Colossians 3:9-10 - Putting On the New Man, Pt. 2

Good morning everybody. How are you? Good, good.

Charlotte reminded me we left out one prayer request. Miss Judy is on a long trek again.

Remember a while back, I don't know, maybe three or four weeks, she'll be driving through the country which she loves to do.

She said it's not gonna be quite as many places as last time but some of the same places and kinfolks and so forth.

So pray for her safety each day and we'll let you know when she's back.

All right, we miss her. All right, all right. Good services today.

Great Sunday school classes and good to see you here. Appreciate Brother Ron helping with John and the family there and great to have

Sharon and Raymond with us. They are going through tribulation. The Lord says the only way we get to heaven is through tribulation, all of us, but y 'all are having a special amount right now but you're here and that's awesome and everybody's praying for you.

Lord has answered every prayer you've ever asked in the past. No reason to think he's going to stop now.

So good to see each of you. Let's, let me pray. We'll get right into the book of Colossians.

Lord, thank you for this day and we ask you to be with us as we do this special thing of assembly where we can be together with each other and with you and thank you for ordaining that so that we have the togetherness which is so important especially as we see the day approaching and so we ask you to bless the preaching of the word for Jesus' sake.

Amen. Colossians chapter 3 and I think we were on about verse 10 so let's just pick it up right there where we left off last time and good to have our online folks with us today.

Glad to have you guys with us as always. Had a good group I noticed back there so that's fantastic but we we had worked our way down to about verse 10.

You know I think I forgot my glasses. I've never done that before. Tyler would you look up there and a little you know a little black thing that holds my folded glasses just bring that to me

I might need them. Most likely will. See if he sees it up there.

Should be with my keys to the right right up there at the top. Yep that's it pretty much.

So look at verse 10 there in Colossians chapter 3 it says and have put on the new man.

Do you guys see that the word man is in italics? That means it's not in the

Greek it just says put on the new but it's interesting if you look right a verse above it lie not one to another saying that you've put off the old man with his deeds.

The word man is not in italics is it in that one so it's actually in the Greek and it means man.

Good translation. So really just grammatically that's sort of a it just reads well to say put off the old man with his deeds and put on the new and it's implied that it still means man but the truth is what

I want you to think about today I think I'll make this a little easier because it's very difficult passage to me if you really think it through on what's going on what

God is telling us to do. Sunday school lesson today was interesting because it had a lot of that same interaction between positional truth and experiential truth like the things that are true from God's viewpoint which means they're true like you're saved by grace period you're just flat saved

God already sees you as glorified that kind of stuff is called positional because the father sees that from an out -of -time position point of view but it is our true position we stand in that position and it's real and it's true but at the same time connected with the same verse you're gonna find experiential things like so therefore live this way right live this way that's what we're supposed to do and we're responsible for that but we're never responsible to try to do it in the flesh on our own we're always supposed to do it hand in hand with Christ or else it's wood hay and stubble it doesn't even count right so but those things are interesting to think about because for us you know we wonder how do you divide them or should you divide them or are they one thing two aspects of one thing and this is very interesting when you start talking about the old man and the new man because like we're we're a person in fact let's look at this verse to sort of start off this morning turn with me to we're gonna be in Colossians here in a minute but turn to 1st

Thessalonians 5 23 take a look at this and the very

God of peace sanctify you wholly and I pray God that your whole spirit soul and body be preserved blameless into the coming of our

Lord Jesus Christ faithful is he that calls you who also will do it now you know there's the there's the

God viewpoint okay your your whole spirit soul and body will be preserved blameless until Jesus comes back and God will do that which means that's position

I mean I won't say it's positional but it's a fact it's it is ordained it is predestined so it is going to happen your entire soul spirit and body will this body that you're living in will be preserved until Jesus comes back or when he comes back if we die first but every single atom in your body will be gathered by the

Lord nothing in in this university created is gone it just changes forms right but it's still the atoms are there he puts it right back together it will be you we will recognize each other but we'll be in a glorified body it's as different as the moon is to the glory of the

Sun the moon being your current body the Sun being the new body it's it's the same but it's different in the fact that it's so much more glorious I I was watching

Winston out here he had a yellow cape his raincoat but to him it was a cape and he told his

Grammy as he ran down the hall I'm a bat so the cape were his wings and so he was in his glorified body he could already fly and so it'll be you know it'll be like that in some manner of speaking but so we have this

