Putting On the New Self Created in God’s Likeness | Ephesians 4:17-24

This week we are talking about putting on the new you. I thought I'd get more excitement for that one. We're talking about putting on the new you. Amen. Have you ever wanted to be somebody else? You know, was anyone in Colchester yesterday? Did you see Invasion Colchester? We had superheroes. We had Stormtroopers from Star Wars. I even saw, just up here, we had the Batmobile. Wow, that was amazing. And people were dressed up in all sorts of costumes trying to be their favorite superhero or their favorite character from a comic book. It was great. And I was speaking to to Tine this morning and we were talking about, we said next year we should go as a church to Invasion Colchester dressed up as our favorite biblical superheroes. That would be amazing, wouldn't it? We could really invade Colchester then with the gospel Hallelujah as we go as biblical superheroes. But seriously, you know, I've wanted to be somebody else at times. I don't know about you. I know that when I left school back in 1984, back when I left school, I didn't like what I was at school. So I decided to reinvent myself. Even dyed my hair blonde, you can imagine that. But it was the 80s. I dyed my hair blonde and I just completely changed myself because I really wanted to fit in and I wanted to be somebody that was, I don't know, cool that people look to. And so I reinvented myself as I went off to college to study there I became this new character. But you know what didn't change? What didn't change? What was inside. That's what didn't change. What's inside was exactly the same as it always was. Every hang up, every bad thought, every unhealthy pattern of sin, everything that was going on with me inside, it didn't change. I tried to change by changing the outside, but the inside didn't change. Well, today as we look at Ephesians 4, we're going to look at this message of personal putting on the new you. Because there is a new you that you can put on that is not just a fake you, but it's the real you. It's the you that you were always, always supposed to be. It's the new you created in the image of Christ. But you know what? We're going to get there in a minute. But first of all, let's turn to Ephesians chapter four and let's look at our passage for today. Media Team I'm in the ESV today just in case I've thrown you. But ESV Chapter number four of Ephesians. And we've been in here for a while, but we're going to look from verse 17 of chapter 4 where it says, now this I say, and I testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do. In the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding. 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. But that is not the way that you learn 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. You hear that? 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. And to put on the new self after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. There's a whole lot in there. But hang on for a minute, because we're going to get there. We're going to get to a whole new you. But I want you to see what Paul starts with. He starts by saying, you are no longer to walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their mind. You're no longer to walk like them, but you're to walk differently. And he says a few things about them. He talks about the way the world is outside of Christ. And I don't know about you, one of the reasons why we might want to change, one of the reasons why we sometimes try and reinvent ourselves is because we realize deep down that something is amiss, that something is wrong, that there's something that's not quite right. And we can feel that way as we look at the world around us, can't we? As we look at the world the way it is today, we can look and we say something's not right. I mean, am I the only one? Something is just not right. Something's not right with the world. Things seem a little more unstable than they used to feel. Things feel a little bit more hostile than they used to feel. Hate is a little bit more prevalent than it used to be. Things are not quite right. Well, the fact is, Paul knew that things were not quite right as well. And the people that were with Paul in the churches, they knew that things were not quite right as well. There's something wrong with the world. And you know, the thing that is Most wrong with the world is us. See, most of the problems in the world. Look at global warming. Is the problem wrong with. Is there something wrong with the planet? No, it's not the planet. It's you and your McDonald's rapper, right? It's us that are doing the damage. Wars. Someone said to me, you know, that, oh, I hate religion because all the wars that we've ever had are because of religion. I'm sure wars have studied over other things, but one thing I'm very sure of is this, is that every single war is started by people. People because of something that people want. Because some hatred, some division, some bitterness. All of the problems in the world today can be traced back to something that is just fundamentally wrong in the heart of humanity. Now, does that mean that everybody in the world is basically bad? I know nice people. There's lots of nice people in the world. People have done nice things for me. People are capable of good things. In fact, Jesus even said that people are capable of doing good things. You know, he said in Matthew 7:11, he was telling them about the gift of the Holy Spirit and praying to God, and he said to them, if you, being evil, know how to give good, good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to