We're going to continue looking through Ephesians together. So if you have your Bibles, turn to Ephesians chapter 4. We're going to look at Ephesians 4 verses 17 through 24. Ephesians 4 verses 17 through 24. The title of this sermon is Walk This Way, Learning Christ by Following Him. And if you've noticed a pattern throughout Ephesians, Paul will tell us who we are in Christ and then he'll remind us of who we once were. Why does he do that? Well, he wants to exalt the power and grace of God. He wants to extenuate the grace of God in our lives, to extenuate the power that we have in Christ, to say that we are no longer the people we once were. We're new people. We're a new humanity. We are a new creation. And so Paul will be telling us this good news about being saved by grace, then he goes and says, you were once alienated from God. And then he'll come and he'll say, You have these gifts given to the congregation so you can build each other up and edify. But you once were. Don't live that way. He's always wanting to remind us to live as we are now in Jesus Christ. Don't live the way you once were. Understand and appropriate the grace of God that you have in Jesus Christ now. And live as the new creation you already are. Don't try to seek to become the new creation. There's no merit in it. You are the new creation in Christ. Live like it. So let's stand, if you're able, to read this passage of Scripture from Ephesians 4, 17 through 24, if you're able to stand. This is God's Word. Let's hear the Word of God by His grace. Ephesians 4, 17 through 24. 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. 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. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 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, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life, and is corrupt through deceitful desire, 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. Thus ends the reading of God's Word. Let's pray. Our Father, our God, we thank you for this word. Thank you for the risen, ascended Christ who gives us grace, enables us by grace to walk a certain way and follow him. We pray that you would give us ears to hear, hearts to receive, and minds to understand this day. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. Walking. Walking. Paul wants us to walk a certain way. Walking in the Bible. is descriptive of the steps we take before God and man. Walking in the Bible is about wisdom. It's about a path. It's about a way of life. In Jeremiah 21 8, God says to the prophet, I set before you the way of life and the way of death. Walking is about discipleship. Walking in the Bible is about following. Walking is according to God's way as Christians. As those united to Jesus Christ, walking is following Jesus Christ, being empowered by His Spirit, being enabled to walk a certain way. Jesus calls it the narrow path. It is the way of wisdom. What does the walk look like? How are we to walk as Christians? Well, Paul will go on to define that specifically throughout the rest of the book of Ephesians. That's what the imperatives or the commands or the specific commands that he teaches us throughout Ephesians will be from Ephesians 4 through 6. So the remainder of Ephesians is concerned about what we will walk like as those united to Jesus. Not only walking like in a congregation, but walking in our families, in our households, in our relationships. as husbands, as wives, as children, as pastors, as those who are embattled or in a spiritual warfare. Before we move on, it's very important for you to understand all that has gone before us, all that we've learned before in Ephesians 1 through 3. You must understand that in Jesus Christ you have the forgiveness of sin. You must understand before we go forward that in Jesus Christ that you are a recipient of Jesus' grace. You must understand that you've been made alive while you were yet dead because God was rich in mercy. You must understand who you are and you must understand and be fully sure of the forgiveness that you have in Jesus Christ. Remind yourself of the goodness of God in Jesus Christ. He died for you. He lived for you. He laid down His life for you. He has the Holy Spirit that He empowers you. You're adopted as children of God. You've been sealed into the day of redemption. You must keep all that in mind as we go forward, lest all of these commands get broken off from Jesus and His gospel and you just hear a bunch of taboos. That you just hear a lot of things that you need to do in your own self. That's not what Paul wants to emphasize here. It's not what I want to emphasize because of that. We have to understand the forgiveness, the grace that we've received. And then we learn how to live in light of that. We understand our sins are forgiven and that the discipleship or the way of walking that we're going to hear about is not drudgery. Jesus says, my yoke is easy, my burden is light. If you're feeling heavy, it's not grace that's driving you. It's not drudgery. Discipleship Jesus' discipleship, His way of walking is easy. The joke is easy. The burden is light. It is doable. It is available. It is doable because of grace. So walk this way. Why? God no longer counts