Iowa RP Family Camp 2019 - Talk 4

Welcome to God's Word for You from Ministry of Sharon Arby Church in Southeast Iowa. We want to thank you for listening today and we pray that you'll be blessed by both hearing God's Word as well as having it applied to your life and your heart. So we are looking today at Ephesians 4, 17 through 24. Allow me to read God's Word to us this morning.

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 the 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.

Prayer for Illumination

Let's pray. Father, we ask that you would be with us now in this hour, that you would be renewing us and changing us through your holy word by your Holy Spirit. Lord, we would pray particularly for our young people here You would cause them to give themselves up to embrace Christ and all that he is and all that he has for them. We ask that you would change us and make us more like him. For we know that that is what brings true joy and delight in this life.

Sermon

Be with us now in Christ's name, Amen. As we join the church, what are we doing? What are we saying? What are we declaring? As we baptize our children, to what are we calling them? How is their life to be marked because of that baptism? As we evangelize and outreach, what are we telling people will be different and better about them with us that they cannot be without us?

In all of this, In all of our lives, the lives of our covenant children, the lives of our friends and neighbors and co-workers, we are being called into the covenant of grace to start walking in the way of Christ. There is a way to walk that we desire our children, our friends, our neighbors, our spouse, our co-workers to walk.

And that is the new walk. The new walk. In verse 17, Paul is logically developing his argument. He's moving on from his previous argument to say that the Ephesians should live, should literally walk differently than other Gentiles around them. The way they walk or live. It echoes what Paul said just a few verses previously in verses 1-3.

I therefore a prisoner for the Lord urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. And then the fruits of the Spirit that mark that walk as we saw last time. There in the opening lines of chapter 4, Paul was beckoning the Ephesians to a new way of life, a new way of living, a new worldview, a new way of understanding how they should operate with one another.

This new way of life is rooted, as we saw in our effectual calling, that work of God's Spirit, whereby convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, He doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ freely offered to us in the Gospel. We see this in 2 Timothy 1. He saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of His own purpose and grace which He gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began. Or 2 Thessalonians 2, but we ought always to give thanks to God for you Brothers, beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth, to this He called you through our Gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. We see this throughout the Scriptures. So the Ephesians were called, we are called, not just out of darkness, but we are called into the light. Not just out of sin, but into righteousness. Not just out of death, but into life.

There's one preacher who says there are many people in prison who are sorry for what they have done. And they're sad, they're upset that they're in prison. Because they can't keep doing the unrighteousness that put them there. That's different than really being truly repentant and changed from what you have done.

We've been called out of death into life. These biblical ideas remind us that we are not our own anymore. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6, Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

That's what we're talking about this week. is not just the inner spiritual change that takes place, but how that works its way out into our outer man, into the physical world in which we live, the actual righteous deeds that we are called to. And so Paul is transitioning here in Ephesians 4. He is going to tell them how to do just that, to put off sin and live in righteousness. But he doesn't, as we've seen, he doesn't just bark the command. If you're a parent, you know what that is. You know what that's like. You know. Clean up your room. Don't spill that in the car. Clean up your mess. We know that it's takes an inner change to want to do what is right and not just respond to commands that are yelled at us. And so Paul doesn't just bark at them. He shows the entire basis for our spiritual maturity. He builds that. He indicates that to them. He states to them what is true. And lo and behold, it's not us, it's Christ that is the basis for our spiritual maturity and our holiness in this life.

So starting in verse 17, he's calling them to a particular walk which sets them apart from the rest of their culture so that they walk not as other Gentiles walk, We've mentioned this, but in Scripture, the idea of one's walk is holistic. It's inclusive of the outer public actions and the inner secret thoughts and habits. It denotes an entirety of who we are, and what we do, and how we do it, and why we do it. All of it needs to be sanctified. It does not work for just that last little bit of what we do to be sanctified. All of our motives and intents need to be sanctified or it just leads to further hurt and harm in this life. In between verses 1 and 17 of chapter 4, Paul gives the how for the what that will come in verses 20 and following. The put off, put on work that must be done in the Christian life.

