In this sermon titled 'Having Power to Put Off and to Put On,' Jason Dohm explores Ephesians 4:20-24, emphasizing the believer's ability to 'put off the old man' and 'put on the new man.' The sermon underscores the distinction between believers and unbelievers, highlighting that believers have the power and capability to transform and grow spiritually, unlike unbelievers who remain dominated by their sinful nature. Dohm explains that believers are called to walk worthy of their high calling, continuously transforming and growing in their faith. The Holy Spirit plays a crucial role in overturning the old self and revealing the truth of Jesus, prompting believers to turn away from sin and embrace their new identity in Christ. The sermon also highlights the importance of the renewing of the mind, which is essential for both putting off the old self and putting on the new one. Dohm stresses that this transformation is an ongoing process that requires active involvement and engagement from the believer. Through repentance and a focus on heavenly things, believers are encouraged to become what they are—a new creation in Christ, characterized by true righteousness and holiness.

So we're going to be in Ephesians 4. There's a little mix-up on that. Ephesians 4. Sermon text is 20-24. I'm going to start in 17 for context.

Ephesians 4. 17. This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darken being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness to work all uncleanness with greediness. But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard him and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus, that you put off concerning your former conduct the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and be renewed in the spirit of your mind and that you put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. Oh God help us now come before you Help us meet the foot of the cross and Your Word do its perfect work as it's being taught to us But Fill Jason with joy and peace in bringing the Word to bear on your people.

Open our ears, open our hearts, Lord. In Jesus' name, Amen. So Jim just read last week's sermon text, followed by today's sermon text. The actual scope of the sermon this morning is Ephesians chapter 4 verses 20 through 24. It comes right out of what James preached on last week.

So I wanted us all to have the context. The title of the sermon this morning is, Having Power to put off and to put on. Paul would be wasting his time to give these exhortations that we have in our text to the unbeliever. The unbeliever has no power to put off the old man. He's dominated by the old man, but not so the believer.

The believer has new capabilities, abilities, power to do things that the unbeliever is completely powerless to do. So Paul sets before the believer something that we have power to do to put off the old man and to put on the new. Paul hung a banner in chapter 4 verse 1. What was that banner? Walk worthy of the calling.

So chapters 1-3 were Paul piling up the riches of this high calling. To be called out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of marvelous light, the kingdom of Jesus, is a high calling attended by so many riches. So now Paul, the beginning of chapter 4, and this will really be the banner hung over the rest of our time in Ephesians. It's to walk worthy of this high calling. For a bit now, Paul has been working through some should no longer be's.

It used to be this in your life of unbelief, but now you shouldn't be like that anymore. Just look back at verse 14. Chapter 4 verse 14, that we should no longer be children. Tos to and fro, carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men. In your unbelief you were susceptible to any old falsehood.

You were like children, you could be tricked into anything. You should no longer be like that believer. Or how about verse 17? This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk. Believers all over the earth have a similar pattern of thinking, of speaking, of doing.

Don't think like that anymore. Don't speak like that anymore. Don't act like that anymore. It's not fitting for believers. Believers are different.

Believers are transformed and transforming. I think it would be very insufficient to say that believers are transformed period as if any of us are finished works. No, every believer is a work in process. We are transformed, Amen. We are transforming, Amen.

So this week's text continues that contrast between what we were, and what we are, and what we are also becoming. And it is one of the great themes of the book. What is that? What is one of the great themes of the book? Becoming what you are.

These are fundamental truths about the believer, and yet they're not Complete and final truths. We're actually growing into our identity, growing into the things that Christ has made true of us, and yet we are still becoming it. So, as we come to this text, let's ask the Lord to help us. God, here we are. Here we are.

We're here again. We're needy again. We're incomplete again, not in anything that Christ has done for us, but in our need to continue growing. And I thank you that you've given us your word and that you have given us these exhortations of the Apostle Paul to the Ephesians, but also to me in 2021. These are as relevant to me today as they were to the first people who ever read them.

