Scripture: Ephesians 4:17-32
Today marks the eighth sermon in our present series in Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians. It’s called, “The ‘Old Self’ Doesn’t Die Easily.” And I’d like to make three points: Number One: Change Is Hard… Number Two: Our Ultimate Problem… and Number Three: One Deadly Symptom of This Problem…
But first… change is hard…
Last week in my quiet time I was reading 2 Kings 11. After the wicked King Ahaziah of Judah was killed in battle, his mother, Athaliah, began murdering the rest of the royal family and all potential heirs to the throne, and took the throne of Judah for herself… She ruled for six long years. She made herself queen of Judah—even though she wasn’t authorized to do so. Meanwhile, one of King Ahaziah’s sisters rescued one heir to the throne, Joash, the youngest child of the deceased king, Ahaziah, and with the help of a priest named Jehoiada, hid the child for six years before Athaliah was finally overthrown.
I know those are a lot of names there to keep up with… a lot of history… a lot of political intrigue… But I just need you get the big picture here… A couple of righteous people acted heroically and with great faith in God to save Judah, the southern kingdom of Israel… and ultimately—by God’s grace—to preserve God’s plan of salvation for the world through the King of Kings, the Messiah Jesus!
And guess what else happened? The people of Judah repented of their idolatry and turned back to God!
Listen to 2 Kings 11:17 and 18:
Then Jehoiada [that righteous priest I mentioned] made a covenant between the Lord and the king and the people that they would be the Lord’s people. He also made a covenant between the king and the people. And all the people of the land went over to the temple of Baal and tore it down. They demolished the altars and smashed the idols to pieces, and they killed Mattan the priest of Baal in front of the altars.
What a glorious victory over the forces of evil! The people of Judah repented of their idolatry and re-dedicated themselves to loving, serving, and being faithful to God alone!
And when King Joash came of age and assumed control of the kingdom for himself, he was a good and righteous king…
At least until his mentor, the righteous priest Jehoiada, died… and soon afterward both the king and his people reverted to the same old idolatry, the same old sinful lifestyle… As 2 Chronicles 24:24 reports, “The people of Judah had abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors,” and God punished the Southern Kingdom of Israel.
How is this possible that in less than forty years, all of this godly remorse and repentance and sincere devotion to the Lord was lost? Why do God’s people seem so fickle? Why doesn’t righteousness and faithfulness and devotion to God seem to last?
On the other hand, why should I have been surprised?
Think about the Israelites wandering in the wilderness. Think about what so many of them experienced in their own lives during that time:the ten plagues in Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea, the water from the rock, the quail that miraculously fell from the sky, the thundering voice from heaven at Mount Sinai, the daily reminders of God’s ongoing, powerful, providential hand—like feeding the people each morning with manna from heaven and, day and night, giving them the miraculous pillar of cloud and of fire above the tabernacle… yet it seemed like when one small thing went wrong, the people of Israel reverted back to the same old grumbling: “Were there not enough graves in Egypt that you’ve led us out here in the wilderness to die? We had everything we needed back in Egypt!” 1
And all those miraculous displays of God’s supernatural power… alongside his love, his mercy, his providential care, seemed to count for nothing.
Why should this surprise any of us? Why should it surprise me?
Saturday, February 18, 1984, the Lord got hold of me in Black Mountain, North Carolina! Jesus the Good Shepherd found this little lost sheep by the name of Brent Lane White. He gave me new birth. He filled me with his Spirit. I was on fire for the Lord! I felt this overwhelming sense of God’s love and acceptance and grace and mercy and peace. I felt in love with Jesus and in love with my brothers and sisters in Christ. I knew I was saved. I knew knew knew that things were going to be different from this point forward.
And I’ve had plenty of other experiences of being filled with the Spirit since then—when I just knew the Lord was right here, in my presence, working powerfully!
Sure, my own experiences may not be exactly like crossing the Red Sea or feeding on miraculous bread from heaven, but I’ve seen enough, I’ve experienced enough, to know how real our God is, how powerful he is… how willing and able he is to take care of me and meet my deepest needs. I know that God loves me! Not just intellectually… but from my own person experience. I know this!
