The Old Man & the New Man

Transcript

GR 153
The Old Man & the New Man
Ephesians 4:17-24
Gil Rugh

Then moving along in our study of Ephesians, and remember the first three Chapter dealt with what we call positional truth; what I am in Jesus Christ. The position that was given me the moment I trusted in Christ is my personal savior. With Chapter 4, Paul begins to develop more in detail the walk of a believer; the type of conduct that will characterize a person who has trusted Jesus Christ, as his personal savior. The Chapter opened up about talking about walking in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called.

Then he talked about the characteristics of the walk, humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance, diligent to preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond peace. And then verse 4 to 16, developed out of that idea of unity in the spirit. Well at verse 17, we really pick up the idea of the first three verses of Chapter 4, and the walk of a believer, and pick it up from the other side, how we are not to walk.

And really from Chapter 4 verse 17 over into the middle of Chapter 5 we will be dealing with the walk of the believer, dealing with some of the negative aspects. Those areas that are not to characterize are lives as God’s children. Some of the things to be looking for and rooting out if they are find in our lives and allowing the spirit to deal with.

Alright, we are going to look at verses 17 to 24 this morning. And they break down into two divisions, the old man and the new man basically; the description of the old life and then the command to live the new life in Christ. Paul begins; this I say therefore. Again this ties back directly to the first three verses of the fourth Chapter, in light of our walk and affirm together with the Lord.

So as Paul gives this exhortation he wants him to understand the authority for it. It's not just I Paul, but I affirm together with the Lord or literally I affirm or testify in the Lord. And Paul views, the exhortation that he gives as coming from Christ himself, what I have to say is Christ’s exhortation to you on your walk, and it centers on the area of no longer walking just as the Gentiles also walk.

And note no longer walk, implying that they had walked like this at one time, but there has to be a change in their walk now as God’s children. Do not walk as you once walked, walk referring to that conduct of life of a believer. In Chapter 4 verse 1, he had given the positive side; walk in a manner worthy of your calling. Now in verse 17 the negative side, don’t walk as the Gentiles walk. So there has to be change in my conduct.

Now he says, don’t walk just as the Gentiles. Now the bulk of the church at Ephesus would have been Gentiles, and yet Paul views the believers as a distinct group and class of people. There are Jews, there are Gentiles and then there are believers. So Paul deals with him in light of his discussion in Chapters 2 and 3. That even though you are Gentiles as far as your racial connection really now you are new person and a distinct person, and so don’t walk as the Gentile, referring to those who have not yet become believers thus are not yet part of the body of Jesus Christ, the family of God. You have to walk no longer as they walk, because you are new person and a new entity.

Now he was onto describe the walk of these Gentiles, so that they understand what characterizes it, what characterizes every person apart from Jesus Christ, what characterized every single one of us until we were made new persons in Jesus Christ. And the first description is a broad one, the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind. In the futility of their mind, basically means their minds are fixed on worthless, valueless things; things that are not worth focusing attention on. They are purposelessness things.

And I am going to have as harder time this hour with purposelessness and restlessness and darkness’s and so on. So you get the idea what I am saying, and if I say it wrong, well I put it down write in your notes anyway. One commentator from the last century he put it well, a walk moving within the limits of intellectual and moral restlessness, a walk moving within the realm of intellectual and moral restlessness.

Futility, their minds are fixed on worthlessness, emptiness things devoid of reality and thus of worth. This is how the Gentiles walk, the unbelievers walk. The attention of their minds is focused on those things which have no real purpose and worth. And the ultimate view and the final analysis with the unbeliever focuses his mind on is worthless. What good is it in light of eternity, what value has it when you put it in the perspective of life, death and eternity, he develops it something of this futility and purposelessness.

In verse 18 the first few statements here, being darkened in the area of their understanding. Being darkened in their understanding, you can see they are purposeless in their minds, because in their understanding they are in darkness. In other words it's like a person who is in a room that is pitch-black and he gropes around trying to find his way, has no direction or purpose be as groping around aimlessly.

