Gospel Transformation

Father, we confess before you that sometimes your word just offends us, and we want to pretend that it doesn't, but it does.

Sometimes, Father, your word makes us proud when it should really be humbling us.

And sometimes, Father, your word just makes us feel bad when it's actually very, very good news.

Father, we need the help of your Holy Spirit that we might understand your word correctly.

So we ask that the Holy Spirit would move at a very deep level of who we are so that we might, Father, enter into your word,

and your word might enter into us, and in light of the gospel, that we might be changed more and more and more into the new creation

that we will eventually be in fullness and glory.

And this we ask in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen.

Please be seated.

So one of the things I do sometimes when I get into conversations with people about the Christian faith,

they find out I'm a Christian, at some point in time I might ask them if they actually own a Bible,

if they'd be interested in reading the Bible, and sometimes they say, no, I don't have a Bible.

And I say, would you like it if I gave you a New Testament or a Gospel of John?

And sometimes they say yes.

And one of the things I like to do sometimes when I'm working on my sermon is I like to imagine what would happen

if I discovered, let's say on Monday, that they actually had been reading the Bible by themselves,

and they came to me.

This actually did happen to me once about a year ago.

They came to me and said, George, how come it says this?

Like it was something about Jesus that said, I can't remember the text, but he said, this is really bloodthirsty.

And he was a bit shocked, and we ended up having a bit of a conversation about it.

So I don't know how many of you caught what Ken said when he was reading from Ephesians 4, verse 17 and following.

Ephesians 4:17

It'd be helpful if you get your Bibles out and look at it, Ephesians 4, 17 and following.

But you can well imagine that if your non-Christian friends saw this, they might be a little bit bothered by it.

And if you don't have your Bible, I'm just going to read it very, very quickly, just the first, the little hard bit,

and then we'll talk about it.

And here's how it goes.

Note what it says.

Now this I say and testify in the Lord.

And in the original language, this is like a solemn declaration.

The word say, in some contexts, could be also translated as I decree.

Like if you were the emperor, I decree this.

It's a solemn thing.

It's not said flippantly.

It's not like a put-down comment, snide, or anything like this.

This is something very solemn.

I solemnly say and testify in the Lord.

Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds.

Now just listen.

By the way, one of the reasons that what we're doing here is this.

One of the things which some of you know, I was just in Israel and I came back.

And one of the great privileges of this tour that I was able to be on in Israel is that we got to meet different Israeli officials

and also some ordinary people.

For instance, we had the privilege of going to an Orthodox Jewish home and seeing how they celebrate the Shabbat,

the beginning of the Sabbath.

But one of the things I noticed time and time again when I was speaking to Israelis,

especially around problems, is they said this particular phrase,

you got to see the world as it is, roll up your sleeves, and deal with it.

Like, isn't that good wisdom?

See the world as it is, roll up your sleeves, and deal with it.

Get down to it.

And so it is with this text.

It's very easy for us to quickly just go over it, hope that nobody really notices, not meditate upon it,

but it's a very stark text.

And so what we're going to do is we're walking towards the text.

We're going to camp in the text for a good part of the sermon,

just trying to understand what it says and what it's not saying.

So I'll begin reading at verse 17 again.

Now this I say in testifying the Lord.

Remember, this is a solemn thing.

It's to be read solemnly.

That you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do.

And Paul would be saying that anybody other than a Jewish person is a Gentile.

And many Christians would just see it as this is describing non-Christians.

I'm going to comment on that in a moment, but that's how they would be heard at least on one level.

That you must no longer walk, verse 17, and as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds.

They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God

because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart.

They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality,

greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

Now, aren't you glad you invited your non-Christian friend to church today?

This would be such a good text for them to hear.

It's a very, very powerful and stark text.

We're going to walk towards this.

Now, the first thing you need to understand before I start to unpack it is this.

It sounds like it's an us versus them statement, but it's not.