I mean, we pray every week in church—and maybe every day in our private prayer life—the Lord’s Prayer, including “Give us this day our daily bread.” As of today, I’ve been alive for 19,975 days… Well cared for every day by my heavenly Father… You’ve gotta admit: God has an excellent track record of coming through for me. Yet in spite of our Father’s impressive track record in taking care of me—even today—when one small thing goes wrong, I’m often like, “Are there not enough graves in Egypt? God, why have you abandoned me?”
And you’re probably a little bit like that too. And that’s Point Number One, change is hard…
But why is change so hard?
This brings us to Point Number Two: Our ultimate problem…
I preached a sermon years ago in which I referred to myself as a “sinner.” It didn’t seem like a controversial statement. It seems like the most obvious fact, right? Of course I’m a sinner!
But when the sermon was over, this dear elderly woman named Anne, a former missionary, whom I loved immensely, came up to me in the greeting line and said, “Don’t call yourself a ‘sinner.’” She said, “The ‘old man’ is dead.”
“The old man is dead.”
What did she mean by that?
Well, she was actually using the exact same term that Paul himself uses in today’s scripture, in verse 22: “the old man,” which our ESV rightly translates as the “old self,” because of course it applies to both men and women. But Paul tells us that we need to “put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires…”
But Anne’s point was that this “old self” is dead, and therefore we have a new identity in Christ. So even though we still sin, we are no longer identified as sinners—the description no longer applies. That’s not who we ultimately are. Because the “old self,” she said, is dead. Now, through the Holy Spirit, we’ve been given a “new self.”
Was she right about that?
Well… yes and no.
First, when she referred to the “old man,” she was likely referring to Paul’s use of the term in Romans 6:6: “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.”
So Paul says there that our “old self was crucified with Christ.”
But notice he doesn’t exactly say that our “old self” was killed. Not yet, anyway.
After all, after Jesus was crucified, about six hours passed before he died. And even then, the Roman soldiers were surprised that he died so quickly. They had intended, according to John chapter 19, to break his legs in order to hasten his death before the start of Sabbath began at sundown… This is gruesome, but when you are no longer able to push up on the nail that went through your feet, your body would slump down, you would be unable to breathe, and you would die… of suffocation. That’s the normal way people died on the cross. They would get tired and be unable to support their weight anymore.
It’s brutal, I know…
But under ordinary circumstances, a crucified victim could live for many hours, even a day or two, while hanging on the cross.
So I think it’s significant that Paul says in Romans 6 that the old self was “crucified” rather than “killed,” especially given what he says in today’s scripture. Yes, the “old self” is crucified on the cross… but, like any victim of crucifixion, he’s dying a slow death! And he continues to exert a harmful influence over our lives. That’s why we are not free from sin—even though the old self was crucified. That’s why, for instance, Paul could say of himself in Romans 7,
I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate… I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway… I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. 2
Fighting against sin—like it or not—is an ongoing feature of faithful Christian living…
So… getting back to my dear sister Anne’s objection to calling myself a “sinner”… I side with the Reformer, Martin Luther in the 16th century, who said that we Christians are “simul justus et peccator.” Which is Latin, and it means, we are “both sinner and saint”… at the same time. Both/and.
But let me hasten to add… Every one of us believers in Christ has the Holy Spirit living within us. So unlike even with ancient Israel in those examples I cited earlier, we are given both the power and the responsibility to change.
And that’s Point Number Two… the “old self” is our ultimate problem.
Point Number Three: I want to talk about one deadly symptom of the problem, which Paul himself talks about in today’s scripture…
A couple of years ago, I came across a funny and surprising article about a TV show that all of us—of a certain age, at least—know and love: The Andy Griffith Show. Wholesome entertainment for the whole family, right? When I go to the eye doctor in town, for instance, he plays DVDs of Andy Griffith in the waiting room. It’s wonderful!
So I was surprised by this article from 2019 that had this title… Are you ready? “Sheriff Andy Taylor is the Prince of Lies.” It’s tongue-in-cheek. Don’t be offended.