I pray that you would press these truths on our hearts and make us love them, help us to walk in them. In Jesus' name, Amen. So as usual, we'll be subdividing their five verses here in 20 through 24. Let's start by rereading 20 and 21 and then thinking about those in detail. Ephesians 4, 20 and 21, please follow along as I re-read them.

But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus." These two verses, Paul speaks of learning Christ by being taught by Christ. So if how you're taking notes is filling in blanks on the handout, taught fills in the blank. Learning Christ by being taught by Christ. Verse 20, but you have not so learned Christ. Contrast, but not this, but that.

The futility of mind from verse 17 and the darkened understanding from verse 18 and the alienation from the life of God and the associated ignorance and blindness of heart in verse 18. And the lost sensitivity and abandonment to sin in verse 19. All of these things are completely incompatible with knowing Jesus. Believers are not that. These are all of the things that the Holy Spirit overturns in order to reveal Jesus in all of His saving goodness.

Are you following me? Those things in verses 17 through 19 the futility of mind, darkened understanding, alienation from the life of God, ignorance, blindness of heart, lost sensitivity, and abandonment to sin, these are the things the Holy Spirit overturns, overthrows in order to reveal Jesus and all of His saving goodness. These are the things that the Holy Spirit has to come and wage war against and overthrow in order to bring you to His Son. In order to convince you that you are rightly under ascendance of condemnation so that you will run to Christ. Look again at verse 21.

Verse 21, If indeed you have heard him and have been taught by him. Now these are Ephesians, Ephesus. They are not Jews in Jerusalem or Jews anywhere in Israel. I googled how far Jerusalem is from Ephesus. It's 1, 100 miles.

Jesus' ministry was overwhelmingly within Israel. He never went to Ephesus. What is Paul saying here? If you've heard him and been taught by him, Jesus was 1, 100 miles away in his ministry. Now some translations deal with that by adding about.

Not you have heard him, but you have heard about him. And instead of I have been taught by him, they render it, you have been taught in him. That sort of removes the difficulty. And all of that is actually within the acceptable range of translation. So I'm not complaining about the translations that render it that way.

But I do want to take you to two texts which make it unnecessary to think of it in terms of it not being Jesus directly who is teaching and speaking to the unbeliever, to draw the unbeliever to himself. Because I think no matter how you end up translating it, you end up in the same place based on these two texts. The first is John chapter 5. You can turn there if you like. John chapter 5 verses 24 and 25.

Here's what Jesus says in John 5, 24 and 25. Most assuredly I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. Most assuredly I say to you, the hour is coming and now is when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live." The Ephesians, though Jesus might have always been 1, 100 miles away, have been dead in their sins and trespasses in this nature that is under the wrath of God have heard the voice of Jesus calling them forth from the grave and spiritually giving them life. This is a spiritual transaction, not a purely auditory one. Sound waves hitting the ear.

This is a spiritual transaction and it is not bound by time or location. Some of these may not have been alive when Jesus was ministering. It doesn't matter. It's not bound by time. They were not physically present in Israel when Jesus was preaching.

It doesn't matter. It's not bound by location. It is a spiritual transaction. Jesus Himself from heaven calls forth the spiritually dead and imparts life to them. He does it through a number of means.

It might be somebody else's sound waves hitting your ear drum, but it is Jesus Christ calling forth the dead and imparting spiritual life. Secondly, 1 Peter chapter 1. Again, you can turn there if you'd like. 1 Peter chapter 1, I'll be reading verses 10 through 12. In 1 Peter chapter 1, 10 through 12, Peter is talking about our salvation.

The blood of Jesus cleansing sinners and making them acceptable in the sight of God. And here's what Peter says, 1 Peter 1 starting in verse 10. Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when he testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. To them, to these prophets, it was revealed that not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things which angels desire to look into." So there are two things that I want to point to in this text. Again, I say this is a spiritual transaction that Peter is speaking of.

The Spirit of Christ was teaching the prophets of Christ. He says so. The Spirit of Christ was teaching about the coming Messiah, setting the expectation that God was going to send a Savior, not to leave people in their sins, but to send a Savior. Who was telling the prophets of that? The Spirit of Christ was.

