Putting On The New Man
We have been doing a series titled "Renewing Your Mind", where we have seen that it is extremely important that EVERY believer renews their mind in order to enjoy the new life, and enjoy a relationship with God. Christianity can be summarized as a process of renewing one's mind, knowing God and releasing what God put inside us during salvation. It all begins with renewing of the mind.
Today we will talk about who you became when you accepted Christ. As we were beginning this series, we mentioned that we were once enemies of God, and in the kingdom of darkness. The most important thing and basic thing for every believer to do, in the process of renewing one's mind, is to constantly remind oneself of who they became when they accepted Christ.
The reason why we have so many Christians who accepted Christ but still continue to live defeated lives in sin is because they have never taken time to understand who they were, and who they have become now, and what is required of them. Today we want to talk about this important aspect of renewing of the mind, which is putting on the new man.
You became a new creature when you accepted Christ.
2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
As a new creature, you have to renew your mind according to the new man that you have become, according to the word of God. You have to realize that you are not who you were before. Like we said earlier, you are a spirit, possessing a soul, living in a body. When you got born again, it is your spirit that was reborn (John 3:6). Your body and your soul are still the same as they were; your soul is being renewed, while your body is wasting away (Romans 8:23, 2 Corinthians 4:16). One third of you (your spirit) is complete and new, created in the image of God, resembling Christ, one with Christ, and is perfect forever (Hebrews 10:23, 1 Corinthians 6:17, 13:9-10, 1 John 4:17).
The word of God, as we saw earlier, is spirit, and so are you. When you act according to the word of God, you allow the new man, the inner man (your spirit), to live, in other words you put on the new man, as this man is always in alignment to the word of God, is one with Christ, and even has the mind of Christ!
1 Corinthians 2:16
But “who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
So you see, the new man is perfect and complete, a complete person, with even a mind of his own, the mind of Christ. This is the man that should be living, not your old man. The old you is dead.
Ephesians 4:17-24
This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; 19 who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. 20 But you have not so learned Christ, 21 if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth that is in Jesus: 22 that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, 23 and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.
The above verses are very rich. Paul says that before there is a way of walking of the Gentiles, and describes the characteristics. Before we were born again, we used to walk in this manner. When you understand verses 17-19, you will never judge unbelievers, and when you understand verses 20-23 you will understand what happens when Christians are saved but continue to live as if they were not saved. There is a way of walking of the Gentiles, of the world. Like we said two weeks ago, when you were born the world was ready to shape/ conform you to its form. The devil, working through the world, is determined to ensure that you are shaped into what the world and it systems looks like, and keep you from knowing who you really are, who God created. The first step is to influence your thinking, and make your mind futile. This word “futile” is the same one that is used in Psalm 94:11:
The Lord knows the thoughts of man, that they are futile.
You were born innocent, and like an empty vessel you needed to be filled, to be trained. Whatever comes your way you take, and this is why even Solomon cautioned against how children are raised:
Proverbs 22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
The devil knows this secret, and goes to work to train you through the world. By the time he’s done with you, you are futile in your thinking, meaning you are not productive. Productivity of the mind comes only through the word of God. This means that when you are futile in your mind you think unproductive and meaningless thoughts. He also darkens your understanding, so that you can never understand the things of God, which is explained by the fact that most people who are in the world can never understand the things of God:
1 Corinthians 2:14
But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
1 Corinthians 1:18
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
Once he does this, you cannot receive from God, and can be said to be cut off from the life of God. Jesus came that we may have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10), but through darkening of the understanding and blindness of the heart hinders many from receiving this life. The futility of mind and darkening of understanding results in ignorance and blindness of the heart, which results to you being given over to doing evil with a passion, working all uncleanliness with greediness. You were once also “past feeling”, meaning that your conscience was seared. This means that you could not feel guilty when you erred, the part of you that God put in you to tell you of good and evil is as good as dead. This is why it is hard for an unbeliever to hear the conviction of the Holy Spirit and immediately yield to it, as opposed to a believer. Searing of the conscience occurs through hardening of the heart, and it is sin that causes this:
Hebrews 3:12-13
Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; 13 but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
This is why as believers we shun sin. The Holy Spirit is there to work with your conscience to help you obey God. Sin is disobeying God, and is unbelief as it is you failing to trust God, and doing things your own way. All sin is unbelief, as God says one thing, but you, not believing Him, do the opposite. When you continue in sin, the conviction of the Holy Spirit fades off with time, as your heart becomes hardened, and you are cut off from the life of God, as we saw in Ephesians 4:18. This is what happened with Adam and Eve; they did not believe God and went on to do what He told them not to do, sinned, and got cut away from the life of God. The Holy Spirit’s work is not to keep telling you you are wrong; it is to convict you of one sin, which is unbelief:
John 16:8-11
And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: 9 “of sin, because they do not believe in Me…”
All sin is, is you failing to believe God, and choosing to believe in your own judgments. Sin is missing the mark, missing God's mark. The only reason why we miss God's mark often is because we tend to trust our own judgments more than His, which is as a result of unbelief. For example, if God tells you not to lie, He knows that the devil is the father of lies (John 8:44), and when you lie you are imitating him (the devil), and thereby becoming like him. God is truth, and there is no lie in Him (Hebrews 6:18); speaking the truth makes you more like your Father, God. Most people lie to cover up the truth, and when you lie you are covering up the truth, who is Jesus (John 14:6). This is unbelief, as you do not believe in God to fight for you, defend you, or make you look good, so you have to lie to do please men. For example, picture John, a Christian, who gets to work late. The reason as to why he got to work late is because he woke up late, after staying up almost all night, watching movies. When he gets to the office, he finds his boss really angry and ticked off, who tells him that he has to have a very good excuse as to why he was late, or else he is fired. If John says the truth, that he was up watching movies, he will definitely be fired. The only chance John sees of getting away with this one is lying that he woke up feeling ill and had to pass by the hospital. In human sense, it looks sensible as John would be protecting that which God gave him (a job), and besides, it's only one time. That's the human sense, but according to the word of God he who lies belongs to his father, the devil (John 8:44). John, by confessing his mistake and apologizing, would be obeying God by speaking the truth, and trusting that God's mercy would ensure that even if he loses the job, God still had better plans for him, as He is a merciful God (Lamentations 3:22, Hebrews 8:12). It takes total trust in God to stick to telling the truth, in this present age.
If God tells you not to sin, it’s for your own good. If God tells you not to commit sexual sin, He knows that it’s bad for you, as you will be sinning against your own body (1 Corinthians 6:18). Sexual sin is unbelief, as you do not believe that God will satisfy your desires, so you have to seek self-satisfaction, and end up sinning against your own body, since it was not created for sexual immorality (1 Corinthians 6:13). God can satisfy your every need, especially if those needs or desires will cause you to sin. God is not a sadist. He knows that if He tells you not to do something, it is possible not to do it, and makes His grace available to help you overcome (2 Corinthians 12:9). You can overcome every temptation that comes your way, as God cannot allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear (1 Corinthians 10:13). All sin is an attempt to draw you from depending on God to depending on yourself, and is an attempt to keep you from believing God.
This is why the Holy Spirit’s work is mainly to convict you the one sin of unbelief, whenever you sin, reminding you to trust God for whatever sin is telling you to do, to trust in His word. The Holy Spirit will not condemn you. When you were an unbeliever, your conscience was seared, and your heart hardened. When you accepted Christ, God gave you a new heart, a heart of flesh, that could hear Him.
Ezekiel 36:24-27
“For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all the countries, and bring you into your own land. 25 Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all filthiness and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.
I believe Hebrews 3:13 calls sin deceitful because it never tells you that you will feel condemned by your heart and by the devil after sinning, and will always tell you that you are doing it only once. The Holy Spirit NEVER condemns you when you sin; it is the devil who does so, and your new heart of flesh, which has been trained to obey God (Romans 8:1, 1 John 3:20). The new heart is just to help you to remain obedient to God, so when you do not it warns you to get back in line. If you ignore this, the heart starts getting hardened, the conscience starts getting seared, the voice of the Holy Spirit convicting you of unbelief starts fading off, and eventually you fall, as you continue to sin.
