Today on bold steps, we're learning how to let go of the past as we take bold steps forward.
And so I'm going to try to keep my old shoe and put my old shoe into my new shoe. It doesn't quite fit right. You're going to walk funny. You have to take off the old completely so that you can put on the new completely. Some of us are walking funny because you're trying to put on the new, but still keep the old.
Nearly 80% of people experience back pain of some kind, and doctors say that most of our aches and pains are caused by wearing old shoes. But what do old shoes have to do with our Bible message today? Well, that's what Mark Jobe, president of Moody Bible Institute and senior pastor of New Life Community Church in Chicago, will explain in our message titled putting on the new you. I'm Wayne Shepherd. This message comes from our study in the book of Ephesians, where in chapter four it's titled
when You Believe Everything Changes. Here's Mark Jobe with today's bold steps.
Paul says, he says you were taught with regard to your former way of life, to put off the old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires. Hey, there's a lot of stuff in your old life that you need to start taking off. There's a lot of stuff. There's a lot of old way of living that you know is wrong. That was the old you, and you could probably name it off the top of your head.
The stuff that you used to do, the stuff that maybe sometimes you do now, but the stuff that was a part of your old life that shouldn't be a part of your new life, right? We all know that stuff. That stuff will corrupt you. That stuff is no longer a part of you. That is who you were, not who you are. You say, well, I still do it? It doesn't matter now. If you do it, you do it. But it's not really you now. It doesn't belong to you now. It doesn't match you now. It doesn't go
with who you are. Because who you are now is different. Who you are now doesn't match with the old stuff that you used to do. It used to match with you. But now that you are in Christ, that old stuff doesn't go with the new you. So what? What Paul is saying is that you have to take off stuff. I take off lying, cheating, deceit, getting drunk. I take off a lot of that old junk I used to do. I take selfishness and anger and bitterness and hatred. I take off cheating, I take off, I take off all
that old stuff I start taking. Those are dirty clothes. I take off that dirty clothes no longer belongs to you. That's not you anymore. Now I begin to renew my mind. And the second step, he tells us, is being made new in the attitude of your mind. So now that I've taken that stuff off, you see, unless you take that off, it's hard to renew your mind. You have to start taking that off and getting it out of your life, or that stuff will keep you trapped in
the old cycle of living. So you start taking it off, and then you start renewing your mind, thinking a different way, learning how to live life a different way. Envisioning your life a different way. God's way. And then he says, and put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Listen, now you're putting on your new self. You've gotten rid of your old self. Now you're putting on your new self and your new self. Looks like who? It looks like your father. It looks
like God. It has love and righteousness and peace and joy and the creativity of God, the faith of God. That's the new you. That's who you really are now. And you are in the process of taking off the old and putting on the new. Here's what I see many of us do. We have the old and we say that kind of like the old. I've become accustomed to this old shoe. I've had fun with this old shoe. And so I'm going to try to keep my old shoe and put my old shoe into my new shoe.
And you know what? It doesn't quite fit right. You can't keep your old shoe and put the new shoe on. You're going to walk funny. You're going to look funny. You have to take off the old completely so that you can put on the new completely. Some of us are walking funny because you're trying to put on the new, but still keep the old, and it just looks strange. It's just not the way it should be. And what Paul tells us then is he says that the new self is created to be like God, that that's who
you really are. So start putting on who you really are. And then he gets real specific. If you want to know exactly what he's talking about, he gives at least. Let's see five examples of what it means to take off the old and put on the new. Are you ready for this? Because this is going to hit practical. This goes right to where you live, right to where you work, right to where you study. He's going to meddle with your life right now. Are you ready for that? Okay,
here we go. He says in verse 25, stop lying and start telling the truth. Lying was part of your old life. You take it off. Truth is part of you. Your new life. You put it on. Now you say, well, pastor, I don't really lie. I just tell white lies. Hold on a second. Since when were lies color coded? Since when did we have a pink lie? A blue lie. A light blue lie. A maroon, a dark lie. A brown lie and a black lie. Who color coded lies. Listen, a lie is a lie. Period. There is no good lies.
