A Heavenly Wardrobe

Seems to be a fascination with fashion today. One night I was trying to find the National Geographic Channel and stumbled across a channel that I believe is called the Style Channel. I didn't know there was such a thing. I don't know how you fill up air time with style. How do you do that? But there is such a thing. I guess a style channel. I was looking for a program on Discovery Channel one night and flipped it on and there was a program called What Not To Wear. That one doesn't even make sense to me. I mean, you can't even go out of the house just knowing what not to wear. You got to know what to wear. You got to put something on, right? To get out of it. So that just makes no sense to me at all. But it seems that people are fascinated today with fashion. You've seen the before and after pictures, haven't you? The woman who the before picture, she's kind of doubtful looking frown on her face. Always frowning. These ladies could do a lot for themselves if they just smile and comb their hair. But anyway, unkempt hair, they're frowning and no enthusiasm or zeal for life at all, exhibited in their face. And then there's this after picture, you know, after they've gone to the salon and they have had their hair cut and styled and colored and they've had their eyebrows fixed and they've got a new paint job and they have all this new clothing, the latest style of clothing. And they walk out just brimming with confidence and a smile on their face and you can just see it in the after picture, their husband and children love them now. And their friends all flock to them now and she's just been promoted to the CEO of her company before she even gets home. I mean, we've really bought into this idea as a culture that a makeover, a new wardrobe means a new you. And it doesn't. Because it doesn't change anything really of significance that has any eternal value whatsoever. Let me tell you something. Paul has a better idea for a makeover. Paul has a better idea for a new wardrobe and it's a heavenly wardrobe. He describes it for us in Ephesians 4. Want you to locate Ephesians 4 in your Bibles, please. A wardrobe that never goes out of style. Paul is calling us to holy lives to put off the old put on the new. In fact, in this passage, he uses that terminology. Putting off the old putting on the new. Those were terms that were used in Paul's day of clothing changes. Putting off one wardrobe, putting on another kind of clothing. So Paul is literally talking about changing your wardrobe, doing a makeover, becoming the new you spiritually. Now we need a little reset. It's been a few weeks since we've been in Ephesians with Christmas and New Year's and all the things that were going on there. So let me kind of reset a minute and let's make sure we understand where we are in the flow of thought, the book of Ephesians. The book of Ephesians is all about our great salvation, the salvation that Jesus Christ won for us by his death on the cross and all of the riches that we have in him being his children. In the first three chapters, Paul describes that salvation. He gives us the doctrine of that salvation. He talks about our wealth in Christ. In the last three chapters, he talks about our duty, not the doctrine, but the duty that is incumbent on us that we are responsible for now that we have that salvation. He's not talking as much about our wealth in Christ as he is our walk in Christ. How are to live? Now last time when we were in Ephesians, we saw that the first thing Paul talks about in this section of how to live because of our salvation, is that we need to live in unity. There must be a unity among believers and in the church and so forth. We got to live in unity. Now today we're going to see that the second truth that Paul says is our duty, our responsibility in living out the Christian life is that we've got to live in holiness. We need to live in holiness. We need to live a different lifestyle now that we know Jesus as our Savior. In fact, he opens up this section, which is verses 17 to 32. He opens it up with a command in verse 17. Look at it with me if you will, please. And this sets the tone. This is the theme of the next several verses, really, of this whole section through verse 32. Verse 17 says, so I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do. Now there's the theme. Now that we have this great salvation, we are not to live like the Gentiles live. And notice Paul's serious about this. He says, I tell you, I mean it's almost like he jerks us up by our collar and says, listen to this. And I insist on this, kind of a double whammy there. I'm telling you, by insist on this and he says, it's not just my feeling, I'm insisting on this in the Lord. This is the way God looks at people too. This is the way God looks at humanity. This is the way God looks at life. The Lord Jesus is saying this through Paul to you and to me today. So this is serious stuff. What is it that he wants us to hear? What is it that he insists on that he's so imperative about that we no longer walk like the Gentiles? He says, what does that mean? I are a Gentile, aren't I? I know that's bad grammar. But I are one. Well you are if you're not a Jew. But you see sometimes in the New Testament the word Gentiles used ethnically, racially, of someone who's not a Jew. But in other places in the New Testament the word Gentiles used morally to mean anyone who is not in the family of God, anyone who's unsaved, anyone who might live an ungodly or wicked lifestyle. And that's the way Paul