Become What You Are in Christ (Ephesians 4:17-24)

We've been talking about the book of Ephesians for a couple months now and the summary of the whole book, I've summarized it as the glory of Christ in a Community of Faith. And we've seen in chapter 3, for example, verses 9, and 10. That the mystery of God that's been hidden for ages. Has now revealed in Jesus and this mystery is that he's going to unite all things under Jesus things in heaven and things on earth. They're put together with the people of God and they are, the father is bringing the Community of Faith that church together to glorify his son and it's mixed. Not only that to be the the means by which, the glory of Christ is revealed to the world. With the existence of the church is the reminder that the authority of principalities and powers and authorities and rulers. These demonic forces that he's going to talk about in chapter 6 that he had mentioned in chapter one. They've been subject to Jesus. They've been put under his feet. We've been placed in Chapter 2 in the heavenlies with Christ, they're defeated. Foes in the church. Now is exhibit a of what. What is doing to sum up all things in his son and to proclaim the glory of Christ to the world and end. That is in one sense. Very scary, isn't it? That weird? The means that God uses And sometimes we don't feel like we're fit vessels, fit instruments to be used because we're well aware of our failures. We're well aware of our lack of influence. Our, our weaknesses are in abilities and yet this is exactly what scripture teaches over and over and over again. The God loves to use clay pots common vessels. Crooked sticks to draw straight lines. This is what God loves to do, because it, glorifies his son. And God uses us as the means and the whole application to Paul's first three chapters of teaching is fundamentally as we saw last week and exhortation to to Unity in this Mission. And the glory of Christ becomes a Beacon of Hope from us to the world that people can be reconciled to God, that God is declaring victory over spiritual powers that stand against us. And that Jesus Christ is going to rule and Reign Over all things. Things in heaven, and things on earth. now, what Paul does, after this discussion of unity in chapter 4, is he now says

You need to live a different way because of this reality you need to have a different lifestyle and he uses the illustration of wardrobe of of clothing. We're going to see it here in the passage before us. Let's read it together right now verse 17 of chapter four. Now this I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the future, Lady of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of heart. They become callous and giving themselves up to sensuality greedy to practice every kind of impurity, but that is not the way you learned Christ. Assuming that you've heard about him and we're taught in him as the truth is, in Jesus to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and its corrupted through deceitful desires and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds into put on the new self created after the likeness of God and true righteousness and Holiness. And so this putting off and putting on a picture of of taking off a set of clothing and putting on another set of clothing. When I, when I come home from Jiu Jitsu, I can't just sit around in my Jiu Jitsu ghee. In my rash guard, after an hour and a half of training. And these jackets are really heavy and they make you really sweaty. And you could imagine the stench in the smell from that, there's no way that Jennifer would let me sit on the couches if I just decided to stay in that clothing. But what's amazing to me is I don't realize how bad the clothing smells until after I take it off and I take a shower and I put on new clothes, you know, and I've made that mistake and picking up the old clothes and I'll man, why did I do that? I should have just assumed and taking it by faith that those clothes smelled. We know how this is, it could be work. It could be those of you who work in an outdoor job and you're you're sweating all day and you you labor, and then you, you know it, I got to take this off. In fact, some of you might have the rule might be you got to take it off in the garage cuz you're not coming into the house looking and smelling like that. This picture is a is a common picture in culture, and everybody would understand it there. Also, maybe some religious connections to it about either the priesthood in the Old Testament, putting on ceremonial clothing. Although I don't find that to be likely in the book of Ephesians or disconnection to baptism. Because in the early church, there would be a changing of clothing in the process of Believers baptism to picture the change of going from, you've been born again into new life but I also don't necessarily find that to be super compelling here because we don't have any records of that in the first hundred years of the church. It happens after 100 AD. So I'm not entirely sure that's the case. But either way, Paul's using this illustration to basically teach us, we need to become what we already are in Jesus. There's an already not yet to the Christian Life. We already are saved. We already are set apart. As holy, we already are called Saints, holy ones. But yet we're also supposed to grow in this Holiness in the Christian life. So that we become more and more like Jesus, that's what the theologians have called Progressive sanctification, and we know in this life we won't ever be perfect. But we know that when we see him will be perfect will be like him. And so Paul is saying, one of the, the applications of what it means to be in a new kingdom. In a new Community of Faith. To be part of the church is that we need to become who we already are in Jesus. So he starts by reminding them about the culture. They came out of verse 17. I say this and testify in the Lord, you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the future ility of their minds. Now, in the Ephesian Church, they were by-and-large Gentiles, there might have been some Jewish Believers. So he's not talking about stop acting like where you grew up, what he saying is you need to not live the way you used to live before you were a follower of Jesus and he's going to explain what that looks like. In fact he uses this word for walking, don't walk is the Gentiles do so, so he's got two major illustrations going on. In this section of putting off of clothes old clothes and putting on a new clothes and walking in a certain way, which is repeated over and over in the book. Just, let's look at a couple of passages 4:1 starting this application section. I therefore a prisoner of the Lord urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been call. So walking in a manner worthy of our calling, he's really continuing this thought in verse Seventeen. When he says, do not walk is the Gentiles. Do he doesn't give us a positive way to walk in this small section. We could we can I'm going to summarize it as walking in Holiness, but if the next use of walking is in 5:2 and he says, walk in love as Christ, loved us and gave himself up for us. A fragrant offering a sacrifice to God. So, one of the marks of walking in a manner, worthy of our calling is not. Walking, is the Gentiles do a second Mark, is that we walk in love? We love one another and he's been teaching this through the whole book. That remember, how much you been? How high and wide and deep and long. The love of Christ is. So you be filled with all the fullness of God. 5:18 says walk, you are light in the Lord walk as children of light. So we're walking in the light sand and notice he doesn't say walk in order to be in the light. He says, you are light in the Lord at one time. You were Darkness. But now your light. So walk his children of like you already are in the light. Just walk in a manner, consistent with that. And then 5:15 look carefully. Then how you walk not as unwise? But as wise making the best use of the time because the days are evil. And so this walking in wisdom, walking in the light walking in love, walking in Holiness, as it were walking in a manner, worthy of our calling. This is all the same idea that Paul's getting at In this passage and he says, I testify in the Lord verse 17, this isn't just Paul's opinion. This is from the Lord Jesus himself.