But the author does argue, persuasively, that nearly every plot line of the show involves lying and deception, a breaking of the Ninth Commandment—and usually on the part of the wise, warm, virtuous sheriff that we all know and love. Here’s one example the author describes:
Tone deaf Barney Fife’s lurching tenor could peel the bark off trees, but he brags himself onto the choir right before a state competition. Unable to convince Barney to take a speaking role or sit the performance out, Sheriff Andy Taylor tasks [Barney] with the centerpiece solo in their arrangement. However, when Barney sings, his mic will be dead while another singer, a singer who’s not even a tenor, belts it out backstage, and Barney takes the credit. 3
Or what about another beloved episode involving Aunt Bee and her inedible pickles. Remember? Everyone has been lying to her for years, afraid to tell her the truth that her pickles are terrible. [By the way, Keith Watson, you and I need to have conversation… Just kidding!]
And there are so many other examples that the author gives. But we can name any number of other TV shows—even the “wholesome,” family-friendly ones—in which lying and deception play an outsized role.
But it’s not surprising: our culture has a way of teaching us that lying and deception—or basically anything we do to break the Ninth Commandment—is no big deal. Sure, lying and deception are sins, but they’re small sins.
To say the least, Paul strongly disagrees. And the Bible strongly disagrees.
Remember poor Ananias and Sapphira, a married couple described in Acts chapter 5. They sell some property and take a portion of the proceeds to Peter and the apostles. And each of them, independently of one another, tells Peter that, yes, these proceeds represent all the money they received from the sale, not just some of it. They tell the apostles that they’re holding nothing back. But they’re lying. They’re keeping some of the money for themselves. And what happens? Both Ananias and Sapphira drop dead. God strikes them down.
Because they lied.
Now… Acts chapter 5 may be the most shocking passage in all of the New Testament. But why should it shock us so much?
After all, it’s easy to imagine that if Ananias and Sapphira—instead of lying to the apostles—had murdered one of the apostles, or if they’d committed gross sexual immorality, or if they worshiped idols on their way to receive Holy Communion, it’s easy to imagine that none of us would be shocked or especially bothered. If God struck them down in those cases, we’d probably say, “Well, that’s a severe but necessary punishment. I can see God doing that.”
But we don’t say that about lying because, after all… “Lying isn’t such a big deal.” And it’s not just lying at stake in the Ninth Commandment: it includes any sin that we commit with our tongues… In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that if you call your brother a “fool” or an idiot or worse, you’re in danger of the fire of hell!
And we’re like, “That seems a little harsh!”
Anyway, with this in mind, let’s notice in verse 24 that Paul—who has already told us to “put off” our old self—says to “put on the new self.” And notice the very first way in which Paul says we do that, in verse 25, is by doing what? Paul quotes from Zechariah 8:16 and says, “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor for we are members one of another.” We are members of one another: So he’s speaking to the church… Our “neighbors,” in this case, are our brothers and sisters in Christ.
So the first and perhaps most important characteristic of putting on our “new self,” according to Paul, is being honest with fellow church members… speaking the truth… in fact, avoiding all sins of the tongue, which goes far beyond telling lies. For example, verse 29: “Let no corrupting 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.” Or verse 31: “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.”
Remember the apostle James’s words in James chapter 3: He uses figures of speech to describe the way this relatively tiny body part—the tongue—can cause such great harm. He says the tongue is like a small bit in a horse’s mouth and that directs the horse… or like a small rudder on a giant ship, which directs the vessel’s course.
And when we think about it, this may sound strange to us.
James doesn’t say, after all, that our mind—or what the Bible would refer to as our heart—is like a horse’s bit, or our heart is like a ship’s rudder. That’s what we might expect. But instead, he says our tongue is like a bit and a rudder.
But hold on: Doesn’t the “heart”determine what the tongue actually does? In other words, the words that come out of our mouth simply reflect what’s in the heart. In which case, doesn’t the “heart” steer the course of our lives… not the tongue?
What is James getting at?
Well, he’s not denying for a moment that sin lives in and springs from our hearts—by all means it does. But he would say that when we give voice to that sinfulness that lives in our hearts—when we put into words all those evil, hurtful, slanderous thoughts in our hearts—or even when we type them or tap them on our various devices and screens and social media platforms—we actually amplify the sin… we multiply the harmful effects of this sin in our hearts… we make the sin in our hearts much, much worse.
When you read this paragraph in James 3, the apostle speaks as if the words we use are a potentially deadly weapon, which we should wield only very, very carefully…
And Paul would say a hearty “Amen” to that.
