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[0:00] Okay, Ephesians 4, 17 to 24. So I tell you this and insist on the Lord, insist and on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking.

[0:13] 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. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality as they indulge in every kind of impurity and they are full of greed.

[0:31] That, however, is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 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, to be made new in the attitude of your minds and to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

[0:59] Thank you, Ivan, Isaac. Thank you, Andrew, as well, for sharing your heart. Good evening. I'm not sure where we are yet. Can we call it evening yet? Good evening.

[1:10] My name is William. I'm one of the pastors here. Yeah, great to see you if it's your first time, Siang and Ruth. And there's a few other faces. You probably have been here before, but they don't give you chocolates after your first time.

[1:23] But welcome back if you've not been here in a while. Or just good to see you again. So, yeah, so it'd be great if you guys all keep open Ephesians 4 in your Bibles, what Ivan just read.

[1:37] If you don't have a Bible, yeah, feel free to just look at your partners or your friends or see how you go. But we'll be following along fairly closely to Ephesians 4, 17 to 24.

[1:51] So I'll give you time to look that up. Let me pray. Our gracious Father, you want us to be a new people set apart for you.

[2:05] We live in a world that is very different to what you want us to be like, want us to hope like, want us to act like. And so help us to walk as new people in Christ.

[2:16] As we look at this wonderful passage, help us to rethink what's in our hearts. Help us to rethink how we can deal with our sin. Help us to imagine what it looks like to be people, men and women who walk in Christ.

[2:30] Would you be with us now as we look at this part of your wonderful word together? In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Once upon a time. Oh, by the way, feel free.

[2:41] This is an interactive kind of thing. I'm not here just to tell you stuff from God's word. I'd love as well, if you have any questions that pop up. We're going to be talking a lot about sin and other issues. If you have a question that you want answered at some stage, please use the Slido and put it up there.

[2:58] If you've got a question, maybe someone else has too. And if we have time at the end, Isaac might pull out one or two to ask and answer. Or if not, I'll put it on the group chat. Sorry, the Facebook group through the week as well.

[3:11] So please, make use of that. Can you believe it? But once upon a time, no one would dare to sail boats at night.

[3:23] Okay, this would not be a possibility. It would just be too scary, right? Because there were no electric lights. There was nothing, right? So if you were out at night on a boat, you better know what you're doing or you're stuffed.

[3:33] You would hit the shore. You would just crash, capsize. So it was just way too difficult. But then in 500 BC, the Greeks invented what's called the lighthouse, right?

[3:44] We see them all over the place. We don't even use most of them, but they were actually made the difference between being able to sail at night and being stuck, okay? Stuck on land, except when there wasn't light.

[3:57] There was a mind shift there, right? From that moment on, you could sail at night. You could go further, okay? You could start exploring beyond your boundaries. There was a mind shift. I'll give you another mind shift.

[4:08] Once upon a time, only really rich people could afford to read books, okay? Because they were all hand copied. Can you believe that, right? Imagine all your lecture notes, hand copied for you, right?

[4:18] Man, that would be hard. That would be hard. And so probably most people had never had the chance to go get an education, right? Every letter, every page. It took a while, right? But then a guy called Johannes Gutenberg, a German dude, he worked out in 1440 how to press ink on a page with movable pieces of type and then do it again and again with a machine.

[4:40] And suddenly, you could make books faster. Suddenly, everyone could read books and assess ideas for themselves. And then an obscure monk called Martin Luther, he had a bit of an argument with the church at the time about some of the things they were doing that weren't really biblical.

[4:57] But before the printing press, no one would have heard his ideas. But because of it, he had some ideas and then they spread through the whole of Germany in three weeks, okay? This was the equivalent of stuff going viral.

[5:10] And so because of the printing press, there was a mind shift. And the Bible went from something only really rich people could read to God's Word, right? That we can hear even here today.

[5:21] There was a mind shift. One more mind shift. Once upon a time, okay, movie studios would spend millions of dollars, right, making movies and then preparing them to launch at the cinema.

[5:35] It's a cinema. I don't know if you guys have been to a cinema since COVID started. I was old enough actually to remember when the cinema was where every new thing happened, right? When the first Lion King came out, not the Beyonce version, the first one, right?

[5:49] You queued up, queued up to watch this movie, okay? You had to go in. You had to pay your tickets. That was the only way you would see it first. But then, as we all know, COVID hit, right?