And as Joe already said, he's already put off by the topic. I think you're putting me on. Verses 17-19, he says that unconverted Gentiles walk, remember that means live, in the vanity of their minds, having their understanding darkened, they're excluded from the life of God through the ignorance that is within them due to the hardness of their hearts. They're calloused. They're overly sensual. They're impure. And they're greedy.

As we hold covenant kids in our arms, and I've seen some of you try to do that with your children this morning, as they crawl all over the place. As we hold them in our arms and we baptize them and we vow to them as mommies and daddies and as the covenant community, that will surround them, this is exactly how we don't want them to live. The things that Paul mentions in the opening of this section. No, we want verses 1-3, not 17-19. So we ask a lot of them, as we ask a lot of each other. Put off the sinful deeds of the flesh. Put on Christ. But that's a pretty tall order, isn't it? To just stop it. Right? You'll notice I have on today my overseas instruction and counseling shirt.

This is the group that I went to the Philippines with. And starting at the seminary there in Las Desmondinas, I think that's how you pronounce it. Cavite is the province. Folks thinking, oh, I'm a Christian, I want to help people through counseling. Some of them practicing clinical psychologists. I'll come to the Master of Arts in Biblical Counseling. This will be helpful.

And they were extremely challenged in the introductory course about the worldview, about the basis of Scripture for biblical counseling, about the theology that is upheld by secular psychologies. And invariably, we arrive at that famous TV skit where Bob Newhart just tells his counselee, stop it. And so I had the second course in that master's program and so I always integrate a role play opportunity with them. Pick something that you're challenged by in counseling. Maybe you know somebody struggling with an issue or a sin and you want to work out how to interact with them on that.

So the last day we spend in role play and helping and critiquing and encouraging one another. And I had a few students, you know, the counselee would say, well, how do I change then? And they'd say, stop it. And then they'd look at me and see what I had to say. We look at each other and we say, just stop it.

Stop being critical. Stop being negative. Stop being sinful. Stop being cantankerous. Stop being obnoxious. Stop being a gossip. Stop being an adulterer. Stop being a fornicator. Stop having impure thoughts. Just stop it. It would make my life a lot easier if you weren't such a bad sinner.

We ask a lot of each other to put off the sinful deeds of the flesh. and to put on Christ. How do we expect one another to do that? Paul has already reminded us of the basis for that. Christ's call, Christ's gifts, Christ's humiliation and exaltation, and Christ's body. Those are the basis for that new walk that we are to have. And so now what of this old walk? What of this old walk? Well, Paul is basically giving us a warning here. He's saying, now this I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do. The Ephesians were struggling. The Ephesians were struggling in what it meant to be a Christian in their generation, in their day and age? What changes would come about? What would be different? Ephesus was a substantial city. It is, when more rural folk talk about the city, and all the negative aspects of the city, let's be honest, it happens. Ephesus was everything that you like to caricature about the city.

She was well-known for her sin, witchcraft, and idolatry. She was well-known for her consequent persecution of the apostles. But then she was well-known for her sanctification. But then, unfortunately, she was well-known for losing her first love. In Acts 19, we read about the change that took place.

Many who practiced magic brought their books together and burned them before everyone. They calculated their value which equaled 50,000 drachmas. They just took their means of income, this witchcraft, they took their spell books and they brought them into the city and in front of everyone they burned them.

There have been times in recent history on Cushing campuses where there's been a challenge about pornography. This is back when print media was the primary means that that sin was practiced. And the school would just put dumpsters in the middle of the quad. And students would come out and just dump their stuff and get rid of it.

What's changed in your life? What have you burned because you belong to Jesus and no longer belong to that former way of life? In fact, it caused quite a stir because it began to interrupt the money that was associated with false religion. It's all about the economy. It's all about the economy. Are we really willing to sacrifice our sinful acts and behaviors for the cause of Christ? Pastor Callie, who's an acquaintance, he's a 1689 Baptist down in Texas. You would not recognize him as a pastor if you saw him. But he has just published a book called The Doctrine of Balaam.