And that’s the picture of the unbeliever. He is in darkness. So as life is a purposeless life. It's a life given over to futility, because he cannot see any of the basic issues, anything of ultimate reality in purpose. He is just groping around in darkness. And again the darkness has referenced to spiritual things, as far as God has concerned he is in the dark. He sees nothing of reality as connected with God, nothing of final ultimate truth.

Notice he develops it own; they are excluded from the life of God. Excluded from the life of God, and we built at this point and it's rather tragic statement. The unbeliever, here call the Gentile referring to those who have not yet come to trust Christ, are alienated; cut off from the life of God. And means that the life that God could give and does give, they are born to it, they are aliens, and they are excluded from it.

They share in no way in the life that God provides and that would have to do in the lives that he gives right now in a personal relationship with him and in the life of an eternal relationship with him. They are alienated from it. They have nothing at all whatsoever to do with God’s life. They are excluded from the life of God.

So this is something of the description of the walk of the Gentiles in futility, in purposelessness in their mind; darkened in the area of their understanding. Alienated from the life of God, and we as believers are not to walk like those who are in that condition, because when you were in that condition your conduct will be conformed to what you know and what you don’t know, what you are and what you are not, and they in futility, in darkness and aliens to the life of God.

Now an explanation is picked up in the middle of the verse, because of the ignorance that is in them. So their condition here is viewed as being tied to their ignorance. They have to be careful or else you will pick up the idea of a little bit of pity should be manifested here. It's too bad it's not fair, they are ignorant and they are ignorant they cannot be held responsible, because they didn’t know.

Well this word ignorance does not carry that idea. It's a lack of knowledge that is inexcusable, not knowing something that you are responsible to know. And as it's used in its religious connotation it becomes almost the synonyms for sin, an ignorance that is willful. They don’t know because they don’t want to know. And so the moral blindness that settles in on a person in a state of ignorance with regard to God characterizes their conduct.

Look over in Acts Chapter 3, well this word as used. Acts Chapter 3 page 184. Acts 3, Peter is preaching in the temple verse 14 addresses the Jews and says, but you disowned the holy and righteous one and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, but put to death the prince or author of life, the one whom God raised from the dead a fact to which we are witnesses.

Note verse 17, and now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your rulers did also; and so our word ignorance, saying when we are talking in Ephesians 4. But note in verse 19 what he says, repent therefore and return that your sins may be wiped away. So here peter views them as responsible for their ignorance, and their ignorance is really sin. So ignorance is not an excuse, ignorance of God is always viewed as a willful ignorance. Man is ignorant of God, because he chooses to be ignorant.

So as you come to back Ephesians 4, Paul talks about their darkness and alienated from the life of God, because of their ignorance. They are willful lack of knowledge and you know how it's put; that is in them. There is going to be a stress throughout this section that sin and the condition that is a result of sin always comes back to personal responsibility.

It's the ignorance that is in them, no one else gets the blames for this ignorance. They are willfully ignorant and it is a personal responsibility, it's the ignorance that is in them. It’s not the ignorance that someone else caused to come upon me. It's not a lack of knowledge, because of what someone else did. It's the ignorance that is in me, and just stresses the personal character of it, and thus the responsibility.

The responsibility is brought out in the second statement the last statement of verse 18, because of the hardness of their heart. Their heart is dull insensible hard as regards God’s and thus their ignorance and their conduct grows out of the heart that is harden toward God. Now when they are insensible toward God, naturally they are not growing in their knowledge and understanding of God.

So their ignorance is increasing, but who is responsible, they are why, they harden their heart. Just like the people Jesus they and the rulers they were exposed to the teaching of Christ they saw the miracles of Christ and yet they chose not to respond. They harden their heart thus they remained in ignorance concerning who we was; but whose fault is that, their own. They have harden their hearts, and because of their hardened heart they are insensitive dull to the things of God.

Thus the conclusion of it in verse 19 and they having becoming callous have given themselves over to sensuality. The condition builds, the result being they have become callous. And the callous is a good translation of the word, means to be insensitive. And just like as you develop a callous on your hand that area of the skin becomes insensitive, it no longer has the feeling that the rest of it does, the rest of your skin does, and so you develop the callous.

