New Creation

If you had to guess the occupation of the individual on the screen, what would you say? Most of you said a policeman. What clues helped you make this guess? Among other things, the primary clue was his uniform. Now, this individual is certainly a policeman, however they only wear this uniform whenever they are on duty. This individual has a list of responsibilities because of their occupation, and sometimes even whenever they are off the clock, they are called into action. With that said, though, there are times where a policeman or a firefighter, or a doctor are off duty. Their uniforms are off and their work responsibilities are placed on hold because they are “free”.

Whenever you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and become adopted into His family, you receive a new identity. You have a new uniform, if you will, and with it comes a list of new responsibilities. Whenever you become a Christian, you put on a new set of clothes and you are clothed in Christ. Obviously there are Christians who are policemen, however the difference between a Christian and a policeman is that the Christian does not get to take off his uniform, ever. You are literally a new creation and you live a completely different life than you lived before. What we see Paul do in is talk about the new identity of Christians and how we receive a new set of clothes. This is a theme that Paul talks about often in the New Testament (, and all come to mind). This is a positive message for Christians as Paul calls us to see who we now are in Jesus Christ. Today, we will tackle what our new identity looks like in .

Ephesians 4:17–24 NASB95

17 So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; 19 and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. 20 But you did not learn Christ in this way, 21 if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, 22 that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, 23 and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

Do not live like a non-Christian (17-19)

Paul begins this passage of Scripture with a strong, urgent message to stop walking as the Gentiles walked. This is a message that would have been difficult for the Ephesian church to hear and it is one that is difficult for Christians to hear today. If you became a Christian later in your life, it can be easy to want to continue to do some of the things that you did before your conversion. We all know people today who try and add things to Jesus. Jesus + works or Jesus + money are very popular beliefs in the Western church. The call from Paul in verse 17 is to not walk as non-Christians walk and he claims that his authority is from Jesus Christ. This is a radical call to action by Paul, not only are Christians supposed to not believe in pagan gods/goddesses but Paul states that they are supposed to live a completely different life! This is the exact same call for Christians today. We are to walk in a manner worthy of our calling, as we saw in , and we are to devote our entire lives to Jesus Christ - He doesn’t just get your Sunday morning and Wednesday evening. He doesn’t just get you during VBS week. He gets all of you 24/7. We are to devote our entire lives to Him and to stop walking and living as a non-Christian!

Paul uses these opening verses to remind his audience (and us) of where we were before Christ came into our lives. Our thoughts, actions and feelings were bleak. Paul says that we lived in futility of our minds. Futility can mean idolatry in the sense of these 1st century Gentiles (and us for that matter) worshipping a false god before coming to a saving relationship with Jesus, or it can mean the condition of their mind/heart. These individuals genuinely did whatever they wanted to do whenever they desired to do it. With this one word (futility), Paul described the majority of people in the Greco-Roman world at his time. These people lived their lives, did whatever they so desired and the sum of their lives is nothing because their minds are darkened and they have meaningless goals. This can be something that we hear in Scripture and we ask ourselves, “This is really harsh, I wonder what these individuals were doing around Paul that would cause him to say this?” The painful truth comes in verse 18 as we see Paul say that these people were darkened in their understanding. This is our story just as much as it was these Gentiles in Paul’s day. We were darkened and we did not understand how lost we were. Imagine for a moment walking into a place where they taught that various conspiracies were in fact true. Whether it be that aliens live among us, that the earth is flat or that the moon landing was in fact fake. You walk into this situation and you try to tell them, using whatever evidence you have, that these conspiracies are in fact false. Generally speaking, these people would look at you and laugh. Nothing positive would be accomplished because they simply don’t understand.

This is the situation that we were in before having our eyes opened by the Holy Spirit. We were lost and without hope. We believed all sorts of false things and, as we looked at last week, we were led astray by every wind of false doctrine. Paul tells these believers that they are called to not revert back to this way of life. This should serve as a reminder to us whenever we try to evangelize and share the Gospel and it doesn’t take hold in the person’s life that we must continue to share the truth of the Gospel because we were once lost as well. Our eyes were blinded to the truth and we didn’t see the Gospel as something that we needed. Paul writes that the Gospel is offensive and foolish to the world. That is still true today. There are many people in our lives who have heard the truth of the Gospel and they have a hardened heart. They have had many opportunities to hear the truth buy they have refused repeatedly. As the New Testament says, they have forsaken the true God for a manmade god. Paul says in verse 19 that these individuals have given themselves over for the practice of every kind of impurity because they lack a moral restraint. These individuals live a life that is in total defiance to the way that God made us.