And part of what he's been confronting in his ministry are those political folks who claim to be against abortion. And yet they know that if we ever actually overturn abortion, that overturns one of the big reasons that one of our political parties has for you to elect them. And so they talk a good game about ending abortion, but they never quite seem to be able to get it done. No matter how many Supreme Court Justices we have, no matter how many Appellate Court Justices we have that are pro-life, no matter how many seats in Congress we have that are pro-life, they just never seem to be able to get it done. See, they haven't been willing to take their books into the middle of the city and burn them. And say, this is where we stand. And it's easy to point the finger at politicians. It's so easy to point the finger at politicians. But where are we in that? Where are we in sacrificing our fleshly desires?

Because we now belong to Jesus. We now have a new walk. to walk. Have we thoroughly understood the seriousness of our old walk and what it will do to us to try to continue on that way? Young people, most of you have grown up in the church. All you've known is this new life that you can, this new walk that you can start to feel has been imposed upon you. And you can start to desire what to you would be a new walk, but it's really the old walk. That your parents, your grandparents, your great-grandparents once walked and Christ redeemed them from that and established a Christian family. Be warned. Be warned by Paul here about what it will mean for you if you walk down that old path.

Revelation 2 John wrote, To the angel of the church of Ephesus write, He who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, says these things, I know your works, your labor, and your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles, but are not, and have found them to be liars. You have endured and have been patient, and for My name's sake have labored and have not grown weary.

But I have something against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your candlestick from its place, unless you repent. But this you have. You hate the work of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give permission to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God. Speaking of that grand consummation, that, as it were, return to Eden, where we get to live in perfection with our God. Who are the Nicolaitans? We don't have absolute precision on this, but we know that they were a cult group that was consumed with indulgence. They desired pleasure and did not restrain themselves in any way.

Some think that this could have been rooted in some sort of dualism that sees the body as evil and the spirit as good. Again, we need to rightly understand our outer man and our inner man, our physical selves and our spiritual selves. Both were made good, both are fallen, and both will be redeemed by Christ. There's not part of us that we can just ignore and do whatever with because the other part is more important.

But here Paul is tinkering with a little bit, isn't he? that callousness, that hardness of heart. When part of your body is calloused, you have to work harder to feel things on that part of your body. And that's what was going on spiritually. They were calloused, they were hardened, so they needed that bigger high. They needed that next adventure. They needed that next indulgence. to be able to feel it and have that experience.

And so, Paul warns us, and in warning us, he's telling us we need to refocus our minds. Because the vanity of the minds of those who are walking in this former way, having their understanding darkened, excluded from the life of God through the ignorance that is within them, due to the hardness of their hearts, the starting point here is that where he is addressing it is the vanity of their minds. We need to refocus and we need to take our hearts and put them upon Christ. He creates a digression here. that really gets at the heart of the matter, which is the matter of the heart. All of this stems from their hardened hearts. In Jeremiah 17, we read that the heart is more deceitful than all things and desperately wicked.

Who can understand it? In Luke 6, Christ says, "...a good man out of the treasure of his heart bears what is good, and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bears what is evil. For of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks." You want to know what's in your heart? What's coming out of your mouth? It's the overflow tank. When your heart bubbles up, it has nowhere to go but out of your mouth.

And this is key for us to understand. Again, the evilness, the wickedness is not outside of us. Christ said it's nothing that you put in your body that is evil, that is wicked. It's our hearts that are evil. It's what comes out of us that makes us sinful.

Paul also is calling on us to remember where we came from. If we're walking in the new way, let us remember that we weren't always. You should cause us to be patient and loving and gracious with those who are struggling in their sin. Because we know from whence we have come. Paul is calling us to renew our affections.

Being callous, they have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. That callousness is a term that speaks of being past feeling. Being beyond feeling. 1 Timothy 4 we read, Now the Spirit clearly says that in the last time some will depart from the faith and pay attention to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, speaking lies and hypocrisy, having their consciences seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from foods which God has created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. Get wrapped up in the sensuality of it. The senses. The externals. realizing or not realizing that it's the hardness of heart that's causing this. They're callous. They're unclean. It's impurity and greediness.

We see in Romans 1, Therefore God gave them up to uncleanness through the lust of their hearts to dishonor their own bodies among themselves. 26 and 27, For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged the natural function for what is against nature. Likewise, the men leaving the natural function of the woman burned in their lust toward one another. Men with men doing what is shameful and receiving in themselves the due penalty of their error."

