Father, we confess before you that sometimes your word just offends us, and we want to pretend that it doesn't, but it does.
Sometimes, Father, your word makes us proud when it should really be humbling us.
And sometimes, Father, your word just makes us feel bad when it's actually very, very good news.
Father, we need the help of your Holy Spirit that we might understand your word correctly.
So we ask that the Holy Spirit would move at a very deep level of who we are so that we might, Father, enter into your word,
and your word might enter into us, and in light of the gospel, that we might be changed more and more and more into the new creation
that we will eventually be in fullness and glory.
And this we ask in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen.
Please be seated.
So one of the things I do sometimes when I get into conversations with people about the Christian faith,
they find out I'm a Christian, at some point in time I might ask them if they actually own a Bible,
if they'd be interested in reading the Bible, and sometimes they say, no, I don't have a Bible.
And I say, would you like it if I gave you a New Testament or a Gospel of John?
And sometimes they say yes.
And one of the things I like to do sometimes when I'm working on my sermon is I like to imagine what would happen
if I discovered, let's say on Monday, that they actually had been reading the Bible by themselves,
and they came to me.
This actually did happen to me once about a year ago.
They came to me and said, George, how come it says this?
Like it was something about Jesus that said, I can't remember the text, but he said, this is really bloodthirsty.
And he was a bit shocked, and we ended up having a bit of a conversation about it.
So I don't know how many of you caught what Ken said when he was reading from Ephesians 4, verse 17 and following.
It'd be helpful if you get your Bibles out and look at it, Ephesians 4, 17 and following.
But you can well imagine that if your non-Christian friends saw this, they might be a little bit bothered by it.
And if you don't have your Bible, I'm just going to read it very, very quickly, just the first, the little hard bit,
and then we'll talk about it.
And here's how it goes.
Note what it says.
Now this I say and testify in the Lord.
And in the original language, this is like a solemn declaration.
The word say, in some contexts, could be also translated as I decree.
Like if you were the emperor, I decree this.
It's a solemn thing.
It's not said flippantly.
It's not like a put-down comment, snide, or anything like this.
This is something very solemn.
I solemnly say and testify in the Lord.
Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds.
Now just listen.
By the way, one of the reasons that what we're doing here is this.
One of the things which some of you know, I was just in Israel and I came back.
And one of the great privileges of this tour that I was able to be on in Israel is that we got to meet different Israeli officials
and also some ordinary people.
For instance, we had the privilege of going to an Orthodox Jewish home and seeing how they celebrate the Shabbat,
the beginning of the Sabbath.
But one of the things I noticed time and time again when I was speaking to Israelis,
especially around problems, is they said this particular phrase,
you got to see the world as it is, roll up your sleeves, and deal with it.
Like, isn't that good wisdom?
See the world as it is, roll up your sleeves, and deal with it.
Get down to it.
And so it is with this text.
It's very easy for us to quickly just go over it, hope that nobody really notices, not meditate upon it,
but it's a very stark text.
And so what we're going to do is we're walking towards the text.
We're going to camp in the text for a good part of the sermon,
just trying to understand what it says and what it's not saying.
So I'll begin reading at verse 17 again.
Now this I say in testifying the Lord.
Remember, this is a solemn thing.
It's to be read solemnly.
That you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do.
And Paul would be saying that anybody other than a Jewish person is a Gentile.
And many Christians would just see it as this is describing non-Christians.
I'm going to comment on that in a moment, but that's how they would be heard at least on one level.
That you must no longer walk, verse 17, and as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds.
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.
Now, aren't you glad you invited your non-Christian friend to church today?
This would be such a good text for them to hear.
It's a very, very powerful and stark text.
We're going to walk towards this.
Now, the first thing you need to understand before I start to unpack it is this.
It sounds like it's an us versus them statement, but it's not.
If you understand it as an us versus them statement, you're going to misunderstand it.
What Paul is doing is he's describing the baseline of every human mind.
He is describing the baseline of the human mind for every human mind.
So the good news is this.
He's not insulting non-Christians.