them who ask? In other words, even though he was saying, you who are evil, he was also saying, you know how to give good gifts, you know how to love your children. So there's that good side to people. We should never think that all people are basically bad people, because if we think like that, then we're going to be very cynical and we're going to be very unhappy. If you think that people around you are incapable of being nice, or you'll be arrogant and you'll think, you know, I'm a Christian and anyone who's not is basically a bad person. And you'll look down on people. No, there's good people in the world. There's loving people in the world. They're doing good things. But the Bible says that all have fallen short, fallen short of the glory of God. You see, God had a plan for humanity, a perfect plan for a perfect humanity. No McDonald's wrappers, no bitterness, no wars, no hatred. God had a plan for humanity. And we can all see the evidence. Not that men are only bad, but we can see the evidence that somehow we fall short of the ideal of what humanity is supposed to be. If you think to yourself, what is humanity supposed to be? What are people supposed to be like? I bet you Have a picture in your head of what that's like. I think you can come up with an idea if you take away all of the bad stuff and look at human beings as they're supposed to be. And that's the whole point. There's something fundamentally wrong. And the Bible says that what is wrong is that human beings rejected God. Yeah, we still love our children. Yeah, we still do good to other people. We give to charity or, you know, we do good things to other people. We're concerned for other people. We do that. But we fall short because there's a piece missing. And that's something that is missing is what somebody said fills a God shaped hole that is in each and every one of us. We fall short. And that's the reason why we can look at the world and we can see good people, but we can also see that there's something fundamentally wrong. And people have got all kinds of ideas about how to fix that, but they don't really identify the problem. People will come up with all kinds of ideas about that. They'll say, you know, we're all basically good inside. At the heart of it, everyone is basically good. And some people will even say, you know, if we look inside ourselves, we'll find God there, that we are divine. And if we can just find our divinity somehow, you know, things will be better. But I know what's inside of me. I know what's inside. I know what I am without God. And if I look inside of me and if that's divine, we're all in trouble. If I look at myself on a bad day, if that's divinity, we're all in big trouble. Brother and sister, we really are. People come up with all kinds of ideas as to how we can fix the problem. Some people think, well, let's get the government involved. Have you seen what the government does when it gets involved with things? Are you mad? People come up with all kinds of ideas. Well, you know, if we can all just get along. Well, we've tried that for millions of years. It hasn't worked. And something happened, you know, you know, during the Victorian times, if you're a history buff, you might think about the Victorian times. They were coming up, that's when innovation started and everyone got very excited and they said, we're all headed towards this utopia. And everyone thought this, this is the pinnacle of humanity. I mean, they turned a blind eye to the fact that they were colonizing left, right and center. But apart from that, they were very, very optimistic about the future. And then what happened World War I, World War II, and people got decidedly pessimistic about the goodness and the ability of human beings to make things better. And now we're in that place again, aren't we? We've got AI and a. AI is going to solve everything and we're just going to do these amazing things. And whatever it is that people think is the solution every time, it fails. Because the problem is not systems. The problem is not something we have to fix on the outside. But the problem is the state of humanity at the very core. And the Bible tells us what that is. We've divorced God. We divorced God. We said we don't need you, and yet we do need you. I don't know if you've ever sort of been mad at your wife. Brothers, have you ever been mad at your wife and then she goes away for a week and you realize all the things. Listen, we divorce God and we think that the problem is on the outside or the problem with other people. But the problem is on the inside. And the problem is with humanity. And it's the fact that we are separated from God. And so the Bible tells us that even though, yes, people can do some good things and we can meet some nice people, the reality is that humanity is in darkness. Says In Romans, chapter two from verse 14, it tells us that even those who don't know God, even those who don't know God do by nature. It says those who do not, who are without the law, Gentiles, he says, who are without the law, do by nature what the law requires because it's written in their hearts, in their conscience. There still remains something of that image of God in each one of us speaking to our conscience. But nevertheless, it says we are in darkness. Romans 1 from verse 18 says that wrath is revealed against people who suppress the truth because what can be known about God is plain to them. Something that I have discovered when I speak to people who rejected God and later on came to put their faith in Jesus. And you speak to them is they'll tell you as they look back, they see God