Ephesians 4:17-24

Lord, we come to you as your children. We come to you as your children with the reality that we don't come on our own, we don't come in our own value, but we come as broken sinners.

Lord, we come to you recognizing that you have made us new, that you have promised that the Holy Spirit would come to us and we rejoice in that.

All things have passed away, all things have become new. We study tonight the impact, this afternoon, the impact of how our mind and how our thoughts and how our response to things should be with a renewed mind.

Pray that you would speak through Pastor Jeff this morning, in Jesus' name, amen. And I said this evening, this afternoon, and this morning, all in the same prayer.

Well, it's all the same, somewhere in the work. Yes, it is. And it depends on what time they're watching the video.

Great. Wow. We will be at Ephesians 4 today, talking about the renewed mind.

The renewed mind. Dan came to faith a bit later in life, not as a kid or as a teenager, but having already been in the workplace for some time.

And in his workplace, everybody spoke like sailors. And Dan did too.

I resembled everyone. You resembled everyone.

I like it. Yeah. So Dan was used to using terrible words and also being exposed to terrible things that were perverting to his mind.

When he came to Saving Faith, he received a new mind and a new love for Christ.

And so there was a major transformation. He would spend hours a day in prayer and reading the

Word. But about three months after his conversion, some intrusive thoughts began to come into his mind.

And they were vile. They were the swearing that used to be a part of his life, a string of expletives often directed against God Himself, which almost felt like blasphemy against the

Holy Spirit. He would go and confess these things and feel so terrible about these thoughts that would just pop into his brain.

And he struggled with it for more than a month. He continued to struggle for a second month and a third month, and it would continue for six months of these thoughts that just repeated in his brain.

But somewhere early on, he felt the Lord teaching him that these thoughts are directed against what you love.

You love God. You love the Son of God. You love the Holy Spirit. And something in your brain, in your rotten flesh, and the devil himself and the world around you is attacking what you love through your own thoughts.

To what degree are those you and are you responsible for them? And to what degree are they intrusive thoughts?

Well, it's hard to know the answer to that. We're going to get into that some today. But here's the long and the short of it for Dan.

Early on, the Lord showed him that every time those thoughts start running in his mind, he is to take them to the

Lord and not focus on the thoughts. Because here's a little thought experiment.

Nobody here is to picture in your brain a purple elephant. Do not picture a purple elephant.

Do not do it. I command you not to picture a purple elephant. Who here just pictured a purple elephant?

I pictured Barney. Well, way to go.

See, you obey. By giving attention to these thoughts and trying to capture them, capture them, keeping them from running wild, you actually give them power.

Instead, what he decided to do is to resist the devil, submit to God, turn to God, and begin to worship.

When those thoughts started to run, he could use his active mind, his ability to have self control and to focus his thoughts, and he would directly, intentionally focus his thoughts on praising his

God. And after six months, they began to disappear and then just did disappear.

And I think he struggled through his life sometimes with this recurring problem. But his tool was to allow those to turn him to praise and worship of God.

And after that period of time, he was so much closer to God than if he had never gone through that trial.

The trial became an instrument that God used to turn him to praise. Wow. There's so much to say,

I'm going to just briefly detour before we get into the renewed mind of Ephesians 4, 17 to 24.

Before we open that, I just want to take you to a passage because it plays in the purple elephant illustration.

Second Corinthians, chapter 10, verse four and five.

How many of you have heard the teaching that you have to take captive your thoughts and that the scripture tells you you've got to capture your thoughts?

Well, that's like trying to capture foxes in a field. The more you focus on them and run after them and try to catch them, the more attention you're giving to them.

It's a purple elephant problem. In second Corinthians 10, four and five, the context here is apologetics, not mental discipline.

The concept here, look at it in context. Paul is talking about false apostles here and in the next chapter as well.

And he's fighting those not according to the flesh. Verse four. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds.

What do we destroy? Arguments and opinions raised against the knowledge of God.

And we take every thought captive to obey Christ. These thoughts, these arguments, this pseudo knowledge, this fake knowledge, an opinion of man that comes against the knowledge of God.

We destroy those. And how do we do that? Being ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete in the context of second

Corinthians. Paul is contending against false super apostles, these extra spiritual ones who have

Gnostic deeper insights than the rest of us. And he demolishes their arguments and their opinions.

