[0:00] All right, let's have a seat as we prepare to hear the word of the Lord this morning from the New Testament book of Ephesians.
[0:15] I invite you to join me in prayer as we ask God for his wisdom and for his help, the help of his spirit. Our God and our Father, we recognize that we ourselves are unable to approach your throne.
[0:28] In and of ourselves, we stand condemned by our sin. We stand condemned by our rebellion against you. But we thank you that you have given your own son.
[0:41] That's who we look to. We thank you that he has died for us, that he has granted us, he has given us forgiveness.
[0:53] And because of that, we have new hope. And because of that, we have resurrection life. Because we believe that his sacrifice is enough for us. And that now we are welcomed into your presence.
[1:05] Lord God, now that we are believers, would you work, would you weave your word into our hearts this morning? Challenge us, shape us, make us like you.
[1:18] We pray, Lord God. I ask that you would open our hearts to receive this word. Soften our hearts to be reshaped, remolded, to be made like you, holy and without sin.
[1:32] We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Today we're going to talk about how to get rid of your old man.
[1:44] Right? Now my only regret in this sermon is that I didn't get to preach this on Father's Day. That would have been the worst.
[1:54] But we're going to talk about how to get rid of your old man. And I'll explain what that means in a little bit. We've been traveling up to this point in the year. We've been traveling through the Old Testament book of Exodus week by week.
[2:05] So it might seem odd that we're stepping away from Exodus for just a week here. But I think it's helpful to view this as sort of a follow-up to last week's sermon.
[2:15] Because last week in Exodus chapter 19, we saw the Lord give his people, we saw the Lord give the people of Israel an identity and a mission.
[2:27] The people of Israel are going to be his treasured possession. They are going to act as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation on the Lord's behalf. And we learned that this identity, this mission, was fulfilled in the true Israel, Jesus Christ.
[2:43] And we learned that we who believe in Jesus, we who are united to Jesus by faith, now we too are grafted in. Now we too share this identity, this mission as well.
[2:55] And the Apostle Peter we saw last week, he writes about this in 1 Peter chapter 2. You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
[3:17] Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
[3:28] Now that's where we stopped last week, but Peter doesn't stop there. He keeps going. Peter tells us that our identity, our mission as the people of God, our identity and our mission are under threat.
[3:42] They're under attack. Now, 1 Peter does talk a lot about this external, about external suffering, about suffering at the hands of government, suffering at the hands of those who don't believe, and who want to stamp out the Christian faith.
[3:57] But the primary enemy is not outside of us, what he's communicating. It's not in the government, it's not in the media, it's not in the schools.
[4:08] The enemy is within our own gates. And Peter continues in verses 11 and 12. Beloved, I urge you, as sojourners and exiles, to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.
[4:29] Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
[4:41] Abstain from the passions of your flesh, which wage war against your soul. In other words, within each man, within each woman, within each child, even within those who call themselves Christians, there are these passions, there are these desires, these longings, these cravings, and they are waging an unholy war against you.
[5:15] They will destroy you. They will destroy me. If we allow ourselves to get close to them, to invite them in, to entertain them, these evil and destructive cravings and demands, that's what the Bible calls sin.
[5:33] That's what the Bible calls sin. And when you and I see sin working its way into the thoughts and words, actions of other people, we see it.
[5:43] And we see how ugly it is. We're upset. We're angered. We're shocked. We're appalled. We're worried. We're grieved. How can other people not see how ugly, how destructive their sin is?
[5:56] Well, the truth is that sin looks ugly only from the outside. From the inside, it makes all the sense in the world.
[6:07] It makes all the sense in the world. It feels necessary to lie. It feels righteous to be angry or bitter.
[6:18] It feels authentic to speak corrupting words. It feels thrilling or comforting to entertain sexually immoral behavior or thoughts.
[6:29] Your sin looks terrible to other people, but it always makes sense to you. It looks good to you. Now, why is this?
[6:40] How can other people have such a different perspective on your own sin than you do? Why does it feel so good to you but feel like death to everyone around you?