If you understand it as an us versus them statement, you're going to misunderstand it.

What Paul is doing is he's describing the baseline of every human mind.

He is describing the baseline of the human mind for every human mind.

So the good news is this.

He's not insulting non-Christians.

He also is insulting everyone here in the room.

He's insulting all of us.

He's saying this is how the normal human mind works in these patterns.

And many of you would say, George, that doesn't help us at all.

It just doesn't, in fact, seem true.

It seems way, way, way too extreme.

So let's just look at some of these phrases and think about it for a second

and see if we actually think it's as extreme and as bad as it sounds.

Look at, we're not going to begin with futility.

We're going to end with futility in verse 17.

Let's look at the first phrase, they are darkened in their understanding.

And the word understanding there could also, some of your words, your Bible,

your Bibles have thoughts.

But the best word actually, the most literal word is mindset.

That there's something about the actual mind itself and the way it's set that is darkened.

Now, let me just ask you some thought experiments.

How many of you look at things in the paper or things that are going on in community

and you say to yourself, how can they not see that that is wrong?

Am I the only one?

Everyone does it, right?

How can they not see that that is wrong?

And you know what?

You can be absolutely guaranteed.

I don't know what your political views are.

I don't know what your views are on climate change.

I don't know who you voted for.

But I can guarantee whatever your view is, if it was published, there'd be a whole pile of Canadians

who would say, how can they not see that that is wrong?

Right?

That's what we say about each other.

How can they not see that that is wrong?

And if you think about it for yourself, if you think back on your former way of thinking,

I did a bit of a faux pas about a couple of months ago.

There's a neighbor of mine who goes to my old church.

And I started to talk about somebody that I thought was dead.

Okay?

And one of the things I talked about, I was just sharing.

I was just smiling.

He's dead.

I can say this thing about the guy in the past.

And this guy in the past, this was in 1985 when I was just ordained.

And I remember him going on this long rant.

He said, I work in the computer business and I can tell you this.

No computer will ever be so portable and ever so fast and can handle so much information

that it could ever be connected to a gun that would shoot down a missile.

And he went on an hour-long rant about how stupid Reagan was

and how stupid anybody was to think you'd ever have computers small enough, fast enough,

powerful enough to shoot down a missile.

And I just shared that with a chuckle.

And then the guy told me he's still alive.

And then he said with a smile, I really look forward to telling him this story.

Because it will make him very uncomfortable.

He was in the computer business, right?

That's what he said.

I'm in the computer business.

I know no computer will ever get like that.

Well, some of you are in the computer business.

We don't make those types of claims because who knows what's going to happen.

But here's the thing.

Remember I said, all of Canada we say, how could they not see that that was wrong?

But if you think about yourself, think if somebody was to remind you of something that you said

or believed a year ago, five years ago, 20 years ago, now you might say to yourself,

I don't know how I couldn't see that that was wrong.

What are you describing?

A darkened mind.

A darkened mind.

In fact, just think about it for a second.

Imagine you meet somebody and they come up and they start gushing to you.

Oh, you should meet this woman.

You should meet this man.

He's a teacher.

And all of his teaching is light.

He is completely and utterly enlightened.

Everything he sees, he sees clearly.

What will every single one of us think?

Nut job and cult, right?

What do we not believe?

In a mind which is only light.

I just proved it.

So why are we bothered here?

Let's look at the next one.

They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the

ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart.

So what that just said, if you unpack it, verse 18, we have a hard heart.

And because of a hard heart, we have ignorance.

And because of this ignorance that comes out of a hard heart, we're alienated from God and

his life.

Does that sound extreme?

Well, let me ask you this thought experiment.

Imagine in a couple of years, human beings are able to land on Mars.

And so they land on Mars, a big enough ship and a group of a team of astronauts, men and

women, they get out and they have maybe, first they just walk around a little bit, but they

unload some type of a rover that can move on the surface of Mars.