You'll see that throughout the chapters. It's apologetic. It's not here dealing with setting your mind on things above.

There is a place for that. Philippians four really deals with that and the passage we have in front of us today.

So I just wanted to point that out because I don't think the best strategy for dealing with intrusive thoughts is to try to catch them, to try to capture them and make them be obedient to Christ.

I think intrusive thoughts, troubling temptations or desires that are disordered, anything that comes into the mind is to consider that under the blood.

Consider what the Bible says is true, which is Romans six. I'm a new creation. I have a new heart and a new mind and begin to praise and not give those things power by trying to catch, trying to capture them and make them be obedient.

Their thoughts from the devil, they are from the sinful nature. We'll get into that because we're still in the flesh.

When we're glorified, we won't have those. Okay. But in the world, when you see a billboard, when you, when something, what you should do is turn your mind to God, resist temptation.

The devil will flee from you. Don't give those things power. Let's look at this now in Ephesians chapter four.

Ephesians four. John, would you just read it through for us today? The pericope is 17 through 24.

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. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart.

They have become callous, given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

That is not the way you learned Christ. Assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus to put off your old self, 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 the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Very good. So in chapters four to six we have entered the practical application section of Paul's theology in the book of Ephesians as he lays it out in chapters one to three.

So you have the theological and then you have the application. The therefore at the start of chapter four is that transition point.

Now we're going to make application of that and the big banner idea is our walk.

In light of the identity that we have in Christ, we are in Christ and all of the rich theology of the body of Christ as we are brought

Jew and Gentile together into one new man into the church, which is glorious.

And you see the church in verse 21 of chapter three to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever.

Amen. This theology needs to be applied by our walk chapter four verse one.

We urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.

So Paul has already made that point that our walk needs to match our theology, that our theology drives how we actually live and practice.

Then having made that point in chapter four verses one to six, he's given us some indication of what that walk looks like.

You're walking humbly with love in unity in the church.

You're a patient person bearing with others in love. Because we're actually all one

Lord, one faith, one baptism under one father and one spirit, one Christ.

All of these things unite us as one body. So that's the first practical applications of our walk.

And then John taught last week, you're in the church and though you're one, there's different gifts and each one uses their diversity of gifts to build up the unity of the body.

So that section then gives way to ours in verses 17 to 24.

And the big idea here is this worthy walk, how you practice your faith.

You put one foot in front of the other, that comes from a renewed mind, a new mind that belongs to the

Christian by inheritance. So let's look at it. Verse 17, this worthy walk springs forth from a renewed mind.

Now this I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk, parallel there to four one, as the

Gentiles do in the futility of their minds. So here the prohibition is against an ongoing practice of sin.

Your walk has to be transformed. You're to no longer walk as the

Gentiles do. Yes, behavior. Yes.

Gentiles here does not make the distinction ethnically so much of these are non -Jews.

It is that, but it's focusing on the pagan because Ephesus is a pagan town.

They worship Artemis, Diana of the Ephesians. Remember from Acts chapter 19, great is

Diana of the Ephesians. This was a debauched culture.

The paganism surrounding Diana worship included temple prostitution and all manner of homosexuality and all kinds of debauchery in the temple.

It was also a place that was inhabited by criminals because those on the run from the law were safe inside the temple of Diana.

So you have hundreds of hardened criminals unable to leave there all the time.

And this is the culture of Ephesus. Many commentators and scholars who have looked at history have regarded

Ephesus as the worst of Rome as far as the moral debauchery of that place.

And so that's what Paul's referring to with the word Gentiles. This is a remnant called out people, the church in Ephesus of all places.

The Gentiles is all of those surrounding them. So the church is just one body Jew and Gentile together in this new thing.

That is the church. That's the theology of Ephesians 1 and 3, but Gentiles here refers to the people around them, these pagans who worship

Diana and who are just walking in all kinds of wickedness.

Now, here's the big question for Christians. Can Christians go on practicing sin to continue walking as a practice in sin and having truly been born again?

No is the correct answer. First John is much about that. But let me give you a quote from a prominent

Southern Baptist. He preaches at a megachurch in Orlando.

His name is Danny de Armas. He has been the vice president of the

North American Mission Board over all the missionaries of the SBC, and he's a leader within the

Southern Baptist. Here's what he says. We have transgender, LGBTQ, straight, single, married, divorced, and cohabitating people.