What does he say? He says Don't walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds. A it brought brought up this idea earlier and 2:12. When he says, remember, before you were a Christian, you were separated from Christ alienated from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of Promise having no hope and without God in the world. So that the path of the unconverted Gentile, the, the Gentile Pagan Greco-Roman culture that they came out of it's a dead-end is without hope and without God in this world. And verse 18 sums it up alien dated from the life of God, a stranger from life itself. So, Paul tells us don't live as the culture lives. Don't live like you used to before you knew Jesus. He's painting this with the the darkest colors possible as it were, he says we're 17 their futile in their thinking, the futility of their minds. This word futility means, they've lost touch with reality.

Verse 18, they are darkened in their understanding and this isn't a temporary Condition. It's a permanent state of being, they're incapable of grasping Ultimate Reality in the truth of God in his gospel. Now, remember, this is in the midst, he's not preaching at the unconverted Gentiles. He's talking to the church in Ephesus. So there's an application to us isn't there because he's he's telling us, don't walk that way. And I don't think he's telling us not to walk that way in terms of

Just simply to give us a rule. He's he's doing it to say it's a dead end. You're not going to find any Joy or hope or lasting peace. You're not going to find love. You're not going to find light. You're not going to find wisdom. You're not going to find what you're looking for. You know, you too. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For. Great. Theologian Bono.

