Amen, we got some holding it up. All right, get your Bible out. And if you didn't bring your Bible, get your cell phone out, okay? And Google Ephesians chapter four. Ephesians chapter four. We've been in Ephesians chapter four since last week. We talked about the first 16 verses about what it looked like to have a healthy body, that a healthy body, a healthy church is spiritually united, a healthy church is spiritually diverse, and a healthy church is spiritually mature. Today, I wanna talk about new clothes. New clothes, have you ever heard the phrase, clothes make the man? You know, when I was looking that up and thinking about those words, I found out that those words are a lot older than you might imagine. They're commonly attributed to a man named Erasmus, who was a Bible translator almost 500 years ago. But actually, those words may even be older than that, or at least the idea behind them. And what does that mean, clothes make the man? Oh man, I put you on the spot already, I'm sorry. It means that you are what you wear. It maybe makes a little more sense when you start to consider how a soldier might dress. Or how a policeman might dress. When a policeman, my dad was a policeman, he worked in law enforcement for 28 years, and when he put on that uniform, that uniform came with an identity and responsibilities. An astronaut, anybody here dress like an astronaut just for the fun of it? No, of course not, Benjamin does. But when an astronaut dresses a certain way, and so it is with Christians. However, I'm not talking this morning about outward dress. When we get saved, we put on Christ, or we're supposed to, and we receive a new spiritual identity with new responsibilities. What it boils down to, these new clothes, it's a call to put on holiness. Look at this first verse in our text this morning. It's Ephesians 4, verse 17. Paul writes this, I say therefore, and testify in the Lord that you henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind. Walk not as other Gentiles. Paul is not saying to this group of Gentiles, the readers he was writing this letter to, and to us who are reading it today, he's not saying to us, don't be a Gentile. He's also not saying, hey, you need to be a Jew. What he's saying, he's referencing something very specific for these Ephesian people. In the beginning of this book, in chapter one and chapter two, he talks in broad terms about our spiritual identity, and now he kind of focuses in to contrast that with the very specific place that they were living in, Ephesus. Ephesus, we've already talked about being a leading city of commerce and culture for the Roman Empire, a home to the pagan temple of Diana, which was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. But Ephesus and the worship of Diana, there was deep immorality involved with that. Ephesus, so I was thinking about this, and my imagination goes to this place sometimes. I thought of Star Wars. Okay, you remember the first Star Wars movie came out, and Alex Guinness played Obi-Wan, you remember? He did a wonderful job. And whenever he took Luke, Luke's uncle and aunt had died, although he didn't seem that upset about it, and he takes him to Mos Eisley, and whenever they arrive at this town on Tatooine, Mos Eisley, what does he call it? Come on, Heath, you got it, what is it? This is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Ephesus was a wretched hive of scum and villainy. It was a deeply immoral place. And Paul is, he's not saying don't be a Gentile, he's testifying, and that's his word. Another good word would be is that he is insisting, don't live like that anymore. You had lived like this in your former life, but don't live like that anymore. My father-in-law was a great fan of Johnny Cash. And Johnny Cash's first hit song, anybody know what it is? I'm gonna quit asking y'all questions if you don't answer. No, it's not Ring of Fire. I Walk the Line. You ever listen to that song and actually listen to the words? The history behind that song is that when he wrote that song, he had written it backstage shortly after he got married, and it was a song for his new bride at the time. And the words are this. I keep a close watch on this heart of mine. I keep my eyes wide open all the time. I keep the ends out for the tie that binds. Because you're mine, I walk the line. I find it very, very easy to be true. I find myself alone when each day is through. Yes, I'll admit I'm a fool for you. Because you're mine, I walk the line. As sure as night is dark and day is light, I keep you on my mind both day and night. And happiness I've known proves that it's right because you're mine. I walk the line. You've got a way to keep me on your side. You give me cause for love that I can't hide. For you, I know, I'd even try to turn the tide. I walk the line. Oh, because you're mine, I walk the line. Now his words and that song were about his faithfulness to his wife, and whether that happened or not, it doesn't really matter. I think what Paul is trying to tell the readers here and us this morning is that, you know what? We'll go back to verse one. I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you, I beg you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called. He's saying walk the line. You have a totally different identity. You have new clothes with new responsibilities and now it's time that you live differently. Don't live like that anymore. It's a call