The Nature Of Choice: Putting On A New Man

Introduction

If you want to take your Bibles out, we’re going to start in John chapter 6. No matter what the slide says when I turn it on.

A couple of opening comments to serve several purposes. One, just so I can burn off the nerves. If I get through it, I’ll be just fine. But I didn’t catch all the announcements. But I think group four is tonight. Group one is tonight. So it probably was announced. Group one’s tonight. And if y’all didn’t hear, Kayla Ellis was baptized between Wednesday and today. So it’s always great when someone else has committed their life to Christ and made that choice. We’re going to talk about choices today. And if you’ve been around and heard me speak more than once, I talk about choices a lot because I need to hear it.

First off, I always appreciate the opportunity to speak. I was supposed to be tonight until things happened with Jesse’s father or grandfather. So I was bumped up to this morning, and we’ll thank Sean in advance for picking up tonight. Something I always do, I try to use a picture in the background. I took this picture in December of 2008. And that bird’s a great blue heron. And he’s very cold right now in that picture. We’re gonna talk about the bird in a little bit. So there’s always a significance, I promise. for lack of a better title, I call this the nature of choice. If you want to subtitle it’s putting on the new man. this follows a great week. If you were able to come to VBS, we had 110, 118, and 133 for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

So I haven’t got a total count, but that’s probably about 130 here this morning. And to see the joy on the kids’ faces and all the work that went into it and to see the good fruit that came out of it. Good fruit? Sorry. We did the fruit of the Spirit, so right on the heels of that, Kleinwood had their annual singing on Friday night. And it’s always nice to be able to go and put the singing aside to be assembled with hundreds of Christians. There’s just so many people there. People I know a bunch that I don’t. I got to see family. And something I don’t get to do very often, my parents came up, and I got to sit with my dad on my right and Jacob on my left, and we sang the battle belongs to the Lord, and it was three generations.

It just meant something to me. So all that being said, I’d rather be here. Say thank you to everyone for your patience. I’ve got 28 minutes, and I’ll use every last one of them. But this group, if you look across the group, we have a bunch of engineers, and we don’t let them influence too much. But we’ve got engineers, got a grass grower, former grass grower, you know, landmen, salesmen, teachers. We’re all here, and we all do different things, but first we’re all Christians. We’ve all made the choice to put on Christ. And no matter what we are, no matter what we do, we always are Christians. So we’re going to look at three verses this morning. Like I said, we’re going to start in John chapter 6.

We’re only going to look at these three verses near the end. The context starts way back at the beginning. And those of us who are in the John class will remember this is one of the I am statements. In this whole chapter. You’re going to get a couple of them, but this is the main way. He says, I am the bread of life. This comes on the heels of feeding the five thousand. Pardon me. Keep up with my notes this time, unlike I did last time. Comes on the heels of feeding the five thousand. When Jesus finished feeding the five thousand with the sparse loaves and fishes that he had.

And he went off and he prayed. And then he walked, Jesus, you know, walks on water, goes to the boat, they go to the other side, they end up in Capernaum, and the crowd wakes up and says, He’s not here, but he didn’t get in the boat, and they follow him to Capernaum. And they’re in the synagogue, and he tells them again, I’m the bread of life. No one comes to the Father but by me, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood. You can’t be a part of what I’m doing. And he’s talking to a lot of the Jewish leaders here, and they just don’t get it. How can we eat your flesh and drink your blood? Even though he just said I’m the bread of life.

1. We Have Believed: The Gap Where We Choose

And he’s not a big loaf of bread running around. They didn’t see the spiritual implication. This is the little conversation that happens right after that. Jesus is talking to his disciples. Let’s begin in verse 66. After this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, Do you want to go away as well? Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.

We have believed.

Science works in a very specific way. The sun rises on time and sets on time every day. There are 365.242 days in a year. If you want to get technical about the leap year, science tells you that’s what it is. You have 23 pairs of chromosomes. It’s the way it is. When you, in physics, when you push, something happens. When I tell you something, what happens? Well, you’re not like this bird. God made us special. We can take things in and discard them or apply them. Or hang on to them for later. Whereas with science, that doesn’t happen. There’s no thought. Between the stimulus and the response in the scientific world, there’s nothing. When it comes to a person, there’s a stimulus and there’s this gap.

