Ephesians Week 7

Welcome to the North Iron Church Podcast.

Our mission is to take the gospel from the Upper Peninsula to the ends of the earth.

We pray this message will inspire and encourage you in your faith journey.

Enjoy our Ephesians series where we break down Paul's letter to Ephesus.

Good morning, my family.

Glad that you're here.

We're going to be looking at that continuously until we're done in the fall sometime here.

We're moving chapter by chapter, looking at what Paul is saying to the Ephesians Church.

That is really a new church.

And a very rich area, very prominent area.

Paul, while he's in prison, writes a book to this church.

He spends some time there discipling the disciples, and he he ends up eventually in prison, writes them a survival manual or a missionary manual for what it's like to be a follower of Jesus in a hostile world, which is very relevant to us as Northiron, this family of disciples.

Us too, a lot of times we're coming out of a culture or the new culture of the kingdom of God in our lives, and it pushes up against our culture that we received either from our nation or our town or our peers or especially our families.

It's opposite of what the gospel culture says that this is how you should follow Jesus.

As many times you'll find in the New Testament, the term the way is used when talking about groups of Christians.

And this is very, I love I love that term because there's action involved.

Following Jesus is an action, just not showing up in church.

It was an action to get here, but you're not done today with the action of your heart.

That God's going to, he's gonna mess with you, he's gonna turn your culture upside down, your values may change, your belief system might change.

You, the Holy Spirit will definitely speak to you uh this morning.

And so we find all this in the book of Ephesians very important for you.

We're actually in chapter four.

If you need a Bible, raise your hand.

We have a great version, a free Bible for you.

We're gonna be in chapter four.

Paul spends uh chapters one, two, and three uh dealing with the theology of salvation.

You need that evident in your life, but it also demands something of your life.

And that's walking with Jesus and changing, exchanging, can I say this?

The transformation of your old dead heart and mind to a new heart and new mind.

That's what God wants for you.

He went to the cross and created salvation in your life to create disciples, not just that you would receive salvation, but that you would be his disciples, disciples that make disciples.

And it's hard.

I don't want to ever I I heard an illustration of this um the other day.

Uh, an illustration, pastors kind of move illustrations amongst themselves, and and I heard a pastor preach this.

He said there in the 1960s there was a recruitment for the armed forces in a very prestigious college, and uh they did they jammed all the students in the auditorium.

It was kind of a job fair, it was pre-job fair in a way where they were gonna go to different booths, but they were giving everyone time to talk about of uh what their opportunities were for these students, and so the military uh were there, and so all four of the armed forces uh had a moment to come up for five minutes and and just greet the student body and tell them the importance of why it is or why is the importance of being a part of the military.

And so the the army recruiter gets up and says, Man, I'm glad to be here.

I'm excited, man.

You need to be a part, you need to come to my booth and be a part of the United States Army.

This is a great opportunity to you.

We're gonna we're gonna be able not only to give you a career, but but listen, the government will pay for your college.

You won't have to pay for the college you're in right now if you'll come and commit yourself to the army.

I hope to see you at my booth.

And so he sits down, and uh a young lady uh came up for for the Navy and she says, Man, you need to be a part of the Navy.

The Navy is an awesome organization to be a part of.

You're gonna be able, I know the Air Force guy's gonna come up here and tell you that you get to fly, but I'm telling you, you're gonna fly way more in the Navy than you will in the Air Force.

You need to come see me at my booth.

And so she sat down, and the Air Force guy came up and said, Man, you get to work on jets, you get to fly jets, the skills that you learn is gonna make you just uh all kinds of money in your life.

Come and give your life to the Air Force, it'll change who you are fundamentally.

We'd love to talk with you at our at our booth right after right after this this uh assembly.

And then it was the Marines uh recruiter's time to come up, and so he walks up and he looks scary, everyone.

Like he has scars, he's ugly, like ugly, ugly, like like Republic ugly.

I know who my audience is.

I know, I know what service you're a part of, by the way.

And he just he he white knuckles the the podium and he just comes up and he just stares at everyone for 60 seconds.

Doesn't say a word.

Makes it real awkward, kind of like it is right now.

And he looks at them and he says, I think I've come and wasted my time.