Young people, listen to me. You are being tempted beyond degree. and imagination in your generation to ignore the created order of male and female. The pagan lie is that we're all ultimately the same. There's no real difference. And then you overlay me as creator, me as God, then I get to dictate what I am.

Now, there's a certain percentage of our society that has actual physical sexual issue. They're born with both sets of genitalia. They're born with neither, with great physical confusion, which brings emotional, spiritual confusion. That is a micro-percentage of our society. God has created male and female. There's not a spectrum of gender that you get to choose where you fall on that. Now, everybody else you can take a break. I'm just going to talk to the young people here for a little bit, okay?

Now, I think culture has done us a great disservice because we have defined what manliness is and what femininity is. and we have defined them in such a way that for those who don't fit into those micro categories, I'm a lumberjack, I like to cook and clean. If you don't fall within those two categories, then there must be some great mystery and confusion and I don't know what to do with myself and what's wrong with me.

Don't fall for that lie either. Okay? But the culture in our society is is just telling you guys lie after lie after lie. They take the most extreme case, the most extreme situation and try to normalize it and cause great confusion and harm. Don't fall for the lie.

If God is calling you to marry and you are female, He's calling you to marry a male. If you're male, He's calling you to marry a female. And your physical sex determines that. You are not misgendered. Okay? This is all a philosophical imposition upon you that degrades the created order that God has made.

So then how do we act and respond to those who have fallen for the lie? We love them. We know what it is to walk on that old walk. We pray for them. We challenge their presuppositions. We can love them without affirming what they are doing as good and neat. You know what I think of the word neat. You can challenge their presuppositions. If you have to be chemically dependent to be what you claim God really intended you to be, did God really intend you to be that? I love you guys. Don't buy the lie. Love people. Walk tenderly with them. But lovingly challenge them.

Because ultimately it's self-destructive. Statistics bear out. The more accepting and approving and affirming our culture has become, the higher the suicide rate climbs. Don't believe the lie that it's the narrow-minded Christians who are causing deaths in those communities. It's the hopelessness of rebellion against God. That's what is causing it.

And if we love them and we want to see them not destroy themselves, we will bring them the truth. Lovingly, gently, patiently, but we will speak the truth to them. Everyone else is getting bored, so I'm going to include them now again, okay? Alright? Is that okay?

1 Corinthians 6, Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.

Such were some of you. That's another part of the lie, is that you are what you are and nothing can change that. The Apostle Paul, Scripture, and consequently the Lord Himself would disagree with that. Such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, and you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ by the Spirit of our God.

So we find a couple of things in this text that we need to remember. One being that change from the outside in does not work. does not work. So somebody says, I'm struggling with homosexual feelings. And the world's wisdom says, well, you just need to date somebody the opposite sex. You need to experience those feelings for the right person for you. And that'll change you. No, because it's a heart issue. The heart has to change. We don't encourage them in that practice, but it's from the inside out, not the outside in. We can't impose external measures that change the heart. That's why the effectual call is so important, because it's not the external call.

If it were the external call, I'd have the easiest job in the world. I just need to stand up here and speak truth. Everybody would shout amen and write it down. And then we could all go home and you'd be changed, right? But it's the work of the Holy Spirit. We have to wait for Him. We have to trust in Him. The heart is what needs to be changed. Charles Hodge, a really old dead guy, and he was white too, but he still had some important things to say.

Men in their folly think that morality can be preserved without religion, and even that morality is religion. But reason, experience, and scripture all prove that if people do not love and fear God, they give themselves up to vice in some form, and frequently either to uncleanness or avarice. There are two reasons for this.

One is the nature of the soul, which has no independent source of goodness in itself. So that if it turns from God, it sinks into pollution. And the other is the punitive justice of God. He abandons those who abandon Him. In Romans 1.24 and elsewhere it says, God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts. Here it says that they give themselves over. These are only different forms of the same truth. People are restrained from evil by God's hand.

If He relaxes His hold, they rush spontaneously to destruction. All systems of education, all projects of reform in social or political life, not founded on religion, are according to the doctrine of this passage and of all Scripture sure to lead to destruction." Friends, it's the heart. It's from the inside out. That's how the change happens. Why is this true?