And what happens as the heart is hardened, man become callous toward God, and thus unfeeling toward God, insensitive to God. And what happens is sin breath insensitivity to sin, and sin breath insensitivity to God. There is a hardness developing. This is the great danger of a person who comes to Indian Hills and sits week after week exposed to the word. But they don’t respond to the message of Jesus Christ.

Some become, because their wife wants them to come or their husband wants them to come or their kids copes them to come. But they come because it's the good thing to do on Sunday morning. But coming week after week and building up that immunity to the word of God; that insensitivity, that it doesn’t bother me like it did the first time. I can come and I am not moved one way or the other. It's just something to do on Sunday morning.

And that callousness so it becomes easier to come week after week, month after month and not be moved, the danger of it is I am becoming insensitive to God, and what he would have to say, and sin always breath insensitivity to sin. That is a developing thing a callousing process that goes on as men practice sin. So you cannot remain in a neutral or in between position.

Men are not responded to God, so they are becoming hardened toward God. As they become hardened toward God, they become more involved in their sin, because insensitivity to God also breathes insensitivity to sin. And thus we find those who are insensitive to God becoming more involved in their sin, and that’s what happens here in verse 19; they having becoming callous have given themselves over to sensuality.

Gave themselves up, means to commit yourself to hand over, now you note there is a stress here again on the personal responsibility. They gave themselves, someone else didn’t give them over, and God didn’t give them over. In this case, we will check the balance of this little later. But they gave themselves over to sensuality.

So who is responsible for my commitment to sensuality and sin, I delivered myself over to the pursuit of sin, because I had become callous. I no longer was sensitive to sin as sin. They hand themselves over to sensuality and word means life sensuousness, debauchery a broad term include all kinds of immorality and by sensuous issues. And you will see that basic issue or prime issue, the prominent issue I should say, comes out to be immorality in the sexual sense in many of these areas.

But that’s just because that it becomes the growth manifestation of sin in the life. As man degenerates in sin, the clear evidence of his degeneracy is the sexual immorality that begins to characterize him. Now immorality in the broader sense is true as well, the greed, the pride, the self-esteem and so on all sins. But the sexual immorality becomes a clear evidence of the debauchery that man has led into; they give themselves over to sensuality.

Note for the practice of every kind of impurity, the word originally meant don’t or refuse and it comes to be used in a figurative sense of impurity and immorality, anything which would be impure again sexual areas come to our minds quickly. But go beyond that in relation to God, impurity would encompass all types of sins. They give themselves over to sensuality to practice every kind, I mean you name it; all variations of impurity and sin, now are to characterize them.

Now we get the idea and we look at this list and say, why I haven’t done these sins, well that’s precisely what God says, because they do all kinds and my sins maybe a little different than you sins and your sins a little different than someone else’s sins. But the issues is we have given ourselves over to just the all the sins you can think off. And I like some sins better than others you like different sins. But the issues is still the same, we give ourselves over to impurity.

And note with greediness, and this word means insatiability, literally means the desire to have more, and see here a process that’s going to come out a little bit as well. What happens, that the practice of sin intensifies the appetite for sin. The more you sin the more you develop the appetite for more sin. And so we give ourselves over to sin for the practice of sin within insatiability.

The practice of sin with the desire for more that craving for more, and one characteristic sin constantly brought out in the scripture is that sin develops an appetite for sin. It never satisfy, it never provide satisfaction and rises that lest the desire for sin and that craving becomes intense and you feel I will be satisfied if I only give in. The problem is you give in and what happens, there is satisfaction temporality.

But soon the desire comes back only this time it's a little stronger, and you will then pretty soon it comes back a little more and I find myself sliding down and I think if I only can satisfy one more time. But satisfying one more time develops my appetite to a greater extent, so that I want it more the next time. We find that debauchery becoming totally complete.

We look at again in the area of alcohol and drinking and see it clearly. First just starts out with the drink and then another drink and pretty soon he is an alcoholic and that desire one more drink, that just take the edge up of it. But what has happened, he become the total slave to that sin. And one more simply has developed that appetite for one more for one more, and that’s true in every area.

If you manifest pride or greed or sexual immorality in your life, practice those sins you will find your appetite for them is becoming insatiable. That the more you do it, the more you want it, and the more you want it, the more you do it, and the more you do it the more you want it. And as you look back over months and years it's polling as you see the person that you have become.

