Off with the Old, On with the New, Part 1

When you receive Jesus Christ, a tremendous change takes place in your basic nature. You are a totally different individual. In fact, the change that occurred when you were saved is more dramatic than the change that will occur when you die. Thanks for joining us for Grace to You.

In a moment, John MacArthur is going to start his series titled, The Portrait of a New Life. Of course, unlike a painting, this study isn't going to show you what a Christian looked like at a particular point in history. Instead, you'll see the attitudes and actions that should characterize every follower of Christ today. You know, we live in a time when it's never been easier to improve the outer man. You can have a complete makeover.

There's so many products that help slow the aging process and treat illnesses and boost our daily health. But of course, John, those kinds of external changes are nothing compared to what God does to remodel the inner man when he saves a person. And isn't that why the Apostle Paul says, bodily exercise veileth a little, but godliness was what you have to pursue? Yeah, so we're going to start a series that's going to help you work on the inside.

And the title of it is, The Portrait of a New Life. You know, I think one of the things that is missing in this Christian culture today is the idea that salvation is transformational. There are lots of people who think, well, I believe in Jesus.

That's it. You know, I can believe in Jesus and live my life and do whatever I want to do. And that's a wrong idea.

That's a, I think, seriously wrong idea. And people who think that way may not actually be Christians, because if you are a Christian, you have been transformed. Old things have passed away, and all things new have come. So you are a new creation in Christ Jesus, and that's what we want you to understand.

So this is The Portrait of a New Life. This series needs to be heard by the current crop of superficial evangelicals who think that accepting Jesus in some token, superficial way, is sort of an assurance that you're not going to go to hell, and maybe Jesus will help you bump up your satisfaction level a few notches. Now, this is totally transformational, so we're going to be looking into the wonderful book of Ephesians, chapters 4 and 5.

And is this ever powerful? Because it reveals Scripture's full color portrait of what a true Christian looks like, and how Christians are utterly distinct from non-Christians. There is a marked visible demonstrable transformation. And the sad truth is some folks claim it's possible to become a Christian and never have your life change. This study will certainly challenge that ridiculous view. We're going to work our way through the study again in Ephesians 4 and 5. We'll probe deeply into the things that are most important for you to know as a believer so that you can live to the glory of Christ. The study's going to hit you right where you live, so stay with us.

Yes, it is going to hit you right where you live. Think of this study as a biblical documentary of what you're like before you became a Christian, and after Christ transforms you. Now here's John to begin his study called The Portrait of a New Life. Take your Bible, will you, with me, and let's look at the fourth chapter of Ephesians together, verses 17 through 24. The Apostle Paul says, This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness. But ye have not so learned Christ, if so be that ye have heard Him and have been taught by Him as the truth is in Jesus, that ye put off concerning the former manner of life, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

And we'll stop there. When you receive Jesus Christ, when you're born again, when you enter into God's kingdom, a tremendous change takes place in your basic nature. You are a totally different individual. In fact, the change that occurred when you were saved is more dramatic than the change that will occur when you die, because your new nature has already been created. The new you has already been made. You are already fitted for heaven.

You are already a citizen of God's kingdom. All death does is free up that new nature to enter into the presence of God. The greatest change has already happened when you were saved. And everything is new. In 2 Corinthians 5, 17, Paul said, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation.

Now note it. He is a new creation. He doesn't receive something new. He is new. Old things have passed away. All things have become new. There is a new creation.

In Galatians 2, 20, Paul says, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. It's a new I. Only it's not I. The life which I now live is the life of Christ living in me.

Now I want you to keep focused on that thought. It's a new you. It's a new I. It's a new creation. As you study the epistles of Paul, you find that he talks about a new will, a new mind, a new heart, a new power, a new knowledge, a new wisdom, a new perception, a new understanding, a new life, a new inheritance, a new relationship, a new righteousness, a new love, a new desire, a new citizenship, etc. In fact, summing it all up, the Bible says it is newness of life...newness of life. Now I've heard a lot of people teach that when you become a Christian, God gives you something new. You still have your old nature, your old sin nature still there, and so forth, but God gives you something new. According to the Word of God, you are new.

It isn't just a matter of addition, it is a matter of transformation. Do you understand the difference? It is a renewed you. It is I am crucified with Christ.

The old I goes out of existence. Nevertheless, I live, risen again. But it is not I that lives, but it is Christ living in me.

Yet not I, says Paul, but Christ liveth in me. You are a new you. You say, well if I'm such a new me, how come I sin?

Because you are a new you in a smelly old coat. And that coat is the flesh, that's your humanness. That's why in Romans 7, 17 and Romans 7, 20, Paul says, it is sin that is in me. And again in 20, it is sin that is in me. In other words, when I sin, it isn't my new nature sinning.

