Latest / Bayside Davis Podcast / Ephesians 4:17-24 | How to Change

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Ephesians 4:17-24 | How to Change · Bayside Davis Podcast

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Basic Davis Podcast.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're listening to our current teaching series, Ephesians.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: The great writer Tolstoy said, Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that true?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: We build and develop our life with a vision of what we're going to do in this world and how we're going to change this world while often not thinking about how we're going to change ourselves.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: And when you come to believe in Jesus, you and I, we can feel like immediately some parts of our life have been redemptively changed in a radical way.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: And at the same time, when you come to believe in Jesus, you and I can feel like other parts of our life are in this lifelong battle to change.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody experience that?
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, whoa, God, you just radically changed and reshaped my mind and my heart.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's these things that linger on that you're like, God, but what about these things in my life?
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: It seems like I can't quite change them.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Can I encourage you this morning?
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is an entirely normal experience for all of us.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: There's some parts of redemption that just, it's like immediate, and like, oh my goodness, I'm a different person, and then other parts that's like, oh God, I need to work on these things because these are just embedded into my brain and my body and my soul, and I can't seem to change them.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: This is actually doctrinal.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: We have been made new.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we call regeneration.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: You are alive spiritually.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is the past tense of salvation.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we are being made new.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is what's called sanctification.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is the present tense of salvation.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: We've been regenerated, born again, made alive, but we're being changed and made new for the duration of our life following Jesus.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: So don't be discouraged.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: How do we change?
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's the question that I think is focused on this text this morning.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Paul gets into some of the nuance of how we can change and what change looks like in the human soul that God created.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I just want to encourage us as a preface before we get into this passage, God wants to do some radically beautiful, life-changing things in your life.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Don't resist it.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Don't resist what God wants to do in your life.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Don't resist the change because all the change that God wants to do in your life is for your benefit and flourishing and well-being as a human and follower of Jesus.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: The great mind, H.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Norman Wright, who was a brilliant author and psychologist, he said this we invest our energy in keeping life the way it is.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: We resist growth.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: We become reactors rather than making things happen.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: We stay in the holes of our discouragement.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: When we don't risk stepping out, we risk missing the life-abundant changes God has in store for us.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Don't let that be you.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Don't let that be me.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: One author said, people avoid change until the pain of remaining the same is greater than the pain of changing.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe this is a moment in our life that God wants to cause this soul-level depth of change for each one of us.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: In Ephesians chapter 4, verses 17 through 24, Paul gives a contrast around two ways of life.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: The first way of life in verses 17 through 19 is your old walk.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then the second way of life in verses 20 through 24 is your new walk.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And he's contrasting a person's life, walk apart from Jesus, and a person's life and walk with Jesus.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Let's first of all focus on the first three verses, 17 through 19, your old walk.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Notice what he says.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: He writes, So I tell you this.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: In the original language of the New Testament, Koine Greek, this is actually what we call an inferential conjunction.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: We would translate that therefore in English.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's a summary, it's a conclusion based on the previous passage that Paul has been writing about in chapters 4, verses 1 through 16, where he is talking about the need for spiritual maturity and growth, that we don't remain a baby in the faith, but we have this natural development and cultivation as followers of Jesus.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Just like a little baby grows up, so too when we come to Christ, we're a baby, but we naturally and supernaturally mature in Christ.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: So Paul is talking about the need for spiritual maturity in the church at Ephesus and then in our lives as well.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And just to catch you up, because I think it's important to remind us how these books are structured, Ephesians is a really easy book to understand.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Chapters one through three are doctrine or theology, what we believe about God and what He's done for us.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Chapters four through six is practice, it's behavior, it's how to put our theology into everyday living.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Warren Wearsby writes, Paul was saying, here is what Christ has done for you.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Chapters 1 through 3.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in light of this, here is what we ought to do for Christ.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what Jesus has done for you, Wesley, and now here's how for you to live as a follower of Jesus.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And he paints a picture with this metaphor.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: He says, verse 17, so I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, this is really important: that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: They are full of greed.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is life, style, walk before God.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is how we used to live, or maybe how some of you are living because you don't have a personal relationship with God.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Notice what he says about this.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: He uses the most important word if you have a marker, a pencil, a pen, a highlighter, mark this word in your Bible, live, in verse 17.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is the metaphor that threads through the rest of this section.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: The term live is a Greek verb peripateo.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: It means to conduct your life.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's a way of life.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is a way of life if you don't know God.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: I love this metaphor because consider like anybody like walking?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone like walking with your dog?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe do people walk with their cat?
