Honouring God with our Self

Introduction

Going to speak on honouring God with our selves

Typically when we’re speaking on this topic we’d talk about looking after health, making sure we’re rested etc.

These things aren’t WRONG but it’s definitely not the whole picture

We can put so much attention onto self care that it can even become detrimental to faith.

What I mean by that is that we can look after ourselves and care about our own time etc. to the point that it actually takes away from our faith

The bible has a pretty clear idea of how we honour God with our selves - and it’s definitely not in line with what we would normally think, and is certainly not the same advice you’d get from the world.

**PRAY**

Put off your old self

Ephesians 4:20–24 (ESV)

20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

The amount of times I’ve heard the phraes “self love is the best love” “the first love you need to have is your self” and phrases like that - has been unprecented recently

But when we read scripture there is a completely different instruction

See, this passage is about honouring God with your self. But it forces us to ask a question which the world does not address when telling you to “love yourself”

and that question is: ‘which self are you loving’?

Paul talks in this passage about TWO selves that we have. And the way we deal with the OLD self is actually to take it off, put it off, be done with it.

Jesus echoes this in Luke 9:23

Luke 9:23 (ESV)

23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

Why is this the case - when the world is telling us to love our selves, pay attention to ourselves, treat ourselves well - why is the Word of God telling us to put OFF ourselves - to deny ourselves?

Ephesians 4:22 (ESV)

22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires,

v22 tells us that the old self belongs to an corrupted way of life filled with deceitful desires

There is an old self - which is all about self-preservatioin, it’s about self-centeredness, it does what pease itself. It is about pride, lust, greed, anything that pleases it.

This old self does not lean towarsds God - it naturally leads away from Him

QUOTE: Carson on holiness

Perhaps my favourite quote about this is by D.A Carson:

People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.

Have you let go of the old self today? Because there are times where we claim to be in Christ but we still love to entertain the old self because it is familiar, it is comfortable - it is popular even.

But if there is one thing clear from this passage - is that you caannot put ON the new self which God desires to give you unless you have put OFF the old.

ILLUSTRATION: Momm

Nicholas Kristof wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning book called “half the sky” in which they comment on the worldwide sex trade. He paints a horrific picture of underage girls getting forced drugs, beaten, and forced to sell their bodies night after night - the numbers are beyond imagination. He recalls one particular rescue of a girl called Momm, a Cambodian teen who was enslaved for 5 years. She had seized the chance to escape, promising to never return. Kristof drove Momm back to her village where she was greeted with a village wide celebration, the entire town came out to celebrate her return. Everyone embraced her, her family was overjoyed and celebrated long into the night. The celebration didn’t last long - early one morning soon after Momm left her father and mother without a word and returned to her pimp in Poipet. Like many girls who have been trafficked they are force given methamphetamine to keep them compliant. The craving had overwhelmed her and she returned to the place she swore never to go back to.

As sad as this story is - the reality of it rings true for our faith as well. How many of us pray to God for new life, a new self - only to return to our old self because we are overwhelmed by our own desires?

If that is you tonight - God is calling you to release your old self.

He has a better self, a new self, one that is not limited in its corrupted nature or slave to its deceitful desires. He wants you to have a self that can actually glorify Him - and the old self simply cannot do that.

Take what He offers - take the new self.

Be renewed in the spirit of your minds

How exactly do we do that is what Paul goes through next - and for sure it’s quite an interesting point.

Ephesians 4:23 (ESV)

23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,

Be renewed in the spirit of our minds. This is not the only time he mentions it either - he also mentions it in Romans 12:2

Romans 12:2 (ESV)

2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

It’s quite clear that this huge change happens by the renewing of our mind.

To understand this - you must know that the mind in the bible represents the epicenter of yoour beliefs, thoughts and actions. It represents your inner convictions.

Think of it like this - if the body represents our outward actions then the mind represents your deepest convictionos - the direction of your beliefs.