Now this may be new to you, so hang on. It is no more I that do it, he says. It's not that resurrected I. It's not that new nature that sins. It is not the new I that sins, he says, it is sin that dwelleth in me. In other words, it's that smelly coat of humanness that that new nature has to endure until it goes to be with the Lord. So what you need to deal with as a Christian is that smelly old coat. You need to get it off. That's why Peter uses the verb strip off, which means to take off dirty clothes and throw them in 1 Peter 2.

Get rid of that stuff. We are not a remodeled job, I want you to know that. We are not just something to which something was added. I don't believe that a Christian has two natures. I think a Christian has one new nature.

I dies, Igo dies, I lives. So that a Christian is a single new man, a total new creature, a new living I. But sin is a problem because he's got a smelly old coat of humanness on him. And what the Bible approaches is the fact that we need to begin to throw that old smelly stuff off. The new man is a new kind of human behavior. And we are to put on a new man that is a new humanness to accommodate and fit and go with a new nature. But most of us have to fight to get rid of that old stuff. In Colossians chapter 3, the Apostle Paul says that if we have been risen with Christ, in other words, the old I died and a new I rose.

If we are a transformed, brand new nature, risen with Christ, then certainly we better kill the members on the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil desire, covetousness, et cetera. In other words, you've got to get rid of the stinky old coat. When I went down to the Union Rescue Mission years ago and preached down there, they showed me the delicing room where they go in there and delice. And some got a whole bunch of those things on them.

And it's quite a job. And they burn their clothes. It wouldn't do a bit of good to delice a guy and then put him back in his old bum clothes.

Nobody believed he'd had a bath. Got to get a new garment for a new man. And the same thing is true in the spiritual. As we have a new nature, as we have been recreated in Jesus Christ, as we have been made new, as we have been transformed so that we now, right now, this moment are ready for eternal heaven, our nature is ready.

Then we need to chuck the old patterns, the old things, the old practices, the old life that hangs on us. Christ is formed in us. Paul even said that. He said, oh, I have birth pains until Christ is formed in you, Galatians 4.19. It is the very life of Christ in us and we are, it says in Ephesians 2, created in Christ Jesus. But the struggle is with that sin, that coat of sin that is our humanness. Now Paul is going to attack that very issue right here. He's going to tell us from chapter 4 verse 17 to the end of this book, how to get rid of that old coat, how to chuck that old stuff, how to accommodate a new suit for the new man.

That's his whole point. We have learned what the new man is in the first three chapters, right? Now we're going to learn how the new man lives in the last three. He talked about the new nature and all that was involved in chapters 1 to 3 and now the new clothes, the new man, putting on the new man, putting off the old external, the old outside, the old man. It's kind of like Romans 6 13, if it's true that we have risen with Christ, if it's true that we're brand new and transformed, then we should never yield our instruments as instruments of unrighteousness, but we should yield our members as instruments of God. The reason the Bible is so full of the word therefore is because it is incumbent upon us to behave in accord with who we are. That's why the Bible is loaded with therefores and wherefores.

In fact, chapter 4 would be a good illustration. Verse 1 has a therefore. Verse 17 has a therefore. Verse 25 has a wherefore. Chapter 5 has a therefore. And the whole of the Christian life is a pile of therefores and wherefores.

Why? Because it is demanding from us a response of obedience to the identity that God has given us in Christ. Now we're going to look at how the new nature functions in behavior in the new man.

That's our thought as we examine this text. Now I want you to go back to verse 1 so we can really pick up the context. Chapter 4, verse 1, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy.

Now we can stop there for a moment. All right, that's the whole thrust of 4, 5 and 6, the worthy walk. I beseech you that you walk worthy. Worthy of what?

The vocation to which you're called, the new nature, the identity that was delineated in chapter 1, 2 and 3. Walk worthy. Now how is that going to work? How do we walk worthy? Jump to verse 17.

Here's the first way. I say therefore, testify in the Lord that you henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk. Now here's the first thing He really has to say directly about walking worthy. It is a different walk.

We are to live different than the world lives. Now there is some debate about whether the phrase other Gentiles walk is in or out in certain manuscripts and for our sake we'll include it because it's implied if it isn't in and I lean to the fact that it's probably in the text anyway. But the point is, the idea here is that we are to walk worthy, verse 1. And then He gives that wonderful interlude in verses 2 to 16 about unity and spiritual maturity and growth as a sort of a composite of the church. In other words, He's talked in generalities about how the church is to function and now I get specific. Now here you as a believer face the fact of what He wants you to do. How am I to walk worthy?

First, walking not as other Gentiles walk. Now the therefore then I think picks up all of verse 1 to 16. It's a debate about what the therefore applies to.

I think it applies to the whole thing. Because of the vocation to which you're called. Because it is humility that God is after and meekness and lowliness of mind. Because of the truth that we are one in every way. Because the Lord Jesus Christ has gifted us uniquely as members of His body. Because He has given to the church the principle of maturity and growth and edification and speaking the truth and love.