There's no white lies. There's no less bad lies. Lies are lies. Period. You know what the Bible says? That the devil is the father of lies. And in him there is no truth. And when we lie, we speak his language. When we lie, we speak the native language of the devil because he's a liar. He lives with lies, love, lies. He loves lies. He dishes out lies. He's an accuser. And every time we lie, every time we bend the truth, deceive,
tell a lie. What we are doing is we are speaking the native language of the enemy, of our souls. We are. It's like we're speaking jive. We're speaking the old neighborhood talk. And the enemy says, yeah, I understand this language. Hold on a second. No, no, no, no. When you speak lies, you are speaking the native tongue of the enemy. You are talking his language. You are introducing his culture. You are opening up the doors for
the enemy to get into your life. And what the Bible says is when we speak lies, we are not speaking the language of God because the language of God is truth. Amen. So we don't lie and we speak the truth. That means you don't lie at your work about how many hours you've worked or haven't worked. You don't lie to your kids. You don't say, well, I'm just going to lie. I'm just going to tell them this little lie. No, no, you don't lie to your kids. You don't lie to your spouse. You don't lie to
your brother in law. Sister in law. You don't lie to authorities. You tell the truth. Even if the truth has consequences. You tell the truth because the truth is your new language. It's the language that you live in and thrive in. It's the language of God. Truth is the language of God. And when you speak the truth, you begin to speak the language of God and you invite the presence of God. Listen, can I tell you this? When you start down the road of little white lies,
I'm going to tell you. Little white lies turn into big black lies. Little light, little white lies begin to you begin to. So this, this, this little entanglement of lies as you begin to bend the truth and, and and begin to deceive. And half truths and half lies. Listen, that is the best way to begin to get your life down this road of deception and lack of integrity. I have seen it over and over. So many people that start with little lies and just their whole life
becomes a lie. And so I am challenging you. Paul says, I want you to put offline, and I want you to put on the clothes of truth. That means you're honest with one another. Why? Because, he says, because we are all members of one body. In other words, you are connected to each other. And when you lie, you hurt other people. You hurt yourself. And God is the father of truth. All right. I'm just getting started here. Alright? And this is Paul. Paul is saying that's just that's
just one. Here we go. By the way, students, can I just tell you this? I know that cheating is rampant in schools. It's kind of the idea if you can cheat, you get away with it. If you can get away with it, cheat. If you can copy off someone else's paper, if you can get the exam in advance, if you can stay sick and then have someone loan you the exam, tell you the the scores. If you can get an old exam, if you can write it on your arm, if you can put it on a phone,
if you can wrap it in a little paper. I think if you spent if you spent as much time studying, then you do trying to figure out how to cheat, you'd probably pass the exam with an A anyways. But regardless of whether it's culturally accepted or whether you can get away with it, let me tell you. Hear me? Well, listen. You cheat. Maybe no one else knows about, but God does. And there's a darkness that happens when you open up your soul to cheating. That's the old self, not the
new self. So get away with it. It's the old. Now you're putting on the new. You have a new self in Jesus Christ. Amen. Secondly. Me. Oh, not only truth, the old self. He says in verse 26, in your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you're still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold in your old life. You used to blow up in anger. You used to stay angry. You
used to manipulate people with anger. You used to get bitter and resentful, and then you would give the devil a foothold, and all kinds of other things would come into your life because you're angry. James says the wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God. Listen, when you're angry, you say things you wouldn't normally say. You do things you wouldn't normally do. Anger and lust are cousins. They go hand in hand. When people get angry,
they overdrink. When people get angry, they get violent. When people get angry, they say things that hurt people. When people get angry, they lose restraint and they do things that they would only do fully in the flesh because that is driven by anger. And what Paul says is you used to be angry a lot and it was accepted, but now that you're in God, you can become angry because anger, anger is not a sin. Anger is an emotion. But it's what you do with your anger that's a sin. Hello.
