Redeemer City Church - Lafayette, LA

In this sermon, Pastor Aaron Shamp preached on the book of Ephesians and its overarching message. He explains that the first half of the book focuses on the gospel and how it saves people. The second half of the book explores how the gospel changes our lives and relationships. Pastor Aaron emphasizes that being a Christian means living differently from the world and embracing a new lifestyle. He highlights the importance of renewing our minds, putting off the old self, and putting on the new self created in God's likeness. The transformation is made possible through the power of God and our willingness to participate in His work.

Takeaways
  • The book of Ephesians explains the gospel and its transformative power in our lives.
  • Being a Christian means living differently from the world and embracing a new lifestyle.
  • Transformation starts with renewing our minds and putting off the old self.
  • We are called to put on the new self created in God's likeness and live according to His standards.
  • The transformation is made possible through the power of God and our willingness to participate in His work.

Creators & Guests

Host
Aaron Shamp
Lead Pastor of Redeemer City Church

What is Redeemer City Church - Lafayette, LA?

Pastor Aaron Shamp preaches about the Gospel and facets of Christianity at Redeemer City Church. These podcasts are his sermons.

Aaron Shamp (00:00)
Therefore I say this and testify in the Lord, you should no longer live as the Gentiles live in the futility of their thoughts. They are darkened in their understanding.

excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them and because of the hardness of their hearts. They became callous and gave themselves over to promiscuity for the practice of every kind of impurity with a desire for more and more. But that is not how you came to know Christ, assuming you heard about him and were taught by him as the truth is in Jesus.

To take off your former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires, to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, the one created according to God's likeness and righteousness and purity of the truth.

So in this series we are going through the book of Ephesians. We did the first half of Ephesians last year and this year this summer we're going through the second half of the book of Ephesians. And what I want to do in this series is to show you what is the overarching message of the book of Ephesians. Whenever Paul wrote this letter what was he trying to communicate to them. And so in the first half of the letter Paul gives this this great you know one of the best explanations of the gospel that we have in the New Testament.

in chapters one through three, he talks about how God ordained that he would save people for himself and how we were alienated from God because of our sin, we were rebels before God, we were children of wrath and so on, but God saved us by his grace and he has created us as a new people. And then now as you move into the second half of the letter to Ephesians, after Paul has given this wonderful explanation of the gospel, he explains what it means for our life, not just what it means theologically,

or what it means for salvation from our sins, but how the gospel actually transforms our lives. The gospel is something that doesn't just change a future destination, the gospel transforms the now too. And that's what Paul shows us. And as you look at the big picture of his letter and the flow of what he's explaining here, he goes from explaining the gospel to how it creates a new people and then what those new people look like now.

So there's a lot of application and relevance that we can take from Ephesians to our life today. And ultimately what Paul keeps working his argument towards is how it builds our households. He starts by talking about the gospel, like I said, in these magnificent arguments. And then he starts talking about husbands and wives. And he talks about how we do our work. He talks about parents and children. They aren't disconnected.

The gospel forms a people whose marriages look different. The gospel forms a people whose parenting methods and parenting choices will look different from the world. And what we're looking at here in chapter four is right at that turn where Paul goes from explaining the gospel to, and here's what it does, here's how it transforms. Last week we looked at the beginning of chapter four where Paul says, now that you have been made members of this body,

And now that you have been made members of God's household through the gospel in Jesus Christ's work, you have a job to do. That's what he talks about there in the beginning of chapter four. You have a job to do in the household. And then as we move here into verse 17, and what we're going to see over the next couple of weeks is he's explaining the character of members of God's household or the attributes of members of God's household. And so that's what we're looking at today and what we're going to be looking at the next couple of weeks as Paul explains, you've been made a member of God's household.

Therefore you have a job to do in this household. Last week we looked at that and that is contributing to the unity of the body and the building of the body. And now he's explaining, here's what those household members are going to look like. So today what we're looking at in verses 17 through 24 is the new lifestyle of the members of God's household.

is we're going to look at one, the new lifestyle, two, how to live the new lifestyle, and then three, what makes the new lifestyle possible. Okay, so.