[6:00] And suddenly there were no cinemas open around the world, okay? And even if people reopened cinemas, will anyone come? And actually now, TV studios, movie studios, they're not even going to bother putting stuff to cinemas.

[6:12] It's all going straight to Netflix, right? And some of you are the beneficiaries of that, I'm sure. There's a mind shift in how we consume film. I'm talking about mind shifts today because today, in our passage, I wonder if you noticed there was a mind shift.

[6:27] We have a mind shift in today's passage. Because notice how it starts and finishes. In verse 17, we have Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ. He's warning the Ephesians that he's writing to away from the Gentiles who are walking, and it says here, in the futility of their thinking, all right?

[6:46] And then by verse 27, he reminds them, you were taught, right? To be made new in the attitude of your minds, okay? In the original language that Paul wrote in Greek, it's the same word here that shows up.

[7:02] Paul is calling us, as we read this, to a mind shift. He wants the Ephesians to have a mind shift in how they walk, how they live. All right? From futile, useless living to renewed thinking.

[7:16] From sensuality, greed, indulgence, and whatever, to being clothed in true righteousness and holiness. And I get it.

[7:26] It's hard being a follower of Jesus at the best of times. Remember, as we've gone through this journey, through this letter, remember these Ephesians who are reading this, they lived as a tiny minority, didn't they?

[7:38] In a massive mega city, Ephesus, trying to follow the way of Jesus, but feeling pressure from the culture around them, their friends and their family, who lived differently.

[7:49] And that's no different for us today, is it? Often as Christians, we're the odd ones out. The misfits at the work party. The only family member who doesn't make an ancestor offering, for example.

[8:03] And if we're honest, sometimes it's tempting to slip back into old ways. And before you and I know it, maybe we'll start to eat, to drink, to gossip or flirt or touch, think, hope and dream in the same way as the world does.

[8:22] Absorbed in ourselves and what's best for us, we need a mind shift too, do we not? And so really from these few chapters, really starting from chapter four, right through, Paul is trying to help us to get practical with doctrines of grace, of what a changed life in Christ looks like for God's people, for his saints.

[8:45] We had a first look last week, if you were here, right? If you weren't, please, yeah, just catch up on Spotify. It was a great message from Pastor Richard. He shared with us how God's distinct, world-changing church should look like, right?

[8:58] We start with love and humility. We sang about that today. And we as Christians, we work for unity of belief because our God is united in himself. As a church, we honour the diversity of gifts among us because that is what God does and he gives gifts to people.

[9:17] And we strive for maturity in this church because God cares that we grow up into maturity in Christ. And it's a good group project, isn't it, right? We don't just know the gospel, we need to live it out as brothers and sisters.

[9:33] And Paul kind of switches from kind of those big words and big themes in the first 16 verses of chapter four. He switches from there, right? Unity, diversity, maturity.

[9:43] He's now talking about our daily life, our moment-by-moment holiness. But notice this, right? In our passage, he doesn't lay out actually that much because I think what he does is this.

[9:56] Before he lays out all the commands, and we're going to hear them next week and the ones after, in our passage, he tells us about two mind shifts each of us need to really walk in Christ.

[10:07] So that's what I want to share today. There's a mind shift I think we need to pick up in two things. And these are two points for today's message. There's a mind shift I think we need in what causes sin, right, that we see in verses 17 to 19.

[10:21] And then we're going to see a mind shift in how to deal with sin, all right, in the rest of our passage. Okay, two mind shifts, right? What causes sin and how we deal with it.

[10:31] And I think once we have a right view of our sin and its remedy, its fix, we will be able to walk in Christ as wise, gracious people, right, showcasing the best of God's kingdom to others.

[10:47] That sounds like a good thing to do, isn't it? So let's jump in. The first step, I think, of walking in Christ is to make a mind shift in what causes sins and it's our hearts.

[10:58] Let me read verse 17 again. So I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord. You must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking.

[11:12] It's an urgency, right, to Paul's appeal. He says, literally, I say this and I testify it, all right, or maybe there's one translation that's nice. I solemnly declare, it's kind of like a wedding vow, right, then it says this, don't live like the Gentiles do.

[11:28] Okay. Literally, the Greek uses the word don't walk like they do. Okay. There's a very close connection in how we live and how we walk kind of in their mind.