Listen to chrysostom, he's a pastor who lived in the 700's and he in his sermon on this section. He says there's such a thing as being in the dark. Even when the light is shining, when the eyes are weak, when the strong current of the Affairs of this life overwhelms, the perceptive power of the understanding it's thrown into a state of darkness and in the same way, as if we were placed in the dep's underwater, we should be unable to see the sun through the quantity of water lying, like a sort of barrier above us. So, surely, in the eyes of the understanding also a blindness of the heart takes place. That is an incense ability, Whenever there is no fear of God to agitate the soul. Hear what he saying that we can get in a state where it's like, we're under water. And we can't see the sun because there's just too much water between us and the Sun and is murky. And this is the state we can get in when we don't have a fear of God. That is a proper sense of the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. When he says, they're separated Verse 18 from the life of God, he's referring back to chapter 21 and 22 that before we were Christians, we were dead in our trespasses and sins and which we once walked But now in Christ, we've been made Alive by Grace. You've been saved and so what he's getting at is he saying, this is like you are a, you've been given new life, but you're looking at that casket, that's buried in the ground and you decide, you want to go climb back into the casket and live there. In the grave, why you you've been made a live like Paul saying this doesn't fit, it's feudal. It's darkens and you're separated from the life of God if you do so, because he says, will the Gentiles? They're separated from the life of God verse 18, due to the ignorance, that's in them. And ignorance describes a total stance of emotion and will and action. And it's not just a matter of getting more knowledge because he goes on to explain this kind of ignorance that he's talking about, is not lack of knowledge. Lack of learning. It's because of the hardness of the heart, verse 18, Paul doesn't speak of just a hard hard but a hardened Heart by this evening stubbornness opportunities resisted remember on the road to Damascus, when Paul's going to kill Christians and put them in prison and and Jesus stops him. Knocks him off of his donkey and says, why are you persecuting me? It makes a little statement to Paul. And he says, why are you kicking against the goads? And that's a picture from the farming Community, when they would use oxen to pull the plow so that the oxen who are very strong would not injure the farmer or not do their work. What they would do is they would put spikes goats behind the rear heels of The Oxen. So, when The Oxen was tempted to kick back against the farmer, all they would hit was the sharp goads and that it would cause them to keep moving forward. In Jesus's Paul. Why are you kicking against the goads? Why don't you bother me and repent and come to me that you would have life. This is what Paul is. Now saying he learned his lesson, he experienced this, he's speaking out of his own experience and he says, the ignorance is due to Hardness of Heart stubbornness opportunities. Resisted, deliberate choices, made against the life of ordained by God. The remarkable thing is he's talking to Christians, which means this kind of disease can enter the Christian Life as well. And he says, the consequences of a hardened heart of verse 19 becoming callous, giving ourselves up to sensuality greedy to practice every kind of impurity. This continual vicious circle of Desiring more and more. Every person who's not a Christian, is an Axe Murderer. That's not what he's saying here instead. He's making a statement that apart from connection to Christ, every person is self oriented rather than God oriented. That's what he's simply saying. What an incredibly profound thought though, that apart from Jesus, our orientation is to self. In all its various forms. Rather than to God. And this is why it's so important that we need to hear these kinds of of warnings by Paul puts it in scripture, why we have it before us today, considered just The Temptations that we have through social media and the internet Temptations to pornography to find pleasure outside of the context of marriage and sexual pleasure. The lust of the eyes gambling, which is crept, not just into formal gambling, but into all sorts of ways of, you know,

Hoping that we win certain things on the internet, right? Which are usually just scams to take your money, but people chasing after these things. Or perhaps just the time-wasters were bored. And so we use Entertainment in YouTube in social media. Doomscrolling just to fill the gap of our time. Trying to find joy and satisfaction in entertainment, rather than God See these things seem almost innocent. After all nobody gets hurt as it were or maybe nobody needs to know. It's just between me and my cell phone or we think we could just stop at any time. and yet, the reality is, Is Harden's our hearts and darkens, our minds and makes us less sensitive to and fulfilled by the satisfaction of a Godly life.

No, in creation everything that God has created. Should be considered good. We're not gnostics thinking that the physical is evil and only the spiritual is good. and Paul doesn't belabor this point, he basically just simply gives them a short and in a couple of sentences to say, remember how you used to live Remember that culture you were a part of don't be tempted to go back there. Don't walk that way. Don't live it as a pattern of Life, you'll never find joy and satisfaction. All you will find is sorrow and regret and destruction instead. He says versus 22-24 walk in Holiness. Just as you learned Christ, it is quite an Abrupt changes and if he says, you think he would go on and on about the culture in an about where they came out of, but in verse 20 says, but that's not the way you learned Christ. Such wisdom here by Paul to say yeah this is what the world does, you know what it is but that's not the way you learned Jesus. That's not what you got. When you got new life, that's not been your experience as a Christian. And he uses the imagery of a, of a school where Jesus is both the school, as well as the teacher, as well as the subject of instruction, and he says you learned Christ verse 20, and this isn't just head knowledge. This is relational knowledge. We don't just learn about Jesus, we learn him. What does that mean? Well, Peter O'Brien and his commentary says learning Christ. Means welcoming him as a living person and being shaped by his teaching I think that's helpful to us. The Bible isn't just you know arbitrary rules or a set of guidelines like we get with our, you know, appliance that we buy. And then we you know, maybe we follow the instruction manual or maybe we figure it out on her own. I know you met his room are probably thinking, I've never used an instruction manual in my life.

