Renewed, Eph, 4:20-24

Good morning. Glad you could join with us here as we move into this passage. One of the things we pointed out last week is we're doing kind of the second half of a passage we introduced as sort of a red light, green light message. And what we meant by that, Paul introduced the first passage we looked at last week as sort of, you know, this is the way it's not to be, the negative side. and this time he turns in great part to the positive statement, this is what is true of the believer instead, and not the confusing message, not that one. So he started off telling them this is the way the Gentiles walk, and this is the state of mind that that walk comes from. And then he turns to the passage we're looking at this week, and he says, okay, now that we've turned to this passage here, Here is the statement. This is what the believer needs to count on as true for themselves.

All right. So we're also going to add to that alongside the Colossians 3, 9 through 11, because this particular area here in 9 and 10 is very much parallel to the message that we're going to see here in the Ephesians 4 passage. So we'll look at that as well. So let's plow into the passage or dive into it, whatever helps you. OK.

So here we are, and we're looking at Ephesians 4, 20 through 24, the green light portion, if you will. We're going to be breaking it up into three sections, divided as you see here. First 20 and 21, then 22 separately, and then 23 and 24 separately. And he starts off in 20 and 21, but you do not learn Christ in this way. This is in contrast to the life and lifestyle and the mindset of the Gentiles. Paul is quite aware of the people that he is writing about and their spiritual mindset. What is their level of understanding?

It says in Acts, in chapter 20, that he spoke to the elders at Ephesus. He says, I've been with you for three years. He spent time with them, and it was not just incidental time, it was intimate time. He says, I spent three years with you day and night. So, get ready to camp out, folks. Oh, no, never mind. Anyway, day and night for three years, he said he spent with them. It may have been other times as well, but certainly this much at least.

The words learn and heard are written, notice, with directness between the believer and Christ. He didn't say you learned about Christ. He didn't say you heard about him. Notice the directness with which it's written. You learn Christ, him, directly. you heard Christ, Him directly. And the words taught and truth are both in. We've seen the phrase repeatedly, in Christ, in Him, in whom. We are being taught, we're learning as one seated with Him. We are in Him as we learn.

That's what's communicated in this passage. What we see consistently in these verses is intimacy between the believer and Christ. Even now, when you think of it, we ought to be looking at it in this way. We're not coming here to find out what Verne thinks about this passage, okay? It's learning Christ, learning Him. Alright. You do not learn Christ in this way.

This word learn is manfano, okay? And it means to learn as with a deep knowledge. There's a word that some of the ladies studies have been touching on lately, Epinosus, and it is kind of in parallel with that idea. There's an in-depth knowledge. You don't just learn Christ in some superficial way, but you have an in-depth knowledge of him, and he was able to say that about the believers at Ephesus. He knew them that well. This word is a word which comes from Methetes, or they both have a common root.

It's the word for disciple. We see that numerous times. Paul could count these believers as personal disciples of Christ in the church. We'll talk about that word disciples in a minute. The twelve disciples we read of in the Gospels walk with Jesus personally as disciples in the Jewish sense.

The Jewish sense is you hang on every word. The church is not the same kind because as the church we're able to behold Him through His Word We are so able to grow from glory to glory. There is a different kind of relationship in ministry. What he's indicating here that's fascinating is this is an intimacy beyond the Jewish concept of a disciple.

Now, this word disciple here, matetes, as we've seen before, used somewhere near 300 times in the four Gospels and in the Book of Acts. What's interesting? is used of both the Jewish concept of a disciple and for the church saints. What's interesting also is that the word after that never shows up again in the New Testament. What does remain, though, is this verb, manthano, and Paul is the most frequent user of this word.

A number of Paul's usages of this word have this idea of learning as a disciple, but Key thing about it here, the Jewish concept was that you follow a man. I am a disciple of Gamaliel. I am a disciple of Caiaphas. You would follow a man, someone you would call a rabbi, and you would hang on their every word. This is different, and Paul's pointing differently because he's saying, learn Christ. Learn Christ, him personally.

Church saints can easily fall into the same trap. Perhaps you've heard people speak in such a way that they would talk about, oh, that's so-and-so's church. And they'd maybe mention the pastor that leads the church or something of that sort. And pretty soon you see the person who is leading it becomes the central point, the focal point of the church.

Paul makes a contrast with that in 1 Corinthians 1.12. He says, some of you follow Paul, some Peter, some Apollos. Uh-oh. says, that's not the intent. Paul is here saying, I don't want you to learn Paul, I want you to learn Christ. And I know that that's true in your lives. Paul is revealing God's intent here, not man's traditions.

