Off with the Old, On with the New, Part 2

So it is basic, then to salvation that it is an overcoming transformation that we die to the old and we rise to the new and we are risen with Christ, to seek the things that are above, we are the possessors of the newness of life, possessors of a new nature potential to live out a new man lifestyle, a new God's word and some people it notes their resistance to the gospel makes them softer, more sensitive to sin. But for those who resist God. The truth of Scripture actually hardens their hearts. So the question is how do you make sure you're responding to God's word in the right way that you're receiving his instruction with joy and not resisting his will and letting yourself grow callous to his commands. John MacArthur examines that issue today on grace to you as he continues his look at the portrait of a new life. That's the title of our series. If you have your Bible turn to the book of Ephesians and here is John Ephesians chapter 4 and verses 17 to 24 will be our text. I'm going to read it to you so little. Set it in your mind and you follow as I read and then will share concerning what it teaches. This I say therefore I am testifying the Lord that he henceforth walked 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 hardness of their heart, who being passed feeling have given themselves over on the lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness, but you have not so learned Christ, if so be that you have heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus that he 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 you put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. One of the most wonderful passages in all of the revelation of God is found in first John chapter 5 verses four and five and serves as a fitting comparison to our text. First John five forces for whatever is born of God overcome the world. And this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith, who is he that overcomes the world. But he that believe it that Jesus is the son of God to believe that Jesus is the son of God and buys such faith to be redeemed to be saved to be transformed means that you become an over comer of the world. The word over comer simply means Victor is the Greek word Nikkei it means to conquer to have victory to be superior to overcome and one of the basic realities of salvation is that it transforms a loser into a winner. It transforms a victim into a Victor. It makes us over comer's that by very definition. You remember the words of our Lord and said in John 1633 in this world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world. In other words, as we enter into Jesus Christ.

We enter into his overcoming of the world we rise above the system we rise above the evil age we rise above Satan as conquerors of the devil himself. We rise above death as those who can cry with Paulo death, where is thy sting we rise above sin as we hear the echo of the words of Romans six and shall have no more dominion over you. We rise also above the world.

The whole system of Satan as over comers. So as Christians we have risen above the evil age we have risen above the system of Satan. Our citizenship is heavenly and we are.

Consequently, to live as heavenly citizens we are to live as over comers. Paul even goes further than that.

And because is not only Nikkei but over comers, but there Nikkei hyper over comers super over comers and your authorized version translates that word more than conquerors, so it is basic, then to salvation that it is an overcoming transformation that it lifts us out of the Monday that we die to the old and we rise to the new and we are risen with Christ, to seek the things that are above we are the possessors of the newness of life. The possessors of a new nature, we have the potential to live out a new man, a new lifestyle, a new law.

That's what Paul is after chapters 1 to 3.

Describe the newness and the inside of chapters 4 to 6. Describe how that newness to work on the outside. What I happen is we live the conduct the pattern the behavior the way we operate in our lives, and by giving us a contrast, Paul really approaches this theme. The contrast in verses 17 to 24 between the old and the new. The old man or the old lifestyle and the new lifestyle. The old walk in the new walk. Notice in verse 17 he says this I say therefore and testify in the Lord that he henceforth walk, not as other Gentiles walk.

Your lifestyle is to be different. As a Christian. There are differences you have been. According to chapter 2, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that you should walk in them. That's to be a difference from the old way of the old walk. The old man. God saved you unto newness of life he saved you to be different, to be transformed if any man be in Christ he is a new creation. Old things are passed away will all things are become new. In first John chapter 5. It tells us that we have overcome. On the contrary in chapter 5 the first John in verse 19 it says the whole world lies in the lap of the wicked one is a big difference. The world as we know it is coddled by Satan. We have risen above the very presence of God.

We are like the Gentiles, Paul describes the heathen or the FNA here in first Thessalonians 4. Five. In this way.

He says the Gentiles who know not God. We are not numbered among those who know not God. When we come to Jesus Christ were different. We are changed in our life style is to match that new nature that transformation we show you what he saying he describes an old way of life in a new way of life, and says this is the way you are to live in the new way of life. He compares an old man in the new man of the old man in the new man are not talking about your nature in this passage. Some places in the Bible. They can be broadened to include that.