[6:55] Well, we've already heard why this is from God's Word. We heard it this morning at the beginning of the service when Chris read it in Ephesians chapter 4 and 5.
[7:06] In the New Testament, in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 17, through chapter 5, verse 21, we're going to learn about that. It's on page 978 if you're using one of the blue Bibles that our ushers provide.
[7:19] Now, since Chris has read this passage already, we're not going to reread the whole thing, but one section that I definitely want us to read to look at closely is chapter 4, verse 17, through 24.
[7:34] Ephesians chapter 4, verses 17, through 24. And we're going to see there why sin that looks so bad to other people appears so good to us.
[7:46] These are words that are written by the Apostle Paul, words provided to you and me by God the Holy Spirit. Verse 17. Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds.
[8:03] They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.
[8:18] But that is not the way you learned Christ. 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 minds and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
[8:52] Now in verse 22, Paul writes that Christians are supposed to put off your old self. Put off your old self. It's like you've been wearing this nasty, sweaty, smelly t-shirt as I did when I went for a hike yesterday and I get home.
[9:09] That shirt is disgusting. It needs to come off. Take it off. If you're reading this in the old King James version of the Bible, you'll see that Paul actually, he actually doesn't say old self.
[9:24] He literally calls that nasty t-shirt your old man. Your old man. And you can see why modern translations have changed that. Paul is saying that you need to get rid of your old man.
[9:42] This old man, what makes him old is that he belongs to the way of life of a world that is becoming obsolete, of a world that is passing away.
[9:53] It's old. It's dying out. Your old man does not belong and will not be present in the new creation that God is making of this world.
[10:09] In the new heavens, the new earth, your old man can't exist there. He doesn't belong. And he doesn't belong in the new creation that God is working inside of every believer.
[10:20] He is the old man and you need to get rid of him. And why do you need to do that? Because your old man has a warped mind. Your old man has a warped mind.
[10:33] And you can see this in the way that Paul talks about your old man. Verse 17, Paul warns about people who are controlled by the old man. He warns about the futility of their minds.
[10:48] Now, the futility of their minds. What is so futile about the way that they think, the way that they reason? Well, Paul explains, they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them.
[11:07] Now, in other words, your old man can think. He can think. But any man locked up in an insane asylum can think. And in fact, those who are insane can often think with absolutely impeccable logic and reasoning.
[11:22] You know, someone who is convinced that aliens have invaded and they're taking over people's bodies and stuff, and you say, no, that's not true. And he looks right at you and says, that's exactly what an alien would say.
[11:36] There's a logic to that. There's a reasoning to that. You can justify, your old man can justify any madness, any conspiracy with arguments that seem absolutely airtight to him.
[11:51] They look like foolishness to everybody else, but to him, they look like they're airtight. Your old man has a warped mind. His logic, his reasoning is twisted by the passions, the desires, the longings, the cravings of his heart.
[12:10] Your old man's mind, it is warped by sin. Sin warps your mind. In verse 22, Paul tells us that the old man is corrupt through deceitful desires.
[12:27] Corrupt through deceitful desires. Desires that deceive, that trick the person who has them. And Paul tells us in verse 18, that your old man's futile thinking, his darkened understanding, his deadly ignorance, is due to their hardness of heart.
[12:49] It comes from a hard heart. In other words, when we allow these desires, when we allow this sin, when we allow all of these passions to get close to us, when we let them in, when we begin to entertain them as a house guest, the funny thing about them is pretty soon you can't get them out of your house anymore.
[13:09] they make their home with you. They take over your house and you're a prisoner in your own house. Sin becomes entrenched.
[13:21] Our hearts become hard and stubborn. They become locked into a twisted shape. And so the entrenched evil desires in your heart, they lead to a warped reasoning in your mind so that you're no longer able to hear other people when they try to correct you, when they try to call you out, when they give argument after argument, piece of logic after piece of logic, none of it looks reasonable to you because you've got your own reasoning that makes sense to your old man.
