We’ve probably all heard the phrase “Clothes make the man.” But I wonder if you’ve heard Mark Twain’s take on that familiar adage:
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
Clothes really are important. But it seems to me that our clothes don’t really make us as much as they are a reflection of who we already are. I could go down to the local fire station and put on all the clothing and gear that the firemen wear when fighting a fire, but that wouldn’t make me a fireman. Or I could go buy a lab coat and a stethoscope and wear them around, but that wouldn’t make me a doctor. I could even put on a diaper and drive across the country to confront a rival, but that wouldn’t make me an astronaut.
But a fireman puts on his specialized clothing and gear because he has gone through the required training that prepares him to be a fireman. A doctor puts on a lab coat and carries a stethoscope around his neck only after he has already become a doctor. And an astronaut wears a diaper only after completing his or her training and going into space. In other words, we tend to dress the part according to who we already are.
As Paul continues his letter to the Ephesians, he writes to his readers, and to us, about the importance of us dressing the part as followers of Jesus Christ. Let’s read our passage out loud together:
22You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Ephesians 4:22-24 (NIV)
This is not the only place in his writings that Paul uses the picture of taking off something that we no longer want to characterize our lives and to put on something new that is consistent with our new life in Jesus. Let’s look briefly at a couple of places where Paul uses similar language.
The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.
Romans 13:12 (NIV)
You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.
Colossians 3:7-10 (NIV)
Other New Testament writers also employed the same picture:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
Hebrews 12:1 (NIV)
Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.
1 Peter 2:1 (NIV)
As I read all those passages the first question that comes to my mind is this: Do the clothes make the man or are they merely dressing the part according to who I already am? Let’s go back to our passage in Ephesians and see if we can’t answer that question.
Paul uses a really unusual mixture of verb tenses and forms in this passage. There is a sense in which Paul is indicating that the concept of taking off the old and putting on the new is a completed action which took place in the past. In other words, it is a picture of our position in Christ. But that same construction could also indicate actions that believers are to carry out in their lives. That would be a description of our practice.
Within the context of the entire letter, and particularly chapter 4, it seems to me that Paul, as he often does, doesn’t require us to choose between the two interpretations, but rather incorporates both of them in his thinking. I’ve created a little chart to help us work through this passage this morning:
[Chart of main points in verses 22-24. Email me and I can sent it to you in Microsoft Word]
Verses 22 and 24 describe the clear contrast between the old and the new and verse 23 is the transition that gives us some guidance on how we take off the old clothes and put on the new.
The process begins with us putting off the old man. The word that Paul uses here for “putting off” is a word that was used to describe runners in the Olympic Games who would literally cast off all their clothes and run nearly naked in the stadium.
And what are we to cast off and lay aside? Everything that corresponds to our former way of life – all the things that Paul has previously written about in his letter. The futile thinking, the spiritual ignorance, the hardened hearts, the lack of shame and continual lust for more sin.
That futile way of life has been corrupted by our desires. Rather than focusing on the desires of God, that former way of life was dominated by my own desires.
And, as we’ve seen throughout Paul’s letter, those desires were all based on deceit. They are based on the lie that we don’t need a savior because we can handle our relationship with God on our own.
Paul has already made it clear in his letter that our relationship with God through Jesus Christ is totally and completely God’s work. He is the One who has chosen us, redeemed us and sealed us. So in a sense, God, through his Son, Jesus, has already removed that old way of life. But we have a responsibility to dress according to who we already are in Christ and the first step in that process is to make sure we lay aside all the things that characterized those lives. We’ll be dealing with some of those specific traits in more detail in weeks to come.
But it’s not enough to just put off the old. As Mark Twain reminds us “Naked people have little or no influence on society.” Jesus also told an interesting parable that emphasizes this same principle:
“When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.”
Matthew 12:43-45 (NIV)
Jesus pointed out that it was not enough to just get rid of the evil spirit. If that evil spirit was not replaced with something else, it would return with some of its buddies and take over the vacated space and the final condition would actually be worse that it was before the evil spirit departed.
When we lay aside the old man, we need to make sure that, at the very same time, we also put on the new man. Otherwise, the old man has a way of creeping back into our lives in manner that will make our lives even more miserable than they once were.
In verse 24, Paul draws some interesting comparisons between putting on the new man and laying aside the old.
While the old man corresponded to our former way of life, the new man corresponds to God. Remember this verse from Ephesians 1:
And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment – to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.
Ephesians 1:9, 10 (NIV)
When we looked at that verse we discovered that God’s plan is that one day, though Jesus, God’s creation will be restored to its original perfection. And part of that perfection was that man was made in the image of God. Obviously, today, none of us here are even close to being like God, but, as we’ve seen frequently, the new man is involved in a process of becoming more like Him each day.
The old man is being corrupted by wrong desires, but the new man is created in righteousness and holiness. Obviously, that is not something that we’re able to generate on our own. But God imputes to us the righteousness and holiness and holiness of His Son:
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
2 Corinthians 5:21 (NIV)
Everything about the life of the old man is based on deceit. Everything about the life of the new man, however, is based on the truth. And, as we saw clearly last week, the truth Paul is writing about is Jesus Himself.
Again, Paul’s words make it clear that the new life we have is completely a result of God’s work in our lives. And once again, he is encouraging us to make sure that we dress the part according to who we already are in Jesus.
When Jesus tells us to change our clothes so that they are consistent with the new life we have in Him, it’s not enough to just iron our clothes, or tuck in our shirts or to shine our shoes. We have to strip off the clothes that characterize our old lives and put on clothes that are completely new. We need a whole new spiritual wardrobe. When Paul writes that we are to put on the new man, the word he uses for “new” is a word that means something that is completely new in quality, something that is far superior to that which existed before.