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Do people have a leash with their cat?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a thing.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's a thing.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's one person that walks with their cat.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone like going walking in groups with like friends?
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Think about this idea of walking.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: When you are walking, you are traveling somewhere with someone.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Walking is a step-by-step movement somewhere.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: You're going in a direction.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this is such a fitting metaphor because Paul is saying each one of you who has believed in Jesus, who is following the Lord, you are on a step-by-step, moment-by-moment movement somewhere.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that somewhere should be following Jesus, following the teachings of Jesus.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Every day we take steps in our walk with Jesus and we make decisions to follow Him or to not follow Him in different moments of life.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: So Paul is talking about the walk of people apart from Jesus, the lifestyle, how they conduct their life.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Think of this not as like every decision they're making, but the overarching umbrella reality.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, you guys who know Jesus in Ephesus, or you guys who know Jesus in 2025 in the city of Davis, you no longer walk as the Gentiles do, which is a term referring to people who don't know Jesus, people that are not born again spiritually, people that do not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: He characterizes life apart from Jesus in three ways in verses 17 through 19.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, write this down.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, mind.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: He talks about our mind.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: And he says in verse 17 that the mind apart from Jesus has futility of thinking.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Futility.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: It means being without use or purpose or value.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's an emptiness.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's as can be rendered in the original language or translated nonsense.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: How much nonsense is in our culture?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: How much nonsense, how much meaningless and emptiness and purposelessness, how many things are we engaged in our mind that are without use or value?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And he's saying here that Christians, followers of Jesus, think differently.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: There's a change in the way that we think.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Investing your mind in things that have no true lasting value or good purpose is not conducive for your spiritual well-being.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: How many of our minds were invested in things that now we look back and we realize this was futile and empty and meaningless and purposelessness?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And now that we're in Jesus, we're pursuing, we're fixing our minds on things of Jesus more and more.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: When people's minds are fixed on things contrary to Jesus and contrary to God, Paul unravels this in verse 18.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: He says, it is a state of being darkened.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: When our minds are living and focused on their orientation is not God and not the things of God, our minds are being darkened.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is essentially what Paul writes in the book of Romans, chapter 1, verses 21 and 22, where he says, For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God, nor they gave thanks to him.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: But their thinking became futile, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal human beings and birds and animals and reptiles.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, they worship creation instead of worshiping the creator.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's what we call idolatry.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Anything that usurps the rightful place of God in our life.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that was what we could look at in our former life and say, that's how we lived.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Our minds were not fixed on God.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: They were darkened and cloudied and in a state of focused on all the things of our flesh and sin and things that are contrary to God's design for our own spiritual well-being and flourishing.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Second, notice verse 18, not only the mind, but heart.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Notice what he says about the heart.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: He goes on explaining how the mind is being darkened in verse 18 and separated from the life of God because the ignorance that is in them, here's the foundation, here's the underlying reality.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Due to the hardening of their hearts.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, the death for them was not instantaneous physical death.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: The death for them was they were separated from the life of God.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we use terms in Christianity that are antiquated, that we don't quite understand, but there's a really important term, it's sin.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: We don't like that word because it makes us feel bad.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: But what sin is, is making choices in our lives that are contrary to God's nature, who he is, and contrary to God's design, what he designed for us to flourish.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: When you look at sin in that way, it is not a negative term.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually a really positive term.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: It shows us that we need God, and God created us to do good and to feel his presence and to live a life where we are well with God and our soul.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: But what happens when we're separated from God is that sin brings spiritual death, not spiritual life.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Sin causes us not to flourish as humans, creating the image and likeness of God.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: We become detached from everything that is good and right that God designed for us.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: But we know that when we come to Jesus, Christians are alive spiritually.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the past.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't the present for us.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: We once were, as Paul says, willfully ignorant.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: We did things we knew were wrong.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: And we once harden our hearts toward God, and we harden our hearts towards God's will for our life.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: We became obstinate.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: We became unreceptive.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Notice the terminology here.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Where he says here in verse 18 at the end, he says, due to the hardening of their hearts.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is actually a really cool term.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was a medical term in the ancient world.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: For you Bible nerds, I'm a Bible nerd.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: You'll love this.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: This was a medical term in the ancient world used to refer to thick growths of skin on the bone or calluses that are formed.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: When a bone was fractured, this word was used for the callus formation that became much stronger or harder than the bone itself.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of an alarming warning.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Where God would say, Don't harden your heart toward me.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: The heart that is hardened toward God through a state of unreceptiveness or obstinacy.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's separated from God.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: And there's decisions that we make in life to progressively withstand acknowledging God and withstand listening to our conscience and our moral compass internally, and God would say, that's a very dangerous thing.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Don't harden your heart toward God.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: He has put your conscience in you for a reason.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: That conscience in you, where you feel different emotions based on choices and lifestyles, that conscience is pointing you to the reality of God.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Don't harden your heart to the reality of God in your life.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: God is trying to do something beautiful and real and life-changing in your heart, in your life.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Don't harden your heart like Pharaoh hardened his heart toward God.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: You remember the story?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Some people say, well, why did God harden Pharaoh's heart?
