Off With the Old Self - On With the New Self

Think about that phrase that we were just singing together, "Christ, our hope in life and death." I hope that you can honestly sing that. And more than singing that, I hope that we live that. If Christ is not our hope in life, He will not be our hope in death. He really will not be. I appreciate that song. It's very worshipful for me. Well, if you would take your Bible and turn back to Ephesians 4, I did say earlier that we'll be in verses 17 to 24. And you will notice that we're covering a few more verses than we normally do. That's just the way it worked out. Sometimes I'll cover a few verses, one or two. Sometimes I'll cover several.

Now most of you know that we've been in a break from our study in Ephesians. We took two weeks to study baptism. I asked two questions. Who do we baptize and why do we baptize? I think that those messages were needed. I think for some of you they were educational. They were edifying. They were a reminder of what we teach and what we believe about baptism. And of course that was a part of our celebration. We have had some who have come to faith in Christ and we baptized some last Sunday. And we have another group that will baptize the first Sunday of October.

And just like last Sunday we'll celebrate as a part of that baptism service, we'll celebrate by having our first Sunday fellowship. So look forward to that. I look forward to that myself. But I will tell you it was really good to be back in our study in Ephesians this week for me. It was good to be back into these verses and get back into what we've been studying. We've been studying the believers' riches in Christ Jesus from the book of Ephesians really since September of last year. And I truly believe that the Lord is sanctifying you and growing you. And in many ways I think that our church is being changed.

And I do remind you of the title of the series. This is all about the believers' riches that are in Christ Jesus. And I think that we're seeing what those riches are. Now this morning we're starting a new section in chapter 4. And we will see that this teaching is very, very practical. Now remember that chapter 4 starts the practical part of the book. I think many of you will remember how the book is divided. Verse 1 to 3 are the theological portions of the book. But chapters 4 to 6 are practical. So these verses and all that we're studying this morning is very practical and it's about practical Christian living.

Although there are some rather deep things here. But notice how chapter 4 has progressed. Notice how this is progressing. Back in verses 1 to 16, we've already studied these verses. Paul was all about building these Ephesian Christians up. And he was building them up in the unity of the faith. And he was building them up in the body. But he was definitely calling them to certain responsibilities. He called them to walk in their daily Christian living in a manner that was worthy of their salvation. And he also called them to preserve and to protect the unity of the church.

And then last he called them to engage in the work of building up the body of Christ. They all had a responsibility there. But here in verses 17 to 24, Paul was all about showing these Ephesian Christians their former way of life, really how they lived as pagans. And he was contrasting their former life with the new life that they have in Christ. And he was definitely calling them to certain responsibilities here. But I will go ahead and tell you the responsibilities here will surprise you. As a matter of fact, this may sneak up on some of you. It did sneak up on me this week.

Now before we get into what Paul was aiming to accomplish in these verses, notice how he introduces what he is about to say to them. Look at verse 17 in your copy of God's Word. He says, "Now this I say and testify in the Lord." The New American says, "This I say therefore and affirm together with the Lord." Now here Paul was urging them and he was instructing them, not from his own ideas and not just out of his own authority as an apostle, but this all comes from God. It comes from the Lord. Paul did have apostolic authority. I think we know that.

But here he is urging, he is insisting them with the authority of God saying that these things come from the Lord. Now what's my point here with pointing that out? As an apostle, Paul did have authority to instruct him the way he did. But he goes beyond that. He is appealing to them and he is instructing them with the authority of the Lord. So the apostle Paul is bringing out God's authority before them, before he gets into the instruction. Now there's a big lesson for us here today. We are to always be under the authority of God and we are to always be under the authority of God's Word.

We can never move out from under the sufficiency of the Scripture and the authority of the Scripture. So we must be a people who live individual lives and is a church under the authority of God's Word in all that we do. So just that one little portion of Scripture is a good reminder for us. I call it a lesson. But we must ask what God through Paul is urging them to do and he is instructing them to do. We will see that Paul unpacks a lot here, but really verse 22 and 24 Paul summarizes what he's calling them to do. Now I don't know about you, but I like summaries. Sometimes I will teach and I'll back up and give you a summary.