We do not shun sin because if we sin God will strike us; that is the Old Testament mentality. With understanding now, and with our understanding enlightened by the Holy Spirit through the work of the Cross, we shun sin because it is bad for us, and separates us from the life of God. A young toddler, without understanding, can only be trained through caning. This is because they cannot understand much. If you tell them not to touch a burning stove, that it will burn them, they will not understand why, as the stove looks so red, attractive and nice. The only thing they will understand is caning; you cane them when they attempt to touch the stove. They will not touch the stove because they are afraid of caning. You are using caning to keep them from the real danger, burning. When the child grows to maturity, you no longer cane them, but explain to them why things are the way they are. In the Old Testament, people never understood why they were told not to do some things, since they were immature, without the Holy Spirit dwelling in them. This is why the law was given to train them. The law was supposed to tame evil, and bring people to an end of themselves, to realize that they cannot achieve holiness and perfection on their own strength, that they actually needed a savior. Because they could not understand why not to sin, without the Spirit of God in them, they were given the law to tame them, and keep them from sinning.
Galatians 3:24
Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25 But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.
With the coming of Christ, the Holy Spirit, faith and grace, now we have understanding of why we really do not sin. We do not need a cane (read fear of punishment) to keep us from sinning, we have understanding and so we know that sin is actually bad for us. We know that you become a slave of who you yield to or obey, so when we yield to sin we understand that we become slaves of the devil, slaves of sin (Romans 6:16). Every Christian has the capability to stay from sinning, since we are dead to sin:
Romans 6:6-7, 11-12, 14
…knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. Foe he who has died has been freed from sin.
11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.
14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law but under grace.
If God tells us not to let sin reign in your bodies, it means it is possible, by His grace. We can live without sin, as it has no dominion over us, as we are dead to sin. Grace is the game changer.
A man without understanding and with a seared conscience can do anything, which shows you again why Jesus came and died for us, to set us free and deliver us from the kingdom of darkness.
Colossians 1:13
He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love…
When you accepted Christ, you were delivered, and made into a new man. This is the new man Ephesians 4:20-24 urges us to put on. This new man is exactly like Christ (1 Corinthians 6:17, 1 John 4:17), and therefore has been taught by Christ. If you have been born again, you need to shun the old man, who was futile in thinking, with a darkened understanding, ignorant, blind in the heart and given over to lewdness and uncleanliness. Sin takes you back to the old man, as it revives the old you, the part in you that loved sinning. Many people are confused when the Bible says that the old man of sin is dead, as they wonder why then they still find themselves wanting to sin. The old man is dead, but left some residue in us, after training our bodies to sin for quite a while. The part of us (the flesh) that was trained by the old man to sin is what desires sin. If we continue renewing our minds to God's word and remembering that the old man is dead and therefore sin has no more dominion over us, continuing to walk after the new man, then we will live victoriously and overcome sin.
The new man, who has been born of God, cannot sin.
1 John 3:9
Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.
This new man has been created after the image of God, and is one with Christ (1 Cor. 6:17), Who never sinned. If we learn to walk in this new man, sin will be a foreign concept to us, just like it was to Christ. It may seem impossible, but the more you renew your mind to the word of God, seeing yourself as the word of God sees you and says you are, the more you will start believing this truth and walking in accordance to it. The old man was created in sin; the new man on the other hand is created in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:24).
Going back to our main text of Ephesians 4:17-24, we see that if you are a new creature and refuse to put off the old man, you will find yourself living like the old man, and therefore end up again being cut off from the life of God. You put off the old man by making a choice to leave your old life and everything you were doing and start living like the new man you have been made into, according to the word of God. The old man, if allowed to continue to live, grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts. This means that the old man is attracted to sin lust, which is very deceitful as we have seen. Lust tells you that you will do something only once, not telling you that you will be addicted, and when you yield to this man you find yourself given over to doing these things, without thinking. The word of God as we saw last week tells us who we are, how we should think, behave and live. The word of God, being spirit, tells you who you are, reflecting the new man to you. Your new man knows everything, so it’s your soul that needs to know how the new man that you are is like, so that it starts walking according to this new man. The more you abide in God’s word, meditate on it and receive it as we saw in the previous sermon, the more you will train and program your soul to walk according to the new man, and know who you really are. This is when you start reflecting Christ.
Paul continues to say that once we have put off the old man, we need to be renewed in the spirit of our minds, which is the mind of Christ which is in us (1 Corinthians 2:16). This mind of Christ is a gift from our Savior, and is the mind of our spirit. This is the mind that thinks according to the word of God, that shares the thoughts and purposes of Christ. We need to allow the mind in our soul to be renewed by the Holy Spirit, into thinking in line with the mind in our spirits. The more we allow our minds to think in line with the word of God, the more we end up putting on the new man, and living according to the new man, who has been created according to God (in His image – Genesis 1:26-28, John 3:8, Ephesians 4:24), in true righteousness and holiness.
