Put Off Your Old Self

Good morning, welcome to New Horizon Christian Church. Please open your Bible to Ephesians 4.

Read Ephesians 4:20–24- “But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

Pray.

1. The way you learned Christ.

Ephesians 4:20–21- “But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus,”

Not learned about Christ.

What is the difference?

To learn about Jesus means that you have a working knowledge of exterior factors of something.

To learn Jesus means that you have an intimacy of experience with something.

Not a perfect illustration, but perhaps somewhat helpful.

Learning about the bombing of Pearl Harbor vs. learning Pearl Harbor.

One means learning facts about what took place, one means a lived experience of intimately understanding a subject.

Paul is reminding His readers that their faith in Jesus is not a working knowledge about Jesus, but instead an affectionate shared experience of relationship with Jesus Christ.

How does this come to be?

Heard about him, were taught in him, know the truth in Jesus.

Consider what this looks like in the context of the local church.

Heard about him.

Knowledge was given, or taught, to you about Jesus.

Our first step in a person coming to know Jesus centers on his or her external knowledge of Jesus as a person.

Children’s Ministry- Introducing children to Jesus.

Were taught in him.

Next a person is taught in Him. Notice the movement from exterior to interior.

Jesus is no longer simply a mere person who has done things like walk on water, or feed 5000, we now begin to understand the reality of who Jesus is.

Jesus is the Son of God, the promised Messiah, God in flesh.

These are realities beyond merely knowing about Jesus.

Requires a new level of faith.

Think of the development of a child’s faith.

Moved from knowing things about Jesus to knowing Jesus as He truly is.

The truth is in Jesus.

This is the culmination here.

When Paul describes what the Ephesian Christians have experienced in their learning Christ, this is the pinnacle.

Not only have they heard about Jesus, not only have they been taught IN Him, but now they see that meaningful and powerful truth is found only in Jesus.

This is what we hope for a person being introduced to Jesus. That they make a discovery about truth.

No longer able to create truth for themselves, but instead look to Jesus Himself as the highest source of truth and reality.

They look at the life and words of Jesus and find zero falsehood. He is Truth.

So what happens when we live this sort of learning Christ?

We move away from the past life and toward something new.

Communicated a new way.

2. Put off your old self.

Last week, Paul reminded his readers that they were not to go back to a former way of life, living as the gentiles live.

What is to be done in order to keep Christians from going back to the lifestyle and worldly philosophy of their former days?

Put off your old self.

Depending on translation, put off, or put away, the idea being to get rid of something and leave it behind.

What is the old self?

Former manner of life.

These are words used to describe everything we discussed last week- No longer walk as the gentiles do.

This is an argument that Paul has been repeatedly making.

You were dead in your trespasses, you lived in the passions of your flesh, you were by nature children of wrath.

You were separated from Christ, you were strangers to the covenant of promise, you were without God in the world.

Paul continues to lay out the case of what all of us once were in order that we wouldn’t desire to return to it.

Like kids telling us all about the person they want to date after they have told us everything wrong with this person.

Don’t you remember your past experience? Don’t you remember how far you’ve come?

What is so bad about the old life? Why does Paul argue that it should be done away with?

Corrupt through deceitful desires.

A great explanation of what ought to be removed.

The old self is centered on desires that are deceitful, on that which is false.

The old self fools itself.

Gets life backwards- puts value on that which is less valuable, and removes value from that which is most valuable.

The result here is corruption, a constant, often slow, destruction of the self.

Remember the summer sermon series- How Firm a Foundation.

Talked about salvation as a repairing or fixing. Here we find what is being fixed in salvation- the true personhood of each person, that has been destroyed and corrupted by deceitful desires.

What does it look like to take off, do away with the old self?

Kids when they would spit up or throw up a crazy amount on their onesie.

Some messes were just too disgusting to deal with.

When Paul describes the old self using words like corrupt and deceitful, he is making the argument that what has been taken off is too disgusting to keep around.

3. Put on the new self.

What is the result of putting off the old self?

Something must replace what has been done away with.

Spoken on this many times before- The Christian faith has much less to do with the old self than it does the new self.

Where is our focus? On what we are or on what we are not?

The concept here is pretty easy to gather- Put off the old life, the former, corrupted manner of living.

Put on something new.

Something renewed.

From what has been corrupted and slowly destroyed to what has been made new.

Something that reflects the character of God, revealed to us in Jesus.

From that which was focused on desires of a deceitful heart and mind, to that which seeks to live the character of Christ.

From pride to humility, from greed to generosity, from anger to patience, from holding grudges to extending mercy.

As we see in our text, from deceit to righteousness and holiness.

What I have zero desire to do this morning- Have you walk out thinking that you need to try harder and harder at being like God.

That you somehow rely completely on your own effort to accomplish this goal.

The new self, not your new self.

Doesn’t come from you. It is instead given to you.

Perhaps one of the greatest frustrations with the Christian faith is that we never feel we can attain the life we are supposed to live.

Our efforts fall short.

Matthew 11:28–30- “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Labor and are heavy laden we tend to think of being worn out.

Jesus refers to himself as gentle.

Galatians 6:1- “Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.”

Is it possible that when we most need to come to Jesus is when we see ourselves lacking, and that this is when we MOST need the gentleness and kindness that He offers?

Our efforts fall miserably short, but His do not.

4. A word of reflection.

This can be difficult to evaluate. Have I put off, removed, put away the old self? How are we to know?

What place does Jesus have in your life? Notice the centrality of Jesus in our text, even with His name rarely mentioned.

You have learned Jesus Christ by hearing about him and were taught in Him.

You know Jesus to be True in all ways.

You are renewed in the spirit of your mind by Jesus.

Your new self reflects the character, holiness and righteousness of Jesus.

John 15:5- “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

Jesus tells his followers to remain in Him, to abide in Him, to stay with Him.

The difference between the old self and the new self has very little to do with the behaviors we perform, and much more to do with who Jesus is in our lives.

Life will indeed change when Jesus becomes our everything.