Because if the heart goes unaddressed, we're left trying to fix the same broken appliances with the same broken tools. Through external, secular therapies, we might be less angry, less violent, less sexually active, less thinking of homosexual thoughts. We might be more communicative about it, might be able to talk better, We might even be more holistic about it or more connected to our family in it, but the heart, the stinking nastiness of the heart goes on without change. The body is wasting away and the soul isn't being renewed. It's all going downhill if the heart goes unaddressed.

Paul said, "...for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death." So if we're to find a remedy for this, and Paul gives a remedy, it must be something outside of ourselves that can bring the true change within ourselves. As Hod said, when the Spirit chooses to stop restraining us from evil, are souls which have no innate goodness, no innate righteousness, no innate holiness.

If we're being held back by the Spirit, like that little kid who's trying to run away, and you grab the top of his pants and you're holding him, and he's leaning, right? And then you have that wonderful fleshly moment where you just let go. And he gets exactly what he wants, right? Which is lunging.

That's us in sin. The only thing that's got a hold of our spiritual pants is the Holy Spirit. We have no ability to hold ourselves back at all within ourselves. It's all the Spirit. And if He chooses to let go, Guess where we're going? Face plant right into the concrete of sin. It's the only thing holding us back. And so it must be an alien righteousness. It must be something external that is coming in that leads to real, lasting, internal heart change and external behavioral change in the believer.

Paul says, but you did not learn about Christ in this manner. So he's talking about this sensuality, he's talking about this externality, this being calloused, always needing the next bigger high, the next bigger thrill to feel that. and to know that and to experience that. And he turns immediately to our knowledge of Christ. But you did not learn Christ in this manner, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him as the truth is in Jesus. Paul isn't questioning their hearing it. This is a device that's used in arguments in this time that it is a challenge to people. Hearing. Paul says a few things about hearing.

He mentions it in Ephesians 1.13, "...you also, after hearing the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, after believing in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit." In Hebrews 12, the writer of Hebrews says, See that you do not refuse Him who is speaking.

For if they did not escape when they refused Him who spoke on earth, much less shall we escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven. See, we tend to get that backwards. We tend to think, well, it's easier to listen to the person talking on earth. But the writer of Hebrews says it's a bigger deal for you to refuse Him who we would tend to think it's harder to hear. harder to listen to. So Paul delineates between the external hearing of the Word preached and the internal experience of the Word applied by the Holy Spirit in our effectual calling.

The Confession of Faith, chapter 10, paragraph 1, "...all those whom God hath predestinated unto life and those only, He is pleased in His appointed and accepted time effectually to call by His Word and Spirit out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ.

Why is it so important how we see and understand Christ? How we learn Him in this process? Why is it so important that we do not seek to muster up change and quote-unquote godly living from within ourselves? Because Jesus Christ is the very thing by which we are saved in our effectual calling. We are not just learning doctrines, we're learning a person.

Confession goes on, "...enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God, taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh, renewing their wills, and by His almighty power determining them to that which is good and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ, yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by His grace." Isn't that exactly what Paul is talking about in Ephesians? That we come now understanding what is good and desiring to do it. This harkens back to Ezekiel 36, "...I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them." Confession goes on in the next paragraph, "...this effectual call is of God's free and special grace alone, not from anything at all foreseen in man who is altogether passive therein until being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit.

He is thereby enabled to answer this call and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it." That is beautiful. Remember, we're dead in our trespasses and sins. We cannot answer the call until we are made alive. to answer the call. This knocks us down in our pride. Because we know that there is nothing in us that requires God to give us a new heart and therefore give us a new walk, a new life to live.

I have five kids, I think in movies. I imagine an old house up on a hill. Think of like the Blair House in Washington, a house like that is kind of the house I picture. It's up on a hill. This isn't like central Kansas, you have hills around here. It's up on a hill, it's dark, it's a stormy night and the camera is zooming in and it And as it comes in the window, there's one of those old telephones, you know, with the arm. Some of you may still have some of these in your house. You know, the little arm and it's hanging there and it's sitting on a table and the phone starts ringing.