uses it here. So what Paul is saying is this, now that you are saved, don't live like unbelievers. Don't live the lifestyle of unbelievers. That's the theme of these next 15 or so verses. Now we're just going to take the first half of it today where Paul describes what it means to live a holy life and then in verses 25 to 32 we'll see next week that he flashes it out and gives specific examples of what he means by living a holy life. Some things we're not to do and things we are to do. Well let's find out what he means by living a holy life and not living like the Gentiles, like unbelievers. What he does is he sets up this huge contrast between the lifestyle of unbelievers and the lifestyle of believers. It's very plain, very clear. This huge contrast, he begins in verses 17 through 19 by describing the lifestyle of unbelievers. This is what will happen to a person who continues to reject Christ. What I want you to see in these verses is there is a natural progression downward. Let's just read the verses and then we'll pick out the pieces of them. Verse 17, so I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Being lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more. Now in those verses Paul gives us a progression, a downward progression, a spiral if you will, a terrible downward path that a life outside of Christ, a life of an unbeliever, can and will lead to. Now in order to really catch the progression we have to begin at the end of verse 18 because he's kind of working his way down. He starts about talking about the futility of their thinking and then he says, well this is why that came and then this is why that came and finally at the end of verse 18 he gets to the real origin, the real beginning of this downward spiral. The first step is hardness. Hardness of heart, he says. You see it there in verse 18? Hardness of heart. The rest of what he's talked about in verses 17 and 18 comes because of the hardening of their hearts. Now the word here, hardening literally means something in Paul's day, it was used for something that was harder than marble. We would say today this kind of person has a heart of stone. It's a heart that is beyond feeling, beyond sensitivity, beyond understanding and receiving the things of God. How do you get a hard heart? You get a hardened heart by continual resistance to God's truth. When you continually resist the truth of God, your heart gets a little harder every time you do that. You know it's kind of like when you work with your hands and the longer you push that shovel into the ground, the more you get little calluses on your hands and the less you feel, the more you work that way the harder the calluses become. Your hand hardens. That's possible for your heart to harden too. The hardening of your heart comes when you resist God's truth. There's a parallel passage to this one in Ephesians 4 in Romans chapter 1 and Paul says it this way in Romans 1, verse 18. He says, the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the Godlessness and wickedness of men and here's where it starts, who suppress the truth by their wickedness. Then he goes on a couple verses later to talk about that leading to hardness of heart. But when you suppress or hold down or resist the truth of God, that leads to a hardness of heart. Here's how it works. When you hear the word of God or when God in your own thinking pricks your mind and conscience about your sin or about your need of him. There is a resistance. There is a determination to remain where you are. There is a resistance to God's truth and insistence on doing it your own way. There is literally a spiritual act of saying no. No, I resist that. And when that happens, your heart gets a little harder every time you do it. Now when your heart gets hard, when you continue to resist God's truth and you continue to back away and say no, not yet, no, not now. Wait till later. Whenever you do that, you are putting yourself in a very dangerous position spiritually, very dangerous. In fact, there's a verse in Proverbs, Proverbs 29 and verse 1 that reads this way. It's on the screen. A man who remains stiff necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed without remedy. Now you see that? Same thing we're talking about. He's had many rebukes. He's had many times where his heart or her heart has been spoken to by the Word of God. But stiff neck just resisted, just said no, suppressed that and would not yield to the truth of God's Word. A person who does that over and over again is leading to a point in their lives where sometimes at some point they will be suddenly destroyed and without any hope, without remedy. It's a very dangerous path to start on, my friend. But the first step in the lifestyle of an unbeliever, this first step in this downward progression that leads to really bad stuff is a hardness of heart. The second step is ignorance. Ignorance. See it there in verse 18? They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of, he's digging a little deeper here because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Now in our culture today which highly prizes education, people don't like to be thought of or called ignorant. But when you think about it, the word ignorance simply means misinformed or lack of information about a particular topic. You can be brilliant in other areas and be ignorant about one particular area. And when you think about it, all of us are ignorant in some areas aren't we? I sure am. Mine is technology. I'm ignorant when it comes to technology. And