So let's look at verse 22 and verse 24. Paul says to put off your old self which belongs to your former manner of life and then verse 24 to put on the new self created after the likeness of God. Now you might not see that, but that is a summary of all that he's teaching here. And so that is what Paul is urging them to do. And this is where I'll get my major points of teaching this morning. Number one we'll look at off with the old self out of verse 22 and the other verses and then off are on with the new self. On with the new self. Now I say this often I do encourage you to take notes.

Whether you take notes or just listen and follow me, it's up to you. But it's all about us getting all that the Lord wants to give us. We want to be good stewards of what God gives us. We want to retain all that we can retain and ultimately we want to receive it into our lives and let God mold us into the people he wants us to be. So number one I want us to look at off with the old self. Off with the old self. Although we had a summary, let's look at how he deals with this in an exhaustive manner in verses 17 to 19. Let's go back to the verses.

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 or separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them. Due to their hardness of hearts they have become callous, or that is another word for hard, and have given themselves up to sensuality, greed, to practice every kind of impurity. Now right away we see some language here that we should be familiar with. Chapter 4 verse 1 Paul called the Ephesians to live a life worthy of their salvation and he used this word walk.

We learned that Paul used this word walk several times in this book and we'll see it more as we continue. But this word walk here it speaks of daily living, it speaks of daily Christian living. But here in verse 17 Paul uses this word in a much different way than he did back at verse 1. In verse 1 he was calling them to a particular walk, a particular Christian living. But here in verse 17 he was calling them away from a particular walk. He was calling them away from a particular daily life. There is another detail here we need to see. He uses this word Gentile or Gentiles. He says you must no longer walk or live as the Gentiles do.

Now we need to see what Paul is talking about. Now in the New Testament this word Gentiles it can refer to a race, really a better way to put it is an ethnicity and this word would have been used to describe all non-Jews. Really it's like this, you had one ethnicity, the Jews, and then you had another ethnicity which was comprised of a lot of ethnicities and that would have been all non-Jews. And this word Gentiles here it can refer to a spiritual people. It was used to describe all throughout the New Testament ungodly people and sinful people. It was used to represent pagan people.

And when used like this you had one people, godly people, and then you had other people that would be ungodly people that would be the Gentiles, that would be the pagans. And this is how Paul was using the word here. He was not speaking of an ethnicity, no. He was speaking of an ungodly group, a pagan group, a heathen group, not a race or an ethnicity. So notice what Paul was saying. Notice that he was saying something like this to the Ephesian Christians.

"I write to you in the authority of the Lord that you must no longer live in your daily lives as the pagans do, as those heathens do." And this phrase no longer seems to indicate that he was writing to those who had particularly been Gentiles in their past life. It seems that he is writing to some who had lived like this. They had come out of this lifestyle. And it seems that these former pagans who had become Christians, they possibly could have been tempted to live like this again. Maybe some of them had fallen back into some of their old ways. That could have been the case. But you know there's a lesson right here for us.

And we need to see this. All of us who are converted to Christ, we have a past life. All of us who have come to faith in Christ, we have this life that we lived before we were saved, a former life. Some of us have one kind of a past life, while others may have a different kind of a past life. But we all have a past life. And we can be tempted to walk. We can be tempted to live in the ways of our past life. We can be tempted to go back to some of the ways that we lived before we came to faith in Christ. But notice, as we mature in the faith, as we grow in the faith, those temptations should fade more and more in the past.

Now I know that there are certain temptations from our past life that may haunt us and even chase us. They may even dog us the rest of our days. But as we mature, those temptations should fade and we should be able to wrestle with and conquer those temptations with the help of the Lord. But you know, if you've just come to faith in Christ, I want you to listen to your pastor. Especially those of you who have just come to faith in Christ this summer. You will struggle and you can struggle and you probably will struggle in a big way with this temptation to live like you did in your past life.

