I always find myself when I feel
the most unprepared having the most to say. So as I put to paper
and printed the accumulation of my thoughts and studies and
prayers throughout the week, it came out to be a little bit
longer than normal. So. I pray that God would put
into your ears what needs to be heard and out of my mouth
what needs to be said and that anything else would just go. Last week as a review, we looked
at the construction of Paul's argument now in taking off the
old self and putting on the new self. And if you were like me,
as we ended our text in chapter four, looking at verse or verses
22 through 24. It's very easy for us to then
come to a place to say, OK, now I know what I should be doing
in my Christian world. I should be putting to death
the flesh and putting off the flesh and putting on the new
man. And I should be doing all these things to strive for this
new man. And I should effectively work
to make this new man a reality. It's very easy to get that in
our ears. in our minds and our hearts.
So we leave worship and then we struggle all week long to
be the new man. And when I say new man, I mean
new woman, new person, the new heart. And then we realize, oh,
wow, we're just we can't do it. So what do we do? Are we even
regenerate? Are we even the children of God? Well, God's spirit testifies
that I am. But then yet the evidence says
I look in the mirror of my own soul, I see that I'm not Righteous. What's what's wrong? I'm not
doing something correctly, so I need to keep working. So we
are forever in this teeter totter and fodder of of of a crossroads
of schizophrenia where we can never pull out in the joy of
the Lord and we can never we can never let go of the of the
temptation of the world. And we sort of feel like we're
unable to be effective at all in our faith because there is
just so much turmoil. Well, welcome to the reality
of Christianity. I would suppose that those who
don't have that struggle are probably more in danger than
those who struggle all the time. I mean, let me explain that we
who are recreated in Christ look at the world differently. We
hear things differently, we see things differently, we discern
things differently. Christ becomes our wisdom and
our righteousness and our satisfaction. And as we grow in maturity in
our faith, we then begin to see just the frivolity and the wastelessness
and the futility of this life. You want to get a good glimpse
of that? Look at Solomon's writing in Ecclesiastes. And it'll blow
your mind. Without the Spirit of God, that
text will cause you to be suicidal. And even with the Spirit of God,
you may be suicidal many times throughout it, but you'll come
back, hey, it's all for the glory of God. I read a lot of philosophy,
secular philosophy, I enjoy it. I enjoy reading these arguments
because it's almost like humor. But in the last few months, that
humor, what I used to find as humorous and challenging in the
context of my internal debate for my own thinking and spiritual
walk, I find it to be a little disturbing now. And it burdens
me because even though there may be humor in it. Academically,
it's not humorous when someone is blind to the gospel. It's
horrifying. I don't care how wicked they
are, how evil they are, what they've done, it's horrifying
when you know someone is just a breath away from standing in
the judgment of God. I don't care who they are. And as we grow in our faith,
we'll see that the new man will give us the Christ will as the
new man, we will see that in a clear way. So in review, we
looked at putting off and putting on last week and we saw the taking
off of oneself, I'm going to give you the last four things
that I said and then we'll move to this week. The last four things
that I said last week. Well, the last four points, one
of the four things, the first point. In the last portion of
the finality of that sermon was this taking off the old self
requires regeneration. It requires and involves regeneration,
so the old self is able to be put away because regeneration
has taken place, as we see there in in verse twenty one of chapter
four of Ephesians. So we've. Learned. Christ, assuming that you've
heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus,
to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner
of life. And so we know then that this old self is the dead
self. It's the part that has died with
Christ. It's the nature and the man and
the passion and the conviction and the desire and the drive
and the focus and the living of the flesh that is dead and
now is no longer at work in us in full effect. But the full
effect of the gospel is not working us. And so the little bit of
remnant of that decaying garbage that we call the flesh and sin
and wickedness still hangs around in the fleshliness of our created
being. And it fights. It fights, it
fights a battle against the new man that now is is who we are. The second thing I said was that
taking off the old self is not salvation. So as we battle sin,
and what I mean by that is we battle sin, taking off the old
self, when God takes it away, it is salvation. But we, as we
work out our salvation, as we strive for righteousness, it
is not salvation. We cannot please God by walking
upright before him. Salvation is God's work. The
third thing I said is that taking off the old self starts in the
practice of meditating on truth. Christ is the truth. Christ is
the truth. Meditate on the truth and the
power of the Spirit of God gives us the focus. And these are all
reviews. There's a lot more to it. And the final thing is taking
off the old self requires putting on the new. And what that does
is it allows us, and this is where I stopped last week, it
allows us to see as new creatures, we now who are Christians can
see the futility of the old flesh. We see the worklessness and the
uselessness and the dead, the deadness of the old flesh. We
know the deadness of the thinking of believers of the flesh. We
know the futility, the uselessness of our hearing, of our sight,
of our loving and affections, the actions that we do and the
thriving that we have in this world apart from Christ. Then
Paul then says, as we'll look in just a moment as we get to
this text and review, put on the new self that has been created
in the likeness and the image of God. So we do that, we change
our thinking unto worship, not unto salvation, but unto worship.
And we set our minds on things that are above. We are transformed
by the renewing of our minds, as Paul says in Romans. And in
Colossians, we set our minds on things that are above, as
he teaches. And so then we bring ourselves to where our confidence
comes and our confidence comes in the finished work and the
person and the life, death, burial, resurrection of Jesus Christ
from birth to present. The work of Jesus is still active
in the world today. What is he? He's still Savior.
He's still saving those who he came to seek, and he finds all
that he seeks. And so now we come to this text,
and I want to start in verse 21 and go to verse 25. And we're
going to spend a lot of time and a lot of ways on specific
argument, as we see here. Ephesians 4, verse 21 through
25. And I'm beginning in the middle of a sentence, verse 21,
assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in
him as the truth is in Jesus to put off your old self, which
belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through
deceitful desires and to be renewed in the spirit of your mind and
to put on the new self created after the likeness of God in
true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, it's a huge word. Having put away falsehood, let
each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are
members one of another." And so, as we unfold this text, the
focus of today's message is to, therefore, let each one of you speak the
truth with his neighbor. That's the focus of today's sermon.