just when I think I've got something figured out, somebody tells me you're 10 years behind. It's already out here somewhere and you just now got this figured out. So you know, I can understand a report that I read or heard about in the Wall Street Journal that described some of the complaints that come into technology companies and their IT people, their technicians that are supposed to help you on the phone figure out what's wrong. They talked about several of these things that happened. Compact computers actually had to rewrite their instruction manuals at the point where they said, press any key. They had to change that to press the return key because they had scores of people calling in asking where the any key was. There was another report of a lady who called in a computer company and they said the technician finally got a little frustrated and said, just send me a copy of your floppy disks. This was a few years ago. Just send me a copy of your floppy disks and we'll try to figure out what's wrong. A few days later they got a letter in the mail that had a photocopy of her floppy disks. Some of you don't get that. You're just as ignorant as I am. Photocopy of her floppy disks. I heard another guy in this report who he called a Dell computers and he said to the technician who was working with him, he said, I cannot get my computer to send a fax. After a few questions, the technician figured out the guy was trying to send a fax by holding the paper up in front of the monitor. Even I know you got to hold it up in front of the printer. Even I know that. But we're all ignorant in some field. There are some field that all of us are ignorant. What Paul's talking about here is spiritual ignorance, the worst kind. Spiritual ignorance. You may be brilliant. You may be well educated, well read and very articulate and be spiritually ignorant. Because if you continue to harden your heart against the truth of God, that leads to misinformation being misinformed about what it means to have a relationship with God. You simply don't have the right information. You simply don't understand and know the truth about how to have a relationship with God. You're ignorant spiritually. So that's the next step. Hardness of heart leads to spiritual ignorance having the wrong information being misinformed about what it means to really have a relationship with God and be saved. But then there's a third step. In this downward progression, this spiral downward, the third step is darkness. Darkness. You see it there in verse 18? They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God. This is a spiritual darkness. Again, spiritual hardness of heart, resistance to God's truth, leads to a spiritual ignorance which eventually will darken you. Literally to the point that the Bible says the state of an unsaved person is blinded to spiritual truth. Blinded to spiritual truth. Now that can happen gradually. There's a sense in which every unsaved person is blind to start with. We come into this world with no spiritual vision. But there's also a sense in which spiritual blindness can develop over a period of time as a result of resisting the truth of God. It's kind of like the way your eyesight works. You first of all notice a little film over your eye. Things are just not quite as clear as they used to be. And you don't think too much about it. You just think, well, I'm getting older and got to blink a little more or whatever. Try to clear out my eyes. All of a sudden things really start getting clouded. You go to the doctor and you say, you got a cataract. It's got to come out. Now if you don't do that, eventually a cataract will destroy your lens and you will be blind. That can lead to blindness. It'll happen progressively, but you can eventually lose your sight over stuff like that. So what happens is spiritually when we resist the remedy, God's truth, and we don't have the right information about having a relationship with Him, we become dark and spiritually. The lights go out. And that's when people start exploring all kinds of other options. Well, I think I'll do this. I'll do that. I'll join this. I'll become this. I'll try to do a little better here and they start exploring other options, completely blind, stumbling in the dark about what it really means to have a relationship with God. Or they start trying all kinds of other stuff in life to find fulfillment and pleasure and enjoyment in life, thinking maybe that's where it's at. But that only leads to step number four. Step number four is emptiness. Hardness leads to ignorance, which leads to darkness, which leads to emptiness. That's described in verse 17. So I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking. And then you describe how all that got to that point. Really, the futility of thinking is step number four. The word futility is a word which means meaningless, purposeless, empty, empty. It's a good word to describe it. Empty. This is the same word that's used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament in the Book of Ephesians. You remember that the Old Statement that happens over and over again, or excuse me, Ecclesiastes? Remember the Statement that happens over and over again in Ecclesiastes? Vanity of Vanity of all is vanity. You didn't remember that? Well basically it's the word empty. It means there's no meaning or fulfillment or purpose. And the Book of Ecclesiastes tells us that the wisest man who ever lived Solomon tried at all kinds of other things in a maddening pursuit to find some fulfillment and