And they hop in and the cameras are going and they're talking and everybody, like billions

of people on Earth will be fixated with this when the day happens, right?

And so they go around a corner and they get to be able to look down a bit of a crevice,

a valley, and on the bottom they see something that can travel on the surface of Mars.

And they can see that there's lights coming out of it.

It means it has power and it's turned on.

Now, if they said that, all of Earth would be riveted.

And then if they go down and they see that there's this thing that can travel on Mars

and it has obviously power and it's turned on, but there's nobody in it.

Like every single one of us, we'd be worried about aliens.

Are they around the corner?

Are they going to kill us?

Are they going to eat us?

Are they going to befriend us?

It'd be all this thing.

But imagine if a week afterwards NASA said, don't worry about it.

That thing that we found, it happened by chance.

We figured out that there were some explosions and some windstorms on Mars.

And a result of that, you have a rover with power turned on.

Who would believe them?

Zero.

Let me tell you.

Let me tell you.

The human cell is more complicated than that device and it got turned on by chance.

Why do we think that one idea is absurd and the other is the thing you have to believe to enter into polite society?

Try being a politician in Canada that says you think that a cell could not just happen by itself.

What Scheer is going through about abortion would be nothing compared to how everybody would hound them.

You think that's too extreme?

Imagine a second story.

Jenny comes in on a morning into the office and she finds me dead on the ground.

And she calls, there's a pool of blood.

She calls the police.

They come.

They discovered afterwards with an autopsy that somebody had broken my back and I was paralyzed.

And then they stabbed me several times and I bled to death.

But, before I died, with the blood that was pooling from my chest, I write on the side, Bob Jones murdered me last night in my blood.

And I hope there's no Bob Jones here.

I picked a name.

Maybe I should have picked Frodo Baggins.

I don't know.

But then we'd know there's no Frodo Baggins.

So, Bob Jones murdered me last night.

And if in his defense, when the police go, they arrest Bob Jones, you know, and Bob Jones said, that blood, that writing, George didn't write it.

It just happened by chance.

It's just the way the blood flowed.

Who would believe it?

But that simple message, Bob Jones murdered me, you know, whatever the date, is vastly simpler than DNA.

By a huge order of magnitude.

And DNA is just information, chemically put together.

Why is it that we think, that we would not believe that Bob Jones killed me this evening, that that couldn't happen by chance, that we believe DNA can happen by chance?

Is it possible that what we have is a hardness of heart that leads to ignorance, that means that we will not want to know the true and living God?

Is it possible, in fact, that when the Bible says here they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of the heart, that we have hard hearts when it comes to God?

And consider the next thing.

They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality.

What does this mean here?

Just think about this for a second.

And I'm sure this has happened to everybody here.

But if you have any friends, if you have brothers and sisters, if you have any family, in fact, if you're anybody other than somebody who's lived in a test tube and behind some veil and never met a human being,

at some point in time, one of these moments will come to you, your wife or your friend or your child will come to you and say,

five years ago you did this and it hurt me unbelievably badly.

And you realize when you think about yourself.

And they said, not only did it hurt me really badly what you did, it didn't seem to bother you at all.

You just kept going on.

You were so caught up with just doing your own thing, you never even noticed how deeply you hurt me.

Every single one of us, if we haven't had that experience yet, just wait.

We get so caught up in pursuing our own pleasure, what pleases us, we don't realize the damage we might have just done to an important relationship.

What does that describe?

That describes what the Bible just says here, isn't it?

They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality.

And let's look at the last one.

Greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

Now, at the level of the original language, impurity here is not referring to sexual purity.

It's referring to a relationship with God, the true and living God, the holy, good, only good, only loving, only truthful, only just, only merciful God.

And it's describing something here about the flow, the flow of our lives, so to speak.

Human beings aren't static, we're in motion.

And we're moving along a current.

And what is part of the current that describes every human being?

Well, a bit of a thought experiment.