God put that gap in people. He didn’t give it to animals. This bird works on instinct. They all work on instinct. When we talk about being free moral agents, I’ve heard that term before. What’s it really mean? It means we’ve got that space right there where it is our choice. We don’t have to do anything because someone has told us. We can refuse. Or we can do it.

So Peter here speaks for all the apostles and says, We believe. We’ve made the choice to believe in you because we believe that you have the words of eternal life. So what does that do for us? Let’s turn over to Ephesians chapter 4. This will be the last verse I ask you to turn to. It’s somewhat of a lengthy reading. But the meat of the lesson is based here, beginning in verse 17.

We’re going to go ahead and just read it straight through. But I want you to notice some things. In the high school class, it’s going to be redundant for those of y’all who got to enjoy John and I last quarter. We’re going to look for a couple of things. I want you to look for repeated words and phrases, because in the book of Ephesians, they can help focus you on what is trying to be said. And a couple of those is to put off and to put on. The not this but this, so the not this in this chapter is let. Let’s not do this but do this. And then we’re going to always conclude with a therefore. Chapter 5 begins with a therefore. So let’s begin in verse 17.

And I read from the ESV. So if it sounds a little different, we’ll blame it on that. Now this I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their hearts. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learn Christ, assuming that you’ve 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 mind, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Therefore, having put away all falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupt talk come out of your mouth, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear, and do not grieve the Holy Spirit, by whom you are sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

2. No Longer Walk as the Gentiles

Be kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. We’re going to break this down into a couple of different sections. We’re told to no longer walk. The theme of walking in Ephesians called the walk in love at the end. Here is one of the negatives. This is that don’t do this. We are. Sorry. Never taught with pages like this, and I thought I was going to like it. Let’s look at the Gentiles. So we’re in Ephesus. And so there’s a great temple there to Diana. It’s a port city. There’s a lot of wealth and commerce that comes through here.

There are a lot of people who are very affluent. There are people who can do pretty much whatever they want. They work, but they have means to do things. The Gentiles are caught up in several things.

In the futility of their mind.

Supposed to be black. I apologize. Caught up in the futility of their mind. They have a darkened understanding. And worse, they’re alienated from God. How do the Gentiles get this way? You ever thought about that? Did they have opportunities to know the truth?

I’m sure they did. But when you’re caught up in your own self, and you’re caught up in everything that’s going on in your head, and you don’t have time or the willingness to even think about it, to even let it come in, that’s where we have the ability to hear something and discard it.

That’s the futility of their minds. They could hear the word and just brush it aside. There are plenty of people like that today. Comparable the sower, seed falls in the road, it’s trampled underfoot. It may sprout and disappear. Here we have the Gentiles with their darkened understanding and alienated from God. What about this sounds good? None of it, you know. Then we’re told why. Because they had hardened their hearts and they had a lack of faith. How does someone get to have a hardened heart? Once you become a Christian, can your heart harden? Is it always going to be soft or receptive? Are you always going to take a constructive criticism well? Are you always going to take what the Bible says and not give it your slant to what makes it where it, you know, kind of rationalizes and fits into your world where you don’t have to change?

That’s that’s a hard heart creeping in to a Christian. It doesn’t just go to the person who we’re teaching. We’re trying to plant the seeds, we’re trying to talk to people about being better. It can happen to us as well.

It says they had a lack of faith, and this lack of faith in the heart and heart is the root cause for their futility and their alienation from God. How do we strengthen our faith? If they had a lack of faith, then there’s a scale. Where do we want to be on that scale? We want to be at a point where, come what may, we know that God will take care of us. I can say that my family has always had a vehicle to drive, a roof over our heads with air conditioning. And never missed a meal.

We’ve been greatly blessed. In America, we take all those things for granted. Especially the air conditioner. You see, if you’ve been on the website and seen the preacher reports, what’s coming out of Ethiopia, and you see them in t-shirts from like 1985. And that’s new to them. And they’re meeting in a literal grass hut with no walls. And we lose focus and we lose perspective on what we have.