Because of all of these things, therefore you are to walk. It's as if He's saying God has created a marvelous entity in the world known as the church. And because of this unique creation with a unique lifestyle of humility. With a unique unity. With a unique empowerment by gifts and gifted men. With a unique destiny of being edified in love. Because of the marvelous uniqueness of this miracle creation called the church.

This is how you are to walk. You see the totality of what the church is designed to be. Now here you as an individual are to behave in this manner. So He moves from the general to the specific. You say alright I'm a part of this church.

I know the gifted men are to do what they're to do and perfect the saints and the saints through the work of the ministry. I know you've given me spiritual gifts. I know I'm to know this unity and this oneness. I know I'm to be humble and meek. Now how do I work it out in my daily life? How do I live it in the world?

Principle number one. You don't walk like the rest of the world walks. It's a different life. It's unique. You are a unique group. You are the church of Jesus Christ. The world is proud.

You're humble. The world is fragmented. You're united. The world is impotent. You're gifted. The world is hateful. You're full of love. The world doesn't know the truth.

You do. Because of all these things and because of the design of your uniqueness, this is how you walk. Different. Different than the world walks. You cannot accomplish the glorious goals of Christ by living the way the world lives.

You know living like the world lives would be imitating the dead. Doesn't make a lot of sense. Not much point. You see, Christianity, and I think it's important to realize this, is like a third race. There were Jews and Gentiles and now they're Christians. We have a new seed. A spiritual seed.

An incorruptible seed. And we've got to have a corresponding lifestyle. We are new creations. We are already suited for an eternal existence. We are already righteous and holy in terms of that new nature.

And we might as well throw off that old smelly lifestyle. And yet isn't it tragic that instead of the church conforming the world to the principles of Christ, the world winds up shoving us into its own mold? The word Gentiles, look at it for a moment in verse 17, ethne. We get the word ethnic from it. It is a word that means nations, peoples, heathen, pagans, sometimes translated, or Gentiles. It is simply an ethnic term. And it is used in the New Testament when it is used in terms of races to speak of non-Jews.

And that is its nationalistic meaning. But, further than that, it has a religious meaning. And if you want to know what the religious meaning is, you need only to look at 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 and verse 5. Because it says there this, 1 Thessalonians 4, 5. Not in the lust of evil desire as the ethne who know not God.

On the one hand then, ethne or Gentile refers to an ethnic group of non-Jews racially. On the other hand, religiously it speaks of people who know not whom? God.

God, who know not God. So, the point is, you do not walk and walk, by the way, speaks of daily manner of life. You do not live your daily manner of life like people who don't know God.

It's that simple. You know God. The believers in the ancient world found that difficult. The pagan life all around them and the deeds of the pagans were constantly in front of them and it was very difficult to live a different life just as it is today. We have a terrible problem in our own age. The church in America, the church around the world today, but particularly in America because of its affluence and because of its media inundation of evil, constantly has a difficult time affecting the world. You know, our problem isn't getting the world to live like Christians. Our problem is getting Christians to stop living like the world. That's the real issue.

Very difficult because of the tremendous impact of our society. Let me just tell you about Ephesus a little bit and you can draw some parallels to our own day. Ephesus was one of the most dissolute and evil of all the cities. In fact, some felt it was the evil city of all in Asia Minor. It was really a religious center. There were multiple temples and idols and all of that kind of thing. But it was particularly focused on the temple of Diana. Diana and another name for Diana is Artemis. By the way, if you're thinking of some beautiful looking thing, of course, we've told you before, Artemis was a big black ugly thing that looked like something between a cow and a wolf.

Horrible looking thing. Supposedly fell out of heaven so they worshiped this big black thing. But the temple of Diana was the seventh wonder of the world. It was an art museum with few equals. They had their collections of great works of art. It was an asylum for criminals.

One quarter mile around the circumference of the temple of Diana was King's X for any criminal. So you can imagine the crowd they collected there. It was the greatest bank in the world. A sacred temple like this was a good place for a bank because in those days security was very difficult to come by.

The locks were very primitive, et cetera, et cetera. And the best place to put a bank was in the middle of a temple because people would be fearful to get in there and do anything because of the reprisal of the gods which they lived in fear of. So they made temples into banks. So it was a place where there was a lot of money. It was a business also. Pilgrims by the thousands came to this place and the worship that went on there was orgiastic and so it was very popular.

All you have to do is invent a religion where sex is the key thing and you'll have a whole bunch of people signing up right on the dotted line to get involved and that's exactly what they did. It was a big business and, of course, they sold these little idols. You remember about the revolt of the silversmiths, the terrible riots that broke out when they ruined the business there.