your sins against you. When He united you to Jesus Christ by His Spirit, He made you something new, a new man, a new creation. And so now we can walk according to the calling. We can walk worthy of it, as he said back in verse 1 of chapter 4. We can walk in humility. We can walk in gentleness. We can walk in patience. But only as we keep our eyes on Jesus' humility for us, His patience with us, His forbearing with us, His walking with us. Throughout the Scriptures, Paul has been, particularly in Ephesians, Paul has been speaking of walking. Remember, Ephesians 2.10 was about that you've been created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God calls you to walk in them. At the beginning of chapter 4, he said, walk according to the calling you receive. not the calling that you've chosen or that you've gone forward and merited, but a calling you've received because of His merit and His grace to you. He says, walk wisely in chapter 5. He says, walk in love in chapter 5. And so, Paul wants us to be reminded that we walk a new way because we're united to Jesus Christ. But he stands up in verse 17. He stands up as an apostle in change. He stands up as in a courtroom setting and he raises his hand to testify, to urge you no longer to walk as you used to walk. Why? You're no longer that person anymore. And so he says in verse 17, Now this I say, I testify to it in the Lord. Paul is under the inspiration of the Spirit. He has the authority of God. His text, his teaching is God breathed. But when he urges something, When he's urging, he's standing, he's testifying, he's witnessing, he's saying, listen very carefully. You must know that you're a new person and no longer the old person. And that's what he wants to say in verses 17 to 19. First he says, don't walk this way. Why again? Why is he concerned with the past? Paul, forget about the past. No. He wants to insinuate God's grace to us in prayer. He wants to remind us of what we've been rescued from. He wants to remind us of the death that we were living in and the life, resurrection life we've received from Christ. He wants us to understand that that old self still tries to cling on to us. There's still old patterns. There's still old sins, old ways of thinking. And he says, don't walk that way. No longer walk the old way. No longer walk in the old way of thinking. The old way of doing things. Get rid of the old thoughts about yourself. Get rid of the old thoughts about God. Get rid of the old patterns. If you're adopted sons, and you are, live like an adopted son. If you're an heir to all that Christ has earned for you, and you are, then live like an heir of God. If you are one who's received His love, Lavish love in Jesus, then live like you're loved. Live like you are one who is wholly and dearly loved. And so he says, no longer live as the Gentiles do in verse 17. No longer live as those who are outside of Christ. No longer walk sinfully and foolishly and unwisely. As Christians, you have a new identity. You're a new person. Look in verses 22 to 24. He wants us to put off the old self or the old man which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, to put on the new self, the new man created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Now keep your finger there and go to Colossians where we read in our scripture lesson, Paul at the one On the one hand, we'll say, I want you to put off the old self and put on. He tells us in Colossians three more clearly that the old self is dead. It's gone. He says in chapter three, verse five, put to death, therefore, what's earthly in you. In verse nine, do not lie to one another, seeing that you put off the old self. And go back to Ephesians. So Paul is saying something like this. And this can be confusing at first glance. He's saying, you have put off the old self in Jesus Christ. Now live like it. Put off the old self. You have put off the old self in Jesus Christ. Now live like it. Put on the new self. Put off the old self. Why? Because you're no longer the old self. As he says in Romans 12, don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Why are they no longer, why are we no longer to walk like the old self? Well, look at the way the old self is defined. The old self is defined as first, they walk in the futility of their mind, verse 17b. They walk in the futility of their minds. There's a purposelessness in their thinking. They seek sinful pleasures to satisfy their souls in a way that is sinful, rather than finding the satisfaction of their souls in God. They are not making the distinction in their minds. Sinners are not making the distinction in their minds between human-defined happiness and God-given joy in this world. because of finding all that we're hoping for and longing for in Christ alone. And so futility in the thinking is described as a pattern in Romans 1 as we looked at in the scripture lesson. It's futility of thinking that leads to folly in the way one walks that leads to idolatry. It's futility in the mind, in the mind that leads to then a way of folly or walking foolishly before God and man Listen to the way Romans 1 said it. Although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking. Their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and