As I just explained, Paul previously talked about how Christians have been made new and united in the body of Christ through the Holy Spirit. He explains how once we were divided, once we were divided from God being sinners and we were also divided from one another based upon various different boundary lines that fall in between us. But what happens whenever we receive the gospel of Jesus Christ, it's not just that our debt is erased, our debt is erased before

God, but then what happens is we are also reconciled with God. He doesn't just erase the debt and say, okay, we're good, you go your way, I'll go my way now. The debt's erased and we are reconciled to God, you see, so that separation is gapped. But then there's also the separations that exist between us, that have always existed between peoples and people groups throughout history. Paul says that whenever people become Christians and they join God's household, all those previous barriers of separation are torn down and we

we are now united, not only reconciled to God, but reconciled to one another. In fact, we are so united that we become as one body. He talks about the body of Christ. And what happens is whenever we are made members of God's household, we can ask, okay, so now that all of this has been done for us, what now?

What do we do? What is expected of us? This is where Paul picks up in verse 17. He says, therefore, because we have been made new, because we have been transformed, because we have been adopted by God as his children, made members of his house, because we have one father, one God, one spirit, one baptism that unites us all, therefore, here's what Paul says, therefore, you should no longer live as the Gentiles live.

What Paul is saying is that here's all these things that God has done in the work of Jesus Christ, in his reconciliation, in his tearing down the boundary lines that fall between us, in his making us one people. He says what all of that amounts to now, based upon what God has done, what that means now is that your life is gonna change. He says therefore no longer live as the Gentiles do. Now here's what's interesting.

This is in the book of Hebrews, right, where we know that we can assume, literally based off the name, that it is written to Jewish people, right? This is the book, or the letter to the Ephesians. Who is he talking to here? Well, if you go back to Acts chapter 19, you can read about Paul's missionary journey in Ephesus and how he planted the church at Ephesus. Whenever he got there, he did what he would always do. This isn't a study on Acts, but I'll just explain briefly. Paul had a strategy for missions. He would go and start by,

declaring the gospel to the Jewish people, the Jewish believers that were already in whatever region he went in their synagogue. But what would frequently happen is that they would reject him, kick him out or persecute him. And so he would then go and preach it to the Gentiles. This happened as well. And whenever he was in Ephesus, he goes, he finds a very small group of believers, he shares the gospel with them, they accept it. And then he tries to share it with more of the Jews who are in Ephesus, but they rejected it. And so we actually know, it says he started with 12 disciples.

a small group, he started 12 disciples in Ephesus, but we don't get an indication that it moved much beyond that, okay? So then he started to preach the gospel, not in the synagogue, but in a lecture hall called the Hall of Tyrannus. He lectured in that hall for, was it two or three years? Two or three years, every day. He explained the scriptures and he shared the gospel, and that is how the church at Ephesus was planted and started, okay? So you have a very small group of Jews, but then what we can assume is a large group,

group of Gentiles because there was obviously fruit coming out of that ministry for him to spend upwards of two to three years there lecturing every day. So the makeup of the church at Ephesus would have been both Jews and Gentiles but it's safe to assume largely Gentiles who had accepted Jesus Christ.

And then Paul says, you are no longer to live as the Gentiles do. Who is he talking to? He's talking to Gentiles. He's saying, you guys are now, you should now have a change in your life. There should be a transformation. Now that you have heard the gospel, you have accepted the gospel, there ought to be a new lifestyle that comes with that. He's telling the Gentiles to quit living like Gentiles. He's saying that there is a transformation that happens. What this means for us, and this is our first point, is that being made new in Christ,

means that there will be a transformation in life in Christ. God makes us new. We're gonna talk about this a little bit more in a second. God makes us new. That's something that God does.

But then in response to what God does, there ought to be a change in our lives. We don't accept the gospel of Jesus to have our debt erased and be reconciled to God and then continue living as the Gentiles do or continue. This would be like Paul saying to you guys here, quit living as the Cajuns do. It means there's gonna be a change in life.

There's gonna be a significant change. The gospel is not an invitation to have your sins forgiven and then go on your merry way. There was a Christian philosopher who wrote a lot about discipleship and spiritual change named Dallas Willard and he had a book called The Divine Conspiracy and in The Divine Conspiracy he called this gospel that we often preach in American churches the gospel of sin management, which is that if you just.

accept what Jesus did for you and you get that new stamp on you that says, I'm going to heaven now, then whatever else you do with your life doesn't really matter. It doesn't really matter that much how much you are transformed and you become more like Christ and you pursue a life and an identity that looks more like him. As long as you avoid the really big sins, it's okay. He described it as we often think of the gospel in American Christianity as, think of it like wherever you go to the

the store and you're checking out and you have all these items with the barcode and they take the item and they swipe it across the laser and it scans the barcode and he says you know we often think of it as becoming a Christian means you just get a new barcode stamped to you but what you are doesn't change. Does that make sense?