But here he is talking about your lifestyle, your old lifestyle as opposed to the new is to be a tremendous difference. Now remember, this is the key to the difference is the way you think it's the way you think that makes the difference.

The old lifestyle with a certain thinking process.

The new one with a different thinking process.

That's why verse 23 says that salvation demands that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind. There is a new thinking process demanded of a new creation in the Lord actually begins. That process in the transformation of salvation.

Now let's look back at the contrast again. As we started to in our last study together versus 17 to 19. Describe the old walk and the old man versus 20, 24, the new walk and the new man. I want to review just briefly you remember back in chapter 2 verses 1 to 3 that we are told that sinners walk according to the world the flesh and the devil.

They function according to those three things are here we see an illustration of how that works out. You walk according to the world the flesh and the devil. And this is what will happen and he gives us four characteristics of pagan thinking and lifestyle for things based upon wrong thinking. One is in verse 17 and this is the first characteristic of an unregenerate unsaved person who doesn't know God first. At the end of her 17 they walked in the emptiness of their mind and the first characteristic is what I called self centered emptiness. The unregenerate man resolves everything on the basis of his thinking his mind is his mind that is ultimate is what he thinks what he acquiesces to what he agrees with that makes the difference. The only problem is that he will follow his mind to emptiness because it is vanity is useless is aimless, it is pointless and it is purposeless, self centered emptiness is characteristic of our age is characteristic of an unregenerate man. He's going nowhere full of sound and fury, but signifying absolutely nothing. If man operates on a mind doesn't have God's thoughts and always got his own thoughts. It's going nowhere. It's useless it's empty and it's been second thing where there is a useless, empty, in vain mind, there will be ignorance of the truth and that's the second characteristic of a godless person in verse 18. Their understanding is darkened, they are alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that sin them, and because of the hardness of their heart word is hardness. In other words, when a person says I will live and die on the basis of my own mind I will be the master of my own fate. I will be the captain of my soul. I will be the determiner of my own destiny.

You can be sure you can live his whole life in ignorance because man is an own answers.

If he cuts himself off in verse 18. From the life of God if he alienates himself in the life of God cares out any possibility of ever knowing the truth and so the second thing is a willful darkness. Spiritually he is dead.

Incapable of knowing the truth we showed you last time.

Implied in this verse is the terrifying thought that when a person makes a willful choice to base everything on his own mind, and he becomes his own God and he turned his back on the true God that after a certain point, God just let's him go.

The Old Testament put it this way, God said Ephraim is joined to idols. Let him alone. Romans once says, God gave them up. He let them go. If a person chooses this after a certain point God lets him go so start out with a useless self-centered mind can only result in ignorance and such ignorance as dives deeply into sin. And that leads to the third thing shamelessness shamelessness verse 19, who being passed feeling stop right there. What lesson, if you cut yourself off from the life of God, you will be passed feeling any conviction you will be passed sensitivity to sin, you will lose sensation of regret. You will be beyond the reality of shame, and then another thing results when you learn to live by your own standard in your own mind in the uselessness of your own mind you cut yourself off from God, therefore you lose all moral sense all moral balance all sense of what's right and wrong you do that which is shameless, and the result is you wind up with the fourth characteristic and that's a reprobate mind, a mind that ceases to function you of literally seared your conscience. You have burned out your mind.

You have torn out of your brain. The standards that God has placed that you have violated conscience to the place where conscience can no longer function being passed feeling it says they have given themselves over under lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness.

That's human lifestyle.

Very pretty, is shameless thinking will destroy the mind all right Ellis go back over very quickly so you understand, you start out with doing your thing. Your way you think your own thoughts determine your own destiny you cut yourself off from God. As a result you live in ignorance. That's verse 18. Your hearts can be blind your heads going to be blind. As a result of that line is you don't know any morality and without a morality will become shameless and indecent and you live in shamelessness and indecency long enough and it burns out any thinking process you have left until you come to the place where you totally give yourself over to lasciviousness and you work uncleanness with greediness.

In other words, you can't get enough file this in your life you can't dig up enough fill look at this word lasciviousness with you for a minute. Lasciviousness is the word. Also, Gaia is probably the ugliest word in the New Testament it's of filthy vile word and its use very often. Here is the essence of fossil Gaia is the person in whose soul dwells so much sin under such total domination that he doesn't care what anybody said doesn't care what anybody thinks he doesn't feel any shock he has no sense of decency and Apsley no sense of shame.