I look at all of you, I look you in the eye, and I don't see one person out here that could be a potential Marine.

You're expecting me to tell you how the Marines are awesome and you're gonna make the best career move of your life, and you're gonna make all kinds of money, and this is the best portion of the government to be or the military to be a part of, but I'm I'm not gonna tell you that you're going to love it if you're a Marine.

You're gonna hate it.

You're gonna curse the God who created your mother, who's going to eventually create you.

You're gonna go to bed hungry, you're gonna go to bed tired, you're gonna go to bed cold, you're gonna get shot at.

You can potentially die as a marine because the marines are the first ones in and the first ones out.

Last ones out.

Stop messing up my you all know what I'm talking about.

Stop messing with my illustration.

We're the first ones in, we're the last ones out, and again, I don't see anyone here that could be a marina, so I I apologize.

I'm wasting your time, I'm definitely wasting my time.

And he turns around and he walks out.

Well, the people that were there, the students that were there that tell this story say there was a handful at the army afterwards in the Navy and Air Force, but there was a line out the door for the people who are wanting to talk to the marine recruiter.

Now, Jesus, in a sense, can I relate these?

Can I link these?

Does the very same thing.

But Jesus comes with a new revolution of grace and mercy and the mission of God.

He doesn't dumb it down, he holds a high standard, and he basically says to his followers, hey, I want you to I want you to come and die with me.

I want you to pick up your cross and come and die with me.

Why were all those students lined up with with the marine recruiter?

It wasn't because the marine recruiter smiled or dumbed down what was going on or tried to influence them or entice them.

He was speaking the truth.

And people aren't looking in this world, people aren't looking for the easy way, as much as a way of purpose and mission in this world that seems to be without purpose or mission.

So Jesus says, literally, I want you to come and die with me.

Let's create the kingdom of God.

And ultimately, this is what Paul is doing in chapter four.

In a way, he is a gospel recruiter that is laying it out in a very clear way of truth.

Not saying it's not done in love, but he but he but if you if if you start to read chapter four, you're like kind of like, whoa, and we started that last week where Paul is talking about spiritual maturity.

Again, he's talking to a lot of brand new Christians in the Ephesus church, but ultimately he's saying to them, listen, you need to have some spiritual maturity in your life.

You have to stop acting like your mama is still in charge of you.

You gotta stop acting like you're a child.

You need to grow up.

You're you've received this new life, and we're gonna talk a little bit about that.

We're gonna you've received this new life, this new spirit that it begins in chapter four.

That demands something of your life.

I simply want you to become disciples of Jesus.

And that demands that you give up your personal culture and you take on the culture of God.

I hope it's not quiet and on to not inner lock.

I hope you're all in amen amening me there.

Everyone wants a prophetic preacher until he's prophetic.

There's a reason why all the Old Testament prophets were murdered, everyone.

It's true.

All right.

Paul lays out some behavioral things for uh for us in the end of chapter four.

And I want to start a little, we're gonna start, we're not gonna start, I want you to kind of put your mental note in in verse 17, but I want to start in verse 25 through 32, because Paul lists some, and I want to work backwards if I can to the portion of new life.

It maybe even says new life in your Bible there, uh, a portion of scripture uh above this.

But we find that Paul lists all these behaviors, and if you read through all those behaviors, like I've put a couple of them here, man, I want you to, if you're gonna be a follower of Jesus, I want you to tell the truth, don't lose your temper, don't steal, get a job, be kind.

Those all sound really, really great, but honestly, maybe even some of you are thinking, maybe you're not, but let me interject this because I hear it all the time.

Like, people aren't opposed to the morality of being a follower of Jesus.

They would liken it to being the morality of a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness or a Muslim or a Buddhist.

There's a lot of like belief ethics that that kind of cross together.

May it be Mohammed or Gandhi or Tucker Carlson or Oprah or all these, all the influencers of the world who say to you, listen, I want you to believe a certain way, believe like I'm believing, live how I live.

Everyone has kind of this code of ethics, these behavioral behaviors that they want you to follow.

I can't go anywhere without having someone's code of ethics slap me in the face.

I go to get a cup of coffee, and they're like, buy our coffee, change the world.

Uh, you know what?

What does that even mean?