After Paul tells us to put on the new man, he goes on to tell us of things we should put off: lying, stealing, speaking of corrupt words, bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, evil speaking and malice (Ephesians 4:26-31). He finishes by telling us to be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving as we were forgiven (Ephesians 4:32). He shows us how to put off the old man, and how to put on the new man. He shows us who we were before we got saved and the identifiers of the old man, and who we are now and how we should be behaving. You put off sin by resisting the devil and his works (which includes sin – James 4:7), by resisting temptations, and submitting to God, obeying His word and drawing near to Him (James 4:7-8).
Colossians 3:8-17
But now you are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, 10 and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, 11 where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all. 12 Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; 13 bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone complaint against another: even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. 14 But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. 15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. 17 And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
Paul repeats the same thing in the above verses: identifying the nature of the old man and his deeds, and telling us that the reason we should stop doing these things is because we have put off the old man and his deeds, and have put on the new man. Notice that this new man is renewed in knowledge according to the image of God. The more you know God, the more this new man is renewed in you, and you start walking and reflecting the image of your Creator. The more you abide in knowledge of God, which is why He saved us (Isaiah 43:10), the more you are renewed according to the image of God. You can only know God through prayer (meditation on the word of God, communion with God).
As Paul is saying in the above verses, it is important for us to put off the old man, if at all we have been made new. The old man will only cause us to go back to our old ways, if we keep yielding to him. By spending time in the word of God and doing it as the Holy Spirit leads and prompts, we get to put on the new man, and renew our physical minds according to the new man, and thus are able to walk in righteousness and holiness.
As Paul says in Ephesians 4:18, once our understanding was darkened, which is why we were behaving the way we were behaving, quick to sin and fall. Now, our understanding has been enlightened, by the word of God:
Psalm 119:130
The entrance of Your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.
Psalm 19:8
The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes…
By eyes, the Psalmist did not mean the physical eyes, but rather the eyes of your understanding. These were closed to prevent us from believing, and thus having the light of the word of God shining on us.
2 Corinthians 4:4
But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.
When we believed in Jesus, our understanding was enlightened. The more we spend time in the word and pray, the more our understanding is enlightened, and the more we understand who we are and why we are saved:
Ephesians 1:16-23, 2:6
...[I] do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, 18 the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power 20 which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.
22 And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, 23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
6 ... and [God] raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus...
This is why it is important to renew our minds; to know who we are, who God made us to be and wants us to be, and to be the same. When we do this and continue doing this, we have overcome the battle of the mind.
Jesus came to undo the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). Whatever the devil did in your life, God undid: the devil held you captive, God set you free (Colossians 3:13, John 8:36)); the devil made your mind futile, God gave you the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16); the devil darkened and blinded your understanding and heart, God opened your eyes and understanding, and gave you a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26); the devil stole your relationship with God and cut you off from the life of God, while God restored your relationship with Him, and called you back to know and believe Him (Isaiah 43:10); the devil stole your love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control, making you like him, while God gave you all these back, as fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-25), and made you exactly like Him (Ephesians 4:24, 1 John 1 John 4:17); the devil made us losers, while God made us more than conquerors (Romans 8:37) – all through Christ. I could go on and on, but you can see that God did whatever He needed to do to enable you to live a godly life, victorious as a son, like His Son. We have no excuse not to reflect Christ. God did all He needed to do, and still lives in us, to help us reflect Christ, live victoriously and enjoy the life of God abundantly (John 10:10).
The ball is in our court, and it starts with a decision to renew your mind, and walk according to the new man whom God created you as.
Renewing of the mind is not a one-time thing; it is a process, and takes effort. Renew your mind today to start thinking and acting according to the new man you have been created to be, according to the image of God, walking in true righteousness and holiness. Renewing of the mind starts with the word of God, and ends with the word of God. It starts with God, and ends with God.
Amen.
Brother Sam Gitonga is a Youth Leader at Teaching Transformation Ministry. We are located along the Thika-Ruai Flyover Junction (at the Thika Rd./ Bypass intersection), Next to Eastgate Restaurant.
Today we will talk about who you became when you accepted Christ. As we were beginning this series, we mentioned that we were once enemies of God, and in the kingdom of darkness. The most important thing and basic thing for every believer to do, in the process of renewing one's mind, is to constantly remind oneself of who they became when they accepted Christ.
