TOGETHER: How to Live the New Self
Posted: June 13, 2021 Filed under: anger, compassion, Falsehood, Grace, Hatred, Identity, Jesus, Kindness, Sermons, Violence Leave a commentVACCINATIONS – Brothers and sisters, it is so great to see you again in person. We have longed for this day after two months of not seeing you. I thought I would just begin by addressing a topic that threatens to divide us. The topic of vaccinations. I want to thank you that through this whole pandemic you have stayed together and been united. From the beginning, we have tried to be driven by loving our neighbour and protecting those most vulnerable. By the power of the Holy Spirit, you have demonstrated compassion for one another with your various views and for those who are suffering. You have displayed good courage and not given way to fear when you have served others. And you have been consistent. I thank God for you!
People have asked Lori and I, both inside and outside of the church, what we think of other churches that have disregarded the government’s lockdown orders. Our answer has been consistent and that is we try to focus on what we are doing – trying to obey God and submit to the governing authorities as Romans 13:1-4 and 1 Peter 2:13-17. In fact, our women are studying the Book of Titus and just this past week focused on Titus 3:1-2 and I think it is such a powerful word for us right now, “Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle and to show perfect courtesy toward all people.” Let’s seek the Lord to help us to be submissive, obedient, ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle and show perfect courtesy toward all people.
In regard, specifically to the vaccine, we thought we would like to get ahead of a potentially divisive issue regarding how we will treat the vaccinated and unvaccinated. Getting the COVID vaccine is a personal choice and one that is not explicitly commended nor forbidden in Scripture so we cannot come hard down on this issue. “Where it is written in the Bible” should be our mantra! What drives us here at Temple is that the Scriptures are our sole authority for life and practice.
Let’s remember that people may have legitimate reasons why or why not to get the vaccine. The reason why I got the vaccine as soon as I could was to be able to serve others – to visit the sick and comfort those in mourning as a faith leader. This principle was the same I used pre-COVID when I would get vaccines to travel on missions trips and bring the gospel to others. The vaccine helps to protect you from me giving you a virus. However, we need to clarify that the vaccine only protects most people from having life-threatening symptoms. The vaccinated can still get COVID, but most likely won’t die from it. So this brings me to an important practice moving forward and one that became apparent when I was watching the Yankees/Red Sox baseball game last Sunday night. At Yankee stadium, they had vaccinated sections and unvaccinated sections of seating. We are not going to do that here at Temple and divide us. The vaccine only protects the vaccinated and does not stop the spread, just becoming dead from COVID. Going to your small group does not mean that you can’t infect others with COVID, but if your whole group is vaccinated, then it is unlikely any of them will get sick. And this brings me to one more question: should you ask one another whether you are vaccinated? I think that is something that is private and the person must volunteer that information rather than be inquired about it. Moving forward, let’s continue to show compassion, courage and consistency being driven by a love for God and love for one another. PRAY!
SERMON INTRO – Author Rebecca McLaughlin reminds us, “In a comic scene in the film Wreck-It-Ralph, Ralph attends a support group for bad characters. Ralph is a gentle giant, who plays the villain in the “Fix-It Felix” video game. For years, the villains from the other arcade games have been inviting Ralph to join their group. But Ralph hasn’t joined. Unlike them, he doesn’t want to be a bad guy. He wants to be good. But he’s stuck with the bad-guy role in his game. At the end of the support group meeting, the villains stand up, join hands and chant ‘the bad guy affirmation’: ‘I’m bad and that’s good! I will never be good and that’s not bad. There’s no one I’d rather be than me.’”[1]
Maybe some of us feel like we are in a bad-guys-video-game-support group and we are so bad that we have given up and want to embrace our “badness”. We self-identify as bad and want others to accept our “badness.” You try telling yourself, “There’s no one I’d rather be than me.” I accept myself and so you should too! Still others of you are more like Ralph, trying to fight your badness. As we heard last Sunday from Steve Adams in preaching Ephesians 4:17-24 that Christ has given us a new life so let’s leave the old life behind. Well today, I want us to try to answer the question: how do you take off the old self and put on the new? Let’s find out from Ephesians 4:25-32 and read this altogether! Read Ephesians 4:25-32!