[13:51] Your old man has a warped mind. This is something that modern psychology has absolutely confirmed. Experiment after experiment, long after God's word revealed it.
[14:02] You and I like to think that we are rational, logical beings. We like to think that we make decisions, that we choose the things we do because our minds have logically sorted through the options and then chosen the most reasonable one as though we're some sort of robot.
[14:21] Study after study shows us that nothing could be further from the truth. Just as Paul explained 2,000 years ago, your mind is a slave to your heart.
[14:31] Your mind is a slave to your heart. You always do what you want to do. Without exception, you always do what you want to do because you want to do it.
[14:47] And then your mind comes up with, generates an explanation or a justification for what you said or what you did or what you want to say or what you want to do.
[15:00] The theologian Ashley Null summarizes it like this. Just one of the most profound things I've ever heard and it's just stuck with me for years. What the heart loves, the will chooses and the mind justifies.
[15:13] What the heart loves, the will chooses and the mind justifies. In other words, what you really want, those desires that are really in your heart deep down, you're going to choose them.
[15:25] You're going to go after them. And all that reasoning, that logic is not going to argue you out of it. Instead, it's going to be used to justify the choice you made.
[15:37] Now, if what your heart desires and loves is a good thing, this is a good thing. This works out well. If what your heart loves and desires is wrong, is sinful, it's going to lead to a warping of your mind.
[15:54] Your mind is a slave to your heart. And if the desires and the loves and the passions and the cravings of your heart, they're corrupted by sin, your mind is corrupted. Even your ability to think is corrupted.
[16:08] Your old man has a warped mind and he has got to go. So what do you do? How do you get rid of your old man? I mean, this looks like a little bit of a catch-22, doesn't it?
[16:23] You know, how do I get rid of my old man if I can't even tell I've got one? How do I get out of a warped mind when my mind is so warped that I can't even think clearly? How can you see clearly when your eyes have been darkened?
[16:39] Well, Paul gives us a three-fold response, a three-fold response to your old man. And the first part of Paul's response is hinted at in verse 18. Paul mentions verse 18 that the Gentiles are darkened in their understanding.
[16:54] They're darkened. And so that sort of is the first stitch. He stitches that thread in place and he kind of leaves it there for us. And then he comes back to it a little bit later in chapter 5, verse 6.
[17:06] Now at this point in Paul's argument in chapter 5, Paul has begun focusing on one of the most mind-warping sins there is. sin. It is a sin that is rivaled only by heroin, by fentanyl, by meth, in the way that it warps and enslaves the human mind.
[17:27] The sin that Paul warns against is sexual immorality. Paul warns against it the way that we warn against addictive drugs. He warns against don't even dabble in it.
[17:39] Don't even try it. Don't even play around with it. Don't mess around with it. And then he warns of the awful consequences that it brings. Paul warns of those who tell you. There are people who tell you, oh, it's just totally harmless.
[17:51] Try it out. And then he tells us how we overcome the darkened mind of the old man. The darkened mind of the old man that's enslaved by sins like that.
[18:04] He says in verses 6 through 14 of chapter 5, let no one deceive you with empty words. For because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
[18:15] Therefore do not become partners with them. For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true.
[18:31] And try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret.
[18:47] But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible. For anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
[19:04] Your old man has a warped mind. How do you get rid of him? First, expose him to the light. Expose him to the light. Your old man, he's like a vampire.
[19:17] The light will help destroy him. Get him out into the light. Let the sun shine on him. Your old man likes to hide in the darkness. Why does he like the darkness?
[19:30] Because in the darkness you can't see clearly. In the darkness, your old man's true nature cannot be identified. In the darkness, his thoughts, his behaviors, they seem acceptable.
[19:44] They may even seem good. They seem justifiable. But when the light, when the knowledge of God and his law, when the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ, when other believers' awareness of who you are, when all of that shines on us, it exposes the old man for who he is, darkness conceals you, but light reveals you.
[20:16] So are there any dark corners of your life that you don't want other people to know about? Are there any concealed corners in your life in which you have allowed sin to grow, to multiply?