God does something in us, right? He does it. He changes our identity. Yes, he changes our future. But then there's gonna be a change in who we are. At first, there's gonna be a very large incongruence between who we are in Christ and what our character is actually like. But the point is that from the moment that you are justified in Christ until the moment that you go to eternity, there is a process of transformation that happens.

Paul instructs them that they have to change their lifestyle. No longer live as the Gentiles do, he says to Gentiles. What this also means is that they have to change their lifestyle, they have to quit living like Gentiles, even as they continue to live amongst Gentiles. Paul's saying to them, no longer live that way, even if everyone else around you does. that's difficult. He's saying there are aspects of your former lifestyle that you are no longer.

going to participate in, things that you're going to flee from, that you're going to forsake, that you're going to leave behind. But for the people who were still, who were living in Ephesus, around all the other Ephesians, with all of their Gentile family, with all of their Gentile coworkers, and their Gentile culture, that means now that they're going to stand out.

It means they're gonna stand out, they're gonna be different. Maybe they'll be ostracized, maybe they will be mocked, maybe they will have slander against them. He says, you are not to live that way even if everyone else around you continues to do so.

How important is that for us to consider as we live in a culture that is increasingly going more after the Gentile lifestyle, we might say, or pagan lifestyle, rather than one that reflects more of a Christian worldview. We're here today, it's June 2nd, we're at the beginning of what our nation calls Pride Month, where all of our major corporations, our governments, and many different other entities in our society are celebrating sin, are celebrating a lifestyle which is

contrary to what the Lord intended in his creation and what he expects of people who are in his household. And not just that it is sin, but that we call it pride, right? The pinnacle of all sins, to say that we know better than God. Paul says to us, the gospel says to us as well, you will no longer live like the Gentiles, even if they continue to do so.

As our culture increasingly goes in that direction, the cost of obeying this will likely increase as well. Nevertheless, do we have a choice of whether we will obey or not? At the end of the day, we're gonna have to be like the disciples who were with Jesus after all the crowds left him. And Jesus turns to his disciples and he says, well, what about you? And they say, where else can we go? You have the words of life.

So being a Christian, it means once you've become something new in Christ, you start to live different. It's becoming something before you do something. So how do you live this new lifestyle? What does it mean practically?

to live this. You know last night we had a movie night in our house and our kids decided to watch the Pixar movie Inside Out. Inside Out is a fun little movie and it's a clever depiction of how what's going on on the outside of us is usually an expression of what's happening on the inside in our minds and so on. This is also similar to how Christian change happens. Christian change happens not as us changing what we do on the outside but rather

first a transformation of what happens on the inside of us that then goes to the outside. Christian transformation is not I need to start doing moral acts better so that I'm a better Christian but rather I need to live more in line with who I am becoming in Christ. Let me explain this a little bit more.

So in the first half of the passage that we look at today, Paul is describing the lifestyle of the Gentiles as an expression of their darkened hearts. So in verse 19, he says, they became callous and gave themselves over to promiscuity, practicing impurity with a desire for more and more and more. But how did they get to that point? Paul explains. They had futile thinking. Their thinking was wrong, was based upon lies, was in

empty. Why? He says because their hearts were darkened. Whenever Paul talks about a darkened heart here.

is in the Greek word, it is describing something like a callus, right? If you ever get a callus, you know, like guitar players get calluses on their fingertips from playing, if you work with your hands or if you do weightlifting and all that, you'll get calluses on your hands because through that use, the skin gets tougher and less sensitive, right? Paul's describing something that happens to the heart, how the heart can become callus where it is less sensitive to the truths of God and can even be obstinate against those things.

Paul explains that whenever our hearts are callous, whenever we resist the truth of God, and we exchange that truth for lies, then what will happen is our hardened heart and our callous heart will then lead to a darkened mind, where we cannot comprehend the truths of God, where we start to live according to lies rather than living according to the truth, and then the callous heart and the darkened mind will then lead to an outward expression of

of what he explains here, of a lifestyle that is contrary to what God desires.