Buy coffee?

Well, well, well, well, Pastor Mark, we give 10% away to starving squirrels in our community.

Would you like to round up?

No, I would not like to round up.

I want all chipmunks to die.

Write that down.

I know Pastor Arlen and Pastor Aaron agree with me.

I can hear them.

There are no chipmunks in Lance.

I just want you to know.

I just want to go to a guilt-free coffee shop somewhere.

Will someone open one up?

Actually, I have one, it's in my house.

But every organization out there, have you guys recognized this?

They have this mission, they have this purpose, and behind it may be Joe Rogan or Myers Grocery Store.

There's kind of some kind of mission or purpose.

If you purchase from us, if you become a part of us, listen, every every great organization, not even great organizations out there, they all have this banner or this mission or this code of ethics or this morality.

Even as Jen and I uh spent a good portion of our lives in in the Soviet system of Russia, we constantly were bombarded with former Soviet people who would give us the 12 points of the code of being a good Soviet comrade.

Things like this, be loyal to communism, work hard for society, grow what belongs to everyone, put uh put the public good first, help each other, treat people as comrades, be honest, truthful, morally clean, honest, and simple.

Like you can go on and on.

And you'd look at that and say, Well, that's that sounds like a pretty good idea.

Except for the we don't even really know, but we estimate anywhere from 50 to 70 million people murdered by these same people that wrote this.

I was just reading about studying a little bit about the people that they would come in and and take in the middle of the night and go and torture.

They didn't they didn't believe in these things or didn't want to be a part of communism.

And so they uh early on, a lot of church leaders, I I know some of those guys.

I hung out and had tea with some of those people that spend their life in a gulag somewhere.

I was just reading about this new thing that has come out where they would take Christians and they would they would torture them by putting their hands in boiling water and then pulling them out, and the skin would fall off their their hands, and they would take that skin and they would make leather gloves for themselves, and the KGB would wear those around.

So, in other words, everyone wants you to be a good boy.

But when it when you boil it all down and you look at the foundations of all this goofiness that people are trying to preach to you, not all of it's goofy, but most of it's all of it, a good portion of it, is moralistic.

What they're trying to get you to do is to accept the religion of themselves.

Every influencer, everyone that has a podcast, all these forms of communication, we all hit the follow button because we want to be followers.

That set of core values, the code of ethics or beliefs that will lead you to a better life or a better version of you, and yet it it still doesn't happen.

There's fundamentally something wrong because I kind of hear this.

Is there any distinctive moral Christian teaching?

Or is it all just the same?

Pastor Mark, I'm cousins with this Mormon guy, and he loves his wife, he has 15,000 children, and they do Little House in the Prairie every week, and it just looks wonderful and beautiful.

Like he's a good guy.

And I work with a Muslim man who who has it all together, and and and man, he's just he's just awesome, or this atheist, or or you you name it, like you know, it's all the one God, but many paths up the mountain to the apex of that experience of being with God.

And the scriptures tell us the complete opposite.

So Paul lays out, Paul lays out what it looks like, and he teaches us the the fundamentally the theology of the difference between Christianity and every other moral religion or organizational code of ethics that are out there.

The the gospel of Jesus is different, and I want to try to teach you that so you can recognize it and understand it in your in your life.

And so Paul starts off in verse 17, like I said, we're gonna start here, and there's really eight version uh verses here, and we're gonna walk through so you understand this theology and understanding before we get to the beliefs of uh or the behaviors of what Paul is laying out.

So he says in verse 17 speaking of this new life that they've all received, by the way, this is important.

That's all of us here, unless you haven't accepted Jesus into your life, and we'll talk about that and give you that opportunity in just a moment.

But he says, now this I say, and I'm testifying in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles live.

And what he's talking about there is not really so much a race of people that that oftentimes we get put into.

It contains races of people, but he's not pointing to a certain nation or race.

He's just pointing to everyone who is far from God.

That in the Old Testament, God chose the Jewish people for no other reason, not because they were strong or or or or or uh strong or powerful or rich or good looking or all those things we would think.

No, he chose them because they were weak.

Scripture says that.

And so he chose them and he revealed himself to them.

If you weren't a part of the Jewish nation, God did not reveal himself to you.

