The Mind of Christ in the Church

Well as we continue to explore this theme of the mind of Christ. I want to look this morning in the Book of Ephesians. If you have your Bible's with you, open them to Ephesians chapter four. And on last night we talked about the mind of Christ. Try to introduce the idea in relation to the way we learn to think God's thoughts after him and how Christianity is not about mere moralism. It's not about us seeing Christ as a mere example to be followed. Jesus didn't come so that we could have an example and become more moral people, so so not legalism. It is not about us keeping the law and earning God's favor through our keeping of the law. The law is good, the law is righteous, the laws holy, but we no man is justified by keeping the law because we cannot keep the law perfectly. But Christianity is about us being redeemed through the person and work of Christ, transformed as a result of that, and conformed to the very image of Christ. And it is that transformation. It is that process of being conformed that we refer to as sanctification that makes us more holy and more righteous and more like Christs. That takes place through the entirety of our Christian life, whereby we are more and more conformed. Now, this is in contrast to the way many of us have been taught to think about Christianity. Many of us think about Christianity in this sort of magical way. And so Christianity happens when we come to faith. And then when we come to faith, somehow there's this channel that's opened up between us and the heavenlys and we have access to immediate knowledge. Now, immediate in the theological sense doesn't mean right now. Immediate means without a mediator. We don't need a mediator, we don't need the scriptures. We just need to become more and more in tune with this heavenly frequency. And the more godly people are the people who somehow have learned to become more in tune with this heavenly frequency. So what we need is not the scriptures. We just need somehow to have a breakthrough. We need somehow to be able to get more in touch and more in tune with this heavenly frequency. Folks, that's paganism. That's not Christianity. That's paganism. And it's the way a massive number of Christians think about the Christian life that somehow what we need is more immediate contact. Somehow what we need is to become more attuned spiritually so that as we walk through our life we hear that voice more clearly, that voice that says this way, not that way, the voice that says this one not that one. And if we get really, really in tuned, that. That voice will even give us words of knowledge for other people. Sorry, the voice just told me to tell you again. That's paganism. That's the way Eastern mysticism views our relationship with the divine, until ultimately we become part of the divine. That's not biblical Christianity. And unfortunately for many of us, we've got at least a bit of that mixed in with our orthodoxy, and so we think that there's somehow some magic bullet that we need to have access to so that we can have this experience as well. And that's just not how it works. What we have to develop the mind of Christ, and that's not a magical event that we can somehow hasten by opening up a special channel to the heavenly realm. Let's look at what the scriptures teach about this process of sanctification and the mind of Christ Ephesians, Chapter four, beginning of verse seventeen. And as we read this, I want you to pay attention and see the emphasis verse seventeen through twenty four. Now this I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the gentiles do in the futility. Of their minds. They are darkening, their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their hearts. Please don't miss the emphasis here. Their minds, their understanding, their ignorance. By the way, the hardness of their hearts, it's not talking about the muscle in the center of your chest that pumps blood. It's a reference to their wills. So their minds, their ignorance, their understanding. Again, these terms are very clear. This is about our thinking. But that is not the way verse twenty You fell in love with Christ, not what your text says, is it. That is not the way you learned Christ. How about that? So we've got mind understanding, ignorance, And now we've got learned twenty one, Assuming that you have heard about Him and were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your let's say it together, minds, and to put on the new self created after the likeness of God, in true righteousness and holiness. Put on the new Man. Put on the new Man. That is a wonderful way to think about the process of sanctification. We are putting on the new Man. And that's what I want us to understand here this morning. I want us to get the significance of this. And first we understand the significance of this by understanding. The old man. Go back to verse seventeen. This I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the gentiles do in the futility of their minds. There's a command. Remember we talked to them last night about indicatives and imperatives and how they're inseparable in New Testament teaching, inseparable. In the epistles. When we have the indicatives or when we have imperatives, right, imperatives tell us something to do. We need to always look for the indicatives that tell us why and how they're to be done. For those of you who weren't here last night, an indicative statement would be these are flowers. That's an indicative statement. I'm indicating what something is. An imperative statement would be smell the flowers, which maybe why I sneezed up here last night, but anyway, that would be an imperative telling you something to do. Right, And we have those statements in the scriptures, indicative statements and imperative statements. And it's important to put those two things together. Why Because the indicative statements give us a picture of what