Ij

"Put On the New Man" Ephesians 4:11-25; Luke 9:28-40

by Clancy Nixon

August 6, 2006

Church of the Holy Spirit

Ashburn, Virginia

www.holyspiritanglican.org

God told the three on the Mount of Transfiguration, "Listen to Jesus." I really

began to listen to him because I learned through personal pain from our own poor choices

that only Jesus has the words of life. When I was 26, I became a hypocritical, broken,

lonely mess on the inside, even though I was a successful lawyer on the outside. I treated

people in ways that my worldview at that time said was perfectly acceptable, yet it

became clear to me that I had really hurt them. I had to go back to square one and find a

better way of looking at moral choices, so I asked for the Lord's help. I was finally ready

to listen to the one sane voice in a crazy world. Christians listen to Jesus because we

have experienced Him as Truth. John 14:6 says that Jesus is the Truth. If we value the

body of Christ, Ephesians 4:15, we will speak the truth in love to one another. As we do

that, the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 4:13, we will become mature, attaining the whole

measure of the fullness of Christ. The Greek word for "mature" here is telios; it means

mature, complete, whole, or perfect. Telios is the ultimate goal of all preaching, of all

relationships with others, even of all Christian ministry. Colossians 1:28 says "We

proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may

present everyone mature in Christ."

The question is, how do we become mature? The world believes that the key to

becoming mature, to virtuous living, is acting on good information about consequences.

Isn't that right? So our schools tell our children not to take cocaine because cocaine can

addict you to it, make you poor as you pay for it, and even kill you. Let me ask you: is

that information enough to empower our children to stay away from drugs? Think about

that. Now since Christians honor the truth, we agree that information is a good thing.

Learning is good, libraries are good. Christian monks in Ireland preserved the heritage of

Classical learning for the West in the early medieval period when all of continental

Europe was in a dark and barbarous time. Even so, information is not enough. We need

the truth. Jesus is the truth! Many people do things that they know are bad for them.

You know McDonald's quarter-pounders with super-size fries and coke are bad for you,

but most of you still eat them. You do it to satisfy your taste buds, even though very

soon after, you get feedback from your aching stomach, which seems to be saying, "What

did you put in me? Not this again!" Am I right? The path to virtuous living is not

information alone. My old friend Mike wandered from the faith in his late twenties, and

he got addicted to cocaine. He lost his job, he lost his wife, he lost his children, his

friends and all his money to that drug. When he hit bottom, he realized that he had to go

back and confront the lie about drugs that he had believed, and act on that new truth.

Let's look at how the Apostle Paul says we are to grow into maturity. Turn with

me to Ephesians chapter 4, verse 11, found on page 1158. He says that the body of Christ

works together so we all build each other up the apostles do their apostolic thing, the

prophets prophesy, the evangelists evangelize, and the pastor-teachers teach and guide.

Let's say verse 15 together: "Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things

grow into him who is the head, that is, Christ." So Paul tells us that maturity results from

a process of growth that involves other people: they speak the truth in love to us; we

speak the truth in love to them, and we all grow. At CHS, our strategy for that growth in

community is small groups and mentoring relationships. Look t the back of your bulletin

it's a core value for us that we are going to focus on this fall. The endpoint and goal is

for us to look like Jesus Christ. We want to grow into him. The word "Christians" means

"little Christs." We don't want to look like Jessica Simpson or Richard Simmons or Jane

Fonda or Brad Pitt! Not unless they look like Christ. Together we guide each other in the

ongoing extreme makeover that is conformity to the image of Christ.

Note that in verses 20 and 21, Paul addresses his readers with knowledge of their

training "in accordance with the truth." Paul had planted this church in Ephesus in

53A.D. on his third missionary journey, and came back later to live there in Ephesus for

three years to oversee the mission. Finally Paul traveled to Rome where he was

imprisoned, and he wrote the letter to the Ephesians in 60 A.D. A little later, he wrote

Timothy to tell him to stay in Ephesus, and in 2 Timothy 2:2, he told Timothy to entrust

Paul's teaching to reliable men who are also able to teach others. Here Paul articulates to

Timothy the principle in our mission statement: We make disciples who make disciples.

Our job is not done until our disciples have themselves made disciples.

In verse 17, Paul insists that we must no longer live as the Gentiles do. Since the

church in Ephesus is filled with Gentile converts, Paul is saying here, don't live like you

used to. Their old way of thinking is "futile," which implies an idolatrous conditioning of

the mind. Paul develops much more deeply in Romans chapter one that wrong conduct

flows naturally from wrong ideas about God. Here we come to a fundamental difference

between Christianity's program and the worlds' program of self-improvement: Pagans

may be virtuous, but they cannot be godly, because they do not know the Truth. Jesus is

the truth. You must know the designer's character, and you must know operator's

manual written by him if you are going to function as the designer designed you to

function. Verse 18: their understanding is darkened due to ignorance; the lies they have

believed are deep-rooted. You have to dig quite deep to get to the bottom of it.

I decided when I moved to Ashburn that I would have a beautiful lawn. The home

we picked had the worst lawn on the street. I worked hard for years to bring that lawn up,

pulling up all the crabgrass and many weeds by hand. I learned that if you mow

dandelions, they look gone but they come back very soon. It's no use just cutting off a

dandelion stem; you can even pull up part of the root, but it will come back until the

whole root is completely dug up or killed. Lies that we have believed from the past will

continue to deceive us until they are dealt with. The whole thing must be dug up by the

root. Time will not heal old lies; only truth will.

Just as you can grow into maturity, you can also regress and become more

infantile. How? Verse 14: by being deceived by every wind of teaching and by deceitful

scheming of men. Speaking the truth in love involves not only rebuking bad behavior, it

also involves correcting bad doctrine. remember, we act according to what we believe.