So Christ is the one from whom we're to learn and be taught. At best, if you have teachers and pastors in a church, they're the ones who Christ has gifted to the church as gifted men. to teach, not so that you can learn the teachers, but to learn Christ and follow Him. Ultimately, the teacher needs to stand out of the way, because we are to be learning from Christ. He is the one whom we are learning.

Now, notice something else. Look at these verbs. Learn Christ, heard Him, have been taught in Him. Both the verbs learn and heard are in the active voice. Now you might say, hmm, that's interesting. Learning isn't just passive. It's that you learn Christ and that personally, not just about Him. You learn Him. You have heard Him, not heard about Him, but heard Him.

That is also active. You might think, well, that sounds passive. It's active. that taught is the only one of those three that is active. So what does that mean? Your job is a lot harder than mine. Because you have to do twice as many things actively as I do. So it's real tough. I want to see a lot of hard work out there. The believers are to actively learn and hear.

It's not just passive. says, you have heard. And we might just think, oh, you have heard of just sort of a, you know, something you just sort of catch your ear on almost by accident, almost like overheard something. But that's not the way Paul uses this phrase. And we're not talking about this kind of herd either. These moose, not those guys. Okay.

In second Timothy, he talks to Timothy and think about this. He's writing the last letter that we have record of. He's writing so far as we know, the last letter to Timothy. It's so close to the end that he says, I'm poured out. And what does he do? He says, retain the standard of sound words. By the way, that word sound is a word where we get our word hygiene, healthy words, which you have heard from me.

So you have heard that same phrase. These are words that are communicated with intent, with specific content, very deliberately communicated. not just incidental words that happen to flow and you happen to overhear. Words that you have heard that have a specific message. He says again, in the same book, again, his last letter, the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these. See, entrust says there's some value there, doesn't it? Entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

So you have heard is not just a casual phrase, Not just it happened to fall upon your ears, but it's an intentional statement of content. It's an intentional statement of the things that need to be communicated. But what Paul brings home here is it's especially Christ himself.

Hebrews 2.1 also has some of the same idea.

And even Jesus himself says in John 18.37, anyone who is of the, excuse me, everyone who is of the truth hears my voice. Heard Him. Have you heard Him? Him. Okay.

Just as the truth is in Jesus. Now, you didn't just learn about Jesus. You know, it's interesting. I've shared before that I became a believer when I was coming home from church one day and I asked my parents, how did you become a Christian? I was about four and a half. They told me to wait. And the thing is, I had been at Sunday school, and the Sunday school teachers were doing a pretty good job for a guy that was like a skyrocket. But here I was asking, hey, I don't want to just know about Jesus. I want to know Him. Tell me, how do I do that?

And that's the focus that he has here. The truth is in Jesus. He is the focal point, the center point. There isn't any other person, any other place that you're going to be able to say that. It is in Him. It's central to Him. It is not to be found elsewhere or by accident. No other person is the one by whom we may be saved and no other person by whom we can be sanctified. We behold Him.

The words of the Lord himself as he spoke to the apostles. I am the way, the truth. By the way, the Greek there is very explicit. I, in contradistinction to anyone else, am the way. Singular. Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. Everyone, as we quoted before here, who is of the truth hears my voice. He's very clear and very deliberate about what he says here. Truth centers in Christ. It isn't just incidental to Him. It isn't just something that happens to be a part of it. Christ Himself is the truth. That is why it is Him we learn. Him that we know. Him that we're taught in. Now, as he goes on here, in verse 21 you see this IF. And you might yourself be thinking, How come Paul writes with all these ifs?

Sounds like things that ought to be pretty certain. We'll talk about that here in a minute. It isn't intended to convey doubt. He's not questioning. He, in fact, knows them. He knows these people here. The Greek has this idea, which is not easily carried across in English. It asks the if, but it tells you that it assumes the answer is yes. And that's what he's doing here. It affirms the reality. We might carry across the idea in English with words something like, inasmuch as you have heard, or I assume, if, as I assume to be the case, you have heard. Something like that would give the sense. So you might ask, all right, why don't they just translate since? Why don't they just do that?

The reason that Paul would write this way, and you notice quite often he would ask questions. and you would use things like if. The reason is, in those days, you would write or speak with someone and you wanted them to come along with your line of thought. You would present things with this kind of a statement, it was an if with an assumed yes, to involve them in your line of thinking. To get them to understand by following along in your line of thought and your logic.

That's why you present it this way. It was not to cast doubt. It was not to question whether something was true. It was to invite them to be thinking the same thoughts. It was to invite them to logic through in the same way he was. That's all it's for. Not to cause us to wonder, am I really saved?