God has accomplished on our behalf through the person and work of Christ. Who we are as a result of what God has accomplished on our behalf through the person and work of Christ. That's what the indicatives give us. And then there are imperatives. The imperatives tell us what we have been enabled and empowered to do as a direct result of what God has accomplished in our lives through the person and work of Christ. You notice the common denominator there, the person and work of Christ. That's the common denominator. So it's not this picture that many of us have of justification. Right, we're justified, we're declared righteous. The judge bangs down as gaveled. The declaration has made you're righteous. And we believe that that's my grace. Amen, Hallelujah, Praise the Lord. Saved by grace, justified by grace. Bang. But many of us believe that sanctification is by law, that grace is over here, and grace did its job, and grace sits down and takes the rest. But now you and your flesh go grab the law and make you holy. When we read, we read indicatives and imperatives. In fact, in the Book of Ephesians, the first three chapters of the book is all indicatives, and then it splits in the middle. Look at three twenty and twenty one. Again, no imperatives. In the first half of the Book of Ephesians. We're not told to do anything. In the first half of the Book of Ephesians, we're just told who we are in the first half verse twenty three to twenty. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the Church and in Christ, Jesus, throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. That's a duxology. You got a dxology and an amen. That means he just finished something. He just came to the end of something. Chapter four, Verse one I. Therefore, the therefore is the beginning of something. So the end of chapter three lets us know that something ended. In the beginning of chapter four lets us know that something has begun. In the first three chapters, there are zero imperatives. You are told to do nothing. In the first half of the Book of Ephesians. You were just told who you are in Christ, who you are because of what Christ has accomplished. That you cannot accomplish. Who you are because of what has been done for you and given to you through the person and work of Christ. That's it. That's all. Then in the. Second half we get imperatives. But watch this, in the second half, we don't just get imperatives. We get imperatives and indicatives. So if the first half is all indicatives and the second half is indicatives and imperatives, what's more important indicatives or imperatives. Indicatives indicatives. That's why you have them in both halves. And then whenever we find the imperatives of scripture, whenever we see something like this verse seventeen, this I say and testify in the Lord that. You must no longer walk. As the gentiles do and the utility of their minds. That's an imperative, that's a command. You better believe that there's some indicatives that are going to come along right with it, in order to explain to us how we've been enabled and empowered to do this. And it's not by your flash. But first look at this, look at what we This I say in the Lord, This I say, and testifying the Lord that you must no longer walk as the gentiles do in the futility of their minds. When he refers to the gentiles here, he's referring to sinners. He's referring to people who have not been redeemed. He's referring to people who are not in Christ. And he's saying that the difference between you and them, in a large part is in your minds. Now, he's not saying that it's not an issue of sin, it's not an issue of your spiritual relationship with God. He's talking about something different here, he's talking about where all of that comes from, talking about what is acting with our sin nature in order to bring us to a place where we not only engage in sin, but we love sin, and we know sin, and it's all we know. We're intimately acquainted with sin, and it's where we're comfortable. It's our happy place. A clude to this is found earlier in the book in chapter two, very familiar passage. Look at Phesians two, beginning of verse one, and I bet we're going to see something that you probably hadn't paid attention to before. We read. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air. So we have the world, and now we have the devil, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh. So now we got the world, we got the devil, and we got the flesh. Okay, but watch this carrying out the desires of the body, and what else? Tell the truth? You never paid attention to that part before, did you? The desires of your body? And of your mind. And then in chapter four, don't walk like the gentiles do. Right, he's talking about the futility of their minds. H And we're about nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. So that's who we were. You have to understand that it works like this. We are all falling in Adam, and we inherit from Adam a sin nature, and refer to that sin nature as our flesh. And by the way, your mind is a part of that. It's a part of who you are. It's a part of your flesh. So here we are with our sinful flesh and our sinful minds. And what does that look like? This second London Baptist Confession, the sixteen eighty nine Confession, Chapter six on the Fall of Man, paragraph four. From this original corruption, that's original sin that we inherit from Adam, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good and wholly inclined to all evil. To proceed all actual transgressions our sins flow from our sin nature. That's where we start. Look at another passage of scripture. Look at Romans chapter eight. Look at Romans chapter eight, beginning at verse five, And again we're going to see that word again, that word that we can just ignore so much. Romans Chapter eight, beginning verse five. For those who live according to the flesh, set their what minds on the things