And you might not agree with it, but I think you will if you think about it.

All of a sudden, I said, I think it would be a great moral evil if you touched one of those bronze door opening things underneath that exit sign over there.

And if I was to go on and on and on about how great a moral evil it would be and you should never do it, what would all of you want to do?

Touch it.

Touch it.

So, you said, why?

Because the fact of the matter is, is that within every single human being there is a flow.

there is a flow to do things to say to God,

you're not the boss of me.

You're not the boss of me.

You're only the boss of me to the extent that I allow you to be the boss of me.

And that describes every human mind.

So all of a sudden, you see,

when we Christians are afraid of the word of God and run from it,

we realize, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, one second.

The Bible here is describing every human mind, including you and me.

Including you and me.

Now, what about that first phrase way back up in verse 17,

which sort of launched all of this?

Now I say this, and I have to watch my time.

Now I say this, now this I say, verse 17,

and testifying the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do

in the futility of their minds.

And I describe to you how what the Bible is doing here

is it's describing the baseline of every human mind.

It's not an us or them statement.

The other thing you need to understand here is this,

that the statement, and some of you who are theologically trained

know that what we see here is the doctrine of total depravity, by the way.

And what this doctrine is saying here,

especially if you look at the rest of the Bible,

is it's not saying absolute futility,

but true futility.

It's not describing minds as being completely and utterly broken.

If that was the case, we couldn't have any communication.

Paul couldn't write and we couldn't read.

But it's saying that there's something in every human mind

which is broken, that's bent,

that doesn't work right.

It would be as if you went hunting

and you didn't realize that the rifle was just not actually straight,

and every time you lined it up to shoot,

it always kept missing.

But you just never try to adopt.

It's always just missing.

Or maybe it's a rifle that every time,

even when you adjust this.

Anyway, I don't want to forget,

the mind is bent.

And so here it is with futility.

And every single human being is touched by it.

And part of the reason that this flow that I just described

about wanting to show God that he's not the boss

and why this flow doesn't completely and utterly unmake us

is that the rest of the Bible teaches us

that there's this thing called common grace,

that God spares us from the full results of our decision

to say to God,

you are not my boss.

I am the boss.

Or this, the company is the boss.

Or this ideology is the boss.

Or money is the boss.

Or my wife is the boss.

Or my husband is the boss.

Or my kids are the boss.

And I'll only acknowledge your authority

to the extent that I allow you

after I serve these other types of things.

And the fact that that doesn't completely and utterly unmake us

is described in other parts in the Bible

as the doctrine of common grace,

that God restrains things that go on within us.

But what about futile?

Well, it's another topic of a conversation.

But what this is implying here

is that there is a true meaning to life.

There's a true end to life.

And the Bible is telling you very solemnly and truly

that there actually is the possibility

of real meaning to life.

At Dig and Delve, I got asked,

I got to do a presentation just last weekend

on Friday night.

It was on intelligent design and science

and whether science is leading us more and more

to believe that you have to have a designer

to account for what they're discovering about reality.

And I got to do one of the presentations,

the opening presentation to set the stage.

And they ended up inviting me to be on the panel.

And one of the questions that came to me was,

isn't it the case that lies

sometimes lead you to the truth

and that lies are important to knowing the truth?

What do you think about that?

And my response was,

do you want me to lie or tell you the truth?

And I mention this because it's sort of important,

is that what the Bible is saying here,

and it's beyond the scope of my sermon,

is that there really is meaning to life.

It's not just self-declared,

because there really is a God that does exist,

who has created us as human beings for a purpose,

and our chief end,

the true meaning of our life,

is to know God and enjoy him forever

and bring him glory.

We were made for this.

What about futility?

Here's the thought experiment.

Imagine in the spring,

you go up into the Ottawa Valley somewhere,

and you go to a river where it's dammed,

and if you know anything about dams,

sometimes the dams have runoff areas off to the side.

And you go, and you go the day before,

and you see that there's people camping there.