But it's only going to take just a little bit to explain that. It's going to take a whole lot
of it to get up to that, because what Paul is doing here is extremely
important to the life of the church. What he has done up to
this point is a sandwich, a very compressed, he's like, let's
put it all in. And then therefore, he just took a bite of that sucker.
Well, actually, he wrote it, he made it now, now he wants
us to take a bite of it. And it's tough to put that in
our mouth sometimes. So what we do, this is what we do in
our human nature. We take it piece by piece and go, oh, that's
a different heading in my little Bible. So I'm just going to forget
about everything else I've read. And I'm going to take this one
little thing right here and I'm going to work on this. And when I get this,
I'm going to work on that. And when I get that, I'm going
to work on this. Friends, that's not the way we live the Christian life. We don't
work on all the little details. We look at the big picture. The
whole attitude of the power of God in our lives is the gospel. Not personal sanctification,
not behavior modification, not morality. Friends, Jesus came
to save his church from morality. I want you to hear that. You cannot work your way into
God's favor. And even as a child of God, you
cannot honor him and please him in the sense of making him like
you or not like you by your morality. Matter of fact, I would suggest
to you that in the context of the world, the physical morality
of those who are unbelievers is greater than that most of
the time of those who are professing believers. Generosity, benevolence,
philanthropy, love, affection, outreach, missions, unbelievers
are doing it all over the place. In fact, there are a lot of unregenerate
pastors and churches and deacons and elders and professing Christians
and unregenerate teenagers all over the world who do a lot of
good things and they feel confident in those things. Those things
do not make us right. How can a man be right before
God? He cannot be except God declare him right. Salvation
is not about what we do to come to God. It's about what God has
done to bring us before him. And it teaches us, Paul says,
that Christ prepares us for the presence of God. So in this now,
we look at this. Look at verse 21. Assuming, and
this is sermons old. This is seven, eight weeks in
the making here. Assuming. That's not the way,
Paul says, you have learned Christ. What is that way? The old futility
of the mind that is darkened in its understanding, that's
worthless, that's useless, that's just going and doing everything
that the flesh says to do. Putting its hope in everything
except for Christ and the gospel by faith through by grace, through
faith, and all of these things. So now Paul is being very candid. He's saying, look, assuming you've
heard about Him and were taught in Him. Now look at your commas
there. He exclaims, as the truth is in Jesus. So let's read that. Verse 21, it says, the truth
is in Jesus Christ. But look what he's going to say.
Assuming that you've heard about Him and were taught in Him to
put off your old self. and to be renewed in the spirit
of your minds, and to put on the new self. So see, the instruction
here is what? You've been taught in Christ
to put off your old self, to be renewed in the spirit of your
mind, and to put on your new self. Those are the things that
Paul says we've been taught to do. And he's telling us that
we have learned, if we've learned Christ, we've been taught to
do those things. Sometimes our grammar, English is awful. It's
really bad. English is terrible. I thought
about today reading this text in the order in which the Greek
puts it, but it doesn't make any sense in English. It's hard.
So, now let's look at this. So if that's the truth, and Paul
says it is because he even interjects that as the truth is in Christ,
you have learned about Him, you've heard Him, you've been taught
in Christ, and this is important to understand, that the truth
is in Jesus. So if the truth is in Jesus and
we're in Jesus, then we've been taught that. If the truth is
in Christ and Christ is the truth and we're in Christ and He is
in us, then the truth is in us. You get that? So we are then
the members of His own body. Christ is the head. We're the
church. We're the body of Christ. Christ is in us. If we abide
in Him and His Word abides in us, we will bear much fruit.
Part of that fruit is walking in the truth of Christ. Walking
in the satisfaction of salvation by grace through faith alone,
which is a gift in itself. All of those things. Salvation,
grace, and faith are all gifts according to Ephesians 2, 8 and
9 and other places. So then we know that Paul begins
to help us see contrast. So this is the outcome of the
contrast of what he's already done. He said there's an old
self and a new self, the old self. And we're not like that
anymore. We're new selves. Then he's got the contrast of
the deceit. They walk in the deceit of the old flesh, of the
old way. It's deceitful. In other words,
it's lying to you. That's what it means. It's suppressing
the truth. Romans chapter 1. Suppressing
the truth with their unbelief, with their unrighteousness. We
push down the truth with our flesh, but we are in Christ are
not that way, for we have been made alive in Christ. Therefore,
we put off the old self. Paul is giving that contrast.
Deceit. The contrast of deceit is truth. Christ is the truth.
The truth is in Christ. We are in the truth. Then look
at the difference in the nature of the old man. It's corrupt.
That's what he teaches there. The nature of the old man is
corrupt, and now the nature of the new man is holy and righteous.
And he actually uses an identifier and an adjective. What kind of
righteousness? True righteousness and holiness. Big importance. And then we back up a few more
verses and we see that there's the contrast of the futility
of the mind, darkened mind with the what? The renewed mind. And
so now. We know, based on the last few
weeks of teaching and understanding of Paul's letter to the Ephesians,
that we who are in Christ are new creations and we have been
not transformed in the context of we become better, we become
new. God did not improve upon the
flesh that was dead and corrupt. He made it new. He put to death
the flesh of sin, which was already dead. It's really ironic, the
double death. We're dead and then we're going
to die. But we are in Christ are made alive, the symbol of
baptism as we see it throughout the scripture. So we've been
empowered in some sense to do three things, many things, but
three things specifically to Paul's argument here in introduction.
We've been empowered to know Christ. That's the way you've
heard of him and you were taught in him. So we are the new. We
have been given the privilege and the power to know Christ.