To summarize and contrast the characteristics of the Old Self and New Self in Christ, I created this chart, which is up on the screen as well as the sermon notes handout that those in person picked up on the way into the service today and it can be found as well at my blog: www.commissional.wordpress.com.
| CHARACTERISTICS OF THE OLD SELF(Eph. 4) | CHARACTERISTICS OF THE NEW SELF (Eph. 4) |
| Speaking Falsehood (v. 25) | Speaking Truth (v. 25) |
| Harboured Anger, Rage & Wrath (v. 26, 31) | Good & Angry (v. 26) |
| Stealing (v. 28) | Honest & useful work (v. 28) |
| Unwholesome talk (v. 29) | Encouraging words (v. 29) |
| Bitterness (v. 31) | Forgiveness (v. 32) |
| Brawling & Malice (v. 31) | Kindness (v. 32) |
| Slander (v. 31) | Tender-hearted (v. 32) |
I am going to quickly explain these characteristics focused on the first four because the last two verses are most likely summaries and reinforcement of the previous teaching. Bitterness, brawling, rage, wrath and malice belong to the anger family while slander belongs to the falsehood family. Forgiveness, kindness and tender-heartedness belong to the truth and love family. With these explanations, I will also give some examples as well as give the reason why we should live the “New Self” characteristic. While I do, please listen to the Holy Spirit. If there is anything that He brings to mind that you are currently practicing or have not confessed to the Lord for forgiveness, no matter how big or small, I would encourage you to repent of such things, seek the Lord’s forgiveness and move to living the new self in Christ by the Holy Spirit. This will help you transition into our time of Communion whereby it will feel less like an examination table and more like a supper table.
Let’s start with explaining falsehood. This is a call to move out of the ‘hood of lies. You know how a neighbourhood is made up of neighbours. Falsehood is when lies live together in groups in our lives. Lies attract lies. You tell a little “white” lie and it attracts other lies like mosquitos to bare and unprotected skin in a Canadian forest in June. We start to live a lie! Instead, we need to move out of the hood of lies. The rent there is too high! Instead, speak truth! I have never regretted telling the truth. We often lie to ourselves when we think we need to keep telling lies and cover up the truth. David’s declaration in Psalm 32:1-5 still holds true, “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. I acknowledged my sin to You, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,’ and You forgave the iniquity of my sin.” I remember cheating on exam I took outside of class that was based on the honour system. That gnawed at me and so I had to go back to my teacher and confess what I did. He was gracious to me. The reason why we should speak the truth is not to stop feeling guilty anymore. Instead, we tell because as verse 25 declares, “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.” Did you catch that? We speak truth because we belong to one another! We are the Body of Christ with Jesus as our Head and He claims to be the truth (John 14:6). Our motivation for speaking truth can’t just be so we don’t get caught telling a lie. Instead, we have to believe that we belong to and are obligated to one another in a trust-based relationship. Can you imagine one part of your body lying to another part of your body? Your stomach saying to your hand, “You don’t really need nutrients anymore. I’m cutting you off.” Your hand will actually start to remind the stomach of its obligation to provide food by rubbing your belly. The body has a way of telling the truth. If you overwork and live under constant self-induced stress, your body will eventually say, “Enough!” As Mary DeMuth said at our Chesterton Lecture on May 12, “The body keeps score”[2] whether that is in relation to trauma we experience or I would add neglect. Speak truth because you belong to one another as a church. As a church, we must never be afraid of truth, but chase the truth to wherever it goes. When we find it’s destination, then with Christ’s help we deal with the problem. Speak and run to the truth!