There's nothing more horrifying in a horror film than a phone that starts ringing. Right? I mean, we learned this in Dial M for Murder, right? I mean, the phone is ringing. Who is on the other end of that phone? We don't know. and the phone is ringing, and the camera pans down to the floor, and there's a dead body laying there. And the phone is ringing, and the lightning is striking, and it's raining. Somebody answer the phone. Answer it!

And the dead body just lays there. Why? Because it's dead. I mean, it's really dead. He got hit by a grain truck. Right? He's really dead. Now imagine the same scene, only lightning hits the house, a bolt comes through the telephone and zaps the body and it's made alive again. Now he can answer the phone. A dead body cannot answer the phone.

It's completely passive. That's an understatement. It's an understatement to say that a dead body is passive. It has no ability to do anything. Only a live body can be active. And in the call, we are made alive to answer the call. It's all of God's doing.

1 Corinthians 2.14, But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. Nor can He know them, because they are spiritually discerned. You have to be alive to know it, to desire it, to answer it, to live it. Romans 8-7 For the carnal mind is hostile toward God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be.

We did not learn Christ this way. We know that it is something external that must come in and invade us. So remember your calling in Christ. It's not the external call of God with our brilliant decision-making thrown in. You know, I always make the best decisions. And I chose to follow Jesus. That was really smart of me to do that. No. The beginning of the change in a Christian's life is the Spirit applying to us the personal work of Jesus in our hearts, causing us to hear with our spiritual ears.

And like a seesaw, like a teeter-totter, there's a pivot point here. Remember running up the teeter-totter and down the other side? You run up and wait for it to tip and you go down the other side. The fulcrum here on the teeter-totter is that renewing work by the Holy Spirit.

It's a perfectly balanced work. It's not so utterly spiritual that it's without knowledge. That can easily be the Pentecostal. aspect of this. I've got the spirit. I don't need none of that book learning. Sorry, that was probably pretty stereotypical right there. Sorry. Don't worry, Presbyterians, I'm coming for you.

And it's not so much about knowledge or piety that it's not about the Spirit. It doesn't involve the work of the Spirit in our lives. See, when our sentences go like this, well, we're holy and we know we're God's people because what we do is we're missing the boat. we're on the completely wrong body of water, completely wrong pier, if the holiness that we're living is all about what we do, and we lack an understanding of the work of the Spirit in our lives to make us holy. In the same way, if we're just all about the Spirit that then we reach a point of antinomianism against the law, that it doesn't matter what I do because the Holy Spirit's got my back, we're also missing the boat. If we adjust the pivot point to one way or the other, the teeter-totter doesn't work. And it's a balance between growth and knowledge of Jesus Christ in the renewing work of the Holy Spirit.

So a couple last things and then we will be done. Put off. So all of that then precedes Paul being able to say to you, stop it. Because by the time he tells you to put off, he has made it abundantly clear that it's not your decision, your volition, in your understanding leading you to put off the sinful deeds of the flesh. It is the work of Christ in you that is causing you to desire it, to want it, the ability to do it, and the actual doing of it. that you put off the former way of life in the old nature, verse 22 says, which is corrupt according to the deceitful desires. It's corrupt through deceitful desires. Take off your nasty, sin-soaked coverings.

When we think about justification and sanctification, we think about that in terms of our family. Okay, my kids were born to us. And so they, in being born, they are my children. So if they go out back behind our house, it looks like woods like a lot of this here. And they're, you know, digging a fire pit or whatever they might do back there and they got covered head to toe in mud. When they come to the back door, they're still my child, I'm going to welcome them in the house.

But I'm also because I love them and I love my wife, I'm going to make them take off the dirty clothes. And I will be pretty... Don't take another step in the house with those muddy shoes on. Take them off. And that's sanctification. Justification is the welcoming in. You're my child, of course you can come in. Sanctification is But I'm not going to leave you looking the way you are right now. I welcome you as if you're clean, justification. I actually make you clean, sanctification. Take off your nasty sin-soaked coverings. So then what are we to put on?

Well, Paul goes on in 23 and 24, 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. We've said we need to understand the centrality of the Spirit's work and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, in your inner man. And that is where the Spirit engages us. That is where He changes our fundamental character and makeup. is in our inner man, in the spirit of our mind.