These same people attend, listen, serve, grow, and give.

It's part of their diversity. He's celebrating. We are a diverse. This is where diversity has become an idol.

Diversity is an idol within this new movement, within the social justice movement in evangelicalism.

He says we are diverse, welcoming, multicultural gathering of people.

We have Democrats and Republicans, and he makes all these different comparisons between pro -life and pro -choice.

And he celebrates the diversity of his church with all these different lifestyles.

Now I repeat. Now this I say. Paul says, speaking on the authority of God, and he doubles down.

Look at verse 17. Why do you think he didn't just say it? He could have just said it, but he says I say it.

I say, which he's using his apostolic authority, as Ephesians 2 .20

regards the apostle, the foundation of the church. He's speaking for God here.

I say, which means God says, and testify in the Lord. You see how he's doubling down?

This is in the Lord, so this is with the authority of Christ. I give this testimony.

Don't miss what I'm about to say. Look at that next word, must.

Do you see the strength of that word? After the first qualifying, God is saying this.

You must no longer walk as the Gentiles do. So as to the practice of sin, cohabitation, so fornication between straight people who are not married.

You must not do that. This walk of yours, this practice has got to change at conversion.

You can't just go on that way. A person who identifies as LGBTQ, because here the pastor says we have transgender.

That's granting that there's such a thing as changing gender. There's only mutilation of human bodies.

The cutting off of breasts or the removal of a young man's sexual organs has not changed their gender.

You've mutilated a human being. It is impossible to change gender because God made them male and female. But to grant that, that there is such a thing, is to deny the authority of God's word.

It's sad. It's heartbreaking. So he's actually lying to the people because they've never come to Christ.

He's not saying that there is. He's celebrating their diversity. Is this pastor seriously compromised?

He's incredibly compromised, yeah. And the problem of this movement within the church is it's severe.

John MacArthur called it the biggest challenge the church has faced in his 50 years of ministry. And he's fought a number of battles.

And he's saying this is the biggest. You know Jeff, we as Christians, we cannot, we must not alter our way with the

Lord Jesus Christ. We're going to be a testimony. I'm going to go out and talk to somebody in the street or someone new coming into the church.

I can't live a double life. I've got to be straightforward with the word of God.

Was Jesus straightforward when he said to the woman caught in adultery, go and sin no more.

It's a change, a change of walk. Now let's bear down a little deeper because we're talking about the walk, the practice.

But the passage actually is going to take us deeper than the outward practice to the renewed mind.

That's the point now. So let's look at the mind that has not been regenerated. This is the mind in Adam, the fallen mind.

Because all people who are in Adam are under him as our representative.

And he represented us well. Meaning we're culpable for Adam's decision.

He was our representative head and we're like him. And we would have done the same thing it appears. And then ultimately all people sin.

Romans makes this distinction in Romans 5. So we're guilty by inheritance from our representative head and by our own practice.

The fallen mind corresponds to this. It is futile, dark, dead, ignorant, evil and sensual.

John would you read that for us? Other than that it's fine. Other than that it's good. So would you read that for us?

In the futility of their minds in verse 18. 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 their hearts.

And they have become callous, having given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice of every kind of impurity.

So let's think about the mind. Made in the image of God, the human mind would be purely rational.

Is the depraved mind, fallen in Adam, rational or sensual?

And what's the difference? Sensual. It's sensual, right? They're given to sensuality.

What does sensuality mean? And the senses, what you can perceive.

And the emotions that are sparked by that. Rather than pure rationality and corresponding to truth, there is an emotional thinking.

And this is a depraved kind of thinking. It's futile. What does the word futility indicate? Pointlessness.

Pointless, meaningless. Without God as the center there is no purpose, there's no point, as you said.

When God is allowing them to go do their sinful way, their hearts have been hardened.

There's no way coming back. And the hardening of the heart, if you notice, that's antecedent.

That's what explains the ignorance. So why, okay, are people really guilty if they're ignorant?

Yes. Because the ignorance is a moral ignorance due to hardness of heart. It's a moral rebellion.

Yeah, you wouldn't excuse the devil because he can do nothing but lie. He's the father of lies, and when he lies he speaks his native language.

That doesn't mean when he lies that's not culpable. Well, it's just his nature. No, his nature is the problem.

It's a moral, evil, darkened heart which results in darkened speech, right?

