change, I'll never change.
SPEAKER_00: And so long as I believe those lies, I will be discouraged, trying to mask my depression, my spiritual depression, with sin, allowing Jimbo Slice to rule, allowing the devil to keep a foot on my neck, and I'll even reinforce those lies by acting on them.
SPEAKER_00: And what Paul is commanding us to do here is to transform our minds with God's word, to replace negative thinking patterns with God's truth, and to interrupt those lies with God's promises, to rise up and say, Shut up, old man.
SPEAKER_00: Stop talking.
SPEAKER_00: Those thoughts are lies.
SPEAKER_00: According to Romans 8, God does love me.
SPEAKER_00: That's what his word says.
SPEAKER_00: He is for me, he's not against me.
SPEAKER_00: And it also says that I'm not defined by yesterday's sins.
SPEAKER_00: According to Galatians 3, Christ has redeemed me.
SPEAKER_00: He set me free.
SPEAKER_00: According to 2 Corinthians 5, I'm not defined by my past.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a new man.
SPEAKER_00: And according to Philippians 1, God will finish what he started in me.
SPEAKER_00: He's not going to give up.
SPEAKER_00: It says he will complete what he started.
SPEAKER_00: According to Malachi 3, his love for me hasn't changed.
SPEAKER_00: According to Ephesians 1, I am a saint, even though I don't feel like it.
SPEAKER_00: I am a saint, and I'm a child of the living God, and I have been chosen before the foundation of the earth, and I am destined for glory.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't positive thinking.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is biblical reality.
SPEAKER_00: It's biblical reality.
SPEAKER_00: And when the mind is renewed with truth, then and only then can we put on the new man that's created after the likeness of God in righteousness and holiness.
SPEAKER_00: It's this amazing picture.
SPEAKER_00: I take off my old smelly shirt of pride, thinking I'm so important and significant.
SPEAKER_00: I take off my shoes, they're stained with lust.
SPEAKER_00: I take that appetite and I throw it away.
SPEAKER_00: I take off my pants that are drenched in greed, I throw them in the garbage and I say no more.
SPEAKER_00: I take off my socks, they they reek of people pleasing, and I throw those away.
SPEAKER_00: I remove my sin-stained hat of self-hatred.
SPEAKER_00: I take that off.
SPEAKER_00: I rip off my useless gloves of shame.
SPEAKER_00: They don't even keep my hands warm, anyways.
SPEAKER_00: And I throw away this nasty wardrobe full of false identities, this disgusting outfit that looks like the rest of the unbelieving world.
SPEAKER_00: And I take the precious robe that Christ has freely given me.
SPEAKER_00: A robe that permeates righteousness and holiness, and I wrap it around myself, and it actually covers my nakedness.
SPEAKER_00: It gives me true peace and security and protection.
SPEAKER_00: I put on the new man who is created after the likeness of God and true righteousness and holiness.
SPEAKER_00: I clothe myself with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The new man, look at the verse, it looks like God.
SPEAKER_00: Not in the sense of being all-knowing or all-powerful or omnipresent.
SPEAKER_00: Like who can say that?
SPEAKER_00: That's not what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: But in the sense of his love, his compassion, his gentleness, his holiness.
SPEAKER_00: This new man is righteous, meaning pure and upright, and he is holy, meaning set apart and sacred.
SPEAKER_00: If you are a true believer in Jesus Christ, you have a new life.
SPEAKER_00: It's a reality.
SPEAKER_00: And at any moment and at any time, you have access and power and spirit-filled ability to walk in this new life.
SPEAKER_00: The only thing that's holding you back from walking in this new life is if you're trying to hold on to your old life.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing there for you.
SPEAKER_00: I have to remind myself of this.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing there for you.
SPEAKER_00: The pride, the anxiety, the endless thoughts of control, the fear, the drugs, the alcohol, the pornography, the gossip, the anger, the resentment, the chaos of drama.
SPEAKER_00: Being so focused on yourself, so inwardly consumed to the point of self-hatred.
SPEAKER_00: Tell me what benefits did you receive?
SPEAKER_00: What kind of life was that for you?
SPEAKER_00: Show me its fruit.
SPEAKER_00: Reckon those things dead.
SPEAKER_00: They're dead, they're buried, they're in the past.
SPEAKER_00: Turn the page, it's a new chapter of your life.
SPEAKER_00: And walk in the new life that Christ has given you.