He also is insulting everyone here in the room.
He's insulting all of us.
He's saying this is how the normal human mind works in these patterns.
And many of you would say, George, that doesn't help us at all.
It just doesn't, in fact, seem true.
It seems way, way, way too extreme.
So let's just look at some of these phrases and think about it for a second
and see if we actually think it's as extreme and as bad as it sounds.
Look at, we're not going to begin with futility.
We're going to end with futility in verse 17.
Let's look at the first phrase, they are darkened in their understanding.
And the word understanding there could also, some of your words, your Bible,
your Bibles have thoughts.
But the best word actually, the most literal word is mindset.
That there's something about the actual mind itself and the way it's set that is darkened.
Now, let me just ask you some thought experiments.
How many of you look at things in the paper or things that are going on in community
and you say to yourself, how can they not see that that is wrong?
Am I the only one?
Everyone does it, right?
How can they not see that that is wrong?
And you know what?
You can be absolutely guaranteed.
I don't know what your political views are.
I don't know what your views are on climate change.
I don't know who you voted for.
But I can guarantee whatever your view is, if it was published, there'd be a whole pile of Canadians
who would say, how can they not see that that is wrong?
Right?
That's what we say about each other.
How can they not see that that is wrong?
And if you think about it for yourself, if you think back on your former way of thinking,
I did a bit of a faux pas about a couple of months ago.
There's a neighbor of mine who goes to my old church.
And I started to talk about somebody that I thought was dead.
Okay?
And one of the things I talked about, I was just sharing.
I was just smiling.
He's dead.
I can say this thing about the guy in the past.
And this guy in the past, this was in 1985 when I was just ordained.
And I remember him going on this long rant.
He said, I work in the computer business and I can tell you this.
No computer will ever be so portable and ever so fast and can handle so much information
that it could ever be connected to a gun that would shoot down a missile.
And he went on an hour-long rant about how stupid Reagan was
and how stupid anybody was to think you'd ever have computers small enough, fast enough,
powerful enough to shoot down a missile.
And I just shared that with a chuckle.
And then the guy told me he's still alive.
And then he said with a smile, I really look forward to telling him this story.
Because it will make him very uncomfortable.
He was in the computer business, right?
That's what he said.
I'm in the computer business.
I know no computer will ever get like that.
Well, some of you are in the computer business.
We don't make those types of claims because who knows what's going to happen.
But here's the thing.
Remember I said, all of Canada we say, how could they not see that that was wrong?
But if you think about yourself, think if somebody was to remind you of something that you said
or believed a year ago, five years ago, 20 years ago, now you might say to yourself,
I don't know how I couldn't see that that was wrong.
What are you describing?
A darkened mind.
In fact, just think about it for a second.
Imagine you meet somebody and they come up and they start gushing to you.
Oh, you should meet this woman.
You should meet this man.
He's a teacher.
And all of his teaching is light.
He is completely and utterly enlightened.
Everything he sees, he sees clearly.
What will every single one of us think?
Nut job and cult, right?
What do we not believe?
In a mind which is only light.
I just proved it.
So why are we bothered here?
Let's look at the next one.
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.
So what that just said, if you unpack it, verse 18, we have a hard heart.
And because of a hard heart, we have ignorance.
And because of this ignorance that comes out of a hard heart, we're alienated from God and
his life.
Does that sound extreme?
Well, let me ask you this thought experiment.
Imagine in a couple of years, human beings are able to land on Mars.
And so they land on Mars, a big enough ship and a group of a team of astronauts, men and
women, they get out and they have maybe, first they just walk around a little bit, but they
unload some type of a rover that can move on the surface of Mars.
And they hop in and the cameras are going and they're talking and everybody, like billions
of people on Earth will be fixated with this when the day happens, right?
And so they go around a corner and they get to be able to look down a bit of a crevice,
a valley, and on the bottom they see something that can travel on the surface of Mars.
And they can see that there's lights coming out of it.
It means it has power and it's turned on.
Now, if they said that, all of Earth would be riveted.