they exchanged the glory of the Creator for the creatures, or the things that were created. So, futility, folly, foolishness, leading to idolatry. And we can see that in the history of mankind. It's the history of futility in thinking. A soul, a sinner, someone who has not been reconciled to God, living in the futility, according to the futility of the mind, leading them to walk in folly and foolishness that leads to idolatry. But if you remember in Romans 1, the Christian is different. The Christian is not only put on the new self in Jesus Christ, but remember in Ephesians 1, Paul tells us to pray that he might give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation, that our minds might be full of Christ, full of God, that we'd have God's way of thinking, God's way of perceiving, God's way of seeing things, God's way of doing things. That was Paul's prayer, that the Christian can obtain this wisdom and revelation that's so different than futility, so much greater than futility. In Christ, there's a reversal. of the sinful tendency of futility and folly leading to idolatry. Notice what he says in verse 18. The way they once were, the way that you and I once were before we were in Christ, we were not only futile in our thinking, we were darkened in our understanding, verse 18 says. Rather than having an enlightened understanding of life, truly an enlightened understanding, sinners have an endarkened understanding. They live in darkness. without the light of God. Yes, they see glimpses of the light, yes, but in an overall manner they live without the light, the revelation of God. Even the revelation they see in creation, they exchange the truth for a lie. Paul's wanting to insinuate with this that the only way the darkness within us can be overcome is by the powerful work of God's Spirit. as he says in Ephesians 2 earlier, that while you were yet dead, while you were in this darkness, the light of God's grace flooded in and made you alive even while you were dead. And so Paul's wanting us to say, there's nothing in us. My mind didn't think right. My understanding was darkened. It was only by God's grace, only by His flooding work of light through the Holy Spirit that I came to see myself as I truly was in God's sight. And so he's saying, no longer live like that. Have no connection with that. There's nothing good that can come from that. He goes on to say, you were once alienated from the life of God. Before you received peace with Christ, you were alienated. You were far from Him. You were under his judgment, his condemnation. You had hardness of heart. A hardness of heart. This is where a sinner will harden their heart against the truth they know to be true. They won't listen. They're stiff-necked. They resist. This is Paul's way of saying in different words that the sinful person, apart from Christ, is in a very bad predicament. There are dead men walking, as he said earlier in chapter 2, verses 1 through 3, that we once were dead in trespasses and sins, walking in a certain way, says in chapter 2, verse 1. Walking how? Walking following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, among whom we once lived in passions of our flesh, Those who are apart from Christ are enslaved to sin. Their relationship with God is one of alienation. They don't know Him as a loving Father and Savior. Verse 19 says that they've grown callous. Callous. Callous on the hands and the feet. Wounds at the skin becomes without feeling. There's no longer any feeling there. After living a certain way, the heart becomes callous. You could care less what God thinks. You could care less what others think. You are shameless. Your acts once were private. But after a callousness sets in, you don't care what anybody thinks. In the wrong way. You're saying it's got the best of you. You're enslaved and shameless. You're past feeling. You're unable to feel. And then it goes on. It gets worse. Giving themselves, verse 19, up to sensuality. Greedy to practice every kind of impurity. There's a greediness. That sin's not good enough. I need more sin. Now, people of God's light, listen. Don't let this be everyone out there. Listen, this is the monster that's still in us. This is what still remains in us. There's a reason why Paul is reminding us of who we were to insinuate God's grace. We didn't get in through our own understanding. We were darkened. We didn't get in through a good relationship with God through merit. We were alienated. We didn't get in except through grace. It was nothing we earned. It was all because of Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. He says don't ever forget that. But don't ever forget what still lurks within your heart. There's pockets of this stuff still in us. Be careful. Distinguish between the old and the new. Know when that old pattern is taking control. Greedy for more. Sin has an insatiable appetite. And never, never gets enough. It wants more. Sin wants more. It wants more. And so these, the unbelief, the unbeliever, flee before Christ, become more callous, more greedy, more hungry for more sin. More greedy, more callous, more hungry for more sin. more hungry for more sin. And what does this mean? Let's just say it. It