[20:34] It's festering like a dead rat in a dark room. Are there areas of your life that you keep in secret because you're ashamed? You don't want others to know about them.
[20:46] You don't want others to see who you really are. Have you given permission to a few trustworthy friends here at Squamish Baptist Church to question, to ask the hard questions week in and week out, to examine your life, to shine light on it.
[21:10] If you're keeping sin in secret dark corners of your life, it is that very secrecy that is causing sin to grow. it's like this mold that grows and festers in the darkness that light will kill off.
[21:29] And unfortunately, it's that very darkness which is stifling and hindering your growth, that is killing you off. We're like a potted plant that if you put on the windowsill, it grows in the light.
[21:43] If you put it in a cupboard, it turns white and sickly and it's unable to bear fruit for God. No dark corners, no hidden portions of our life.
[21:56] We need one another. The German pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he put it this way, sin demands to have a man by himself.
[22:09] it withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him.
[22:23] And the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation. In other words, there's that downward spiral. You isolate yourselves.
[22:34] Sin gains destructive power over you. And as a result, you isolate yourself more and you spiral downwards, those two playing off one another, the isolation and the sin, until it brings you to utter ruin.
[22:46] Bonhoeffer continues, sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light. In the darkness of the unexpressed, it poisons the whole being of a person.
[22:59] You can't quarantine it. You can't confine it. It won't stay in that dark corner. It will take over. your old man will settle for nothing less than total control of you.
[23:15] Expose your life to the light of examination by other people. Expose your life to the light of God's truth in his word. No longer trust your own judgment and your own assessment because your old man has a warped mind.
[23:29] You need God's word. You need other people's wisdom, the wisdom of other believers in your growth group, in your church. We're going to have plenty of opportunity to talk about how this plays out in specific ways in our lives in the coming weeks.
[23:43] We're going to be hearing from each of the Ten Commandments over the course of the summer. God is going to reveal through them who he is and he's going to reveal how we as a result, how we live as children of light.
[23:59] You get rid of your old man by exposing him to the light. That's the first part of Paul's threefold response. And then the second part of his response is found in that phrase in chapter 4, verse 22.
[24:12] Put off your old self. Get rid of your old man. Now this appears again and again, especially in the context of sexual sin.
[24:24] In chapter 5, verse 3, when Paul writes, sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you as is proper among saints.
[24:37] The New International Version puts it, not even a hint. Not hinted at, not named. Again in verses 11 and 12 of chapter 5.
[24:48] Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them for it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. So this is second of all what you do with your old man.
[25:02] Exterminate him without mercy. Exterminate him without mercy. He's like a bed bug infestation. If it means that you have to move out of your house, bring in fumigators for a month, you do it.
[25:17] You can't even keep one around. That's the second part of Paul's response. Exterminate him without mercy. This is the consistent teaching of Jesus, the consistent teaching of his apostles over and over and over again in the New Testament.
[25:32] The apostle Paul writes in Romans chapter 13, put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.
[25:44] Make no provision. Make no plans. Leave no back doors open. Exterminate without mercy. Suffocate it. Don't expose yourself to temptations that can overwhelm you.
[26:01] Plan and prepare to escape the power of sin. Turn regularly day in, day out, to hearing God through his word, the Bible. Turn regularly to speaking to God honestly in prayer.
[26:13] Share your life. Open up your life with other people. remember Christ by coming each and every Sunday to church, taking part in communion together.
[26:25] Paul writes in Galatians chapter 5, those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
[26:36] They take the old man, the passions and desires, and they put him up on a cross, and they drive the nails into him and leave him there to die.
[26:49] Crucify the flesh. Exterminate your old man. Starve him. Starve his passions and desires. The 16th century theologian John Owen, he called this, he called it the mortification of sin, mortifying sin.
[27:05] That means putting it to death by waging unrelenting war against the desires of the flesh which are waging war against you. And John Owen wrote about this, do you mortify?
