Put On Your New Self
Download MP3If you have a bible, I invite you to turn to Ephesians chapter 4. It's also there in your worship guide. Ephesians chapter 4. This is gonna be our last week in Ephesians, and then next week, we're gonna take a break to do an Advent series. We'll be looking at the virgin birth of Christ next week.
Jeffrey Heine:But actually, this week's sermon and next week's sermon, you're gonna see, go together. Really, this can be kinda seen as a part one of what we'll look at part 2, because when we're looking at new birth here, what it means for us to be born of God, and then we'll be looking at the virgin birth of Christ next week. Ephesians chapter 4, we'll begin reading in verse 17. 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 the hardness of heart.
Jeffrey Heine:They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But 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 the 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. Therefore having put away put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin.
Jeffrey Heine:Do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor during doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up as it fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger, clamor and slander be put away from you.
Jeffrey Heine:Along with all malice, be kind to one another. Tenderhearted. Forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. This is the word of the lord. Thank you.
Jeffrey Heine:If you would pray with me. Father, we pray that the words that we just read would not just be black words on white pages, but through your spirit, we would hear Jesus calling to us. And through your spirit, these words would be written on our hearts, and they would they would transform us. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But, Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us.
Jeffrey Heine:We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. So this passage is somewhat of a, a a hinge text, meaning we're transitioning to something new in Ephesians. Chapters 1 through 3, Paul has been telling us what to believe. And now for the next few chapters, 4 through 6, He is gonna begin telling us how to live.
Jeffrey Heine:So He just told us what to believe. Now we're moving to how to live and I can actually imagine that this would have been, somewhat surprising to these Ephesian Christians. To read a section here in his letter that's mostly about morality, they would have been confused by this for starters, because Paul is telling these Ephesians who are Gentiles, he's saying, Gentiles, you must no longer act like Gentiles. To which they would have thought, but we are Gentiles. How how can we no longer act like Gentiles?
Jeffrey Heine:We're Gentiles. And so that would have been the the first thing that probably puzzled them a little bit, But probably even more than that was nowhere up to this point had people associated morality as coming from religion. I know that sounds hard in our day and culture in which the 2 are completely intertwined. We, when we think of religion, we think of morality. They go hand in hand.
Jeffrey Heine:They're inseparable, but not so at all in this time. So the the Gentiles, yes, they worshiped gods, they worshiped many gods, but they never looked to the gods to get any sense of morality, or how they figure out how they should live. I mean, who were they gonna look to? I mean, you had Zeus. I mean, Zeus is always sleeping around.
Jeffrey Heine:Zeus is always smiting people. Whether it's with his people or other gods. Jeff talked about the goddess Artemis, last week and and how she had people dress up like bears. You know, to In order to serve her. The gods, when you begin looking at them at this time, they were liars, adulterers, rapists, murderers.
Jeffrey Heine:The only thoughts they had towards people was how to get people to serve them. And so men would have to serve them because the gods were powerful, and so they would build temples, they For morality, they looked to the philosophers, and you do have many philosophers at this time writing some good things, but religion and morality didn't mix. Then Paul comes. Paul comes and he preaches to them the gospel. He he tells them about Jesus, who's the Son of the one true God, and how He has come to this world, and He has saved us from our sins, and He is making all things new, and and they heard this gospel, and they believed.
Jeffrey Heine:And then Paul says, now that you believe, I need to tell you how to live, because Jesus is not just the person who saves you, he's not just your savior, Jesus is actually your example as well. And this would have been a disconnect with them. This was this was something new for them. They were unprepared for this. Paul is now telling them that because you believe in Christ, this now means you have to live a completely different life.
Jeffrey Heine:So now he begins to spell out over the next few chapters how they're supposed to live. And in order for Paul to do this, he needs to first remind them of how they used to live, when they were following all the other gentiles. And so he he explains to them this dire condition of the gentile, and we read about this in verse 17 once again. 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. Paul describes the gentile apart from Christ as living a life that's marked by futility.
Jeffrey Heine:And that word futility means exactly what you think it means. It means meaningless, useless, without purpose. And this described their life before they knew Jesus. I've shared this before, but a few years ago we had a professor from UAB, who was visiting us and she asked to talk to me, and so we met in that back room there, And she's an atheist. And the first thing she said when we sat down was, I want you to know, I am not like those other weak Chinese women who come here and become Christians.
Jeffrey Heine:It's like, okay. Kind of a strong opening statement. And so since she came out with that, I thought I could counter with with something a little strong. I said, well then tell me how do you cope with the meaninglessness of your existence? And, to her credit to her credit, she said, yes.
