I can very vividly remember sitting on the back porch of my friend’s cabin at Lake Pickwick in McNairy Country Tennessee during Labor Day weekend of 2006. We were sitting out back all talking and catching up while waiting for the fireworks to come towering over the treetops. Amy and I had recently made the decision for me to attend seminary and decided that that was as good of a time as any to tell our friends. Most were excited for us, but there was one friend that was just in shock. She wasn’t really upset, she just didn’t understand; mainly because she was raised Catholic. Did this mean that Amy and I were getting a divorce? Did this mean that we were going to be those “no fun” Christians that everyone thinks about? Did this mean that we couldn’t be friends anymore? Amy and I assured all of them that while it did mean that we would have to make some minor changes to the way we lived (mainly due to public perception), it wasn’t going to change who we were and who we are. We explained to all of our friends that that change had taken place many years ago, before we had even met any of them.
You see, there is a change that takes place when one comes to know Christ. It’s not just a little tweak here and a minor adjustment there, but it’s a wholesale and complete change. Christ changes everything. We are made new creations in Christ, and that’s something that Paul is trying to get across to the Ephesians here. He doesn’t want them to think that being a Christian is about simply bettering yourself a little bit in certain areas. Instead, he wants them to understand that the life of the person who doesn’t profess Christ is completely different from that of the person who does. And this difference, or the change from one to the other, involves two stages (both of which are carried out by God through the work of the Holy Spirit in us). First, there is the putting off of the old self. Then, there is the putting on of the new self. Logically, if you take something off then you must be putting something else on.
What does it mean to put off the old self? The first half of our text (vv.17-22) gives us some understanding as to what this means. Now, Paul begins here with what upon first reading it sounds like an odd statement. Paul tells these Ephesian Christians to, “no longer walk as the Gentiles do…” and then he lists a lot of bad characteristics. And we’re left asking ourselves, “didn’t Paul spend a good portion of chapter 3 (nearly all of it) talking about how the gospel was just as much for the Gentiles as it was for the Jews?” Yes, but here when he uses the word Gentiles, he’s speaking more about actions than nationality. These descriptors about these Gentiles: alienated from God, hardness of heart, greedy, and impure. All of these things are speaking about not a nationality, but someone (or in this case a group of people) who does not follow Christ. As we’ve said, this very same church that he’s writing to is made up of a mixture Jews and Gentiles. Obviously he wouldn’t right to this congregation and tell them that they didn’t need to be like half of them. It would be like me writing to a church that was multicultural and telling them not to walk in the way of one of the particular cultures represented within the church. It’s about not following sinful desires and instead following Christ, not a nationality.
Paul is reminding these Christians that they are to be in the world but not of the world. He is reminding them that they can’t both follow Christ and be citizens of the world. They can’t live according to worldly desires and seek first God’s desires. To put it bluntly, you cannot have two number ones in your life. This isn’t like having multiple children and loving them equally. This is like having two spouses (not encouraged) and trying to love them equally. You cannot serve two masters. We either serve Christ or we serve the world. We either serve the Creator or the creation. Paul knows that the Ephesian church has heard this message and heard it properly because he’s the one that delivered it to them in the first place. When I taught high school, my students would often try and tell me that something on a test wasn’t covered in class. I would always have to tell them that indeed it was covered, because I remembered covering it. Paul knows that they have heard this, and he is making sure that they have rightly applied it. Paul must make sure that the Ephesian Christians aren’t just calling themselves followers of Christ but still living according to the world. And it’s up to us to make sure of the same things when it comes to ourselves and other Christians today as well. “Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires.” In Christ, we are to be new creations, but first we must lay aside the old in order to put on the new. The language here has to do with the taking off of clothes. Without Christ, we’re dead in our sins. Without Christ, we’re literally wearing dead man’s clothes, we’re wearing grave clothes.
Paul continues on, “and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” Now, some of the language here can cause us to get a bit bogged down if we let it. What is “the spirit of you minds”? If we’re putting on something new, then should we really say renewed? Setting aside these linguistic challenges that can be explained easily, but would take up too much time here, Paul’s point is really quite simple. He is calling us as Christians to make a complete change. He’s telling us that following Christ is a complete change from a life that doesn’t follow him. We’re taking off those grave clothes and we’re putting on Christ. The mind was one of the parts of a human body that was used when referring to something on the inside. In other words, don’t just be changed on the outside and don’t just start showing the world only good things, but truly be changed in every fiber of your being. Truly be changed in your emotions, your desires, and your motivations. And in changing all of these things, what will happen is that in essence an entirely new person is being created. Now, Paul’s going to spend really the rest of this epistle dealing with aspects of what this new man is to look like. However, before moving to different examples of what this ought to look like in our lives, Paul gives us some ways in which we should be able to visibly see that we have taken off these grave clothes of the old man and put on the new clothes of the new man that is found in Christ Jesus. We’re not going to have time to go into these fully, but we’ll just him them really quick.