That’s why that you can never break sins hold on you by a gradual process. Well I am going to ease of my sin, only do it once this week and then once every two weeks. Then once every three weeks, because you know what happens every time I do it I have developed the appetite for it and thus I slid back. The only way is there is a break and that intense desire and craving to pursue the sin that I have come to love, there is no other way put to draw on the power of the spirit and leave it go, because as soon as I give, I go one more time it won’t hurt what happens, I have fed my appetite a little more and it becomes insatiable.

And thus we find that the Gentile the unbeliever gives himself over to sin to practice every kind of impurity with greediness, with the desire for more. Impurity you and I are not to walk in that pattern of life, it is the pattern of every unbeliever and its manifest by the fact that he is an unbeliever. He say well look I have never been an immoral person. I have never had any sexual immorality in my life. I have never been drunk once in my life well goodie, goodie for you, it doesn’t change the issue.

The very fact you sit there so smug is an indication that pride is an area of your life that you are in rebellion against God. You are hardening your heart and won’t submit to him. So you are manifesting a different sin, the same thing. We are talking about every kind of sin. I am proud because I don’t have your sin in my life. Well that’s hard an issue, isn’t. It doesn’t change the fact that I have my own sins in my life as God evaluates me.

We have to look at one passage before we move onto the section that’s Romans Chapter 1, because it parallels what we have been reading here. Going back toward the front of your Bible little bit page 233 Romans Chapter 1. Here the details are given and we are not going to all the details, but something of the grossness of sin, the deteriorating characteristic of sin. Sin always leads to destruction, there is no such thing as a beneficial sin.

And verse 18 of Romans 1, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. You know the hardening here, they hold down the truth, thus they are willfully ignorant, because they are not willing to have the truth, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them, and the issue is the creation.

We are not going to read the details. God manifested himself in creation, that is a revelation of himself, but men respond negatively to that amount of revelation that God has given. And they manifest themselves to be sinners suppressing the truth. And the question, well what if someone somewhere did respond positively to the revelation of creation is a question that it cannot be answered, because God says, it never happen, and I cannot give answers to impossible situations.

God says men universally respond negatively to the revelation that he gives of himself. They harden themselves. The only thing that makes it change is when God begins to soften a heart and draw a person to himself. Look at verse 21, even though they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks, but they became futile. There is the word we were talking about a few moments ago in Ephesians 4, futile; purposeless in their speculations. Again you notice the mind that has been corrupted.

What they think about the motivation for their entire life has become futile and their foolish heart was darkened. Same connection as we had in Ephesians 4. The futility of their minds and the darkness of their heart as they suppress the truth that God has made known about themselves; verse 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools situation hasn’t changed.

The unbeliever is proud of his wisdom. In fact he looks down usually on Christians as being a little naïve and little less than intelligent. But they are proud of being wise; here God says they are fools. They have no connection with the truth as truth. They are like blind men in darkness groping around purposelessly and yet they are proud of what they know and where they are going, they are proud because they don’t know that they don’t know anything and they are not going anywhere.

It goes on to show the degeneracy into sexual sins, just pick up two statements here a couple of statement of verse 24, therefore God gave them over. Remember we just read in Ephesians 4 where they gave themselves over. Now here we see that voice from the other side, God gave them over, men in hardening their heart and rejecting God in loving sin give themselves over to sin and God in a judicial active judgment gives them over as well to their sin.

So their desire is to give themselves up to their sin and God response in giving them up to their sin and it's viewed as a judgment from God, because they are given over to the desires that they want to follow, they are given over to a program of self-destruction. God judges them by giving them up to what they want, men desires to have his own way to do it his way and God in judgment gives man his own way, the result being destruction.

That supposed to get in verse 26, God gave them over. Again in verse 28, God gave them over. The ultimate depravity and sexual immorality manifest itself, and the perversion of sexual relationships both within the husband and wife or men women relationship and then with men and men and women and women homosexuality, the sliding down in the perversion that man pursues, because he has rejected God in his truth.