And here, that's how it is even of thinking. The ignorance, there's no life of God. There's being cut off from the life of God.

Alienated from the life of God to practice every kind of impurity.

So that's a picture of the fallen mind, as John well stressed. It ain't pretty, right? Besides that, everything is well.

No, this is the noetic effects of sin, as theologians talk about it, from Noah knowing, not

Noah as in the guy who built the ark, but from the Greek word for mind. The mind has been corrupted.

It doesn't think right. It doesn't see right. It thinks sensually rather than God sent it.

From God's law to our behavior. How many times have we tried to witness people say, I don't want to hear it?

Darkened. Yeah. Yeah. And why do you think people are so loathed to hear the gospel?

Go with what you were going to say first, then we'll get back. Well, I was just going to say that we don't become hardened.

It's imputed to us through original sin. It's already there. Yep. And there's kind of like this debate that we slowly harden.

No, it's already there, and then it's the calling from the Holy Spirit that actually changes that. But we will have that, and then it just gets harder from there.

Yeah, and to answer that question that I pose, it's because they don't want to be accountable to God. There's a moral rebellion, so they don't want to come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.

So they harden and they convince themselves. They exchange truth of God for a lie. They suppress truth because they don't want to come into judgment.

They want to do what their senses are telling them to do, right? Okay, so now look at the contrast.

John Majorie 20, and you've got to say it loud because it's got an exclamation point. But that is not the way you learned

Christ. That is not the way you learned Christ. And I would put the stress on not, right?

So you have this here, the contrast, that is not the way you learned Christ. It goes back to the must of verse 17, and he's stressing you must no longer walk.

So the walk has to be completely changed. So regeneration renews the mind.

What here does it mean to learn Christ? Well, we can correspond to everything that was going wrong previously.

Would somebody read for me? How about John in the back here? Would you mind reading Acts 26 verse 18?

It's also on your notes, or you can look it up. The complete verse that you want?

Yeah, just 26, 18, yeah. To open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified.

Sanctification here is a positional one where a person is brought to Christ.

Out of darkness into light, and the metaphor here is opening the eyes. Blind, now you see.

J .I. Packer's Knowing God starts out with a beautiful chapter that knowing about God is not the answer to life's problems.

Knowing God is the answer to life's problems. And I love the way it says it's not the way you learned about Christ.

It's the way you actually learned Christ. It means that the fullness of who He is is what you learn, not snippets of information.

Right, yes. Romans 1, 20, the whole nature and world bespeaks

God and Christ, and we are without excuse. Amen, amen.

So when it says, but you have not learned Christ in this way, learning

Christ is a picture here of regeneration. Remember in John 6, verse 44,

I stressed it a lot in the sermons recently, it says no one can come to the

Father unless the Father draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. The next verse talks about the teaching of the

Holy Spirit. So let's turn to John 6, verse 45.

And Candy, would you mind reading that for us? When you get there, John 6, verse 45.

It is written in the prophets, and they will all, everyone who has heard and learned from the

Father comes to me. See that word learn? To hear and to learn is a spiritual teaching.

And that's what Paul again is referring to when he says, you have not learned Christ in that way.

You have been regenerated, you've been taught of God. You've been drawn of the Father.

In order that your eyes have been opened to see, to be given a new mind.

There is a renewal of mind, you're taught. And so this actually references back to the prophets, as it says in the prophets.

So then it quotes from, I think, Isaiah 54. But it also has referenced prophets, plural, to the new covenant ministry of the

Spirit. Ezekiel 36, Jeremiah 31, it says they will all be taught by God.

And no one will go to their neighbor and say, learn the way of the Lord. For they will all know, they will all be taught by God.

This is a picture of regeneration. Everybody who's been regenerated has been taught, they've learned

Christ. They've been converted into this new mind, which is why Paul will say, but you have the mind of Christ.

If you're in Christ, you are regenerated. You've learned Him and it changes your whole mind.

Change of mind, that's what repentance is. You used to see everything one way and now you've come into the light and you've learned something totally different.

So if you see the contrast, can't miss it. The darkened, depraved mind is taught by the

Spirit and now is new. So this raises probably the most interesting part of the passage as we go forward.

What are we to make of these verses, 21 to 24? John, could you read them again?

And I'm going to say, this is not about learning as an ongoing process.