means enslaved more and more to our passions. It means living as something other, something foreign to what God created us to be. It's a corrupt life. Listen, let's say it as clearly as possible. Listen everyone, young and old. Sin is horrific. Sin is hideous. Sin is awful. Sin is a cancer not to be treated lightly. It never will be satisfied. Sin wants more. Sin is a cancer. Sin is an addiction. You get just enough of the pleasures of sin and you want more of it and more and more. And you have to break that. Sin is against God. Sin is also a judgment of God, as Romans 1 says. He handed them over to the shameless acts. It's not a pretty picture, is it? It's a description of corrupt, corrupting and corrupted. We don't want to be part of that, do we? No, no, no, we don't. We have to realize it. When we're alienated from God, we're darkened in our understanding. We can't see the light. We will deny the corruption. We'll deny that we're corrupt in corrupting and becoming corrupted more and more. But here's the good news. This is what he gets on saying, by God's grace, you're not as the people of God corrupt, corrupting and corrupted. You are new, you are renewed, you are renewing and you will be renewed fully. And that's why when he gets to verse 20, he's so adamant. What I just said in verses 17 to 19, you did not learn Christ that way, verse 20. And that's his toning point. You did not learn Christ that way. A very important sentence to keep in your mind when sin comes a-calling, when sin comes to cause you to be tempted, when it's desiring more, when it's wanting the old patterns or wanting to rule you. You did not come to learn Christ that way. And that's refreshing. That's freedom. How gentle. How humble. What a condition we were in. What a condition humanity is in. What a cross. What a Christ. Now you understand what He was living for you? Why He was living for you? It's because in this corruption, in this state in which we're born, in this position in Adam, This place, this corrupting place that we're all born into, Jesus has redeemed you out of that. He lived a perfect life before God where we fail. He perfectly merited righteousness before God his Father. He kept perfectly on and on loving God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength in his neighbor as himself so as to rescue us from that condition. You know, it's really bad to be blind. It's worse when you're blinded to the fact that you are blind. I'm talking spiritually. And we have physical blindness. God calls us to that and that can be a great blessing. I'm talking about spiritual blindness. It's bad enough to be spiritually blind. It's worse to not even know it. That's the condition from which you and I were saved by grace. Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice! But don't go back. to the former way of living. It's gone. There's a definitive break. You're a new man. You're a new man. And Jesus said, come to me. All you who are heavy. All you who labor. I'll give you rest. My yoke is easy. My burden is light. No longer walk that way. Walk with me. Know my love. Know my presence. Know my grace. Walk with me. And how's that done? Verse 21, the truth that's in Jesus, the gospel, the hope that we have in Jesus. Colossians 2, 6 says it this way. As you received Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk in Him. As you received Him by grace, so walk in grace. As you received Him by grace, through faith. So walk in Him by grace, through faith. Walk in Him, not as an old person that you owe old self, but as a new. Walk in Him. That's what the truth in Jesus is about. Walk in Him. Walk like Him. Walk with Him. Walk in Him. Walk like Him. Walk with Him. And so putting off means to no longer be identified with that old man, that old self. no longer being identified with a person being in Adam. You're now in Christ. We're born in Adam under condemnation, under the condemnation of the law. That's the old self. That's the old man. Corrupt, corrupting and corrupted eventually. We are new men in Christ by faith. Your old self, your old man is the sinful disposition that we have born out of our mother's womb. As David says, surely I was sinful from my mother's womb. What is called theologically depravity is that which is linked to the old man, the old self. It is a depraved state. No, it's not as bad as it could be, but it ain't good. In Christ, former born again, not of flesh and blood, but by the Spirit, were made new creations in heaven. We're given new selves. Christians no longer have to be enslaved to sin. They can fight against old thoughts and patterns. We're sons now in Jesus Christ. We've been sealed until the day of redemption, as chapter 1 says. We've been empowered to be rooted and grounded in His love, as Ephesians 3 says. That we're able to walk according to the calling which we've received because of His grace. Paul says elsewhere in Romans 6 that our old self or old man was crucified with Christ. Now, I know when you're tempted, you don't often think about Jesus' crucifixion as broadly as that. When you're tempted and you fall into it, you usually think, well, the cross is where I go to get forgiveness. And that's true. But the cross is also the place to help you