The Bible is not simply an instruction manual. It is words from God who made us as our creator as our father, in Heaven to us through his son, by the spirit so that we would have communion in relationship with him. That's what Paul. It said, in Chapter 2, Verse 18 that we draw near to the father, through the son, in the power of the spirit. You said you didn't just learn him, you heard him verse 21. Assuming that you heard about him and we're taught in him as the truth is in Jesus. And your translation might say, you heard about him the the idiom expression in Paul's getting at. Is this idea of surely you heard Jesus, when you heard the gospel, it's as if he was speaking to you, when you heard the gospel, you remember that Paul saying, you remember, when you heard the voice of Jesus in The Gospel and you came to him and the relationship you have with him, he's not just a historical figure, he's not just a religious concept. He's real he's alive and we have relationship with him. The one who created who loves us eternally and this truth? We heard surrounds us and Carries us into relationship with him. Pulsing when you heard Jesus, when you learned him, it's like noise cancelling headphones. It amplifies, the sound and excludes other noises. What we need is the Gospel of Jesus to be amplifying the music of our savior and excluding the static of the world's Temptations to us.

He says, you've been taught in him verse 21. The truth embodied in Jesus is the content of our instruction and eat Paul. Here has an emphasis on Truth, he had said back in verse 14, that we are no longer tossed to and fro by the waves, but rather verse 15 were speaking. The truth in love to one another. He's going to say in verse 24 that we've been created after the likeness of God in true, righteousness and holiness. He is the embodiment of of Truth and then there are three Clauses phrases here to put off the old self. First 22 to be renewed, verse 23, and to put on the new cell. First 24, these are not commands in our Bible. They're not in the imperative tense, in the Greek, they are what are called, infinitives, they are explaining what it means to be taught in Jesus. This is what we were getting at. At the beginning, there explaining what it means to become what we already are in Christ. Now functionally they have the force of being commands in that they explain to us what we're to do. in order to walk in Jesus, Paul saying to them first verse 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and its corrupt through deceit.

He says Ephesians when you came to Jesus, this is what you learned when he taught you is to put off your old self. This is what happened at your conversion. You put off your old self, you took off those old, smelly garments of your sin and you took it off. He says you already have the identity and power of a new creature in Christ is what he wrote to the Corinthians 2nd Corinthians 5:17 if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold the newest come, he told the Colossians 3:9 and 10 do not lie to one another. Seeing you put off the old self with its practices and if put on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator, We're learning to be what we are.

The old self is dead as I said before, it's like, in a casket in the ground. And if we choose to crawl into the casket and live, like we used to we can be corrupted by our past, but we're not controlled by that. Casket is what Paul is getting at? Yeah, it can influence you, it can affect you. You're never going back to what you were. You could be inspected by it as it were and and lose sight of who Jesus is and what he's done and wander away and sin.

But he actually means it to be an encouragement, that you can't be controlled by that casket in the ground because you learned Jesus, you learned the truth. That's in him that you put off the new self. Snow in Romans, we have this command to put sin to death in Romans chapter 8. Since called this, the doctrine of the mortification of the flesh because more Pico is the Latin phrase. For put to death, the Greek word to vote, doesn't matter what it is, it doesn't matter. It's not even the text and I'm not even going to do that, okay? This idea of putting two deaths in of putting off the old sale for putting on the new self putting on, as we're going to see the Lord Jesus Christ. It's really at the level of the mind. It begins, they're getting a little bit ahead of my notes for John Stott in his commentary, illustrates it with two volumes of a book. Our life story. If we're Christians, is it to volume biography? He says volume. One of the old man volume to as the new man, the old self the new self. These two volumes represent my life, but since I trusted Christ, as my personal savior, I'm living out of the second book. This is the story that's being written. Now, I can't go back and try to live out the story of the first book. The old self was connected to Adam and his dyed, it would be like an adult trying to live out his childhood or like a married man returning to his bachelorhood or like a discharge prisoner returning to his prison cell. The old self, the old man has been crucified with Christ. This is this is actually really encouraging. If you're hearing heavy burdens in this, you're not hearing it the right way. Because what Paul is saying, is, when you learned Jesus, you learned how to do this, when you came to Jesus and believe the gospel, you learned, how to put off the old self and put on the new self, it's by grace alone, grace alone, through through, by grace, through faith alone, in Christ alone. I was getting those prepositions mixed up in my head. Those prepositions are important.