I’ve got a good job. I make good money. I’ve got a house. Now I only have one house. I don’t even have that. We sold a house through great faith.

Do I need God in my life? I’ve got everything I need. I don’t have to rely on God. I rely on my job, and you know, if I need something, I’ve got family. Or I’ve got a credit card. These things are so easy for us to do that. We forget that other people in the world are in this time, they spent more than half their day just preparing food. They didn’t have a microwave. We can’t imagine life without a microwave. We can’t imagine life without a cell phone anymore. Life was harder back then. And I think that they had an opportunity to have a stronger faith because life was harder. I think we get caught up with what we have and how easy it is. And we live in such ease that we don’t have the faith that we should have.

I’m not trying to pick on anyone in particular. I talked to myself. Like I said, I need this lesson, and that’s why I chose this topic. So how is our faith tried? It’s a lack of faith. Their faith had been tried and they had failed. They had not stepped up to the occasion. So in our life, how is our faith tried? Maybe you lose that job. Maybe that house that the real estate agent said would be sold in 45 days takes six months, and you weren’t really ready to make two mortgage payments. Maybe a loved one dies. Maybe cancer gets into your family and you start to question God. I die, maybe a spouse is unfaithful. Maybe you have problems with your children.

Maybe you just start to lose the desire for God. Lose the desire to meet. These are all common. These happen. How do we renew our faith? I’ll tell you the answers here. If it wasn’t for this group of people, I don’t think I would be a Christian. I’ll be honest.

God knew what he was doing when he set it up, and he had us meet on every first day of the week to remember Christ’s death. To remember what he did for us. And without that, we have no hope of heaven. But he brought us together. We don’t do it individually. He said, come together and do this to remember me. We don’t come together. We’ll lose our faith. It will start to win.

3. Put Off the Old Self

Part of no longer walking in the old way is to put off the old self. So in the last month, we have had that I know of three baptisms. In Romans 6, we are told that when we are baptized, we rise to walk in a new life. The old man should stay in the water. So, how do we put off the old man? And do we have to do it more than once? This old man is your former life. It’s the life that the Gentiles were leading. And we’re told in this passage that life is corrupted through deceitful desires. So we can have desires that are just perfectly normal, that are not problematic. Tell you, I’m already getting hungry. I eat at 11 o’clock. It’s hunger.

It’s a desire for food, Mexican food.

There’s nothing wrong with that desire. Now, if that desire starts to take my mind off of what we’re doing here, it just means I should have eaten a bigger breakfast. There are plenty of things in this life that we should not concern ourselves with. That are just things that we shouldn’t be doing. Things that are tempting. The devil knows what he’s doing. What’s the devil’s job? Who’s his target? There’s like seven billion people in the world now. Let’s just say that there’s a hundred million Christians. Alright, there’s his target. His target’s in this building. The rest of the world, he’s pretty well got handled. What’s he doing to take your faith down? What desires is he putting in your life that are there just to chip away at it?

The devil doesn’t necessarily want all of your heart. He’s happy having just one piece. He doesn’t need all of you. He just wants enough of you. Because if he gets enough, he’ll end up getting it all. So our former life and our new life are mutually exclusive. So you can’t have both. You ever try to mix oil and water? Yeah, they kind of mix a little bit and then they separate. Just doesn’t work. With your old life, can’t be any part of your new life. So he’s talking to these people who are Christians, and they’ve already put on the new man. So why is he telling them to put off their old self? It’s because that it can happen. The devil can creep back in, and he can get a little part of you.

4. Put On the New Self by Renewing Your Mind

And that’s part of the old man, and it’s comfortable. I used to be there. Yeah, it’s no problem. I’ve done this before. Didn’t hurt me this time. It’d be just fine. And that’s the deceitful part of this. How can we resist these desires? Well, that’s to put on the new self. By the renewing of the spirit of your mind. So I did a lot of research on this. What’s that mean? You know, you read across that? By the renewing of the spirit of your mind, you should no longer walk and put on your new self. There’s two ways you can look at it. I’m going to take the way that talks about your attitude. If you can get your attitude in check, you can take care of 90% of those deceitful desires.