John 17, this is eternal life, that they know the one true God
and the Son Jesus whom you have sent. Without knowing Christ
intimately and supernaturally, He will not know you. Because
only if you know the true Christ will the true Christ usher you
into eternal life. If you know a false Christ, or
a man-made Christ, or the true Christ plus a little bit of something
added to the side is no Christ at all. You see Paul's argument
in Galatians. Not that there is another gospel,
he says, but the true gospel plus anything, plus a gnat flying
by, plus a breeze, plus a blink of the eye. The gospel plus anything
is no gospel at all. It's nothing. And it is a condemning
place to be. So that Christ that you create
with a little bit of something on the side is no Christ. And
then the true Christ will say, I never knew you. We know Christ. The second thing
that the flesh, that the new creation, excuse me, has been
empowered to do is to resist the flesh, to resist the remnant
of that old man that's dead in Christ, that still is at war
within our members, as Paul teaches in Romans chapter 6 and 7. And
the third and final thing that we'll see here is that the new
self has been empowered to renew the mind toward the new self. And we'll see how that works.
The text says here, we are created in the likeness of God in true
righteousness and holiness. And so let me give you an understanding
of what this sermon is not about. And why am I being so extremely
strange and vague in this introduction? Well, this sermon is not about
morality. It's not about teaching people
how to act and live. That's a mistake. It's a mistake
to come to Ephesians and see the entire introduction, the
first four chapters, and then to get there and say, stop lying.
Stop joking. Stop busting. Stop stealing. It's not what Paul's teaching
here at all. And anyone who supposes that has never read it in the
context of devout study. I don't mean to insult people
sometimes, but I have been there for years. I'm just going to
do this and do that and do this. The very material that used to
be taught to me in Sunday school was to work on the Ten Commandments.
to work, work, work, make yourself righteous. That isn't what they
actually said, but it's what they implied and it's what blindly
we have been deceived into doing. And then when we don't make ourselves
righteous, we rededicate our lives to Jesus. Because our hope
was in the season of righteousness that we live before Him. And
then when the sin popped in, we go, oh man, I'm lost. I need
to rededicate my life. And they go, no, you're not lost.
Remember, you just just rededicate, just stand up and be holy once
more and know that you've made the right choice to walk in righteousness.
Friends, you can walk, you can choose to walk in righteousness
all day long. And Jesus will still say, depart from me, you
workers of iniquity. Because choosing to walk in righteousness
will no more save you. Then what? Nothing. You just fill in the
blank, whatever old quip or saying you want to put in there, whatever
old cliche you want to stick in there. Choosing to be righteous
will not save you. So this sermon is not about morality.
This sermon is not about the evils of lying. Is morality important? Absolutely. For a man who says
he's immoral, but he walks in, but he says he's in Christ, but
he walks in immorality. We know what John says. He's
a liar and the truth is not in it. And if he says he's without
sin, then he makes God a liar. Because God said all people have
sinned, fallen short of his absolute glory. So this sermon is not
about the evils of lying. I'm not here to jump up and down
and make you all feel guilty because we're all a bunch of
liars standing here. I'm a liar. You're a liar. All God's people
are liars. Now, you may not practice lying. Some of us, you know,
I can't remember the last time I lied. Well, good for you. Maybe that's not your thing.
For the very nature that you feel confident in that, you've
been deceived and you're believing a lie. So the sermon is not about
that. The sermon is not about behavioral
changes or modification of behavior. We're not looking to try to get
people to look Christian. We got enough of that. Do we
want to look Christian? Absolutely. But by whose power?
Whose power do we want to see? And what is looking Christian?
Looking Christian is more about loving Christ's things, loving
gospel things, loving holiness, loving holy things rather than
doing holy things. Jesus says we see in the text
of the Gospels of the Synoptics, he says that out of the abundance
of the heart, the mouth speaks. I thought about that this week
and I thought out of the abundance of the heart, the fingers text
Fingers tweet in the Facebook updates. Out of the abundance
of the heart, the pen writes. Out of the abundance of the heart,
the channel flicker changes. Out of the abundance of the heart,
the accelerator goes. Out of the abundance of the heart,
the cash comes out. Let's just call it for what it
is. So we could all stand in the
room today and know that we are lying to ourselves to think that
we stand in a place of morality. Because God doesn't say moral.
Holiness and morality are absolute odds of the spectrum. A morality
is a walk of an unholy thing in an attempt to walk right.
Righteousness is an absolute perfection that cannot be obtained
once one has broken the law ever. So how do we get righteousness?
We know that we have been made righteous in Christ. We have
been guaranteed to be the righteousness of God because Christ has given
his righteousness to us. You would be surprised at the
number of people who claim to be Christians who have problems
with that. The number one reason they have a problem with that
is because the pride of their own heart won't allow them to become the
slave to righteousness, but rather they want to show that they indeed
have earned some kind of favor with God. So the sermon is not
about behavioral changes, and this sermon, on the contrary,
is not about telling the truth. So what is this sermon about
with a sermon? It's about the fact that the
truth is in Christ, and we're in Christ, and the truth of Christ
is what we are and what we reflect. We are new, and we are in Christ,
and He has accomplished all that He purposed and promised to secure
for those the Father has given to Him, and they are indeed the
righteousness of God. You know what it takes to be
a child of God? God's unmerited favor and grace. Out of all the adoptions that
happen in the world, there's not one family who's gotten a letter
from a baby and said, please get me. Doesn't work that way. There's
not one child who has adopted itself out to a family without
that family knowing all of a sudden the stork or whatever means delivers
it to the front door and says, ding dong. And adoption is one
going and dying to himself and saying, I will bring that child
into my life and make it my own. It will bear my name and I will
care for it as though it had come from me. That's what adoption
is and that's what redemption is. And that's how when John
says in John, chapter one. That Jesus came to his own and
his own and a better translation there did not recognize him,
says receive same difference in the argument. But to all who
did recognize him, he gave the right to become the children
of God. Not of the will of the flesh, nor the decision of the
mind, nor of genealogical transition or bloodline, but by the will
of the father Nicodemus. A Jew of all Jews, part of the
Sanhedrin, he comes to Jesus and says, we know that you are
from God and you've come to teach us divine things. You are divine. You come to teach us from God.