all the way through their journey. I can tell you I rejected God, but I can see him with me when I was five, when I was 10, when I was 18, I couldn't see it then because I was in darkness. And the Bible says we suppress it. We don't know about it. I don't know if you've ever had a traumatic experience in your life, but if you've ever been through childhood trauma, one of the things you find is that sometimes you can't remember a lot of things. It's not that they're not in there. It's that your brain doesn't want to remember. And so it does a lot of hard work suppressing that. In the heart of every man is a God shaped hole. But they suppress, they suppress the knowledge of God. It says, even though we can do some good things, but we don't want to credit God with those good things. We don't want to point at the source of those good things. We want to say, I did it out of my goodness. We don't want to point to the one who gave us that conscience, who created the laws of the universe, who created right and wrong, who, who created the idea of good and evil, who created all of the good things that we see. Bible says every good and perfect gift comes from above. Hallelujah. Romans 1:18, the wrath of God revealed against those who suppress the truth, suppress the knowledge of God. And so it says that because people rejected God in Romans 1:28, because people rejected God, he gave them up. It says he gave them up to a debased mind. See, sometimes God's not punishing you. He's just giving you what you want. He's just giving you what you want. You know, people debate about hell and what about hell do you know? Hell is just God giving people what they want. We don't want you, God. Okay, here is a place you can go. Here's a place you can go without me. It's like that example when your wife goes and you think, ah, you know, it'd be so much more relaxed. And then you realize, you realize all the things that are happening that your wife is doing. She's not in the room. Don't tell her I'm confessing to this, please. You realize all of those things. And so people look and they say, we don't know. We don't need God. We don't need God, they say. And they look around them and they say, we're doing fine without God. They don't realize that God is still present there in creation, still holding things together, so still making things happen in spite of their rejection. But hell is just God saying, okay, live. This is what it's actually like without me. That's what you wanted. Day and night I held out my hands to you, but now I'm giving you what you want. And it says that God gave them up to a debased mind. He said, you want to think like that? You want to use the brain. I gave you like that? You go ahead. I'm putting your mind and your thinking in your hands. But here's the good thing. God says that we don't have to live in darkness anymore. If you're in the room and you kind of know that Jesus is there, but you've never given yourself wholeheartedly to him, you're still walking in darkness. If you're watching online and you know you've been walking in darkness and yeah, you kind of know there's a God and you acknowledge him and you go to church sometimes and you do all the religious stuff, but if people knew what your life is like outside of this building, how you are walking and living and acting and thinking you're walking in darkness. And sometimes we know we're in darkness. I believe there might be people in this room or watching us right now. And you know that you're in darkness. But God says you don't have to be in darkness. And that's what God is looking for. God is light, and in him there's no darkness. Jesus said, I am the light of the world. But he said the solution was that you are the light of the world. He said, I am the light of the world. But he also said you are the light of the world. He said the solution to humanity's problem, as we look around and we say something's off, something's not right with the world. He said, the answer is it's for you to become light. It's for you to be what humanity was always supposed to be. It was for you not just to do good, but to point at the source of good. It was for you not just to be self righteous, but to depend on him for your righteousness. It's for for you to connect with God so that humanity can once again not fall short, but be all that humanity was supposed to be. That's the end game, that's the vision, a redeemed humanity where there is no more war, where there are no more tears, where there is no more sickness. And he says, you don't have to live in darkness anymore. 2 Corinthians 4:4 says, the God of this age has been blinded unbelieving minds to the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. But then in Colossians 1:13, it says, he has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His Son. He has made a way, if you're in darkness today, he has made a way for you to come out of darkness and into light. You know, the Bible says If you've come into the light, if you've come to Jesus, look at what you were. And if you never come to Jesus, look at where the Bible says you are right now. It says in Ephesians 2. One that those who have not come to him, those that are outside side of Christ, are dead in their trespasses and sins. In Ephesians 2, 2 it says that we were walking, following this world, following the prince of the power of the air. You know what? Even if you think that all you're doing is rejecting God and following no one, if you're not following God, you're following the devil, even though you don't know it, because he's got his voice in your ears, he's got his self in your heart. He knows