SPEAKER_00: Stop deceiving yourself, thinking, well, maybe I can hold on to both.
SPEAKER_00: Give that up.
SPEAKER_00: You know it's not true.
SPEAKER_00: That is what James calls a double-minded person who's unstable in all they do because they find themselves trying to hold on to an impossible compatibility.
SPEAKER_00: There's no compatibility.
SPEAKER_00: The old man, look at the verse, is empty-minded, darkened, ignorant, hard-hearted, sensual, greedy, corrupted through what?
SPEAKER_00: Deceitful desires.
SPEAKER_00: And the new man is what?
SPEAKER_00: Created in the likeness of God, in true righteousness and holiness.
SPEAKER_00: The two don't mix.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't winter season, it's not like winter season where you can layer up with both.
SPEAKER_00: You must put one off to put the other one on.
SPEAKER_00: This is the battle that we find ourselves in as Christians.
SPEAKER_00: And so I must ask, what better describes your Christian walk?
SPEAKER_00: Be honest.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about the way that you carry yourself in front of other Christians or on Sundays.
SPEAKER_00: That's easy.
SPEAKER_00: You can manufacture that all day long.
SPEAKER_00: What better describes you at home?
SPEAKER_00: In private, behind closed doors, when no one is watching?
SPEAKER_00: What kind of behaviors and attitudes are you functioning out of as a way of life?
SPEAKER_00: Are you still walking like a sinner?
SPEAKER_00: Are you still talking like a sinner?
SPEAKER_00: Living like the world?
SPEAKER_00: Listen, you have been given a new life in Christ, and you are called to grow in that new life, to mature in it.
SPEAKER_00: But that doesn't occur by just kind of sitting back and hitting autopilot.
SPEAKER_00: It takes intentional spiritual effort.
SPEAKER_00: Why else would Paul command us in Philippians 2 to work out our salvation with fear and trembling?
SPEAKER_00: Why are we habitually told in the Bible to pray without ceasing, to meditate on God's truth, to make sure your calling and election are sure?
SPEAKER_00: Because you must be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.
SPEAKER_00: You are either functioning in the power of the Holy Spirit or you're operating in the cravings of the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: This is our battle.
SPEAKER_00: I know it's mine.
SPEAKER_00: You have an old, wicked, nasty sin nature, and you have a new, holy, purified new nature, and the two are at war.
SPEAKER_00: And the one that you feed, Christian, is the one that will lead.
SPEAKER_00: So what are you feeding?
SPEAKER_00: Are you tickling your flesh?
SPEAKER_00: Are you making provision for it?
SPEAKER_00: Are you entertaining yourself with garbage?
SPEAKER_00: Engaging in ungodly relationships, yielding to every craving, giving what the old nature wants.
SPEAKER_00: Don't walk like that.
SPEAKER_00: For you are a new creation in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, the old is gone and all things are new.
SPEAKER_00: You are now a soldier of heaven, an ambassador on earth to represent Christ in a dark and fallen world.
SPEAKER_00: This world isn't your home anymore.
SPEAKER_00: You are now holy, blameless, purified Saint.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Jesus, who's simply passing through this world as a pilgrim, as you await the new heaven and the new earth to rule with him forevermore.
SPEAKER_00: Put off the old.
SPEAKER_00: You've spent enough time in the past indulging it anyways.
SPEAKER_00: You had your fun, your honeymoon with sin, woo-hoo, but it was a lie, anyways.
SPEAKER_00: It was a lie anyways, and it led to death.
SPEAKER_00: So put that off and put on the new man.
SPEAKER_00: Feed the new man, nourish the new life by renewing your mind in scripture, by exercising the spiritual disciplines of prayer and fasting and fellowship with the saints.
SPEAKER_00: And if you fall and you have a day and the old man you indulge him, there's grace.
SPEAKER_00: Confess, dust your shoes off, there's grace, and walk forward in holiness.
SPEAKER_00: So as we move forward in the letter of Ephesians, we will see how this new life, how it moves, how it functions and operates.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul, he'll actually practically show us what it looks like to live for Christ in our behavior, our marriages, the workplace, and so on.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're here this morning and you're like, look, new life, I'm a new Christian, the this whole new life thing, what's it look like practically?
SPEAKER_00: Stay tuned or read on in Ephesians.
SPEAKER_00: That is the subject that Paul will deal with in the rest of Ephesians.
SPEAKER_00: Church, let us pray.