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they don't read in Exodus 7, in Exodus 8, and in Exodus 9, how Pharaoh continually hardened his heart toward God, and God then hardened Pharaoh's heart.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: We have agency.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: We have volition.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: We make decisions as human beings.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes if we are an obstinacy to God and our agency and our decision making, God will just give us over to that.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's what he talks about next.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's why verses 19 is important.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: So you have mind, heart, and number three, habits.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 19, notice what he says here.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: Having lost all sensitivity, that's not us, please, Lord Jesus.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: They have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is not good.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: We choose something over and over and over again, and we fully give ourselves over to that thing.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: To give something over means to hand over to something we have chosen.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's God's act in the book of Romans, chapter 1, of handing someone over to suffer the consequences of their persistent choices of wrongdoing.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't fun to say.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: But just like when you go into a doctor and you have a mass somewhere in your body, and the doctor says, There's something wrong, and I have to tell you what's going on.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: So too.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: When we teach the Bible, sometimes we have to expose the things in our life that are masses inside of us.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: That maybe we're making decisions that are wrong, and we don't like to, we don't like anybody to tell us we're wrong or we're doing something wrong.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: But when God tells us we're doing something wrong, he's not telling us to condemn us, he's telling us because he knows it's bad for us and he loves us.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you, I want you to know that there is a decision over and over and over again that you can literally give yourself over to something that you truly don't want for your life.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: He lists a few things here.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: He says giving themselves over, and he gives some illustrations.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Sensuality, unrestrained sexual behavior, impurity, moral corruption, behavior contrary to God, greed, covetousness, an insatiable craving for more, yet never being satisfied.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: A desire to gain more and more and more material possessions, irrespective of need.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: Don't give yourself over to those things.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is not how you've been created.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: There is a far better way of life.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I know some of these things are battles, but keep battling with the Lord by your side, with the Spirit of God in your heart.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Don't give up on any of these battles because Christians not only think differently, not only are made alive spiritually, but we live differently.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't instantaneously live differently, we make decisions day by day, moment by moment, moving in a direction like a walk to follow Jesus Christ.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: So how do we change?
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Notice verses 20 through 24.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Your new walk.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is what this is the moment you believe in Jesus Christ, all things become new.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 20.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: That, however, is not the way of life you learned.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: He's contrasting, he's saying, you who believe in Jesus, you who have a personal relationship with Jesus, you who've been regenerated and redeemed and made new by Jesus Christ, saved.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: That, what I just said, that is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: When you were taught in Him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: This is your old life.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: This is your life before Jesus.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is your walk before Jesus, but not your walk currently in Jesus.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: When you were taught about the gospel, you were taught about who the Lord is and what he wants to do in your life.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Then he elaborates on who we are.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 22.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: You might say, How were we taught?
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then Paul answers.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 22, you were taught with regard to your former way of life to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just stop there.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: Three characteristics of how to change as a follower of Jesus.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, put off.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, as a conceptual idea, what he's really trying to say here is to change, to truly change, for Wesley to change, you have to remove.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: You have to remove things from your life.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is another beautiful metaphor.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: It means to rid yourself literally or to cease from doing something, but it's a metaphor of taking off your clothes.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody any of you work out in here really hard?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: I know some of you are athletes, so raise your hand in here.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Put the hand up.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: Do you ever work out really hard ever?
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Do you sweat when you work out?