You say, well, pastor, I can't help you become getting angry. It just surges up. You may not be able to help getting angry, but you can help. You can determine what you do with this emotion or energy of anger. And it says when you get angry, do not sin. You say, well, what do you want me to do when I get angry at my wife? I just have to sin. Oh, my mouth unleashes and I call names and I. What do I do? Listen, if you can't control your mouth, go for a walk. If you can't
go for a walk, go for a run. Get out of there. If you have to get away, get away until you calm down and the energy subsides. And then you can talk and and deal with the issues that you have to deal with. But in your anger, do not sin. But listen. If you go for a walk or go for a run, don't make it an overnight walk or run. Don't stay somewhere else. Don't stay at your mother's house and you don't go knocking on your mother's door. Hi. Well, here I am with my pillow.
No no no no no no. Listen, listen, big boy, don't go to your mom's house. Don't go to your mom's house. Listen, mom's. Your son comes to you with a pillow under his arm saying, my, my, my wife doesn't understand me. I'm coming to stay overnight at your house. You have a place in the basement. You put your foot in the door and say, son, you're a big boy. Listen, you used to live here, but you don't live here anymore. You go back to your wife. You love her. You
make things right. You deal with it tonight, son. Hear me? Okay, so, moms, don't let him in. I know he's your baby and all, but your baby needs to grow up.
Well, you're listening to the Bible teaching of Mark job, and we'll continue this bold steps message titled putting on the New You right after a break. If you haven't been to our website yet, we encourage you to visit and see all the faith building resources, opportunities, and sermon series we have available. Just go to Bold Steps. You can even have these daily lessons downloaded automatically to your phone or mobile device by subscribing to the Bold Steps podcast.
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And the Bible says do not let the sun go down while you're still angry. So deal with it today. Don't go to sleep on it. Don't say I'll deal with it next week. Don't say I need it for days to simmer on it. Deal with it that day. And do not give the devil a foothold. Because if you don't deal with it, then it's like, it's like the devil's going to try to get into your house
someway or another. And when you get angry and don't deal with it, it's like you put, you know, when someone's trying to get in your house and a stranger comes to your door and you open up and you see them and you say, oh, no, this guy looks like scared. No, I don't want any of that. You close the door. But what if that stranger puts their foot in the door? If that stranger puts the foot in the door, you try to slam it, but you've closed the door. But you. But, but, but they still
have access. As long as the door is cracked, they can push their way in. And what what God says is, when you don't deal with your anger, what you have done is you've left the door cracked open, and it's just a matter of time before the enemy is going to get more of his body in there and push the door open wide and get into your life and start messing with your life and your family and your spiritual walk. So close the door all the way. Deal
with your anger. Don't give the devil a foothold, it says. Alright, number three, I'm talking about taking off the old and putting on the new. And if that wasn't enough, verse 28 says, stop stealing, start working and start giving. Listen, he who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work. Do something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those that are in need. He's basically saying, listen, your old life, maybe
you were a taker. You would see what you could get. You were a taker when the boss wasn't looking, you would take things from your job. Uh, I heard when revival struck in Wales years ago, the great Welsh revival. It was a mining community, and they talked about people
getting things right. And if they had stolen, making restitution, so many miners had has stolen tools from the mining place that they all started returning, the tools they had stolen, and the bosses finally had to say, stop returning the tools, because they had piles of tools from the miners who had been stealing them from their mining jobs. If you steal, he says, you steal no longer. It's done. Hey, you know, there's a lot of ways of stealing. Oh, maybe you're
not a shoplifter. But you know what? You can steal at your job with a time card. There's little ways we we figure out how to steal. Right? You could steal cable with a little black box you figure out that your cousin gave you. I'm not hurting anybody. I mean, A little black box. Hey, you're really stealing is illegal. Well, I wouldn't call it stealing, pastor. I mean, I'm just kind of borrowing. You know, I'm just borrowing, you know, television stations and. No, no, you call it what it is.