You were separated from God.

And he's saying now today, listen, in the New Testament, as Jesus has already come and brought this new new idea of grace and mercy and salvation, he's saying, now likewise, don't live like Gentiles, don't live like like people who are far from God.

And he explains it, he says, because they've given themselves over to a sensuality.

Man, there's nothing that's speaking this more than today.

We're right there in the first century.

They have given themselves to a sensuality.

Greedy, that word greedy there is important.

You should underline it to practice every kind of impurity.

That word there, really the word for greedy there is what you oftentimes, Paul uses this all the time when he's talking about um lust.

But it's just not a lust.

Like whenever I use the word lust, we always think sexual lust.

And that's not what this word, it does include that, but it's much broader there.

It's it's a Greek word, it really means soul lust, if I can use that, or this this craving, a yearning, a greedy desire.

And your heart has that inside of it.

Because you're alienated from God, and we'll see that in a minute.

This this greedy, this listen, there's some people who are just greedy to be successful.

Or they're greedy to be, they have a soul lust in their lives to create this beautiful family, and at all case, at any cost, they're gonna create this unity in their their family.

They have a deep craving for that.

Or I know people or girls who have had boyfriends from the second grade and they've never not had a boyfriend.

I just I crave, I lust, I have a soul lust for that that relationship, or I want the security of money in my life.

It's all I think about.

It's it's it's my one focus in life.

I'm gonna go after that.

I will lay waste to everyone around me to obtain that.

That's what Paul is saying, this deep hunger craving that comes out of your heart.

And you gotta ask the question well, why is that?

It's because we're in we're in alienated from God.

Hit that next slide because I can't talk.

We're alienated from God.

We were created for God.

We were one with God.

And so when those things happened, not only were you created with God, for God, and you were one with God, it brought this incredible satisfaction in your life.

And then sin comes in and it pushes God's away.

And you get into the culture of sin and it changes your heart, it makes it dead, like dead, dead.

There is no life in you.

Your spirit is dead, your heart is dead, everything you touch is dead.

You're like a cannibal, we're like cannibals out there eating each other to survive in this brutal world that sin has come in and twisted and manipulated us.

And we're we're far from God, we're alienated from God.

We were created for Him, but now we're not satisfied, we're not fulfilled because we're spiritually blind, because our hearts are dead, and I see people search everywhere to fulfill that void that was created for God.

Our hearts have this incredible craving.

The great St.

Augustine wrote, who was, by the way, an incredible, not incredible, but a horrific sex addict.

That's what he called himself before he learned who Jesus was.

He says this our hearts are restless until we find our rest in unity.

So where does that alienation come from?

It comes from this deep craving.

It comes from this ignorance, as Paul shows us in the next portion of the scripture.

An ignorance of who God is, his beauty, his power, his redemption, his purpose in our lives.

There's an ignorance there.

Sin has, you've heard me say it again and again, sin makes you stupid.

And I don't mean that I literally mean that.

Whenever you move towards sin, you move to mental illness, you move to stupidity, you move to spiritual blindness, your heart becomes dead.

And so it creates this ignorance, some people who can't even see God.

Like I'm always confused when I see people maybe even debate on the evidence of God, where you'll have someone who I know is really, really smart, and he probably has a high IQ, and he's up there saying, Well, all the evidence here points that there is no God.

Maybe you have professors like that, and yet you know other people who also are super, super smart, and they're saying, No, no, no, no, no, no.

All the other evidence is actually pointing to God.

Well, why is that?

They're both super smart people.

It's the it's the posture of the heart, not the posture of the evidence.

Paul says that.

It's this ignorance and it create is created in the hardness of hearts.

That's what sin does.

Your heart is stone.

It's stone, it's brass, it's hard, it's concrete, it's dead, it has no life in it.

And you can be incredibly smart and be completely foolish in your worldview because your heart is hardened to the beauty of God and who he is and his power.

I can't see God, Pastor Mark.

And then I have someone saying, How can you not see God?

He's in everything.

I love when people's hearts start to soften, and we'll get to that in a minute, but they start to see God.

Pastor Mark, have you ever really seen a rainbow?

Pastor Mark, man, my life is my I didn't even know this, but life is so good looking.