in your temptation. When you're being tempted, you remind yourself of the cross that you have died with Christ. that that cross was not just about Christ, it was about His people united to Him. You're dead. Consider yourselves, reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God. You're dead. Your old man's killed. He's dead. He was crucified with Jesus Christ. That's what Romans 6 is all about. Romans 6, 2, how can we, where did that accent come from? How can we who've died to sin, he says, still live in it? Paul says in Romans 6, how can we who have died to sins still live in it? We who died? We who died? Really? Yes, the old man's dead. Do you not know that all of us who've been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Do you not know that? We were buried before with him. We were raised from the dead by the glory of the Father that we might walk in the newness of life. So the reality of the new man that you put on in Jesus is that you're dead to sins. You're dead with Christ. And when Christ died, all believers died in him. And that's why now you can walk in him and you can live in him. And that's why Paul will say in Romans 6, 6, we know that the old man or self was crucified with Jesus in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing. Memorize that daily. Because the cross is what you ought to focus on the moment your feet hit the floor in the morning. The cross is not just for when you're forgiven. It is for that. But it's to focus you on the cross of Christ so that you'll see that that cross is you being crucified. Your old self being crucified. Your ability, your enablement, your empowerment by His grace to now walk a certain way. And the way Paul wants us to understand it is, and this is a strange way of putting it, but it's God's way. We're dead, but we're to seek to die. We put off the old self, but we're to seek to put on Christ. And so we're new people. We're new people, we're a new humanity, but we're seeking to be a new people, a new humanity. Listen to that again. Paul is saying that we are a new people indeed. We're a new humanity now. But we're seeking for that to be fully realized. Another way to put it, let's put it theologically. In justification we are renewed in Jesus Christ. That is a positional place where Christ imbues His righteousness. That is, He grants His righteousness as we receive His righteousness by faith alone. Justification is positional. Sanctification is a pursuit. Justification is positional. It is you have died with Christ. You've put off the old man. Period. Sanctification is pursuit of that reality by faith. It's walking by faith in Him. With Him. Fully independent of Him. So we're already new men. But we're seeking to be new men. Rick had a good illustration about marriage when we enter into the marriage relationship. The first day, the moment after the ceremony, the declaration of the marriage, couple, they're married. But you seek to understand, positionally they're married, but you're seeking to better understand that position you hold now. You're seeking to better understand how that's going to change the way you think and what you do. When you get a new position, you are positionally accepted a new position, but you grow into that position, we call it. You grow into a position. So Paul's saying, you have a new position in Jesus, you're heirs of the cosmos. You're no longer part of this present age. You're part of the age to come. You're no longer part of this age. You're seated with Christ in the heavenlies. So set your mind on things above, where Christ is seated, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. It's a new position, but we're growing into our new self. We're growing into it throughout the Christian life. We're putting on and putting off. And so this new position in Jesus means no longer walking, no longer doing things the way we used to do them. Why is Paul telling the Ephesians this? I said to exsimulate grace. Well, because the Ephesians and we have the temptation of falling back into our old position, acting as if we're not in Christ. We have an easy way of falling back into sin patterns and sin thoughts, of living contrary to who we really are in Jesus. That's why he's telling us. He's warning us that it's very easy to drift back into our old way of thinking. Even though we don't drift positionally, our pursuit becomes one of worldly pursuit, of sinful pursuit. What he's teaching us to do in putting off, negatively speaking, and putting on, positively speaking, is what's been theologically called the mortification of sin. Dying. Dying for the old self so that we might live under righteousness. Realizing ourselves dead to sin and alive to God. See, we have to understand, people, that the reason he's warning the church no longer to walk as the Gentiles walk is because we still have a bit of this indwelling sin in us. The whole process, our pursuit of sanctification is this indwelling sin being taken out, this poison being removed as we learn to walk by faith in Christ and to put it off, to kill it. Sin no longer reigns over the Christian, but it is true. It still remains in us. You don't have to be a Christian for long to realize that. And so in Christ, we're to mortify