Maybe some of you have a past life that was just a few months ago. It's in your recent history. So if you've come to faith in Christ recently, that past life is right there. And you can be tempted to go back to that past life and see Paul's command for the Ephesians is our command whether we're a mature believer or a new believer and that is we must no longer live like we did in our past life. Unlike all those other pagans that we see all around us. Now as we continue in the rest of the verses here, we see that Paul describes how the pagans lived in their daily lives.

He describes who they were and he describes how they lived and it's a lot here. It's really good. He says they were first worthless or futile in their thinking. We see this at the end of verse 17. Now I say this, I testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, notice, in the futility of their minds. Now this means they were meaningless. They were empty or useless in their thinking. One scholar said this refers to good for nothing notions. Can't we grasp that term? He is referring to their good for nothing notions, their good for nothing thoughts, their way of thinking.

So Paul says that these pagans were worthless in their minds and in their thinking, their thinking, their way of thinking, it was good for nothing. And as a result of being meaningless and without God in their minds, they were second blind in their understanding. Look at the beginning of verse 18. They are darkened in their understanding. This means that their minds were without God and godliness. So their hearts and their minds were totally blind to God. They were totally blind to God and godliness. And this isn't a one time event either. The construction of the language speaks of a permanence.

That means that they were permanently blind to God. They were permanently blind to God into understanding the things of God. So Paul says that these pagans were permanently blind in their understanding of God and their understanding of all things pertaining to God. And as a result of being meaningless and without God in their minds, they were third separated from the life of God. Look back at verse 18. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them. Now this means that they were separated. They were alienated not just from God but from the life of God.

That means that they were cut off from God. They were cut off from the God life. But they were not only separated from the life of God notice, this means that they belong to another life. There is no in between. They belong to the life of the enemy. So Paul says that these pagans were separated from God, separated from the life of God and they were at home with Satan and the life of Satan. And as a result of all these things, they were fourth, calloused or hardened. Look at verse 19. They have become calloused and have given themselves up to sensuality. This means that their hearts were hardened.

This word was used in their day to describe the formation of a hard callous which is a thickening of the skin. If we do any manual labor, we know what that is. I ran across this from several commentators. But several commentators call this the petrification of the heart. We know what petrified wood is. Do we not? Petrified wood has become hard. There's a process where it becomes hard like a stone. It becomes stone-like. And that is what was happening here. As a result of this hard heart, they had lost all sensitivity which means that they no longer could receive or respond to any kind of moral stimulus.

Their conscience had become calloused over so that sin wasn't even painful or bothersome to them anymore. Paul was saying that these pagans were hardened. They were calloused over in their hearts because they were without God in their minds and in their hearts. As a result of all of these things, we will see that it gets worse. Now Paul moves from more of who they were to how they lived. There's a slight transition. So they were first given up to sensuality or lustfulness. Verse 19, you'll see the transition. They have become calloused, hardened, and have, notice the transition, given themselves up to sensuality.

Now because of this hardening of their hearts and having minds that were totally void of God, they give themselves up purposefully and willfully to all sorts of lusts. This can be seen as unrestrained lust. This can be seen as the absence of restraint in the area of lust and immorality. This would have been sins of the flesh, all kinds of immorality. So Paul says that these pagans gave themselves up willingly to unrestrained lust and sensuality and immorality all because their hearts were hardened and calloused over. And as a result of having this hard heart, they were, number two, greedy for every kind of impurity.

Notice this at the end of verse 19. They have become calloused and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. This means that they had given themselves up to greed for more and more of every kind of impurity. And this is not just immoral impurity, but this refers to all sorts of ungodly things. So Paul says that these pagans gave themselves up to every kind of uncleanness and impurity. So Paul here gives a description of these pagans. He describes who they were and how they lived. Who they were and how they lived.