[11:40] Paul is urging them literally to walk differently to the Gentiles. Gentiles is a funny word for some of you. Maybe it's your first time at church. You might even be here, you've heard Gentiles before but now you're confused, right?

[11:53] Who's Paul talking about? I thought Gentiles was us, you know. We're the Gentiles but hang on, these guys don't sound nice. So far, right, in Ephesians, Gentiles has meant everyone who's not ethnically Jewish who's been included in Christ, right?

[12:07] Included in his church. So remember our memory verse last month, I think, right, the mystery is that the Gentiles have become fellow heirs, fellow sharers together of Christ's promise. But Gentiles, right, can also have a narrower meaning to refer to those who live like the surrounding culture, right?

[12:25] So maybe a word that we might use today is pagans or unbelievers or non-Christians. That's who I think Paul's referring to here in this passage because that's how they're described, right?

[12:38] Did you notice how they describe their futile thinking? It keeps going. They are darkened, verse 18, in their understanding, separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.

[12:53] not a pretty picture, is it? And I think Paul chooses to pile on the negative descriptions because he wants us to have a mind shift about what causes sin.

[13:08] Because notice what he didn't say, right? He didn't say this, those Gentiles, they are the ones who do drugs, who tell lies, who have premarital sex, who beat their kids, who steal cars, who are addicted to stuff.

[13:24] There is not a single outside external behaviour on what Paul says. Did you notice that? Right? No. Instead of outside behaviours, each point Paul lists is in here.

[13:37] Right? A darkened mindset, a distance from God, ignorance, hardness of heart. This is not the only time Paul does this.

[13:48] in the book of Romans, some of you have read before. In Romans chapter 1, when he writes to the church there about Gentiles, he says this, For although they knew God, this is Romans 1, verse 21, For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him.

[14:06] But their thinking became futile. Recognise that? And their foolish hearts were darkened. Recognise that too? Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images and so on.

[14:19] And then therefore, God gave them over and the sinful desires of their hearts and so on. Okay? Because what is sin exactly? What is sin?

[14:30] You see, many of us have too small a view of sin. Part of that is just the world we live in, right? Actually sin, okay, if you ask someone who isn't a Christian, actually sin is kind of like having too much ice cream, right?

[14:45] Something to giggle about, right? Sin in the world's eyes, it's naughty, it's risky, it's thrilling. I went to the night market on Wednesday night, there was sinfully good cinnamon buns, right?

[14:58] Right? Sin is just something to play with, right? It's just to enjoy or to get excited about. Right? And or if there are things that people do wrong, people don't like to use the word sin, okay?

[15:12] It's watered down, right? Someone throws a racist comment on live TV, I read a news article and he said, I'm sorry, I stuffed up, I shouldn't have called that person that, right? Or there's a guy who cheats on his wife, he says, I let myself down, right?

[15:27] We're always underplaying what sin really is. And yet within the church, I think we too have a very small view of sin, okay? If I asked you, like Sunday school answer, what is sin?

[15:40] Most of you, maybe many of you might say this, sin is doing something wrong, right? Disobeying God's law or breaking His commands, okay? Sounds good, right? Committing a crime, breaking a rule.

[15:52] Those of you who know Chinese, like even the word for sin, right? Literally means law breaking, yeah? It's a legal term. And so I think because of that, often most of us, we think, as long as I haven't lied or stolen or broken God's commands, then I'm not sinning.

[16:08] Yay! But, we've already seen that the Bible has a much bigger view of sin than we do, okay? Sin is so much more than wrong actions.

[16:20] What is sin? It is a darkened mind. It is a deceived heart. It is, as chapter two said, like a perverse nature. Friends, sin is not just what we do or don't do.

[16:33] It's actually down to who we are. You see, long before our first parents, Adam and Eve, acted wrongly with forbidden fruit, long before they reached out and took it, there was that delight, that sinful desire for wisdom.

[16:49] Do you get it? Sin begins within, okay? I'm up to Deuteronomy 5 in my own Bible reading and I read this passage where Moses reminds Israel how the Lord spoke once, right?

[17:00] And then he says this, Deuteronomy 5, 29, he says, oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always so that it might go well with them, right?