The reason why we have so many Christians who accepted Christ but still continue to live defeated lives in sin is because they have never taken time to understand who they were, and who they have become now, and what is required of them. Today we want to talk about this important aspect of renewing of the mind, which is putting on the new man.
You became a new creature when you accepted Christ.
2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
As a new creature, you have to renew your mind according to the new man that you have become, according to the word of God. You have to realize that you are not who you were before. Like we said earlier, you are a spirit, possessing a soul, living in a body. When you got born again, it is your spirit that was reborn (John 3:6). Your body and your soul are still the same as they were; your soul is being renewed, while your body is wasting away (Romans 8:23, 2 Corinthians 4:16). One third of you (your spirit) is complete and new, created in the image of God, resembling Christ, one with Christ, and is perfect forever (Hebrews 10:23, 1 Corinthians 6:17, 13:9-10, 1 John 4:17).
The word of God, as we saw earlier, is spirit, and so are you. When you act according to the word of God, you allow the new man, the inner man (your spirit), to live, in other words you put on the new man, as this man is always in alignment to the word of God, is one with Christ, and even has the mind of Christ!
1 Corinthians 2:16
But “who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
So you see, the new man is perfect and complete, a complete person, with even a mind of his own, the mind of Christ. This is the man that should be living, not your old man. The old you is dead.
Ephesians 4:17-24
This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; 19 who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. 20 But you have not so learned Christ, 21 if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth that is in Jesus: 22 that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, 23 and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.
The above verses are very rich. Paul says that before there is a way of walking of the Gentiles, and describes the characteristics. Before we were born again, we used to walk in this manner. When you understand verses 17-19, you will never judge unbelievers, and when you understand verses 20-23 you will understand what happens when Christians are saved but continue to live as if they were not saved. There is a way of walking of the Gentiles, of the world. Like we said two weeks ago, when you were born the world was ready to shape/ conform you to its form. The devil, working through the world, is determined to ensure that you are shaped into what the world and it systems looks like, and keep you from knowing who you really are, who God created. The first step is to influence your thinking, and make your mind futile. This word “futile” is the same one that is used in Psalm 94:11:
The Lord knows the thoughts of man, that they are futile.
You were born innocent, and like an empty vessel you needed to be filled, to be trained. Whatever comes your way you take, and this is why even Solomon cautioned against how children are raised:
Proverbs 22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
The devil knows this secret, and goes to work to train you through the world. By the time he’s done with you, you are futile in your thinking, meaning you are not productive. Productivity of the mind comes only through the word of God. This means that when you are futile in your mind you think unproductive and meaningless thoughts. He also darkens your understanding, so that you can never understand the things of God, which is explained by the fact that most people who are in the world can never understand the things of God:
1 Corinthians 2:14
But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
1 Corinthians 1:18
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
Once he does this, you cannot receive from God, and can be said to be cut off from the life of God. Jesus came that we may have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10), but through darkening of the understanding and blindness of the heart hinders many from receiving this life. The futility of mind and darkening of understanding results in ignorance and blindness of the heart, which results to you being given over to doing evil with a passion, working all uncleanliness with greediness. You were once also “past feeling”, meaning that your conscience was seared. This means that you could not feel guilty when you erred, the part of you that God put in you to tell you of good and evil is as good as dead. This is why it is hard for an unbeliever to hear the conviction of the Holy Spirit and immediately yield to it, as opposed to a believer. Searing of the conscience occurs through hardening of the heart, and it is sin that causes this:
Hebrews 3:12-13
Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; 13 but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
This is why as believers we shun sin. The Holy Spirit is there to work with your conscience to help you obey God. Sin is disobeying God, and is unbelief as it is you failing to trust God, and doing things your own way. All sin is unbelief, as God says one thing, but you, not believing Him, do the opposite. When you continue in sin, the conviction of the Holy Spirit fades off with time, as your heart becomes hardened, and you are cut off from the life of God, as we saw in Ephesians 4:18. This is what happened with Adam and Eve; they did not believe God and went on to do what He told them not to do, sinned, and got cut away from the life of God. The Holy Spirit’s work is not to keep telling you you are wrong; it is to convict you of one sin, which is unbelief:
John 16:8-11