to put on holiness. Since we have this new relationship with God, we should walk worthy of our call, of our identity in Christ. And I don't wanna leave these last words out. He says, not as other Gentiles walk. And then he describes how they walk. In just a few words, he says, in the vanity of their mind. What he's saying is, is these people that he's referring to, the lost, The way they walk and the way they live their life is futile. It's a waste. It leads to nothing. Verse 18, he says, having the understanding darkened, he expands upon this, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them. because of the blindness of their heart. They have darkened understanding. These people have turned their back on God and therefore their hearts are hard and their minds are dark. Lives lived separate from God's holiness. I'm gonna say some hard words here, okay, but I think Paul would say, yeah, that's what I was trying to say. Lives lived separate from God's holiness are ignorant lives. It's ignorant. You know, the people in our world and the people in his world of that day were educated and to hear that would really kind of get their hackles up. You're saying I'm ignorant, I don't know anything? No, I don't think Paul is saying that they don't know anything. What he's saying is he's contending that their knowledge does them no good in living in a lifestyle that pleases God. There's no hope for them to please God. That's why you can't live good enough to be saved. It's ignorance, you can't do anything on your own that's gonna please God. Verse 19, he talks what the results are. Who being past feeling, have given themselves over now unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. So their hard heart, yielded to a darkened mind, leads to a deeply unholy life. They're given over to sensuality. A life without concern for the consequences of their choices. Their desire for pleasure overrides all other desires. And no matter how much they have, they always want more. Does this sound familiar? He uses that word lasciviousness, and if you grew up in an independent Baptist church like I did, and that was described to you for you in a Sunday school class, I immediately think of something very erotic or sexual and that type of pleasure, but it's just talking about all kinds of pleasure. For these people, lust dominates their life. and not just lust for that type of relationship, but lust for everything, lust for things, lust for power, lust for another thousand calories at their lunch meal, lust for, you just name it, and it overrides all other desires that they have. Lust dominates their life, for the Christian love is to dominate our life. These people are not models for the church. They're not mature. They don't even bring unity to the church. We're not to live that way. Verse 20 and 21, he transitions a little bit. He said, but you, he's talking about what you were not supposed to be, those old clothes we need to take off. He says, but you have not so learned Christ. What he's saying is this is not how you learned from Jesus to live. that you put off concerning the former conversation, the old man. Oh, excuse me, I'm sorry, verse 21. If so, be that you have heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus. Paul is saying your hearts are no longer darkened. You have learned the truth. Listen, if you're here this morning and you have trusted Jesus Christ at some point in your life, Your heart should no longer be darkened. You have been exposed, you have learned a truth, and you have an ultimate source of constant truth in God's word. But ultimately, all truth is found in Jesus. This is his word. And so, since that change has happened, he says in verse 22, he tells, put on the new clothes of holiness. Put off the old self. Put off that former conversation, the old man, verse 22, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts. That old self was corrupted by lust from birth, separated from God. In Psalms 51.5, David wrote, behold, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. He's not saying that his mother did something sinful and that led to his birth. What he's saying is this was her nature and I was born into it too. We're born with this sinful nature, this desire to satisfy our flesh and not do things that please God. Separated from God. You know, someone who's like this, they're capable of looking good before other people. We can look in our society and we can pick out people that are admirable, that are not Christians. But they're admirable according to our standards. Before God, they are incapable of doing anything but evil in His eyes. We're born this way, and nothing changes unless we allow God to intervene. So once you become a Christian, you're to put off the old attitudes, the old habits. Are you hearing me? The habits and the attitudes of your former life. We're to put those off. They're to be left behind. We're to put off those old attitudes, those old habits, those old values and the old activities that we engaged in that you had before you were born again. It's kind of like when I worked for AT&T. I wore, I had a uniform. I mean, it didn't look like a police uniform. It was just a pair of khakis and a button-up shirt, and I'd roll the sleeves up, of course, because that's what I do, right? And I wore a ball cap. That was what I wore to work. And when I would go onto the job site and arrive at somebody's home or I'd go to