how to pull your strings. He's been doing it for millennia. Don't think that he's fooled by you. You're fooled by him. You're following him. It says in Ephesians 2, 3 that we lived in the passions of the flesh and were by nature children of wrath. You know we are. We walk outside of Christ. We walk in the flesh. We know even as Christians, that flesh still has a strong pull, doesn't it? Am I the only one who has to take check? Who has to check? Who has to look at myself in the mirror? Who has to take a moment and make the right decision? It's always there. But it says that we walked following the course of this world, following the fruits of the power of the air. And it says we lived in the passions of. Of the flesh. We were by nature children of wrath. And then it goes on to say in verse 12 of Ephesians 2, separated. We were separated from Christ. We were strangers to the covenant. We had no hope. We were without God in the world. But hallelujah. In Ephesians 2:13 it tells us what happens when we come to him, when we say, God, I am a son, sinner. I need your forgiveness. I have rejected you, but now I turn to you. God help me. Then it says in verse 13, but now in Christ, you who are far off have been brought near by his blood. And Ephesians 2:17 says he came and preached peace to the far off and to those who are near. Hallelujah. The world is the way it is because humanity is the way it is. The world falls short of our expectations because humanity falls short of our expectations. But we have a Savior. We have a person who has come, the Son of God, Jesus, who has come to save us from, to save humanity. To create a new humanity, to bring a new beginning for humanity. The world is the way it is because of people. Hallelujah. Have you ever said church would be awesome if not for people? Maybe you haven't. Maybe you haven't been around Christians long enough. I don't know. But sometimes you can say that. You can say, the world would be a great place apart from people, right? You can get cynical like that. And the reason you can get cynical is because humanity falls short. But you don't have to stay in darkness. You can come into the light. You can have a new you. Hallelujah. Because changing humanity means changing me. Now, I know you look at me and you say, how could he be any better? Humble, handsome. But for humanity to change, I have to change, right? You have to change. And Jesus has made a way for us to be a new person. Have you ever tried to change? Have you ever tried to change? Have you come up against the one obstacle? There's only one obstacle in my life to change. Somebody got it over there. Me. I am the biggest obstacle in my life to change. I have tried to change. Sometimes I have really tried to change that time. And it's tough. Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror? I know sometimes we can be really positive, but I know there's times in our life when we can feel really negative, right? And we can look in that mirror and we can just say, I give up. I've tried everything. If you've ever been addicted to something, I've been addicted to something. I was smoking 20, 30 cigarettes a day at one time. That was one addiction I had. It wasn't the only addiction. I can give you a list, but whenever you try and break an addiction, there's just that time you say, this is impossible. This is impossible. I've got good news for you. The Bible says that on our own, change is impossible. And yet it promises that you can be a whole new you. And the good news is this. God has already created the new you. And we're going to tell you about them this morning. We're going to tell you this morning about the new you. Are you ready? You ever seen one of those shows where they make someone over? They give them a set of veneers and they do some work on the face and they get them some new clothes and they have the big reveal. We want you to be ready to meet the new you. God has created a new you. Hallelujah. But we got to be ready to meet the new you. Nowadays, people are very fond of saying this is the way I am. This is the way that God made me. This is the way that I'm wired. We are all wired in different ways, aren't we? I'm wired differently to a lot of people. Maybe you're wired differently to a lot of people. We're all wired differently. But we can take that too far. We can just decide. I am not a candidate for change. You know, maybe you've got a bad temper. And then maybe someone just says, oh, that's just the way that brother is. Don't mind him. That's just the way he is. Or maybe, you know, maybe you're one of those people who says, you know, I just tell it like it is. Which is fine until someone tells you the way it is. I just say it like it is. Just means that you're just in the habit of just being indiscreet and kind of loud and rude and you know, there's no grace there. And we say, this is just the way I am. This is just the way I am. This is just the way I'm wired. But I want to tell you that God is in the rewiring business. There's a new you that God has created. That's what we're reading here. What does the new you look like? Let's introduce you to the new you. Are you ready? You're going to be a new you. First of all, the new you is holy. 1 Peter 1:1516 says that we are to be holy as he is holy. Holy just means you are set apart. You are not like the rest of the world. You think different, you live different. You are set apart for God's use. You are holy. The new you is holy. Remember, God's the one who's made this new you. This is not something you're making. This is not something you're creating. Creating. This is not in your self