He describes their character and he describes the characteristics of their lives and behavior. And no doubt some of these Ephesian Christians had come from this kind of life. We know that the Ephesian church was comprised of Jews, but we know that it was comprised of a lot of Gentiles. And no doubt they were truly being tempted to go back to some of these old ways. And Paul, in the authority of God, he calls them to no longer live the way the pagans live. He says, "Don't live like that any longer. That's the life that you came from." And for us, the world around us is full of people just like this. I mean, do we not see this all around this?

This describes who people are all around us. This describes how people live. So matter of fact, one of the scholars that I read this week said that you could take the name Ephesus out here and put America right here. Yeah. This is how our culture is. It's all around us and it's getting exponentially worse by the day. And so many around us are worthless in their minds and in their thinking. So many around us are permanently blind in their understanding of God and godliness. They are separated from God and they are at home with the enemy Satan. They have calloused over, petrified hearts.

They are given over and giving themselves over to all types of lusts and sensuality. And they are greedy and greedy and greedy for all types of impurity. And the command here is this. We can't live like godless people. We are God's people. We have to leave these things behind and we have these temptations all around us. They're in our workplace. Oh, they're in our family life because we have many family members who have not come to faith in Christ. We even have some old friends who live like this and we must see that the temptations are all around us. And notice, I'm going back to verse 1.

Paul was calling them in verse 1 to a particular walk. Remember? He was calling them to a particular daily Christian life. Remember he was calling them to the worthy walk, to the worthy walk? But here in verse 17, he was calling them away from a particular walk. He was calling them away from a particular daily life. He was calling them from the unworthy walk. So Paul's saying, "Off with the old self. Off with the old self." And I'm going to talk more about the old self here in a moment. But he's saying, "Don't go back." And number 2, I want us to see on with the new self.

This is out of verses 20 to 24, "But on with the new self." All of our English translations have this word "but" there. There's a transition. But that is not the way you learn Christ. Assuming that you have heard about Him and were taught in Him as the truth is in Jesus. To put off the old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through the 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 and true righteousness and holiness. Now starting in verse 20, Paul makes a big transition and he starts to make a contrast.

I think you'll see it as we progress. Paul uses this word "but" to begin his transition from the description he's just given of the pagans. And he uses this word "you" to single out the believers from the pagans. It's in the emphatic. Paul is now showing these Ephesian Christians how they are much, much different than the pagans. And it's not a stretch to say that after Paul finished describing who the pagans were and how they lived, he said something like this, "But not you, not you, not you, you are not like that." And Paul then begins to describe who they were in Christ Jesus.

Now notice Paul describes them and he describes them as born-again Christians. This is in verses 20 and 21. First we see that they learned this way of Christ. Look back at verse 20. "But that is not the way that you learned of Christ, assuming that you heard about him and were taught in him." Now here we must understand this term learned of Christ. This can speak of a process of learning, but it can also mean to come to know. But in the construction of the language here, it indicates the latter. This is speaking of coming to know someone like at a one-time event. I'll give you an example.

If I meet someone for the very first time, I get to know them. I meet them, I hear their name, I share my name, I shake their hand, and I can say that I have come to know them. That is a one-time event. So here Paul was saying that these Ephesian believers had in a one-time event learned of Christ, learned of Christ. And we need to see that Paul was referencing their salvation when they were converted to Christ and they became disciples of Christ. And then second, he says that they had learned about Christ and were taught by Christ.

Look at verse 21, "Assuming that you have heard about Him and were taught in Him as the truth is in Jesus." Now here we must understand two terms. This term heard about Him and taught in Him. And just like in verse 20, the construction of the language speaks to a one-time event. So here Paul was saying that these Ephesian believers had in a one-time event heard about Christ and they were taught by Christ. And again Paul was referencing their salvation, their conversion. He's just using different terms. But notice what Paul is doing here. This is when I take a step back and notice what's happening.