You get smarter.

Your eyes are opening up.

Your heart, as God says, is new.

It's really not the evidence, every everyone, it's the state of our hearts.

Is what Paul is saying.

It's what Paul is saying.

I hear preachers will use this term a lot.

I think it's pretty good.

The same sun that hardens the clay softens the wax.

The same sun that hardens the clay softens the wax.

And I love as it begins to soften.

Because, hey, we don't like truth.

I don't know if you guys know that or not.

We don't it's offensive to us.

That's why the gospel, you'll hear me say, the gospel isn't offensive.

I try not Mark Brook, your pastor, tries not to be offensive.

I want the gospel, the truth of the gospel to be offensive to you, not me.

Sometimes I don't do so well in that.

But ultimately, I want you to a place where your heart begins to soften.

Maybe you're here, and maybe God started to do something with your heart, your spirit, soften it during worship, and you're like, something's different here.

Something going on.

Not just crazy people.

I start to feel something.

Like God does that in your life.

I love Nietzsche's Frederick's, very famous, if you don't know who he is, uh, atheist, dead, dead, dead now.

But I'm not a, I shouldn't, did I say I was a fan?

I'm not a fan, but once in a while he'll say something really smart, and I liked what he says here about how offensive truth is to us, and it's it speaks to this life we live right now here in America.

He says this the idea of an objective human being who are just disinterested seekers into truth is crazy.

The human heart is too insecure to ever be able to handle the truth.

There is a natural hatred and the fear of truth.

So, listen, we revise our memories, we revise our gender, we revise our sexuality, we revise our worldview to fit the story of ourselves that we want to believe.

There is no way I could ever have done that, says our pride.

So we change who we are and our thinking, and as we say, our truth.

Let me speak by truth.

Why?

Because you can control it, you can mold it, you can shape it.

It's not truth, it's a manipulation.

And our pride does that to us, the greatest of all sins.

And it's not long before the past we remember is the past we want to be true.

Woo! He's an atheist and is in hell, but that is the truth.

And what that does is it creates religion in our lives because we can control religion.

That's not what Jesus wanted.

He wanted to take the Jewish people out of the tradition of religion.

He brought in a new system of grace and what it was to be a follower of Him.

And yet we don't like that.

We don't like what being a disciple is, and so we create our own religion.

Religion, in my opinion, is man-made because it serves our personal interests.

I don't know if you've ever heard this story of the medieval farmer who was out, he has a big garden, he's out tilling his garden, taking care of it, pulling weeds, and he finds this incredible giant carrot.

And he's like, What?

This carrot is fit for a king! And so he decides that he's gonna, out of love for the king, he's going to bring that carrot to the king.

And so he walks in, they set it all up, and he carries in this massive carrot to the king.

And he says, Look, king, I want to give you this carrot.

And the carrot, the king looks at the carrots like, man, that's huge, that's awesome.

Thank you so much for bringing that and giving it to me.

Man, I just I can just tell you're doing it out of the out of your love for me.

And I want you to have more farmland.

Not because you can create a big carrot, but because you you simply just love me.

Of course, the nobleman who was watching all this says, hey man, man, this dumb farmer, he brings in a dumb carrot.

I'm gonna bring tomorrow, I'm gonna bring in something greater.

I'm gonna bring in a magnificent horse, and I'm gonna do the same thing, and I'm gonna see an incredible, a greater payout.

So the next day he brings in, King, I just want you to know I just I have this horse, and I wanted you to have this horse.

It's magnificent, magnificent, it's it's beautiful, and so he he hands, uh brings in the reins, walks it right in, gives it to the to the to the to the king.

And the king in his discernment says, Man, the far the farmer gave the king the carrot, the nobleman gave himself the horse.

This is what religion is.

So we create all these ideas and traditions and systems.

I give to God so He'll give back to me.

I check all the boxes so I don't miss out on what God is gonna do for me.

It's like a formula.

This is where our heart leads us.

And and here's the fundamental change we find in verse 24.

When it comes to our pursuit of God, that uh that uh we've been in this new life, we've been created after the likeness of God in righteousness and holiness.

We've been created in likeness.

Like you I say it this way again, I'm sorry forgive me, you're I'm becoming obnoxious, but I'll say it again and again and again.