of the flesh. For those who live according to the Spirit, set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death. But to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. That mind cannot submit to God's law. Those who are in the flesh can not please God. Let me read the statement from the confession again. From this original corruption, our original sin, that we inherit from Adam, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good and wholly inclined to all evil, precede all actual transgressions. That's who we are apart from Christ. We're sinners, dead in our trespass and sins. But how do we, as people who are dead to the righteousness of God, dead in our trespasses and sins, how do we how do we walk around our zombies because we're we're walking around and we're doing stuff. Back in Ephesians too, in which you once walked following the course of this world. There's a number of ways that the New Testament uses the word world the cosmos. One use of that word is this earth. One use of that word is all of the universe. Another use of that word is that system that is set up in direct opposition to God. And that's the way it's being used here, that system that is set up in direct opposition to God. So our flesh, our minds indisposed towards righteousness. We are born in sin, shaped in iniquity, that's our flesh in our minds, but we're born into a world that is opposed to our God. This world teaches us what to think, when to think, how to think. This world tells us what is good and right and true and beautiful. And this world is very successful and very conniving because what this world does is it brings us very close to the actual truth, so that we're comforted. So that we're comforted, but it's all we know, it's all we love, it's what we yearn for. We learn the rules of. This world because this world says that there are things that are right and there are things that are wrong, and we operate in accordance with the rules of this world. And this world rewards us. When we are right according to its rules, and this world punishes us when we are wrong according to its rules. But make no mistake, it's attached to our flesh, and it is in opposition to God. So, for example, the world gives us marriage, the world gives us sex, reproduction. But what the world does is the world divorces it from this biblical ideal of marriage as a covenant relationship between one man and one woman, that is a picture of the covenant relationship between Christ and his church, and the world gives us this picture, and the picture that the world gives us has nothing to do with that, and has everything to do with the gratification of our flesh. And then the world takes another step, and not only does it give us this picture that is the very close facsimile, but then it actually makes us opposed to the genuine thing. And so our marriage is seen as oppressive, monogamy is seen as unnatural, reproduction is seen as optional. That's the world that we live in, utterly opposed to God. The world that we live in has people actually believing that they are righteous when they give personhood to a mountain but refuse to give personhood to an unborn child in the womb. Yeah, I went there. It's irrelevant if we're willing to fight where the action is not, we need to go to war right where the action is. And when there's an assault on the image of God in the womb and people have the audacity to refuse personhood to an unborn child but give personhood to a mountain and an act of idolatry, that's where we fight. You see, this is what the world does, and it's all we know. And there are people out there who feel like they are right and righteous in doing these things. Not only that, but that those. Who would oppose them are unrighteous, narrow minded, and bigoted. Then there's the devil. We get so worried about the devil. Listen, the devil don't have to worry about you. Why because the world and your flesh do just fine with you. Amen, somebody he doesn't not to worry about you, But make no mistake about it. He's the prince of the power of the air. So go back to our text. Armed with this. Let's come back to our text iph Hesians four seventeen. This I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the gentiles do in the futility of their minds. So your sinful flesh lives in this sinful world under the authority of the Prince of the power of the air. It teaches you what to think, when to think, how to think, why to think. It's all you know, and it's what you love, and you believe it loves you. Then the Gospel comes and you're liberated from that. The scales are removed from your eyes. You flee to Christ in repentance and faith. Amen, Hallelujah, Praise the Lord. You're justified, declared righteous, You're a child of God. You're adopted into the family of God. But guess what, Your flesh is not dead yet. And for the rest of your Christian life, it's an ongoing process of continuing to identify those areas where your flesh needs to be mortified, those areas where your flesh needs to continually be put to death, those areas where your flesh and your mind have lied to you about what is good and what is true and what is beautiful, and over and over. Again that must be confronted verse eighteen. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. That is who you were, that is where you were. You have to recognize this if you don't. If you don't, that will be misery. Because our natural assumption is that we're good people. I remember when I first heard the Gospel. For those of you who know me and know about my story, you know I wasn't raised in a Christian home. I wasn't raised around Christianity. I was raised by a single teenage Buddhist mother in Los Angeles, California. Never heard the Gospel until I got to university, and I remember Steve Morgan was the guy who shared the Gospel with me. Steve came and he talked to me, and one of the. Things he said to me that has just absolutely stayed with me. As Steve asked me first if I thought I would go to heaven when I died, And of course I said yes, And he said, how sure are you? And I said, I don't know. You know, I'm a good dude. Man, I'm I'm you know, I'm I'm not perfect, but you know I'm better than most. And he looked at me and he said, what if I can give you the other five? And it just floored me. I didn't even know how to think about that. But what he was getting at is the fact that, as lost, sinful people, this world has convinced us that we know what is good, what is true, what is beautiful. It has conditioned us in a very particular way, and we have no idea how far and how deep that conditioning has gone. We're callous. You've given ourselves up to sensuality. We're greedy to practice every kind of impurity, and we don't know it, we don't see it. But look at the next verse, verse twenty. But that is not the way you learned Christ. It's not the same, assuming that you have heard about Him and we're taught in Him as the truth is in Jesus. There you go, how do we know? I mean, if this is true, how do we know if we've been living in the matrix? Y'all seen that movie? Right? Don't act like you haven't seen that movie. Don't act like you're so pure and you so holy that you don't know anything about the matrix, the Red pill. And the Blue pill. And you know, by the way, there are a lot of biblical theological overtones in that movie, not all correct, but there are a lot of theological and biblical overtones in that movie, some wonderful pictures of some spiritual realities, not least of which is this idea that people have no idea that they're living in a world that is not real. They're living in a world that is not true. They're living in a world that's not beautiful. They're living in a world that's not that's not good from a moral, biblical theological perspective. And when we come to faith in Christ, the. Scales are removed from our eyes and we learn that the truth is and not not out there somewhere, but the truth is in Jesus. The truth is in Christ. He is the Way, He is the Truth, He is the Life. No one comes to the Father but by him. Not only does no one come to the Father but by him, But but but nobody knows genuinely what is righteous, but by him, genuinely what is beautiful? But by him genuinely what is good? But by him, so he says, that's not the way you learned Christ, assuming that you've heard about him and we're taught in him, as in the truth is in Jesus. Notice heard about him and we're taught in him. These things are essential. You need to unlearn some things and relearn some things. Verse twenty two. Here's the crux to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires. That's step number one, putting off the old self, which we won't do unless we're made aware that there is an old self. Think about this in a worldview sense. There are practices that we have that we hold true, that we hold dear because we've been taught them, and we believe them because it's all we know and it's all we've seen. This problem happens oftentimes in marriage, where two people come together and both of them are absolutely sure that they know what marriage is. They're absolutely sure they know what marriage is supposed to be. They're absolutely certain that they know what a husband is supposed to be and what a wife is supposed to be, and then they get married. If you can't say amen, you ought to say out and One of the things that marriage does early on is it causes you to realize that you were assuming that there was agreement about what marriage is. You were assuming that there was agreement about what a husband is and what a wife is. You may have even talked about some of these things, and you assumed that the words that you were using meant the same thing when they used them as they did when you use them. Now you're married, and you're realized, oh, wait, that's what you meant. And there is this clash that is ultimately a clash of world views. So what do you do. Well? The world would have you think that what you need to do is you need to sit down and somehow negotiate a path forward that accommodates both of those world views. No. No Verse twenty two. To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life, and it's corrupt through deceitful desires. What you need to do is examine your worldview through the lens of the truth. That is Jesus. I don't hold on to something because it's what my family has always done. I don't hold on to something because it's what my culture has always done. The truth is in Jesus. I recognize that I have an old self that is corrupt through deceitful desires. I'm comfortable with my old self, and sanctification requires that I recognize that part of my old self is at war with the truth that is in Jesus. So I put off the old self. I nail it to the cross with Christ and beloved. This is one of the hardest things in the world because it's all we know and it's what we love. It's comfortable, it's become a sense of pride for us. My family and I dealt with this as many of you may understand when for the last decade we lived and served in Lusaka and Zambia, and if living in Zambia in South central Africa, if it taught me anything, it taught me I am not an African, Amen, somebody not. I love my African brethren, Amen, I'm not an African. I'm just not. That's not my culture, that's not my worldview. But here's what happens when you leave from your culture. What happens is you find yourself in another culture that has other convictions and commitments that are different than your own, and you've got a couple of choices. Either we can do what the world does and we can say, well, all cultures are equally valid and all cultures should be equally respected, or we can say the truth is in Jesus and he is the lord of every culture. And I need to examine my own culture because there's some assumptions that I'm now realizing I operate from, and I need to operate to evaluate this culture because