Next in this passage, we see the “Old Self” characteristic of anger and its burly cousins, rage and wrath. This is not only mentioned in verse 26 but also verse 31 where we are to put away wrath and anger along with other Old Self characteristics. But notice that in the chart I modified anger with the word “harboured.” Verse 26 commands us to, “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger. That harboured anger leads to resentment and as Tim Clinton says, “Resentment is anger with a history.” Resentment can also become deeply rooted in our lives and turn into bitterness. Bill Dunn exhorts us to “See bitterness as your enemy and flee from it. The history that bitterness dwells on is like a stack of IOUs of what you think people should have done and how situations should have worked out. The only way to be free is to tear up the IOUs and let the bitterness go”[3] in Jesus name. “Don’t carry your anger into the next day.”[4] Get right with the person today.
Harboured anger leads to resentment, bitterness, wrath, clamour (or “brawling” as some translations put it) and even malice. All of these are so prevalent nowadays that it feels like our society is at a boiling over point. An example of malice would be the horrific murders of a Muslim family in London, Ontario this past week. We condemn all violence as a church! Our Saviour, Jesus Christ, died to end violence! He loves Muslims and wants them to believe in Him as their Saviour and Lord!
See, we are called to not live with “Old Self” harboured anger but with New Self “good and angry” attitudes. Christian Psychologist Larry Crabb says, “Anger comes from a blocked goal.” Think about that person who cut you off on the way to church today. You got angry about it because he was going to make you late. (Okay, maybe you shouldn’t think about it.) The difference between bad and good anger is often the goal we are trying to achieve and then the response to that blocked goal. As David Powlison states in his book entitled Good and Angry, “Rarely, and wonderfully, anger arises as a simple and constructive good. Far more often, anger acts in purely destructive malice, doing no good to anyone.”[5] Powlison goes on to say, “Where there is no evil, there is no anger.”[6] But there is evil in the world and we should be good and angry. We should be angry not because our favourite leader isn’t in power, but because people are being abused, run over by hate, and racism. Good anger is upset at injustice. It is focused on others as they are being unjustly treated. It does not assassinate others’ character. It is never abusive itself. Good anger is what Jesus did on two separate occasions when He cleansed out the Temple in Jerusalem because the poor were being taken advantage of on their way to worship (John 2:13-17; Mark 11:15-19). Jesus had the goal of eliminating the barriers to God and making His house a house of prayer. Good anger as David Powlison teaches, “We can learn the most from the everyday disappointments, frustrations, disagreements and complaints.”[7] God uses these disappointments to grow our character and be angry but not sin.
But what is the motivation for being good and angry? Look again at Ephesians 4:27, “Give no opportunity to the devil.” The NIV translates this verse as “give the devil no foothold.” We don’t want the devil climbing all over us. He should have no where to go in your life. Give him stay-at-home orders as Jesus said, “Get behind me Satan!”. That would be fun wouldn’t it. “Satan loves to fan into flame a spark of anger.”[8] I’ve seen this firsthand in my life and in others when we give the devil a foothold and a certain sin like anger becomes almost unshakable. I believe when that happens, the devil needs to be evicted from that room of your house that you harbouring sin. Confess this sin to Jesus and casting the devil out. If you sense you need such prayer, please contact at info@templebaptistchurch.ca and we will be in touch with you because eviction of the devil is often a community project. We should be good and angry instead of harbouring anger so that the devil gains no ground in our lives.
Speaking the truth and being good and angry are not the only “new self” characteristics. There is also honest work. The contrast is stealing or taking what does not belong to us. We read this in verse 28, “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labour, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.” We seem to all know what stealing is because most of us are taught from a very early age to not take that toy that doesn’t belong to us. What is more subtle is when we steal from maybe our employer or family the time they justly deserve. This is why Paul goes on to say in Ephesians 5:15-16, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” Here is where speaking and living by the truth come in. In the TV show Last Man Standingstarring Tim Allen, Tim’s character’s father opened up a cannabis store. He tells Tim’s character that his goal is to make lots of money so that he can share with others. But we often deceive ourselves with such thinking. Did you catch the motivation for honest work at the end of verse 28, “so that he may have something to share with anyone in need”? Therefore, our motivation for honest work is not a promotion, not to retire early, and not even to feel productive. “The thief is to become a philanthropist.”[9] We should do honest work so we can share with others in need.