And Jesus tells him that he cannot see him. He cannot recognize
him except he be born again. I want you to hear those words. So what does this text show us
there? We are then, look, Verse 23, and to be renewed in the
spirit of your minds and to put on the new self created after
the likeness of God. Look at this. Look at this in
true righteousness and holiness. You know, when I see that in
true righteousness, I think to myself, if there is true righteousness,
then there must be the contrast. There must be not true righteousness,
so there must be a way to man that seems right, but in the
end to him, this is death. Sound familiar? And so the children of God then
walk in true righteousness. If there is true, then this implies
that there is a false. What is false righteousness?
That's the question I ask myself. What is false righteousness?
I could think about it all day long and I had a big, big list,
but I think from the context of what Paul is teaching, false
righteousness is this, moral living. And confidence in moral living
is false righteousness. A false righteousness is seen
in the lives of, and I have a couple, a false righteousness is seen
in the lives of those who care much about their own image. Care much about their own image
and the sense of morality, and they strive to uphold it because
people, I don't want them to look at me like I'm a pagan. I'm known as an honest person.
I don't want to tell a lie. So they motivate themselves and
they discipline themselves to walk in morality and they don't
lie because lying would be contrary to the image of their public
picture. A false righteousness, I believe,
is seen in the lives of those who are known for having integrity.
And they maintain that integrity. They'll never steal, and they'll
never lie, and they'll never be late because they know that
this is the picture. And I'm not saying it's wrong
to have these desires. I'm just saying that when we
put our hope in these, and you know the difference when you
tell the truth because it is out of faith and affection for
Christ versus telling the truth because you don't want people
to think you're a liar. That's a false righteousness.
Now, I don't want people to think of me like that. That's not false.
That's idolatry. It's pride to the core of our
hearts. It's wickedness. It's not credit to even worship,
much less righteousness. known for having character. It's
not in their image to lie. I believe false righteousness
is seen in the lives of those who have confidence in their
morality, and thus their faith is misplaced. Jesus talks about
these people. He says, there's the publican,
there's the tax collector that's ripping off his own people in
the name of Caesar, and he's torn his clothes, and he doesn't
even want to look up toward the sky out of fear and honor and
reverence to God. And he says, have mercy on me,
O God, a sinner. But there's the Pharisee that
says, thank you, God, for your morality and your righteousness
in me. Thank you, God. I thank you, God, that I am not
like that God. In Jesus' own words are, that
man went home condemned. You know who were condemned?
John 3. Those who are not the believing ones. are condemned
already, for they have failed to believe in the Son of God." So, these are those who are still
in the old man, but they think they're in the new man. These
are those who still walk in darkness, but they think they have light.
Are you saying we're blind? Jesus says, well, because you
say you can see, you're guilty. They walk before God in men blameless,
and they have strength in that vision. That's a false righteousness. Paul says that his life before
Christ was a false righteousness. He said that he walked perfectly
according to the law and that there is not, and I'm going to
use some hyperbole here to give the expression of how Paul argued
it. He said, there is not a man living in this world who could
ever from birth to date show that I have ever violated the
law of God and could prove that I had ever. He said he was blameless
before God in the precepts of the law. But he knew that that. That blamelessness
was death. For his own flesh condemned him. A scary stuff. You say, well,
OK, I hear what you're saying. The old self creates a battle
with the mind and the heart. And the flesh causes a struggle
with sin. And sometimes the flesh is so
habitually devoured with things that we practice for so long,
it keeps doing some of the same old things. And these things
are out of character of who we really are, because in Christ
we are truly new creations. And so therefore, the new man
has been made. So where's the problem? If I'm a new man, if I've just
got some old habits, why should we care about our actions? Now,
Paul brings that argument up in Romans 7, doesn't he? So should
we continue to sin that grace may abound? No man can keep the
law. No man can be righteous by keeping
the law. Can't be done. When you're conceived, you're
condemned, you are a human. There's no age of accountability.
There's no age of decision. There's no age of God saying,
OK, now that person's old enough, then we'll start holding them
accountable for being a wicked, fleshly human being, the son
of Adam. Then what's so wrong with abortion? If every baby
that's aborted goes to heaven? Well, we're playing God. I think
we're playing God when we make up things that God never taught. So why should we care about our
actions? Why should we care about striving for righteousness? If
we're just righteous, why should we care? Well, because our new
mind and our heart is full of joy in the truth. It's full of
joy in the truth. Our lives are content and satisfied
when we are in the truth of Christ and then walk before Him in that
truth and in the power of that truth. Don't look at truth as
an aspect of a fact to be learned, but understand the Scripture
when it says that Jesus is the truth in John. Because our new mind and heart
is full of joy in the truth. Therefore, if we say we are in
the light and we walk in darkness, we lie. What does John say there?