our sinful pleasures, our sinful desires. We're to mortify the sin that's in us. We're to kill it. We're to realize that we are new and to continue to seek to be renewed. Because look at verse 22. We're corrupt by deceitful desires. corrupted by deceitful desires. The reason, verse 22, He put off the old man, put off the old self, is it belongs first to your former manner of life, but it's corrupt through deceitful desires. It's corrupt through deceitful desires. It's not only a former manner of life, a former way of walking or living, a former way of living life on one's own terms. A former manner of life meaning living life according to your will and not God. But it's corrupt through deceitful desires. Listen, both young and old. The desires that God gives us are not wrong. They're not bad in and of themselves. But the desires have become corrupt. They desire the wrong things. They look for what Christ can give in something or someone else. The corrupt through deceitful desires characterizes that longing to sin. That longing to do something for yourself regardless of who it harms. It's that wanting to do your will. Whether you care, even though you know God has forbidden it. Corrupt desires are even desiring good things too much. Placing the good things in our life first and giving them a priority over Jesus Christ. Listen, the deceitful desires, they're deceitful. They're corrupt. Because they want to find everything that we're created to be in Jesus, apart from Jesus, somewhere. You see, they're corrupt their deceitful desires because they want us to find and hope for something other than Jesus. These inordinate desires. And there are temporal pleasures of sin. You see, that's what sin tells you. That's why we have to kill it. That's why we have to put off the self and put on the new, because sin remains as inner corruption. The indwelling sin promises to make you happy. That's why Hebrews 11 says that Moses, he was still tempted by the fleeting pleasures of sin, but he chose rather to be mistreated with the people of God. Doesn't sound like a great choice, does it? Mistreated with the people of God, fleeting pleasures of sin. Only God can show a person that the right way is to be mistreated with the people of God. No one in a corrupt mind with corrupt desires would choose that way. And it's the same in our temptations. We have to understand that the desires are corrupted They're going to give us promises they can't keep. They're going to say, I will make you happy, indwelling sin says. Indwelling sin never says, I am dangerous to you. I will mess up your relationship with Jesus. I'll rob you of your peace and assurance before Christ, and I'll wreck your life. Right? Sin never told me that. He said, sin says, I will fulfill you. It's OK. Jesus is not... He's hard sometimes. It's OK. I won't cause you any problems. Just this one time and I will do it privately. No one knows. It offers cheap grace. Sin against God. Jesus died for you. And yet sin develops dynamically and we forget it. There's temptation. There's that suggestion to enjoyment. We're allured and enticed by the desire. Sin says, I will give you life and life more abundantly. And then there's the birth, the conception of sin, and then that brings forth death. This is James 1. Each person is tempted when he's lured and enticed by his own desire. Listen to that again. Each person is tempted when he's lured and enticed by his own desire, a desire gone bad. Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin. And sin, when it's fully grown, brings forth death. See, the growth of sin is like this. It's dynamic. It starts with just a little private moment that begins a pattern, that begins to shape habits, that begins to shape attitude. Then we speak a certain way, then we walk a certain way. We walk according to the old way of life. That's how sin gets a hold of us if we're not careful. It will cause us to walk inconsistently with who we really are in Jesus. And then we get in that place, what was I thinking? See, that's the deception of the desire. What was I thinking means you've been tricked. Right. That's why Jesus says, don't be deceived, don't be tricked. That's why Paul holds his hand up and says, I testify, I urge you, don't do this. Kill, kill, kill the old nature. I got this. And put on Christ. The truth as it is in Jesus. But you're redeemed now. You're a new person waiting for heavenly bliss. You're waiting for glory. You're adopted as children. You've been baptized with Christ. You're dead to sin. You no longer have to live under it. And you can tell it that. Look it straight in the face. With all faith in Christ and say, I died to you. It's just the devil and he will flee. Put on the new man. Try him on for size. And as we do, the patterns will go the other way. Then we'll have patterns. We'll have patterns of seeking that personal presence of God. We'll have patterns of daily repentance. We'll build new habits that we know will help us and that cause us to grow. We'll have new attitudes, new ways of thinking. Our speech will change. And we'll say, wow, All this time I've been living for myself, and the joy the Lord has to be had. The sin will always make us seek something for ourselves. It