Although there is a reference to that, I think, in Colossians 3 .10. This is about reckoning yourself already new, as we were taught in Romans 6 and Romans 7.

So I'll show it to you from the Greek though. Verses 21 to 24. Do I have to read it in Greek?

Yeah, please. That'd be impressive if you could just translate to Greek from English. Assuming that you have heard about Him and were taught in Him as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, 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 the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Okay, let's look at the Greek. Rick, you'll like this because you're an

English teacher. So when it says, assuming that you have heard and were taught, that's a translation in English, have heard.

The word for hear or teach there is coming to us in the aorist,

A -O -R -I -S -T, tense. The aorist tense communicates a one -time completed verb.

So it's not something that's, it's something that has one time in the past occurred.

Am I right about that? Present perfect tense. Present perfect, all right. And so I guess

Greek, your Greek professor calls it aorist. But it's one and the same.

Present perfect in how the English reads, right? And we're saying the same thing, but you would agree.

This is a one time completed in the past. So what is it referring to? Assuming, so that means this only applies to the one who's born again, who's been regenerated.

It says, assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him.

This is conversion. This is for the converted mind. It's speaking of the renewed mind that we have in Christ.

Okay, keep following. As the truth is in Jesus, I love that little phrase.

Because it picks up on one of the great themes of Ephesians, and that is in Christ. Repeated at least,

I think, 26 times, if memory serves. From chapter one through the end of six. You are in Christ.

You are united to Christ. You have been enlightened and connected to him by faith.

Such that his death is your death and his resurrection is your resurrection. You are in him.

And here we're told the truth is in him. So, right thinking.

The mind of Christ is now in you as you are in him. The truth is in him.

Now, what are you taught? To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life.

Here, that word lay aside or put off comes in the infinitive.

Not in the imperative. So, an imperative would be a command. You're not being here commanded to put off the old self.

That would be an imperative. He would say, as a command, put off. He's saying, you have been taught to do this.

It's descriptive, not prescriptive. Based on the tense of the verb there.

That's what the infinitive communicates. I learned that from John McCarthy. So, his commentary on Ephesians, it's great.

But is that because we can't do it? That's why it's not an imperative? Well, you could have that. In Colossians, I think it may come in the command.

I'm just saying what he's communicating here is the renewed mind that you're given.

You are to regard your mind as being renewed and then live like it. So, that's where he's going to go with this.

So, he's saying to put off your old self. That's part of being taught, of hearing the gospel. And he had already said earlier in 1 .13

.14, when you heard the word of truth and believed, you were marked in him with the seal. So, that's that moment of salvation, of conversion.

He's referring to one and the same thing. You were taught, you believed, and that taught you to put off the old.

In conversion, that everything now you regard as new. That's, again, what Paul taught in 2

Corinthians 5 .17. I know somebody can quote that. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

Behold, all things are gone. The old has passed away. New things have come. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

That's what he's getting at here. You've put off the old, which belongs to your former manner of life.

And that was what you did at conversion. You put it off. You repented of all that. You turned from it.

So, the pastor in Orlando, who says you don't need to do that, is saying you don't need to be converted in order to serve here and be part of this thing.

That's not the biblical teaching. Paul is opposed to that, stridently. Right? He stressed, you did not learn that way.

Okay. And to be renewed in the spirit of your minds. And to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God, in true righteousness and holiness.

Okay. So, here is the teaching of this section. That when you were converted, you were taught these things.

And you learn these things, not just outwardly from a pastor, but from the teaching ministry of the spirit.

In Jesus, you were converted and given this new way of thinking. And taught to do that.

So, what do we make, and this is the hard part of the last ten minutes here. What do we make of intrusive thoughts?

Of desires that do not correspond to having put off all of this.

To lingering sin. How do we approach that? Well, it's a battle.

It is a battle. It's a battle every day. And if I'm not into God's word, and into prayer, then I'm going to get on my own way.

But if I'm into His word, and He's going to teach me, and every day He renews my mind.

Then I am going to walk within a walking spirit. If I don't, then I'm walking in my own way.

Okay. Alright. John? Realizing that we don't have the sufficiency to do this.

You know what I mean? We need God's grace to do this. So, if someone says, brother, why are you cruising the bars?

What are you doing that for? Well, I keep trying, you know, but it's just, I can't get over it. I can't get over it at home.