How many sins are reactive sins? Somebody pushes and you push back. The young people heard this. I’m going to make this a very short story. There’s a lot more to it. They heard this at the young people’s class we had at our house. I used to have a real problem with anger. A real problem. And this is when I was younger. So I was in high school. You pushed, I pushed back. I didn’t get in fights, but I want them before they started. We were in class. We had just finished the final exam in my FFA class, okay? So it’s not really that hard. There’s only 14 people in the class. I knew everyone in the class, they were all my friends. I fall asleep in the back of the room.

They’re all playing around. I don’t know what hit me, but something hit me. And in a snap, before I knew what I was doing, I was up and I had picked up the desk to throw at the guy. You think I had a problem with anger? I had a real problem with anger. It’s based in your attitude. And it doesn’t change overnight. How do we work on our attitude? What do we do? How do we become better? This is in my notes. Sorry.

Our attitude is what affects our decisions. The choices we make, that reactive side of who we are is based on who we are in our heart. And our attitude comes from who we are in our heart. And when we can take these things, there’s a whole list of things we shouldn’t be, and then there’s a whole list of things we should be. And if you think about the things you shouldn’t be, and those that’s the area where you live, then you’re going to have problems having your attitude where it should be and making the right choices. If you realize that this verse says we’re created in the likeness of God, we have the ability not to just push back when we’re pushed. We have the ability to make that choice to take ten seconds before you react.

If it’s an email, take a full day.

Facebook, just shut it down. We have the ability to do that because we’re created in the image of God. This should help us with our outlook on life.

That bird? He’s created in the image of a great blue hair. He’s got a little bitty brain. You push, he pushes back. That’s all he can do. God gave everyone in here a choice. That free moral agency we hear about, that we know we have the ability, this is what it is. Because we are created in his image. I don’t think that’s something we should take lightly. Something we shouldn’t squander for sure. If you take five minutes a day and you say, wow, I was created in God’s image. He wants me to be one of his children. I can do that because what Christ did for me. And you base your attitude around that. Your life will change. That is where this passage is going. It’s time to make a choice.

5. Falsehood Versus Truth, Anger Versus Patience

When you move on to the next passage of scripture in verses 25 through 32 of chapter 4, it pits these things against each other. Falsehood versus truth. Anger versus patience. And being the thief no longer steal, but let him labor with his hands. If you put these in a column left and right, there’s more coming. What’s wrong with the ones on the left up here? Falsehood, anger, and thievery. Everything. We know it. But does the devil throw out, you know what? I want you to go out and tell a huge lie today. No, I want you to get so angry that you’re like the Hulk. You’re just unstoppable. No, he doesn’t do that. He comes at us in little bitty ways. He wants a pinprick today that you don’t notice.

And two tomorrow, maybe two the next day. And he works on us, and he finds the spot that’s the weak spot. And he’s going to push. If we live on the right side of truth and patience and honest work. Tell me what’s wrong about that.

Nothing. It’s harder. What does the thief have to do to make money? I can steal a truck and sell it. $10,000 in my pocket. It’s going to take me, I don’t know how many months to make that kind of money. It’s easy. It’s easy to lie. I don’t have to worry about the consequence. Moving right along. A lot of times telling the truth is the hard part. Yes, I made a mistake. Yes, I did something I shouldn’t do. Yes, I cost the company this customer. But I told him the truth, and he didn’t like it. And I’m going to tell my boss the truth, and whether he likes it or not, he’s going to get the truth. The other things on the list that come a little bit later.

After he talks about not grieving the Holy Spirit, which we’re just going to gloss right over. Bitterness, wrath, anger is mentioned a second time. Clamor, slander, and malice. How many of these things have to do with what we say? Almost all of them can translate into something that we say. There’s a reason that James talks about the tongue and how difficult it is to tame. If we can work on our attitude and make the choice to live on this side, the side of truth, and being kind and tenderhearted and forgiving. The other things start to take care of themselves. The devil starts to push, but we know that we can just push him aside. Instead of pushing the good things aside and trying to live the easy life, we can push the devil aside.