will always promise you what only Jesus can promise you. But it's lying to you. That's why they're deceitful desires. And so when we've been made alive in Christ, we were recreated. We were renewed. Again, to quote Ephesians 2.10, We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Listen again, Ephesians 2.10. We're God's poema. We're God's artwork. We're God's masterpiece. We've been created in Christ Jesus. Now, creation is a process where you're totally passive. Created in Christ Jesus to be someone new. Why? for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Where God's workmanship, when we learn to put off the old and put on the new, we see this holy spiritual adornment. We see garments of goodness and life that Jesus puts on us. We see a glimpse or glimpses in each other of the beauty and the glory of the new creation. You know, this is a fallen world. It's easy to want to escape from this place sometimes, especially on a dark and dismal day. Especially when you've got a lot of pressure and a lot of difficulty in life. I'll say something that says you're made for somewhere else. You're made for a new creation. This is a waiting room. This is a time to be renewed. This is a time to let all of your circumstances work for your good, for God's glory, as you put off the old and put on the new, as you realize more and more who you are in Jesus Christ. And as you live and walk out of that, others will see glimpses of glory and of God, that they'll rejoice. They'll rejoice in the glory of God. They'll see your life full of joy and not mere happiness that comes from sin. They'll see your life full of joy and the joy of the Lord that is our strength. And they'll want more of that. And they'll want to live like that. Because what's happening in the church, and this is the big cosmic renewal that's going on, what's happening with the new humanity, with the new creation in Jesus, is that you and I are being prepared for glory. The beauty now The beauty now can be put on. The adornment of the Holy Spirit, the glory now can be put on. We must fight. We must be aware of indwelling sin. We must be aware of the corrupted desires that we all have. That we're all tempted toward doing things for ourselves rather than Christ. But what is going on here is in this very congregation, you who are in Jesus Christ are being renewed into the image of the Lord Jesus. You are being renewed daily. Although the outer person is wasting away, although we're getting older, although more hairs are turning gray and falling out sometimes, and things aren't working the way they used to, you're being renewed day by day, so that even now we get a glimpse of holy spiritual power and glory here. God is forming a new people to prepare them for a new creation. In the beginning, He created all things and then He put humanity in it. Now He's doing the reversal. He's creating a glorious new humanity in Jesus and then He'll give us a place to live in glory when He restores all things. And so He tells us about this true righteousness, this true holiness. This is a process. It's a pursuit of sanctification. It's an understanding of what we still have remaining in our hearts. And you know what? If you're honest before God, about what really remains in your hearts. Think of some really bad thoughts you had this morning. That's just a taste, just the tip of the iceberg to tell you how the depths of depravity still go deep. There's still pockets of darkness and ignorance in our hearts, people of God. If you understand that and you admit that faithfully before God, it will help you to live a repentant life. It'll keep you humble. Humble, relying upon His grace. It'll help you to forgive. Because you've been forgiven. He who loves a bunch has been forgiven a bunch. And Jesus loves you. Not that someone's been forgiven more than others, but that someone realizes how much they've been forgiven. That's what Jesus is saying. So we can live honestly before God and each other. I'm not scared to share sometimes the sinful, the corruption as we learn trust, as we earn trust, as we grow. I'm not afraid to say I know it's only by grace I'm saved. So, we're new people. And so we ask, well, how do I live now? How do I respond to irritation? How should my life and community with others look then? If I really believed I'm a new creation, how would I act when I'm tempted? How would I act the next time that There are difficult circumstances or an irritable person, irritating person. The new self is created after the likeness of Jesus Christ and we can glimpse that even now as we see, we see, and I say this with all reverence, as we see little bits of Jesus being formed in us, as we see characteristics of Jesus formed in each other, that's a great encouragement to pursue more of the true righteousness and holiness. Yes, we have a problem of sin, but we've died to it. Yes, it remains, but it doesn't reign over us. We have a job to do in life of our new creation, and that is putting off the old, putting on the new. It's important to encourage one another. When you have established habits, talk to one another about it, so that you can learn, by God's grace, to put off those habits. If you've learned a way of thinking, if you respond