Put off the Old Self

I know we have had a theme of sorts about growing up. We spoke a couple weeks ago about wanting out from under our parents control and how that helps us to grow up. Last week we talked about Adulting and how responsibility and the demands of the world help us to step into our calling and become more like Christ.

This week, we are talking about how as we grow up, we begin to gain a better understanding of why our parents treated us the way they did and how much they actually loved and cared for us. It is like a light goes on in our lives. We are no longer plagued by a darkened mind. We view what they did differently after that.

We need a similar enlightening in our spiritual adulthood.

Ephesians 4:17–32 ESV

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. 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. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 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. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

What we were like before

Alienated from the life of God

Callous, Sensual, Greed and Impure

That is the old us - If we know Christ

how do we know it the old us and not the us in Christ. because the word tells us so.

Ephesians 4:22 ESV

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

Romans 1:18–32 ESV

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

But something happened. This is not us anymore. We have been enlightened.

Psalm 119:130 ESV

The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.

Ephesians 1:18 ESV

having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,

Luke 15:17 ESV

“But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger!

My testimony

We have learned His ways

Ephesians 4:22–24 ESV

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.

Put off our old self

Be renewed in the spirit of your mind

Put on the new self

Created in the likeness of God

last week we learned how we became more like satan than God in the garden.

Let us not make that same mistake now in our new creation in Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

If you picture this as clothes,

What old clothes do we need to take off?

What piece of clothing do we want to be seen in?

Why is this important?

Opening Up Ephesians For the Sake of Assurance (4:20–21; 5:5–6)

By it, Paul leaves open the possibility that if the Ephesians do not act as if they have really learned Christ, maybe they have not actually learned him!

If the Ephesians do not act like they have “learned” Christ, maybe they have not “learned” Christ.

The same is true for us.

Ephesians 5:5–6 ESV

For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

The Christian life is one of growth and change.

The speed is not the issue, the movement is.

Which self do you put on in the morning?

That’s just the way I am.

Ephesians 4:17–18 ESV

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. 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.

Let us take off the “old self” and put on the “new self”