So we put off the old self and we need to continue to put off the old self. We've been renewed in the spirit of our minds verse 23. The renewal is a process. It's interesting to put off and put on or in the past tense. The air is tense in the Greek. The action is a whole hear. This being renewed is in the present tense. It's this process of renewing, our minds. It's also in a passive voice in the Greek. Meaning God's the one who's affecting this change and work of Renewal, by the spirit. It's the same in Romans 12:2 be transformed by the renewing of your mind. This transformation is in our inner being Verse 23. The spirit of our minds it is done by the holy spirit, theologically this is Titus 3:5. We've been

We've received this washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. or is Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 3, we're being transformed from one degree of Glory to another And then he says, verse 24 to put on the new self created after the likeness of God he's going back to 2:10 where he said, we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works. Now he says you've been taught to put on the new self-created after The likeness of God in true righteousness and Holiness. So, what Polly saying to us is that we find our greatest joy. When we do what we're created to do, which is characterized by righteousness and holiness.

it's, it's incredibly profound. When we do, what we were created to do. We find our greatest joy and we are transformed and renewed by the spirit in the spirit of our minds to have the mind of Christ. To love the things that he loves to Delight in the things that he Delights in and, you know what happens? As a result, we put sin to death,

This idea of starving outs in cutting out, send by a superior affection, and desire for Jesus.

He's going to stay later on and 6:11 to put on the whole armor of God to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. Because we don't wrestle against flesh and blood but against the rulers and authorities. And when we look at this armor, we see that everything that we get in the armor is what we got. When we got Jesus, this, I know you've got a lot there. That was on purpose. Everything that we have in the armor of God, we have because we're a Christian and we've been United to Jesus. and so, when we Put off the old clothes and put on the new clothes as it were in the illustration as we put on the armor of God. In the illustration, that's going to be in chapter 6. What we're doing is what he commanded Us in Romans 13:14 to put on the Lord Jesus Christ as what he talked to the Galatians and 3:27 that when we were baptized into Christ, we put on Christ. So it's this idea that old Christian you already have Jesus. Don't be tempted to go back to that culture in that world that doesn't have Jesus and think you're going to find your joy and satisfaction in righteousness and Holiness their transformation there. It's not going to happen. No, you need to be renewed in the spirit of your mind as you look to Jesus and you become what you already are in him. Is that you you get renewed in him. Turn over the first Peter, won't close with this passage. Peter teaches the same idea in 1st Peter chapter 4.

Verse 325.

Actually, let's starting verse. One since there for Christ suffered In the Flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered In the Flesh has ceased from sin. So it's to live for the rest of the time in the flesh. No longer for human passions but for the will of God for the time that has passed if Isis for doing what the Gentiles want to do. Living in sensuality passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and Lawless idolatry with respect to this. They're surprised when you don't join Them in the same flood of debauchery and they malign you. But they will give an account to him was ready to judge the living and the dead for this is why the gospel is preached even to those who are dead that though, judged In the Flesh. The way people are, they might live in the spirit, the way God does the end of all things is at hand. Therefore, be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers above all. Keep loving, one another earnestly. Since love covers a multitude of sins. This is a very parallel passage in Peter's teaching in both Paul and Peter got this from the Lord Jesus that this idea that we are to become what we already are in Christ. And it's not only individually but corporate as well our immediate thought is that we need to apply this individually to ourselves and and there is an individual application to to put off the old clothing and put on the new clothing and I'll give you a little bit of council and tips about how to do this in the Christian life. But Paul speaking to the church at Ephesus Peter is riding to the church is scattered abroad in Asia Minor. We all have been taken out of this Pagan culture and placed into Christian Community to have one unity in Jesus. In this identity is real because it's rooted in a relationship with God in Christ, by the spirit. And so, we all as the church become an example that were different than the culture. Not in a arrogant way, not in a way that we're better than you. But in a life-giving way, in a way that says we have found wife and we want to share where to get life. And that world system that culture is dead and it has nothing for you. It has dry Wells that you will never be able to pump the water out of, but we have The Well of eternal life that will never run dry. And so come to Jesus