And then if they go down and they see that there's this thing that can travel on Mars
and it has obviously power and it's turned on, but there's nobody in it.
Like every single one of us, we'd be worried about aliens.
Are they around the corner?
Are they going to kill us?
Are they going to eat us?
Are they going to befriend us?
It'd be all this thing.
But imagine if a week afterwards NASA said, don't worry about it.
That thing that we found, it happened by chance.
We figured out that there were some explosions and some windstorms on Mars.
And a result of that, you have a rover with power turned on.
Who would believe them?
Zero.
Let me tell you.
The human cell is more complicated than that device and it got turned on by chance.
Why do we think that one idea is absurd and the other is the thing you have to believe to enter into polite society?
Try being a politician in Canada that says you think that a cell could not just happen by itself.
What Scheer is going through about abortion would be nothing compared to how everybody would hound them.
You think that's too extreme?
Imagine a second story.
Jenny comes in on a morning into the office and she finds me dead on the ground.
And she calls, there's a pool of blood.
She calls the police.
They come.
They discovered afterwards with an autopsy that somebody had broken my back and I was paralyzed.
And then they stabbed me several times and I bled to death.
But, before I died, with the blood that was pooling from my chest, I write on the side, Bob Jones murdered me last night in my blood.
And I hope there's no Bob Jones here.
I picked a name.
Maybe I should have picked Frodo Baggins.
I don't know.
But then we'd know there's no Frodo Baggins.
So, Bob Jones murdered me last night.
And if in his defense, when the police go, they arrest Bob Jones, you know, and Bob Jones said, that blood, that writing, George didn't write it.
It just happened by chance.
It's just the way the blood flowed.
Who would believe it?
But that simple message, Bob Jones murdered me, you know, whatever the date, is vastly simpler than DNA.
By a huge order of magnitude.
And DNA is just information, chemically put together.
Why is it that we think, that we would not believe that Bob Jones killed me this evening, that that couldn't happen by chance, that we believe DNA can happen by chance?
Is it possible that what we have is a hardness of heart that leads to ignorance, that means that we will not want to know the true and living God?
Is it possible, in fact, that when the Bible says here 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 the heart, that we have hard hearts when it comes to God?
And consider the next thing.
They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality.
What does this mean here?
Just think about this for a second.
And I'm sure this has happened to everybody here.
But if you have any friends, if you have brothers and sisters, if you have any family, in fact, if you're anybody other than somebody who's lived in a test tube and behind some veil and never met a human being,
at some point in time, one of these moments will come to you, your wife or your friend or your child will come to you and say,
five years ago you did this and it hurt me unbelievably badly.
And you realize when you think about yourself.
And they said, not only did it hurt me really badly what you did, it didn't seem to bother you at all.
You just kept going on.
You were so caught up with just doing your own thing, you never even noticed how deeply you hurt me.
Every single one of us, if we haven't had that experience yet, just wait.
We get so caught up in pursuing our own pleasure, what pleases us, we don't realize the damage we might have just done to an important relationship.
What does that describe?
That describes what the Bible just says here, isn't it?
They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality.
And let's look at the last one.
Greedy to practice every kind of impurity.
Now, at the level of the original language, impurity here is not referring to sexual purity.
It's referring to a relationship with God, the true and living God, the holy, good, only good, only loving, only truthful, only just, only merciful God.
And it's describing something here about the flow, the flow of our lives, so to speak.
Human beings aren't static, we're in motion.
And we're moving along a current.
And what is part of the current that describes every human being?
Well, a bit of a thought experiment.
And you might not agree with it, but I think you will if you think about it.
All of a sudden, I said, I think it would be a great moral evil if you touched one of those bronze door opening things underneath that exit sign over there.
And if I was to go on and on and on about how great a moral evil it would be and you should never do it, what would all of you want to do?
Touch it.
So, you said, why?
Because the fact of the matter is, is that within every single human being there is a flow.
there is a flow to do things to say to God,
you're not the boss of me.
You're not the boss of me.
You're only the boss of me to the extent that I allow you to be the boss of me.
And that describes every human mind.