And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: 9 “of sin, because they do not believe in Me…”
All sin is, is you failing to believe God, and choosing to believe in your own judgments. Sin is missing the mark, missing God's mark. The only reason why we miss God's mark often is because we tend to trust our own judgments more than His, which is as a result of unbelief. For example, if God tells you not to lie, He knows that the devil is the father of lies (John 8:44), and when you lie you are imitating him (the devil), and thereby becoming like him. God is truth, and there is no lie in Him (Hebrews 6:18); speaking the truth makes you more like your Father, God. Most people lie to cover up the truth, and when you lie you are covering up the truth, who is Jesus (John 14:6). This is unbelief, as you do not believe in God to fight for you, defend you, or make you look good, so you have to lie to do please men. For example, picture John, a Christian, who gets to work late. The reason as to why he got to work late is because he woke up late, after staying up almost all night, watching movies. When he gets to the office, he finds his boss really angry and ticked off, who tells him that he has to have a very good excuse as to why he was late, or else he is fired. If John says the truth, that he was up watching movies, he will definitely be fired. The only chance John sees of getting away with this one is lying that he woke up feeling ill and had to pass by the hospital. In human sense, it looks sensible as John would be protecting that which God gave him (a job), and besides, it's only one time. That's the human sense, but according to the word of God he who lies belongs to his father, the devil (John 8:44). John, by confessing his mistake and apologizing, would be obeying God by speaking the truth, and trusting that God's mercy would ensure that even if he loses the job, God still had better plans for him, as He is a merciful God (Lamentations 3:22, Hebrews 8:12). It takes total trust in God to stick to telling the truth, in this present age.
If God tells you not to sin, it’s for your own good. If God tells you not to commit sexual sin, He knows that it’s bad for you, as you will be sinning against your own body (1 Corinthians 6:18). Sexual sin is unbelief, as you do not believe that God will satisfy your desires, so you have to seek self-satisfaction, and end up sinning against your own body, since it was not created for sexual immorality (1 Corinthians 6:13). God can satisfy your every need, especially if those needs or desires will cause you to sin. God is not a sadist. He knows that if He tells you not to do something, it is possible not to do it, and makes His grace available to help you overcome (2 Corinthians 12:9). You can overcome every temptation that comes your way, as God cannot allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear (1 Corinthians 10:13). All sin is an attempt to draw you from depending on God to depending on yourself, and is an attempt to keep you from believing God.
This is why the Holy Spirit’s work is mainly to convict you the one sin of unbelief, whenever you sin, reminding you to trust God for whatever sin is telling you to do, to trust in His word. The Holy Spirit will not condemn you. When you were an unbeliever, your conscience was seared, and your heart hardened. When you accepted Christ, God gave you a new heart, a heart of flesh, that could hear Him.
Ezekiel 36:24-27
“For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all the countries, and bring you into your own land. 25 Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all filthiness and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.
I believe Hebrews 3:13 calls sin deceitful because it never tells you that you will feel condemned by your heart and by the devil after sinning, and will always tell you that you are doing it only once. The Holy Spirit NEVER condemns you when you sin; it is the devil who does so, and your new heart of flesh, which has been trained to obey God (Romans 8:1, 1 John 3:20). The new heart is just to help you to remain obedient to God, so when you do not it warns you to get back in line. If you ignore this, the heart starts getting hardened, the conscience starts getting seared, the voice of the Holy Spirit convicting you of unbelief starts fading off, and eventually you fall, as you continue to sin.
We do not shun sin because if we sin God will strike us; that is the Old Testament mentality. With understanding now, and with our understanding enlightened by the Holy Spirit through the work of the Cross, we shun sin because it is bad for us, and separates us from the life of God. A young toddler, without understanding, can only be trained through caning. This is because they cannot understand much. If you tell them not to touch a burning stove, that it will burn them, they will not understand why, as the stove looks so red, attractive and nice. The only thing they will understand is caning; you cane them when they attempt to touch the stove. They will not touch the stove because they are afraid of caning. You are using caning to keep them from the real danger, burning. When the child grows to maturity, you no longer cane them, but explain to them why things are the way they are. In the Old Testament, people never understood why they were told not to do some things, since they were immature, without the Holy Spirit dwelling in them. This is why the law was given to train them. The law was supposed to tame evil, and bring people to an end of themselves, to realize that they cannot achieve holiness and perfection on their own strength, that they actually needed a savior. Because they could not understand why not to sin, without the Spirit of God in them, they were given the law to tame them, and keep them from sinning.