God's viewpoint and man's viewpoint going on here with what we're talking about them thing I wanted to show you here though is it mentions that you exist as a spirit soul and body so you're you have three parts but you're one whole so is it a whole or is it three parts well it's both can you study the three parts individually yeah but like Ben was talking about in Sunday school if you just all you do is focus on that you'll get it wrong because you also need to look at the oneness of like we're one person right well

God's the same way you can study that Jesus and the

Holy Spirit and the Father are three distinct persons but if all you ever do is study that you won't be healthy he exists as three distinct persons but he's one

God and we're one person but we have these three parts or components now what's interesting about it let me ask you this out of these three you got spirit soul and body which one is your brain which one of those three is it it's part of the body it's just one part of the whole body right it's a very important part because wouldn't you say that that part of your body controls your whole body okay and so the more you train it like can it learn to ride a bicycle eventually isn't that an interesting thing as a parent that time in life where you teach your children to ride a bicycle it's not

I think it's harder for the parent than it is the child what do y 'all think I mean the child will get it but the parent thinks they'll never get it and the parent feels like it is my responsibility to make them do this and it's never gonna happen and then all of a sudden they say let go daddy and there they go right so you can train the brain to do more and more marvelous things could you train this this is not a trick question it may sound like one but could train the brain to do good things from man's viewpoint

I'll make it easy yes you you do teach your children in the home to be good not bad right now are you teaching the new nature that or the old nature that you see how this gets muddy trying to understand it are you training the old man of your child or the new man are you training their brain or I was asked

Ben this after last Sunday I asked him after the sermon I said do you think this time at the brain or the mind so what's the difference there is a difference so these these questions are sort of interesting to me and I'm preaching through it because we came to it in the book we're studying but also

I got to figure it out because I'm starting a new book on this topic so I have to learn what the books about but we keep learning new things about everything in the

Bible so I may when I get to be 90 I'll think why did I start why did I start writing at such a young age it's a joke sort of okay so we have these three parts and you guys are telling me that the brain is part of the body and that it is controls the body so if you train the brain the body can do good things if you now let me ask you this if you don't do any training do you think the brain could cause the body to do some bad things automatically without even teaching it yeah because of what what's the doctrine that tells us why that's true gravity of man sin how sin came into the world and all that and we have a sin nature now here's one thing that I think will help as we talk about the new man and the old man maybe substitute the word nature for man the new nature and the old nature do you think that would be acceptable

I mean I know the Greek says man but couldn't couldn't Paul be using that as sort of an allegory to talk about the nature the two natures that you you a one person you're like one person but you have two natures so I think it will help you to think that way because I don't haven't always thought that way

I tend to think of it as literally a new created man which you know we have that one great verse that says we're a new creation right old things are passed away all things are become new as if it's already happened but that's a positional verse there's a lots of verses that act like it hasn't totally happened the old man is still there and even names back this passage it names all the stuff he'll do but is it a he is it a he or is it you it but it's part of the nature that you have and I know

I know that positionally he's already crucified too isn't he from God's viewpoint he but is he really dead is that old man really dead or do you count him as dead well there's places where the

Bible says he is dead but whose viewpoint is that that's the father's okay from your viewpoint is he dead or did he bother you this week no one should raise in their hand

I don't want you to because then I'll have to raise mine that but so you have two natures and they're both very much alive in an experiential world that we live in in space and time but God sees us as having been saved and as already saved and already even glorified and of course at that time the old man will be gone he will drop off on the way up if we get raptured and if we pass away before the rapture he that's who died the old man died and the new man is risen immediately instantly to be with the

Lord the Bible says so I think it's kind of fascinating topic that we live as two and was it an old

Indian that said which one's the biggest is the dog like you got a white dog and a black dog which one's the meanest the one you feed the most you've heard that it must be true because I've heard what is it something old preacher cool cool old preachers is that what it was

I've heard cool old preachers say it so it's got to be true and anyway it's kind of like that so alright so now we know that we have these three parts well in verse 10 well verse 9 it gives a list of things the old man will do now let's think of it as an old nature the nature that you had when you were born it says put off anger wrath malice blasphemy filthy talking cursing and stuff with your mouth lie not one to another stop lying don't tell lies to each other put off the old man with his deeds put off the old nature now you couldn't put him off if he wasn't still there right in space and time so Paul both says that he's crucified and that he's still there how do you figure that out it's positional versus experiential it's