[27:18] Do you make it your daily work? Be always at it while you live. Cease not a day from this work. Be killing sin or it will be killing you.
[27:32] Be killing sin or it will be killing you. One of those two things is happening in your life. Right now, either you're killing sin or it is killing you.
[27:45] Your old man wants you dead. It's either him or you. So enlist the help of your brothers and sisters in Christ to exterminate him without mercy.
[28:00] That's the second part of Paul's threefold response. Your old man has a warped mind. So first, expose him to the light. Second, exterminate him without mercy. And then there's a third part of Paul's response.
[28:14] When sin is being killed, when the old man is being exterminated, when you're cutting off evil behaviors and habits and patterns of speech, what happens then is, let's say you succeed, let's say you stop a behavior, you stop a pattern of thinking or speaking, what ends up happening is you leave a vacuum, a void that needs to be filled.
[28:33] Think of it like a smoker who says, I'm going to quit smoking and the smoker basically just says, okay, I'm not going to smoke cigarettes, throws out all the cigarettes. The problem is that leaves a void.
[28:47] All you've done is get rid of the cigarettes, you haven't put something in its place. Jesus Christ calls attention to the danger here in Matthew chapter 12 and Jesus uses the illustration of an unclean spirit, of a demon that has been driven out of a person, a person that has been controlled by this demon.
[29:08] And Jesus says, when the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest but finds none. Then it says, I will return to my house from which I came.
[29:22] And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself and they enter and dwell there and the last state of that person is worse than the first total relapse.
[29:42] So also will it be with this evil generation? So Jesus is saying, you can clean out your house, you can get rid of all that old garbage, but if you don't put something in its place, all that old stuff is going to come flooding back in again.
[29:59] You're going to fall back in again. That's how sin works. That's how you relapse. That's how you fall back into the same evils again and again and again. And that's why Paul offers a third part to his response. So he writes in chapter 4 verses 22 through 24, put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness holiness.
[30:35] So when you put off your old self, you don't stop there, you also put on the new self. To get rid of your old man, expose him to the light, exterminate him without mercy, but don't stop there.
[30:50] Third of all, exchange him for your new man. Exchange him for your new man. Now Ephesians chapters 4 and 5, they are filled with examples of this.
[31:01] examples we are going to get to explore as we look at the Ten Commandments. In chapter 4, verse 25, Paul urges dishonest people to exchange their dishonesty.
[31:11] Don't just stop telling lies, but to exchange their dishonesty for truth telling. Be forward, up front, eager to tell the truth.
[31:22] Volunteer the truth. Speak it boldly. In verse 28, Paul urges thieves. Don't just stop stealing things. He urges thieves to exchange their thievery for honest employment and for generosity.
[31:37] Make money honestly, and not only that, give it away. Verse 29, Paul urges people who always seem to have something rotten to say, something to tear other people down.
[31:54] They don't just stop saying those things. He urges them to exchange their corrupting talk, for talk that builds people up. So his solution isn't stop talking, his solution is now say the right things.
[32:09] Verses 31 and 32, Paul urges angry people, don't just stop being angry, he urges them to exchange their rage or their bitterness for kindness and forgiveness.
[32:21] Chapter 5, verses 3 and 4, he urges people who love, you know, who love sexual language and innuendos and jokes, don't just stop those, exchange them for thanksgiving.
[32:35] Expressions of thanksgiving. Verse 17, he urges foolish people to exchange their foolish decision making, don't just stop making decisions, don't get other people to make decisions for you, he urges them, look, abandon that foolish decision making and understand God's will.
[32:54] understand what the will of the Lord is, learn how to make decisions God's way by following his word through principles of wisdom, by consulting other believers.
[33:06] Verse 18, Paul urges alcoholics to exchange their drunkenness, don't just get rid of drunkenness, exchange it for the joy of the Holy Spirit. That's just in these verses, there's so much more in the rest of scripture that reinforces this.
[33:24] You get rid of your old man, you exchange him for your new man. And we're going to have the opportunity, once again, to look at these things in detail. Most of the things we just talked about are covered in the Ten Commandments.
