Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon March 8, 2009
Looking back, my fifth grade was a pivotal year for me as a student. Up to that moment, the learning experience at school was forgettable, while, walking to and home from school were some of my best moments. I was much more interested in exploring the backyard river, the hills and the mountains, chasing and catching bugs and frogs, looking for that special hideout places for spy and war games.
But, something changed during my fifth grade to help me appreciate learning in school. Enjoy learning at school led me to enjoy doing homework at home. My grades began to improve. Do you know what happened?
What happened was that my fifth grade teacher, Ms, Che Jun Sil was the prettiest, nicest, coolest, kindest, best teacher I ever had. Little boy me had innocent crush on his teacher. That’s how he began paying attention and listening to his teacher. That’s how he started doing well in school. He learned the joy of learning because of his teacher.
Something like this is what happens to us in the school of Christ. Paul spoke of being taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus in Ephesians 4:20. To appreciate Jesus’ teaching, to pay attention to him, and actually implement and apply his teaching in our lives there has to be this sense of being drawn to Jesus because who he is, what he has done for us, what he represents for us. It is in Jesus we are to put off old self and put on the new self. My prayer is that God opens your heart and mind to see Jesus and be drawn to him so you would be delighted to pay close attention to him and apply his teaching to put off your old self and to put on the new self.
1. Put off the old self.
Paul says in Ephesians 4:22, “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires.” Paul introduced to us this former way of life in verse 17-19 and characterized the mindset of the former way of life as thoughtlessly and empty. This empty and thoughtless mindset, the futility of thinking is mind that is darkened in understanding and ignorant apart from the life of God. This mindset simply reflects the condition of heart that has become callous and hardened, insensitive and unresponsive to God. When mind and heart become insensitive and unresponsive to God, moral sensibility is replaced with sensuality. Sensuality does not seek what’s right, but continually lusts for what feels good and therefore it indulges in every kind of impurity at all cost. Paul reinforces this out of controlled, sensuality driven life as being corrupted by its deceitful desires in Ephesians 4:22. Without Christ, this would have been the outcome for all of us, the spiraling down uncontrollably and powerlessly into the abyss of godless, ever corrupting lifestyle inflamed in lust and sensuality.
Against this backdrop of insensitive and unresponsive mind and heart embracing sensuality and lust, Paul boldly proclaims that Christ in his death and resurrection has set us free from this destructive path. When Paul says to put off this destructive sinful self we are to understand it as to divest from it, to lay it aside, and to refuse to accept it, no longer to justify it or give it place in our life. To putt off means to cease, to stop[1] living as though you have no choice or you are powerless to reject self-centered, sin dominating life apart from God.
It is true that God forgives our sins in Christ. This is a picture of what God does in his grace, he forgives us. But, God in his grace does more than forgiving us. It would be a cruel joke if God forgives us but then tells us that we are now on our own to make our life holy and righteous. But, God doesn’t do that. God not only forgives us in his grace, he also empowers us in his grace. God’s grace is grounded in Jesus Christ. At the cross in the death of his Son, at the empty tomb in the resurrection of his Son, God defeated the domination of the former way of life, the old self.
So, to put off old self means stop talking or thinking as though you are powerless to stop the downward spiral of sin. By thinking and talking this way, we undermine God’s definitive work to crush the power of sin in Christ. We also elevate the power of sin as more powerful than God’s power to redeem us. The truth is you can put off your old self because God has put it off in Christ. You and I need to think biblically the power of sin that which dominated the former way of life as no longer binding us in Christ.
To put off your old self, sin domination, requires you to freshly believe in what’s possible with God. Can God help you put off lie, filthy language, bitterness, rage, anger, slander, unforgiveness, or cheating? Can God help you put off lust for false intimacy and sex outside of marriage? Can God help you put off overly critical judgment, shaming and blaming others? Can God help you put off destructive eating pattern? Can God help you put off laziness, sin of procrastination? Can God help you put off the way you feel about yourself in destructive self hatred? Can God help you to put off getting drunk out of control and passing out? Can God help you put off “ I don’t care,” attitude? Can God help you put off the old and live in newness? Is it all possible?