He was comparing the Ephesian Christians up against the pagans. He was saying, "But not you. You're not like them. You learned of Christ. You heard about Christ and you were taught in Christ." But Paul didn't stop there, which is what so many would do. So many would get up to the moment of conversion and stop. Notice the progression of all of these things. In the Lord, Paul calls them not to live as the pagans, which is the way many of them had lived before. I'm sure all of them. He then describes who the pagans were and how they lived. And he says, "But not you. Not you.

You are not like the pagans because you were converted to Christ." And he doesn't stop. He goes on to explain the great transformation that took place when they were converted to Christ and he shows them how they were changed and he shows them three things that happened to them at the moment they were converted. This is where it might surprise you. These are not commands here. The tense of the verbs here tell us this. He describes three things that were done in them when they came to faith in Christ. He was reminding them of these certain things that happened when they were converted.

So when they were converted first, the old self was put off. Look at verse 22. The old self was put off to put off the old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through the deceitful desires. Now this old self, the King James uses the phrase old man, it speaks of who they were before Christ. This old self was the spiritual child of Adam. They were born in the image of Adam, Genesis 5.3. And the old self was corrupt because of the sin of Adam and because that sin had entered into the whole world and entered into the whole human race, Romans 5.12.

This old self was corrupt not only because of the inherited sin of Adam, but also because of their deceitful desires. Now notice what Paul is aiming at here. He was speaking of who they were positionally before conversion. They were in Adam, but after they were in Christ. So the old man was put off like they would cast off old clothes or like they would cast off a bad habit. And when they came to Christ, second, they were renewed in their spirit and in their mind.

Verse 23, "And to be renewed in the spirit of your minds." Now this being renewed in the spirit and the mind speaks of the complete change that took place in their mind and in their thinking. The spirit here is not the Holy Spirit. The spirit here is the spirit of the man and within the spirit of the man is the mind. This means that in conversion their spirit was changed. Therefore their minds were changed so they were made new. One scholar said, and this isn't very deep, but it's a great description, "There was a radical reorientation." And that's true. And then third, this new man was put on.

Look at verse 24, "And to put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." And this new self is the new man. And this speaks of who they were after their conversion to Christ. This new self is what and who they were in Christ. Second Corinthians 5, 17 says that if anyone, any man, any young person is in Christ, they are a new creation, a new man in Christ. And notice what else Paul was saying here. The new man was created after the likeness of God. And that means two things. First that God initiated these things. He did these things.

And second that this new man was created after God or in the pattern of God. And this new man is simply God-like in the righteousness and the holiness of God. So again, Paul was describing things that had happened to them when they came to faith in Christ. And notice these things happened by the power and the work of God. No man can do these things. They were in Adam before their conversion. And that old man was put off by the power of God. Therefore they were radically reoriented by the power of God. Their spirits were made new. Therefore their minds were made new. And at their conversion, they were made a new man.

They were placed in Christ. And it was God who did these things. They were actually made God-like, having the very righteousness and the holiness of God. But the question here for us is this. If these are not imperative commands, how does this relate to us? You know, we need to ask the question, well, what do we do? You know, eventually we have to say, so what? So how does this apply to me and to you? You see, for some of you, if you were recently converted, you need to see for the very first time what truly took place when you came to faith in Christ.

At your conversion, when you were born of the Spirit of God, your old self was put off by the power and the work of God. You couldn't do that. You couldn't die to the old man. That old man could not be cast off and put off like an old bad habit. It took the Spirit of God to do what only God could do. And there was this radical reorientation in your life, radically, by the work of God, your Spirit was made new. Therefore, your mind was made new. Your Spirit and your mind was completely made new by God. You thought differently. You saw differently. You processed things differently. You were radically reoriented by God.

