How to live as a New Creation

Introduction

How many of you all are familiar with the show, “The Biggest Loser?” For those of you who are not, this was one of the most popular television shows whenever I was growing up and offered a cash prize to the contestant who lost the greatest percentage of weight during the show. Many contestants came into the show weighing 300, 400, even 500 pounds and many of them would lose upwards of 100 or 200 pounds on the show! It would seem as though they had turned a corner because they began to exercise, eat healthier and work very hard to live a healthier life. What is fascinating, though, is that many of these individuals (not all, but a considerable amount) would eventually gain back the weight that they had lost on the show. They would go back to their bad habits, not exercising and not working hard to keep that weight off. According to Psychology Today, Americans spend over $66 billion / year on weight loss products and services. What we see, sadly, is that many people will go on a diet or workout program and experience some success initially, however within 6 months, they will be essentially just as unhealthy as they were whenever they started their diet or workout program. What we are going to see this morning in Scripture is that it is vitally important for a Christian to replace bad habits with positive actions.

We have talked about the process of being “born again” numerous times as we have studied Ephesians. Whenever you accept Jesus as your Savior and Lord, you are a new creation. The old is gone and the new has come! This means that you have to live a different life than you lived beforehand! Some of those bad habits and actions that you had before now have to be changed. Not only are you supposed to not do certain things like lie, steal and speak unwholesome words, but you are to replace those things with good things. This is where we can go wrong sometimes. We might think that we have a relationship with Jesus Christ because we “prayed a prayer” or we “were baptized”, but the fact of the matter is that your life changes radically whenever you accept Jesus. Old actions change whenever Jesus comes into the equation. This does not mean that we never mess up, but it does mean that nothing changes whenever we become a child of God.

Let’s see what Paul has to say in

Ephesians 4:25–32 NASB95

25 Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. 26 Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and do not give the devil an opportunity. 28 He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need. 29 Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. 30 Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.

Millions of people have “prayed a prayer” and lived their entire lives just as they did before praying a prayer. Nothing changed! Jesus does not want you to just “pray a prayer” - that is not found anywhere in Scripture but we hear pastors say it time after time today. The fact of the matter is that salvation is so much greater than a 1 time prayer. That is where it starts. It starts with an acknowledgement of your sin before a holy God as tells us. It then requires you to ask Jesus to forgive you of our sin. It then moves to you making Jesus the Lord of your life. At this point, everything changes in your life. You live your life for Christ. A prayer does not save you. Baptismal waters do not save you. Your pastor does not save you! Only Jesus Christ can save you and He demands you to deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow Him! This means that you have to make some wholesale changes in your life to follow Jesus. This is what Paul is talking about in this passage of Scripture. Last week, Paul said that these Christians have a new identity. They have a new set of clothes and they are to live as a new creation! This is our story today as a child of God. As is common with Paul, though, is that he then gives these Ephesians believers some instruction on how to go about this. These are very practical steps where believers are supposed to give up something negative and replace it with something positive. This is our call as Christians today as well! We are to give it all over to Christ. We are not just to stop doing the desires of our flesh, we are to replace these actions with the fruits of the spirit and change the way we live our life based on the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives!

This list is not exhaustive and should not be the only behaviors that should mark our lives as Christians, but this is a great place to start as Paul gives us 5 examples of old habits that we must replace.

Replace lying with telling the truth (25)

In the Greek text, these examples are marked as imperatives or as commands. These are not just suggestions that should be done but they are commands that we have to live by! This verse involves a quote from as Paul commands his audience to speak the truth to one another. Paul is adding the weight of the Old Testament to bolster is case here and the reason that this is so crucial is because we are all members of one another. Church, your actions and words matter greatly to the ministry of the body! Falsehood and lying are destructive in the family unit and carry devastating results in the church as well. John Stott puts it like this, “A lie is a stab into the very vitals of the body of Christ.” Think of the problems that could come into play if our eyes and hands were not on the same page. If our eyes did not see the steam coming off of the stove top, our hands would certainly get burnt if they touched the stove! Communication is crucial. We are called to be united (as we saw in ) in faith and because of this, false words and actions hurt the body of Christ. Falsehood stifles unity, truth strengthens unity.