And do not practice the truth. So if we sin continually and
purposefully, and don't care, we make God to be a liar because
He says we have become the righteousness of God and that we have been
empowered to walk apart from sin. Not perfectly. Nowhere in
the Scriptures does it say we are able to walk perfectly, but
I believe this. I believe that the Christian can walk visibly
without sin in the world. I believe with the power of the
Gospel, we can walk without losing our temper. without stealing,
without lying to our fellow men, to our fellow peers, to our fellow
brethren. I believe we can not punch people
in the face, but do you realize the sin doesn't start there? It starts with the anger in the
heart. Even while we're smiling, I could
punch that guy. I could hit him twice. And on
the way down, he really drives me crazy. Have you ever felt
that? Some of you ladies? Do we have to act on it? And
I believe by God's grace we cannot act on it. But that is an aspect
of sanctification as we mature in Christ. I can never tell you
that those feelings will go away and they're sinful. The lust of the eyes. Well, what
does that mean in 1 John 2.15? Do not love the world or anything
in the world. If you love the world, the love of the Father
is not in it. What are the things of the world? The lust of the eyes, the lust
of the flesh, the pride of life, the pride of possessions. Lust
of the eyes are the things we see and we want. We always think
explicit stuff. We always think erotic or things
of that nature. Well, that's part of it. Hey,
where did you get that pencil? I'm going to go order me one
now. I've had it a few months. I'm going to get a new one. Lust
of the eyes. Pride and possessions. It's like the story I was telling
just a couple of weeks ago about the fact that I had an opportunity
to buy some original Scourge notes, handwritten. I'm like,
oh, this is great. And I go and ask Robin, I said,
what do you think I could do with that? You could put it on your wall and
worship it. Case closed. Because that's what
we do. We want to run up and, you know,
I'd probably bring it up here and say, look what I got. Oh,
let's worship this. Worship me because I have something
you don't. And everybody here, all the men are like, man, I'm
going to grow my theology beard out and I'm going to buy me a
Spurgeon note. I'm going to look like John Calvin. I'm going to
buy a Calvin note. I'll get back older. And some
of you are like, well, I'm going to go find John the Baptist's
original writings. He never wrote anything. We're idolaters at heart. We
don't have to go out and buy it to be an idolater. We just
want it. And so here, we should care about
our actions because the outcome of Everything we do should be
done unto his name and for his glory. We should care about who
we are as a reflection of who God's made us to be, not who
God's commanded us to be. But we don't get rewarded for
being holy and doing righteousness. We're only rewarded by the grace
of God, his unmerited favor. Jesus teaches this in Mark's
gospel when he says that there's a slave in the field and he works
all day and after the day of work is done, Does the master
say to the slave, you've worked hard, put your feet up here,
recline, eat with me. And he says, no, where is my
food, slave? Well, that doesn't sound like
the Jesus I know it better be. It's not. It's not the Jesus
of Scripture. It's not the one who died for the sins of all
who believe. It's not the Lamb of God. You
died for a Jesus that was more like a, I don't know, a creation
of your own imagination. Maybe the devil, the father of
lies. We don't get rewarded for doing what we're supposed to
do. And we've already failed in that task by being born of
our own flesh. We've failed in that task. For
all who are born of Adam must die. But all who are born in
Christ will live. See, we who are born in Adam,
we are condemned in Adam. We are dead in our sins. We're
dead in our flesh. And we inherit that federal headship
of Adam's sinfulness. And we deserve to die. It helps
us understand why God annihilated children and dogs and cattle
and pigs and worms and chickens and everything else in the Old
Testament, the enemies of Israel. Why? Because that's what justice
requires. Justice requires total annihilation
of all those enemies. But mercy says, I will forsake
that judgment and I will, better yet, forbear that judgment and
I will let it go. That's mercy. But mercy in that
vein is wicked, except that the penalty and the sin is paid for. So Christ, who is God, became
a man so that God could still be righteous in putting Him to
death on the cross. Romans 3, starting in verse 21. For God put forth Christ to display
His righteousness as propitiation, satisfaction of His judgment
and His wrath against sin, to be received by faith. Why? God killed Christ in order that
his righteousness would be seen because he forbeared and forgave
sins of old and today and future and forevermore he forgave sin.
So in order for him to forgive the infraction, he must have
had some way to pay for it. See, the outcome of truth and
holiness brings true joy in the life of the church, in the life
of the believer. And we are, therefore, when we
sin, miserable, are we not? Immediately miserable. We may
think, man, this is going to be so good. Wow, I can't wait
to go get that. Gosh, I can't stand that person.
If I could just... Oh, man. And we think that would give
us so much joy and satisfaction, but immediately we're convicted
by the Spirit of God and we know that it's not going to bring
us joy. And sometimes our flesh is even stronger. What does James
teach us? James teaches us that we're not
tempted by God, but we're tempted by the very desires of our flesh.
For if we didn't want these things and they dangled before us, we
wouldn't want them. Our flesh wants that stuff. It
wants the world. It wants power. It wants prestige.
It wants to puff up in pride. The flesh that we have before
Christ lived in that, blindly deceived, without any hope, separated
from God, alienated from Christ, and dead. And God has brought
us to life. So now the greatest thing, as
I said earlier, we can see Christ. We have salvation. We can see
our sin. We know that we are wickedly
pursuing unsatisfying dead things that we think in the very back
corner of our flesh would give us some joy, but deep down, if
we understood it, we would be miserable in our sin. We are
miserable when we sin. We're miserable with guilt and
shame when we sin. And we think that satisfying
the flesh is good, but we who are in Christ and in the truth
understand the fullness of joy is in Christ. And in our minds
we find hope and peace and obedience to Christ. We love Him and therefore
our obedience to Him reflects the righteousness that we've
been given that belongs to Christ. So why do we want to deal with
sin in our lives? Because when we live as children
of God and we reflect unrighteousness and immorality and debauchery
and wickedness and hatefulness and bitterness and lying and
stealing and, of course, joking and worldly lusts, when we reflect
all these things and we long after these things, what's happening
is the world hears us say, professing Jesus, and then they look at
us and they go, wow, I must profess Jesus too because I'm just like
that guy. We say the Righteousness in us
is Christ, but yet when we don't fight sin, we are actually displaying
a lie about who God is. For he has declared that we are
new creations. One of the biggest lies that
the devil has perpetrated in the church is this one, what
God understands my sin. He does not. He understands sin
in one way, judgment. If you want to see what God thinks
about sin, look at Christ on the cross. So when sin in the flesh makes
promises of joy, satisfaction and hope, we know that resisting
and dying to the flesh will bring the greater joy and remove fear
and guilt. So then how do we put it off and on? Well, unfortunately,
we can't. That's the kicker. We can't. We cannot put on what is out
of our power to own and obtain. So let's look at this. Remember. Remember. This sermon is not
about behavior. It's not about redemption. It's
not about it's not. It's not about self-justification,
it's about the redemption of God, of His people. It's about
the fact that God has, by His power, already perfected a work
in us that He's continuing to perfect and He's going to continue
to complete. Look at this text again. In verse
25, there's this big, fat word, therefore. Therefore, and I'm
going to give you a little bit of a Greek lesson and somewhat
of an English lesson. If you want to learn more, find some
other teacher. And I'll give you what I can
real quick. Therefore, so Paul was developing an argument, and
it would be very easy if we weren't careful to say that we are now able, or we're
supposed to now not lie. Look at that. Therefore, having
put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with
his neighbor. For we are members of one another. Therefore. This means that there's a condition
here. Because of all this, therefore, this is possible. So who's doing
the work? God is doing the work. He's done the work. He's completed
the work. So look right here. Therefore,
having put away falsehood. Having put away falsehood. Right
here, having put away. How many of you know what that
is in English? It's called a perfect what? Any
of you? A perfect participle. And the
perfect participle means that the action has already been completed
by the subject, and now the secondary action is able to be taken place
by the subject. And if the subject is wrong,
it's called a hanging participle. It's bad. It's an X on your papers.