happiness in life. And you can do the same thing. You can try to find it in your work. You can just immerse yourself, throw yourself into your vocation, thinking I will find meaning in life, purpose in life there. And you'll come up, you'll come up being empty. You can throw yourself into learning. And just think if I can learn more and learn more and learn more, then that will be the key to a happy life and you'll find inside an emptiness of soul. You can throw yourself into accumulating possessions and you can do very well at that and get all the toys and all the stuff that money can buy and at the end of the day you find there's still a hole there, an emptiness that's not satisfied. You can throw yourself into fun and entertainment and pleasure and enjoyment and still find that there's an emptiness inside. By the way, that can happen at a very young age. Kurt Cobain shocked Gen X back ten years ago, 1996. The lead singer for the rock group Nirvana shocked his generation by committing suicide at age twenty-six, twenty-seven. He wrote a note to his wife before he committed suicide. This is what he said. He said I haven't felt the excitement of listening to and creating music for quite a few years now. He went on to give his thanks to all of his fans. He says, I quote from the pit of my burning nauseous stomach. And his note ended, it is better to burn out than to fade out. He signed at peace, love and empathy, none of which he ever found in his life. Twenty-seven years old, he had tried everything the world had to offer. All the fun, pleasure, sex, drugs, money, toys, everything, he had tried it all by age twenty-seven and there was an emptiness inside that he could no longer live with. Some of you might be right at that door today. There is nothing that will fulfill your heart and your soul's need apart from a relationship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ. This path will inevitably lead, inevitably lead downward toward emptiness. You say, well that's about as bad as it can get, right? No. There are two more steps. The next step is recklessness. You see Paul has described in verses 17 and 18 kind of this downward spiral. Now he says, when you get to this point, this is the direction many people take. In fact, this is the natural direction people take if they don't check it at this point. The next step is recklessness. You see what he says in verse 19? Having lost all sensitivity, which is basically a description of what we've just said in verse 17 and 18. And he says, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity. This verse traces the results of coming to that emptiness in your soul when you get to that point in the chain reaction that started with resisting God's truth. When you get to that point, you know what a lot of people do? They say, what's the use? Nothing really has any meaning in life. I'm just going to throw myself into whatever makes me feel good, pleasure. And that usually translates into, as Paul says, sensuality, some kind of sexual sin, some kind of expression of sexuality that they think will provide them some kind of pleasure and fulfillment. And the Bible says they indulge in that and they even get into every kind of impurity. That comes about as a result of people saying, what's the use? What's the use? I'm just going to throw myself into whatever makes me feel good if there's nothing more to life than what I've experienced. August 2000, issue one, August 2000, issue of USA Today told the tragic story of three teenage summer employees in Yellowstone National Park that had just gotten out of a swim in Fire Hole Creek and they were walking by a pool of water and they decided to jump in. Thinking it was just an ordinary pool of water. It was one of the thermal hot springs, 178 degrees. The newspaper reported one of those young people died as a result of the burns. The other two at the writing of that article were critical condition. Can you imagine the scene? Can you see it in your mind's eye? You're having a ball of a time. You know, they just been swimming, having a great time. I had to jump in over here and recklessly throw themselves into that pool of water, not understanding the consequences of that jump. And that's what a lot of people do in life. That's what a lot of people do in life. They get to the point where they think the only thing that really provides any fulfillment in life is just to throw myself into whatever brings me pleasure. Here I go. I'm throwing all for strengths. I want to jump in with both feet and don't realize what they're getting into. The consequences of their lifestyle. Recklessness, all kinds of indulging in, deeper into, all kinds of impurity, all kinds of sensuality. If that doesn't describe our culture, nothing does. It's the direction we're headed. We are steeped in it today. You know why we have music stations that play the oldies in the 60s and 70s music because there are a lot of people that cannot stomach the lyrics of secular music today. Because it has, and I read an article on this recently, has progressively gotten more and more descriptive, sexually and immorality and just offensive stuff, blatantly offensive stuff. Our culture's headed that direction. This on this downward spiral. Look at the movies that are advertised on television today, where the TV sitcoms. It doesn't have a sexual edge to it. It doesn't sell. Our culture is steeped and immersed in this very description of sensuality, of indulging in every kind of impurity. The largest business in the world today is the