How Can I Change? Put Off Sin and Put On Godliness

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The message of Christianity is that salvation is found in Christ alone, and any who reject Christ therefore forfeit any hope of salvation, any hope of heaven.

The issue is that humanity is in sin, and the wrath of Almighty God is hanging over our heads.

They will hear His words, they will not act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath come, they will be consumed and they will perish. God wrapped Himself in flesh, condescended and became a man, died on the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day, has ascended to the right hand of the Father, where He sits now to make intercession for us.

Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear His words, they will act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment come in that final day, their house will stand.

Welcome to Bible Bashed, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask. Listen and enjoy this latest episode as Pastor Tim answers your sincere questions.

Here's Pastor Tim.

In this episode of Bible Bashed, we'll be continuing our discussion, How Can I Change?, and the specific principle of sanctification that we're going to be dealing with and interacting today is the put-on, put-off dynamic in Scripture.

So we're going to talk about putting off sin and putting on godliness. Now, for most people when they think about sanctification in general, it's very natural and easy to think about the idea of putting off certain destructive behaviors.

So mostly what we do when we think about sanctification, if we're thinking about it in a biblical way, and this assumes that we have taken personal responsibility for whatever the vice is, for most of us, if we can get to that point where we take personal responsibility, mostly what we fixate on is what's described as sins of omission.

So if you were to think about trying to be more holy or more Christ-like, mostly what would come to mind is certain vices that you may or may not participate in. Now, the new Calvinist movement is significantly characterized by drunkenness as far as that's concerned.

And so for many young Calvinists, it seems like to be drunk is to have a badge of honor. Now, if you reject the psychological victim labels and don't view that person as suffering from alcoholism, but you view them as a drunk at that point, assuming that there is a person who is mastered by alcohol at that point, that would be good.

But then if you think about pursuing sanctification, I need to quit being a drunk. Well, step one, you've taken personal responsibility. That's wonderful. That's good. But sanctification is more than just putting off bad behaviors.

Just think about sanctification as most people think about it. It mostly involves putting off bad behaviors. So stop drinking. Stop being a drunk. Stop being a drunk. Stop looking at porn. I need to stop looking at porn.

And those would be great if you could take responsibility for those things and turn from those things. But just think about the negatives. Stop looking at porn. Stop being a drunk. I need to stop eating so much.

Quit being a glutton if you're allowed to even go there in your mind. I need to stop being a glutton. I need to stop missing church so much. I need to stop yelling at my wife. I need to stop yelling at my kids.

So as you're thinking about sanctification, mostly it's these sins of commission that you might need to stop doing. So for most people, what I'm trying to say is sanctification involves this list of behaviors they need to stop participating in.

But then if you move on from that, you maybe get a little bit more sophisticated, and you realize there's actually sins of omission in the Bible too, and not just sins of commission. It might be that you have a certain list of behaviors you need to put on, like I need to learn to be more disciplined.

I need to learn to be more self-controlled. I need to learn to be more respectful to my husband. I need to learn to be more loving to my wife and loving to my kids and loving to my church. I need to learn to give more in my church.

I haven't been giving as faithfully or going to church as faithfully. So if you are taking personal responsibility for things, you are thinking about specific changes that you need to make. Most of them are behaviors that most people think.

So we mostly lean on these behaviors. There are the bad behaviors we need to stop doing and the good things that we need to start doing. But mostly, I would say, it's probably the bad behaviors that we need to stop doing that we're fixated on.

Now, as you think about what the Bible says at this point, there's an interesting passage in Ephesians 4 .17 that talks about some of these things and gives us a little bit more insight into how biblical change is supposed to actually work.

As I said in a previous episode about understanding who we are in Christ, you don't go to Ephesians 4 before you get to Ephesians 1 -3. You don't get to the ethics before you understand who you actually are in Christ.

But in Ephesians 4 .17, what you have is you have a little bit of overlap. This is a passage which is connecting who we are in Christ with now how we're supposed to behave. Ephesians 4 .17 says, Now this I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds.

Why? Because you're a new creature in Christ. You have a new identity now. It says, They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because the ignorance is in them due to their hardness of heart.

They become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But then he says, But this is not the way you learned in Christ. Assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus, what you were taught is to put off your old self, verse 22, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds and to put on your new self, created in the likeness of God, in true righteousness and holiness.

The Bible talks about this put off, put on dynamic. This is a very important dynamic as it relates to pursuing sanctification in general. One of the things that this tells us is that with every area of sin in your life, there's a put off and there's a corresponding put on that you need to figure out how both of these things work and how they connect.

Notice some examples that are given at this point. So verse 25, Ephesians 4, 25. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.

So most people, they get fixated on the put off. Like, I need to stop lying. But the issue is, it's like, you're not just trying to stop lying. You need to be a truth teller. And you need to be a truth teller because of who you are in Christ.

So, you know, Satan is the father of lies. You know, Jesus Christ describes himself as the way, the truth, and the life. So Jesus is the truth. Satan is the father of lies. And he speaks of his own character.

And those who, you know, are children of Satan are going to be dominated by lies because they're going to be dominated by the desires of their father at that point. But notice, like, there's the connection.

So you need to stop. You need to put away the falsehood and speak truth. Okay? So notice, the Bible says, Let the thief, verse 28, no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.