And now the Holy Spirit who was sent by who? Christ. Jesus has sent the Holy Spirit. Now the Holy Spirit is preaching the gospel through gospel preachers. It's actually the Holy Spirit who is converting people, not men.

Gospel preachers are an instrument in the hand of Christ as he sends his Spirit to preach the Gospel to dead sinners and to make them alive, to impart life to them. So I want to convince you that if you've heard a gospel preacher that you don't owe your salvation, if you're a believer to that gospel preacher, you owe it to Jesus Christ who sent his Spirit to say the right words at the right time that would penetrate your heart when maybe it didn't penetrate the heart of the person sitting Next to you at all. It is the work of Jesus to convert to give to impart life To people who are spiritually dead This is not just an auditory transaction, sound waves hitting your eardrum. It is a spiritual transaction. It is the action of Jesus Christ saving sinners from heaven, sending his spirit to do that work.

Finally in this section we have this final phrase, as the truth is in Jesus. Martin Lloyd Jones says two things which I think are wonderful and helpful. Let me give them to you. The first is this. It's Martin Lloyd Jones, the great preacher of the last century who died in the early 1970s and has left us some really helpful things.

He says, it is in Christ Jesus that are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. He's just actually quoting Colossians 2 verse 3 there that says that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid in Christ. All the truth is in Jesus and there is no truth apart from Him. For everything is in him and he alone is the truth so does he tell the truth yes unfailingly he tells the truth but it's more than that. It transcends that.

It goes beyond that. He is the truth. There is no truth outside of Jesus. Jesus says this of himself in John 14, 6. I am the way, the truth, and the life.

Jesus is the truth. Secondly, Lloyd-Jones says this, and this helps us. God forbid, I say again, that we should ever separate our doctrine from His person. God forbid that we should become academic and theoretical and detached and forget even for a second that salvation has come in a person. In this particular person, Jesus, in whom God has stored all the treasures in his own wisdom and in his own knowledge.

Paul warns us about knowledge, it puffs up, makes us proud, it makes us think of other people as if they're dumb and we're smart. Paul warns us about that. When that happens, a disconnect has developed between our doctrine and his person. All the truth is in Jesus. It's not this separate body of factoids.

It is reflected in him. He is the ultimate revelation of truth. You're headed for trouble when you detach your doctrine and it becomes academic and theoretical and detached and sterile and mechanical. Truth is in Jesus. Truth stays attached to Jesus.

Jesus is the truth. Matthew Henry says this, Christ is the lesson and Christ is the teacher. Amen. He's the lesson. Oh, what a great lesson.

Who's our teacher today? He's the teacher. He's the teacher. Teaching of himself. He sent the Holy Spirit to do this.

He actually said it was better for us that he should be physically removed from the earth so that he could send his spirit to do this great work of revealing Christ. Christ is the lesson. Christ is the teacher. Moving on to the next verse. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 22.

Ephesians 4 verse 22. Follow along as I reread that verse. That you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts. Here in this verse, Paul talks about putting off the old man. It can go without saying to anyone who has been in the faith for any reasonable period of time that being born again does not mean being perfected.

Amen. I'll amen myself on that. Being born again does not mean being perfected. Being beyond temptation. Being beyond sin.

Born again people can never be more born again, but they can be more perfected. They can grow. They must grow. They are still subject to temptation. They are still, everyone, subject to sin until the last day of their life, until the last breath that they draw.

Yes, you were spiritually dead and have been made spiritually alive. Praise God. Nothing more important can happen to you. But you are still living in what Paul calls this body of death in Romans 7 24. Think of that.

A resurrected spirit, alive spiritually. You were dead spiritually, but you're alive spiritually now. It's changed your forever, but your alive spirit is living in this body of death. Which means that there are remaining corruptions which you must be aware of and fight against. The fight's not over when you're born again.