So all of a sudden, you see,
when we Christians are afraid of the word of God and run from it,
we realize, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, one second.
The Bible here is describing every human mind, including you and me.
Including you and me.
Now, what about that first phrase way back up in verse 17,
which sort of launched all of this?
Now I say this, and I have to watch my time.
Now I say this, now this I say, verse 17,
and testifying the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do
in the futility of their minds.
And I describe to you how what the Bible is doing here
is it's describing the baseline of every human mind.
It's not an us or them statement.
The other thing you need to understand here is this,
that the statement, and some of you who are theologically trained
know that what we see here is the doctrine of total depravity, by the way.
And what this doctrine is saying here,
especially if you look at the rest of the Bible,
is it's not saying absolute futility,
but true futility.
It's not describing minds as being completely and utterly broken.
If that was the case, we couldn't have any communication.
Paul couldn't write and we couldn't read.
But it's saying that there's something in every human mind
which is broken, that's bent,
that doesn't work right.
It would be as if you went hunting
and you didn't realize that the rifle was just not actually straight,
and every time you lined it up to shoot,
it always kept missing.
But you just never try to adopt.
It's always just missing.
Or maybe it's a rifle that every time,
even when you adjust this.
Anyway, I don't want to forget,
the mind is bent.
And so here it is with futility.
And every single human being is touched by it.
And part of the reason that this flow that I just described
about wanting to show God that he's not the boss
and why this flow doesn't completely and utterly unmake us
is that the rest of the Bible teaches us
that there's this thing called common grace,
that God spares us from the full results of our decision
to say to God,
you are not my boss.
I am the boss.
Or this, the company is the boss.
Or this ideology is the boss.
Or money is the boss.
Or my wife is the boss.
Or my husband is the boss.
Or my kids are the boss.
And I'll only acknowledge your authority
to the extent that I allow you
after I serve these other types of things.
And the fact that that doesn't completely and utterly unmake us
is described in other parts in the Bible
as the doctrine of common grace,
that God restrains things that go on within us.
But what about futile?
Well, it's another topic of a conversation.
But what this is implying here
is that there is a true meaning to life.
There's a true end to life.
And the Bible is telling you very solemnly and truly
that there actually is the possibility
of real meaning to life.
At Dig and Delve, I got asked,
I got to do a presentation just last weekend
on Friday night.
It was on intelligent design and science
and whether science is leading us more and more
to believe that you have to have a designer
to account for what they're discovering about reality.
And I got to do one of the presentations,
the opening presentation to set the stage.
And they ended up inviting me to be on the panel.
And one of the questions that came to me was,
isn't it the case that lies
sometimes lead you to the truth
and that lies are important to knowing the truth?
What do you think about that?
And my response was,
do you want me to lie or tell you the truth?
And I mention this because it's sort of important,
is that what the Bible is saying here,
and it's beyond the scope of my sermon,
is that there really is meaning to life.
It's not just self-declared,
because there really is a God that does exist,
who has created us as human beings for a purpose,
and our chief end,
the true meaning of our life,
is to know God and enjoy him forever
and bring him glory.
We were made for this.
What about futility?
Here's the thought experiment.
Imagine in the spring,
you go up into the Ottawa Valley somewhere,
and you go to a river where it's dammed,
and if you know anything about dams,
sometimes the dams have runoff areas off to the side.
And you go, and you go the day before,
and you see that there's people camping there.
And you say to them,
tomorrow at this time,
they're going to open some floodgates
because of the waters rising,
there's going to be a runoff here,
and if you don't get out of this place,
you're going to drown.
The water will come through with a great torrent,
and will overwhelm you.
But in the meantime,
between now and then,
they don't listen,
they don't acknowledge.
In fact, what happens is,
one of them designs an app
that if it ever got released,
would make a million dollars,
a five million dollars,
ten million dollars,
lots of money.
Another person designs a poet,
a poem,
that if in fact you were able to show the poem,
it would end up being something
that would end up being put in school textbooks.
It's so brilliant.
Another person designs a dance.