God's viewpoint versus our viewpoint in space and time so he is still there from our viewpoint and how do we deal with him well the first thing it says you know put off these things stop lying to each other all these things put off the old man and the stuff that he does okay so now look at the next verse and put on the new which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that's created so now let me ask you this question but I want us to understand as I ask it one of the things about Bible study and interpretation that's really important is you you can never take an isolated verse

I don't care who you are and how much how well you know the Bible you just can't do it because if you do you likely might get it wrong even if you got the grammar right and the word definitions right and everything about that little passage right you still have to hold it up against the whole of the

Bible to truly know what it means and I ran into this in this study where I could have gotten it pretty wrong if I hadn't put all the verses together and I'm gonna do that for you today and if there aren't many so don't worry 42

I think but it's a good number not really just a few but if you put them all together it starts to add up but put on the new nature put on the new man which is renewed in the knowledge after the image of him that created him so let me ask you this what part of you is it that is renewed at least in this verse okay what part of you is it that's renewed in knowledge after the image of Christ in the sentence who is it that's renewed who the new man or the old man the new man well okay so when your child is little bitty and you know

I want to be careful how I speak because we have little ones in the room so let's just say when they're just born and there they are and you're raising them and you're teaching them good things to do and not to do bad things are you are you instructing the old man or the new there okay let's assume they're not yet little bitty ones little bitties okay all these of the old man okay can you can you heal the old man where it'll totally learn that new stuff and not do any bad you can't

Kenya so why do we do it so they won't hurt us when they get bigger is the answer okay yeah to teach self -control now can they be saved by self -control later no but it is very good for in the home to have children where they are pleasant to other people who visit right that's a great thing to use to understand if you're rearing the children well are they do other people enjoy being around them are they pleasant and that's training and it's never perfect is it

I mean the ones that you may enjoy the best when they get home today might get us banking right and but that's part of it and so that's dealing with the old man but is that what verse 10 is talking about here because I don't think it is because I think here this is

Paul literally speaking to born -again people right this is born -again people we're talking about here and it says to put on the new nature he describes that as a new person which it is like that if you want to think of it that way and that one now let me give you a little help with the

Greek here when it says which is renewed it's present passive participle with which in English is like adding an ing right which is being renewed the new man is being renewed and knowledge to be more and more like Jesus what is the greatest tool for that the

Bible the Bible is the greatest tool and now that let's just take this for adults in the room who are born again the greatest tool for you to renew the new man for the new man to be being renewed is the

Bible but it's not the only thing because this is passive which means someone bigger and stronger than you is doing this to you so it goes beyond the

Bible it goes to the author of the Bible as well that relationship you have with Jesus with the

Holy Spirit with the Father and whose word this is works together to renew you now

I think this is interesting let's look at this word renew for a minute on a car he no oh on a car he no oh or on a car he no ho sounds more like Indian doesn't it then

Greek when I say it because it's Texan for Greek but this word literally means to renovate something think about that that's kind of interesting you were told that you are being renovated what part of you though okay so the new man according to this verse anyway it looks like it means the new man is being renovated now let's look at Webster you know

Webster was a Christian Webster's dictionary says renovate means to restore to a former better state as by cleaning

I like that then the Bible say that the Word of God washes us you know and cleanse cleanses us by repairing or by rebuilding second definition and this is fascinating to me because this is not a secular definition but it's in the dictionary because mr.

Webster was born again it says to restore to life vigor or activity in other words to restore the person where he is alive and properly active before the

Lord that's a cool diction that's a cool definition so I think that's the meaning even in the

Greek here of what's happening so here when you got born again your old man might have been a certain number of years old

I was 24 years old when that happened when my new man was created by Jesus it's a birth it's just as this why

I don't mind calling it new man old man it is actually a new creation that God did a miracle in your life where now you have to though old nature new nature but the new one was just born he's a baby and the old man has been if you want to think of it as a black dog and a white dog the old the black dogs been fed your whole life now when you get saved later in life like I did like Colin did

I'll use use an example because it was 2024 right towards the end you know we lived a good amount of time on this earth as adults as just an old man and then all of a sudden the new man is born and he's a babe so how can you catch up you have to feed that one more than you feed the other one so you've got a you've got a really focus on stopping whatever the bad input was the world the flesh of the devil input comes in from all three of those stopping that the best you can and putting this in fast and a lot of it

I don't mean read it fast contemplate it a lot often throughout the week and feeds the new man and when that happens of course the

Holy Spirit is working to sanctify you as you are reading the

Word of God and now all the sudden you're being renewed being it's ongoing present passive participle by someone greater than you