Well, you can't do it yourself. But you have to go to God for the strength to be able to do those things.

Okay. Very good. Yes. Yeah? I say follow Jesus' example of Matthew 4.

When He was tempted in the desert. Yeah. To take the sword of the

Spirit and to resist the enemy? Yes. I guess, sort of trying to put it in simple language, these things are of the world.

They're not in the world. Yeah. And they're all around us. So, they, of course, can come into our head.

But, we have to recognize that they're not part of who we now are.

Very good. And say, devil, get away from me. Get these words out of me. And you have to pray,

Lord, forgive me for even giving this any out thought. Wow. That's your spot on.

And that's why Paul says we need to continue praying constantly.

Yeah. That is part of the defense of these intrusive thoughts.

A constant communication and relationship. Yes. When these thoughts come up, I command them.

I say, all evil and impure thoughts be gone in Jesus' name. Amen. They have to go.

Resist the devil and he will flee from you. I go back to verse 21 where it says, assuming that you have heard about him.

That word assuming is, I don't know if it's problematic, but it is taking into consideration that he's speaking to people who have heard.

Yes. But, they have to have heard. Yes. In order to be responsible. And, again, going back to that Romans 1 passage, it's not just through the preaching of Paul that people are responsible, but it's even the natural world.

Yes. Which speaks of God. Very good. Yeah. Okay. This is hugely important.

Let's go back to the man with troubling thoughts, intrusive thoughts.

His name is Dan. And these things come up. Is he going to give them power or is he going to claim his new identity in Christ?

I'll give you another example. Big debate going on right now within evangelicalism and even some guys on our side over the question of concupiscence.

Concupiscence. Concupiscence. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I didn't know what it was either. It's strong sexual desire.

Sexual horniness. Yeah. And whether... Lust. Yeah.

Whether it is sinful in and of itself. And this particularly becomes the question because what about if it's disorder?

If someone has a desirous thought for someone of the same sex, but they rebuke that and they turn away from it and this might go on for a long period of time and it becomes a troubling thing for them.

How are they to be regarded? Is that sin or are they resisting sin and therefore doing well?

Now, hold on. Let me just continue for a minute. What's happened, unfortunately, is there's been a movement within evangelicalism to elevate the voices of people who struggle this way to some special privilege of speaking in the church.

To say, well, they're... And this was what that Orlando pastor did and Andy Stanley did this recently.

To say, they're better Christians than anyone because they have these thoughts and yet...

And they know that the church will reject them because they're LGBTQ, but they still come and serve and they're still here.

They're the super saint Christians. Listen, the reform doctrine has always been that those thoughts themselves are springing from sinful desires.

It's part of being in the body of fallen sinful flesh. They're disordered by nature.

Now, Doug Wilson and Jared Moore recently had a debate on conversations that matter.

And Jared Moore taught that same thing that I just said, which is that it's springing from the sinful passions of the flesh, which is itself sin.

But Doug Wilson said, well, if you resist it in the instant that it comes, it's not sinful.

In fact, it's good that you're resisting. And there's some debate to be had there. Here's the major point that I want to stress this morning, and I don't want you to miss this.

Paul's theology and the first command in the book of Romans is chapter six, verse 11.

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ.

This is huge. You should reckon yourself as being dead to sin and that the true you, your identity.

That's what so much of Ephesians one to three is about. Identity is in Christ. You have a renewed mind and you must start from that point.

So the person who is saying, I'm LGBTQ and I struggle with these thoughts and I always will, is disobeying the starting point.

In Ephesians four, before Paul gets into these lists of commands, he talks about the mind and what he's saying here in four, 17 to 24 is the same as what he says in Romans six.

You're to consider yourself dead. You are dead to sin. And so if an intrusive thought comes up, whether it's, how do you say concupiscence?

Or whether it's some blasphemous string of curse words like Dan was struggling with, or it's any other thing that is not from the new mind, you recognize that is not your identity.

It's not who you are. You focus on who you are in Christ. You have a renewed mind. You begin to praise like Dan did.

And you never take that as your identity. You don't identify, I'm a gay Christian and I, you know, moping around.

No, you're new. And if you're having some intrusive thoughts from the old man, the old dead flesh,

God will deal with that in time. And you're not to give weight to it.

You're not to picture the purple elephant and capture it. No, that's of the devil.