I’ll admit I’ve been sentimental recently, in the wake of two weddings for my children. So if what I’m about to say sounds mushy, forgive me. But I had a bittersweet experience at Townshend and Lydia’s wedding two weekends ago. Throughout the weekend, on a few different occasions, Lydia’s parents came up to me—just overwhelmed with joy, with big smiles on their faces, and they thanked me for raising Townshend the way I did, for playing whatever role I played in shaping him into the man he is today… et cetera… And of course it felt like way too much credit. It’s all God’s grace, after all, and I was only following Lisa’s lead… and I don’t say that with false modesty.
But it was bittersweet because there was a finality to Lydia’s parents’ words—as if they were saying, “Your work here is done. Thank you. Townshend belongs to Lydia now. She’ll take it from here.”
Which is true… With all three of my kids—for better or worse—literally the most important work of my life—the most important work of Lisa’s life—is now completed. The most formative years of my children’s lives are now over. Our ability to shape or influence our kids is mostly finished.
Everyone wants to tell me, “Wait until grandkids…” I get it, I get it… I’m looking forward, God willing, to that chapter of my life. But grandchildren are different from children.
But since I’m feeling sappy, can I tell you what I believe is my proudest accomplishment as a father… or close to it? Both of my boys—independently of one another—have reminded me of this experience they had with their dear old dad growing up, on multiple occasions… And when they describe these experiences, they speak about it as if it’s an inside joke that the two of them share. They laugh about it.
But the story goes like this…
And let me preface this by saying… If you’re a parent, you know how difficult a child’s bedtime can sometimes be. And occasionally I was responsible for putting my kids to bed… by myself, with no help… And every once in a while, believe it or not, I would lose my temper while doing so.
And listen: I always knew the power of my voice. I know how to use it. And I was well aware that if I raised my voice in a certain way, if I took a certain tone of voice, I could get my kids’ attention quickly. So occasionally I lost my temper and yelled in such a way that I got their attention. In fact, on some occasions, I scared them with my voice. They were afraid of me… and not with a healthy kind of fear.
(You know I’m not denying for a moment that a parent needs to discipline children. But I am saying that if we’re doing it in anger, we’re not doing it right. In our efforts to discipline, we need to act like adults and not become children ourselves!)
So I failed. And I’m not proud of what I’m saying right now. In fact, I’m ashamed of the way I was willing—sometimes—to use my voice—to use my tongue—as a weapon against my kids. I mean… it worked. They immediately stopped misbehaving. They immediately settled down. They immediately settled down. But I’m sorry: the cost was too high. And when I tucked them in to bed, they were crying… because I hurt them. Not physically, of course, but with my words.
“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me.” That’s the biggest lie! With few exceptions, I’m convinced that words are the only things that hurt us! With few exceptions, words hurt us worst of all—children and adults. And these wounds don’t heal easily.
You all know this from experience, right? Most of us carry around wounds that go back decades… because of “mere” words that people spoke to us… because of sins of the tongue. Because words hurt badly.
All that to say, on those occasions when I lost it with my kids, both Townshend and Ian have memories of hearing me, out in the hallway, whispering to Lisa: “I think I blew it. I came on way too strong. I lost my temper. I yelled. I think I need to go in there and apologize.”
And so I did. On those handful of occasions when it happened, I hugged my kids, I kissed them, and said I was sorry.
And that, brothers and sisters, might have been the best thing I ever did for my kids! And I’m thankful to God that they remember me doing that!
If you’re in a saving relationship with God through Christ, listen to some of the words that our Father says about you:
I love you the way a human parent loves you, yet I do so perfectly, to the fullest extent possible, which no human parent can come close to doing. I love you as much as I love my only begotten Son Jesus. I love you with a love from which nothing in the universe or beyond the universe can separate you. My banner over you is love. Nothing you can ever do can change my love for you. I love you when things are going well for you; I love you equally as much when you are going through tough times. Even when you’re experiencing my discipline, which will only ever be in your best interest, you can be sure that I’m never angry with you. My love is constant, unchanging…
In fact, you are beautiful to me. You are the apple of my eye. Your bring me great joy and satisfaction.
How is God calling us at Toccoa First Methodist to use our words to encourage, to build up, to heal, to forgive, and to reconcile?
Lord, give us the grace and the courage and the humility to do so.
Amen.