God is doing this to you you're being renewed in knowledge you're being renovated in knowledge after the image of him that created your new man well he created your old man too didn't he but it's fallen but now he's created the new man and Paul makes it clear that's the real you now that is you the old man from Paul's viewpoint should be counted as crucified as dead and the real you is the new so you need to focus on the new man the new nature and let him grow in knowledge why because he's behind he is behind the old man is way ahead in the world's knowledge and the new man's got to get ahead because the new man needs to be what controls our whole body soul and spirit or at least our body and soul okay so the very definition of the word is is sort of interesting so we have put on the new man which is renewed in the knowledge after the image of him that created him remember

I said last time that this is a verbal adjective you could look at put on the new man as a verbal adjective but if you look at the

Greek it's going to call it a verb but if you look at renewed that is an adjective that tells what kind of new man it is what kind of man this is this new man is a renewed man it's a verbal adjective and really the whole thing could be looking in English anyway the whole thing could be a verbal adjective if you changed a couple of words in the front of the sentence because it's the kind of person you are and when we look at it and we see that it's in the passive that this putting on the new man is in the passive it means

God is making you be that person so another way I want us to look at this is through like three three ways okay number one who we are and I'm talking about the new man it is who we are number two how do we think because if you've got to renew it it's got to start to think differently the new man can monitor the old man your new man can hear your old man thinking

I'm going to drive you nuts because if you start trying to do that while I'm preaching you're not going to hear anything else because the old man will take over no but your new man can monitor what the old man is thinking it does it should all the time that's part of the training of a

Christian is to monitor all the time it's tiring but it's important you monitor so the new man can hear the old man thinking how does it get good at knowing that the old man's thoughts are bad how does the new man recognize the compares it to God the person of God which is shown to us in the scripture

Ben's been teaching on that a lot you throw that in a lot I've noticed on unlike like when you read the word it's more than just academic it's more than just words it is the very nature of God you are knowing

God when you study this Bible you're becoming a person who knows God and the new man knows

God better and better that's why this is an ongoing process of renewing the mind and it's not just you

I've had times in my life where I read the Bible because I thought I was supposed to as a new

Christian it got really dry and I got nothing from it I probably did but I mean like I didn't emotionally feel good about it and when that happens if it does and to me that was a new baby

Christian thing because I haven't had that happen since then but I mean I just love the word so it just doesn't happen but it did my first year of Christianity because imagine that old man was 24 years old right and the new man was a few weeks old and so I would people would tell me you need to be studying the

Bible every day well okay it just wasn't working for me okay so what do you do when that happens well you need to pray about that and say

Lord when I read the Bible I want you to be there with me teach me something new out of whatever

I read today teach me something I didn't know teach me something that will fill me with either joy or awe you know about you our knowledge of you and then all of a sudden it becomes something you look forward to and so we have this renewing going on now let me get you to look at some of these verses about this process but let me show you one thing

I want to jump ahead and we'll cover this later before I go to that let's look at the passage we're in Colossians chapter 3 verse 10

I just want to jump ahead a little bit and show you something interesting okay look at verse 10 again and have put on the new man which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him and after knowing

Christ the more you know Christ which we learn by seeing him in the scriptures and talking with him in prayer walking with him it renews the new man so have put on the new man you see that in verse 10 have put on the new man okay now look down at verse 12 which we won't get to today but just look at it put on therefore so don't you think the word therefore is referring back up to the first two or three verses above it right so now put on the new man and you skip right to verse 12 put on therefore as the elect of God Holy and Beloved here's here's the things bowels of mercy now bowels to them is what we would say heart a heart that has mercy towards people a heart of mercy towards other people a heart of kindness towards other people humbleness of mind put the other higher than yourself meekness long -suffering which is patience for bearing one another do you know what that means in the

Greek it means putting up with somebody why does it tell why does the

Holy Spirit tell us as Christians to put up with each other because the old man is still alive right right yeah

I mean you're not gonna have a problem with someone's new man but the old man shows up even at church

I mean it everywhere in the car coming to church going home Charlotte was terrible on the way to church today you do you see

I'm going a little slower today and I'm having a little trouble getting into it was just terrible well it was her birthday