Now not only are Christians called to not be liars or false-tellers, but they are to replace those lies with the truth. They are called to tell the truth. It can be easy for us to replace a lie with another lie whenever we look back on a situation, however it is another thing entirely for us to tell the truth. Paul has emphasized the importance of telling the truth throughout . God wants His people to be like Him. He wants His people to tell the truth. We should be known as a community of people who live an honest life. We should be a people who are trusted. We know that God hates lying ( and 12:19, 22) and that Satan is a liar. It follows that whenever we tell the truth, we are imitating God. When we lie, though, we imitate Satan. As Christians who are called to live as a new creation, the desire of our heart should be to imitate God even in times of uncertainty or when that might get us in trouble.

Replace unrighteous anger with righteous anger (26-27)

Next comes a much different example as verses 26-27 show us that there is a certain type of anger that is permitted, yet restricted. Another way of looking at this verse would be “in your anger, you do not sin.” There is a type of anger that Christians should feel. You’re probably wondering what this type of “righteous anger” looks like. It does not mean whenever you stub your toe at night that you don’t cuss but instead substitute a fringe cuss word in its place. It does not mean that you limit your anger towards one or two people instead of 5 or 6. What it means is that you have a holy anger against sin. We need to feel anger as Christians! If you are simply indifferent to your sin or to sin in general then you will tolerate it and allow it to continue to have hold over you. You must genuinely hate sin! We know that our God hates sin as David wrote in

Psalm 119:53 NASB95

53 Burning indignation has seized me because of the wicked, Who forsake Your law.

For crying out loud, Jesus Christ was angry several times. In , Jesus expressed His anger by turning over the tables in the temple. provides us another example of Jesus’ anger as Mark writes:

Mark 3:5 NASB95

5 After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored.

Jesus displayed a type of anger that was mixed with grief. We too should be both grieved and angered with sin. There is most definitely unrighteous anger in our lives and in our world, though. Verse 31 tells us that unrighteous anger is one of the things that we are supposed to “put away” from us. Now there is certainly a warning here for us because it can be easy to justify our anger with a great reason (I’m just trying to teach my kids a lesson, etc…) and fail to give others the same benefit of the doubt. There is a great need in our world today for righteous Christian anger. We should not be tolerant of evil, we should be angry. We should be angry whenever we struggle with a sin. We should be angry whenever we see babies being torn from the bellies of their mothers. These things should stir up holy anger inside of us! We must be aware of our own fallenness in these situations, though. It can be easy for us to play the comparison game with others and say “I’m so glad that I don’t struggle with that sin” when in reality we should be angered with the sin that we do struggle with instead of thinking that we are “fine” compared to the type or amount of sin that someone else struggles with. As tells us, we should be slow to anger. Paul gives us 3 negatives to qualify his “be angry” statement.

First, do not sin. We can have anger whenever it is not mixed with pride, spite, malice, animosity or a spirit of revenge. You cannot go out and throw a fit in public or dishonor the name of God in the sake of “being angry” - that is not Paul’s point at all. We can be angered so long as it is justifiable by our sin and not mixed with these other attributes.

Second, do not allow the sun go down on your anger. This is something that we have all heard, Christians and non-Christians alike. We especially hear to never go to bed angry in marriage counseling! The problem with reading Scripture 100% literally is that you take this to mean that you can be as angry as you’d like during the day time and you put it aside whenever the sun sets. Think about the problem that this places for people who live in the north pole where the sun is out for weeks at a time, does this mean if you are an angry person that you should move up the north pole and be angry for months and months? Of course not! This is the danger of reading everything in the Bible at face value. We have to uncover the context of what the text is saying! Paul is not saying anything like this. He is saying that we should not nurse or nurture anger. We should not allow the embers of anger to smolder in our hearts. Do not allow it to fester. Resolve it quickly. Even good anger can eventually lead to unresolved problems if we allow it to stay around. So the time to be angry is short. Maybe that is a minute. Maybe it is an hour. Maybe it is a day.

Third, give no opportunity to the devil (v. 27). Satan would love to use your anger as an opportunity to make you violent and divisive. Have you ever experienced that in your life? The line between righteous and unrighteous anger is very fine and Satan would love nothing more than to turn a situation to his advantage. To turn a church member against his or her congregation. To bring about hatred or violence. We must be mindful of this and careful to not “sleep with the devil.”

Replace stealing with working and giving (28)

Whenever we read Scripture, it is vitally important for us to understand the context of the world in which the author and audience were living in for us to properly understand the meaning behind the message. In the 1st century world stealing was very common in Asia Minor (where Ephesus was located). Paul is telling this church, in verse 28, to break away from a societal norm and to work and give. As Christians who know our Bibles, we know that “do not steal” is the 8th commandment given to Moses on Mount Sinai. This was something that the people of God knew not to do, however this was something that would have been very easy to get away with in this day and age. Given the fact that many of the believers in the Ephesian church were formerly Gentiles, they very well might have had a background as a thief! These words would have hit them hard.