[17:11] Moses knows, sin begins within, okay? No one just worships a golden calf out of nowhere. Sin begins within. When Jesus once was challenged about eating with unclean hands, okay, people were so caught up with all this external sinning that he was doing, apparently.

[17:29] He hits back and he says, no, it is not what enters from the outside. Rather, what comes out of a person is what makes them unclean, right? For from within, out of people's hearts come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, folly.

[17:50] These are Jesus' words, right? Mark chapter 7, 21. Sin begins within. And how about the book of James? Right?

[18:01] The book of James tells it this way, right? James was Jesus' half-brother, okay, and he says it straight. James 4, 1 says this, what causes fights and quarrels within you? And he doesn't say, is it a toy you both wanted?

[18:13] Or he doesn't say, is the pressure of exams or my annoying parents? He says this, don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You covet, all right, sorry, you desire and don't have, so you murder.

[18:26] You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. Friends, I stress this point, okay, not because I want you to feel bad only. It's because we're often too quick to blame outside behaviour, okay, but we ignore the deeper issue.

[18:43] We attack the fruit that we see in our lives or other people's lives, but we don't deal with the root, okay? The Bible consistently calls us dig deeper for what really causes our sin.

[18:54] Don't just blame your family. Don't just blame your culture. Don't blame your circumstances, your medical diagnosis. As much as they factor in and shape you, yes, but ultimately sin begins within, right?

[19:07] What causes sins is our hearts. I mean, I think of myself, right? How too often I'm sitting at the dinner table, Eden will know, yeah, she sees it every day, right? But sometimes I'll lose my temper, right, at one of my children.

[19:22] Can I just say, oh, no, it was my kid. They were really working me up, right? No, who caused my sinful words? Not them. It was me and my sinful heart.

[19:34] Okay, or it's late, I'm tired, I've just put the kids to bed, full sink of dishes to wash, right? And then before you know it, I'm arguing with Cheryl. It's not her fault. It's not the dishes' fault.

[19:46] It's my heart, right? Sin begins within. What about you? I think about the last time you did something wrong, apparently, right?

[19:56] Maybe you were delighting in some saucy gossip. Maybe you took a lustful look. Where did it start? Was it your environment? Was it because you were hangry or tired or lonely?

[20:10] Look, Paul says in these verses, go deeper. God says, be honest. Sin includes what we do, but also who we are by nature, our hearts, okay? And we have to confess, right?

[20:24] If we are honest, without Christ, our hearts, our desires, our thoughts are deeply offensive to a holy God, right? Our sins, not just our outside behaviors, what we pursue, what we believe, what we follow, they deserve God's righteous anger and punishment.

[20:43] Friends, that's what we need first, Paul says, a mind shift in what causes sin. Okay? So sin, it's not just bad actions, it's corrupt hearts and attitudes.

[20:56] And apart from Christ, this is how the rest of the world lives. But if you and I are to walk in Christ, then not only do we need to know the cause of our sin and be honest with it, we also need to understand the remedy, the solution for our sin.

[21:13] Okay? That's what Paul does next, he moves from what causes sin in verses 17 to 19 and then he tells us, right, in verses 20 to 24. And he tells us this, he wants us to have a mind shift in how to deal with sin and the answer is with the gospel.

[21:28] With the gospel. Let me tell you a story. Okay, these are two stories. I've changed names, changed things slightly so you won't recognize them. But here's one story.

[21:40] This is a friend. Everyone likes Charlie at church. Okay, that's not him. Everyone likes Charlie at church. Okay. He was a bubbly guy. Try and imagine. Yeah. All kinds of fun, life of the party.

[21:52] All right? He's the one that organizes Hot Pot or Dabin Lo or whatever. He's always the guy that's helpful, right? When you need to share something, he's always there. If you need help, he's always quick to give an answer from the Bible in groups.

[22:05] But those close to Charlie know he actually has a serious anger problem. All right? If you really disagree with him, he will tear you apart. And Charlie actually, well, he knows it's a problem and he's tried counseling.

[22:18] He's tried anger management kind of stuff. But Charlie has something deeper that counting to ten cannot just fix. Or what about Sally? Sally, she first came across pornography by accident.

[22:33] All right? She was searching for ball gowns. And before she knew it, she was hooked. Her parents, her friends, they all see her as the good Christian girl, but secretly, she's losing sleep.