I told just let the old lady go have fun for a day for bearing one another put up with one another how do you remember that because you have to live with me forgiving one another if any man have a quarrel against any even as Christ forgave you so also do you now don't you find it interesting at first he just kind of looks at the forest but not the trees he just says put on the new man and then two verses later he starts telling you what that means what does it mean to put on the new man you put you put the character of Christ on that new man you train him you train the new man but the cool thing about the new man is he wants to do these things the new man when he does the opposite hates himself instantly

I well it's really your new man hating your old man that's what that is isn't it weird it's a schizophrenic life it's so strange your new man hates it when the old man shows up and you open your mouth and it's too late and you figured it out after the fact it's terrible and or an action or whatever or even thoughts you know thought your new man sees you think your old man think a thought you go that is that is not me that's not the

Lord Lord give me the mind of Christ you know and you just keep doing that you know throughout the days well here where it says put on and it names these things it's aorist middle imperative which imperative means it's

God telling you do this he's telling you to do this middle means you do it to yourself so this is all about responsibility now this is not positional this is not the

Holy Spirit doing this to you it's you doing something with him does that make a difference you see the difference it's still not you doing it by yourself because you're not

Catholic they're not all I guess some numbers say but most of them are just doing it in the flesh like a

Jew like your Jews you talked about in Sunday School the Pharisees doesn't work but it is your responsibility to renew to renovate this new man because it's not really you can't renovate the old man he is crucified he's just put away but you can you can renovate yourself so you see now here think of yourself as one whole person you can renovate yourself because your new man is the part of you that can renovate your brain and how it think isn't it just a marvelous computer it's been programmed by the world of flesh and the devil and some of the

Lord because your mama told you Bible verses probably hopefully if you grew up in a Christian home you heard some you heard some on the radio if you didn't ever went to church you might even gone to church a few times as a lost person so some of that's in there but most of your brain needs total renovation and somehow the

Holy Spirit and our spirit use the brain to communicate the new man to the world and to be the witness for the

Lord and to act and live and do good works as the Sunday School lesson talked about at the very end of it anyway it'll be next time probably in your

Sunday School lesson next time you know do good works

Paul said so this is all part of this renovation so now let's look at a few of the verses that talk about this renewing of the mind and see if we can grasp what that what just that means

Romans 12 1 is the most famous 12 1 and 2 I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your body now

I ask you something when when in the context when we're talking about the body is that your brain like is let me say this way is that your spirit soul or body it's your body so what part of your body is it it's all of it but the part about presenting it as a sacrifice is all of it but what part of it is it that can present it don't you agree the brain has to decide to present it if your brain does not decide to present it as a sacrifice to the

Lord your brain can just as easily present it as a laughingstock of the devil if you choose to sin which is what you become when you send a laughingstock to the demons watching you in a lab here look at this

Christian right the accuser of the brethren so your brain can decide which you do at any given moment kind of frightening but isn't it nice to know that the

Lord has created birthed within your body a new nature a new you and if he decides you won't sin if he decides on it he's gonna always decide not to sin so look at this we're commanded this is an imperative present your body as a living sacrifice why does it call it a sacrifice because to the old man anything godly you do is a sacrifice because you're giving up all the worldly lusts right all the covetousness everything you want to go do all the selfishness everything about me you're you have to sacrifice to put that aside but you're told to do that why would you be told to do that if you're just a new man if the old man is not still there do you have to make a choice we make the choice every moment of every day until we see the

Lord in person face -to -face so Paul as a man as our

Apostle beseeches us but God as our God commands us to present our bodies to him as a living sacrifice holy wow did

I ever see a good definition for that Charlotte read it to me this morning out of her Bible where she had written down dr.

Rocky Freeman's definition of holy man I didn't have time I couldn't get it because we were in the car but I'll type it up and give it to you next

Sunday the Lord willing it ties in with this whole message and with his Sunday school lesson is the most phenomenal thing

I've ever heard and we've read you know scholars talking about what holy means and you know it's good it's good stuff but Rockies was like way up here way in the heavenlies the way he worded it oh my goodness he was something else he wouldn't want us to be talking about him though would he but anyway maybe he would but God commands us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice holy which means separated unto

God and away from the world acceptable unto God which means covered by the blood and having confessed sin which is our reasonable service we don't even get a reward for that that's just what we're supposed to do we've been saved that's what we're supposed to do it's reasonable to do it it's not like we get special credit for living this way but yet we're commanded to do it now look at verse 2 and be not conformed to this world what is that who is what part of you is conformed to this world and you can never change that see this this is very right

David the old man and you will never change that he will always be conformed she will look at Sharon right