You lay aside your old self. As we approach this passage here, we have an important question to ask and to answer. Is this passage telling us to do something, or is it recognizing an accomplished fact? We look at this passage in three sections, and for the moment here I'm going to look at the whole section so that you get the idea. In verse 22, the English translations come across with, you lay aside the old self. King James has, and I think actually more appropriately, the old man.

And it sounds like An exhortation to do something, doesn't it? That's the way it comes across. Verse 24, you put on the new self. Sounds like you need to do something, doesn't it? These have been translated as imperatives, as if this is something you need to do. This is something you must do. What's interesting, the Greek doesn't have an imperative there.

And when we compare other passages that address the subject similarly, look at what we find. Here's Colossians 3, 9 and 10. We made reference to it earlier. since you laid aside the old self, done deal. How about that? With its evil practices and have put on, done deal, the new self. See that? Difference.

Romans 6.6, our old self was crucified with him.

Once we come to understand what this is saying, it can't be an exhortation to do something. It would be as if I came to you and I said, okay, now you are to be crucified with Christ. You better go do it. How do I do that? Well, you can't. Our place is not one of accomplishment. That's God's to-do. It's one of recognition, isn't it? And that's what's happening here.

And I just have to note that old man is actually probably a better way to look at it, because it's all of who you were before you were a believer. And the focus, certainly when it gets to the new man, is not on ourselves, but on the Lord. The old man is a has-been. That's the character of the old man. He's a was.

Now, if you look at Weiss' translation of this same passage, we see it this way, that you have put off once for all, with reference to your former manner of life, the old man, which is being corrupted according to the passionate desires of the seed. Moreover, that you are being constantly renewed with reference to the spirit of your mind, that you have put on once for all the new man.

See that? A done deal. It's a done deal, not a command, which is a relief, because you may have been wondering, how am I going to do that? It's a recognition of what God has already accomplished when you believed, not a command to start doing something that you haven't the foggiest idea how to do. That's good news. So, we'll from this point forward show these as past tense, and you'll understand that I'm modifying the typical English translation to do so.

So, in verse 22, in reference to your former manner of life, this is the manner of life which Paul described previously, as we've studied verses 17-19, the manner of life of the unbelieving Gentiles. Not just the outward manner of life and habit, but also their mindset, their way of thinking, and where their life came from, which was from themselves, because it did not come from God. This manner of life proceeds from the old man, ruled exclusively by the sin nature of the flesh. This word for former, pate, and I think in your handout, I need to make a correction there, I've underlined it, was used consistently by the apostles for the position and lifestyle of the believer before they were saved. And we notice it's not just Paul's habit, but it is also the habit of other apostles as well, to talk about your former life, your former lifestyle. and the way things were before you were a believer. They use that word pretty consistently throughout the epistles.

We don't mean pate like this, the liver stuff. Anyway, you laid aside the old self. Done deal, remember? Accomplished. This old self is all that the unbeliever is in fallen Adam. It's not just some part, it's the whole thing. It's the old man, the whole person.

Consistently expressing the sin nature. The unbeliever may look nice. The unbeliever may be nasty. It's all still the sin nature. One thing that's important to recognize about the old man, he's not always as nasty looking as he could be. The old man can look pretty good sometimes. Some actors and actresses, for example, will act like a believer for the sake of the movie or the show that they're doing. They will act like a believer, but it's all acting. It's not the real thing. The other aspect of it is the future destiny. The future destiny of the old man is not good, no matter what. There is nothing out of effort of the old man that's going to change that, neither its character nor its destiny.

Everything here is put on as if it's kind of a clothing analogy, a putting on, a putting off. John, as we studied through Revelation a few years back, carries that across where he talks about walking in white and wearing white. This is the putting on of the new man that the Lord has done. His righteousness, not ours. The other point here is the word old It doesn't mean just old in terms of being ancient. It means worn out and obsolete. You're not going to use it anymore.

Nancy will tell you if you have a conversation with her that she'll wear something and after she's worn it for a while, I get to really like it. And then finally gets to the point where she says, Vern, I got to get rid of it. And then I go through grief. It's hard for me. I'm funny that way. The longer she's worn it, the more I like it, and then she finally has to get rid of it, and it's tough, you know?

That's kind of what this is, it's worn out and obsolete, you know? But the old man stuck with it. The old man, you know, that's all he's got. So he's stuck with that. Now, he describes it, and one of the things we'll notice, both the old man and the new man are given a description, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit. Do you see an ongoing process there? It doesn't just say it's corrupt and make that a final statement. It's getting worse. It's getting more rotten.