sinfully in a certain way, ask God to grant you the power by His Spirit to know that Christ is changing you and that you're a new person. This is not looking for your own power to do it. There's no way you can do it on your own. It's only by God's grace that He removes us. I'm going to leave you with Colossians 3, 1. Listen. If then you have been raised with Christ, If you have been raised with Christ, even now, seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not things that are on the earth, for you have died. You have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you will appear with him in glory. Right now we get Clemson. Right now we have a foretaste of the glory reality of the new creation, but a new creation is coming and it begins in our own hearts because of God's grace. We are new creations now. We don't see who we will eventually be. Walking with one another with high hopes of what Jesus can do is part of walking by faith. You look at your neighbor, you don't see exactly Christ right now, but Christ is in them if they're believers and they're united to Him. And Christ is committed to them just as He's committed to you. And He's working on renewing them. He's working on, as a congregation, teaching us to put off the old and put on the new so that we can become more and more righteous and holy and to display the life and power of Christ. Now as I end, What specifically, then, we talked about putting off and putting on, what specifically does that look like, this recreation process? That's what Paul will point our attention to, Lord willing, next week, when we look at verse 25. Glimpses of the new creation. What does it look like now? Speaking truth and not falsehood. Verse 25. Being angry but not sinfully angry. Aware of our enemy, the devil, but not fearful of him. Verse 27. Working and sharing rather than stealing, verse 28. Speaking constructively, not destructively, verse 29. Why? Verse 25. We're united to Christ, we're members one of another. Why? Because we're not living for ourselves, but for Jesus and His Church. We're to be kind to one another, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you, verse 32. And so, putting on Christ is simply this, a realization constant pursuit and realization of what God has blessed us with in Jesus as a people. It's understanding better our election, our adoption, our spirit-filled hope, our power, our life, our direction, and most of all, our Lord, learning Christ together with all the saints, and learning the love of Christ, that He lived for us and He died for us, that we're new creations only by His grace. In the life we live now, we live by faith in the Son of God who died for us. But we are crucified with Christ. We no longer live. The new man lives, and he lives for Christ. May God grant us the power to understand that and to realize that more and more, to realize more and more the people we already are as the new man of his life. Thanks be to God for his word. Our Father and our God, help us as your people to put off the old and put on the new. Father, we thank you that you teach us that your grace is sufficient, that your power is available at our weakness. And so I pray, Lord, knowing that there are some here who have habits, knowing there's some here who've got patterns of thoughts, of thinking, of speaking, destructive habits. We know that. That's why Paul addresses the Ephesians then and the church now. That's why you address the Ephesians then and the church now. We're still struggling with indwelling sin. It's only as our minds are renewed that we're able to see ourselves as new creations. But I pray, Lord, I pray for all of us that we would learn new ways of thinking as the Word teaches us, as we pray for the realization of your love, that we're rooted and grounded in your love, that we know the hope to which you called us, the glorious inheritance in the saints, and the immeasurable greatness of your power to us who believe, as we realize that more and more, break the habits, break the sinfulness, renew our desires so that we desire what you desire. It's the problem with corrupt desires, Father, that we confess is that they're corrupted. They seek what we can only get from you. and someone or something else. Bring deep repentance to us, Lord. Only by a work of your grace can we truly put off the old and put on the new. But help us to understand the grace you have given us in our union with Jesus. Help us to appropriate it as you told the Apostle Paul, that when you're weak, then you're strong. For my power is displayed and made perfect in your weakness, you told us. Help us in our weakness, O Lord, to grow and put on Christ, to see glimpses of the beauty and the adornment of the Holy Spirit here in this congregation, that although we realize honestly and realistically we will struggle with corrupt desires and deceitful desires and indwelling sin, help us to have the grace and grace to appropriate mortification and killing. Help us to be repentant as a people And where we've disintegrated on the inside, where we've become undone, disintegrated, may You make us whole again through Your Spirit and help us to be the masterpiece You've created us to be in Jesus. We pray in His name. Amen.