Being godly or like God in his likeness is loving the things that God loves and hating the things that God hates.

Why?

Because we've been adopted, he's bred, uh, he's he's breathed life into us, giving me a new heart, he's given me a new spirit.

And so I just want to be like my dad.

I don't need a list of morality.

The Bible is not a list of morality behaviors you need to apply in your life.

This is the core difference between all of the religions and what what God's word says.

That God just wants you to be like him in righteousness, in truth, in holiness.

No one, no one, God doesn't love truth, or let me say it this way: God doesn't love righteousness because there's a punishment waiting for him if he doesn't do that.

No, God loves truth, it's his nature, it's just an expression of who he is, and he wants that for us.

That's why he gives me a new heart, it's why he gives me a new spirit, and he doesn't want me to live as what our our problem is that we have this ignorance, we have this dead heart that doesn't really want God, and that fundamentally needs to change in your life.

And Paul says the solution are really two things: a new knowledge of God, a new heart to delight in that knowledge.

That's important.

Paul says in verse 21 that as you're talking about Jesus, like this is this is important because you need to understand the story of Jesus.

This is this is this is something unique about Paul.

When Paul talks about Jesus, he references Jesus in two ways.

It's easily Christ or Jesus Christ, and then it's just Jesus.

When he's talking in general about the Son of God, he he uses the word Christ or Jesus Christ.

When he's talking about Jesus personally, like the story of God, he uses just Jesus.

And what he's saying to you is number one, that the new knowledge of God comes to us through the story of Jesus.

Like your Bible is not thematic in a way like, well, I need to know how to parent my children.

Turn to page 42.

My wife is driving me crazy and ultimately I'm sinning against her.

Please turn to 104.

Oh, okay.

It's a story.

It's a story with real drama, with real adventure and fear, and real beauty.

And when you begin to consume that and see yourself in that story, the story of God, it fundamentally changes your heart.

It renews the the spirit of your of your mind.

Have you ever watched these incredible large epic movies that Hollywood puts on?

They're usually kind of the same idea where there's this loser.

And it's kind of like Avatar.

Most of you have seen Avatar.

And you know, there's this guy who really doesn't have any purpose in his life, and then he goes on this, this he gets kind of wrapped up in this huge drama of what's going on on this far distant planet.

There's these blue people running around, there's real danger, there's real adventure, there's real uh uh uh fear that's going on, and there's real beauty with this girl, this blue girl she kind of likes.

It's kind of like a creepy beauty with a tale, but anyway.

And it he gets caught up in it.

He gets caught up in this this story, this adventure with real drama and real consequences and and real fear and real rewards and real beauty, and it it changes him, it creates something new in him.

Are you with me?

This is what the story of Jesus does.

When you begin to see yourself, real drama, real adventure.

I tell you all the time, being a disciple of Jesus is the greatest adventure of your lifetime.

Is there gonna be real fear?

Absolutely, but there's real power and there's real beauty who is Jesus.

Our hearts perceive the new knowledge by a renewal of the Spirit of God in your life.

This is what biblical change looks like: the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, using the story of God to make the beauty of God come alive in our hearts.

So let me just run through some real quick ones because I don't have a lot of time.

This is how the gospel change happens in your life, right?

Number one, the gospel change is fundamentally a change of desire.

Again, it's not moralism.

Some of you, listen to me, you're great sheriffs, you're great managers, but you're serving the God of moralism and not serving Jesus.

Moralism is this teaching people that external behavior matters more than internal posture.

Number two, the gospel change begins with being able to spiritually see.

I love how Paul says this in verse 21.

I'll read you the whole verse, but there's something that goes on here.

There's a shift.

Assuming that you've heard about him and were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus.

Put off your old self, which belongs to the former.

You what that's what you used to be.

If that means changing your personality, change it.

If that means doing this, change it.

Leave your old self behind.

Maybe you need to even leave your old friends behind.

Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life.

And listen, it's dead, it's rotten, it's corrupt.

That's what sin does through deceitful desires and be renewed in the spirit of your mind.

And to put on your new self, you're now the sons of light, you're now the daughters of light.

Stop acting like you're the sons of darkness, the sons of disobedience, as Paul says in Ephesians.