[22:45] She can't push pause. She even starts to pay for exclusive content. And then she feels real guilty and cancels it. And then she goes back. It's like a yo-yo. She forces herself by her own willpower.

[22:56] Keep away from it and then she bounces back. Right? It's binge breakdown, binge breakdown. And many times, Sally tries to stop but she feels powerless. So what would you say to Charlie if you knew Charlie?

[23:09] Or Sally if she confided in you? All right? These are two familiar stories, right? And I want you to notice, underlying both of these stories was this.

[23:22] Too often, right, Charlie and Sally and most of us, I think, we try to deal with sin just by our own efforts, our own willpower, our own obedience.

[23:35] And Sally, our language sometimes in church doesn't help. Sometimes I hear people pray, right, or talk. Okay, I need to share with that non-Christian the gospel. Ah, thank you. All right, that's great. And with Christians, I'm just going to tell them how are you going to do this right?

[23:49] How are you going to obey God? How are you going to stick with Jesus? It's not wrong. But too often, we only offer the gospel of grace out there and we forget about it in here.

[24:01] All right? So we're almost saying as if, it's as if, we're almost saying this, right? You're saved by Jesus but you keep being Christians through your own work. Can you see?

[24:12] Can you see something wrong there? Okay, we've adopted this mindset. The gospel is for newbies and then after that it's up to us. But what does Paul say here? Have a look.

[24:23] Verse 20. You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus.

[24:36] 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, to be made new in the attitude of your minds and to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

[24:54] Can you see? The mind shift here is that you deal with sin first and foremost by starting with the gospel who you are in Christ.

[25:05] Did you notice that verse 20 like literally actually in the Greek it says that is not how you learned Christ. Okay, it starts with Jesus Christ. Paul does not start this whole section with don't steal, be imitators of God, don't lie, I'm just reading further down Ephesians.

[25:21] He doesn't start with those, notice. He starts with this fact. First, remember what you learned Christ. The way of life you learned from Him.

[25:32] What you heard from Him. You know that He lived and died and rose again for sinners like us so then live like it. Do you understand the mind shift? The picture Paul gives us to try and get to grips with this mind shift is a change of clothing, right?

[25:49] Verse 22 to 24, right? Put off the old self. The old humanity, the old person, it is corrupt. It's your old identity. And put on the new.

[26:00] It's true righteousness, He says. That's Jesus. That's the gospel. If you really know Jesus with your renewed mind, put that on, right? Put on your new self that you receive from Him.

[26:13] Romans 13, verse 14, says, Paul says the exact same thing to the Romans. He says this, put on the Lord Jesus Christ and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

[26:27] And I especially like how the ESV translation translates 1 Corinthians 15, I think verse 3, when Paul reminds us, he says, he talks about the gospel, right?

[26:37] And we think, oh, he's talking to non-believers. Actually, he's talking to Corinthians, Christians. And he says this, remember, the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved.

[26:52] Continuous. Continuous. Yes, the gospel saves us, right? It's the ABC of Christianity. But don't leave it behind. It is the A to Z of Christianity too. We need the gospel every day to change us.

[27:05] Do you guys get that? We need it every day. Trying to fight sin, I'm going to talk a lot about that in the next few weeks, but trying to fight sin without the gospel is like an insect that won't shed its old skin, okay?

[27:17] Tries to cling on to it, or reading, or insisting on reading or driving without your glasses, okay? Trying to fight sin without the gospel is like heading into battle in pyjamas, okay? It's useless.

[27:28] Or trying to fight sin is like showing up to your wedding without your dress or your suit on. You'd be mad. You'd be mad if you try and fight sin without the power and the pattern of the gospel.

[27:41] And we will see Paul lay this out. Because the call to follow Jesus, okay, if you've ever heard it another way, please hear it this way. The call to follow Jesus is not just do this and don't do this, but live out your new self.

[27:56] Live out who you truly are in Christ. Walk worthy of your calling, right? Chapter 4, verse 1 said. And so friends, what does this mean for us?

[28:07] It means this, okay? When people ask me, okay, and it's a privilege when you open up to me, thank you. When people ask me, I'm struggling with this issue or that issue, I will listen.

[28:21] I will share practical ideas and tips, but these will all just reinforce the real deal, the gospel, right? We will have strategies to how to sow to the Spirit, how to help support repentance and faith, but it is never, it can never be in replacing the first thing.