The answer would be “No” if all things weren’t possible with God or if it all depends on us. But, the truth is all things are possible with God who is all powerful. All things are possible for you in Christ. You can fight to put off because your fight will not be in vain for God fought for you and he has demolished the dominion of sin and death through Jesus’ death and resurrection.
2. Put on the new self.
In Christ, we no longer belong to the story of the downward descent to uncontrollable godlessness of sensuality and lust. But in Christ, we now belong to the story of putting off old self and putting on the new self.
While to put off the old self means to divest it, to lay it aside, to refuse to accept it, no longer to justify it or give it place in your life, to stop it, and to cease it, to put the new self means to invest in it, to gladly accept it, and to wear it. John Stott says in his sermon on this passage, “When God recreates us in Christ, we entirely concur with what he has done… embracing it, welcoming it.”
What is that we are to wholeheartedly concur with what God has done, to embrace, to welcome, to invest, to gladly accept, to cover ourselves with?
Paul says it is the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness in Ephesians 4:24. In the contrary to former way of life, which we got ourselves into, the new way of life is activated by Christ. This is why Paul speaks of this new self as that which is created, meaning it is something that is done outside of us in the past. We don’t make the new self happen. God creates it in Christ.
Putting on the new self is not the work of reinventing or making the old better. Putting on the new self is as John Stott explains, it is to concur with what God has already done, embrace and welcome it. It is the new way of life in Christ that we are to embrace and welcome. We are to embrace and welcome the new lifestyle of speaking truthfully, stealing or cheating no more, working with integrity and diligence for the goal of sharing with those in need, speaking only to build others up and to benefit others, being kind and compassionate, forgiving in the way Christ forgave us, defending sexual purity, being controlled by the Spirit… these and more are what God created us to be to reflect his character of righteousness and holiness.
God has fought through Christ to create this new self of living new lifestyle. Paul says in Ephesians 4:23 that to put on the new self there has to be also this being renewed in the attitude of minds. If you recall, the former way of life is characterized by the empty and thoughtless and ignorant mindset. To embrace, to welcome the new self, the battle must begin in the battle fields of our mind. God shines our mind with his light and enables it to be sensitive to him. And, as the former way of life, the old self, is being continually corrupted by deceitful desires, the new self, the way of life must be renewed moment by moment.
Colossians 3:9-11 says, “put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its creator.” You see here a flashback to the creation account of Genesis 1:26-27 where God committed to making man, male and female, in the image of the Trinitarian God. This imprinted image of God was marred by sin in Eden, but God now makes a brand new permanent imprinting of his image on us in Christ through his death and resurrection.[2] It is important to know that this creation of new self that reflects God’s image is already accomplished in Christ.
The Christian life is not about becoming better self rather it is about welcoming and embracing this new identity in Christ imprinted with the new permanent image of God. It is about living accordingly to the new identity while rejecting the old identity apart from Christ.
God has paved the new way of living. The question is, “How badly do you and I want this new way of living?” To badly want it, you must be convinced in your mind that this is really a good deal, to trade off sin ridden life with the life of righteousness and holiness. Or, to put it another way, sin is a terrible trade for it is trading life with God for a corrupting, meaningless life with self.[3]
May God help you put off the old self and put on the new self! May God help you reject the old identity marred and dominated by sin but to embrace and welcome the new identity in Jesus Christ as holy and righteous. May Jesus displace you in yourself thoroughly with his mindset and heart and become ever sensitive and responsive to God.[4]
[1] Low & Nida, 68.37, apotiqemai. To put away has a figurative meaning “to cease doing what one is accustomed to doing- to stop, to cease.”
[2] Snodgrass, Klyne. “Learning the Messiah (4:20 – 24)” In NIV Application Commentary, New Testament: Ephesians. By Klyne Snodgrass, 235. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, © 1996.
[3] Snodgrass, Klyne. “Bridging Contexts” In NIV Application Commentary, New Testament: Ephesians. By Klyne Snodgrass, 239. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, © 1996.
[4] Snodgrass, Klyne. “Bridging Contexts” In NIV Application Commentary, New Testament: Ephesians. By Klyne Snodgrass, 240. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, © 1996.
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