Another person designs some new camping equipment.
Another person solves a problem on their computer,
a mathematical equation,
that had never been solved.
They do all of these things,
and then the next day,
the water comes,
but they don't actually leave,
and the water comes and kills them all.
Now, they've been absolutely brilliant.
They've been creative in dance,
in art,
in technology,
in math,
and all of those things,
but what would you say about their thinking?
It was futile.
They all died.
They just died.
It was futile.
And in fact,
it might be that there was somebody in the room
who was fairly average IQ
with their Down syndrome kid,
but they took the warning
and got up out of the thing,
and they're not as high an IQ,
but what would you say about their thinking?
It wasn't futile.
They're still alive.
They heard it,
and that's what the Bible is saying here.
You see,
if you look at it,
the Bible is describing
the possibility of real meaning,
and the Bible's description is true.
And here's the thing.
Why is it to read this
and hear that it's true?
Why does it depress people?
You see,
like,
part of the thing is
that the fact that it depresses us
both says something about our pride,
but it also says something about our longings.
Our pride says
we don't want to acknowledge
that there's darkness or callousness
or impurity within us,
but it also,
at the same time that it reveals our pride,
it also reveals something about our longings,
that surely our minds
are meant for more than this.
Surely our minds are meant
to be healthy
and responsive
and filled with light
and longing for light
and pure.
that this text
opens something
about our longings
and our pride.
So what does the Bible say about this?
Let's look what Paul moves to
very next.
That's verses 20 to 24.
And by the way,
as you turn to this in the Bible,
here's a little bit of a geek moment,
okay?
Those of you who are geeks,
timeout,
geek timeout moment,
okay?
Okay,
you can go to,
those who aren't geeks,
you can go to sleep
for about a minute.
I'll tell the geeks
this geek moment.
The way that this letter
is structured
is very,
very interesting.
Verses 17 to 24
basically sets up
the framework
to understand
all moral
and spiritual exhortation
that makes up
the rest of the letter.
From verse 25
to the end of chapter 6,
Paul is going to talk
about forgiveness,
language,
spiritual things,
marriage,
relationships,
parents and children.
And in a sense,
if you were going to try
to organize it,
you could say
that over here
there's this basic framework
and then he gives
a whole pile of,
for instance,
that flow from it.
And so in a sense,
every time you looked
at any moral thing,
spiritual warfare,
anything,
you could say,
okay,
let's go back to this.
This is the framework
to understand it.
Ah,
here's a,
for instance,
end of geek moment,
back to the text.
So what does Paul do?
Let's look at what he does.
And at first,
it's going to seem like
it's not very much.
But that's because often
we don't think
the gospel is very much.
You see,
because we are addicted
to the type of
immoral advice
that says,
try harder,
improve your education.
If you just know the truth,
you'll do the right thing.
If you just get
a better willpower
and you try harder,
that that will be good.
Where our other type
of moral advice
will be,
you know,
to appeal to our pride.
Like,
just think how bad
people will think of you
if you don't do this.
Or the other thing
that we'll do is,
well,
our moral improvement
and moral exhortation
often comes around
to a type of bribery.
If you give to people,
if you give more money
to the church,
you'll feel better.
So give more money
to the church,
you'll feel better.
It's appealing
to your own self-interest.
And often,
we're so used to
thinking about it
in those types of terms
where if you can't make it,
fake it.
Like,
you know,
we're used to those
types of things
and when we actually see
what the Bible speaks
in light of the profound insight
into how we actually function,
we're disappointed at first.
But it's wisdom.
Listen to what it says.
Verse 20.
But this is not,
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.
So what's Paul
saying here?
What's going on?
Early on
in the book of Ephesians
in chapter 2
Paul uses
a very, very
graphic image
to describe
what conversion is
and what it means
to become a Christian.
He says in a sense
you want to understand
what the gospel is
and how you become
a Christian
go to a funeral home
and if you go to
a funeral home
you find dead bodies
and what you have
to understand
is that apart from Christ
you're like a dead body.
How good
are dead bodies
at seeking God?