Come on. We allow stuff to get into our house. We allow the compromises to start getting into our our system and start taking ceiling is taking that which doesn't belong to us. And we take it and we use it and act like it's our own. That that's that's called stealing. Now, Paul says, listen, you used to be like that. You used to look for opportunities to take which was not your own and use it, but now you belong to God, so therefore you steal no longer. In fact, you know what you do. You get a
job and you get a job. Why not just so that you can meet the needs of yourself and your family, but you get a job in order so that you can actually give to other people that are in need. You see, I take off my stealing, I get a job, and now I become a giver. And now you're looking just to figure out how you can give things to people. Why? Because now you've taken off the old and you've put it on the new. You're starting to walk like God, talk like God. You're starting to walk like a new person,
a new believer. Uh, people can trust you now. Why? Because now you've you've you've begun to change.
Learning how to be a new person in Christ. That's today's topic from Mark Jobe on Bold Steps. If you've missed any of the messages in this series, you can catch up online when you go to Bold Steps. Org on our website. You can also request our current bold Step gift. And let's talk more about this. Mark is now here with pastor Mike Fabares.
Well, you know.
There's some sins that are easy to spot in our lives, but others, they're like hidden snipers taking shots at our spiritual health, and we don't even notice it. Right?
That's right.
Yeah. And, uh, pastor Mike Fabares, your book, envy, tackles one of these stealth sins. You call it, actually a diabolical sin that's at the root of many of our problems. Tell me, pastor Mike, why this is so dangerous?
Well, it's dangerous because it can do a lot of damage. If you think about the church, I'm not the first in church history to call it a diabolical sin. It has been a foundational sin, a cardinal sin, a, you know, a root of all kinds of other sins. And yet in our generation, I just I had never read a book on it. I had never heard a sermon on it. And I realized as I went through my ministry, I see this problem springing up with a ton of different symptoms.
But the core problem is that we are envious of other people's success.
The subtitle of the book is A Big Problem You Didn't Know You Had, and I was thinking about that. Most people that I talked to, I don't know if I've ever heard of someone say, you know, my problem is I'm envious. No one ever says that. That I remember, like, my problem is I have envy. Tell us why it's hard to self-diagnose.
Well, because I think we often justify the fact that, you know, I'm just trying to move forward in life. And I'd sure like to have what he has. Or some gal saying, I'd like to look like she looks, or I'd like to have the influence that he has. And we think, okay, well, that's just part of our ambitious desire to do well in life. And we don't realize that it's starting to color the way we make decisions, how we view other people, how we talk about other
people behind their backs. And it really starts to just disrupt our relationships. It can ruin a small group and it can split churches. It is really an explosive sin and we don't often identify it like we ought to.
Mike, you know, when you read scripture with this in mind, suddenly it pops up everywhere, doesn't it?
Yeah. It does. Yeah. From the very beginning in Genesis, we don't get out of the first family until we see Cain rising up to kill Abel, because he was envious of him all the way to the New Testament Gospels. It's interesting that Pilate immediately looks at this scene of the Sanhedrin and the Pharisees delivering Jesus over to be crucified, and he diagnoses the problem and he says, you guys are envious of this man. It really is true that
it's everywhere. And it is the fountainhead of all kinds of problems in our lives.
Well, let's talk more about that in the days to come. As we continue to talk with pastor Mike Fabares about his book, envy a Big problem you didn't know you had. Our bold step gift. Mike, thank you so much. And we'll send you a copy of Mike's book, envy with your gift of any amount to support bold steps, just call us at 800 D.L. Moody. (800) 356-6639 or give online at bird-stamps.org. Many people like to send their gifts through the mail and you can do that as well. Bold
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And then don't miss this weekend's edition of our program Bold Steps Weekend, as pastor Mark unpacks what the transformation from spiritual death to spiritual life truly means and how it impacts the way we live, love, and walk in the world. Drawing from Ephesians two. Mark will explore what it looks like to move from being dead in our sins to being made fully alive in Christ. This message will encourage you to walk in the fullness of that new life and embrace the purpose God has for you.
Listen to Bold Steps weekend. That's our time for today. I'm Wayne Shepherd, inviting you to join us Monday when Mark continues this message putting on the new you. Don't miss it. It's from our series. When you believe everything changes and it's coming up Monday on Bold Steps with Mark Joe. Bold steps is a production of Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.