Put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness, because you just love the things that God loves.

You love the truth of God.

You love the truth of God.

Number three, gospel changes is a response to grace and not an attempt to earn God's favor.

Forget about religion, everyone.

The gift of salvation to you is gift righteousness.

No matter what and how hard you work at trying to obtain some kind of level of perfection.

Man, you have a dead heart.

It doesn't matter.

The only thing that can make your heart come alive, the only thing that can heal your spirit, heal your life, heal your heart.

Some of you are great managers and you've managed your dead heart, and I just want you to know you're not fooling anyone, you stinketh.

This is a prophetic coming out of me, sorry.

It's gift righteousness, and he gives you a new heart.

It doesn't mean that after you've received this gift, that you don't put your hands to work in the mission of God, but it's because you love him, not because it's a requirement.

Because this is what religions say, or moralistic people, right?

If you obey enough, you will be accepted.

The gospel reverses that.

And this is very important that Paul, and I have a lot of time to run into this, but it's interesting here that he connects us to the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit that's alive and active, he's here right now, speaking to you, changing your spirit, changing your heart, changing your mind, giving you a new belief system, new values, new family, new relationships.

I don't want you to grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Don't grieve the Holy Spirit, everyone.

When the Holy Spirit speaks to you, you should be obedient.

I think I said this maybe last week or the week before.

Listen, you can say you can say no to the Holy Spirit, but your life will Not be renewed.

Your heart won't be renewed.

You'll grieve him.

Mostly how people do this is through bitterness or unforgiveness.

Unforgiveness is the greatest poison of your life.

And if Jesus forgives you, you should be able to turn around and forgive other people.

But some of you are grieving the Holy Spirit by not giving that forgiveness out there.

Forgiveness is heaven, unforgiveness is hell.

When you forgive, you pull heaven down to earth.

When you don't forgive, you pull the hell into earth around you.

So he says, I want you to be imitators of God because he's given himself up for us.

Gospel change is more powerful than religious change.

Don't get caught up in it.

Understand the difference.

A couple ways that Paul says to make that happen.

Be kind and forgiving one another as God has forgave you.

Be tenderhearted.

Another way he says that is listen, be angry.

He doesn't say don't be angry.

He says, be angry.

It's called righteous anger.

Because you know the truth of God.

You understand the truth of God.

You understand his word.

You understand what sin is doing to people around you, not only in your own hearts.

He says, I want you to have righteous anger.

I want you to attack those things in a way.

I want you to weed those things out in your life.

I want you to weed those things out of your family.

Now there are people who are selfish who are have a problem with anger.

That's different, everyone.

And the way he points that out, listen, is the next one.

Don't let the sun go down on your anger.

Meaning that if you go to bed and you're still angry, that means you're doing it in selfish ways.

Self-interest is personal, selfish anger.

But if you can let it go, if you give it to Jesus, man, it's more than likely and can be righteous anger.

Paul's showing us different ways to have like-minded a love of the things of God and a hatred for the things of sin.

And then lastly, and let me pray with you, I want you to stand with me.

The gospel change is total.

As long as you're pursuing Jesus, he is faithful, his promises are true, he'll transform your life, he'll heal you on every level.

And this is why we always close here at Northiron with you moving towards him.

And there's probably a need in your life.

Maybe you're here and you've never accepted Jesus.

I would, I would, I would encourage you to come forward.

There's gonna be a lot of people coming forward, or you need healing.

Scripture says you need to be active in that move.

Some of you may leave exactly how you came in, and that should never be true here at Northiron.

We want your spirit changed, we want your heart changed, we want your life changed.

So let's dedicate that to the Lord this morning as you move forward in worship.

Father, right now, Lord, as we close this service down, your word was spoken, Jesus.

And Lord, we we understand the importance of your gospel that fundamentally everything is different since your son came, died on the cross, and gave us new life with his resurrection of his life in the grave.

Our lives can be transformed and resurrected.

This is why he said it in John.

I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life.

No one comes to God the Father except through me and only me.

Lord, we stand in that promise as we move, Father, trusting your power and your redemption and your presence and your healing in our lives, and we ask all this in Jesus' name.

Amen.