[28:40] Remember what Jesus Christ has died, done for you. He has died for your sins. So live like that's true. Okay? If you are wallowing in pornography, if you are stuck in selfish gossip, you are not living as if Christ died for you.

[28:56] So don't do that. You see the motivation is different? You see that? Maybe you'll object though. Maybe you'll say, hey, look, are you saying we don't have to make an effort? Can I just go, remember the gospel, that's it?

[29:09] Okay. No. Of course not, right? Fighting sin is hard. What God's Word says here though is don't fight sin on your own without the gospel because this is what happens, right?

[29:20] Sheer willpower, and this is from experience, okay? Some of you know, okay? Some of you will have your own, think of your own kind of ongoing sin that you can't seem to beat, right? If you just use willpower, okay, it's good for like, maybe like a day or two.

[29:35] Some of you might last longer, a week, a few weeks. But even if you succeed, the glory doesn't go to God because how did you succeed? You did it by your own amazing strength, your own self-control, okay?

[29:49] And then you've just swapped your old sin with a new sin, right? Pride. So hang on, there's a better way. Deal with your sin with gospel glasses.

[30:00] Fight the devil's schemes with Jesus' armour. That is how Paul talks and preaches in Ephesians. You see, friends? To walk in Christ, you and I, we need two mind shifts.

[30:11] First, sin is a heart issue, right? Not just a behaviour issue. And secondly, we fight sin, not our own strength and efforts, but with the power of the gospel.

[30:22] And it's only once Paul lays out these two mind shifts, right, in these verses, then he goes on, right? Therefore, speak the truth to each other and your anger don't sin. Stop stealing.

[30:33] Be honest with your work. Speak nicely to each other. Can you see that? He's not gonna say all that until he's said this most important thing first. He does not want a Christian community, friends, that is just proud of their own willpower for holding stuff together.

[30:46] That is not gonna shape and change the world around them, okay? We don't wanna be like that either, PCPC. Okay? We wanna be a community of grace.

[30:57] Sinners, strugglers, in the trenches together. We fight sin, though, with the power of the gospel. Only once your mind is filled with Christ, then your hearts long to walk in newness of life.

[31:12] That is the gospel-powered way to obey Him, okay? Gospel-powered obedience is the only thing that will bring true, lasting change for God's glory. And perhaps some of you are here, and you have never had the experience of putting on a new self in Christ.

[31:31] Maybe if someone asked you, are you a Christian or do you follow Jesus? You might not even be sure. You might not even be sure if you have kind of this new self to put on that Paul talks about.

[31:43] If that's you, if that's you, can I say, keep listening in, all right? But see Jesus not just as your parents' thing, all right? Not just your brother or sister's thing, okay, but not for you.

[31:56] Can I say also to you that church should not be about do this, don't do that, stop doing that, go there, all right? I hope you can see that. Ephesians, Paul has laid out, right, not a gospel of do this and not that.

[32:11] He's laid out a gospel of grace, of a new identity in Christ, and that's what he's inviting you to be a part of if you're not a Christian, okay? If Christianity seems to you like a bunch of do's and don'ts, then I'm sorry.

[32:24] Then we as a church need to repent and change. We've not made it clear enough with our hearts, with our lives and our motivations. But if you, right now, maybe you're not a Christian, if you desperately need a mind shift, inside you are, you are wrecked.

[32:42] You agree with Paul's description of being alienated far from God. If that is you today, come talk to me afterwards. But more importantly, consider that Paul wants to invite you to have a change in heart.

[32:58] Because without Jesus, the Bible describes you as the walking dead, right, and the futility of your minds. The Bible describes you as, no, not just near God, but separated from God.

[33:12] That is the worst place to be. Let me tell you that from experience. Far from God, far from His love that we sang about. Stuck feeding sins and desires that never stopped growing.

[33:23] I would plead with you if you're not a Christian, repent. Turn around. Okay? Turn from your old self and look to Jesus and take Him on as your new self.

[33:34] Here is Christ. Jesus Christ. He is hung on the cross in love for your sins. And He says, put me on. Put me on.

[33:44] Walk with me. So believe Him. Learn Him, as Paul says. Walk in Him. Repent and believe. You can even do it today if you have not done so. And yet it's no different to the rest of us here, right?