Now this word rarely ever occurs alone usually occurs with other words affect me give you an idea about three times fossil Gaia is connected with drunkenness in Galatians 519.

First Peter 43 and Romans 1313. In those three passages, it is connected with drunkenness is connected with a particular word Thomas. Thomas originally was a sort of a harmless word meant to refer to a band of friends who accompanied a victor in the games on his way home. Sort of like his pals.

His buddies, but as time went on, and they were going on their way home they were laughing and cheering and celebrating the victory. They began to drink and it became ribald and it became carousing and reveling in wildness and it degenerated into some kind of sheer self-indulgent in a public fashion. It literally means walling in drunkenness and he also Gaia the person who is lascivious is one who whose sheer self-indulgence knows no public restriction he doesn't restrain himself at all in regard to people it's connected with that kind of ribald drunken. Secondly, four times this word is connected with adultery or lust and sexual sin. In Mark 722 second Corinthians 1221 Galatians 519 and second Peter 218.

It is connected with sex sin. In each case, it has reference to a person who has no more shame than an animal and gratifying as sexual desire. That's were also Gaia fits is the kind of lasciviousness that knows only its fulfillment even if it's an animalistic thing and also Gaia person has no more conscience about immorality and about sexual gratification than a dog. That's the word so three times it's connected with ribald drunkenness four times it's connected with with a degenerate kind of sexual lust that knows no difference in that an animal and three times as 1/3 time it's used three times is use with plan next the and its use with that here plan. Next, he is the word greediness in this verse, and three times.

It is used with such an uncontrollable loss that people don't even know the bounds of it. It's the kind of thing where if you don't give me what our outline you to get antsy.

It's that completely out of control greed. It's not some nice little isolated in her attitude is an evil, vile, lusting for that which is wrong to the point where it's public to the point where it has no more decency than an animal does and it has absolutely zero shame and it's so greedy, it just wants to get itself fulfilled in us in such a manner that it is never able to be satisfied is the madness of drunken sexual brawling indecency.

That's the way the Gentiles and you know what all comes from essay will not everybody's gone that far, yes, but nobody in human society has any resources to restrain themselves from going that far.

It is only by the grace of God that falls on the just and the unjust. In general in society and the preserving influence of the Holy Spirit and the preserving influence of the church in the world achieved anybody from not ending up at the pits at that level because that's where it all goes. You start out with a self-centered mind think your own thoughts. You cut yourself off from God which means your ignorant and in your ignorance you got no morality and so you begin to look like an animal and what you get into lust. Lust is the most damning thing.

There is because it knows no limits and it has a decreasing sense of satisfaction. That's the way it is shameless, vile, violent, elicit ambitious, greedy, lust.

This is the way the world is Romans 129 the wordplay annexing greediness shows the sin of a godless world as they turn their backs on God to fill their desires. In Luke 1215 the wordplay annexing greediness is the sin of a person who evaluates life only a material terms you can never get enough goodies in first Thessalonians chapter 2 and chapter 4. It describes a person who uses his greediness to take advantage of other people. It's the man doesn't care what the woman is like after he gets done raping or he'll do it anyway. Colossians chapter 3 play on exercise identified with idolatry because it is greediness to worship an idol rather than the true God and in passage after passage after passage is connected with sexual evil is the desire to have what is elicit is the desire to have what is forbidden and is the desire to have it so bad that you have no conscience, no decency, no sense of shock and you will trample and destroy anything and anyone he gets in your way. This is a mindless lifestyle. So how people get that we get them all in our society.

There are lots of leap over the place and there's nothing to restrain anybody who's unregenerate from going that far, nothing within those within themselves. Nothing. Believe me there to be more going to this limit than ever before you read your Bible evil men shall grow what worse and worse as we get closer to the time of the Lord's return there to be more and more and more people like this, especially after the church is removed and influence is taken away, and second, testimony is the one who hinders doesn't hinder anymore this thing is going to become an absolute inundation of human society as if it isn't already. See how people get like verse 19 says have given themselves over to give themselves over to is a matter of constant willful choice.