And you say to them,

tomorrow at this time,

they're going to open some floodgates

because of the waters rising,

there's going to be a runoff here,

and if you don't get out of this place,

you're going to drown.

The water will come through with a great torrent,

and will overwhelm you.

But in the meantime,

between now and then,

they don't listen,

they don't acknowledge.

In fact, what happens is,

one of them designs an app

that if it ever got released,

would make a million dollars,

a five million dollars,

ten million dollars,

lots of money.

Another person designs a poet,

a poem,

that if in fact you were able to show the poem,

it would end up being something

that would end up being put in school textbooks.

It's so brilliant.

Another person designs a dance.

Another person designs some new camping equipment.

Another person solves a problem on their computer,

a mathematical equation,

that had never been solved.

They do all of these things,

and then the next day,

the water comes,

but they don't actually leave,

and the water comes and kills them all.

Now, they've been absolutely brilliant.

They've been creative in dance,

in art,

in technology,

in math,

and all of those things,

but what would you say about their thinking?

It was futile.

It was futile.

They all died.

They just died.

It was futile.

And in fact,

it might be that there was somebody in the room

who was fairly average IQ

with their Down syndrome kid,

but they took the warning

and got up out of the thing,

and they're not as high an IQ,

but what would you say about their thinking?

It wasn't futile.

They're still alive.

They heard it,

and that's what the Bible is saying here.

You see,

if you look at it,

the Bible is describing

the possibility of real meaning,

and the Bible's description is true.

And here's the thing.

Why is it to read this

and hear that it's true?

Why does it depress people?

Why does it depress people?

Why does it depress people?

You see,

like,

part of the thing is

that the fact that it depresses us

both says something about our pride,

but it also says something about our longings.

Our pride says

we don't want to acknowledge

that there's darkness or callousness

or impurity within us,

but it also,

at the same time that it reveals our pride,

it also reveals something about our longings,

that surely our minds

are meant for more than this.

Surely our minds are meant

to be healthy

and responsive

and filled with light

and longing for light

and pure.

that this text

opens something

about our longings

and our pride.

So what does the Bible say about this?

Let's look what Paul moves to

very next.

That's verses 20 to 24.

And by the way,

as you turn to this in the Bible,

here's a little bit of a geek moment,

okay?

Those of you who are geeks,

timeout,

geek timeout moment,

okay?

Okay,

you can go to,

those who aren't geeks,

you can go to sleep

for about a minute.

I'll tell the geeks

this geek moment.

The way that this letter

is structured

is very,

very interesting.

Verses 17 to 24

basically sets up

the framework

to understand

all moral

and spiritual exhortation

that makes up

the rest of the letter.

From verse 25

to the end of chapter 6,

Paul is going to talk

about forgiveness,

language,

spiritual things,

marriage,

relationships,

parents and children.

And in a sense,

if you were going to try

to organize it,

you could say

that over here

there's this basic framework

and then he gives

a whole pile of,

for instance,

that flow from it.

And so in a sense,

every time you looked

at any moral thing,

spiritual warfare,

anything,

you could say,

okay,

let's go back to this.

This is the framework

to understand it.

Ah,

here's a,

for instance,

end of geek moment,

back to the text.

So what does Paul do?

Let's look at what he does.

And at first,

it's going to seem like

it's not very much.

But that's because often

we don't think

the gospel is very much.

You see,

because we are addicted

to the type of

immoral advice

that says,

try harder,

improve your education.

If you just know the truth,

you'll do the right thing.

If you just get

a better willpower

and you try harder,

that that will be good.

Where our other type

of moral advice

will be,

you know,

to appeal to our pride.

Like,

just think how bad

people will think of you

if you don't do this.

Or the other thing

that we'll do is,

well,

our moral improvement

and moral exhortation

often comes around

to a type of bribery.

If you give to people,

if you give more money

to the church,

you'll feel better.