Galatians 3:24
Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25 But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.
With the coming of Christ, the Holy Spirit, faith and grace, now we have understanding of why we really do not sin. We do not need a cane (read fear of punishment) to keep us from sinning, we have understanding and so we know that sin is actually bad for us. We know that you become a slave of who you yield to or obey, so when we yield to sin we understand that we become slaves of the devil, slaves of sin (Romans 6:16). Every Christian has the capability to stay from sinning, since we are dead to sin:
Romans 6:6-7, 11-12, 14
…knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. Foe he who has died has been freed from sin.
11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.
14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law but under grace.
If God tells us not to let sin reign in your bodies, it means it is possible, by His grace. We can live without sin, as it has no dominion over us, as we are dead to sin. Grace is the game changer.
A man without understanding and with a seared conscience can do anything, which shows you again why Jesus came and died for us, to set us free and deliver us from the kingdom of darkness.
Colossians 1:13
He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love…
When you accepted Christ, you were delivered, and made into a new man. This is the new man Ephesians 4:20-24 urges us to put on. This new man is exactly like Christ (1 Corinthians 6:17, 1 John 4:17), and therefore has been taught by Christ. If you have been born again, you need to shun the old man, who was futile in thinking, with a darkened understanding, ignorant, blind in the heart and given over to lewdness and uncleanliness. Sin takes you back to the old man, as it revives the old you, the part in you that loved sinning. Many people are confused when the Bible says that the old man of sin is dead, as they wonder why then they still find themselves wanting to sin. The old man is dead, but left some residue in us, after training our bodies to sin for quite a while. The part of us (the flesh) that was trained by the old man to sin is what desires sin. If we continue renewing our minds to God's word and remembering that the old man is dead and therefore sin has no more dominion over us, continuing to walk after the new man, then we will live victoriously and overcome sin.
The new man, who has been born of God, cannot sin.
1 John 3:9
Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.
This new man has been created after the image of God, and is one with Christ (1 Cor. 6:17), Who never sinned. If we learn to walk in this new man, sin will be a foreign concept to us, just like it was to Christ. It may seem impossible, but the more you renew your mind to the word of God, seeing yourself as the word of God sees you and says you are, the more you will start believing this truth and walking in accordance to it. The old man was created in sin; the new man on the other hand is created in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:24).
Going back to our main text of Ephesians 4:17-24, we see that if you are a new creature and refuse to put off the old man, you will find yourself living like the old man, and therefore end up again being cut off from the life of God. You put off the old man by making a choice to leave your old life and everything you were doing and start living like the new man you have been made into, according to the word of God. The old man, if allowed to continue to live, grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts. This means that the old man is attracted to sin lust, which is very deceitful as we have seen. Lust tells you that you will do something only once, not telling you that you will be addicted, and when you yield to this man you find yourself given over to doing these things, without thinking. The word of God as we saw last week tells us who we are, how we should think, behave and live. The word of God, being spirit, tells you who you are, reflecting the new man to you. Your new man knows everything, so it’s your soul that needs to know how the new man that you are is like, so that it starts walking according to this new man. The more you abide in God’s word, meditate on it and receive it as we saw in the previous sermon, the more you will train and program your soul to walk according to the new man, and know who you really are. This is when you start reflecting Christ.
Paul continues to say that once we have put off the old man, we need to be renewed in the spirit of our minds, which is the mind of Christ which is in us (1 Corinthians 2:16). This mind of Christ is a gift from our Savior, and is the mind of our spirit. This is the mind that thinks according to the word of God, that shares the thoughts and purposes of Christ. We need to allow the mind in our soul to be renewed by the Holy Spirit, into thinking in line with the mind in our spirits. The more we allow our minds to think in line with the word of God, the more we end up putting on the new man, and living according to the new man, who has been created according to God (in His image – Genesis 1:26-28, John 3:8, Ephesians 4:24), in true righteousness and holiness.
After Paul tells us to put on the new man, he goes on to tell us of things we should put off: lying, stealing, speaking of corrupt words, bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, evil speaking and malice (Ephesians 4:26-31). He finishes by telling us to be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving as we were forgiven (Ephesians 4:32). He shows us how to put off the old man, and how to put on the new man. He shows us who we were before we got saved and the identifiers of the old man, and who we are now and how we should be behaving. You put off sin by resisting the devil and his works (which includes sin – James 4:7), by resisting temptations, and submitting to God, obeying His word and drawing near to Him (James 4:7-8).