In some ways the fight is starting when you are born again. You now begin to fight against things that you are very comfortable with the day before, but now you know you must wage a war against them. The fight is starting, not ending, when you are born again. Remaining corruptions, this body of death, you better be aware that there are remaining corruptions. You better be aware that you have to fight against them or they will dominate you.

And so this old man which dominated my conduct when I was dead in trespasses and sins, right that's how Paul described us in chapter 2 verse 1, dead in trespasses and sins, totally dominated by the corruptions of the flesh. Or to say it another way, when I was a slave to sin, Romans chapter 6 verse 6, you're just a slave to sin, You just had to serve it because you were a slave to it. We're going to go to Romans 6 in a minute. This old man must be actively put off. Paul is calling for action, persistent action, actively put off.

Christian friends, this means that if you just drift with the current, that will be tremendously bad for you. And that's probably an understatement. You cannot just drift with the current. You must actively put off this body of death that you're living. Your spiritual life is still joined to this side of heaven.

There are still remaining corruptions. There are still remaining corruptions. Quote-unquote natural inclinations. Quote-unquote natural cravings. Which deceive you.

They promise one thing and deliver something else. And they bring destruction into your life. Paul calls them deceitful lusts. That's why I was born this way is not a defense for anything. Are you hearing what I'm saying?

That's why I was born this way is not a defense for anything. Are you hearing what I'm saying? That's why I was born this way is not a defense for anything. You were born all kinds of ways that are not right. That you were born with these quote unquote natural inclinations, natural cravings doesn't mean they are good and right.

Something has happened to us. We were born into a race that has already been plunged into rebellion and sin. We have lots of natural inclinations to do things that God hates. We have lots of natural cravings to do things that God looks upon with hatred. Let's get Paul's commentary on Paul.

Turn to Romans chapter 6. I had the hardest time figuring out where to start and where to stop. Because really, so much of Romans chapter 6 is about this, and we could spend our whole time here. But we're not preaching through Romans. We're preaching through Ephesians.

So I'm going to try to limit it to Romans chapter 6 verses 5 through 14. I won't be able to resist sprinkling in comments, but I'll try to make it really clear where I'm leaving the passage to comment when I'm coming back into the passage. For if we have been united together in the likeness of his, Christ's, death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection." So I'm departing from the text. Paul is speaking of the believer being joined to Christ in His death. The great exchange.

The penalty for my sins, who I am guilty before God and rightly guilty before God, He is right in His verdict, My sins being placed on Christ who is innocent so he can be an acceptable substitute for me. My sins passing to him and God satisfying his justice in Jesus' death on the cross. So this is what he's speaking of. If we're joined to him in his death, if my death passes to him through our union, then we're joined to him in his life, then I get his resurrection. That's what's being said.

Verse 6, knowing this, that our old man Was crucified with him that the body of sin might be done away with that we should no longer be slaves of sin For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ we believe that we shall also live with him. Knowing that Christ having been raised from the dead dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all.

But the life that he lives, he lives to God. Now, I think we are getting to the punch line here, the thing that has such a direct connection with our text in Ephesians. Look at verse 11. Likewise, You also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.

Do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace." Again, I'll reinsert here where I started. This is worthless to the unbeliever. To tell an unbeliever, don't Let sin reign in your mortal bodies is cruel. They have no spiritual power to do it.

No ability to do what's being asked of them because they're dead in sins and transgressions. But when you have been united to Christ and His death has paid for your sins, you are free. You are free. You don't have to serve sin like a slave anymore. Sin does not have to reign in your mortal body so Paul can write a letter to you and say, Don't let it!

Don't let it reign! You have power against sin. Listen, the work of Jesus Christ satisfies the penalty for sin in the life of the believer. Praise God! Don't stop there though!

Put a comma there, not a period. It also breaks the power of sin in the life of the believer. So our focus often is on the penalty of sin. My debt has been paid. And to that we sing praise songs.

And We worship. And we ought to worship. We should be thankful and glad about that. But don't stop there. Yes, it satisfies the penalty of sin, and it breaks the power of sin.