So back to Ephesians Chapter 4, to read the Romans Chapter 1, rather unpleasant but important that we understand the character of the life of the unbeliever, important that I understand what a wild person I am apart from the work that God could do in my life; that there is no limit to how wild I really could be, if it wasn’t for God’s work in my life.

And what Paul is going to do is, he give the other side. This is what the unbeliever is like. This is what you were like at one time, but you are not to be conducting yourself like that anymore. So he starts in verse 20 with the contrast, but you and the, you is emphatic, the stresses on that, but you did not learn Christ that way. I mean you are new people, he has done a work in your life and it almost become important to say, you didn’t learn Christ that way.

Obviously the grossness that we have just talked about I didn’t learn in Jesus Christ, is the opposite of his character. They had not come to this in Christ; they had come to a new life. Well the new character and being a new person. What he develops here than in verse 21, now that if you are is not and if of adult. There are four conditions in his Greek and they each express something a little different.

This is a first class condition called to condition in fact, it assumes something is true. So when he says if indeed, it would be assuming that you have heard and have been taught. We might translate it sins, you have heard and have been taught. Paul is confident that they have heard and have been taught. They have come to Christ and believed in him.

Now he develops a little bit, but first he mentions just as truth is in Jesus, unusual expression for Paul to use. In Jesus, just using that name in Jesus; and he connects the truth here. You have been taught in Christ and this is where truth is. And again you can see, why the unregenerate man, the unbeliever is not wise, why he does stumble around purposelessly, because truth is in Christ and apart from God there is no truth and ultimate truth objective truth can only be had if God is revealed himself and his character.

This is why in the area of morals and so on; men are without a standard, young people have rejected their parent’s morals. Their parents are appalled that they could live like that, but their parents have laid the foundation for it, because the only reason they told their children to be moral is because I think its right. And now the children are no longer children, but adults didn’t realize who cares when mother and dad think is right.

I think this is right. Now who is to say what is right, and without truth as revealed from God there are no standards. Everything is totally relative and subjective, then you flown here around trying to find the relative standard to live your life by, and the result is degeneracy into immorality in every area. Truth is in Jesus Christ, John 146, Jesus said, I am the way the truth and the life.

And a person who has rejected Jesus Christ close him up from his life as closes life of from truth and thus has dusting himself to a life of aimless futility, in pursuing purposelessness, and the worthlessness that the word offers. Alright what have been taught in Christ, you have been taught in him what, three things are developed here, verse 22, first put off the old man; that in reference to your former manner of life.

Now note this is what did characterize us. We were of this character and mold. This was our former manner of life. With reference to your former manner of life you lay aside the old self or literally the old man. The old man the characteristics of what I was apart from what God has done in my life. The characteristics that have been talked about in verse 17 to 19, that’s the old man, the old me that was my character in conduct.

Now he has to be laid aside expression used of taking off garments or clothes. You take them off and put them away. They are to be laid aside. They are not longer to be a characteristic of me. They are no longer to be part of the adornment or the raiment that I am dressed in. They are to be laid aside, you know this old self this old man is being corrupted in accordance with the lust of deceit. I think it's interesting here it is being corrupted.

He does not say that the old man used to be being corrupted. But he is being corrupted, because the old man is more corrupt today than he ever was that a previous point in my life, because the old man the man apart from God’s working his life remember he is on a state of degeneracy. He is getting worse not better. There is devolution, there is no such thing as evolution. Man is not evolving getting better and better, man is devolving getting worse and worse.

And the old man is in the process of being more corrupted, being corrupted in accordance with the lust of deceit this is the old man in a process of being corrupted. You know in accordance with the lusts of deceit, the old man ever did function in the realm of the truth. Truth was in Jesus Christ, the old man always functions in the realm of lust and deceit, not in the realm of truth.

And you note the lust of deceit, this ties to what we were talking about earlier, deceitful lusts and how lusts are deceitful, because sin is held out and if I could only indulge in it once that would satisfy me, the best deceitful why, because indulging in it increases my appetite for it. And I am becoming enslaved to without realizing it and it's held out if I could only indulge it in once that would bring satisfaction, but I have been deceived.