Back in this day and age there were no banks in the way we think of them today. Because of this, people kept their money at home (through possessions or land). It was very easy to steal something in a crowded marketplace and you could make a living as a thief in this time period. We know that stealing still exists today, does it not? Not only can people steal money or possessions, but people steal by evading taxes and by not fulfilling their end of a working contract. Stealing at the surface level is something that is seen as wrong in our society, however we must realize that this was a completely different world (literally!).

Paul could have been intending for people who did in fact have a job but one that was seasonal (laborer or tradesman) or temporary. Whenever their work season came and went, they might be tempted to steal in order to survive! In Asia Minor, this would have been a very real threat and something that many people would have succumbed to, however Paul is reminding them that the thief must no longer steal. Just because this was a part of their lives at one point in time, there is no place for this practice to exist as a new creation! Paul says “instead of stealing, he must do honest work with his own hands, so that he has something to share with anyone in need.” There are certainly some application points here for us as well:

It is not enough that the thief stops stealing, he is supposed to start working! We are created to work. Work is truly a gift from God - even though it might not always feel that way whenever our boss treats us poorly or we have to get up early or stay in late. We know that Jesus put in an honest day’s work for years as a carpenter/mason (as his father did). Paul worked throughout his ministry as well as a tentmaker (). Work was something highly thought of in the Old Testament.

Paul does not stop with the goodness of work but continues to talk about the need to work. Proverbs reminds us, “The one who works his land will have plenty of food, but whoever fantasies will have his fill of poverty” () If you want to eat, you should work. There is a whole rabbit trail down the political lane that we could go with this topic, but we’re not going to pursue it any further! Christians should seek to help one another find honest work whenever we are in a situation of need.

Paul also mentions that we should work to share with anyone in need. Instead of taking away from the community as a thief does, a Christian should contribute to it. Praise God that Jesus Christ can transform a burglar into a benefactor. We see this on display in as Zacchaeus met Jesus and transitioned from someone who was a taker his entire life to someone who became a giver because of Christ. John Wesley had a great way of phrasing this text, “Work as hard as you can, make as much as you can, then give as much as you can.” We’ve talked in the past about how our world says that we should make what we can, can what we get, and sit on the can. The Christian is supposed to live a completely different lifestyle then that! We are called not only to stop stealing, but to give to those in need from what we have made from our work. Again, these examples are about more than giving us things to stop doing, but about replacing these actions with good, righteous actions.

Replace evil words for good ones (29-30)

Paul then transitions from talking about the use of our hands to the use of our words - speech truly is a wonderful gift from God. We know that we are created in the image of God and speech is one of the ways that we can reflect our likeness to God. We know that God speaks and we can also speak as humans. Speaking distinguishes us from animals. Cows can moo, dogs can bark, pigs can grunt, horses can neigh, lions can roar, birds can sing but only humans can speak. Paul tells his audience that no foul language is to come from your mouth. The word for foul or corrupting is the Greek word “Sarpros” which is used of rotten trees/fruit and rotten fish. We’ve all smelled this smell and it is not a good one! Corrupt talk does not nourish you, it makes you sick. The worst part is that corrupt talk comes from a corrupt heart. We know this to be the case with lying, abusive language, gossip, slander and vulgar speech. Jesus Christ said that we will give an account one day for every careless word spoken () and if that doesn’t terrify you, I don’t know what will. In place of this type of talk, Paul says that we need well-chosen talk (as speaks of). We are to use constructive words that are helpful and build one another up! We should use encouraging words that give grace to hearers.

We live in a world that does not use much positive language. We talked on Wednesday night during Bible study about how you can turn the tv on and hear story after story about things going on in our world that will discourage you (shootings, disasters, economic failures, divorce, etc…). With that said, Christians must be a people who encourage one another both inside and outside the church! The Christian life requires constant encouragement of others. If you are a critical and cynical person, with no place of warmth or compassion, you will not be a good leader in the church. I say that to us all, myself included! We must be a people who are encouraging of one another. Sam Crabtree says, “We can sin in 2 ways: by idolatrous commendation (the praise of man) or by failing to commend the commendable.” He goes on to say, “Generally it is easier to practice affirmation early in a relationship and it can get harder later.” For those of us who are married in this room, you know this to be true. Whenever you first met your spouse, you noticed all of the good things about them! As time went on, though, you began to notice some of the not so good things, and unfortunately we can forget to affirm the great things that they do and we can nag them for the not so good things that they do! This is a natural human tendency, but we must guard against it as a body of Christ because our words matter. We must encourage one another and speak life into one another’s life.