It's a choice made often enough becomes a habit and a habit reaps a personality and a personality reaps a character in a character Reeves destiny. That's exactly what happened series of choices they have given themselves over sin is something you can blame on anybody but yourself. You make repeated wrong choices choice makes a habit. Habit makes personality personality makes character to character terms of just a meal strategy. This is a book called the criminal personality by two Jewish researchers Samuel Nicholson and Stanton same now this is a result of 15 years of clinical study on criminals. It's two volumes of over thousand pages and what is most fascinating to me is it for years and years and years. Criminality was based on environment criminality was a result of the behavior induced by circumstances, the kind of place you live that what your mother did you father, but after all the research. This is what they say most interest. The thesis of the book is that criminal behavior is a result of a warped thinking process is a man what think is in his heart.

What so is in fact in three sections of volume 1, page 251, two, 457/200 pages three whole sections are devoted to quote the thinking errors of the criminal Ellis. They say quoting abandoning the search for causation and deciding not to work with feelings we problem the criminal pattern of thought." In other words, they said, let's find out.

Criminal things and that's what open up the whole thing and this was their conclusion.

It is remarkable quote. The criminal often derives as great an impact from his activities during non-arrestable phases as he does from crime the criminals thinking patterns operate everywhere. They are not restricted to crime." In other words, from the beginning to the end of the criminal life personality. There is a thinking process that is out of whack and what that is.

That's a reprobate mind is just Romans one and they're just now discovering it's a thinking issue. It's not environment.

It's a reprobate mind. It's a mind that is no mind policeman told me time and time again you cannot predict what a criminal.

Why because the normal capacity of the mind, doesn't that way in endeavoring to explain the criminal mind which God would call a non-mind, a reprobate mind. The researchers say this. Sociological explanations have been unsatisfactory. This is sociological, quoting them the idea that man becomes criminal because he is corrupted by his environment has proved to be too weak in explanation. Ellis of this a shocking statement. We have indicated quote that criminals come from a broad spectrum of homes, both disadvantaged and privileged within the same neighborhood.

Summer violators and most are not.

Ellis is not the environment that turns a man into a criminal.

It is a series of choices that he makes starting at a very early age right your her some medicine they say in some cases, you can begin to detected at the age of three choices choice must the heart of a child is a rebel, you better get the rod and drive it out of because if you don't no question in my mind.

Satan has selected out certain human beings in our society to begin early that thinking process that will bring them to the place of being the most reprobate of all society to drag the whole of society to help you better deal. They went on this. Perhaps most important is that the material in this chapter has demonstrated that a criminal is not a victim of circumstances.

He makes choices early in life, regardless of his socioeconomic status raised parents, child rearing practices changing the environment does not change the man. It's a reprobate mind your deal.

It's so fascinating to me. Down the pike. Some people come up with things God's been saying for centuries.

The point of all this people. I'm just trying to show you is that a man becomes what he is a woman because which is by a series of processes of thinking choices email to. So how did that person ever kicked be a choice. Another choice to do the same thing again habit can personality, character, and its determined. This is grace to you with John MacArthur thanks for tuning in today. John has been our featured speaker for over five decades. He's also Chancellor of the Masters University in seminary. Today's lesson is part of his current study on grace to you titled the portrait of a new life jump. Let's take up where we left off yesterday you were talking about mega-churches and some of the modern movements you see in the church. I love when you speak on that subject. So I was hoping I could get more of your thoughts on that. Again, I have to just add a footnote. It amazes me how much contemporary mega church preaching is designed to make people think about themselves as opposed to Christ as opposed to divine truth as opposed to sound doctrine. Think about how you can be better how you can be more satisfied how you can be more fulfilled and you just chasing your own tail, because where is the power for that you can you can tell me tricks to fool myself into thinking I'm better than I really am. You can play games with my mind, but for me to chase transformation internally with myself is absolute folly. It's it's idiotic because the power to be transformed comes from outside of me and it isn't until I get outside of myself and communicate with the living God through his living word that real change is going to come and I say that to let you know that I want you to get a copy of the MacArthur daily Bible you need to be reading the Bible every day in this daily Bible divides up all of Scripture into 365 readings each day, a portion from the Old Testament and New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs and 25% discount on nearly all of our items including the MacArthur daily Bible still available assailants November 12 so order the MacArthur daily Bible today.

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