And so with it now we know, therefore, having put away falsehood, Let
each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor. This is not
what Paul is saying. Paul is not saying, therefore,
put away falsehood. He's not saying that. He's not
saying, therefore, stop lying. He's saying, therefore, because
falsehood has already been put away, speak truth. Do you feel the absolute joy
that comes from that? When we wake up every day and
we battle the idea of trying to say truth to ourselves and
to others? It's been completed. Then it's
followed by a clause indicating that the subject, the reader,
is able to do something else that follows. Therefore, having put
away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his
neighbor, for we are members of one another. So God has completed
a task in us. Christ has saved us. And because
Christ has saved us, Christ leads us. And where does Christ lead
us? In the image of his own righteousness. It's big stuff. You'll never
read the Bible the same again, I pray. Christ leads us to reflect
the new lives that He's secured for us already. And what are
those lives? What are we to reflect? He saves
us and leads us in our new lives to reflect the truth of His character. Righteousness, holiness, perfection. We are also to reflect the truth
of His sufficiency, that He's all we need. We are also to reflect
the truth of His power, that Christ who upholds the world
by the Word of His power, who created all things in John 1,
who is the exact imprint of the nature of God in Hebrews 1 and
Colossians 1. He is the one who has effectively
started and planted and birthed His body. He's created the church,
even as we see in Ephesians. Where the power, the principalities
of darkness. See that Christ is victorious
because the church exists, no matter what the church looks
like, the church exists, so therefore the enemies of God know that
they've lost. We also reflect the truth of
his creation, the truth of his redemption, and most importantly,
which we reflect the nature of his glory. What's the whole reason
that he writes this letter? to the praise of His glorious
grace. Do you know what that shows us?
It's that God's grace is the perfect reflection of His glory. The greatest measure. So you
mean God, to whom all praise is due, to whom all glory and
honor and wealth and power is His. His worth is displayed by His
holiness. And we are all subject to judgment
because of Him, so the way He measures the greatest outpouring
of His glory unto His own worship is to give mercy? Yes. For God
loved the world in this manner, that He gave the only Son, that
the believing ones would not perish, but they do have eternal
life. All who believe. So what is Paul telling us to
do? He says that we've been taught
in Christ and have heard of Christ, and Christ is the truth, and
thus the truth is that we have. And the truth is this, that the
old man has been put away. The new man is alive. Paul says
it perfectly. I live this life He says, not
of my own. It's not I who live, but Christ
who lives within me. I live this life by faith in
the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. In 2 Corinthians,
Paul teaches us that Christ, who knew no sin, became sin. He wasn't a picture of sin. He wasn't figuratively a sacrifice. God put the sin of all those
who believe on Christ and satisfied his judgment against them. That's
why we believe in particular atonement, particular redemption,
that only the believers, only those who believe from the beginning
of time to the end of time will be saved. We don't believe in
universal salvation. And it's amazing how many times
you'll hear people say that Jesus died and his blood paid for the
sins of the whole world. Well, if that's true, And God
throws people into hell. And we've got a problem with
God. Because if you somebody pays off your mortgage as a gift
and you go to the bank to make a payment and they take it and
don't tell you that you don't owe them a thing, they're wicked.
God is not wicked. So we ought to be how? How we've
been taught in him. We put off the old self. God
has already done this and we must be how? Renewed in our minds
and the spirit of our minds we talked about last week. So this,
to be renewed in the spirit of our minds is what we have been
taught. So what is that? Renewal. What
is renewal? Refreshing. Renewal is reestablishing,
or not necessarily reestablishing, resuming. It would be a better
way of identifying or defining renewed. So we resume that has
already been actively happening. So when we renew our minds, we
put our minds on the fact and the truth and the power that
is already at work there. We have a new mind, so we renew
our minds by reminding ourselves, meditating through the power
of the Holy Spirit, that we are indeed children of God. We are
new creations. Therefore, we're no longer slaves
to sin. We don't have to lie anymore, but we're free to tell
the truth. We're free to walk in righteousness. We're free
to pursue righteousness. So we renew, like we renew our
driver's license before it expires. Sometimes you can renew things,
but in the sense of salvation, we don't lose salvation. We don't
lose our place in justification. We don't lose redemption. But
we are to daily renew our minds. So that we are not trans, so
that we're not conformed to the world, but we're transformed.
Continually from one degree of glory to another grace upon grace. How does that work? Well, we
refresh our practice of keeping with the new by throwing off
the old that we keep picking up. We hold fast our hope in Christ,
the practice of renewing and putting off leads not to righteousness,
but God has created us righteous in Christ already. So renewal
puts all efforts to reflect what God has done by seeing and recognizing
the old man and his ways and living in the new Christ that
God has made. So Hebrews 12, 1 and 2, it talks
a little bit about the fact, therefore, since we've been surrounded
by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us, what does it say? Also
lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let
us run with endurance the race that is set before us. How? Looking
to Jesus. the founder and perfecter of
our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the
cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of
the throne of God." So Christ has gone before and accomplished
all that we are. It's done. So how do we endure? How do we renew our minds? We
put our focus, our gaze, our hope, our glory, our affection,
our desires, our movement, our money, everything, we put it
to Christ. This is the point that Paul is
making. Salvation is not a means to morality,
but is the means to true righteousness. There's a huge difference. God
has brought us to live in Christ and he has released us from these
clothes of the dead man. We quit picking them up by focusing
on the new. It was an image of Christ. in the image of His Creator through
righteousness and holiness. So we want to see the new man.