It doesn’t bring satisfaction, it brings an intensified appetite. And so the deceitfulness of lust as I am Lord on further and further into slavery and bondage in the old man. Second statement here, first put off the old man, verse 23 be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Be renewed, we made new in the area of the spirit that controls my mind. I am talking about the Holy Spirit here. I am talking about the Holy Spirit, but the spirit that controls my mind, the spirit of my mind.

In other words the new person that I am going to be that I am, I have made a new person and this new person was capacities in the area of my mind, my intellect, my emotions, my will. It’s the spirit now that is operative that controls my mind. What I think about, I still only have one mind. But it’s to be the under the domination of the spirit that has been made new, not under the domination of the old man.

So I exercise my mind now to think upon things that are pure in accord with the character of God to make decisions in line with God’s purposes and plans for me. So I think that we made new this process is to be manifesting itself that my mind now is functioning in a new area, as a new person. You know your mind is the area where the battle is fought. Some of us think that we are making progress, because we don’t manifest certain characteristics in our conduct.

But our minds are filled with all sorts of things, attitudes and thoughts that are in conflict with the character of God that shows up in the attitudes I have toward other believers in the desires I have for certain sins. The only reason I don’t manifest them if I did it in my conduct someone might see me and think I wasn’t good Christian, but in the inside I can be filled like a garbage can, and the battle is in the area of my mind and I am be renewed in the spirit that is controlling my mind.

So what I am doing with my mind is in conformed with the character of God because that would bring my conduct then, because my mind is what motivates me to doing and action, be renewed in the spirit that is controlling your mind. My mind has the function differently than before.

Do you think about different things than you used to think about or your attitudes toward people different towards your husband or towards you wife, are your thoughts pure, are we simply drifting down that same road, the old man functioning with his depravity and corruption, and no one knows, because I keep it in my mind until it pops out when I couldn’t control that any longer.

Third area that we have been taught, first we were taught to put off the old man, secondly to be renewed, thirdly to put on the new man or the new self. Again the analogy of a garment is putting on a new outfit referring to my conduct. Now again you will note, it's a person that has been made new by God.

We are not talking about dressing up and immoral depraved proud arrogant self-sufficient sinner. We are talking about God making a new person that’s the exciting thing. God doesn’t take the old corrupt me and try to dress me up fix me for heaven. He says the old self is not good and he crucifies it. The old man is crucified that’s what happen to him and God makes me a new person.

So you missed the point if you think well I will try to my best, because God doesn’t ask for corrupt sinners to do their best. The best is never good enough. You know it's like we take an immoral depraved thieving murder and put a nice suite on him and comb his hair, what do we have, an immoral thieving murder with a nice suite and combed hair. That’s an improvement hardly. And that’s what God says, doesn’t do any good.

After all where the old clothes and I crucify the old man and then I make him new, and I want you to dress up in conduct that becomes the new person that I have made you, not cover up the old person by different conduct, but to conduct yourself in light of the new person that you now are. So put on the new man, which is according to God literally.

It has been constructed and conformity with the character of God, because I was born into God’s family when I believed in Christ. I have become a new person conformed to the imaging character of God. So I have to put on the new man the conduct that would go in to conformities with the character of God, which has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth, word true righteousness and true holiness. The word for holiness here, it's the word that laid stress on the life, devotedness of life, holiness of conduct be the stress of this word particularly not positional holiness that we have in Christ, but practical holiness in my conduct.

And this new person according to the image of God is to be adorned with a godly life. God’s character manifest in my conduct and in all that I do. So I can't walk as I once did. If you became a believer in Jesus Christ or think you haven’t there’s been no change your life, then you need to back up and evaluate yourself. And if you are believer in Christ and have been made a new person, but have been trying to mix some of the old man’s clothing and some of the new mans clothing it doesn’t go together.

You don’t mix the character of the devil and the character of God and come up with anything but confusion. I can't manifest some of the character of the old man and some of the character of the new men that have any consistency or order to my life. Now the pressure is always there, the old man is present. But I am not to be conducting myself in accord with his wishes any longer. I view him as dead.

We are going to look at a couple of other passages as we close this morning. One in Colossians, you are Ephesians Philippians is the Next Book, Colossians is the Next Book. So just two books passed Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians Chapter 3 same type of subject under view as Paul writes to the Colossians. And just pick up with verse 9. Do not lie to one another since you have laid aside the old self with his evil practices and have put on the new self was being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the one who created him.