Further, notice what it says. So notice the put off. No longer steal, but rather go get a job, work with your hands so that you can be generous. 29, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth. So don't have corrupting talk.

Always such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. So notice, no corrupting talk, but only talk that's going to build up. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit, whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

It says, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor be put away from you, along with all malice. But then, the put on is be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.

So notice, there's a vice list that's followed by a virtue list. So at every single point, you're going to have a put off and a put on dynamic. Now why that's important is because, if you're an individual who loves the truth, so let's talk about lying.

So there's a lot of people who get fixated on lying, like I don't need to lie anymore, I need to quit lying. Man, I just hate the fact that I just lie, I lie, I lie. How do you learn how to change? Well, it's not just by trying to stop lying so much.

The way you learn how to change is by cultivating a heart that loves the truth and resonates with the truth and wants to spread and communicate the truth. The more that you actually love the truth, the more that you're going to hate the lie, the more that you're characterized by truth telling, you're not going to struggle with lying anymore.

The same thing is true by stealing. So the Bible says, let the thief no longer steal. So you need to reject the psychological label at that point that describes you as a kleptomaniac. You're not suffering from kleptomania.

You don't have to fear for the rest of your life every time you walk into a shopping mall that you're just going to grab things and put in your pocket because that's who you are, that's your identity, that's who you are at the core.

No, let the thief no longer steal, but what do you do? So you're not just fixating on stop stealing. What you do, you work with your hands so that you may have something to share with anyone in need. What you do is you learn to be generous.

So the thing is, if you cultivate a generous heart, if you fixate on the put-on at that point, you're cultivating a generous heart. What's going to happen is you need to first go get a job because you're not going to have—if you're stealing, the thing is, if you spend your time doing something profitable, working, you're going to have money.

And if you learn to give that money away, what you're doing is you're cultivating a generous heart. And the more that you learn to love to give, like the thought of stealing, you never want to steal from anyone again because you've cultivated generosity in your heart.

What you've learned is it's more blessed to give than it is to receive. And once you've learned that lesson by cultivating a generous heart, by looking for opportunities to be generous and to part with your money and to bless other people, one of the things you're going to find is you'll never struggle with stealing again.

So the issue is you're not just fixating on the things you need to stop doing. You're trying to interact with the corresponding put-on at that point. The same thing. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be thrown away from you along with all malice.

If you're a person who has a temper problem, you don't have some intermittent explosive disorder. You're not suffering from bipolar. What you have is you have a temper problem. And if you take responsibility for it, you say, I have a temper problem.

I need to quit getting mad all the time. Step one, you took personal responsibility. You say you need to quit getting mad all the time. That's wonderful. But you know what you really need to do? You don't need to fixate on trying to stop getting mad all the time.

What you need to fixate on is being kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God and Christ has forgiven you. The issue is if you can— angry people, they're not kind. And if you can learn to be kind to people who are despitefully using you, like if your enemy hungers, feed him.

If he thirsts, give him drink. And so doing, you'll reap colds of fire upon your head. If you learn to kill people with kindness, if you learn to show people unmerited favor and compassion, if you learn how to love people and actually be kind to them when they're despitefully using you and mistreating you.

I can reject the lies of the world that basically says that if you're emotionally abused, you have some moral responsibility to flee. No, here's the thing. If someone is being hateful to you and rude to you, the Bible tells you to learn to be kind to them, be tenderhearted, forgiving one another.

The thing is, if you can learn to be kind, if you can be kind to difficult people, if you learn to be kind to people who are sinning against you, you're not going to struggle with anger and bitterness and wrath and clamor and slander.

The issue is you need to focus on the put on. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted to one another as God and Christ forgive you. And the key to all of this is it's not just do the opposite behavior. You have to understand how the behavior that you need to put on connects with how Jesus actually was.

You're thinking through all this vice list that we're talking through. We're to put off the old self which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires. Think about how Jesus connects to all of it.

You need to quit lying and you need to speak the truth. Why? Because Jesus was the way, the truth, and the life. He's come to fundamentally transform us to be out of the kingdom of darkness and lies into the kingdom of light.

So you're thinking about the example of Christ and what he's done for you on the cross. That's motivating you to put on new character traits, new desires, new habits, new emotions even. So you're asking how does Christ connect to all of it.

So no longer am I going to be a liar like my father the devil was. I'm going to be characterized by the truth like my father God is and his son Christ is. So you're not going to let any corrupting talk come out of your mouth.

Don't be such as good for edification and building up. You're no longer going to steal from other people. Jesus didn't come to steal. Jesus came to give his life as a ransom for many. If Jesus can come and do for me what I didn't deserve, then you know what, when people are mistreating me, when people are abusing me, I can learn to love them.

I can be kind to them. I can respond in kindness to them, not just anger because I didn't get what I wanted when I wanted it. The same thing is true as it relates to just any of these things that we're talking about.

There's a put off and a put on dynamic. So instead of just fixating on all the bad behavior you need to stop doing, you need to ask, what is the corresponding good behavior that I need to put on at this point?

How does Jesus relate to that? How does my identity in Christ filter into that kind of thing? And for many people, sadly, they just focus on the negatives, just stop doing this, stop doing that, enjoying little to no success.

But if they think about how the put off relates to put on and how that relates to Jesus, they'd have a lot more success.

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