Verses 22 and 24 are a pretty good summary of everything that Paul has already written up to this point in chapter 4, where he has clearly contrasted the old way of life and the new life that we have in Jesus. But the key verse in this passage is verse 23, because there Paul gives us some practical instruction on how we are to make sure that we dress the part according to who we already are in Jesus. We do that be being made new in the attitude of the mind.
Paul has already given us some similar instruction here in chapter 4, but this is such an important principle that we need to spend a little more time on it again this morning.
HOW TO BE MADE NEW IN THE ATTITUDE OF MY MIND:
1. Fill my mind with the right stuff
As we will see in a moment, the work of being made new is all God’s work. But we need to give Him something to work with. And since the work of renewal occurs in the mind, then it seems pretty clear that the material we give to God to work with is our thoughts. Let’s focus on three specific areas where we need to focus our thoughts:
• Truth
This shouldn’t come as a surprise at all. Throughout his letter, Paul has been focusing on truth and he really brought that to a head in the passage we looked at last week where he equated the truth with the person of Jesus. But this isn’t the only place Paul places an emphasis on focusing our thoughts on the truth. Here’s what he wrote in another of his letters:
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.
Philippians 4:8 (NIV)
Based on what Paul has already written, we could very accurately replace the word “truth” with “Jesus” and paraphrase the verse something like this:
...whatever is consistent with Jesus...think about such things...
So the first way I fill my mind with the right stuff is by focusing on Jesus.
• The eternal
In his second letter to the church at Corinth, Paul writes again about the need to be renewed. And in that letter, he gives us some more practical instruction about how to fill our minds with the right stuff:
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (NIV)
If I want my mind to be made new, I have to focus my thoughts on those things that are eternal. That’s how Paul could face all the problems and persecution he was facing. He understood that there is more to life than just this little bit of time we spend on earth.
He’s certainly focused on the eternal in his letter to the Ephesians. He spent quite a bit of time writing about their spiritual inheritance and about how one day God, through His Son, Jesus, is going to bring everything together and restore it to its original glory.
And Jesus certainly taught His followers to focus on the eternal. He told them not to worry about food and clothing. He exhorted them to lay up treasure in heaven. He told them not to worry about those who could hurt them physically, but rather to fear those who would destroy their soul.
• Things above
When Paul wrote a similar passage about putting off the old and putting on the new in Colossians 3, he included this exhortation:
Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
Colossians 3:2 (NIV)
When Paul writes about “things above” in this passage, he seems to use that phrase in a very similar way that he use the phrase “heavenly realms” in Ephesians. As we’ve discovered, that phrase is used not to describe a physical location, but rather to describe those things that operate within the sphere of influence of God. Paul uses that phrase to distinguish the things above from the things of the world.
John expresses this same principle from the negative perspective:
Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world – the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does – comes not from the Father but from the world.
1 John 2:15, 16 (NIV)
It’s amazing to me how John’s description of the things of the world so closely tracks with Paul’s descriptions in Ephesians.
So if I want to be made new in the attitude of my mind, I need to focus on those things that are within the sphere of influence of God, rather than the things of this world.
There is only one place I know of that I can go and fill my mind with all three aspects of the right stuff at the same time. There is only one place that contains truth, the eternal, and things above and that is the Word of God. That’s why it’s not enough to just come here on Sunday morning and listen to me expound on the Bible for 30 minutes or so. If I want to make sure God has something to work with, I need to be in His Word every single day.
2. Allow God to do the work of renewal
Although I can provide some material for God to work with, the work of renewal is not my work – it’s God’s. When Paul writes “be made new in the attitude of your minds”, he is using a passive verb that makes it clear that I am not the one doing the renewing. Someone else is doing that work in me. And as we might expect, Paul uses similar language in his other letters. For instance, there is this passage that we’ve already looked at several times in our journey through Ephesians:
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind...
Romans 12:2 (NIV)
Or there is this passage we already looked at this morning:
and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator
Colossians 3:10 (NIV)
In both those passages, Paul also uses a passive verb to indicate that someone else is doing the transforming and the renewing. And obviously in all of these verses, the one doing the work of renewal is God.
But even though only God can do the work of renewal, I can either facilitate that process or hinder it. God will not force His way into my life for the purpose of renewing my mind. I have to allow Him to have access to my mind so that He can do the renewing. As we’ve seen, one way we do that is to make sure that we put the right stuff in our minds to start with. I think the other major way we allow God to work is to spend time with him in prayer.
But it has to be the right kind of prayer – not the kind that views God as some genie in the sky who we go to in order to ask for a bunch of stuff – but rather the kind of prayer where we get away from all the distractions of the world and allow God to speak to us Spirit to spirit. Frankly, the purpose of prayer, as we see it modeled in the Bible, especially by Jesus, is to allow God to enable us to see things from His perspective. And when we approach prayer with that attitude, God is able to renew our minds.
3. Stick with it!
All these verses that we’ve looked at regarding renewing our minds, including our passage from Ephesians, are written using present tense verbs. By now, we know that means that they indicate continuing action. We don’t just renew our minds once and then we’re done with it. The process of allowing God to renew my mind is one that will never be completed in my lifetime here on earth. So I have to stick with it day after day.
If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, then God’s work in you has already rescued you from your former way of life that was a result of your own deceitful desires and made you into a new man, who is day by day being formed into the image of God, who is characterized by righteousness, holiness and truth. The question for us this morning is this: Are we willing to dress the part by allowing God to renew our minds?