We used to go out to the apple orchard and collect, we'd go out with a pickup truck and collect garbage cans. They weren't really all that dirty, but garbage cans full of apples from the apple orchard and we'd take them over to the pigs. And you know, you'd have these apples and they didn't start off too bad, but the longer they sat in the can, they got kind of ripe. The pigs didn't care. It just got worse and worse and worse and worse, and more and more rotten, and they were just happy as can be with it.

That's the old man. Rotten is great. And that's the kind of cascading decline that Paul describes in Romans 1, 18-32, or we just saw a briefer version of in Ephesians 4, 17-19. There is a sequence of decline and that sequence of decline it typifies the old man. He cannot help but fall down this worse and worse cascade. And notice cultures tend to do that as well because it's a collection of people largely made up of the old man.

That progression with that progression, rather, is consistent with and measured by. That's what this in accordance with means. It's consistent with and measured by the deceptive passions. Notice that that's in contrast to the truth as it is in Jesus. You've got truth as it is in Jesus, or you've got the deceptive passions. You've got one or the other, but not some mixture.

They're in contrast to each other. the entire old man is ruled by this principle of progressive corruption, progressive deception, progressive self-deception. Okay, now as we look at the next couple of verses, 23 and 24, first thing we see here is he's talking about a present process that's being renewed, and you notice there's a process of corruption for the old man, There's a process of renewal for the new man. That's not corruption, is it? For the old man there's a corruption, for the new man there's a renewal, and there's a recognition of the completed past action, verse 24.

Once for all impacting your position from that point in the past on into eternity. It's the logical basis for the imperatives that we're about to see unfolding and they're going to be coming out in a rapid fashion pretty quick here. He says that you be renewed. This is this continual renewal. It's a present tense, that means it's going on and it's continuing to go on today, right now, for the believer, for you. It's going on for me, it's going on for you as we're here this morning. It's also in the passive voice. I don't go Did I get renewed a little bit?

It is not my job to do. It's not my effort. It is God's to do. It is His job to do the renewing. It's not the job of an elder to come up and pump you up on Sunday morning so that you can walk out and have a bunch of energy for the week and then until you run out of gas and you come in next Sunday morning and then it's my job to pump you up again. No. The renewal is the Lord's to do. day by day. Notice something else. This is positionally true of all believers because their life doesn't come out of this world, but out of Jesus Christ, of the new creation.

2 Corinthians 14.16 has some really good insights into this principle here. Therefore we do not lose heart, but through the outer man, though the outer man is decaying, Yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. Now, the outer man decaying part, you know about that.

I'm learning about that too. The inner man is being renewed day by day. Those are in contrast to each other. Notice the present tense. We have an ongoing process here while we're here on earth, this renewing. Notice, though it's a process and progressive while we're here on earth, the renewal is done by the Lord and not ourselves, just like we saw in the other passage. And finally, There's a sharp distinction between the ongoing process and the outer man, and the inner man. The direction of the daily process is radically different.

I don't know about you, but day to day I find things that don't work like they used to. It's like you need to go and get a grease job or something. Things just don't operate like they're supposed to here on this thing, and things kind of sort of fall out of commission. This outer body runs into trouble. but inside we're being renewed day by day.

And that is in sharp contrast to the process going on externally around us. Renewed in the spirit of your mind. Now we've got some interesting things to look at here. So what is this spirit of your mind? Is that just sort of a ghost passing through your head? What is it? No?

We need to take a look at that word then. Last week we had an illustration that looked kind of like this. We're going to transform it a little bit to get to something closer to what you have on page five. By the way, if you're joining with us here, I told you a little late, but that's the page in your handout. So we have this drawing here, and we're going to put these additional features.

There is, in the physical realm, our bodies. There is, in the spiritual realm, a spirit. And then we have this aspect called the soul, which really is a gateway between. There is a physical aspect to our mind. There's a physical aspect to our emotions and the physical aspect to our will, but there's also the spiritual aspect to it as well. We'll take a look at that in a minute.

Here's this passage in 1 Thessalonians 5, 23 and 24 that talks about these three parts. Now, may the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he who calls you, and he also will bring it to pass. What? Your soul, your spirit, and the body. All three parts here. You need to know that this is an area that a lot of Bible scholars will argue about. Some will say that the soul and the spirit are the same thing. This one obviously seems to point to a difference.

I would also suggest to you that Hebrews 4.12 specifically points to a big difference.