It was their darkened heart, their calloused minds and darkened heart that led to their lifestyle. So in the same way, just as their lifestyle was an expression of what was happening on the inside, in the same way Christians are transformed on the outside by something that happens on the inside first. Christian transformation happens first by a renewing of our minds, by exchanging the lives of the world for the truth of God, for our heart no longer

being hardened and calloused to the truths of God and resisting it but instead embracing God, his authority, his word, his love and so on and it is by doing this in our heart and mind that we are then transformed on the outside. Paul uses the metaphor of like changing clothes. He goes on and says you're to put off or take off your former way of life and to put on the new.

It's a metaphor like you're changing your clothes, like you're taking off one set of clothing or like one uniform that you used to wear and you're putting on a new one. This is a metaphor that other people used back then, particularly the Greek philosophers, whenever they would explain ethics and they would talk about how one grows in virtue, they'd explain that you were to put off certain vices and to put on different virtues. For example, you would put off...

or take off the vice of hate to put on the virtue of love. But what Paul does is something completely different, where they used a similar metaphor to say, you know, you take off this vice and put on this virtue. He says you put off an old self and take on a new self. No one had ever used this metaphor or explained developing virtue as a transformation in who you are.

It was always a transformation in your morals, but not in the core of your identity, the self. But this is what Paul says, you're to put off the old self and put on the new self. And so our second point for how or what does this lifestyle look like is this, change in the Christian life happens by removing our old life and embracing the new.

Change happens by removing the old life or the old clothing and embracing the new. So what does that mean? To change on the inside, to put off the old and put on the new. Well, first thing it means is that you get a new set of motives. Changing on the inside out in Christian transformation is not the same thing as doing, I'm sorry.

as behaving in a certain moral way due to different pressures that are on us. Here's what I mean by that. People can behave very good and very moral for very wrong reasons. People can behave very good based on fear.

Right, because they are afraid of consequences, because they are afraid of judgment, because they are afraid of people's opinions and what someone might think about them. So based upon fear, someone can outwardly look very good. They can work really hard. They can do moral things. They can say wonderful words and phrases and messages. While on the inside, it's not really authentic, it's based upon fear, right?

People can also live very moral lives based upon pride.

based upon pride because of what, how they want people to see them and how lofty they think of themselves, they want others to see them and think of them that great as well. And so they can do all kinds of wonderful things based upon pride as well. But whenever you are putting off the old life and embracing the new, you get a new set of motivations. No longer do we obey, do we do good things, do we behave in a moral way due to different external pressures like fear of condemnation.

nation or pride that wants praise, instead now we don't obey out of pride but out of humility. It's not because of how wonderful we think we are, but because we have been made humbled by the gospel that tells us that we are sinners saved by grace. And so in response to that, being saved by grace and acknowledgement of our need for the Lord's help, instead out of humility, we obey. No longer do we obey out of fear of consequences, but instead we obey out of gratitude.

On the outside, a Christian living according to humility and gratitude and a non -Christian who is living according to fear and pride, on the outside, they can look quite similar in their work ethic and choices that they make in their homes in different ways, but on the inside, it's very different. One person is being made new in Jesus Christ.

The other person is continuing to increase that incongruence inside of them, right? And move further and further away from a life of living based upon joy, gratitude, humility, and congruence, but instead living in incongruence. Changing on the inside, putting off the old and embracing the new means first, getting a new set of motivations. Secondly, it means getting a new identity. It means that whatever you previously based your identity upon,

is now based upon Jesus Christ. If you once base your identity upon being a parent and being the best father, the best mother, whatever else it be, and so you judged how well you were living out that identity on the behavior of your children, which for those of you who are parents, you know that that is a losing game. That's a losing strategy there. Do not base your identity on being a parent, right? But if you do that,

Now you are putting off that I am and what makes me valuable is who I am as a parent and now know who I am is I am a member of God's household in Jesus Christ. What makes me valuable and what makes me.

What makes me who I am is not how great of a parent I am, but how united I am with Jesus Christ. And so now that can change the way that you parent and make you a better parent. But now if your kids embarrass you in public, or you have the same recurring struggles at home with one child or another, now no longer is your identity at threat. Because your identity is not based upon that, it's based upon Christ. So it's gonna make you a better parent.

If every time your child disobeys, it puts your identity at threat, do you think you're gonna be able to discipline them well? No, because you're gonna discipline out of fear. You're gonna discipline out of pride if they are embarrassing you in public. You're not gonna see that moment of embarrassment as an opportunity to discipline them, to grow them into a better person, but just to control them because they're embarrassing you. But if your identity is based in Christ and you are free from their behavior,

influencing who you are, you can be a much better parent. Same thing is true with being a spouse. The same thing is true with your jobs. The same thing is true with, for those of you guys who are still in school, in the academic pursuit that you're going for, if your life and your identity and who you are and what makes you valuable is based upon any of these things, well then every time, whatever those things are, every time they go wrong, they are a threat, you fail, then it means that you are a failure.