And then you were placed into Christ. You couldn't do that on your own. You were placed in Christ. Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. And so for some of you, you're new to the faith. You might not realize all that took place when you came to faith in Christ. But for some of you, you need to see that this has never happened to you. You may have made a decision for Christ. You may have joined the church. You may have been baptized. Now, I'm not against joining the church. We have church membership class starting tonight. I'm not against baptism. We baptized last week.

You've even tried to turn over a new leaf, but that doesn't ever work either. But what I'm trying to show you is this. This supernatural work that Paul describes here, it's never happened to you. It's never happened to you. And this is what you desperately need. A decision for Christ won't save. Turning over a new leaf won't save. Reading your Bible more won't help. Trying to be moral won't help. Coming to small group won't help. Look, we can try to do these things on our own, but this can never happen outside of a miraculous work of God. And some of you need this.

For us who understand these things, we understand what the Scriptures teach here. But this is a reminder of what God did on us maybe 20 years ago, maybe 10 years ago, maybe even 30 years ago. And when we look back at our conversion, when we look back to how we came to faith in Christ, do we remember how that old man was cut out by the work of God? Do you remember how the old man was cut out by the supernatural work of God? That old self was gone. Do you remember how your spirit was renewed? Your mind was renewed? You had this radical reorientation, not because of something you did, but because of something that God did.

And do you remember how you were placed into Christ? You immediately became a new creation in Christ. For us, understand these things? This reminds us of what God did, and all this causes us to worship Him and love Him all the more because back when I came to faith in Christ, I couldn't do these things. You couldn't either. But one more thing, an application. It's verses like these and teaching like this that always brings me back to a position that I have held for years, and that is this. Conversion to Christ is a one-time event. Scientification is a process. In our sanctification, we are in this process of obediently walking with God.

Oh, the Spirit of God perseveres in us, and we persevere in Him. And sanctification is a work of God in us and a work of us in God. That is a process, but conversion and salvation is a one-time event whereby you are born of God, born of the Spirit of God. And we should be able to look back into our life, and we should be able to articulate when and how this happened. Now I'm not saying you'll remember the very minute or the very second, but you should be able to look back and articulate when you came to faith in Christ. It's a one-time event. We should be able to identify with these things and articulate how that happened.

So on with the new self. Now as I begin to close, I want to ask a basic question here. What was Paul doing? What was he aiming at? What was he seeking to accomplish? Practically, very practically. He was calling these Ephesian Christians to no longer live like the pagans. He was calling them not to ease back into their former lives. He was showing them that they could not be tempted to go back to these ways that they see all around them. Now why? Why? Because they had come to faith in Christ. Oh, it was God who saved them.

The old man had been put off by the power and the work of God in their life, and the new self was put on by the power and the work of God in their life. They had been made new. They had been made new. They had new spirits and new minds, and they were created by God in the very likeness of God, and they had been given even the righteousness and the holiness of God, all because of what God had done. And so practically, this is what Paul was doing. He was reminding them of who they were. Now let me say a few things here, and I'll get to the title of a message. Could it be that they were having a little bit of an identity crisis?

You know what an identity crisis is? We forget who we are. We lose sight of who we are. We get off track with our identity. Listen folks, this is our identity if we're in Christ. We can't live like everybody else. Why? We're in Christ. We can't live like everybody else. We're a new man in Christ. We can't live like the world. We've been converted to Christ. These things are real in our life. Why? We can't live like that. Why? Because of who we are. And I think in many ways, he was reminding them of who they were. Now the title is rather simple. It comes out of Paul's summary.

I really wish Paul would summarize everything like this every week for me. It makes my job a little easier. But what's the title? Off with the old, on with the new. Off with the old, on with the new. For those of you who have lived this right now, throughout the message, you've been worshipping the Lord and praising God for what God's done in you. For those of you who are not in Christ Jesus, God has been highlighting and showing you that this is what you desperately need. So let's pray. Let's commit these things to the Lord and we'll sing a song of worship as we conclude this part of our service.