So give more money

to the church,

you'll feel better.

It's appealing

to your own self-interest.

And often,

we're so used to

thinking about it

in those types of terms

where if you can't make it,

fake it.

Like,

you know,

we're used to those

types of things

and when we actually see

what the Bible speaks

in light of the profound insight

into how we actually function,

we're disappointed at first.

But it's wisdom.

Listen to what it says.

Verse 20.

But this is not,

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.

So what's Paul

saying here?

What's going on?

Early on

in the book of Ephesians

in chapter 2

Paul uses

a very, very

graphic image

to describe

what conversion is

and what it means

to become a Christian.

He says in a sense

you want to understand

what the gospel is

and how you become

a Christian

go to a funeral home

and if you go to

a funeral home

you find dead bodies

and what you have

to understand

is that apart from Christ

you're like a dead body.

How good

are dead bodies

at seeking God?

Well, dead bodies

can't do anything

they're dead.

So how do you understand

how conversion works?

What you have to understand

in conversion

is that God calls you

and not only

does God choose you

and call you

but God gives you

the power

to make you alive

to respond

to his call

and as you respond

to it

he makes you

fully alive.

You have the power

to respond to God

the same

as a dead body

has the power

to run a marathon.

None.

You are completely

and utterly

dependent upon God.

Paul uses

a similar type

of analogy

here with us.

He's just described

how our minds

don't work

at least not

in terms of

any ultimate sense.

There's something

just bent

and broken with them.

And so he said

here's the power

it's very similar

if you go back

later on

look at 2 Corinthians 4

2 Corinthians 4:1–6

verses 1 to 6

it's a very similar

type of thing

and this is how

the image goes.

Look again

at verse 20

but that is not

the way you learned

Christ

assuming that you

heard about him

and were taught

in him

as the truth

is in Jesus.

And this is

one of those phrases

that in English

is very, very,

very, very dense.

It's really like

you know how

if a kid draws you

a picture

it's full of scribbles

and it looks just cute

because it's a kid

but most of the lines

don't really matter

and they don't really

illustrate anything.

This is more like

some of those

like Chinese

and Buddhist drawings

where there's just

a very small number

of lines

but every line

is very, very important

because there's

just a few of them

and it shows

the real skill

of the artist

and that's what

Paul is doing here.