Speak truth, be good and angry, give yourself to honest work and finally be encouraging. Verse 29 describes the Old Self followed by the “New Self” characteristic, “Let no corrupting (unwholesome) talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” My wife’s parents had their family memorize this verse when she was little and it rolls off her tongue now. It is such a good verse to memorize and a better verse to live out. Our words are usually either tearing down or building up. Your lips can be tools for demo or for development in others’ lives. I bet you can think about a time when somebody just tore you down with their words. Maybe it still hurts? Jesus can heal that today by you forgiving them. I hope you can also think about when somebody spoke some deep words of refreshment into your life. I remember both. I can remember a young woman I wanted to date telling me, “You’re good but not quite good enough for me and won’t amount to much.” On the other hand, I recall a professor I had in my doctoral studies when I was having a lot of self-doubt about my ministry. After asking me to lecture on differing preaching methods, Dr. Calvin Miller said, “Wow! You’re amazing. Someday I’ll be telling people, ‘I remember him when.’” I had to make sure that his encouragement didn’t puff me up and rob God of His glory but I needed to hear that at that moment when I was so discouraged. I now know that this professor who has gone on to see the Lord in heaven will be telling people there that he knew me as a student and when I arrive he will introduce me as a fellow child of God trying not to prove anything to anybody. You see the correct motivation for building people up is not so they can do the work you want them to do or even so they feel better about themselves. That is why is says, “as fits the occasion.” This is not flattery or falsehood. No, we should encourage one another so those listening will receive grace. My friends, this practice might be one of the most important for us. It has special implications for our social media posts. Go back and look at your social media posts. Ask Jesus to help you categorize your posts into demo or development categories. My guess is that almost every time you have been critical of others, it is like you put ear plugs into their ears. They don’t want anything to do with hearing the Good News of Jesus Christ because you have only been giving them bad news.
Put off the old self with its falsehood, harboured anger, rage and wrath, stealing, unwholesome talk, brawling, slander and malice and put on the new self by speaking truth, being good and angry, doing honest work, giving encouraging words, being kind, tender-hearted and forgiving. The problem is we won’t unless we remember the last six words in the passage, “as God in Christ forgave you.” It’s Christ’s forgiveness that ultimately motivates us to live the New Self. And as we enter into Communion and the Lord’s Supper remember how Christ has forgiven you. He wants you to be together in His church living these things out rather than in Wreck-It-Ralph’s support group for bad guys who believe and therefore live out, “I’m bad and will never be good.” God through His grace is inviting former bad guys and bad gals to His family table where their new identity is a New Self in Christ. Do you have this “new self”? You can by repenting of your sins and ask Jesus to come give you a new life as your Lord and Saviour.
[1] Rebecca McLaughlin, 10 Questions Every Teen Should Ask (and Answer) about Christianity (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2021), 67.
[2] Mary DeMuth, “Abuse and the Response of the Church” Chesterton Lecture, Temple Baptist Church, Cambridge, Ontario, May 12, 2021. https://www.templebaptistchurch.ca/chesterton-lecture
[3] Bill Dunn & Kathy Leonard, Through a Season of Grief (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2004), 770.
[4] S.M. Bough, ESV Study Bible (Wheaton: Crossway, 2008), 2269.
[5] David Powlison, Good and Angry (Greensboro: New Growth Press, 2016), 25.
[6] Powlison, 234.
[7] Powlison, 3.
[8] Warren Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary (Wheaton: Victor Books, 1989), 41.
[9] Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians – Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word Books, 1990), 304.
Commissional 