You don't have to be a slave to your sins anymore. You can have victory. Does that mean that Christians don't sin or can attain to a place where they don't sin? No, I don't think the Bible teaches that anywhere. But it means that we can grow and we can have victory over the sins that have beset us that we've had the hardest time getting rid of, we can have power over those sins.

We should have an expectation of victory over those sins. We are not slaves to those sins if we are really born again. So the power of sin is broken in the life of the believer, but that does not mean that growing in Christ-likeness is automatic. We all know that's true. Okay, I'm a believer, Now growing in Christ is automatic.

I don't think so. It's not my experience. I've been walking with the Lord for 40 years and I can tell you 40 years where the data point says it is not automatic. Scripture teaches that justification is monergistic. Oh boy, here we go with the big words.

Justification, being declared just, being declared innocent, is monergistic. Meaning the work of one. Good luck justifying yourself. Good luck unsinning. That's not even a thing.

When you've sinned, you've sinned. The pardon will have to come from outside of you, not in makeup, good behavior. That's not how any system of justice works. I'll just make it up by doing good things. No, systems of justice are about guilt and innocence.

And once you're guilty, your righteousness, restoration of righteousness is going to have to come from somewhere else. So You're not participating in that. You already ruined it. As Jonathan Edwards says, the only thing you contribute to your salvation is the sin that made it necessary. That's what you contribute.

Needing to be saved because you're a sinner. What God contributes is the righteousness. So justification is the work of one, mono, one person's work. But sanctification, growth, making progress, is synergistic, is the combination of God working in our lives and us working with Him. Not that we get the praise, but We are called to strive for holiness.

So, let go and let God might be an interesting bumper sticker, but it's not good theology. It's not good theology. We are to strive towards holiness. We are to engage in the fight. Yes, the victory comes through God, but we engage.

And so the old man must be put off, and put off, and put off. Not a one-time thing. Clearly Paul in our text isn't calling for a one-time thing. Here's how the author of Hebrews puts it. Hebrews chapter 12 Verse 1, Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, you got all these weights dragging down, lay them aside, And the sin which so easily ensnares us, lay it aside.

And let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. A marathon is set before us. You're not going to put off one time and be done with the race. You're going to have to put off, put off, you're going to wake up again tomorrow morning and the old man is going to be clamoring to be served, you're going to have to put him off, but Paul is telling us, instructing us that we have the power to put him off and We should engage ourselves to put off the old man. To lay aside every weight.

To lay aside the sin which so easily ensnares us. We're aware of that and we're engaged in the fight. Christians must always be doing this. It is a race that requires endurance. It's an endurance race.

It requires putting off every day. Back to it. Putting off. Okay, back to our text. The last two verses, verses 23 and 24.

Ephesians 4, 23 and 24. And be renewed in the spirit of your mind and that you put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. So he's just spoken of putting off the old man and in these two verses he speaks of putting on the new man. It seems to me that verse 23, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind is a bridge verse Belonging both to putting off the old man which has come before it and putting on the new man which comes after it. It applies to both.

Being renewed in the spirit of your mind is essential for the putting off of the old man and is essential for the putting on of the new man. In Romans 12 verse 2 Paul tells believers to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Be transformed, be changed by the renewing of your mind. We need for the general dispositions of our mind to be remade. Everyone has a general disposition of mind.

Yeah, it needs to be remade. From unbelief to belief. From the unbelieving state to growing in the believing state. To be transformed. Now that I'm spiritually alive, I need for the Spirit of God and the Word of God to renovate my mind.

My thoughts, my attitudes, my motivations. The Spirit of God works on that. The Word of God is a tool in His hand to work on the renovation, the remaking, the transforming of my mind. As Paul says in Colossians 3 verses 2 and 3, I think he's talking of exactly the same thing here. Colossians 3 verses 2 and 3.

Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. So he's talking about the true state of the believer for you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God so put your thoughts there. And what's implied is that's not automatic either. That there needs to be a proactive conscious conscientious effort to keep your eyes in heaven, on heavenly things where Christ is, not on the earth, where so many things are clamoring for our gaze.