But if your identity is in Christ, then you are secure. Who I am is secure. What makes me valuable is secure. What determines the quality of my life is secure. Not how well my job is going, not am I moving forward in this or that, not am I being recognized in my social circles or anything else. Everything else in life is lanyard.

When things are good, that's great, but if things are bad, it's okay. It doesn't mean that I'm a failure now. You have to put off viewing yourself and your identity according to wherever you used to and now put on seeing yourself in Christ. The last thing is gaining a new standard. And here's what I mean by that. In the old life, your standard for.

Your standards for life might be based upon whatever the world and culture says. The world and the culture gives us a set of values. They say, this is what is good and this is what is bad. This is what is right and this is what is wrong. Our culture will give you a set of values. You can get a set of values and standards from your family growing up where, you know, in our family, whether that be the immediate or extended, this is what is the good in life and this is what is the bad. You can get it from the different sources.

social circles that you live in as this is what is desirable and this is what is undesirable. But whenever you become a Christian, you get a new standard to determine what your values are, what is seen as the good in life, what is the good life, what is right and wrong, what is righteous and what is wicked. Whenever you become a Christian, the standard for answering all those questions is going to change. You're no longer going to look around at the culture and say, well, what does the culture tell me? This is the right way to

live, what I ought to accept, what I ought to celebrate, and what I ought to reject or condemn.

Christians will no longer live according to the standards that the culture gives them, the world gives them, professors give them, parents give them, teachers give them, whatever else. Now our standard is the word of God. The word of God becomes the new standard, the rule by which everything else is measured. The word of God tells me what is good, righteous, and what is bad and wicked. The word of God tells me this is a desirable life and this is an undesirable. The word of God tells me,

this is what I ought to pursue and this is what I ought to forsake. The word of God is my standard now. Inner transformation means yourself, your character and your mind begins to operate according to a new set of rules. Your motivations change.

your identity changes, and the standards that you live by is gonna change as well. Once again, as we live in a culture that is increasingly turning away from the standard of God, one of the things that we have to do as Christians is to make sure that our minds are continually being transformed, that our minds are being renewed, that we do not fall into the deceitful images and stories and narratives that are given to us by our world and start to live according to their standards.

But as our minds are being renewed by Jesus Christ, putting off those things and receiving and putting on what God's standard is, what the Bible's standard is, right? What pleases Him, not what pleases our world. Regardless, where social costs come with it.

But what makes all this possible? How do we do this? This work of putting off the old garment or uniform and putting on the new. This work of inner transformation, of receiving the new identity, living according to the new standards. Paul does not assume that Christian transformation happens by our effort alone.

Instead, what he does in this passage, and what I want to draw out for you all today before we close, what he does is he combines human and divine efforts beautifully together.

The gospel tells us that we are saved by no effort of our own, but by what Jesus Christ does for us. He completed the work, He overcame death, and He is the one who makes us new, who removes our sins. Our sins are not forgiven, the debt is not erased, we are not reconciled to God by anything that we are capable of doing. It is beyond our means. Jesus does it for us. We do not meet God halfway in order to be saved.

He comes down to us. He does the work. And then we become a member of his household. But now as we do the work of his household, it continues to be done according to his power, by his power, but he invites us to participate. The Christian life. Let me, another reference to Dallas Willard. One of the axioms that he said that I...

very often go back to, the Christian life is opposed to merit. We don't earn the grace, we don't earn the love of God, but it's not opposed to effort.

The Christian life is opposed to merit, but it is not opposed to effort. And Paul brings together these two things, the power of the divine, the power of God, and our effort together, and how whenever God invites us into what he is doing and we join him in that work, then that's where transformation happens. Read verse 24 closely. In verse 23 he says, we are renewed in the spirit of our minds, and as our minds are renewed, what do we do? He says, we put on the new self.

The one created according to God's likeness and righteousness and the purity of truth. The one created. Can we create ourselves?