business of pornography. For money is taken in through the various forms of pornography than the music and movie industry put together. It's a sign of where we're headed as a culture, into the cesspool of impurity and immorality. And that happens when people sense an emptiness in life and a who cares attitude, I'm jumping in to get all I can get out of life that makes me feel good. But then that leads to a final step, the step of hopelessness. Hopelessness. You see it there in verse 19? They give themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more. So once they're engaged in this lifestyle of impurity, there's a continual desire for more. The idea and the word literally for continual desire is a word which is translated often in a New Testament by simply the word greed. What we're talking about here is a mental greed that wants more and more and more. A lifestyle of sensuality, sexual immorality, sinful sensuality never satisfies. It only leads to a greater appetite for more. It's exactly what Paul warned us about here. And so what happens to people who are this far in the downward spiral? What happens to them? They're involved in all kinds of impurity, maybe differing kinds, deeper levels of impurity. And what happens is even though they know what that is doing to themselves and what that's doing to their relationships, they can't stop because there's an insatiable greed for more. It is an addiction. The greatest addiction today is not drugs and alcohol as terrible as that is. The greatest addiction in our culture today is pornography. And there is an insatiable desire for more. Paul says, when you get to this point, there's an insatiable desire for more. And so these people live in a world where they love their sin but they hate the bondage that it's brought them into. That is a description of hopelessness. Hopelessness. Hate what they're doing. Hate themselves every time they immerse themselves in that sin but can't get out of it on their own, on their own. And that is a hopeless, hopelessness that is so rampant in our culture today. In 1996, Parade magazine, the supplement to your Sunday newspaper, 1996 had an article on David Letterman. And in that interview, he kind of opened up his heart about his childhood. He talked about what his childhood was like and growing up in relationship with his dad. And he said this. He said, we had such good times fishing. That was something we'd do together. And through adolescence, it was still exciting and fun. Then later in his life, and I'm quoting David Letterman now, then later in his life my dad was a heavy drinker. I was also a heavy drinker. It was like we were hopelessly lost but making good time. By the time I was an adult and working back in Indianapolis, the purpose of our fishing excursions had just become, let's go out and get drunk. I mean, there weren't even interested in fishing anymore. Hopeless. Did you catch what he said about how he felt? It was like we were hopelessly lost but making good time. Hopelessly lost but making good time. That is where a lot of people are today. And it is the final result of the lifestyle of an unbeliever who began with resisting God's truth, developing a hardness of heart which led to a spiritual ignorance and a creeping darkness over their mind and heart which then led to an emptiness of soul, a desire to find some fulfillment in pleasure in life, a reckless abandon to that, and then eventually it leads to hopelessness because it's not even found there. Now I know what some of you are thinking. Some of you are thinking, it doesn't describe me. No, I'm not saved. I don't know Jesus is my savior but I've never gone to that depth and I never will. And you know what? You may never go to that depth. Not everyone does. It's the natural progression of things but some people, because of community pressure, family pressure, whatever, manage to check their impulses at a certain level but the kind of culture we live in which is naturally progressing this way makes you feel very comfortable about where you are because you can look at someone else and say, huh, I didn't do it. I didn't do what he did. And I've never gone to that depth. I've never done that. And you see what's happening to you? You're still in your hardness of heart and your spiritual ignorance. You're still outside of Christ. You don't know Jesus. You're not going to go to heaven when you die but you're very comfortable where you are because you compare favorably to some other people and Satan loves that because he's still got you. He's still got you. You may not go all the way down this progression, all the way down the tubes to the very bottom. You may not go that far. You may check it at some point but Satan's pleased with that too because he's still got you. The lifestyle of an unbeliever. Now here's the Zinger. Paul says, you Christians don't live like that. This is a message to believers. He's describing a lifestyle of unbelievers and it's natural progression but he's saying you Christians in the midst of that culture immersed in a society that is headed that direction don't live that way. Don't live that way. Now there's a new wardrobe you've got to put on Paul's S. There's what not to wear but there's also a new wardrobe, the lifestyle of a believer that you need to be putting on and if I were to subtitle this I would say this is becoming the new you. This is the makeover. This is becoming who you really are in Christ. And Paul says there's also a logical sequential progression here too. It's five steps. We'll