And note how Paul views it here, in Ephesians he has said to put off the old man and put on the new man. But now as he writes to the Colossians he writes as though that was an accomplished fact. He says you have put off the old man you have put on the new man. And again that perfect harmony, practice your position, I have been made a new person, the old man has been crucified with Jesus Christ. But now I am to put on the characteristics and quality of the new man, put off the characteristics of the old man.

And so the harmony here positionally I am a new person, the old man has been crucified. But in my practice I am to put him on the new man, put off the old man, the conduct, the characteristics are now to manifest God in my life. Romans Chapter 6 speaks to this issue, you can chart it down, where Paul talks about, even so consider yourselves dead to sin but a life to God in Christ Jesus.

How did that happen, the moment you believed in Jesus Christ you were crucified with Christ. Remember the penalty for sin is death and Jesus Christ died to pay that penalty. And when I believed in Jesus Christ I see he is trusting myself. I see myself as a sinner, because God says Gil you are a sinner. I see Jesus Christ is the savior that God has provided, and on that basis I place my faith and trust in Jesus Christ alone.

At that point God says I am identified with Jesus Christ in his death. The old man was crucified with Jesus Christ, he is dead and his authority over me has come to an end. And I was resurrected to a new life with Jesus Christ, he made a new person. And now I am not to let sin rain in my mortal body, as Paul goes in Roman 612 to talk about, why because I have been made a new person.

I have a new master. The master of my life now is Jesus Christ, who teaches me and directs me in accord with truth. The spirit of God now resides in my life producing the character and qualities of God within me. Now you are here, you know yourself I know myself. Two questions, one have you ever come to the point in your life where you recognize you were sinner, you recognize Christ died for you and on that basis you placed your faith in him, stop for a minute and think.

When did that happen to you, if you say that’s always been true of me, you are wrong probably an indication and it's never been true, because God says it happens in a point of time for every person. Now it may happen when you were young and you don’t remember the details. But there had to be a point in your life where it became clear to you were a sinner and Christ with the savior and at that point you trusted him.

If you had doubt that that’s happened or you can't remember if it's happened, you got to settle it right now, it’s just that simple. That dramatic, fantastic eternal change in occurred you right there where you are sitting. You won’t turn purple and green and blue and we will all look at you nothing like that. But spiritually on the inside just even right now you place your faith in Christ. God will bring about that change to make you a new person, bringing you into a personal relationship with him.

No longer will you be alienated from the life of God, but you will be a recipient and a sharing the life of God. Secondly if you are a believer, is your life characterized by the new man or the old man. I mean your life in its entirety, not just in what people see you doing, but what you think about. The attitude you harbor in your mind and thoughts. The things you think about as well as the way you conduct yourself.

The relationships within your home, where nobody here at Indian Hills sees you, the relationship you have with God when you buy yourself and not even your wife sees you or your husband. And a professor of college make an interesting statement one time, he says what you are when you are alone is what you are. And what are you when you were alone, what are you in the thoughts of your mind, is the spirit of God controlling you, is the character of God being produced in your thoughts as well as in your conduct, if not the joy of it all is that the provision has been made the exhortation comes from Jesus Christ who is our teacher to put off the old man to be renewed in the spirit of our mind and put on the new man. So there are life conformed to the character of the God, who is now our Father.

Our father we thank you again for what you have done for us in Christ. Lord the change that you have brought about we don’t fully grasp or even appreciate at this point. Lord that sinners alienated from you have now been made joiners with Jesus Christ. Lord to pray that our lives might indeed manifest your character. That our minds might be under the discipline of the spirits and that’s the new man might be controlling our thoughts as the spirit motivates and controls us.

Lord for any who are here this morning, who do not know what it means to be made a new person in Jesus Christ, pray that even now they will accept your evaluation of them that they are sinners with the need, and that your son Jesus Christ in love died for them and that right now, and even my trust him and him alone, in order that you might accomplish the mighty work of redemption in their lives. We will thank you for it in Jesus’ name, Amen.