Aside from that, though, it's clear that the mind has both a physical aspect, that's what people who do brain surgery are working with, physical aspect, and a spiritual aspect. Paul's writing to the believers, so he's talking about the spiritual aspect when he says, we have the mind of Christ. How about that? Now, you've probably heard this, of all the things I miss, I miss my mind the most. That's the physical side of things. That's part of the outer decay that Paul's talking about.

But here, the mind of Christ and the believer is on the spiritual side. It's the spiritual aspect of the mind. It's on the spiritual side of the line, if you will. Not subject to earthly declines. Someone who is a believer may suffer some kind of brain damage. Does that diminish their mind spiritually? No. What has happened is, on the physical side that we see, there may be a diminishing, but on the spiritual side it's untouched. We have the mind of Christ and that doesn't get subject to decay and injury and all the other things that afflict people. So, what we'll see is the soul is composed of the mind.

On the physical side, that's what the brain surgeon will study, and then there is the spiritual side of it. There are emotions. that have physical aspect, may be subject to even certain hormones and chemical substances in our blood, and what we eat, and things of that sort. But there is also the side of it which is spiritual. Science really can't explore that. And the human will.

What I would suggest to you, looking carefully at this word, this word nus that's translated mind, is a combination of the mind and the deep spiritual emotions. By that I mean not just flighty physical emotions that come and go, but inclinations that are deeply felt spiritually. A love for the Lord. A responsiveness to his word. Those are things that are deeply seated in our emotions from the spiritual side. So in the spirit of your mind, this is the spiritual aspect of our mind and emotions. outside of the touch of the physical realm, all on the spiritual side.

That's what he's talking about. The believer is continuously renewed on the spiritual side of their mind and emotions. Now, he says, you have put on the new self. We make the change here of note that this is a past action, completely done in the past. The believer is positionally and totally the new man. already God's accomplishment at the point of belief.

This isn't just a new, like this one here is old in sequence, and now we have a new one in sequence, but it's new and kind, not like the worn out obsolete old man, but new and kind, a different kind altogether. The focus is on kind, not on time. We're going to see that as the basis for all the imperatives that are going to unfold through the rest of the book of books of Ephesians and Colossians. Which in the likeness of God has been created is the next phrase that comes here. Now, this is the origin of the new man. The new man is made in the likeness of God, sharing of his glory and character with us.

The believer is not evolving in character. The believer's position is not gradually changing. It's a done deal. It's accomplished. He wants them to recognize that. The believer is altogether a new creature. Notice that created is used here of the new man, created is not used of the old man. Then, here, in righteousness and holiness of the truth. Believers haven't been just created anew, but that creation is of an entirely different character.

It's the character of the Lord himself. Righteousness. Holiness. Truth. And notice the connection there. It's originating from within truth. Truth is not the truth, by the way, in this passage. There's no definite article. It comes across that way in the English, but the Greek is focusing on the character of truth. Righteousness and holiness with a character of truth and coming out of that character of truth.

Adam was created in the likeness of God, but Adam was created earthly, and innocent of sin, but not fundamentally righteous. Not fundamentally holy. Adam began in truth, but, and that's how he was created, but when Adam chose to sin, he put into action that lie of Satan, the deception of Eve that had befallen the old man. The old man was not created of the character we see described here originally.

He fell into that position. Believers have been created in the likeness of God, but, unlike Adam, heavenly, in Christ. They are basically not innocent, but righteous. They have been declared righteous. Basically righteous, intrinsically righteous, not just free of sin as a starting point. Holy and of truth. That's the new man. That's the new man. Some years back, I used to listen to an album by a fellow by the name of Michael Omardian, and it was called Adam Again, and I enjoyed it. But as I've thought about it, wait a minute.

We're not just Adam again. That's not God's intent. Adam was placed here on Earth. Paul told us a couple chapters back, you are seated with Christ in the heavenlies. Now, Adam was created innocent. We, however, are declared righteous. That's different. Paul starts off writing to the believers at Ephesus, and what does he call them? Saints. Same root as holy. Fit for God's holy purpose.

That's special. No, Adam again isn't quite enough. because there's a sharp contrast. We're not just going back to the garden to risk making the same mistake all over again. We are instead seated with Christ and in Him. That's far better. Far better. And Adam never knew it.

Let's pray. Lord, as we look at this, we thank you for what we can count upon. that as we move in the weeks ahead into a series of imperatives that it comes not out of an order, a demand, a command for us to do what we in truth cannot, but instead there are things that are the true character of who you are and who we have made to be in you. We thank you Lord for what you have accomplished And that in dependence upon that accomplishment, in personal walk with you, in dependence upon you, that the imperatives we're about to see are things that make perfect sense. Thank you for that. In Jesus' name, Amen.