I said that she will always be conformed to this world the old man so you what we're doing is building up the new man stronger when it says renew the new man that's what that is that part of your mind which is now reborn after the

Lord and by the Lord and is being fed by the Lord by the Holy Spirit by Jesus by the

Father by the Word of God by your relationship through prayer all of that feeds that new man so stop being conformed to the world stop putting the old bad input into the brain because you're just feeding the wrong man the wrong nature is being fed and it will hurt you and it will slow you down it might even stop you for a while because you can't be making progress in doing this at the same time so stop feeding the old man but look at this but still still an imperative we're commanded to do this stop feeding the old man you can think of things that feed the old man all right stop doing that but be transformed by the renewing of your mind now in verse 1 we're talking about your body being offered is a sacrifice which includes your brain but your mind is more than your brain how can that be because it's in your brain how can it be more than your brain because you also have a soul in your brain or a spirit however you want to think of it and you have the

Holy Spirit dwelling within you one time I had an interesting talk with Myron about that I said do you think you think it's time about I said

I think the soul new man lives in the brain he said no I don't think so what what does he think and he said

I think it's your entire nervous system and I'm thinking how do you come up with this stuff because it is because your nervous system is part of your brain it's all attached so it's in your whole body thank you

Myron for that thought it is in your whole body so your new man is in your whole body the

Spirit of God is in your whole body and I still think of it as my brain Myron but anyway but I see the point it's connected to your whole body so your mind is how you think it can be you can talk of it in terms of knowledge

I mean if you want to look at the Greek word there for mind it's noose which means your mind okay or your understanding or sometimes it's defined as knowledge knowledge and understanding so it's more than the brain it's how you are it's how you think now you think about a person mom got a lot of sweet birthday notes from lots of people a lot of family and lots of people and I listened to some of them and invariably they would say you're just full of joy like you just see the positive in things and so you know how we can talk about a person say well that's the spirit of the person so so when you think of that person it's it's you think of them the spirit of this person they're a joyful person right so we all have a spirit and I'm not talking about the spirit in the sense of your new man or the

Holy Spirit I'm talking about just how you are so so as your new man is renewed and the old man is dying away and you're putting him off and you're feeding that new man more and more your spirit as far as viewed by other people in the world changes and you're you become a different person you have a different nature and they're seeing it and this is a witness and it glorifies

God and this is part of presenting ourselves as a spiritual sacrifice so that other people see

God in us because it ain't our old man right it's not the old man being improved it's the new man being renewed by God and by the

Holy Spirit and the Word of God and it's being transformed by the renewing of your mind so it is part of your body but your new man is in there and so is the

Holy Spirit so that transformation is so important now when

I first started asking myself is this talking about your brain being renewed or your mind well

I was looking at verse 1 where it says it's your body so I'm thinking it's your brain part of your body that it's talking about needs to be renewed

Ben says no it's your mind well it's the it's it's the who you are part of your mind now if you think about this in three ways who we are how we think and what we do it's kind of what the world sees two out of three of those right the who we are part the world can't see that unless they see how you think which determines what you do and they start to see that change and if you ran with an old crowd and you got saved they will quickly flee from you they will just put you won't be asked to go out with them anymore and that's a that's a good sign if that happens to you or has in most of us it's in our past when that happened when you became a new

Christian so this this mind of ours is being transformed by the

Holy Spirit by the Word of God by our new man which is living in there our new nature is transforming how we are and who we are before the world and a lot of that is being talked about there in Romans chapter 12 verse 1 and 2 now look here's another one 2nd

Corinthians 416 for which cause we think not but though our outward man perish now which part of us is that that's the old man he is dying what age is it probably 25 ish when we when we stop going uphill we start going downhill it's an early age when our bodies begin to start to to die at a very early age things quit working right like your friend you know playing basketball well he's a basketball player and I keep telling

Dave Dave it's time for golf because basketball is gonna kill your Achilles tendon and you're gonna miss golf for a year once you figure that out you become a golfer because you can play that to your 90 but you know our bodies don't hold up I can remember that for me it was football but I can distinctly remember it was over like if you went down to that school that closest school over here by the

Carpiacs house there's a football field there and I was playing tackle at the age of who knows 30 something with Jesse Wallace what do you think

I was 35 30 something and we're playing tackle with no pads or anything with a bunch of young guys and we both got hurt so bad in that game that we never played again that was it we looked at each other and said