I'm seeing some of our assumptions that they're operating from. And as we evaluate them, our job is to put off the old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires. Some of those things are just different, this food, that food, but not all of them. Some of them go to heart of truth, beauty and goodness and righteousness. And our answer as Christians can never be cultures are just neutral. I have to put my own culture on a chopping block and say that Christ be true. I never met a liar. I have to recognize the need to put off the old self. The illustration I used was marriage. And I've often told this story because it was so poignant for me. But I remember when Bridget and I had our first major fight. I don't remember what it was about, but I'll never forget the aftermath. We're sitting in different sides of this little, tiny apartment that we had, and both of us were grieving, And the reason that we were grieving is because we thought that our relationship was essentially over. Like, why would we think. That, Well, because last two generations, both sides of our family, us, our siblings, our cousins, our parents and their siblings. Last two generations, both sides of our families, twenty five marriages, twenty two divorces, we didn't know what reconciliation looked like. By the way, that's three marriages that stayed together, right, One of them was ours, another ended in a premature death, and another raised one child that was the product of an adult affair. That was our legacy. So in a way we had an advantage because neither of us, neither of us assumed that we brought into this the pristine, perfect picture of marriage, and we both knew that we needed to put off the old self. As the relateds who are thinking about marriage, this is true in every area and aspect of your life. Our thinking about marriage and family are thinking about masculinity and femininity are thinking about law, politics, art, education, are thinking about every aspect. Of our lives. We must put off the old self, which belongs to our former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires Verse twenty three, And to be renewed in the spirit of your minds. I love that, to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, because it sounds kind of esoteric. Right, put off the old self? Okay, great, I get that. I know I need to do that. But how do I do that? By the way, Romans twelve comes in here again. Romans twelve to one. Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your That word is all over the New Testament, folks, be transformed by the renewing of your minds. So and to put on the new self. That's how we put on the new self. In other words, we recognize that our sinful flesh and our minds have been taught what to think, when to think, why to think in a sinful world. We come to faith in Christ. We're a new creature. But this new creature is being conformed to the image of Christ, and what we need to be conformed to the image of Christ is not to somehow continue to switch the radio frequency until we get plugged in and then information just gets dumped it. No, no, no, no no, He says, to be renewed. In the spirit of your minds. This is an ongoing process. Be renewed in the spirit of your minds. Folks, why do you think we go to church every week? Why you could have just been once a year. Why why over and over and over again? Why do we need the Gospel repeated to us over and over and over again. Why do we need to be called to repentance and faith over and over and over again. Why do we need to feast on the Word of God over and over and over again. Why do we need to go before the Lord in prayer over and over and over again. Because you're being renewed, You're being renewed, Your mind is being renewed. You're learning to think Christ's thoughts after him over and over and over again. Those vestiges of your old life are being confronted and they're being chiseled off. Some of them come off easy, some of them need jackhammer, some of them. You know, it's like the doctor sometimes tells us. This you won't die from, but you'll die with. In other words, this thing is not going to be what kills you, but it's going to be with you. And for some people that's the case. For all people, that's the case with something, because we don't reach sinless perfection in this life, but we're continually renewed in the spirit of our minds. This is what discipleship is all about, folks, being renewed in the spirit of your minds. This is what the ordinary means of grace are all about. This is why we need the ordinary means of grace in our life. This is why we need the Word of God. This is why we need prayer. This is why we need the Lord's Supper. This is why we need to see you. Right, we hear the Word, we see the Word and baptism in the Lord's Supper, we sing the Word, we pray the word. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ. So do you now see how sinister it is that there's this version of Christianity that, instead of saying you need the mediation of the Word of God in your life, you need to be conformed continually. You need to be washed with the water of the word. Does that sound familiar if he's in chapter five? You need the. Ordinary means of grace over and over and over again, because this is gonna conform you to the image of Christ over your life. You see how sinister it is. As some people say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no no no. What you need is to just get zapped so you get on the right frequency and then you hear stuff. It's the exact opposite of what it's true. Can you imagine becoming Christian is referred to as being born again? It's being born again. Can you imagine if we treat it being born the first time like that you're born. We're not gonna teach you anything. We're not gonna give you educational toys. We're not gonna give you any kind of schooling. We're not gonna teach you your alphabet. We're not gonna teach you any of