What he's doing here

is he's saying

is this

George

I have just described

your mind

and one day

in the midst

of your mind

being the way

your mind

is

the message

of Christ

came

not what was

this message

of Christ

this message

of Christ

is that God

saw George

your unbelievable

need

and your inability

to unbend

your mind

and fix yourself

he saw

the direction

and flow

of your heart

and your inability

to fix that yourself

he saw you

in your weakness

he saw you

at your worst

and God's response

to that

is love

he loves you

and so

Jesus comes

and lives

the life

that you could

never live

he dies a death

in your place

he rises

from the dead

he defeats

that which keeps

you separated

from me

burying it

in his person

he defeats

death

his perfect light

all of

what is going

to be now

described

you hear this

message

and this

message

pierces

your darkened

mind

not because

of the power

of my

not because

my mind

is somehow

special

that I have

an IQ

that you

don't

I have

an aptitude

that you

don't

know

the power

comes from

the proclamation

of Jesus

Christ

as Savior

and Lord

which is

humbly

shared

in my case

by an ex-drug

addict

who shared

that with me

in a way

that pierced

me

pierced

me

and that

message

comes to

our darkened

mind

and what

happens

I

my

I'm

I respond

with yes

and he

becomes my

Savior and

Lord

and how

can you

describe

what has

just now

happened

when I

in my

darkened

mind

have heard

the gospel

and it

pierces

me

not by

my

power

but by

the power

of the

gospel

the love

the power

of love

the power

of mercy

the power

of grace

the power

of goodness

and it

pierces me

and how

can I

understand

what

happens

well

the Bible

says

George

here's

how

you

can

understand

what

just

happened

the light

of the gospel

comes in

and Jesus

takes

your old

existence

in Adam

and he

takes it

off

puts it

away

he said

your old

existence

as Adam

I paid

for that

on the

cross

and then

you move

to the

third

image

and George

there's

you

you're

naked

you're

shivering

you're

pitiable

I put

on

this new

life

this new

life

that is

eternal

that begins

to

you begin

to experience

eternity

now

but it's

it's a

new

it's a

new

putting

on

that's

my

perfect

fulfillment

of life

my perfect

relationship

with the

father

that now

stands

for you

I died

for the

old

thing

that came

on me

that's

why it's

off of

you

and what

you now

have is

my standing

before God

and I put

that on

you

and my

standing

before you

and this

new

clothing

is preparing

you to

live the way

that I always

designed creation

to live

and is preparing

you for the

new heaven

and the new

earth

and I put

that on

you

I put

that on

your mind

and the

in between

thing

is it's

not just

that I

took

this off

and I put

this on

and then

off I

go and

do some

more fun

things

no

the very

very center

of who

you are

the very

center

of your

spirit

the center

of your

mind

there's

now like

an IV

and my

life

and my

wisdom

and my

mind

is coming

into you

every day

until you

die

and see

me face

to face

or I

come again

and you

see me

face

to face

and then

there is

no need

for an

IV

because you

become

a beautiful

cup

that I

will fill

with my

love

and my

life

and my

truth

and my

goodness

and my

justice

for all

eternity

and it will

always be new

and it will be

always fresh

and it will never

come to an

end and that

is your

destiny

now in

Christ

that's the

image

so how does

this help us

in the

moral

life

you see

here's the

thing

look again

at verse

verse 24

created

and put on

the new

self

created

after the

likeness of

God

and true

righteousness

and holiness

from our

point of

view

I become

converted

from God's

point of

view

he creates

me

and you

and new

a new

creation

I've used

up my

time

how does

this

matter

how does

this help

us

here's how

it helps

us

when I

look within

my life

and I

think about

whether I'm

doing bad

things or

whether I'm

doing good

things

sometimes I

think there is

good fruit in

my life

I'm not as

snarky as I

used to be

I think I

don't get

angry as

quickly as

I used

to and

I'm not

going to

start going

through all

my vices

by the way

okay you

know those

things that

George you

still got a

lot of

work to

do in

this and

this and

this and

this but

here's the

thing when

I look

within

what happens

is this

I either

get filled

with pride

because I

imagine that

there's lots

of good

fruit or I

get filled

with despair

because there's

not much

good fruit

or I

pretend

and deny

as if there

is lots of

good fruit

when everybody

around me

knows that

there isn't

see what

happens to

human beings

is this

it's all

part of

how our

minds are

bent

having good

things that

we accomplish