We look around in our world today and we ask ourselves, how can there be a good God with all of the evil taking place around us? How can there be a good God whenever things like abortion are becoming normalized in our culture and school shootings are becoming a weekly news story? For there to be evil in the universe, there has to be good or else how would we know that evil was in fact evil? There has to be a moral compass that is given to each of us by God. Even though we possess this compass, though, even though we know that some things are good and somethings are not, we desperately need a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. You can be a “good person” by the standards of the world but you fall woefully short of God’s standards. You must have a personal relationship with Jesus! We are corrupt, sinful beings who are blinded from our desperate need for saving. We were darkened and ignorant. We had hard hearts and were greedy. We did things the way that we wanted to do them! The great news if you are a born-again believer today is that God can transform anyone by His grace! As Paul was writing this letter, many Christians in the Ephesian church could relate to the dark description found in verses 17-19, however they became a new creation not because of anything that they did but because of what Jesus Christ has done. Aren’t you thankful today, as a child of the King, that you were once lost but you are now found? As Paul continues this passage of Scripture, he begins to transition from talking about how we were once non-Christians to instead talking about living as a new creation.

We have the ability to live as a new creation in Jesus Christ. We are to think differently, react differently and act differently than non-Christians around us. We are able to do this by the Holy Spirit. This does not mean that Christians should never be around non-Christians, however it does mean that we live in the world but not of it. Jesus Himself modeled this for us as He lived a holy life even though He was around sinners daily. Our task as a new creation is to live a life that is set apart from those around us so that a non-Christian can see something different in our lives. Let’s see how we are to live as a new creation in verses 20-24.

Live as a New Creation (20-24)

Paul gives us several different images to illustrate how we come to Christ: a school, changing clothes, and as a new creation. Paul begins by stating that these individuals who were once non-Christians did not come to know Jesus Christ in this way. Paul is reminding these people of his personal experience. Paul experienced Christ on the Damascus Road encounter but he was invested in by people like Ananias, Peter and Barnabas. Later we see that Paul invests in others like Timothy. You do not learn about Jesus by doing things that non-Christians do. You do not do what is right in your own mind and learn about Jesus Christ. This teaching is not formal education but instead transformational education. It is something that is not simply something that is learned but it is experienced and completely changes your life from the inside out!

Paul says that “You learned Christ” - Christ is the subject. This phrase, to learn a person, is not found anywhere else in the Bible. What Paul is hammering home to these Christians is that they don’t just come to know about Christ in the sense of them knowing about the emperor or about a Christian in 2019 knowing about the President of the United States. It is so much deeper than that! It is developing a personal relationship with Jesus. Not Bible facts, but a relationship. Paul continues this thought in verse 21 as he says “if you have heard about Him”. Paul had been to this city several years before and he had taught them about the resurrected Jesus Christ, however much has happened in the years since. We talked about the background of the city of Ephesus several months ago and saw how this was a city that was very large and diverse in beliefs. Many people worshipped the patron goddess of the city, Artemis, while others worshipped the Roman emperor while even others worshipped other pagan gods and goddesses. Even the Christians in this city were bombarded with false doctrines and some were worshipping Jesus Christ and their old gods as we talked about in . False teaching was abounding in this city and Paul was determined to make sure that these people have heard of Jesus and have been taught of the truth of Jesus Christ. He wants to make sure that these individuals have not simply heard, notice he continues on in verse 21, but that they have come to know of Jesus Christ.

So, I ask you this morning, have you come to know Jesus Christ as your Lord? If not, then you cannot have this new life. If you do not know Jesus Christ today then you are still living as a non-Christian and you are not experiencing this new life. It begins with total conversion to Jesus Christ. Christianity is not about keeping some rules, attending church or having an emotional response after a traumatic experience or a worship service! It is about knowing Jesus Christ. Not facts about Jesus or what Jesus said. It is about knowing Him deeply and genuinely. We talked about false teachings last week regarding and spiritual maturity. False teachings want you to have an emotional response. They desire you to believe in the health and wealth, the success, of the Gospel message and that is where the message stops. There is so much more to a relationship with Jesus Christ than simply that message. Doctrine matters. Truth matters. Knowing Jesus Christ and having a relationship with Him matters. Your eternal destination hinges not on your church attendance, scriptural memory or resources given to the local church. It hinges on Jesus Christ. You must know Him more than you know anyone else in your life! According to a study done in 2018, the average child spends 15 hours per week playing video games. Our culture has so much information and knowledge about technology, sports teams and video games yet many of us cannot give the Gospel message to someone in less than 1 minute without a Bible in front of us.

Christ is not just the subject of verses 20-21 but He is also the context. Paul says that we were taught in Him. If you are a Christian this morning, aren’t you thankful that your walk with Christ didn’t end whenever you accepted Him as your savior? If so, that would have been an extremely short walk! Our walk continues. There are no “perfect” Christians out there and no one has “made it” regarding our relationship with Jesus. We all are a work in progress and we all are to grow in our understanding and relationship with Him. Everything we do from the time that the Holy Spirit enters our being until we are called home to glory should be done in light of our union with Jesus Christ.