[34:00] All of us here need this gospel again and again and again. The gospel is for Christians too. We need, like Paul says, to repent and believe, to, to, in his words, to put off the old and put on the new self in Christ.

[34:17] You must no longer walk like they do, right? Greedy for sin, broken by their desires, but instead keep believing that Jesus is better. Keep trusting that He is more beautiful, more believable, more worthy of our delight and joy than anything else that is in your life.

[34:37] Friends, to fight sin, remember, Jesus is better than the smut that you're watching. He is far more satisfying than the memes that you are sharing mindlessly. He is greater than the gossip you are delighting in.

[34:52] Jesus is bigger than the approval we chase. He is better and closer than anything else or one we crave. If we look at yourself, friends, take 10 looks at Jesus, our Lord and Saviour.

[35:04] That's the way to fight sin your whole life. Let me tell you about Charlie. The story didn't end there. Now, these days, in Charlie, there's a growing delight with God.

[35:17] It's not that he doesn't feel angry anymore. He still does. But he's learning to trust that God is in control. His anger is reflecting. He realizes that his anger, when he gets angry, he's trying to really be in control.

[35:29] That's the heart issue. And so he repents of that and he says, Jesus, Jesus, take my life. Ruled it for me. And then in Sally, well, Sally, for Sally, after getting that the gospel is what drives change, sin and temptation left her.

[35:50] Praise God. There are still some falls, but there are many, many victories. And Sally is learning to find intimacy and closeness with Jesus.

[36:02] And friends, in Jesus too, we have everything we need to give up old selfish ways of living, to be renewed in our minds, to be clothed in God's likeness. As it says, righteous, set apart for our master, ready to live for him.

[36:19] These are mind shifts that may not happen straight away. It might be something we work on our whole lives, but praise God, in Jesus, we can change. And these mindset shifts do happen, right?

[36:31] They happen in churches and families here and everywhere. I think before we close in prayer, before we do that, I'd love to give each of us time, time to reflect and do business with God if we need to, to apply these truths to our hearts.

[36:50] So can I just ask you the question, if you haven't put a question in on Slido or whatever, or written it down, ask yourself this question, what do you want to change in Christ? What do you want to change in Christ today, from today?

[37:06] Choose something you want to change. It could be something small, maybe it's a frustrating habit, maybe it's something you've battled with all your life, an addiction or a bitterness, an unwanted desire.

[37:21] Tell yourself now, okay, from what we've learned, okay, think of that thing that you want to change. Tell yourself now what really caused that sin. Dig deep. Dig deep as Paul invited us to.

[37:35] Is it because you want to be liked? Is it because you want joy? Do you want control? Do you just want to be God, if you're honest?

[37:48] And let God renew the spirit of your minds, verse 21. Let Him remind you of your new self. Embrace the mind shift and tell yourself the gospel Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins.

[38:05] He rose again showing He defeated my sins. Every sin has been washed away by His blood. So good. And I want to put His righteousness on. Imagine what that would look like to put on His new self, okay, putting it away, your old desires and letting His new life flow through you, cover you, His approval over you, His power, His spirit.

[38:30] Have a think about what it would look like for whatever you want to change in Christ to be covered by the gospel. gospel. Now, let's close our eyes and maybe bow our heads.

[38:45] I want to take a minute to think through that. No one else is looking at your answers, just you and God. And perhaps, maybe, once you've thought of something, you might want to write your answer down on your phone or in your journal, whatever you brought.

[39:04] Maybe you'd be brave enough to anonymously put it on Slido and then answer that question and maybe in groups we can pray for you as well and I could pray for you too. So, take a minute and then after that minute I'll close in prayer.

[39:26] Jesus, we thank You. We thank You that because You died and rose again, we have the power and pattern to obey. We have armour to put on to fight sin.

[39:42] Thank You that we can change even when we sin. Remind us of this, that You are faithful and just to forgive all our sins and trespasses and to empower us to walk faithfully for You.

[39:56] Father, please help this person who loves money to see You as more precious, more valuable. And Father, please, for this other person who wants to forgive those who have hurt them, please would You give them that forgiveness through Jesus.

[40:16] Please help them to put on this new self that You have given them. Remember their identity in Christ to put away old habits, old desires, old thoughts.

[40:27] and Father, for all of us who are trying to think how can we change in Christ, be with us, shape us, change us through the power of the Gospel.

[40:41]  In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.