that. We're just gonna hope that somehow you get connected to the right frequency so that you. Can learn how. Come on now. When we're born again, and folks, if Jesus grew and wisdom and knowledge and in favor with God, and men. What makes us think we don't need to grow in wisdom and in knowledge. We renewed the spirit of your minds, learned to think God's thoughts after him. Submit yourself to the work of the Spirit in your life, one of whose primary job is to help you to know the truth last verse twenty four. And to put on the new self. And here's your indicative created after the likeness of God, in true righteousness and holiness. The new self that we're putting on is created after the likeness of God, in true righteousness and holiness. Remember indicatives and imperatives. How is it? Why is it that we are able to put on this new self? Because we are actually in Christ. Behold, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away, new things have come. You are actually in Christ. This new self is created. You don't create it. It was created by God after the likeness of God and in true righteousness and holiness. How is it that I can actually put on righteousness and put on holiness? Because your new self. Is created by God in true righteousness and true holiness. That's who you are. That's who you are. That is the. Only way that you can identify and put off the old self. Because you're a new creature. By the way, does this not give new meaning to Jesus' words and hen come to bring peace but a sword? Right, man's enemies are going to be in his own household. Listen to me. When I walked away, when you walked away from aspects of your old life and your old culture, it wasn't people out there who got upset. Heymen, who really gets upset? People in your family? Oh, you think you're better than us? Now? No? I don't. Actually, I finally know I'm not. That's why I. Needed a savior who saved me and rescued me from my sin. I don't think I'm better than you, or you're just walking away from your culture now, or you're just walking away from you're just walking away from filling the blank now. When my book fault Lines came out and I'm addressing critical race theory, Black American Christians, not all, but many called me everything but a child of God. I was Uncle Tom, a coon, a sellout, a boot liquor, a house nigger. What do all of those things mean? All of those things mean you are not. Holding firm to your culture and your heritage. You're denying who you really are. Newsflash. Who I really am is in Christ. That's not automatic, and it's not easy because, believe it or not. I kind of like it when people like me. A lot of people don't believe that. A lot of people think, well, of course he does stuff like that because he doesn't care. No I do. I do. I don't like it when people say and write nasty things about me. I'm not fueled by that. I'm hurt by it. I don't like it when I'm alienated from people. I don't like that. I don't like it when churches and institutions won't allow me to come and preach the Word because the positions that I hold that are in line with Scripture. I don't wake up in the morning saying, Okay, who can I alienate today? The new self is created after the likeness of God, true righteousness, true holiness. That's the reason there's any hope whatsoever that this can be done. Why do we know that we can put off the old self? Because the old self is inconsistent with the new self that's been created in true righteousness and true holiness. So by God's grace, we can put off the old self. We can identify the old self. We can put off the old self. How do we know that we can put on the new self Because the new self is real. The new self is Us and It's and true righteousness and true holiness. And by God's Spirit we are being conformed to the very image of Christ. This is what it means to put on the new man, to put on the mind of Christ. My prayer is that as we continue over the course of this weekend, that God would grant us grace to do just that. Amen, let's pray. Father, we do thank you and praise you for making us new creatures in Christ. Grant by your grace that we might walk in this newness of life. Grant that we might pursue the holiness and righteousness that is ours in Christ. Grant that we might delight in the righteous law of God as only those created and true righteousness and holiness can. Grant that we might take every thought captive to the obedience in Christ, as only those who have been made new can. And Grant that as we do so, we would be more like Christ today than yesterday, and more tomorrow than today. And ask in Christ's name and for his sake, Amen, I mean before we go, I was told before the message to say a couple of words to you about the African Christian University, And part of the money that's raised here this weekend is going to ACU. The African Christian University is the school that my family and I went to Lusaka to help establish ten years ago, and it is a classical Christian liberal arts university in Lusaka, Zambia, the capital city of Lusaka. It's a school established by the Reformed Baptist Churches of Zambia, offering degrees in agriculture, of business, education and theology, but really equipping young men and young women with Biblical worldview in all areas of life, and particularly in these disciplines, so that the culture can be impacted by believers who do the very things that we're talking about here in their professions, whether that be in pastoral ministry for those theology students, or agriculture science, or in education or in business, or any other degrees that the Lord would would would bring about. So I commend this work to you. We committed to going to Lusaka for three to five years and we ended up there for almost ten and just in December moved from there back to the US. It was time for us to do that, but we love ACU and encourage you to learn more about ACU and to give to support a CU as well. Thank you.