And the more we do that, the good becomes the easy life. The new man starts to take over, and the old man stops to push as much. Why do you think anger is mentioned twice? And then wrath is on there too, which is a you know, kiss and cut into anger. It’s a problem. It was for me. I won’t say it’s not still. It’s a lot better for me. It’s very easy for us to harbor a grudge, to look at someone else and not agree with their lifestyle or something they’ve done or said, or that Facebook post that I think meant something, even though it didn’t, and to get angry. And anger will completely cloud your judgment. There’s no way to go through life.

Why is this such a difficult choice? We can see this. I mean, between those three on the left and those three on the right, and then all these. We know where we want to be. If you’re not there, why aren’t you here there?

It’s all about you deciding and making that choice. To make a habit, they say takes 21 days. Another guy says it takes 66. So we’ll split the difference. You got a month and a half to make a habit. You can put off all of these things in a month and a half. You can start today putting on these.

The devil’s going to push. Make those habits. And you learn to make the choice that I’m going to do the right thing. I’m going to put the old man away. Don’t really need him. I don’t need the lies and the deceit and all the issues that come with that. I’m going to live in the right. Everyone here is going to back you up. Your family won’t back you up. Hey, you know what? I got a new family for you. It was mentioned in class back there in the second adult class. I don’t think if you had a problem and you went to someone, I don’t think there’s anyone in this building who wouldn’t do everything they could to help you. And if I can’t help you, I know someone who can.

6. Therefore, Be Imitators of God

And they’re in this building. Or a building like it somewhere. Let’s get to the therefore. What’s the therefore? Therefore. I’m just going to read these two verses real quickly. After we talked about putting off the old man and things we should and shouldn’t do, therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Be imitators of God. So, got two little kids. Y’all know them. They probably stepped on your foot a couple of times. I see it in Elijah and Jacob. That they want to be like me. They want to be like their mama. I see it in myself. After sitting there at Kleinwood with my dad and my mom and my boys.

If I could be what my dad has become, I think I’d have a successful life. Having nothing to do with money. I think everything to do with the spiritual track he’s been on. And I look up to him, and if I can be an imitator of him, that’d be great. Because he’s an imitator of God. So really, I’m not trying to imitate my father here. I’m trying to imitate my father in heaven. And that’s what this passage is about. It talks about being imitators of God and walking in love. So we talked about not walking as the Gentiles, so here’s the contrast. We’re not going to walk as the Gentiles, but we’re going to walk in love as Christ loved us. We know what Christ did for us.

So if we’re going to talk about being an imitator of God, Tony has mentioned this in class a couple of times. Can we know God’s nature? What do we know about God? If we’re going to be an imitator of him, we’ve got to know about it. So I really hope he does that study on the nature of God. I think it could be beneficial. When you look at this verse, we’re supposed to imitate him and walk in love. Why? Why should we do it? Does God want us to? Is it something that we should want? You know this verse. If you’re using a song book, you can get it out. You know this verse in Matthew, chapter 11. Sorry, I have to turn there, so I’m going to tell you about it.

At verse 25. And I asked I asked Mike to leave the song that goes along with this. 25 through 29, if you want to follow. At that time Jesus declared, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. And all things have been handed over to me by the Father. No one knows the Son except the Father. And no one knows the Father except the Son. And anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Stop right there, real quick. So he just says, I’m glad that you revealed this, not to the people who know everything, not to the really smart people, but that even the average guy.

You reveal it to the average guys. Got a bunch of fishermen here. Like grass growers. Average guys can figure this out. If they can figure it out, then everyone can. And no one’s going to know me except by you. No one’s going to know you except by me. So who can know? That’s where you pick up. No one can know unless the Son chooses to reveal him. And then he says, Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and lowly in heart. And you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Who can know except the Son calls him?

Conclusion

And then what’s he turn around and do? He calls you. Come unto me. Learn from me. And you will find rest to your soul. We have an opportunity to make a choice. Jesus is calling. He says, Come. Whether you’re a Christian who needs help, who has let the old man creep back in, and you need to come back and ask for help, we’re here. It’s what we do. Or if you’re not a Christian, you want to take that first step in becoming a Christian, please. Now’s the time. If you would, come forward as we stand and sing.