So how do we do this? Paul doesn't give us the instructions about how to do this in a Fusions for. He just says hey don't live like the Gentiles is the only command in the whole passage and then he says cuz that's not how you learned Jesus and you were taught to put often to be renewed into put on. Well I think we can read between the lines and save the change in our Behavior. First begins with a change in our thinking, That what Paul is getting at is the same thing we heard in Romans 6, is it was red verse 11, you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. I would consider is reckon

To accounted to be true. This is what I know to be true. I have to repeat this to myself and reminded maybe I got to write it on my refrigerator and stick it there. I got to put it on my mirror as I wake up in the morning and get ready for work, that I am dead to sin and alive to God in Christ. Tonight belongs to Jesus, I put off the old self and I put on the new self and I need to be renewed today in the spirit of My Mind through the scripture and through who I am in Jesus, see one of Satan's schemes, is to get us to forget who we are in Jesus and what that means for our lives, what we need to do then is remember who Jesus is, and what he's done and who we are in him, and that we are part of the family, and we're part of the church, and we're part of what God is doing, the sum of all things in Jesus. And when we do that, when we take hold of this, battleground of the mind and we remember what's true, you know, that forces us to do, Lord, Jesus. I'm yours do with me whatever you want. And whatever he wants is a life of righteousness and Holiness In this passage of service to him. He had said, I'm in 1st Peter, not Ephesians 1st Peter, verse 24. I mean seasons for 24 created after the likeness of God in true, righteousness and Holiness, we desire to be like God, he is righteous and holy and because we're in Jesus, we are now considered righteous and holy and the spirit of God is at work to make us righteous and holy and all of it for the purpose to be exhibit, a of what God is doing this sum up everything in Jesus. And so here, in Benicia here in our community, here in our work, places in, in our family, Remembering who we are in Jesus and remembering that we put aside that old life. And we've now been brought to newness of life in Jesus. This is like all of us preaching in proclaiming the gospel by our lives. And the world is changed as a result is great. Hope, let's pray, father, thank you for this time in this passage and courage your children. Father, if they are. Crawling back into that casket and wanting to live out of who they were before. They knew Jesus living, a life of sin life of rebellion and Disobedience. Father. May your spirit open their ears to hear the words of this passage. That kind of life is feudal. It's dark and it will lead to callusing of the heart and only a desire for more and more sin. It's a dead-end with no peace and no joy in NoHo but it's not the way we learned Jesus. It's not the way we learned Our Savior, we learned him by grace through faith. We learned that we were made alive in him, that we have new life, that the spirit of God is put into us and we were taught in him. The because we're in Jesus we we now live a different way. We were taught to put off the old life into put on the new life. The law was written in our hearts and so we have a desire to obey its

To live lives that Marcos out as difference and the old. As Peter says we may be slandered in Moline for it, it brings you glory. It's a part of what you're doing to make All Things New in the world then. So I pray for my brothers and sisters that they would not lose, hope they would not grow weary in well-doing. That they would kill the sin in their lives with a superior affection for Jesus that they would desire him more than the things of the world. The last of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the boastful pride of life there in the world. They're passing away. They have no Eternal value. But Satan is a liar.

Our hearts deceive us. This world temps us and tries to get it to us to live a certain way apart from you, to be self oriented rather than oriented a life towards you. Father, would you give us Grace open our eyes to see? Give our hearts understanding cause our minds to remember what is true, what we have in Jesus and do this so that Trinity Church would be a witness. Would be on Mission that we would see lives changed. That the grace of God would be evidence in abundance in our lives in the unity, we have in the love. We have for one another is weak, walk in wisdom in this world. I pray all of this in Jesus name. Amen.