The greatest news in verse 21 is that the truth is in Jesus. You can be assured that you are walking in truth because truth is in Jesus. Coming to Jesus Christ and learning about Him leads to truth. This is something that we know from as Jesus Himself said that He was the way, the truth and the life. Because we know the truth in Jesus, we ought to share that truth with others! The most hateful thing that a Christian can do is to know the truth and not share it with others. There is a difference in hearing and doing. We are not called to simply be hearers and fill a pew, we are called to be doers and apply what we learn into our daily lives. This is difficult, and it takes us out of our comfort zones, but it is what we are called to do.

Next, Paul transitions to say that we should lay aside our old self and put on the new self in verses 22-24. In the original Greek language, Paul gives his audience 3 infinitives: to “put off”, to “be renewed” and to “put on”. The question that we must ask is are these imperatives commands or are they a description of what has already happened to us in our conversion? Is Paul describing something that these Christians have already done, or is he prescribing something that they are supposed to do? As mentioned before, Colossians and Ephesians share a lot in common with one another and there is a parallel text () that helps us in understanding .

Colossians 3:8–10 NASB95

8 But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, 10 and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him—

In Colossians, these commands are in the aorist tense - indicating something that has already been done at the time of conversion. Since we have taken off the old and have put on the new, we must put away sin practically, daily and continually. We must live differently because we are new people. Jon Stott puts it like this, “It is because we have already put off our old nature, in that decisive act of repentance called conversion, that we can logically be commanded to put away all these practices which belong to that old, rejected life.”

The old self in verse 22 refers to all that we once were. All of the things that Paul has listed in verses 17-19. We must remember that we do not walk in these clothes anymore! We are a new creation, as Paul shows us in verse 24 as he calls us to put on the new self!

Imagine Peter, whenever Jesus called him to be a disciple. What if Peter had responded with, “That sounds awesome, Jesus! But can we do everything around the sea so that I can continue to make money and provide for my family? I have a really good life here and I have some plans that I’d like to accomplish, but I think that following you would be great if I can do it here.” What we find in Scripture is a vastly different response by Peter and the other disciples. They do not respond by wanting a detailed outline and itinerary of what following Jesus would look like, nor do they ask what the salary package looks like. They dropped their nets and followed Jesus. This is ultimately what it looks like in our lives today, is it not? We have our lives before we met Jesus Christ. Some of us didn’t have many years of existence before coming to a relationship with Jesus while others of us lived several decades before this moment! But we all had an old self. We all had old clothes that we wore and that defined us. What we see time after time in Scripture is that people who genuinely follow Jesus drop their nets and follow. They don’t look back. They don’t try and add Jesus to their schedules. Their entire life changes immediately and radically. The disciples realized that they now had new clothes, a new identity and a new home in addition to a new way to live.

Everything changes whenever we follow Jesus, have you experienced this radical change? In the American church we like to make Jesus our secretary rather than our foundation. We will follow Jesus so long as it doesn’t interfere with who we were before Him. We will follow Him whenever it is convenient for us or beneficial to do so, however we don’t have the desire to drop our nets, leave our families and live without the security of a home or food. Certainly not all of us are called today to go overseas and be missionaries to a people group in a 3rd world country, however if God was calling you to that lifestyle, would you say what Isaiah said in ? “Here am I, Lord send me!”

As Oswald Chambers put it, “Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One who is leading." The only way that we can be led like this is to realize that we are a new creation. Paul tells us in verse 23 that you are being renewed in the spirit of your minds. Being renewed is in the present tense, just as being corrupted in verse 22 was. This means that this renewal is an ongoing process that God performs in us. We need to be renewed in our minds. We constantly need to be reminded about our change in identity. It’s not about you! It’s not about me! It’s all about Jesus Christ.

God created us, sin separated us but through Jesus Christ, we can be new creations that reflect the glory of God for a lost and dying world to see.

Conclusion

Paul tells us in to not conform to our world but to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. This is an ongoing process and it is something done by the Holy Spirit. God does this work in our lives. Certainly, we are called to read the Word and to grow spiritually, but we cannot mistake our works with the work of the Spirit. God’s sovereignty and our responsibility meet somewhere. This is the mystery of the Gospel, after all. We must understand that we come before a holy God with filthy rags and with a mind that was darkened and a heart that was hard. We must recognize this fact and daily die to our old selfish ambitions and lifestyles. We must pick up our cross, deny ourselves and follow Jesus. We must renew our minds, cleanse them with the Word of God and meditate on what is good, right and true in order to live as a new creation.

So, I ask you, where does this powerful change come from? How do we move from our old clothes and identity to being a new creation? The person of Jesus Christ. It has nothing to do with your works, it’s all about what He has done and what He still does through His Spirit. Have you come to know Jesus today? Are you a new creation or are you still wearing your old uniform? Is your mind being renewed? If so, this is something that you are called to live our each and every day. Not just whenever it is convenient or easy, but also when it means that you have to stick your neck out and do what is right - like Nehemiah did in . We must understand where this power comes from, though. We can wash and change our clothes literally, but you cannot save yourself and put on new clothes spiritually. That power comes from God. We desperately need new hearts, desires and minds. The great news and the hope that you have today is that you receive these things whenever you begin a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.