How do we do that? We look toward Christ. How do
we look toward Christ through His Word? Don't ever, ever, ever
think that anything you do inside your walk with Christ can be
done apart from the Word. The reading, the studying, the
meditating, the hearing, the preaching, the teaching, and
the sharing of the Word. You cannot succeed and you will not
succeed. You will not find joy. You will
not have power. Your prayers will not be heard.
You will feel awful. You will be doubting. You will
fall into sin. When this Word is not your bread,
you are not walking in Christ. It's that simple, but is this
not the hardest thing to do? So then in closing. Some examples. I have to bring
this around for next week, let's look at it and then we'll look
at it again. Therefore, having put away all
falsehood. Let each one of you speak the
truth of this neighbor. For we're members of one another.
Lying is purposely deceiving through words, actions or intentions.
So lying, as we see, and I have scripture, I won't go through
all of it, especially in the Proverbs. God hates lying. One
of the Ten Commandments is don't lie. Don't bear false witness,
which is a type of lying. And some people say, well, I
don't have a problem with lying. Well, you may not lie intentionally
with your mouth, but you may lie with other parts of your
being. Proverbs 16 through 19 says there are six things that
the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him. Haughty
eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart
that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil,
a false witness who breathes out lies and one who sows discord
among brothers. And so this idea about lying,
some people say, well, is it wrong to lie in the context of
saving lives? Well, I don't know. What do you
think about the examples we see in Scripture? Lying. We don't want to lie, we want
to tell the truth. But if somebody breaks into our house and says, hey,
where's your children? I want to kill them. And they're hiding
in the basement. I'm going to say, I don't have
kids. Where are all these toys from? We just never grew up.
I'm going to lie. I'm going to lie in some sense
to see if I can't get back to my room and grab some defensive
weapon. Help preserve life. Maybe I would,
maybe I wouldn't. I feel like I would lie to protect
people's lives. I feel like that as Dietrich
Bonhoeffer lied, he had a double identity. He was a spy against
the Nazis and a pastor of the gospel. And it cost him his life. And they hung him until he died. But nowhere did we see Rahab
hiding the spies through lying. We see the midwives of Egypt
lying to the Pharaoh. How come you're not killing the
babies? Well, because these Hebrew women are strong. And when we
hear the first cries of labor, by the time the midwives are
there, the babies are out. They lied to the Pharaoh. So
what did he do? He just killed them all anyway. How about Abraham and Sarah?
They lied. Well, lying is wicked. Lying
is wicked. And the word there, the lie,
to put away any falsehood, that word falsehood is actually tolsudos,
like pseudonym, false name. And in the Greek, tolsudos is
the lie. So in that, we know that the only place that we see
that specific word and A nasty condition is in 1 John 2, where
John says it's the spirit of the Antichrist, the lie. The
Antichrist. And so lying is wicked. Believers
refute the lies of the world. Believers refute false idols
by coming to faith in Christ. Believers refute false saviors,
false teachers, false churches, false gospels, false hope, false
worship, false affection, false truth. And they're now in truth,
in Christ. Who is the truth? John 14, 6.
I am the way and the truth and the life. So lying is not a practice that's
done by Christians. And even though we see it in
the Old Testament, we see it in the scriptures, we see Christians,
spirit filled people who love the Lord lie. Never do you see
it commended. But would we do it? I think so. Is it wicked? That's tough. But in the context of what Paul
is saying here in our last few minutes together. He's not saying we put away falsehood,
yes, and the outcome of that falsehood, because it's already
been put away in Christ, is this, you speak the truth with your
neighbor. Now, when neighbor is referenced,
you know, he's talking about. Believers. Your brothers, your
sisters. The whole context of what we
see here, one of the main themes of this first four chapters is
that we are one body in Christ. We are unified in our learning,
in our worship, in our doctrine, in our teaching, in our mission,
our vision. And so, therefore, falsehood
has been put away by the power of the gospel. So you are able
to speak the truth with your brethren. For we are, and it
qualifies what I'm trying to prove to you, members of one
another. We're not members of lost people. We're not one world. We're one body. And so in that,
we ought to speak the truth and not lie to one another. We need
to speak the truth with each other in the church. See, the
lost are darkened in their minds. They're darkened in their understanding.
And their ways are useless and futile, so they cannot know the
truth. Christians, on the contrast, speak the truth. And how? In
love. We speak the truth in love. Now
friends, I'd love to take another 30 minutes, but I've only got
a few. To tell you that there's a lot of ways that we often justify
how we act and behave in the name of truth. And I'll put it
this way and I wrote it out this way. Is it lying? Comes from fear and hatred and
greed and power. As I looked briefly, I saw fear
in the priest of Matthew 21 where Jesus asked him, did John's baptism,
was it a baptism from heaven or a baptism from man? And they
knew if they had said from heaven, if they said it wasn't from heaven,
which would prove Jesus right, then what would happen? They would be saying publicly
they believe that Jesus is Christ. If they said it was from man,
then they would be putting the entire What do you call those
people? The entire population at odds
with them. What do you mean? So, in fear, they said, we don't
know. We don't know. So, then greed.
Ananias and Sapphira. They lied to Peter. They lied
to God and God smoked them dead. Greed. They wanted to keep what
they had. They weren't even required to give it, but they wanted to
have the glory of the church. Oh, look at what we're going
to give. Put a plaque on. We put my name in the back of the
Bible. We gave so much. Look at this nice worship area.