Well, dead bodies
can't do anything
they're dead.
So how do you understand
how conversion works?
What you have to understand
in conversion
is that God calls you
and not only
does God choose you
and call you
but God gives you
the power
to make you alive
to respond
to his call
and as you respond
to it
he makes you
fully alive.
You have the power
to respond to God
the same
as a dead body
has the power
to run a marathon.
None.
You are completely
and utterly
dependent upon God.
Paul uses
a similar type
of analogy
here with us.
He's just described
how our minds
don't work
at least not
in terms of
any ultimate sense.
There's something
just bent
and broken with them.
And so he said
here's the power
it's very similar
if you go back
later on
look at 2 Corinthians 4
verses 1 to 6
it's a very similar
type of thing
and this is how
the image goes.
Look again
at verse 20
but that is not
the way you learned
Christ
assuming that you
heard about him
and were taught
in him
as the truth
is in Jesus.
And this is
one of those phrases
that in English
is very, very,
very, very dense.
It's really like
you know how
if a kid draws you
a picture
it's full of scribbles
and it looks just cute
because it's a kid
but most of the lines
don't really matter
and they don't really
illustrate anything.
This is more like
some of those
like Chinese
and Buddhist drawings
where there's just
a very small number
of lines
but every line
is very, very important
because there's
just a few of them
and it shows
the real skill
of the artist
and that's what
Paul is doing here.
What he's doing here
is he's saying
is this
George
I have just described
your mind
and one day
in the midst
of your mind
being the way
your mind
is
the message
of Christ
came
not what was
this message
of Christ
this message
of Christ
is that God
saw George
your unbelievable
need
and your inability
to unbend
your mind
and fix yourself
he saw
the direction
and flow
of your heart
and your inability
to fix that yourself
he saw you
in your weakness
he saw you
at your worst
and God's response
to that
is love
he loves you
and so
Jesus comes
and lives
the life
that you could
never live
he dies a death
in your place
he rises
from the dead
he defeats
that which keeps
you separated
from me
burying it
in his person
he defeats
death
his perfect light
all of
what is going
to be now
described
you hear this
message
and this
message
pierces
your darkened
mind
not because
of the power
of my
not because
my mind
is somehow
special
that I have
an IQ
that you
don't
I have
an aptitude
that you
don't
know
the power
comes from
the proclamation
of Jesus
Christ
as Savior
and Lord
which is
humbly
shared
in my case
by an ex-drug
addict
who shared
that with me
in a way
that pierced
me
pierced
me
and that
message
comes to
our darkened
mind
and what
happens
I
my
I'm
I respond
with yes
and he
becomes my
Savior and
Lord
and how
can you
describe
what has
just now
happened
when I
in my
darkened
mind
have heard
the gospel
and it
pierces
me
not by
my
power
but by
the power
of the
gospel
the love
the power
of love
the power
of mercy
the power
of grace
the power
of goodness
and it
pierces me
and how
can I
understand
what
happens
well
the Bible
says
George
here's
how
you
can
understand
what
just
happened
the light
of the gospel
comes in
and Jesus
takes
your old
existence
in Adam
and he
takes it
off
puts it
away
he said
your old
existence
as Adam
I paid
for that
on the
cross
and then
you move
to the
third
image
and George
there's
you
you're
naked
you're
shivering
you're
pitiable
I put
on
this new
life
this new
life
that is
eternal
that begins
to
you begin
to experience
eternity
now
but it's
it's a
new
it's a
new
putting
on
that's
my
perfect
fulfillment
of life
my perfect
relationship
with the
father
that now
stands
for you
I died
for the
old
thing
that came