Titus 3.5, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us through the washing of rebirth and the renewal of the Holy Spirit. So again, that being born again and then that renewing work of the Spirit. This renewal to cause something to become new and different with the implication of becoming superior. To make new. To be transformed by the renewal of the mind, we read in Romans 12.

To put on the new self which is made new in knowledge, Colossians 3.10.

To be made new in the spirit of your mind, Ephesians 4.23.

Hodge says, the spiritual change which in Colossians 3.10 is expressed by the new self, and in Romans 12.2 and Titus 3.5 by the renewing of your mind, is here expressed by to be made new. There is always a connection among the Holy Spirit, being made new, knowledge, and our minds. There's always a confluence there of those things. By the Spirit we are empowered to engage, to answer, to respond, to interact with these things.

And we must do this. But none of this can happen without the Holy Spirit. He is the true Counselor. He was sent to take the place of God the Son's presence on this earth and to help us, to counsel us. Jay Adams wrote, The Holy Spirit is the source of all genuine personality changes that involve the sanctification of the believer, just as truly as He alone is the one who brings life to the dead sinner. So how do we go about doing this? Well, there's some very simple things God has given us to do. To be renewed in our mind. To be spiritually made new. Week in and week out. And that is the simplicity of the means of grace. Reformed Presbyterians are no different than anybody else.

We like the spiritual high. We like the spiritual high. We get down on Pentecostals because they got the rock band and they like to really get emotional and all of this, but you tell me that there isn't that psalm tune when sung perfectly in a place with perfect acoustics doesn't stir your soul more than the words do? Come on. Let's be honest. We are all looking for that high.

But God gives us very simple, week in, week out, to the point that mundane fits perfectly in describing them. The means of grace. The word read and preached. The sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper. And prayer. being our standard corpus of the means of grace. God works and does amazing things. I would even say more than you could ask or think through these simple, mundane means of grace. There's nothing we need to do to make them more special, celebrate them less frequently, celebrate them more frequently. The power that they hold is the power of the command of Christ to do them. That is why they are meaningful. That is why they are significant.

So if one of the primary means for you to be renewed in the Spirit, to begin to put off the sinful flesh, to put on Christ and the works of righteousness, to stop walking that old way and to start walking in the new way. If one of those primary means of doing that is the word preached, what does that mean for you and weekly worship? What does that mean for how you pray for your pastor throughout the week? What does that mean when he preaches too long?

You got a double portion. One of my first Sundays... Oh, Vera Mann would have a heart attack. One of my first Lord's Days at Sterling. Morris Reed, going out of worship, says, Preacher you went a little long today And I just looked at him, and I felt it. I felt a kinship with Morris I I should have been in my 90s, but um I Said I know your favorite verse You do Yeah I'd rather be a timekeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in tents of wickedness I Oh, you got me there. And so we had this ongoing thing where, keep in time, pastor, keep in time.

Put the stopwatch away. When the man of God steps into the pulpit and brings the Word of God to you, he's bringing you Christ. He's bringing you the heavenly riches that will feed your soul. And He might be good at it, He might not be good at it. It might be soul-stirring, you might feel like, just take me out back and shoot me. But it doesn't really matter. It doesn't really matter. Because it's the man of God called to that place to feed you at that time, and He's bringing you the Word of God. And if nothing else, it's called the Lord's Day. You've got 24 hours to be doing nothing else. So be fed.

Listen to the Word read. It's not even just the preaching. When the Word is read, either by the pastor or by one of the elders, listen. I've been in a couple churches recently, where they encourage people to not open their Bibles during the Scripture reading. And to just sit and listen to the Word preached and hear it in their ear.

Because what happens? We get distracted. Oh, I didn't know that. Look at the study notes. I think R.C. Sproul is wrong about that. Is this a Pentecostal study Bible? What is going on? Meanwhile, the Scripture reading is over and you've not heard a thing. Listen to the word read. Listen to the word preached.

Take up the commands given in the larger catechism as it expounds Scripture for us of how to interact when you see a baptism going on. It's not just a cutesy-wootsy little event where we get excited because, yes, maybe this means in another few years the church doesn't die because we've got another body rattling around in here. But remember your baptism. Remember when you were engaged to Christ.