Look at these pews. Look at these pianos and these
tables. Look at all this stuff that we
get. Look at my grandma's name on that. So they said they'd give
and then they lied and didn't give and they lied because of
greed and then hatred. Where's your brother? Cain, where's your brother? I'm
supposed to keep up with my brother? He hated Cain. I mean, Cain hated
Abel because Abel's deeds were righteous, John says. And then
power. Power causes people to lie because
they want to stay connected with the group that's engaged. So
they get together and they make up lies about people and they
gossip about people like Stephen in Acts chapter seven. Well, you might say, well, I
do tell the truth, but do you tell the truth in the truth with
the truth? You tell the truth in the truth with the truth. The truth is that Christ renews
the truth of our minds. And then out of our minds and
our hearts come the words of our lips. So we live in the truth. We live
in unity with the brethren. What do we say then if we proclaim
to be in the body, but we do not love the body? That's a lie. It's not just about what we speak,
but it's about what we show. Well, I love Christ, I love the
church, but we don't love the church. We don't love the body,
the people. And love means that we die to
ourselves and we hurt and we pay and we suffer so that other
people can have joy. That's what love is. No greater
love than this, that a man should lay down his life for his brother.
You notice Jesus didn't say his enemy, although that is taught
in other places. Pray for our enemies. Pray God
to bless our enemies. Pray for those who persecute
you. If we're going to do that for our enemies, should we not
do it exponentially for our brothers and sisters in Christ? And so
what does it say when we profess to love Christ, but we do not
love his word and we do not love to worship him? What does it
say when we afford time for all sorts of things in this life
that we neglect spiritual unity and fellowship and growth and
worship? What does it say when we're evasive or gossiping or
complaining or bitter or speak half truths or keeping the peace
at the cost of truth? That's a big problem in the church. Ignoring false teaching, letting
it go, getting along without confronting sin. It says that
we're not in the truth and we care more about comfort than
glory of God. Intentional lying, I believe
that at no time should a believer purposely lie to anyone, but
especially another believer. And I'll be honest. If I have
the opportunity to lie to protect, I probably will. But in the context of our lives
together, we should put away lying. Put it away. We should speak the truth. We
should not accept falsehoods, but always speak the truth in
love. We should speak the truth in
our hearts and minds. For example, in our bitterness
and sin or anger, we should be honest about the issue. We should
not say, you bothered me. We should say, I'm a wicked man
because I'm bothered. See the difference? Everybody's
running to try to speak truth. Two snaps up and all this other
kind of stuff and trying to get all haughty and holy. Let me
tell you what you need to do. Well, come on, let's look at
the planks before we start picking out the specks. It's got to be
done, but it needs to be done as a mutual recipient of grace
and not righteousness confronting wickedness. Speak the truth. We need to speak the truth with
our lives, our actions, our words, our intentions, our promises,
and most importantly, our worship. Is our worship true? Our desire
to be in the body, our desire to study, is it true? Lying,
see, divides the church. Lying divides the church. Not
speaking the truth when it needs to be spoken divides the church.
And anything that divides the church will bring judgment. In the church, we who are in
Christ are in the truth and we are one body. Therefore, we have
been equipped with truth in all parts of our beings. When we
lie to our brothers and sisters, we're lying to ourselves. When we lie to our brothers and
sisters, we lie to ourselves. Because we are one body. So let
us speak the truth in love. Let us hold fast to the confession
of our hope which is in Christ Jesus. Let us walk in truth. Who is Christ? Affectionate. When do we have the greatest
opportunity to be affectionate? When do we have the greatest
opportunity to walk in truth? When falsehoods come up and when
disunity starts to creep in. Do we sweep it out the door?
No, we we grab hold of them and we try to clean each other up
and we shake each other. How do we do that? Through the power
of the gospel. I'm going to promise you this,
there is nothing that the grace of God cannot overcome. Forgiveness. Love covers a multitude
of sins. And I'll tell you, the love message
is abused today in America. We want to preach the love, and
then we want to show people a false love. But in the body of Christ,
there at least needs to be an attempt to have a true love.
And nobody in the body of Christ is in competition. No church
is in competition. No congregation should be divided.
Now there will be chaff, there will be goats, there will be
pigs, there will be wolves in the church, but we lovingly hold
firm and stand firm so that we might, even if it means turning
them over to Satan and kicking them out of the church for the
destruction of their flesh, our desire is to see their souls
saved. There was a man arrested this
morning after 17 some odd hours of running around from the police
after he burglarized and beat an old man up and stole his stuff.
And the police were out all night long. And my prayer was this. God, I don't want to see any
of our officers get shot. Fifty law enforcement officers.
I also don't want to see this man die. He's beat people up. He's robbed
people. He's stolen stuff. He may even be wanted for murder
in other places. I don't want him to die. Because when he dies,
if he dies in the woods by the hand of the police, it will be
just, it will be honorable, and it will give God glory. But that
man will stand before God and it will be done for him. The truth says that our heart
is concerned about the wicked. And we don't rejoice when they
suffer. We pray that they might be saved.
So if we have that kind of heart for the wicked of the world,
can we not have a unifying affection for the people of our own body?
Do we chop off our arm because we don't like the color of the
ring that's on it? Let's hold fast to the power
of God. Let's hold fast to the truth who is in Christ, and in
doing so, desperately long to be a full and true reflection
of God's holiness and the glory of Christ. Let's pray. Thank
you, Lord, for your patience. Thank you, Lord, for your patience
with me. And with all of us. Lord, if you weren't patient
or we wouldn't we wouldn't even we'd just be done. God, bring into our hearts just
an overwhelming peace and joy. Even in the midst of brokenness
and sometimes guilt and conviction, Lord, bring joy to us that we
ought to stand in truth. Who is Jesus? It's not about
changing our behavior to tell the truth, but it's about, Lord,
helping us to walk in Christ who is the truth. And Father,
I pray that as we continue to pursue to be a congregation, to be a small portion of your
body, Lord, that we would hold fast to these powerful realities. That we would grow up and into
Christ who is our head, that we would grow into more affection
with each other and that we would not take pride in where we stand,
but Lord, that we would humbly walk as those who have been transformed
by your great power. and let us reach into each other's
lives, into each other's hearts, and have an affection that does
not fail. Because God, Your love for us
did not fail, and it never will. While we were dead, while we
were sinners, while we were enemies, while we were running with our
fist in Your face, You snatched us out of darkness and brought
us to life that we might see You. And when we were given eyes
to see, Father, we love everything we see. Help your law not to
be burdensome to us, but to be joyful. And we pray this in the
name of Christ, our king. Amen.