Colossians 3:8-17
But now you are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, 10 and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, 11 where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all. 12 Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; 13 bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone complaint against another: even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. 14 But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. 15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. 17 And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
Paul repeats the same thing in the above verses: identifying the nature of the old man and his deeds, and telling us that the reason we should stop doing these things is because we have put off the old man and his deeds, and have put on the new man. Notice that this new man is renewed in knowledge according to the image of God. The more you know God, the more this new man is renewed in you, and you start walking and reflecting the image of your Creator. The more you abide in knowledge of God, which is why He saved us (Isaiah 43:10), the more you are renewed according to the image of God. You can only know God through prayer (meditation on the word of God, communion with God).
As Paul is saying in the above verses, it is important for us to put off the old man, if at all we have been made new. The old man will only cause us to go back to our old ways, if we keep yielding to him. By spending time in the word of God and doing it as the Holy Spirit leads and prompts, we get to put on the new man, and renew our physical minds according to the new man, and thus are able to walk in righteousness and holiness.
As Paul says in Ephesians 4:18, once our understanding was darkened, which is why we were behaving the way we were behaving, quick to sin and fall. Now, our understanding has been enlightened, by the word of God:
Psalm 119:130
The entrance of Your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.
Psalm 19:8
The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes…
By eyes, the Psalmist did not mean the physical eyes, but rather the eyes of your understanding. These were closed to prevent us from believing, and thus having the light of the word of God shining on us.
2 Corinthians 4:4
But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.
When we believed in Jesus, our understanding was enlightened. The more we spend time in the word and pray, the more our understanding is enlightened, and the more we understand who we are and why we are saved:
Ephesians 1:16-23, 2:6
...[I] do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, 18 the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power 20 which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.
22 And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, 23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
6 ... and [God] raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus...
This is why it is important to renew our minds; to know who we are, who God made us to be and wants us to be, and to be the same. When we do this and continue doing this, we have overcome the battle of the mind.
Jesus came to undo the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). Whatever the devil did in your life, God undid: the devil held you captive, God set you free (Colossians 3:13, John 8:36)); the devil made your mind futile, God gave you the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16); the devil darkened and blinded your understanding and heart, God opened your eyes and understanding, and gave you a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26); the devil stole your relationship with God and cut you off from the life of God, while God restored your relationship with Him, and called you back to know and believe Him (Isaiah 43:10); the devil stole your love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control, making you like him, while God gave you all these back, as fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-25), and made you exactly like Him (Ephesians 4:24, 1 John 1 John 4:17); the devil made us losers, while God made us more than conquerors (Romans 8:37) – all through Christ. I could go on and on, but you can see that God did whatever He needed to do to enable you to live a godly life, victorious as a son, like His Son. We have no excuse not to reflect Christ. God did all He needed to do, and still lives in us, to help us reflect Christ, live victoriously and enjoy the life of God abundantly (John 10:10).
The ball is in our court, and it starts with a decision to renew your mind, and walk according to the new man whom God created you as.
Renewing of the mind is not a one-time thing; it is a process, and takes effort. Renew your mind today to start thinking and acting according to the new man you have been created to be, according to the image of God, walking in true righteousness and holiness. Renewing of the mind starts with the word of God, and ends with the word of God. It starts with God, and ends with God.
Amen.
-- Sam Gitonga.
(09/02/14 Sunday Service Sermon, Teaching Transformation Ministry.)
(09/02/14 Sunday Service Sermon, Teaching Transformation Ministry.)
Brother Sam Gitonga is a Youth Leader at Teaching Transformation Ministry. We are located along the Thika-Ruai Flyover Junction (at the Thika Rd./ Bypass intersection), Next to Eastgate Restaurant.
This series continues to be a blessing to me. Awesome Word of God......Putting on the New Man is very important indeed. It is like putting on new clothes after wearing rugged and worn-out clothes for a long time...the new clothes have already been purchased for us and the only thing we are required is making a choice of putting them on.
ReplyDeleteAmen and amen bro. Wow. We have no option but to put on the new garment, in honor of the price that was paid for us. In the days of ignorance God overlooked (Acts 17:30), but now that we know we have to do something about it, strive to keep the garment on, in humility. You're blessed bro, good to know as usual we are in the spirit.
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