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a really hard workout, I run and I do CrossFit.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: You might not be able to tell I do CrossFit because I'm so skinny, but I do CrossFit.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's probably because I'm a vegan and I eat a bunch of vegetables.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have a big steak, you know, building muscle.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: But after a really intense workout and you're sweating and dirty and your clothes are wet, you don't wear those clothes to a Michelin star restaurant.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Probably not.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you do, you're gonna stand out.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: You take off your dirty clothes.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: When you come to Jesus, you and I, we choose to leave certain things that were a part of our life behind.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we pursue a relationship with Jesus that includes following a new way of life that He teaches us to live through the scriptures.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: We choose not to return to our old life.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: We take off those clothes.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: The life we live when we did not have a relationship with Jesus, and here's why, and I want you to write this down.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: The old way of life only has a past.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: It does not have a future.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: Why would you and why would I, all of us, why would we keep investing in things that only has a past in Christ?
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: It does not have a future.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: And God wants us to put off, to remove certain things from our life that only has a past, that does not have a future.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: Removing aligns with current research around neuroscience, the science of change.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: There's definable research that every person builds habits and patterns inside of your brain that become default.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: And those patterns and habits inside of your brain that become default, you don't even have to think about it to make those decisions or to think that way.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: Every single one of just from a science, a neuroscience perspective, every single one of those thoughts and habits can be changed.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: There's not a universal fixed timeline to change after removing something from your life, but studies that have been done range from 18 days to 254 days.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is without the Lord.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: In 18 days, you can change some major stuff wired into your brain.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: But with Jesus and making spiritually wise decisions, you can radically transform your life beyond neuroscience itself.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: You might come here today and you're like, oh, I can't change, I'm not changing, I've never been able to change.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: Let me just tell you, you're telling yourself a lie.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: You're telling yourself a lie biologically, based on how your brain is wired, but more importantly, you're telling yourself a lie spiritually based on what Jesus Christ, the designer of you, says.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: Every single one of us can change.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: But we have to make decisions to put off, to remove things from our life that aren't good.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: They're like dirty clothes.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's the old person, it's the old Wesley, it's the old you.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: You take them off and you leave those things behind.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, verse 23.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Notice what he says next.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: I can't find verse 23.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: I had new prescription glasses.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm losing my sight.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, verse 23.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: To be made new in the attitude of your minds.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: What do you do next?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: You put off, and then, number two, you be renewed.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think the conceptual idea here is to change, you have to renew your mind.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Your brain is such an important part of this process, and that's why I connected putting off with your thought life.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: These two points kind of merge, they mesh, they're intertwined.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: You need to be renewed in your mind.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: The term repent, you might hear this in church.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's another ancient word.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: The New Testament term repent, metanoeo, it means to change your mind.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's the beginning of change when you shift in your life toward God, when you shift your thinking toward God, it begins by changing your mind.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, okay, I lived without God, now I believe in God.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't live my life worshiping God.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: I might have worshiped lust or myself or my accomplishments, but now I want to live my life worshiping God.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: I once followed whatever I wanted in my life, whatever pleasures I wanted, but now I'm gonna follow the Lord, and I'm gonna live for the joys and the pleasures that God has for me in his design.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's repentance.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: Where we begin to orient our thinking and shift our thinking toward God.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: Change cannot happen apart from a transformed mind.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: The way we think about life and people, the way we think about relationships and money, the way we think about sex and service, the way we think about character and love, none of that can change and become like God wants those things to become apart from changing our mind.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: But when we change our mind toward God and toward what God says about all of these aspects of human life, our mind pursues God, and all of a sudden we start to realize we're being renewed day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, decade by decade, our mind becomes renewed.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: God renews our mind.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 16 says, we have the mind of Christ.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: The minute you're saved, God gives you a new way of thinking.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: And God's word renews our mind.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 12, verse 2 says, Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: Allow God's word to transform your mind.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: Growing up, I did whatever I wanted.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: Lust, drinking, partying, all the things.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: My mind was not oriented toward God.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: What's the next thing I want to do?
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever that is, I'm gonna pursue.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then one day I met Jesus.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then one day I started to follow Jesus.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: And the catalyst to change my life was being in this book and allowing it to renew my mind.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: Going to a church that taught the Bible, realizing that my own personal priority needed to be spending time in the Bible every day as a follower of Jesus so that my mind could be renewed.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because I didn't want to live the old lifestyle that I was living.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to change.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a day by day, moment by moment, walk with God through the scriptures that has and is continuing to transform and renew my mind.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad we teach the Bible at Bayside.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: I've pastored two churches, one in Oregon, one here.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I've always said to people, I said, you can't go to a church where they never open up the Bible.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's the very unveiling of the person and plan and promises and understandings of God that are unveiled in this book that change our life.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: Church is not a country club of Christians.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: Church is not a place where we do rah-rah rallies.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: Church is a place that you and God meet and can be changed for eternity.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: So we've got to rely on God's means to transform our life, and we've got to open up our hearts and our minds to say, God, I want you to transform my life.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then we have to be in this book as much as possible.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because God wants to change me, and God wants to change you in amazing ways.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, notice the third thing he says.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: How do we change?