on me
that's
why it's
off of
you
and what
you now
have is
my standing
before God
and I put
that on
you
and my
standing
before you
and this
new
clothing
is preparing
you to
live the way
that I always
designed creation
to live
and is preparing
you for the
new heaven
and the new
earth
and I put
that on
you
I put
that on
your mind
and the
in between
thing
is it's
not just
that I
took
this off
and I put
this on
and then
off I
go and
do some
more fun
things
no
the very
very center
of who
you are
the very
center
of your
spirit
the center
of your
mind
there's
now like
an IV
and my
life
and my
wisdom
and my
mind
is coming
into you
every day
until you
die
and see
me face
to face
or I
come again
and you
see me
face
to face
and then
there is
no need
for an
IV
because you
become
a beautiful
cup
that I
will fill
with my
love
and my
life
and my
truth
and my
goodness
and my
justice
for all
eternity
and it will
always be new
and it will be
always fresh
and it will never
come to an
end and that
is your
destiny
now in
Christ
that's the
image
so how does
this help us
in the
moral
life
you see
here's the
thing
look again
at verse
verse 24
created
and put on
the new
self
created
after the
likeness of
God
and true
righteousness
and holiness
from our
point of
view
I become
converted
from God's
point of
view
he creates
me
and you
and new
a new
creation
I've used
up my
time
how does
this
matter
how does
this help
us
here's how
it helps
us
when I
look within
my life
and I
think about
whether I'm
doing bad
things or
whether I'm
doing good
things
sometimes I
think there is
good fruit in
my life
I'm not as
snarky as I
used to be
I think I
don't get
angry as
quickly as
I used
to and
I'm not
going to
start going
through all
my vices
by the way
okay you
know those
things that
George you
still got a
lot of
work to
do in
this and
this but
here's the
thing when
I look
within
what happens
is this
I either
get filled
with pride
because I
imagine that
there's lots
of good
fruit or I
get filled
with despair
because there's
not much
good fruit
or I
pretend
and deny
as if there
is lots of
good fruit
when everybody
around me
knows that
there isn't
see what
happens to
human beings
is this
it's all
part of
how our
minds are
bent
having good
things that
we accomplish
becomes my
hope
my identity
my fuel
but here's
the problem
I and
you and I
will never
have enough
good fruit
in your life
to silence
your conscience
or the
devil
or the
world
isn't that
true
unless all
you do
is pretend
deny and
pretend
deny and
pretend
deny and
pretend
and everybody
else is
holding their
nose like
this when
they're around
you
but you're
denying and
pretending
denying and
pretending
but when I
look into
my life
and I
want to
have the
good
accomplishments
I want to
have the
good fruit
and my
hope is
built on
that
my identity
is based
on that
my fuel
to do
other good
things
is built
on that
but the
fact of
the matter
is that
my good
fruit
there's
never
enough
to silence
my conscience
to silence
the devil
and to
silence
the world
what am I
to do
what happens
every time
we do
communion
Jesus is
about to
go to
the cross
and his
disciples
and his
20,000
foot
in the
air
understanding
of what's
about to
happen
and he
gives them
a very
simple
habit
and discipline
to help
them learn
how to
live
their life
in light
of what
he's about
to accomplish
and what
does he
say
my body
given for
you do
this
in
remembrance
of me
the blood
of a new
covenant
a new
way of
relating
that I
have
established
it can
be for
you
this is
the blood
of the
new
covenant
do this
in
remembrance
of me
every morning
I wake
up and I
can choose
to forget
I can
just act
as if
nothing
has ever
happened
of importance
in my
life
and what
happens
is I
walk
out of
the baseline
of my
mind
but what
do I
do
as a
human
being
I'm
trying to
deal
with moral