becomes my

hope

my identity

my fuel

but here's

the problem

I and

you and I

will never

have enough

good fruit

in your life

to silence

your conscience

or the

devil

or the

world

isn't that

true

unless all

you do

is pretend

deny and

pretend

deny and

pretend

deny and

pretend

and everybody

else is

holding their

nose like

this when

they're around

you

but you're

denying and

pretending

denying and

pretending

but when I

look into

my life

and I

want to

have the

good

accomplishments

I want to

have the

good fruit

and my

hope is

built on

that

my identity

is based

on that

my fuel

to do

other good

things

is built

on that

but the

fact of

the matter

is that

my good

fruit

there's

never

enough

to silence

my conscience

to silence

the devil

and to

silence

the world

what am I

to do

what happens

every time

we do

communion

Jesus is

about to

go to

the cross

and his

disciples

and his

20,000

foot

in the

air

understanding

of what's

about to

happen

and he

gives them

a very

simple

habit

and discipline

to help

them learn

how to

live

their life

in light

of what

he's about

to accomplish

and what

does he

say

my body

given for

you do

this

in

remembrance

of me

the blood

of a new

covenant

a new

way of

relating

that I

have

established

it can

be for

you

this is

the blood

of the

new

covenant

do this

in

remembrance

of me

every morning

I wake

up and I

can choose

to forget

I can

just act

as if

nothing

has ever

happened

of importance

in my

life

and what

happens

is I

walk

out of

the baseline

of my

mind

but what

do I

do

as a

human

being

I'm

trying to

deal

with moral

things

I'm

trying to

deal

with

the

end

of the

day

it's

not

just

that

the

gospel

I

put

my

faith

in

Jesus

to

save

me

I

need

to

put

my

faith

in

the

gospel

every

day

to

live

I

cannot

say

to you

that

Christ

has

put

off

the

old

self

and

put

on

the

new

self

and

that

I

am

being

renewed

every

day

by

the

Holy

Spirit

and

by

God's

word

on

the

basis

of

the

fruit

of

my

accomplishments

if

I

try

to

tell

you

that

and

if

I

believe

that

for

myself

I

will

be

crushed

I

will

die

I

cannot

do

that

it

does

not

work

it

doesn't

work

for

you

I

believe

that

Christ

made

me

right

with

him

and

I

need

to

hear

that

gospel

over

and

over

and

over

again

I

can

say

to

the

Lord

Lord

my

fruit

is

not

showing

that

the

old

self

is

gone

you

have

clothed

me

with

a

new

one

and

I

have

been

renewed

by

your

Holy

Spirit

but

I

believe

in

Jesus

I

believe

he

died

on

the

cross

I

believe

he

rose

I

believe

he

came

and

gave

me

life

I

believe

his

light

came

into

who

I

am

I

believe

that

that

is

true

I

believe

I

have

an

old

self

and

a

new

I

believe

that

that

is

true

I

need

to

hear

the

gospel

what

happens

when we

start

to

believe

the

gospel

and

with

gospel

comes

more

and

more

real

to

us

as

we

remind

ourselves

of

it

as

we

preach

the

bible

about

it

and

as

we

understand

that

it's

Christ

who

takes

away

my

old

self

that

it's

Christ

who

gives

me

the

new

self

that

it's

Christ

who

gives

me

the

Holy

Spirit

that

comes

into

my

whole

myself

there's

two

things

that

come

the

first

thing

is

I

can

look

at

my

life

and

my

day

and

I

can

see

the

world

as

it

is

and

I

have

a

security

and

a

hope

to

roll

up

my

sleeves

and

in

the

power

of

Christ

to

deal

with

it

amen

remembering

the

gospel

can

roll

up

my

sleeves

see

the

world

as

it

is

and

say

Jesus

help

me

to

deal

with

it

the

other

thing

that

happens

as

the

gospel

becomes

more

real

to

our

hearts

and

to

our

minds

is

that

we

can

work

out

a

gratitude

a

security

that

comes

in

our

identity

in

Jesus

a

gospel

based

identity

that

we

can

work

out

of

gratitude

that

means

I

don't

have

to

deny

I

don't

have

to

pretend

I

don't

have

to

be

proud

of

my

accomplishments

why

Jesus

pierced

the

gospel

pierced

my

darkened

mind

and

when

the

Holy

Spirit

helped

me

to

say

yes

Christ

took

off

my

old

self

Christ

puts

on

the

new

self

Christ

renews

me

day

by

day

all

praise

and

glory

to

him

please

stand

Christians

remember

the

gospel

remember

it

when

you

gather

in

your

small

groups

remember

it

in

your

families

remember

it

as

you

face

your

day

remember

it

as you

celebrate

accomplishments

remember

it

as

you

deal

with

bad

news

help

us

to

pray

for

me

that

I

remember

it

that

I

can

help

you

to

remember

it

that

you

can

help

me

to

remember

it

Christians

remember

the

gospel

and if

you're

here

and you've

never received

the gospel

friend

today is

the day

you can

become

a new