Change Clothes Wk 1

Change Clothes

Hook,

Well it’s the beginning of the year. Time for New Year New You!. This is the Time of New Year's Resolutions.

Top 10 New Year's Resolutions.

1. Diet or eat healthier (71%)

2. Exercise more (65%)

3. Lose weight (54%)

4. Save more and spend less (32%)

5. Learn a new skill or hobby (26%)

6. Quit smoking (21%)

7. Read more (17%)

8. Find another job (16%)

9. Drink less alcohol (15%)

10. Spend more time with family and friends (13%)

Book:

English Standard Version Chapter 4

to oput off pyour old self,6 which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through qdeceitful desires, 23 and rto be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on sthe new self, tcreated after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

The moral misery of our hearts apart from saving grace (v 17-21)

The moral misery of our hearts apart from saving grace (v 17-21)

Ephesians 4:22–24 ESV

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.

So this sounds good but how do i get there? Why do i want the new self?

Ephesians 4:17–21 ESV

17 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. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 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,

Ephesians 4:

The moral misery of our hearts apart from saving grace (v 17-21)

Ephesians 4:17–21 ESV

17 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. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 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,

What does it mean for us to be apart from God, What does it mean to put on the new self. To know how to put on the new self we need to know what was wrong with the “old self”. No one set outs with New Years resolutions to fix problems they don’t have. An extroverted person like myself doesn’t set out to talk to more people in the office. I’ll never get any work done. We set out to change what is broken.

Our old self’s problem is:

1. First, he says in verse 18 that our root problem is hardness of heart.

2. Second, this hardness against God leads darkens the understanding (v. 18).

3. Third, the result of this darkness is a gross ignorance of reality (v. 18)—even if I have three doctoral degrees and know 10,000 facts, I am ignorant if I do not know the divine meaning or the purpose of those facts, and how they relate to the great things of eternity.

4 Fourth, being ignorant of the true value of things in relation to God and eternity, I yield naturally to covetousness and licentiousness (v. 19), that is, my desires go after the wrong things, or after all things in the wrong way. None of my desires has a proper relation to God, and so they are all ruined.

5. This leads, in the fifth place, to a life of futility (v. 17). Nothing of any eternal significance is accomplished. Life is one big ash heap of wasted weeks and years. There is no service to the King of Ages, and so it is all meaningless in the end—like a man who works hard planting trees and landscaped flower gardens in a new housing project and then watches them get bulldozed because he was just doing his own thing and never consulted the master plan for where they belonged. There is only futility in the end without relating all you do to God.

6. The sixth layer of our corruption, and the one that seals our hopelessness without some mighty work of salvation, is mentioned in verse 18, namely, that we are alienated from the life of God. Our hardness and darkness and ignorance and licentiousness and futile behavior are the marks and motions of living dead men—like Jesus said, "Let the dead bury their dead!" (). And like Paul said of self-indulgent widows: "She is dead even while she lives" (). Alienated from the life of God. Dead in trespasses and sins (), "having no hope and without God in the world" (3:12).

Everyone of us is in that condition until the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ breaks in and melts the hardness, and dispels the darkness, and unites us to the life of God and makes us new creatures through faith in Christ.

Freedom Through Hearing the Voice of Jesus

And so Paul says in verse 17, "No longer live in the futility of your mind!" Life need not be—must not be—futile any more. Then in verse 20 he gives the reason why we can no longer live like the Gentiles in futility: "You did not so learn Christ."

Then in verse 21 he entertains the possibility that some who hear this letter may not be true Christians. He realizes he may be out in front of some church attenders. And so he mentions two things he is assuming when he says they don't have to walk in futility any more.

Paul is assuming that he is talking to believers but then he thinks possibly he is is not so he gives 2 qualifications to the people so they know if he is referring to them or not:

He says, "Assuming [or: if indeed] 1) you have heard him [i.e., Christ] and

were taught in him, just as the truth is in Jesus."

These have to be true of you for you to not have the hardness which leads to futility.

I take this to mean: before you can escape from all the hardness and darkness and futility of the old life, you have to hear the voice of Jesus and in response to his voice enter his school to be taught by him as a trusted master. His voice is the power that breaks through all the hardness and darkness and ignorance and wakens you from the hopelessness of death. And faith responds like the Gadarene demoniac (), suddenly saved from the futility of insanity and self-destruction, and says, "Lord, let me be with you."

Spurgeon: “ The same sun which melts wax hardens clay. and the same Gospel which melts some person to repentance hardens others in their sins.”

And so I want to make clear before we go on this evening that this must happen in your life before today's text can apply to you. You must hear the voice of Jesus calling you out of darkness into light and out of death into life. This is why Jesus so often said things like, "Take heed how you hear" (), and, "If any man has ears to hear, let him hear" (). And once you hear the quickening voice of Jesus, you must, as Paul says here in verse 21, be taught in him as the truth is in Jesus. You must gladly and heartily enroll in the school of Christ.

So we are going to start changing by Changing Clothes. We are for the whole month of January starting a clothes drive. We have a bunch of people in Lorain county hurting for getting new clothes, especially teenagers, and especially guys clothes. So we are running a contest to see which campus can donate the most clothes to We Care We Share. We will have a collection each meeting in Jan. So go home and clean out your closets, and dressers because I know if you are like me you have a bunch of clothes that you don’t wear anymore and they are just sitting in your drawers and not getting used.

SG Questions:

Do you do New Year’s Resolutions?

What are your New Year’s Resolutions?

What do you think about the idea of the Old Self/New Self, is this a religious only thing or do secular people believe this too? Explain.

Why does our society have the desire this time of year to change?

What can you do to start changing?

Does this plan of hearing, and learning sound like it will work?