And it is in THIS deep place that Paul says - renewal must take place.

Take a second to note that this reveals to us that the faith is NOT merely just outward appearance. Faith is not just about the actions, it’s not just about what you do - it’s about WHO you are.

Christianity is NOT about behaviour modification. It is aboout spiritual regeneration.

If Christianity to you is just about behaviour modificatioin then it will always be superficial and temporary because your inner convictions are the same. Your old self is still in control - so any behavious you commit to is, at best, just to fit in in church - just so people think well of you.

The bible indicates that the renewal of our mind occurs in 2 distinct ways: The first way is that we must CHOOSE to set our mind on things of Christ - there is an element of choice here.

Colossians 3:1–2 (ESV)

1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

There is a constant, continuing choice to set our minds on the things of God. To shift our perspective, to seek to see things as God sees them, to seek to control thoughts and beliefs that do not come from Him.

The realm of the mind is warfare for the Christian - constantly bringing every thought into submission of Christ. 2 Cor 10:5

2 Corinthians 10:5 (ESV)

5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

The second distinct, and absolutely necessary way that the renewal of our mind occurs is through the intervention of the Holy Spirit - whom we must invite in, who empowers us to renew our mind.

Titus 3:5 (ESV)

5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,

The work of renewal is accomplshed by the Holy Spirit. It is a deep and profound change which we are unable to make on our own.

We may be able to change our mind - but we cannot change our nature, only the Holy Spirit can do that.

And in order to put on the New self - we need a change in our nature.

We need to welcome the Holy Spirit into our lives - so that He can begin a deep work without which we cannot possibly hope to put on our new self.

There is so much talk in the church about the heart, about the soul and the spirit - but not much said about the mind.

And yet from these passages we can see that the mind is a fundamentally important place. Your thoughts, your convictions, your beliefs, your persepctives - this is where it all begins.

A Christian who does not have control over their mind is one who cannot possibly hope to honour God with their self.

Hear me out here - I didn’t grow up in a pentecostal church, I grew up Baptist and Methodist. But even I can warn you about undervaluing the work and power of the Holy Spirit in your life.

I genuinely believe one of the reasons believers experience a powerless faith is because we neglect the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

When we lose sight of the practise of reverence and holiness, we are unable to yield to the Holy Spirit, we are unable to walk in the Holy Spirit - our actions may even grieve the Holy Spirit.

If you are waging war in the realm of your mind - unable to contain corrupted thoughts, unable to win over worldly desires, then consider whether you are waging that war alone or not. Because if you are - that is a war you cannot win.

ILLUSTRATION: Apache Gunship

I’m a guy, and a bit of a child when it comes to things like guns and stuff like that. When I was younger I went to America - and we visited an aerospace museum near NASA. All sorts of epic stuff there - like missiles and all that stuff, I was nerding out pretty hard. But the coolest thing we saw there by a mile and a half was the Boeing AH-64 attack chopper - commonly designated “apache”. Apart from just being basically death manifest on earth - it was filled with incredibly high tech equipment. But one system in particular caught my eye. (girls I know it’s hard to pay attention during this part but please try, I promise you can come talk to me later about nails and kdrama). See, mounted right under where the gunner sits is a cannon, but it’s not an ordinary cannon. It is actually connected to the helmet that the gunner is wearing - so that WHEREVER the gunner looks the cannon points. Now for someone like me this would be disastrous - because if anyone so much as calls my name - I’d look and take out the home team you know? But these pilots are trained specifically so that they do not get distracted when they use this system. They actually say that the gun is “slaved” to the helmet. And I’m fascinated by that term because it’s exactly what Paul is talking about here.

Our SELVES, our bodies, our actions, our choices, they are “slaved” to the mindset that we have. Whichever direction we are looking is the direction the gun will fire. Whichever conviction we are holding on to is the conviction that we will act on, whichever belief we cling to is the belief we will act out.