effort. This is the new you that God has created. You've gone to the tailor and it's waiting there for you. The new you is holy. The new you is merciful as your Father is merciful. Luke 6:36. The new you is kind. Luke 6:35. Your kind to the ungrateful and the evil. That's the new you. The new you is forgiving. It says in Ephesians 4:32 that we forgive as Christ forgave us. You're a forgiving person. Some of us are going to have to get in front of the mirror tomorrow and just start saying some of these things. You know, I am forgiving God Help me, God, help me. But I am a forgiving person. I am a merciful person. I am a holy person. Some of us are going to have to stand in front of the mirror and say that I am a holy person. When those thoughts come in your head, when those thoughts come in your head, and you are going to have to say, no, I look in the mirror and say, you, my brother, you, my sister, you are a holy person. That's the new you. The new you is righteous. 1 John 3, 7. We are righteous as he is righteous. The new you is pure. The new you is pure. Everyone who puts their hope in Christ purifies himself. We become pure. We are going to have to tell ourselves that some of us, because some of the things that are running through our mind, some of the things that are attracting us, some of the things that are pulling us in, we're going to have to tell ourselves who we really are. I love what Paul said to the Corinthians when he wrote to them. He wrote to them about all of the crazy sexual practices that they were involved in to do with cult worship and all of that. And he said, that's not who you are. You have to tell yourself, I am pure. That's the new you. Remember, you're not doing this. God has created this new you. It says so in chapter four. Let me just prove it to you. In chapter number four. He says 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, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. The new you is not something you work up. And I want you to get this into you because, you know, we have a mindset, don't we, in these days of self help, in these days of life coaches, in these days of. Of influencers. We have this idea that change happens when we pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and we do it, we work on it, we make the change. But the Bible says that the new self has been created. You see, the thing is, humanity was a created humanity. The nature of man was created by God, right? Adam didn't make himself. Adam didn't make his wife. God made Adam. God made his wife. And Adam and Eve made a choice to reject God. And so the image of God got marred. But the original creation, all that humanity was supposed to be, was driven by nature. You see, when you see a fish, it's driven by nature. You can predict what it's going to do. You can predict how it's going to behave. It's by nature a fish. That's when you know, when you see in the Bible and it talks about there's a glory of one kind and a glory of another kind, it's just another way of talking about the nature of things, the way God has made them. He has made things to behave in a certain kind of way, and he created human beings to be be a certain kind of way. But he also gave us free choice. And that's where all of those problems came in. We chose to reject God. But if we are to change and to be what God created us to be, it's not going to be because we recreate ourselves. It's going to be because the Creator recreates us. The new you, it says that we are light. We are light. Because you see, it says the new self is created after the likeness and the image of God. And it says God. In 1 John 1:5 it says God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. But now in Ephesians 5, 8, it says you were darkness, but now you are light. Hallelujah. We are light. We are the light of the world. Imagine that we are the firstborn of a new creation that God is making that will turn this world upside down. Hallelujah. God has created a new you. Gosh, there are so many things I could say about this new you. I won't quote all the scriptures. You can ask me to put them on WhatsApp, but let me just run through these. The new you is a peacemaker. Matthew 5. 9 John 17:21. The new you is complete and whole. Have you ever felt less than whole? The new you is complete and whole. The new you is truthful. Titus 1:2, and the new you is faithful. 1 Corinthians 1:9. The new you is patient. Hallelujah. Someone say hallelujah. The new you is patient. I'm going to say that again. The new you is patient. Hallelujah. When you get home with your spouse today or you get home with your mom or your dad, kid, today when you get home with your mom and your dad, just hold that as ammunition and tell them you'll have a time. You'll know the right time to use it and just tell them, the new you is patient. The new you is patient. I'm going to use that one later today when I forget to do something in the house. The new you is patient. The new you is good. The new you is good. You're a good person. That's the new you. You might have to remind yourself of that, that you're a good person. Because, you know, sometimes, even though the new me is a good person, I'm really tempted to think bad things, do bad things, and say bad things. I don't know about you, but I am sometimes. But the new me is not like that. The new me is good. The new you is patient. Exodus 34:6 and Romans 2:4. The new you is good. Psalm 105 and Galatians 5:22. The new you is full of compassion. Exodus 34:6 Colossians 3:12, Ephesians 4:32 I wonder how the media team's doing with all those. Hallelujah. The new you is compassionate. The