look at them quickly. Five steps in this progression of putting on the lifestyle of a believer. The first one is knowing Christ. You see what he says there in verse 20? You however did not come to know Christ that way. Talking about the wages, he's just referenced in 1719. You didn't come to know Christ that way. So the first step in this progression out of that old lifestyle is to know Christ, to know Christ, knowing Him. Now that means first of all to know Him as your Savior. It means that you must come to a point in your life where you recognize that as a sinful human being as all of us are, as a sinful human being, you are on your way to an eternity apart from God if you don't receive His Son Jesus as your Savior. It's only provision God's made for you to escape that lifestyle and the judgment that it will bring an eternity is to know Christ as your Savior, to receive Him as your Savior. But this idea of knowing Christ goes beyond that. The Greek word literally means to learn Christ. And it means to learn Him, not just to know Him as your Savior, although that's where it begins. It means to learn Him, to study Him, to learn His lifestyle, His values, His requirements for you, what He wants for you, you learn Him, you watch Him so you learn Him. That's where it begins. That's where a godly lifestyle, new wardrobe, that's where the makeover begins is with knowing Christ. But secondly, there has to be hearing Christ as well. Hearing Christ as well, verse 21. Surely you heard of Him and were taught in Him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. The word of, heard of Him, the word of is not in the original text. In fact, the King James is a really a better translation here where it just says, you heard Him. It's exactly what Paul's talking about. You heard Him. Now, when do you hear Jesus? I'm not talking about hearing Him in an audible voice. I'm not talking about you, you know, suddenly going to a trance or something and you hear this voice. Now, notice what He says in the verse. He says, you heard Him and were taught in Him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. In other words, whenever you hear the truth of God's Word, you're hearing Jesus. Now I'm not under some kind of illusion as to who's speaking up here, okay? I know very well who I am. And I know I'm not Jesus. But Paul's point is this, whenever the truth of God's Word is preached or taught, it is Jesus who's walking down the aisle and stopping at your pew and sitting down beside you and opening up your heart and saying, this is what you need to do about this. He's teaching you. You're being taught and you're hearing Him. And He's teaching you and accord with the truth that you've heard of Jesus in accordance with the Word of God. Now my friend, if you're ever going to live a holy life and put off the old lifestyle, put on the new lifestyle, you've got to start with the new life style. You've got to follow up on that by hearing Him. By getting into His Word and letting Him speak to your heart in church services and Bible fellowships and other opportunities in your own personal time in His Word, getting into this book and letting Him teach you, teach you the truth of His Word. So knowing Christ, hearing Christ, the third step in putting on a new lifestyle of holiness is this, putting off the old lifestyle. Putting off the old lifestyle, okay, we've got to make some decisions and some definite steps to put off that old lifestyle. Verse 22, He says, you were taught. In other words, when you hear Jesus, this is what you're taught. You were taught with regard to your former way of life to put off your old self which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires. What does it mean to put off your old self? Well theologians and commentators differ on whether or not this means, you know, the once for all, putting off of the old man that's done its salvation, you know, the kind of thing that Paul says when you're in Christ, you're a new creation, the oldest, gone, the new has come. Is it talking about that or is it talking about a regular, continual putting away of sinful thoughts and attitudes and activities? And people go back and forth about what this is talking about. You know what? It's both end. It's both end. It's not either or. The Bible teaches, first of all, that we do have a new position in Christ where we're not the old person we used to be. The old man is crucified with Christ. The Bible says that there is that positional truth in Christ. But the Bible also teaches that every day of our lives we have to take specific steps with His help and strength and power to put off the lifestyle of the old man or the old self. I like to picture it this way in a biblical illustration of Lazarus. You remember when Lazarus was raised from the dead by Jesus? And he came out of the tomb, walking out of the tomb, probably shuffling because he was still wrapped with those grave clothes, the cloths, strips of cloth. He comes out. He's a new person. He's alive. He's not the same person he was. But the first thing Jesus said when he saw him was to people who were standing by, take off the grave clothes and set him free. Now you see, in Christ we're made new. We're new creatures. We're made alive. We're not the same people we used to be. The old life is gone. We're new creatures in Christ. But we still got some grave clothes to take off. We still got some things to put off about our lifestyle. I love the way Kent Hughes says this in his excellent commentary on Ephesians. He used the