Isn't that true? So many things here. They're clamoring. Look at me, look at me, look at me. Things on the earthly plane.

But really we're best served to have our eyes on Christ in heaven. Because we died to these things. We're alive in spiritual things. This is essential to the putting on of the new man. You've got to have your eyes in heaven where Christ is to be putting on the new man.

You have to have your mind transformed. Now Paul tells us two things about the new man. First, the new man is created according to God. What does that mean? The new man is created according to God.

Well the NASB translation renders it in the likeness of God. The ESV translation renders it after the likeness of God. I think they mean the same thing, but I like having these translations side by side. The new man is created according to God, or in the likeness of God, or after the likeness of God. Now putting it that way should make us immediately think of Genesis 1.27.

Listen to Genesis 1.27. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God He created Him, male and female, He created them. Is that the end of the story? No, it's the beginning of the story.

It's Genesis 1. Then Genesis 3 happens. What happens in Genesis 3? Sin enters. Our whole race, our whole family line is plunged into sin and rebellion So that this likeness of the image of God is warped and distorted and twisted.

It's not right. As of Genesis 3, this image of God, it still exists in some ways. Mankind has these tremendous capabilities that in a way reflect God and His likeness, but in so many ways it's warped and distorted and not right? What Paul is saying is that in Christ the curse is overthrown and we regain an ability to reflect the image of God in a way that was lost under the curse. Now praise God for this.

We can reclaim the image of God. We can begin to reflect the goodness and the greatness of God in ways that unbelievers for millennia past have lost the ability to do because that image is warped and twisted and distorted but Christ overturns that. That was as a result of the curse and Christ has cancelled the curse in the life of the believer. Listen to what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, 49. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, who is the man of dust?

Adam. The head of our family line as we were born. Adam, we bore the image of the man of dust. It's a distorted, warped image. As we are born the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly man." Who is the heavenly man?

Christ, who has reclaimed all that Adam lost. Praise God. Christ has reclaimed all that Adam lost. Paul is teaching us that in his text. The new man is created according to God, in the likeness of God, reclaiming our ability to become Christ-like, which is to reflect this image of God and His goodness and His greatness.

Second, the new man is characterized by true righteousness and holiness. He used to be characterized by all these other things we've been seeing in chapter 2, 3, and now 4. Now he's characterized by true righteousness and holiness. Believers are no longer slaves to sin. Believers should no longer be characterized by sin.

They should be growing in doing the things that please God and in separation to Him. True righteousness. Righteousness pleases God. They are the things that please God. We should be growing in doing those things.

And in separation to Him, and in holiness, that's what holiness is. Is being set apart to be God's. Being set apart to live to His honor and to accomplish whatever his pleasure is in your life and in the world. That's my mission in life now. I'm his.

He bought me with a price. So now I'm his body and Spirit. All of me is His because He bought me back from sin. So now He owns me and I'm separate to Him. I live in holiness, set apart to be His.

Listen to Luke 1, 74 and 75. Luke chapter 1, we've been studying it on Sunday nights. This is Zacharias' John the Baptist's father, the prophecy that God gave to John the Baptist's father, Zacharias. And it is speaking of all that Jesus has been sent to do, and this is what we read in Luke 1, 74 and 75. To grant us that we, the saviors being sent to grant us that we being delivered from the hand of our enemies might serve him God without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life.

Jesus came to do this. Jesus came to save us so that we could serve Him without fear. You should have been afraid of God in your unbelieving state. The wrath of God abides on a person who has to answer for themselves and their sins. So it's right in an unbelieving state to be afraid of God because He hates sin, and you're a sinner, and your sins rest upon you.

Jesus came so that we might serve Him without fear. So that we could be separated from our sins as far as the East is from the West. We don't have to be afraid of God as judge anymore. He's been made our Father. We might serve Him without fear in holiness, set apart to His honor and righteousness, able to do the things that please Him before God all the days of our life.