new you is generous. James 1:5. Hallelujah. God gives to all without reproach. Well, it says of you of God in John 3:16 that he gave he gave his only begotten Son. That's God. He's generous. And we're created in the image and the likeness of God. So the new you is generous. The new you is joyful. Hallelujah. Psalm 16:11 Fullness of joy in his presence. The new you is joyful. Anyone need your joy back? Do you need your joy back? Some of us need our joy back. Somebody stole our joy, and we never got it back. But the new you is joyful. Hallelujah. We sing the song, don't we? I still got joy in chaos. Joy does not depend on your circumstances. Joy does not depend on what's happening at work. Joy does not depend on what's happening in your family. Joy is an integral part of the new you. There is joy in his presence. At his right hand are pleasures forevermore. And there is joy. Hallelujah. The new you is joyful. The new you is impartial. God shows no partiality, and neither do we. We are fair people. The new you is gentle. The new you is humble. Hallelujah. Matthew 11:29 says, Jesus was gentle and lowly in heart. Philippians 2:5 have this mind that was in you, that was also in Christ, that though he was high, he made Himself low. The new you is humble and gentle. The new you is wise with knowledge. Wise with knowledge. Romans 16:27 Colossians 3:10 the new you is purposeful. The new you is full of purpose. Anyone looking for their purpose. Anyone saying, I just don't have a sense of purpose. The new you has a purpose in them. That's the new you. The new you is sharing in the glory of God. Hallelujah. We go 2 Corinthians 3:18 from 1 degree of glory to another. The new you is going from glory to glory. Hallelujah. It's not the way we're wired. It's the way he's wired the new model. It's the way he's wired the new you. It's the new you, not the old new. I think some of us have to get that in our heart, because right now society is telling us, just accept yourself as you are and listen. You need to love yourself with the love of God. I believe that. I believe you know there's some things you can't change. I can pray as hard as I like. God's not going to make me six foot tall. Not going to happen. Hallelujah. But then I just comfort myself that when you're this good, God just doesn't have the materials. Seriously, you've got to love yourself. You've got to look at yourself in the mirror and say, God loves you. You can't look in the mirror and say and hate yourself. I'm not saying that. But you've got to realize that sometimes society encourages us in the name of good mental health just to accept the way we are and never change. And yet God says no. Well, you can't change yourself. That's true. But I've made a whole new you. I've made a whole new you, and I've rewired it. I've polished it up. I've taken off the rough edges. It's still you. But it's you. It's still you. But that stuff, that deficit, that deficit has been filled up with Jesus. It's a whole new you. Hallelujah. It's a whole new you. But now there's something about the new you. You've got to put it on. You've got to put it on. Hallelujah. You got that new dress, you got that new suit, you've got that new look, but you've got to put it on. Amen. Can anyone tell me what it is nowadays? I see this everywhere. Maybe I'm just getting too old to understand these things. What is this thing of people walking around town in their pyjamas, pajamas? Can you tell me what is that about? Why do you go to Tesco's in a onesie? Can you tell me? I don't understand. See, for me, when I get up, I'm going to shower and I'm going to put on some clothes. You've got to put it on. If you Want to look good, you've got to put it on. And if you want to step into the uu, God has done it all, but you've got to put it on. What does he mean by putting it on? Well, first of all, he says that you have to be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Romans 12:2 tells us, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Do you notice that Paul says in our passage today, but that is not how you learned Christ. Did you see that? He didn't say, that's not how you're supposed to be, or, you know, that's not what's supposed to happen. Something's gone wrong. He said, that's not how you learned Christ. You see, we learned Christ and learning is a function of the mind. And the problem in Pentecostal Christianity at times is that we come to the door and we think, there are two boxes. One is for our tithe and the other is for our brain. And we leave our brain with the welcome team, and we come here and we just want the good vibes. You notice that Paul doesn't say that you care. You know, that is not what good vibes are supposed to do to you. You need to experience more good vibes. Maybe crank up the worship music a bit more. Everybody jump. Everybody shout. Everybody clap. There, it's working. You're becoming more holy. Clap some more. Shout hallelujah some more. Okay, you're a bit more holy. Okay, okay, let's bang the drums a bit more. Holiness is building up now. That's it. You're getting nearer to Christ. He said, that is not how you learned Christ. As Christians, we need to understand that spirituality is also a function of the mind. It's a function of this thing here. God created this. We are not just Casper, the friendly ghost inside a vehicle, but our minds exist for a reason. And he said, that's not how you learned Christ. And Paul said, be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you don't conform to the ways of this world. And so God has created the new you. But there is a transfer. There is a program that has