[33:38] We're going to have the opportunity to talk about what that looks like in practical ways. How do we put off old patterns of sin? How do we put on new patterns and new habits of right behavior? We're going to learn how to exchange your old man for your new man.
[33:54] Now that you have a new identity and a new mission as God's people. That decision to exchange, that is an everyday decision. Each and every day and each and every hour, we must make that decision anew.
[34:08] Make that exchange. And this is not something where we're picking ourselves up by our own bootstraps. We don't make this exchange because we've got amazing self-discipline and amazing self-control.
[34:24] We don't do this to prove to ourselves that we're good enough or to prove to other people that we're good enough and we've got what it takes because we don't. Why do we make this exchange? We make this exchange because God has made us new.
[34:38] God has made us new. That's what Paul is saying in chapter 4 verse 24. That new man, that new self, is created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
[34:56] Christian, that is your new identity. Created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and in holiness.
[35:09] If you have believed in Jesus Christ, then you are a new creation. You belong to the future. you belong to the world as it will be.
[35:21] You belong to the new heavens and the new earth that are yet to come. You have been recreated in the image and the likeness of God. He has remade you to look like him.
[35:35] His spirit is within you, giving you new power, new ability to get rid of your old man, to expose him to the light, to exterminate him without mercy, to exchange him for your new man.
[35:48] God has given you, God has already given you all the resources and all the relationships that you need to do this. It's time to take full advantage of them.
[36:04] It's time to become who you were born to be. It's time to become who you already are. God has given you to be God.
[36:14] Because you were born to be a child of God. You were born to be like your father. That's why in chapter 4, verse 32, Paul writes, God in Christ forgave you, and then he continues, therefore, be imitators of God.
[36:31] God in Christ forgave you, therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children. children. You're not just forgiven. He's adopted you as his children.
[36:47] And walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
[36:59] Be imitators of God. Why? Because you are his treasured possession. You are his beloved children. Jesus Christ, his son, loved us so much that he gave himself up for us.
[37:18] He was crucified, willingly crucified, and died and buried so that our old man may be crucified and dead and buried and stay in the grave.
[37:34] Jesus took all our sin on himself. Jesus bore all the punishment that we deserve. And he did that so that just like him, just like him, we will rise to new life.
[37:49] We will rise to resurrection life, eternal life, the good life. And the good life, that is the life of the new man, the life of the new self, life.
[38:02] A life in which we walk in love and we give ourselves up for the Lord. There is no sacrifice too great for Jesus Christ our Lord. He is worth it.
[38:15] No matter what you do for him, he is worth it. And there is no offering too great for God our Father, who has made us his children, dearly loved children.
[38:30] If you have never put your faith in Jesus Christ, it's time. It's time to do it. There's not going to be better opportunities.
[38:47] The hardening of our hearts continues. It continues. We grow harder the older we get. We get locked into patterns and ways of thinking.
[39:00] The older you get, the harder it is to change. There will not be a better time than now. It's time to get rid of your old man and his warped mind. Expose him to the light, exterminate him without mercy, exchange him for your new man, turn from your sin, believe in Jesus Christ.
[39:20] Now is the time. Now is the place. And if you have believed, believed, but you have been letting your old man sit in your living room and remain in your life, it's time for you too to get rid of him.
[39:42] Before he hardens your heart, before he warps your mind any further, expose him to the light, exterminate him without mercy, and exchange him for your new man. Apostle Paul, he writes in chapter 5, verse 14, he calls us to this new life together in Christ.
[40:02] He says, awake, wake up, oh sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
[40:16] That's a promise. Wake up, rise from the dead. Christ will shine on you. Come up after the service.
[40:28] Speak to myself or one of the other elders. We can get you in touch with people who can help you if you need help. We can get you in touch with people you can open up to.
[40:42] We want you to follow Jesus Christ. He is worth it. Let me pray. our God and our Father.
[40:55] You are worth it. And you are making us new. God, we've held on to one of the two.
[41:18] One two. One one.