The apostles came in and shut down all the business. People couldn't sell their little gods and had a problem. They used to take their gods and they used to place them in their homes, these little things. And they also, interestingly enough, I read they hung them around their necks, religious jewelry, around their wrists, around their ankles and they put them on the front of their chariot.

I don't know if they had a dashboard on their chariot but that's the idea. So it was a big business. The goddess of Ephesus, Diana, was worshiped as a sex goddess. The place was packed with eunuchs who were made eunuchs in order to accommodate that kind of activity. There were thousands of priestesses and temple prostitutes, singers, dancers and a whole great big orgy occurred. One writer says the worship was a kind of hysteria where the people with shouts and music worked themselves into frenzies of shameless sexual activity including mutilation, self-mutilation. Heraclitus said the temple was, quote, the darkness of vileness, the morals were lower than animals and the inhabitants of Ephesus were fit only to be drowned, end quote.

Some kind of place. The little church in Ephesus was an island and a cesspool. It was a vile sinful world for those early Christians to live in and so the apostle Paul says to them right off the bat in verse 17, you got to be different. Got to be different. Can't walk like they walk. Can't do what they do.

Living a new life is tough but living a new life is necessary. Got to put off that old man, that old lifestyle. By the way, they took good people and fed them to hungry animals apparently. Starved lions, starved wolves, starved dogs, they'd throw good people to them. Remember Paul himself even said that he had to fight beasts at Ephesus.

That was really a bad place. And here were the believers there and Paul says you got to be different. Don't get sucked into this immorality. Don't get sucked into this old pagan lifestyle.

Peter said the same thing in 1 Peter chapter 4 and verse 3. Great word, he says, for the time past of our life may suffice us. In other words, look, the past life is enough of that stuff.

That's sufficient. We wrought the will of the pagans, the ethne. We walked in lasciviousness, in lust, excess of wine, wild parties, carousing, abominable idolatries. And he says we did that but the time past of our life should suffice for that stuff. That's over.

That's over. On the basis of all of this and of what we are in Christ, of all that God has purposed and all that God has designed and all that God has desired of the believer and the body, we are to be unique. We are to be different, not like the rest of the world. John said this in 1 John 2.15, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world, for the world passeth away and the lust of it.

It's a fading thing. It's going to self-destruct. We have no part with that. Society is hostile to godliness because it is dominated by carnal ambition. It is dominated by pride. It is dominated by selfishness. It is dominated by greed and lust and desire for evil. Its opinions are wrong. Its aims are selfish. Its pleasures are sinful. Its influence is destructive. Its politics are corrupt.

Its honors are empty. Its smiles are phony and its love is fickle. We have no part with that. We're different. We don't live that way.

Not like society lives. And by the way, if you think this is just Paul talking, look at verse 17. This I say therefore and testify in the Lord. By the way, he says, I'm passing on this information from the Lord. I testify in the Lord.

He is speaking. This is the divine lifestyle. This is God's standard, not mine. This is His, basic for the believer.

Let's pray. Father, thank You for giving us, even though this is a sordid picture, a contrast because we need that to know what You want of us. Father, there may be some who have never given their life to Jesus Christ. They don't know Christ. And so they don't know what it is to have a new nature.

They don't know what it is to live a new life, to walk a new walk, to put on a new man, a new lifestyle. Lord, I pray that today would be the day they would open their heart to You. Today would be the day that Your Holy Spirit would convict their lives and draw them to Yourself before their constant, willful choice against You becomes a judicial choice, confirmed forever. I think of the words of Jesus who preceded the passage from Isaiah by saying, you just have the light for a little while.

You better respond while the light is here. And Lord, for Christians, for me and for everybody else that knows You and loves You, help us Father to cut ourselves off from the things of this life, things of this world, to put off the smelly old coat of the old former life, to adorn the new nature with a new man. And Lord, we do pray that we might so live to bring You praise. In Jesus' name, amen. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur.

Thanks for being with us. John is looking at the marks of a true Christian and how your attitude and actions can glorify Christ. He's titled his current study, The Portrait of a New Life. Now, one of the most defining marks of a Christian is a love for God's Word. So let me encourage you to pick up our flagship resource, the MacArthur Study Bible.

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The Study Bible comes in the New King James, New American Standard, and English Standard versions of Scripture with soft cover, hard cover, and leather binding options. Again, to order a copy, call 800-55-GRACE or go to gty.org. Also keep in mind, the MacArthur Study Bible is one of hundreds of resources available at 25% off the regular price for a limited time. Now is a great time to pick up a MacArthur New Testament commentary, as well as books like The Gospel According to Jesus, Anxious for Nothing, and The Glory of Heaven. To place your order, call 800-55-GRACE or shop online at gty.org. That's our website. One more time, gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace to You staff, I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Thanks for making this broadcast part of your day, and be here tomorrow for another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.