Sharon Reformed Presbyterian Church · Sermon study sheet

Take Stock of Your Life

Bryan Schneider · January 29, 2022

Ephesians 4:17-24

sharonrpc.org/sermons/take-stock-of-your-life

Summary

Paul calls believers to remember the dark futility, ignorance, hardness, and sensuality from which Christ rescued them.
Repeated sin hardens the conscience, so Christians must not drift back into the old patterns and values of the surrounding age.
To learn Christ is to receive his truth with repentance, putting off the corrupt old self rather than adding religious language to unchanged conduct.
The Spirit renews the mind especially through his inspired Word, reshaping what occupies the heart and directs daily life.
God creates the new self in true righteousness and holiness, and believers actively put it on while resting in his prior work.

Which pattern from my former life is beginning to look normal again?
What does my use of attention and time reveal about what chiefly occupies my mind?
Where must repentance include both putting off an old practice and putting on its righteous opposite?
Does a broad survey of my life show growing conformity to Christ or comfortable conformity to the age?

Old self: The former humanity corrupted by deceptive desires and expressed in darkened thinking and sinful conduct.
Renewal of the mind: The Spirit's transformation of thought and desire through the truth of Christ in Scripture.
New self: The new life God creates according to his likeness in true righteousness and holiness.