And as long as we are looking in the direction of the old self, as long as our minds are set on worldly things, as long as thoughts are not being made captive to Christ, as long as the Holy Spirit has not been invited in to do a renewing work - the Old self will ALWAYS prevail. See girls, guns can be cool too.

Putting on the new self

And once this is done - we finally come to the part of the passage where we can actually honour God with our self. Ephesians 4:24

Ephesians 4:24 (ESV)

24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

You can try as hard as you like but you cannot honour God with your old self - no matter what you do the old self cannot, and will not honour God.

Only when we choose to put on the new self - can we honour God with it.

Humanity was originally made in God’s image. But that image became marred by sin and by our shame.

This new self that Christ has made available to us is a restoration to this original divine image that God created us in.

It’s so important to note the distinction between the old and new self. The old self was characterised by corruption and deceitful desires - the new self is characterised by righteousness and holiness.

It’s important to note because if these qualities are not seen in you then there is no evidence of God’s renewal, there is no evidence you have put on the new self.

Why righteousness and holiness? Well righteousness speaks of our actions towards others (love and justice) and holiness speaks of our actions toward God (obedience). Both come to characterise the new self.

There is only one self that can honour God - and it isn’t the old self.

There is only one way to honour God with self, and that is to PUT OFF, DENY the old self and chooose too put on the NEW self.

The Old self is incapable of honouring God - but the new self naturally seeks to honour Him through a life of holiness and righteousness.

ILLUSTRATION: Homelessness

Some of you may know this but a couple of years ago I directed a real estate company. A part of this was because I also had a heart to help people who were homeless. So we would often attend events like soup kitchens etc. and get involved in their initiatives.

This one event was basically about getting homeless people back on their feet - by giving them new clothes, getting them haircuts, teaching them how to apply for jobs, this sort of thing. And I’ll never forget this one young boy who came in to learn how to conduct himself in a job interview. He was probably no older than 17 or 18 but he looked as if he was well into his 20s. He was wearing a suit that was about 5 sizes too big for him. It was literally wearing him, like he disappeared into the jaacket, the pants would have fallen off if it it weren’t for the belt that he was wearing. Like it was all a little bit comical if I’m honest. But he carried himself with a certain sense of pride - and I also happened to notice that the suit was spotless. A farcry from what many of the others were wearing.

As I was looking at this young boy - one of the helpers who had been doing this for years came up next to me - and randomly just mentioned “he’s going to make it out of the cycle (of homelessness).” I gave her a quizzical look and she literally just said, “the laundry.” Since I probably looked even more confused - she explained this to me.

“You can always tell the ones who are going break out of the cycle eventually because they always do their laundry. Because cleanliness is not the natural mindset of a homeless person - they have other things to worry about. So when they start thinking about cleanliness - this represents a big change in their perspective - they no longer want to be dirty, smelly, they want to be clean, they care about their appearance again, it’s the beginning of dignity. They’ll start to shower regularly, cut their nails - they’ll do their laundry.”

How profound. Because it’s the same with Christians isn’t it?

When we’re living in the old self - it’s obvious because we’ll be ok in the corruption, in the deceitful desires, we’re comfortable in the dirt, it doesn’t bother us.

What marks the beginning of a transformation into our new selves is not just the behaviours - it’s the mindset of cleanliness, it’s a mindset of holiness and righteousness, it’s the mindset of dignity. I care about what God thinks of me. I care about doing what’s right in His eyes.

Put away the old self that cannot honour God - put on the new self, which seeks to honour Him.

Altar Call

I want to pray for a specific group of people today - people who are waging this war in their mind.

You’re trying to change the mindset, you want to change your mindset but it may be hard. You’re thinking things you don’t want to think, and it’s causing you to do things you may not want to do.

You’re tired - and you’ve reached a point where you don’t know how much more you can do.

Come forward - let us pray for you.