to be written. You know, when you want to make a change to your laptop, you download some app or other, and it begins. You didn't create the app, right? I didn't create Microsoft Word or I didn't create that. I had to down somebody else created it, but I had to run it. And that thing had to run and rewrite something on the hard drive of My laptop. Laptop. In order to function in the same way, God has already created the new you. But there is a process of the mind that opens your eyes and your heart. How does that happen? Well, he said it's how you learned who you learned Christ. It's as we learn Christ. It's as we open the scriptures. You know, we read, don't we, about spiritual warfare? It's always very interesting to me, seeing people engage in spiritual warfare. It's kind of like Zumba or something. When you see people engaging in spiritual. They're doing jumping jacks and they're waving lightsabers at the enemy and they're shouting, you. I crush you. And things like this. And I'll be honest, you know, sometimes I get kind of excited in prayer, so I don't want to totally refute that. But, you know, it does kind of look like a fitness class when people are doing spiritual warfare. But look at what Paul says about spiritual warfare. In 2 Corinthians 10, 4, 6, he said, the weapons of our warfare. Our weapons have divine power to destroy strongholds and arguments raised against the knowledge of God. Does that sound like sword waving? Our weapons have divine power to destroy what? Strongholds? What are strongholds? Strongholds of the mind and arguments raised against the knowledge of God. The devil doesn't listen. Genesis 3, the Pentecostal version. Genesis 3, the PentecosTal version. Eve was innocently looking at a tree together with Adam and admiring the fruit on it, when Adam reminded her that you can't eat that fruit because God said, it's dangerous. And he said, you're absolutely right. And then the devil showed up and grabbed them by force. He threw Eve to the ground, he put his foot on her neck, he opened her mouth and he forced the apple in. And she said, no, no, I don't want to sin. And he said, no, you will sin. And he forced that apple in and he made her eat it. And afterwards, Adam felt so bad for his wife that he also ate of the fruit. He said, I won't let you die alone, my love. That's not what happened. What did the devil do? The devil reasoned with them. He argued with them. Did God really say, will it really kill you? Right. That's where the battle is. The battle is in the mind. And the best way to get the mind under control is to find, fill it with the right stuff. You see, some of us, we're driving our petrol car into the garage and we're filling it with diesel. Nothing good's going to come of that. What Are you filling this with. God has created it, but you've got to download that thing and you've got to rewrite your brain with him, because God didn't just create your spirit or your soul, but God created your mind. And your mind is where the battleground is and your mind is where the change is. And so, According to verse 20, we have to learn Christ. That means we have to open up our Bibles. Not just our Bible, you know, not just the YouVersion Bible app on our phone and read the verse of the day. That's not learning Christ, okay? Now, I'm fine with that. You open that up, you get your bit of inspiration, okay? But you know, that's just the breadsticks they bring you before the meal, right? You can't survive on those breadsticks. You've got to eat the first course, the second course and all that good stuff. You've got to open up, you've got to let it rewrite your mind. Hallelujah. That's what he means by putting it on. And then you begin to step out in it. You begin to step out in the new you. You begin to step out in those new clothes. That's why he uses this language of putting off and putting on. You've got to put off that old self and you've got to put on the new self because that old clothing, he says, that old clothing belongs to your old way of life. Some of us, we like to keep that old suit in the wardrobe. I have three sets of clothes. We have the set of clothes that when Shaun is good, fit, slim, then we have them. Then we have a set in the middle. We have a set in the middle and that fits right there. You might be on the way down or the way up, we don't know, but it's there in the middle. And then we have the final set of clothes. And this set of clothes is called Blessing has located Me. Sometimes my wife says to me, she says, I think these ones need to go. Shall I take them to the charity shop? That's the first set. And I say, no, no, no, no, I'm getting there, I'm getting some of us, we have an old set, we have an old self hanging in the wardrobe. And once in a while we go, and we want to try that on. We think maybe I. Yeah, we don't do it. Oh, we're not sinning. But it's there in the wardrobe. We're not looking at that website, but it's there in the wardrobe. You know that person we Met before we met our wife. The number we haven't deleted. You know the one, right. Photos somewhere that we haven't deleted. We're not interested. We don't look at them, but we can't delete them. That the habits we have, the choices we've made. We're not walking in them right now, but they're in the wardrobe. We need to make a decision sometimes that we are truly done. We are truly done. Sometimes there are things in your life you need to remove and you need to burn them. You need to get rid of them because they will always be there calling to you. Why don't you try me on today? He says you put it off. You got to put it off. It's a choice. You