I'm done I said I'm done and we never played again I will play you know flag football with the kids or something but not serious so that old man is dying and it says the outward man is perishing yet the inward man is renewed day by day that that new man of yours though the old man is dying the new man is getting stronger every minute of every day part of it is because even when we don't do the imperative and work on it like by reading scripture meditating walking with the

Lord praying the Holy Spirit's doing stuff anyway some of its passive it's him doing stuff to us he may even chasten us take us through a hard time in life now let me be quick to say because we have several people going through hard times doesn't always mean that chastening sometimes that's just life but sometimes it's chastening so there's a lot of ways even if we stop doing the imperative for a while that God will get us back up remember that Shepherd's got a stick with a curve on one end and a straight part on the other he can either drag you with the curve or beat you with the other end and he will do it because he loves you right so I mean we're gonna get sanctified so the new man is being renewed day by day now who do you think gets sanctified faster somebody that's getting beat with the stick a lot or someone who just stays in this word because they love it you see this is the imperative this is the part you're responsible for that you can control you can determine how much you're in this word but to the extent that you're in it more and more you're being transformed by the renewing of your mind you have the old man dying by nature it's dying but the new man is growing stronger and stronger every single day day by day now the inward man what part of you is that it's not just the brain what part is it it's your spirit it's the spirit that came alive when when you were regenerated it is the born -again part of you it's that you had a human spirit when you were born physically but it was a dead kernel and when the

Holy Spirit called you he awakened you and that spirit became alive it's that part that's being renewed day by day well the question is how well look at verse 18 in 2nd

Corinthians chapter 4 how is it being renewed why we look not at things that are seen and that's something it's right there in the passage what is that stuff that's the stuff that feeds the old man stuff you can see the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes the pride of life while we look not at the things which are seen but the new man looks at the things that are not seen for the things which are seen are temporal and they burn up and they go away but the things that are not seen are eternal and they last forever and you're focused on those and that is how you renew the inward man day by day is you look at the things that are not seen we already had a sermon on that if you remember where we went into the book of Revelation and looked at what they're doing up there right now those are the things we're supposed to look at so that's how we renew the new man why why do we renew the new man well go right into the next chapter there in 2nd

Corinthians chapter 4 now move into chapter 5 it's all part of one thing right one thought for we know that if our earthly house that is this body this tabernacle this body is dissolved if we die physically we have a new body a building that God makes a new glorified body a house not wait and made with hands not of human stuff but it's eternal and it's from the heavenlies and God made it that's our new body so if our all if this body is dissolved if we die physically before the rapture then we have instantly a new body made by God that we're placed into and look what it says for in this body we groan what does that mean we have pain we hurt stuff quits working we remember when it worked makes it even worse you remember what you could do and I was that football game

I was telling you about I will never forget I was like like I like being like a wide receiver on offense and a safety on defense was kind of the same thing you're trying to catch the ball on both sides

I can remember I'm I'm open I'm past everybody the quarterback throws a perfect ball nothing but the end zone down there and he led me perfect and I got it my brain says you got it and I reach out and it goes about two feet past me because the body was slower than the brain thought it was and all those other games

I had played it just it's just part of life right so that body we groan earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven listen if we live long enough we will get to the place where we're thinking about the new body right especially when the surgeon starts working on this right we start thinking about well

I'm gonna have a body someday that you know nobody's gonna cut on it they won't ever need it a new body made by God out of the same atoms that this body's made out of though it'll be us although you get a temporary one before the

Rapture and at the Rapture you'll get this one so we groan earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house or our body which is from heaven if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked now that is a picture of a spirit being without a body can you remember the story of Jesus where he cast the demons out and there were many there were legions of demons in this person and the demon said we know who you are you're you're casting us out before our time we know who you are because they knew

Jesus and they just played with him you know at least put us into the body of these pigs why because spirit beings see themselves as naked if they don't have a body a physical body well it's going to be true of you and me too at the moment if we die first when we when we go through that secondary moment of this body stopping we'll be instantly placed into a temporary body that God made not made by human hands and we will never feel like a spirit without a body because we'll have one this body will be cool it'll be just as cool as Winston we will be a bat flying from planet to planet and solar system to solar system exploring all this amazing stuff

God has built perhaps so anyway we shall not be found naked we will be in a body at the very second that happens or if we if we're here at the rapture we're changed it means all the sudden we're in that we're in that glorified body that came out of the grave and God fixed it and then put us in it and so there you go and then if you die before the rapture then your body will come out of grave and your temporary body will come to it and merge into it and you'll be in your original body only it'll be glorified and all of this happens in a moment a twinkling of an eye the