I love to watch people get engaged. It reminds me of when I asked my wife to marry me. I flew to Dallas, Texas. Got in a carriage. We were riding around downtown Dallas. Near the point where JFK gave his life, I gave my life. Emily hates that, but I've always got it. It was right near that X on the pavement, right? Yeah. Cupid was up in the school book depository and just nailed me. I totally lost all of you. You're gone. Grassy knoll. There was a smoking gun. Emily's like, I wish there was someone else. Maybe that would have... But it reminds me of falling in love. It reminds me of all that she means to me.

And when we watch a child be baptized, or, praise God, an adult be baptized, some of us have given up hope that that will ever happen in one of our churches. We need to remember all that Christ promised us in our baptism, and all that He's fulfilling to us in that.

And when we come to the Lord's table, whether you do it annually, semi-annually, quarterly, bi-monthly, monthly, weekly, when you come to the Lord's table, Are you really stopping to take account of what Christ is doing in your life? To really consider the body and your place in it. To consider His body broken, His blood shed for you. And it's one of the democratic preaching moments in the Presbyterian church because together we are declaring the Lord's death until He comes.

We are stating in faith that we know He's going to return in power. What do those moments mean to you? Are they moments where you see Christ is working in me to put off my sinful flesh? And to put on these righteous deeds that Christ has called me to?

And He hasn't called me to them without establishing The framework and the basis for how I'm even able to do it. Even able to want to do it. Sorry, I know I've gone way too far off track when I have to type my password back in to get back to my notes.

So, put on the new man and live. Really start to live. and all that Christ has done for you. And that you put on the new nature which was created according to God in righteousness and true holiness. The image of God in you is being restored to its original luster.

And not even just its original luster, See, because Adam, for all the perfection that he lived in for what I guesstimate to be about 15 minutes before the fall happened, I don't think it was very long. There are some theologians who think that God's sacrifice of the animal happened on the first Sabbath day. That there has not been a Sabbath day in the history of humanity that is not covered by the blood of the Lamb. I don't think it was very long.

But for however long it was, as long as Adam was living in that perfection in the covenant of works, there was always the possibility that he would fall, that he would turn, as he ultimately did. But brothers and sisters, in Christ, there is not the possibility that we will be let go of. As we are saved, as we are sanctified, as we are made ready for heaven, Christ will never let us go. There's a story in our family about my grandparents running errands one day real quick, all the siblings were in the back seat, and my Uncle Bernie was leaning against the door, and they went around the corner, and as they got onto the next street, somebody said, where's Bernie?

And he was gone. He literally was there one second and gone the next. Yeah. And they didn't realize as they had gone around the corner, he was playing with the door handle. And the door opened and he fell out and the door shut. And they went back and they found him laying in the gutter. What's going on? Fortunately, the last time they found my uncle laying in the gutter. Jesus won't get to heaven and say, What happened to Joe? He was just here. I just had him. Now he's gone. Where's Dan? He was with us the whole car trip. And we pull in, and now he's not here. That won't happen. Not one will be lost. Not one will slip away. Not one of the elect will turn away from him. On that last great day, we will all be there.

That should motivate us. That should motivate us to put on the new man, to put on the righteousness of Christ. You've been empowered and enabled. You've been made alive. This wasn't you were weak and now you're strong, you're having trouble, now you're kind of able to... This is from death to life. You were dead to all of this, now you're alive to it. Live in it. Put it on and live.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. Father, thank you for your Word, for the underpinnings that we have to the commands to put off our sin and to put on Christ. that we know that it is all of Him, that in Him you have elected us, you have loved us, in Him you have redeemed us, in Him you have drawn us to yourself, you have given us your Holy Spirit, and now you have enabled us, you have made us alive to the truth of the gospel, we have learned Christ, and now we are enabled and empowered to walk in Him. Help us, Lord. to put off the nasty, sin-ridden deeds of the flesh, and to put on the holiness, the righteousness of Christ, for which You have created us in Him, in which to live. We pray in Christ's name, Amen. Thank you for listening to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. We pray that you would be blessed as you grow in your love for God, your love for His Word, as well as your love for His people. Until next week, God bless you.