say, I can't. You're not working yourself up to it. You're putting on by faith what God says you can put off. And you're putting on by faith what God says. He has created you to be that new you that God designed you to be. Are you ready to be the new you? Because it's not just about not sinning. You see, a lot of times when you read passages like this, you think that God is just saying, don't do this, don't do that, don't do the other, right? The eleventh commandment, thou shalt not have fun. You know, you feel like that's it's all about don'ts, but it's not. It's about filling up your humanity. God created us as human beings to be something spectacular. There is somebody that God created you to be. And there's been moments for some people in this room, I believe it, where you have imagine what you might be in God. And you realize that God made you for something greater than this. But then the old you got a word in. Then the devil got a word in. But there is something that God has created you to be. And he's just waiting for you to put on the new clothes. He's just waiting for you to put on that new you and begin to walk in it. The devil has told you, oh, this thing. You can't come out of this thing. This thing is just so deeply entrenched in you. I know how you feel. I've been there. Where there are things in my life and they feel like they are so much a part of me that I can't get out of it. It just has such a grip on me that I can't defeat it. And so I'm just going to have to rest on the grace of God to Forgive me. But the grace of God is not just there to forgive you. The grace of God is there to deliver you. And not just so you can be without something, but so that your empty hand can now take hold of the promise that God has for you, of who he created you to be. Are you ready to become a new person in Christ? It's all there for the taking. Isn't that amazing? Sometimes someone will just step out. When someone begins to believe in what God has done, someone will just begin to step out and not realize. I've heard of people that in meetings sometimes, that come and they come to the altar asking to give their life to Jesus, and they are drunk. They are absolutely out of their minds on alcohol because, you know, they are addicted to it. They know no other way. And they have come and they have given their life to Jesus. And in a moment, they have gone from being drunk to sober. There's nothing in your life that is holding you that you can't come out of. There's nothing in your character that you are troubled about that cannot change. Because God, however you are wired, is in the rewiring business. He has provided you with an upgrade, a new you. Will you take hold of it today? I want us to think about that today. The band's going to come in just a minute, and I want us to think about that. What does the new you look like? For you? What does the new you look like? What are the things that are in your wardrobe? What are the things that are connected to your old life that are holding you so that you are not able to embrace that new you and that new you that God created you to be? Think about that for a minute. And while you do, let's stand together, because I want to pray for you. And we're going to make a decision together that we're going to embrace the new people, the new person, the new creation that God has set aside for us. Everyone in this room, you can step out into the new you. Even today, if you're watching online, you can step out into the new you. Even today. It's a choice that is with you. God has done everything that is necessary. God has done everything that you need in order for you to embrace a new way of living, a new way of thinking, a new way of being. He's done it all. He's done it all. And if you've never given your life to Christ, I want to tell you it's an easy thing. All you have to do is make a decision. I'm going to Leave my old life behind. I'm going to leave my old ways behind, and I'm going to be a follower of Jesus. I'm just going to pray. Pray that prayer for anyone in the room or anyone who's watching online. I'm going to pray a prayer of commitment to Jesus. And here's the thing, it's for all of us, whether you've said it before or whether you're saying it for the first time, I want us to pray a prayer of commitment. And it's a prayer of commitment that talks of coming out of our old way of life, out of our old way of doing things, and embracing the new person that Christ died to make us. So I'm going to pray a prayer, and if you agree with me, you just. You just unite with me in spirit as I pray it, and you can say amen at the end. And if you pray this prayer with me for the first time, whether you're in the room or online, we'd love to hear from you. We'd like to give you a good start. If you're watching online, would you reach out to us through the website, send us a message? And we want to pray with you, and we'd love to send you some literature to help you get a good start in your new life. If you're in the room, grab somebody with a prayer badge or grab a hold of myself or Pastor Joyce. And we want to pray with you. But this is the prayer we're going to pray. We're going to say, Jesus, thank you that you have created a whole new life for me. And, Lord, I'm so sorry for the times that I have walked in my old ways, for the times I haven't trusted in you. But thank you that you died on the cross for me, that you paid for all my sins, that you have created a whole new me. And so right now, I give my life to you, and I step into the new me that you have created me to be. Thank you, Jesus, for my new life in you. Amen and amen.