We live in a world that says that it is ok to say whatever you want to say as long as it makes you feel better about yourself. We must realize that the way that we speak to one another matters deeply. As non-Christians, we might have talked a certain way with our friend group or with our family, however as a Christian and as a new creation, we must realize that our words must change from being meaningless and hurtful to being grace-filled and loving. One way that we can check ourselves in this is with what Paul says in verse 30 as he shows us that we aren’t to grieve God’s Holy Spirit. You can simply ask yourself, “Will what I’m about to say or do please the Spirit or grieve the Spirit?” You might ask, what grieves the Holy Spirit? Unholiness and disunity. Anything incompatible with the purity or unity of the church is incompatible with the Holy Spirit and will grieve him. As tells us, we speak the truth in love. This does not mean that we cave in and become tolerant of unholy things! The Holy Sprit hates sin! We remain firm on the essentials, but we speak the truth of Scripture to others in a loving way that will not leave a rotten taste in their mouth. The only way that we can do this consistently is by practicing the final 2 verses of .

Replace bitterness with forgiveness (31-32)

Paul finishes up this passage of Scripture by telling us to put off resentful attitudes, festering anger, wrath, public shouting, abusive slander and malice. In their place, we put on kindness and forgiveness. As we looked at last week with our new identity, we are to wear these new clothes all day, every day. Our identity in Jesus Christ is permanent. We are a completely new creation! Just as we see in the picture of baptism. We are to wear these new attributes each and every day because our old self is no more.

What would happen if this is what the church was known for? We should be a people known for kindness and forgiveness based upon the depth of God’s kindness and forgiveness that was shown for us on the cross! tells us that God’s kindness brought us to repentance. Paul says in that

Titus 3:4–5 NASB95

4 But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, 5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,

Finally, the Psalmist puts sinful humanity in our place,

Psalm 130:3–4 NASB95

3 If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? 4 But there is forgiveness with You, That You may be feared.

God is kind and forgiving, we are to imitate Him. We see this in both the Old and New Testaments. Paul finalizes with one of the most powerful verses on forgiveness in Scripture, “God in Christ also has forgiven you.” If Jesus can forgive us, then there is nothing for which we should not forgive another person. This does not mean that we are pushovers and that there should not be consequences for our actions, certainly there should be and there are! However, we must be a forgiving people. Not to forgive is to not rightly understand Jesus’ forgiveness. We must meditate on His lovingkindness, love, forgiveness and humility daily and allow ourselves to be conformed into His image.

Conclusion

Just as whenever someone begins a diet or a workout plan and their lifestyle changes, whenever someone accepts Jesus to be their Lord and Savior, their life changes radically. Just as someone on a diet cannot go back to having soda and candy bars, a Christian cannot continue to live the same life that they lived before coming to know Jesus! Something has to change.

If you are a Christian this morning, if you have been forgiven by God for the punishment of your sin, it means that you have accepted Jesus Christ to bear that penalty before a holy God. That means that you have accepted Him to be the Lord of your life. Not only that, though, it means that you daily die to self, pick up your cross and follow Christ. It is not enough to make an emotional response and repeat a prayer, it is so much more than that. It is about submitting yourself to Jesus Christ and inviting Him to come into your life and be your savior and Lord. There is only room for 1 master as Jesus said that a man cannot have 2. You are either your own master or Christ is your master. The fact of the matter, this morning, is that if you are your own master then you will have to give a defense of your sin before a Holy God. Not even the best defense attorney could get prove your innocence! The punishment of your sin results in eternal separation from God.

However, there is another option out there. There is a greater master who exists who has already paid that price. All that He asks of you is your life. It is a massive commitment. People say that it’s not a big decision, but let me tell you, it is! It requires your life. Your old self dies whenever Jesus comes into your life, but praise be to God because whenever you accept Jesus into your life, that is where you become a new creation.

So, I ask you today, what do you wear? Have you come to know Christ? Are you dressed in His righteousness or are you still wearing your own filthy, dirty rags? If you are in Christ, you are called to live out your new identity as a new creation for the good of others and for God’s glory to be known to all the world.

Let’s pray