That's of the devil. That's of the old flesh. And Lord, I'm still in this sinful flesh, but I'm new in Christ.

And you begin to praise and you begin to worship and you focus your mind on things above and you claim that as your identity.

The renewed mind is your inheritance. And that's from which we live.

We live from that point. If you don't start there, you're a constant victim. You're a constant victim of whether it's your thoughts or your fallen flesh or what, you know, your past and the things you're remembering.

And you have this screen in your brain that just replays the sins of your past. Such a victim.

No, you are new in Christ. And that's the point. We did not learn Christ in this way.

We were made new and we put off the old and that's how we're to begin to live and to walk.

That's the victorious Christian life. It has to start there. Yeah. Questions? You know, you talk about Dan.

Yeah. It's very common today to hear people talk about triggers. Yes. So I have a trigger that makes me depressed.

Well, we could have a trigger that makes us worship God. Yes. That's my trigger that I'm going to worship

God and I'm going to pray. That's how you turn this whole thing on the devil's head. Say you do have some thoughts come in. If you've trained yourself that that's your trigger to praise, it's just going to keep making you closer to God till the devil quits because he knows he's losing every time he tries that on you.

Yeah, Rick. Verse 26 says, be angry and do not sin.

So that seems almost a paradox. But be angry with being tempted,

I suppose, in order to put off that sin. And don't let that obsess you.

Don't let the sun go down in your anger. Right. Deal with it. Yes. That's good.

And it could even be righteous anger there at times. But you can't let that lead you to react and sin.

What ends up happening in this whole scenario is that there's no such thing as a gay Christian then at that point.

Right. That's right. There is no such thing. It gets rid of all that.

Yeah. Isn't it being irresponsible to just say, I'm a gay Christian, I can't help it?

It is. Yes. Completely irresponsible. And that's why I do side with Jared Moore. If you ever get a chance to watch

Jared Moore and Doug Wilson in that debate, I understand where Wilson is coming from.

And I think the end result is the same, that you're not going to own that as your identity. You're going to reject it and celebrate that God protected you again.

But Moore is saying, no, that did come from your sinful flesh because it says sinful passions, sinful desires.

If you even look at a woman with lust in your mind, you know, you violate the deeper meaning. So I know you haven't watched those to really have a context of that, but yeah, you're responsible for it.

Yeah. But you're also, you're thinking from the new mind. You're not going to live in that. You're going to say that's dead and gone.

And I'm not going to let that trouble me all day long. I'm not going to spend all day long confessing every little thought that pops into my mind.

That's actually, the therapist is, they label that scrupulosity, a person who is just constantly confessing again and again and again, every little thought.

And they see that as a clinical thing. But from the biblical counseling perspective, how does the word of God deal with it?

It teaches us not to think that way. You are under the blood. You are new. You're forgiven.

You don't have to be afraid because that's really anxiety is what that is. You're anxious that, oh, I'm a bad person because this has come up.

No. The minute you hear a thought or you have something, it's to say, no, Christ, and I'm just going to praise.

I'm not going to give it power. I'm not going to go down that road. So I think a lot of Christians struggle with that because it's good to have a sensitive conscience.

Oh, big time. Martin Luther, big time struggle with that. Yeah. Yeah. But it was the true gospel of justification by faith that set him free from it.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I'm thinking of the non -Christian in the

LBGT group that negates it, you know, coming to a church. And all of a sudden they hear, this is what we're talking about, they hear the word.

Yes. Okay. They now feel guilty. Okay. They want to make amends.

What happens? Works. Now they do all kinds of works trying to get back into fellowship, you know, with Christians in the church and doing all that they can to get themselves elevated up.

But they still follow their own ways. Whereas we were talking about here is that you give up, okay, the old way.

You go on to the new way. But we still have that happening. It happens in every church. They still come in and they're trying to do through works to get, earn their way to get to heaven.

And they're not. All right. Let's close the prayer. And good comment. Thank you. And John, would you close us?

The truth is in Jesus. The truth is in Jesus and that truth is in us with the

Holy Spirit. Yes. We are no longer slaves to sin. Satan does not have that stronghold over us.

And being able to turn opportunities that Satan thinks he has into true opportunities to worship, making our minds regenerated new and allowing that to control us.

We thank you because you are the author of these things, not us and not the way that we work, but you are the author.

We surrender to you. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.