The first thing that Paul tells us is that we need to “put away falsehood” and “speak the truth”. In other words, speak honestly with one another. Some of your translations may say to put off lying. Unfortunately, lying has become part of our world. I’ve got a friend of mine who’s a lobbyist and he jokingly says that he lies, cheats, and steals for a living. Now, he says that jokingly; however, it brings up an interesting point; should the Christian lie? I want you to simply think about two titles that are given in Scripture. One of which is the famous I Am statement of John 14:6 (I am the way and the truth and the life). The other is the title that comes a bit earlier in chapter 8 of John’s gospel when the devil is known as the father of lies. Now, you tell me that lying isn’t a big deal. Christ calls himself the truth, while he refers to Satan as the father of all lies.
The next thing Paul gives us about the change from old self to new self is about anger. He says, “Be angry and do not sin.” Now, we might expect to see “don’t be angry” here. However, the Greek word used here doesn’t mean the type of momentary anger or temporary rage that some of you may have experienced before. The word used here means a deep-seated, determined, and settled conviction. Paul is calling for the Ephesians to not only not sin, but to hate sin as well. This anger is good, but that momentary, fleeting anger (and even the built up anger over the wrong things) can become, as Paul says, “an opportunity to the devil.” As we put on this new self, we have to change our hearts so that we become angry only over the right things.
Then, Paul says to put off stealing and put on working. This should go without saying. After all, this is virtually a repetition of the eighth commandment. However, this statement could pertain to more than just material possessions. We could also say, bringing last Sunday’s text back into play, that when we don’t use the gifts that God has given us in service of Him that we are stealing from Him. God commanded Adam to work in the Garden, and that was before the fall. So two of the commands that God gave to us in a perfect world were to work and worship, and I don’t think that those things are to be mutually exclusive of one another. All that being said, we can deduce from the words, “so that he may have something to share with anyone in need” that Paul is probably talking about theft of physical possessions. I’ll be honest with you, working hard so that I can give more to others is something that I struggle with. However, I know without a doubt that Scripture calls us to care for those less fortunate, and so we must do so. This is part of putting off the old self and putting on the new.
Next, we find Paul saying, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up…” This is the biblical statement of “if you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all.” I was riding in the car with Amy the other day and we were talking about a kid in her class that was being picked on by some boys. Now, I will readily admit that the worst people in the world are teenage boys. They’re mean, they’re vicious, and they we jump on any imperfection within a person. I shared with Amy how I realized years after the fact that many of my friendships were built on just insulting one another. I realized one day that friendships like that weren’t adding anything to my life. Those friendships that were valuable were the ones that I could share my emotions with without being made fun of. Our talk, as well as our actions, ought not to be those that seek to insult or bring down a person, but seek to encourage them and build them up in Christ.
The final statement serves as somewhat of a catch-all. “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” We are to put off all of those things mentioned in v. 31, and to put on all of those things mentioned in v. 32. Now, there is some repetition there from earlier calls given by Paul. However, I want to you remember one thing as we look at these characteristics that are to differentiate Christians from non-Christians…our natural tendency, as fallen human beings, is to sin. I have to confession just like all of you, that far too often I fall on the wrong side of this equation when it comes to my actions. The late 1800s and early 1900s American theologian G.K. Chesterton was once mailed something by the NY Times asking for his response as to what was wrong with the world today. His response: “Dear Sir. I am. Yours, G.K. Chesterton.” We’re what’s wrong. We’re the problem. However, through Christ, we have hope. Through the sacrifice that is represented on the table before us we have hope. Because of Christ’s death and his atoning sacrifice, we can put off the old self and put on the new self. We can take off the grave clothes and put on clothes of new life in Christ.
Look, I’ve never been a huge fan of change. I know that many of you feel the same way. Change is difficult, it’s hard. Change often comes with setbacks and mistakes and feelings of success not coming like we had imagined. However, change is necessary, and especially when it comes to our faith. We cannot think that our living apart from Christ could in any way resemble our being found in him. If your life looks the same with or without Christ, then you have some hard questions to ask yourself as you look in the mirror. We have to shed what is comfortable and do what is commanded. We have to set aside what is easy and take up the difficult task. We have to put our desires second and place God’s desires above our own. We have to shed those dead, grave clothes and put on the new life that we have in Jesus Christ.
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