pastor of college church in Wheaton, Illinois, and frequent professor in several seminaries and adjunct basis. He says this. He says scripture and experience teach us that no one has ever succeeded in shedding the garments of the old life with a solitary, unrepeated action. Those who live holy live so by repeated putting off. The problem is the old garments are so comfortable and natural. Not only that many of us have warned them so long that they naturally drape over us and we scarcely know we are wearing them until the Holy Spirit reproves us. It's a good statement and it's true. You see my friend, if what you battle with from your old life is pride, you will have to put that off every day of your life. You are a new creature in Christ with the ability through the Holy Spirit's power and that new direction in your life, the Bible calls the new nature, you have the power to do that, the ability to do that, but you are going to have to deal with that every day of your life. If what you struggle with in your old life was greed or materialism or lust or whatever it may be, bitterness or whatever it may be, you are going to have to deal with that every day. It's not going to be. Now I am saved. It's gone. I am going to have to fool that again. No, no. You will deal with that and struggle with that and you will have to do some putting off every day, putting off the old lifestyle. That leads to step number four. When you put off the old lifestyle, what's the next thing to do? You think, oh, we'll put on some new stuff, right? No. The next step is renewing the mind. Renewing the mind. Verse 23, to be made new in the attitude of your minds. No spiritual transformation in the heart ever takes place in the life of a believer without the renewing of the mind. You see, we have to start immersing our mind in God's Word so that we learn to think like He thinks. We learn to respond like He responds. We learned that this is what He expects of me now in my new life in Christ. This is the way I am supposed to live. I have got to change the way I think. My mindset, my approach to life, my whole philosophy of life needs to be changed. It needs to become biblical. It needs to become Christ-like. There must be a renewing of the mind before you start putting on. It kind of goes along with putting on it. It could be done at the same time. But that leads me to the fifth step in developing holiness, putting on a new lifestyle, becoming the new you. That is putting on the new lifestyle, verse 24. And to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. This new self, this new you, if you will, the language Paul uses reminds us of the creation in Genesis 1. He says, this new you is created to be like God. That reminds us of what it was with Adam and Eve. They were created in God's image, sharing a moral spiritual likeness to God. Now that image was marred in the fall. It was severely damaged in the fall. The Bible does teach. We still have the image of God in us, but it's been very, very damaged by the fall. So what God is doing in the new creation and salvation is he's recreating the image of God in you and in me, which means, as he says in verse 24, to be like him. The whole process of growth in the Christian life is God remaking what he designed us to be in the Garden of Eden. He knew that creation of being in his image like him being as Paul calls it in other places conformed shaped into the image of Christ being made like him. And that results in, as he says, righteousness and holiness. It's a putting off of the old lifestyle, but it's a putting on of a new lifestyle, which is holy and righteous and is like the way Jesus is. Well, are you ready for a spiritual makeover? You're ready for some after stuff? We've lived in the before picture long enough. Are you ready for some after? Are you ready to put on a new wardrobe to become the new you? And as Paul says, what you've got to do is daily set aside the old clothes of the old lifestyle, whether it's lust, pride, selfishness, materialism, whatever it may be, in your case, you've got to daily put that away, put it off. And then you need to grow in your understanding of God's Word and what He teaches you. You need to hear Him and put on this new lifestyle every day that the Bible says, it's okay, Lord, I want to be remade in this area of my life. I put off the old today. I say no to that. And I put on the new. I'm saying yes to the way you tell me to live by your grace, by your strength, by the Holy Spirit that you put within me. Help me to say yes to the right things today. To live a new life, to become the me that you've made me to be in Christ. That's the pursuit of holiness that the Bible talks about. You ready for that? You ready for that? Let's go for it by God's grace. Would you pray with me, please? Father, help us to put on today the garments of grace and to really become the new us, the people you've made us to be in Christ, living up to the position that you've given us. Lord, we thank you for our great salvation. For the position you've given us in Christ, a perfect standing before you that we can never be condemned, but Father, help us now to do like Paul says and to live, to live in holiness. To put off the old, put on the new, to be more like Jesus every day. Lord, I pray that you would be very specific in your spirits working in our hearts now. Help us to look at areas where we're still living the old clothing and putting that on. Lord, help us to understand where we need to put on new clothing. In Jesus' name we ask, amen.