wherever I need to work on some cable plant outside, I was dressed like that and I would sweat in it, that'd get gross. And when I got home and we wanted to go out to dinner, I would change my clothes and put on something completely different. He's saying, put off those old clothes and put on something new. You need to leave that stuff behind. I'd leave that in the hamper because it stinks. After a long day of hard work, it stunk. And I'd take a shower and I'd get myself cleaned up and I'd put on something new and nice that represented something different. I wasn't at work at that time. We're not to be like the world anymore. Not at all. We're to be renewed in the spirit of our minds. Verse 23 says, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. You are what you think. That's what that means. You are what you think. I was trying to imagine a better, a good way for at least for me to illustrate this, and I remembered when I was learning how to drive. That was a lot longer ago than for some, but maybe not for most of you when you learn to drive. One of the things I remember that really helped me when I was learning to drive is I learned that you go where you look. You understand what I mean? You need to look where you're going, okay? If you're looking straight ahead and trying to turn into another lane, well, you're probably gonna miss it. You're going where you look. Listen, where your thoughts go, so do you go. You are what you think. We're to allow God to change our mind. Our attitudes need to be replaced. They need to be altered. It's time to think differently. It's time to think of what we want to become. And then allow the Holy Spirit and God's Word to direct our desire and what we want to become. And then put on that new self. Allow the new self to govern our activities. Listen, whenever I would get off of work and take off my dirty AT&T clothes and put them in the hamper and shower and get cleaned up, there's no way you were going to get me to climb a telephone pole after eating dinner. It wasn't going to happen. We shouldn't do the stuff that we did before. Do you understand what I'm saying here? I think this is what Paul is saying. He's saying put that stuff off and don't do it anymore. Don't live like that anymore. You're off the clock being a worldly person. Live differently. Put on holiness. How? How? If this first part of my message, verse 17 through 24 is to To put on holiness, well, I think the rest of this passage, Paul describes how to do it. How do we put on holiness? Well, for to put on holiness, it makes sense to create a list of what daily habits will lead to a life of holiness, and Paul gives a few. He gives a few. The first one he does is he says, replace lies with truth. Look at verse 25, wherefore putting away lying? Speak every man truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Stop lying. That's pretty simple. Don't lie. Truth-telling should become a life habit. It's easy to say, it's hard to do, because a lot of times we want to hide our own failures, don't we? But we're to tell the truth. If you didn't notice, this is what God's word tells us to do. Put off lying. Speak every man truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Not just because it's right, but because it will continue to build unity within our church body. It has to do with our relationship with one another. If you're married, speak truth in your marriage. Okay, if you're raising children, don't lie to your kids. Speak truth with your kids. Replace lies with truth. Replace unrighteous anger with righteous anger. Look in verse 26. Be ye angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your anger, neither give place to the devil. And sometimes we might get legitimately angry. You know, Jesus, he got angry at times. But we must remain careful at how we choose to act in our anger because anger is no excuse for sin. Are y'all awake for this? Come on, I know this is elementary, we should all know this. But we all need to live it. Be angry and sin not. We might not be able to keep ourselves from getting angry, but we can keep ourselves from sinning when we do. We should also deal with our anger before the day is through. These are really important. If you didn't know this, these are incredibly important things we need to apply to our life and need to make daily habits out of. We need to be angry and not allow that anger to lead us into sin. We need to deal with our anger before the day is through. And why? Because he says it in verse 27, neither give place to the devil. What he's saying is, is when we allow anger to become sin, or when we allow ourselves to keep our anger for more than a day, it gives a place to the devil. It gives him a foothold. It gives him a foothold, an opportunity to do more with our anger, to gain control over our attitudes, our actions, even the relationships that we're in. It gives the devil a foothold and don't allow it. Replace lies with truth, replace unrighteous anger with righteous anger, replace stealing with working and giving. Verse 28, let him that stole steal no more. Hey, everybody knows this. You know what? Everybody, no matter what religion, no matter what society they're in, they all agree that stealing is kind of a bad thing to do. It stinks. Nobody wants their stuff stolen. But God says, hey, don't do it anymore. If you're a Christian, if you're to put on this new man, if you're gonna put on holiness, You can't steal anymore, but rather, he gives an example, he says, but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good that he may have to give to him that needeth. Christians shouldn't steal. Instead of stealing, we should work. Work is good. Hey, Ben and John, work is good. Work is good. It allows a person to meet their needs and the needs of their family. Work is good because it allows a person to give to others in need. You know, work is good because it allows us to support the work of the church to grow the kingdom of God. Work is a good thing. We should no longer steal, we should work. It's a blessed thing to be able to work. Next thing is to replace corrupt talk with uplifting talk. Look in verse 29. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying or encouraging or uplifting, that it may minister grace unto the hearers, and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby we are sealed unto the day of redemption. This is kind of the Bible version of, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. If we obeyed this verse, it would resolve a lot of the conflicts that we deal with in our life. I mean, words of a Christian should help, not hurt. I have that kind of a saying with my boys, and you know, they're boys, okay, so they knock skulls every now and again and try to, They fight a little bit from here and there, and unfortunately, Ben and John are both black belts in taekwondo, so I gotta worry about how things might go if they really get into it. But what I've tried to teach them is that hands are for helping, not for hurting. Listen, the words of a Christian should be for helping, not for hurting. Does that mean we avoid any kind of unpleasant talk or any kind of thing that's negative, any kind of unpleasant subject? No. But we're to tell the truth even whenever it might lead to something or someone being unpleasant, but we should avoid speaking unwholesome words. We're to build others up, not tear them down. And I hate to say this, but probably most or maybe all of us struggle with this. We don't police our mouths or the ideas that are coming out of our mouth. We don't put them through a filter of, would Jesus be okay with me saying this if he was sitting here right now? I mean, when we gossip about other brothers or sisters in Christ or other people that are lost, Jesus paid for their sin with his blood. I mean, their intrinsic value is just the same as yours. Okay, it is an astounding amount of value that they find in Jesus Christ. So why should we tear them down? We shouldn't. We shouldn't. We should build them up. The last thing on this list Paul gives, he says, be kind, excuse me, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. Put all these things away from you, and be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. Paul gives five sins that we're to put away. Bitterness. Hey, listen, it's gonna be a lot easier for you to put off bitterness if you can deal with your anger before the day is out. Wrath. Anger, I'd call that sinful anger. Really, I find that when I pursue righteous anger, I'm not angry very often. Clamor, slander, and then he gives us three virtues to put on this last verse. Kindness. I think it's a wonderful testimony of the Mormon people that they're some of the most kind people you'll ever meet. Brother Rudy Rios grew up in a home where, well, it wasn't a great place. And they moved from house to house, from eviction to eviction. They always had need. His dad had left when he was a boy and his mother always had a need to try to support him and his sisters. Rudy Rios got to go to a really good VBS one time and that gave him an understanding of who God is, who Jesus is, and what sin is, and what the consequence of sin is, and how might someone be saved, kind of built a foundation in his life of truth. And he understood, even from just a short week of vacation Bible school. That's why it's important we do these. That foundation helped him live through several years of his mother depending upon the Mormon church. You know why she was able to depend upon them? Because they were caring. They put food on their table when they had need. They helped pay the rent sometimes for them when they had need. And I don't know if y'all have ever known a mean Mormon, but I don't know that I have. I have a story about that, but now's not the time for it. You know, people ought to be able to say that about Christians. People ought to be able to say that about people, members of Northwest Baptist Church. They are the kindest, most tenderhearted, caring people. That doesn't mean we need to be doormats for everybody. But we ought to love other people in such a way that they feel it, they understand it. They experience our love. You can't do that without this last virtue he added, forgiveness. You can't be kind and tenderhearted if you're unforgiving. We're to forgive one another. We're to forgive lost people. We're to forgive the society around us for being lost and acting like a lost society, a godless society. We ought to love them. That doesn't mean we need to step in line and do what they say we should do. We need to follow God's word and let it be the guide for our life, but we should love them and they should know it. Why? Why should we do this? God said to you, that's a good answer. How about even better, this is how God acts towards you and me. I can't tell you how many times I have felt God's kindness and