things
I'm
trying to
deal
with
the
end
of the
day
it's
not
just
that
the
gospel
I
put
my
faith
in
Jesus
to
save
me
I
need
to
put
my
faith
in
the
gospel
every
day
to
live
I
cannot
say
to you
that
Christ
has
put
off
the
old
self
and
put
on
the
new
self
and
that
I
am
being
renewed
every
day
by
the
Holy
Spirit
and
by
God's
word
on
the
basis
of
the
fruit
of
my
accomplishments
if
I
try
to
tell
you
that
and
if
I
believe
that
for
myself
I
will
be
crushed
I
will
die
I
cannot
do
that
it
does
not
work
it
doesn't
work
for
you
I
believe
that
Christ
made
me
right
with
him
and
I
need
to
hear
that
gospel
over
and
over
and
over
again
I
can
say
to
the
Lord
my
fruit
is
not
showing
that
the
old
self
is
gone
you
have
clothed
me
with
a
new
one
and
I
have
been
renewed
by
your
Holy
Spirit
but
I
believe
in
Jesus
I
believe
he
died
on
the
cross
I
believe
he
rose
I
believe
he
came
and
gave
me
life
I
believe
his
light
came
into
who
I
am
I
believe
that
is
true
I
believe
I
have
an
old
self
and
a
new
I
believe
that
is
true
I
need
to
hear
the
gospel
what
happens
when we
start
to
believe
the
gospel
and
with
gospel
comes
more
and
more
real
to
us
as
we
remind
ourselves
of
it
as
we
preach
the
bible
about
it
and
as
we
understand
that
it's
Christ
who
takes
away
my
old
self
that
it's
Christ
who
gives
me
the
new
self
that
it's
Christ
who
gives
me
the
Holy
Spirit
that
comes
into
my
whole
myself
there's
two
things
that
come
the
first
thing
is
I
can
look
at
my
life
and
my
day
and
I
can
see
the
world
as
it
is
and
I
have
a
security
and
a
hope
to
roll
up
my
sleeves
and
in
the
power
of
Christ
to
deal
with
it
amen
remembering
the
gospel
can
roll
up
my
sleeves
see
the
world
as
it
is
and
say
Jesus
help
me
to
deal
with
it
the
other
thing
that
happens
as
the
gospel
becomes
more
real
to
our
hearts
and
to
our
minds
is
that
we
can
work
out
a
gratitude
a
security
that
comes
in
our
identity
in
Jesus
a
gospel
based
identity
that
we
can
work
out
of
gratitude
that
means
I
don't
have
to
deny
I
don't
have
to
pretend
I
don't
have
to
be
proud
of
my
accomplishments
why
Jesus
pierced
the
gospel
pierced
my
darkened
mind
and
when
the
Holy
Spirit
helped
me
to
say
yes
Christ
took
off
my
old
self
Christ
puts
on
the
new
self
Christ
renews
me
day
by
day
all
praise
and
glory
to
him
please
stand
Christians
remember
the
gospel
remember
it
when
you
gather
in
your
small
groups
remember
it
in
your
families
remember
it
as
you
face
your
day
remember
it
as you
celebrate
accomplishments
remember
it
as
you
deal
with
bad
news
help
us
to
pray
for
me
that
I
remember
it
that
I
can
help
you
to
remember
it
that
you
can
help
me
to
remember
it
Christians
remember
the
gospel
and if
you're
here
and you've
never received
the gospel
friend
today is
the day
you can
become
a new
creation
the gospel
has been
proclaimed
say
yes
say
yes
say
yes
in your
own words
say
yes
let's
bow
our heads
in prayer
father
thank you
so much
for
Jesus
thank you
so much
father
that
you
never
your
love
is
unfailing
your
love
is
unending
you
saw
us
as
we
really
are
and
still
you
loved
us
and
sent
your
son
we
thank
you
father
that
there
is
nothing
in
us
that
will
be
of
a
surprise
to
you
saw
us
perfectly
Jesus
knew
us
perfectly
when
he
died
for
us
on
the
cross
the
Holy
Spirit
knows
us
better
than
we
know
ourselves
we
thank
you
father
for
your
grace
your
mercy
the
power
of
the
gospel
we
thank
you
that
the
gospel
came
to
us
and
that
you
work
within
us
that
we
might
say
yes
and
father
we
ask
that
the
Holy
Spirit
might
move
and
might
empower
upon
us
as
individuals
as
friends
as
couples
as
families
as
a
congregation
that
we
might
remind
each
other
the
gospel
and
be
reminded
of
the
gospel
and
that
we
see
ourselves
in
the
world
and
that
which
draws
us
forward
to
live
in
a
way
that
is
good
for
people
proclaims
the
gospel
and
brings
you
glory
and
all
God's
people
said
Amen