Bible says so for we that are in this body do groan being burdened not for that we would be unclothed it's like like we're not groaning because we want to die and not have a body and be a spirit floating around we don't want that see that's how the world pictures it doesn't it when you see these you shouldn't watch them anymore but I used to like ghost movies

I don't like them anymore honestly but they're always like spirit beings that are just floating around and they're miserable it's not like that God doesn't let his people go through that so you're instantly clothed upon so that mortality might be swallowed up by life so this body that can die is removed and you get one that can't and mortality is gone and now you're immortal nothing can kill you nothing can hurt you there is no pain there is no death and verse 5 says now he that hath wrought us for the self same thing is

God he made us for that we see we think our old man thinks he made us for here right oh look at the beautiful waterfall look at the beautiful ocean that we got to see thanks to your family and it is beautiful isn't it you know but that's not what

God made us for that's one of the things he allows us to enjoy and it's not wrong but he wrought us he made us for this self same thing which is to be in that new body and to be with him forever in the heavenlies working with him doing the things he wants us to do that's what he made us for and all of this is training for that and it's beautiful sometimes it's painful but it's it's as a whole it's a magnificent beautiful experience to be born into this world as a physical child of God and go through the trouble we have to go through because of Adam and Eve and we have the same nature though and we go through that but we're here and Jesus said if you're born physically whosoever liveth and believes in me shall never die

Satan says you die right and it's a horrible scary -looking thing

God says you never die because you're instantly in that new body with the

Lord in the blink of an eye I watched my mother do it and I figure if she can do it

I can do it feeble little 92 right 92 year old lady can do it

I can do it I watch you carry brother Otis to his bed his last week and in that weak state he was able to die he faced it and you know it's not what

Satan wants us to think so look at this now he that wrought us who made us for this very purpose of being changed and placed in this eternal body is

God who also has given us the earnest of the Spirit now think about that a minute that new body is called a house in this passage called a tabernacle a house it there so there's a new house for us our spirit to live in God has made but before we get that one it's like God when

Jesus died on the cross he put the earnest money down to hold it for you it's got your name on it you know what earnest money is right everybody knows enough real estate to know that the

Holy Spirit dwelling in our body is the earnest that proves to us we gonna get that new body and live forever we have life already and we know it and we sense it that's the difference between now and when we're lost we feel it we sense it we see it in each other and we expect it and it's a hope in the biblical sense of that word it's a joyful expectation of a certain future event and so that is that is you know hope is no longer a good word for it it's an expectation is a much better word for it because this is what

God gave us the earnest money that lives in us that proves to us in an instant of time we are in that new body with the

Lord Paul said to me it's gain to die because I'll be instantly with the Lord and here I'm not with him that's what

Paul said that's a strong Christian but that's what he said I look at verse 6 therefore because all these things are true we are also always confident knowing that while we are at home in this body we are absent from Jesus we don't get to see him it's all by faith it's real but we don't physically get to see him yet while we're in this old body for we walk by faith not sight but look at verse 8 but we're also confident

Paul says and willing rather to be absent from this body and to be present with the

Lord so Paul actually preferred that so the question was why is it that we renew the new man because this is what we were wrought for we were made by God for that new man experience that we can have here because we already have the new man but when we get the new body and the new man's in that body nothing pulls away and against from God or against God it all are even against yourself your new man nothing pulls against it anymore it all pulls with God a hundred percent imagine the weight that will fall off of you the minute you die or get raptured the weight of this old nature that old man you may say he's not real and he's not there but when you feel him fall off you'll know he was there and you will be

Batman right he wasn't

Batman he was a bat he'd never even seen Batman he's a bat he can fly well that's us well let's stand and have prayer together at least

I got two through two of the other verses that talk about being renewed Lord thank you for your word we ask you to bless it in our hearts to both encourage us but also to make a strong light and salt to the world and Lord we love this life we have because we love our families our church family we love the beautiful things that you've created the oceans the mountains the clouds and the beautiful changes of seasons that we get to see and the love you put in our heart for each other and we love all that but Lord we know that that is temporal and that what will last forever is what that earnest money the

Holy Spirit tells us about and that is that moment that we drop off that old man and we put on the new body which pulls with us and with you forever thank you for that promise that you've given us thank you for the promise of the

Holy Spirit the comforter that you sent to be with us while we're still in this fallen state we're still in this fallen body