tenderness and mercy and forgiveness. He is rich in mercy. And so we, we should act this way towards others. If we do these things, The church will be built up, the people will be holy, and Christ's body will remain unified. I want to draw one other thing to your eyes for these last few, several verses, verse 25 through 32. where we see how Paul describes how to put on holiness. And this is not a complete list, but boy, it's a good list to start with, okay? Put on, replace lies with truth, replace unrighteous anger with righteous anger, replace stealing with working and giving, replace corrupt talk with uplifting talk, replace bitterness and rage with kindness and forgiveness. All of these things, if you'll notice, when Paul lists them, how does he describe them, in what order? He describes them what's wrong and what you used to do first. And then he says, now this is what you need to do. He's going right back to that idea of that former life. That life that was governed by the lust of our flesh. It's supposed to be in the past. Leave it in the dirty clothes hamper. And put on Christ. What will happen? You'll have a beautiful testimony before other men. They'll see when you're under pressure how God is holding you up in your life. They'll experience God's love and kindness because of your actions and your choices. They'll see the holiness in your life and they'll say, you know what, I've heard a lot about Christians and I've always thought they were a bunch of hypocrites, but you know, there's something, there might be something to this. Maybe I need to find out more about this Jesus. This is what we're supposed to be doing. Our mission is to shine the light of the gospel. And you know, when we talk about that, I think it's easy for most of us or maybe all of us to imagine mission work, church planning, and those are wonderful and important things. We think about starting new church programs. Listen, most of the light shining that we need to be doing needs to happen everywhere we go in this world. in the school classroom for you kiddos, in the workplaces, in the neighborhood, in the HOA meeting. Don't bring that up for the day, Aaron. Everywhere, we should shine. We should put off that old life. I wanna ask this question, I talked about how people who, When Paul is describing those Ephesian people that he said don't be like them anymore, that they were given over to sensuality, that lust dominated their life. Let me just ask this question. Does lust for something, I'm not talking about erotic lust, but does lust dominate some area of your life? I'll confess a little bit this morning, I'm worried a little bit about my pants splitting, okay? Because I've put on about 25 pounds. Because I lust for about another 100 to 1,000 calories every meal. Do you know what? I don't have to live that way. And ultimately, it can be very sinful. Is there an area in your life where lust dominates? If there is, I'm gonna tell you, surrender it to him. Maybe you're here today and you're hearing me talk about all these things and really this message is for believers and that's usually who my audience is because most of the people that come are believers. But if you're here today and you can't say for certain that you know you're gonna go to heaven when you die, can I tell you that Jesus died to save your eternal soul? There's no amount of living good enough. You're not gonna be able to do this stuff and God be pleased. This is only for people who have put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ. And if you're here this morning, and you've tried to work for your salvation, or you've tried to clean your life up enough so that Jesus might save you, if you've tried to go through the catechism, or get baptized in the waters, and you think that's going to save you, shook the preacher's hand on a Sunday morning and repeated the prayer after him. Listen, none of those things will save you. The only thing that will save you, the only one who will save you is Jesus Christ and your faith and trust being completely in Him. And when you trust Him, all this change can come to your life and you'll live, you know what? It may not sound very fun, you know? Some of this stuff sounds like when you're sinful and fleshly, it might sound fun, but in reality, you're gonna have a life that's so much more peaceful and joyful and happy and fun. It's fun to be a Christian. It is. I like it, okay? If I didn't like it, I probably wouldn't be here. Listen, I encourage you today, if you're here this morning, I pray that this message is spoken to you that are believers, that are members of our church. They don't wanna challenge you to study these things and to examine your own life and then to apply them to your life, put them on in your life. I pray that you will do that, I encourage you. Every single member of this church, I encourage you, go back home, get your Bible out to Ephesians chapter four and read this passage again and then read it in light of your own life and just try to work on yourself, okay? And let God help you through that. But if you're here and you've never trusted Christ, listen, today is the day. You don't know what tomorrow will bring. You don't know when you might pull out into that street outside and some crazy Houstonian smack into you in their car and then you leave this world forever. Today is the day. You need to get saved. Let's respond to God's Word today. Let's stand together.