That the rest of our lives would be spent not fearing, and doing the things that please him, and being set apart to his honor. Applications, I'll give you two. So what do we do with this? Paul is teaching us things. What do we do with it?

Let me suggest two. One, Paul is describing repentance. The word is never used in the text, but repentance just means turning around. It means changing your mind. I was convinced that this was true but now I know that's not true.

The opposite is true. The other thing is true and I'm going to be directed in my actions by what I now know is true. So I'm turning around. That's the essence of putting off the old man and putting on the new man. The old man is consistent with our unbelieving natures.

Adam, rebellion, sin, the old man, that was me, but now washed by the blood of Christ, made clean from Every stain of sin, there is a new man created according to God in the likeness of God. So I can put on the new man to be his and to do the things that please him. It's just repentance. So the question for you is have you repented? And are you repenting?

So if you're an unbeliever I ask you have you repented? Or are your sins clinging to you? Separate yourself from your sins, the weight of your sins, the penalty of your sins, slavery to your sins, by throwing yourself on Christ for His mercy. Otherwise you will face Him, you will face this all-knowing God, all-good and pure God with your sins clinging to you and with no one to pay for your sins but yourself. To the believer, I would say, are you still repenting?

You know, we repent unto life and then we keep repenting. There is no way to grow without repenting. We should desire that God would do the painful surgery of identifying these things that are still not right in our thoughts and words and actions. Not that He would shield us from an awareness, but that he would bring us into an awareness of them so they can be dealt with and we can turn away from them, walk away from them, be different, walk worthy of this great calling of riches. This is what Paul is getting at here.

Have you repented? Are you still repenting? And repenting and repenting. Number two, give some thought to the renewing of your mind. Again, I'll say it again, I think this is the bridge verse between putting off the old man, putting on the new man, the renewing of the mind essential to putting off the old man, the renewing of the mind essential to putting on the new man.

Do we play any part in that? I think we do. It is the work of the Spirit of God and the Word of God, but there are ways in which we can quench the Spirit and grieve the Spirit by stubbornly persisting in worldliness, in sin. So here's my question. What are you feeding that mind of yours?

Does it lend itself to the renewing of your mind, the transforming of your mind, the renovating of your thoughts and attitudes. What's coming through that phone? Well, I'm just checking in on the news sites. I'm a news hound. I check in on the news sites way too much.

I know way too much about irrelevant things that are going on in irrelevant places. It does not lend itself to the renewing of the mind. Hey, nothing bad coming through my phone. I got neutral stuff. There is no neutral stuff.

Is it fixing your eyes on earth or fixing your eyes in heaven? These are the questions that have to be asked. If renewing of your mind means that we're obeying Paul in Colossians 3 When he says, set your eyes on heaven where Christ is, set your mind in heaven where Christ is, then you can't think that there are neutral things that don't point you either towards the renewing of your mind or the world having your mind. When the world has your mind, it has your affections too. The things that we feed are growing.

I'll just say I have a lot of work to do in this category. I have a lot to do to set my mind in heaven where Christ is. And think more of those things and think less of these things which are always clamoring for my attention. Oh they're so neutral. Yeah except for that they keep my mind from being renewed so it harms me from putting off the old man and putting on the new man.

Let me conclude with this. 2 Corinthians 5 verse 17. 2 Corinthians 5, 17. Therefore If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away.

Behold, all things have become new. Christian, become what you are. That is true. That is true. If you're a believer, if you are really a Christian, then you are a new creation.

The old things have passed away. All things have become new and we have to grow into our experience of that. Paul is drawing us to become what we are. Things are fundamentally true and real, and yet we need to grow in our experience of them. Paul is calling us to that.

Let's pray. God, I thank you for the book of Ephesians and all that we're learning. We need every bit of it. The truth is in Jesus and we're getting both truth and Jesus in our study of Ephesians. We need it all.

Pray that you would pour it out on us as we continue to study. Keep these things that we're learning fresh in our minds so that we can begin to walk in the truth of these things. I pray in Jesus' name, Amen.