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: The third characteristic of change, he says in verse 24, notice what he says.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in the wrong page.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 24, I'm struggling here, everyone.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: And to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: We put off, we be renewed, and then number three, we put on.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: To change, you have to replace.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: You can't just remove, you have to replace.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is science and psychology, but more importantly, this is Bible and Jesus and the Word of God.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: To change, you have to replace.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: You can't just remove negative things and bad things.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: You have to replace the negative and bad things with good things.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: You have to fill that hole.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: To change, you have to replace a life lived apart from God with a life lived pursuing God.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is another beautiful metaphor that aligns with that first metaphor to put off.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: This is a metaphor of putting on clothes.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that we just take off the dirty clothes, like we do a hard workout, we take a shower, we go out to a restaurant or a date or whatever.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: We put on fresh, clean, new clothes.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe our first week of college outfits.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: Does anybody do that anymore?
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: You get some new clothes for the new season, right?
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: Fashion's always changing.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you're like, what's gonna be my outfit for the first week of school?
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: You put on new clothes to start a new day, and when you come to Jesus, you put on new clothes to start a new day in your life.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: When we come to Jesus, we choose each day to pursue a life of becoming like Jesus.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: We pursue God's design and God's character.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: We pursue God and godly things because we know that those are the things that God created for us to be well and whole and flourish and at peace and thrive as human beings.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: And he uses some really important language that goes back to Genesis chapter 2 in verse 24.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: He says, put on the new self created to be like God.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is New Testament language for the image of God that was marred at the fall and is being renewed in Jesus Christ.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: Was marred outside of Jesus and is being redeemed in Jesus, the image of God and how He designed us with value and purpose and a reflection of His very nature.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: He is changing us, but we have to put those things on.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: You ever go to your closet and you look at all your clothes and you get paralyzed in indecision?
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the ones you don't like, just get rid of.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: They're just taking up space in your closet.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes we just need to make a decision.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, no, that's a great outfit.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's clean, it's ironed, and it's ready to go.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: And there's so many things that God wants us to put on, and you don't have to take, you know, major steps of doing everything all at once.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's just the micro steps every day to say, okay, I'm putting on the new, I'm putting on the things of God.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: Warren Wearsby, that great expositor of the New Testament and Old Testament, says, take off the grave clothes and put on the grace clothes.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: Take off the things that were of your past and put on the things that God is graciously doing in your life as He's renewing the image of God in you.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: There's so much in the New Testament around this idea.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 6, verse 4.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: He was buried.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: Our old life is buried.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: He was raised.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: Our life is raised spiritually, and we have a new life to live.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 5, verse 17.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation is come.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: The old is gone, the new is here.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you needed to hear that this morning.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: You need that encouragement that the old is gone.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: The old way of life only has a past.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: The new way of life only has a present and future, not a past.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: And God wants you to live in the new.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: How do you do that?
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: Two ways.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: Two inclusions here.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: This includes both supernatural change when you come to believe in Jesus.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: And secondly, choosing to change every single day.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to how Philippians affirms this.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: God has a part, and you have a part.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: Philippians 2 affirms this, saying, chapter 2, verses 12 and 13.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, my dear friends, the heart of a pastor, my dear friends, I feel that about you.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: As you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: Your part, you work it out.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: For it is God who works in you.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: God's part, he's working in you.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: To will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: The great preacher Charles Swindah once said, change occurs when we get involved.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: God is doing his part.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's each one of us role and responsibility and decision to say, I want to do my part, God.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: You are working in me, and I want to work out day by day.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: Lifting my Bible, right?
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, not literally, but you can do that.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little light.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: Opening it up day by day, putting on the things of Christ, the characteristics of Christ, the image of God, pursuing God in worship, being a part of a local church, joining a rooted group, whatever it may be, you make the decisions.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: God is already working in you, but now you get to choose to work out.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: God has his part.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: You do your part.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: God wants to change your life.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: Don't miss this, for the good.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: God wants to change your life for the good.