If we neglect this call, and just let all this stuff slide, it leads to hardening of the heart.

That is a scary place: through habitual sin, there is a progressive inability of the

conscience to convict you of wrong-doing. In Romans 2:15, Paul tells us that the

conscience serves as a witness to the law of God planted within. But habitual ignoring of

the conscience incapacitates it. In First Timothy 4:2, Paul says such a conscience is

"seared as with a hot iron," by lies and hypocrisy. The result of that, verse 19, is that you

lose all moral sensitivity.

Friends: that is the road I was on in my early twenties. Every time you sin, it

becomes easier to sin again that same way, until you rationalize it, and become self-

justifying in it. In verse 22, Paul tells us that the desires of the old man are deceitful. Can

there be any doubt about this? We could look at how men are deceived, but today we'll

focus on the women. Whole industries exist where people must deceive you in order for

them to make money from you.

Look at the many deceptions that are necessary to sustain women's romance

novels. There is the lie that the novel's romantic hero, noble-born, daring, rich, brave and

handsome, usually showing too much chest hair, is available to you; it's a lie that he will

rescue you; its' a lie that that if you were to meet such an unreal, airbrushed superman,

he would choose you; the lie that he is real, not virtual; the lie that the pre-marital sex this

character has with women would not corrupt you; the lie that a fantasy of a man could

ever complete you. The exact same things could be said to men about pornographic

images of women. Lies are at the base of these fantasies. Now a single Romance novel

will likely not corrupt you, but it can help, along with other media, to break down your

appreciation for what is true, what is noble, and what is real.

Once your conscience is seared, the only thing left for someone so deceived, is,

verse 19, sensuality; also translated wantonness, or debauchery. This is a flaunting of

natural passions, with no restraint of shame or fear, with no regard for public decency. I

don't have to give you any examples of this; they are all around us.

Now we get to the nub of Paul's two-fold advice: in verse 22, Paul says, put off

your old man, your former way of life, which is being corrupted by deceitful desires; and

put on the new man, created to be like God. First, let's look at putting off the old man.

Paul tells us to lay our former pagan ways down like worn out clothes, never to put them

on again. Treat the old ways as filthy rags, as dead lies. Romans 6:6 says our old man

was crucified with Christ. Here's my advice to you: Don't try to manage your sinful

desires, or to repress them. Instead, kill them. Have a funeral for your fleshy desires. Put

them to death. Romans 8:5 says make no provision for the flesh. If your temptation is

magazines, don't go down that aisle in the supermarket. If your temptation is internet

porn, don't get online after dark. One definition of evil is to make provision for sin. Let

that die. Instead, Ephesians 4:24, put on the new self. Paul does not tell us to only to

stop our bad habits, and take up good habits; he tells us to be made new in the attitude of

our minds. How do we do that? His first advice, verse 25, is to put off falsehood and to

speak truthfully to each other.

You all know the story of the emperor who had no clothes. He was fooled by a

con man into believing that a certain royal robe was so amazing that only the wise could

see it. So he pretended to see this non-existent robe, and no one had the guts to tell the

king that he had no clothes on, except finally, a little boy. Without feedback, it is easy

for us to take off the old ways of the old man and not replace it with anything new, and to

think that's enough. It's not enough to stop smoking; you must learn to breathe in Christ.

Hebrews 3:13 says, "Encourage each other daily..., so that none of you may be

hardened by sin's deceitfulness." Encouragement from others keeps us from being

deceived by sin. It's so easy to be deceived! We like to think we are not so bad. We need

each other to walk in truth. Let's look at how this happens.

This diagram is called the Johari window. It describes what you and others know

about yourself. Quadrant one describes the public part of yourself what you and others

all know about you. Quadrant two describes the things others know about you but you

don't know. We call this area our blind spots, or the "bad breath area" -we would not

know about this stuff unless someone told us. Quadrant three is areas known to us, but

not to others, the things we hide, the skeletons in our closet. Quadrant four are things

about ourselves that are known only to God. The great thing about this model is that it

shows us how we grow we are made whole and mature through self-disclosure and

allowing others to speak into our blind spots.

In my one-on-one accountability meetings, I have asked my partner to speak into

my blind spots. One of many things I have learned is that there is a shadow side to my

direct, honest and open approach: I can come across as abrasive and jarring, and I can

leap to conclusions or try to fix before listening. I am working on this, and God is

working on me. When we have built trust in a small group or mentoring relationship

where we study the Bible together, we learn about out blind spots. That process of self-

discovery and working on our character is painful, but necessary in conforming us to the

image of Christ. In a small group, we self-disclose more of the things we would

otherwise hide. As we confess our sins to our brothers and sisters, and as they lovingly

hold us accountable, we grow into the likeness of Christ. As Quadrant one, the public

area, grows, we grow in wholeness. That is how iron sharpens iron. It is how Christ

grows us, replaces our old, dead self with more and more of himself. At first, it's only for

moments. Then, it's more and more, so that you become permanently different.

The final thing to know about putting on the new man is that it is not so much

personal imitation of Christ, but rather incorporation into Christ. It's not like reading

about Tony Robbins and trying to become like him. To put on the new man is to put on

Christ. More than you putting Christ on, really, more truly, he puts you on. When the

Bible says that the Holy Spirit came upon Gideon in power, the Hebrew says that the

Holy Spirit put on Gideon like a glove. It's like God saying, "I think I'll wear Gideon

today." That's huge. Yes, put on Christ. More, let God wear you today. Let him surround

you, so that you look on the outside the way you are in the inside. Putting Christ on is not

just external, it's an inside job.

Become who you are. Put on the new man. Amen.