No, of course not. Did you create yourself, the reason that you're here today, did you create yourself? No, you had nothing to do with that. For you're existing on this earth today. Someone else did the work to get you here today. And it is the same thing with your spirit. You have nothing to do with the creation of the new spirit in you, with the creation of the new heart, with you being made a new creation. That's who we are in Jesus Christ. We're new, the old is gone. It's done away with, it's torn down and destroyed. We are a new creation in Christ.

just as you did not make yourself, neither do you make yourself that new creation now. But Paul says, we take what God has done and we put it on. You see, God's work and then what we are called to do are harmonized together beautifully and that's where change happens. Let me give you this quote from the scholar John Stott. He says, in answer to the question, do we change ourselves purely by our own power? He says, no.

The new humanity we assume is God's creation, not ours. Nevertheless,

When God recreates us in Christ according to his own likeness, we entirely concur with what he has done. We put off our old life, turning away from it in distaste. And we put on the new life he has created, embracing it and welcoming it with joy. In a word, recreation, what God does, and repentance, what we do by his grace belong together and cannot be separated.

We do not create the new self. We do not recreate ourself. That's something that God does. We ultimately do not even renew ourself. Notice a little grammar here in verse 23. It says be renewed as passive. We don't renew ourselves ultimately, it is the Lord who renews us.

but the two belong together. It's not something you can do, but it's something that you can receive. What Paul is showing us here is that as members of God's household, our weak and sinful nature, our impure characters can be transformed into something pure, can be transformed into something strong, can be transformed into something righteous. Our ugliness can be transformed into beauty.

through the process of putting off and putting on. But how is that possible? Because Jesus did the opposite. Jesus, who is strong, powerful, absolutely existing in a glorious beauty, instead.

place those things aside to take on weakness. This is what we read in Philippians chapter two at the beginning of our service. He instead put these things aside to take on the form of a servant. He humbled himself, Paul says. And he humbled himself all the way down to the point of death. Paul says even death on a cross.

Death on the cross in that society was seen as the most shameful, worst form of death that there was. But this is what Jesus condescended himself down to. His beauty was exchanged for the ugliness of the cross. His glory was exchanged for the shame of the crucifixion. His power was exchanged for weakness. And yet, in spite of all, he remained righteous.

He remained pure. So that in his exchange of all those things, we might have our ugliness, our wickedness, our sinfulness, and the condemnation and shame that we carry exchanged for the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Paul says that we put off the old and put on the new, describing it like as garments, right, as clothing. Where do those garments come from? They are the robes of righteousness earned for us by Christ. Jesus took off.

the robes of righteousness to take on our garments of condemnation so that we might take off our shame and put on what he earned for us. That's how it's possible, the great exchange between us and Christ. So, dress for the occasion that you have been called to.

We understand that you dress a certain way, right? You dress for the job you want. You dress for the event that you're going to. Whenever you go to a wedding, you dress a certain way. Whenever you go to work, you dress a certain way. Whenever you go to the gym, you dress a certain way, right? You dress for the occasion. Think about in a wedding, the bride and groom, right? The center of that ceremony, they dress a certain way because their role there is significant.

So you as well, in the calling that we have been given, you need to dress for the occasion. And just like a bride and groom in that wedding ceremony, they stand there before one another and they make all these commitments. They make all these promises that they haven't fulfilled yet, right? You know, all these things that they're gonna do and so on, but they haven't done any of those things yet. Nevertheless,

Whenever they make those vows and the officiant says, you are now husband and wife, they are absolutely in that moment, husband and wife. They don't become husband and wife years down the road once they've kept all those commitments. They become it in that moment and then they grow into it over time. You as well, as you are clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ,

you become a Christian in that moment. You're not more of a Christian years down the road, you become it then. But then in the inward reality of your heart, you grow into it over time. Let's pray.

Father, we praise you for your magnificent work of grace that saves us from our sin, that exchanges our condemnation and shame for righteousness, favor, redemption.

We thank you for these things Lord and we praise you that you fill us with your spirit, you unite us to your body, you make us members of your household so that our old way of life and the old self can be put off and we can put on the robes of righteousness that Jesus Christ earned for us.

so we can put on the new creation that you have made us in Christ Jesus. Lord, help us to do these things in the peace and security that comes from knowing that we are your children.

on our best days and on our worst. We are your children because of what Jesus did. And now the work of transformation that comes is just becoming more of who we are, but not earning or trying to pay back any debt because Jesus paid it for us. So Lord, make us people who live as members of your household in.

distinctly from the world around us. Not for our own recognition, not for spreading the name of Redeemer, but for spreading the name of Christ and for your glory and the furtherance of your kingdom. We pray this in your name, amen.