Jeffrey Heine:I have to acknowledge that if my life is merely an accidental collision of atoms over a course of time, and that there is no God, there is no creator, I have to acknowledge that my life has no meaning. I said, okay, but you didn't answer the question. How are you coping with it? She goes, I guess that's why I'm here. I guess that's why I'm here.
Jeffrey Heine:Our life apart from Christ had no meaning. It had no meaning. When when you look back at your old life, you're gonna see that there was no purpose to it, that it was futile. You were you were a futile. You were adrift.
Jeffrey Heine:You were lost. Now at the time, you might not have thought that. At the time, you might have actually thought there was some purpose, but now looking back, you see that there was no purpose at all. But I bet you early on in your life, you began asking questions. Questions like, like I'll hear from my kids.
Jeffrey Heine:So why am I going to school? Why why do I have to do my homework? Why should I care about grades? And often people who ask that, they either come up with the answer themselves or their parents will tell them, well you got to get good grades so you could get into a good college. Then the question is, well, why?
Jeffrey Heine:Well, you need to get in a good college so you could then get a good job. Well, why? Well you gotta get a good job so you can then buy the things you need. You can you can have money, and you could get the house you want, and you can take the trips you want. Yeah, but why?
Jeffrey Heine:And you could just keep asking why and why and why, and and all you're doing is you actually don't have a real reason. You're just kicking the can. You're you're kicking the can down into the future and like hoping that the next answer you give might actually have some meaning. And so you just keep kicking the can and kicking the can, punting it forward. And I've heard from other parents how they they could not believe some of the answers they've given their kids at times who've asked them why must they do well in school.
Jeffrey Heine:They said, so you can go to a good college. And then they'd stop and thought, but that didn't satisfy me. But they don't even know what else to say. They give them the same vague answers that have no meaning that they held onto, and I guess people just kind of hope in vain that they keep kicking the can down the road enough that maybe on their deathbed, I guess, when they look back, they could say that somehow there was some meaning at all. But Paul says, no.
Jeffrey Heine:As Christians, we know better. We look back at our old life apart from Christ, and let's be honest, it had no meaning. There was no purpose in it. And so thankfully, the Lord has saved us from this futility. Paul goes on to explain, how we could live that way by saying, well, this came about because we were ignorant.
Jeffrey Heine:We were ignorant and we were hardened, all the way to the point of becoming calloused. Look with me again at verse 18. They're darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to the hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. People without any sense of meaning in their life have to learn how to cope, and people cope with this lack of meaning by by growing calluses on their hearts.
Jeffrey Heine:So you grow a callus by continually being injured. That's what a callus grows after you, repeatedly injure yourself. So I I experienced this through chopping wood. I love to chop wood. That's one of my favorite activities actually is just to go and chop wood.
Jeffrey Heine:And the reason I love doing that is because when you are called into pastoral ministry, you're really just called to eat a lot. That's pretty much what I do. My profession is eating. So often I have 2 breakfast meetings in the morning, to be followed by 2 lunch meetings around, you know, noon, 11 o'clock lunch, and then a 12:30 lunch with different people. But thankfully in between those meetings, I get to have other meetings, in which I get to just drink coffee and sit, and then in between those times, I get to sit and study.
Jeffrey Heine:So I sit and I eat, that's my profession. So when I get home, I just wanna hit things. Alright? And so I just like shopping wood, and I have already got enough wood split to last at least 2 winters. Really with the winters we're having is probably 3 to maybe 4 winters, But, if I haven't chopped wood in a while, I'll, I'll instantly I'll start developing these blisters as I'm chopping.
Jeffrey Heine:You actually look at my ax handle, and it's pinkish red from all the blood on the handle, because I'll just work my work out my frustrations there. But after a while, the pain goes away because you develop calluses. Calluses grow over the wounds, so you no longer feel any pain. That's what a calloused soul does. It's a soul that's been so into sin, it's been wounded so many times by it, and actually no longer feels it.
Jeffrey Heine:It's hardened itself, and it's grown both numb to the pains and the pleasures in life. It can really feel nothing. It's calloused, and this was this was a coping mechanism. And Paul says that before Christ people they they gave themselves up to sensuality and to practice every form of impurity. They gave themselves up to all these things basically because they wanted to feel again.
Jeffrey Heine:They had lost their ability to feel. So let's just do all sensuality today. Let's do every form of impurity, and they're they're basically just pricking themselves trying to feel something again. Something that makes them feel alive, but their hearts are calloused, and they can't feel anything. Not really feel anything.
Jeffrey Heine:And Paul says that was your life. Before you came to know Christ, it was calloused. That's what it meant to be a gentile Ephesian who didn't know the Lord. But now Paul is saying, we get to leave that life completely behind, we get to put on a new self. We leave behind the futility.
Jeffrey Heine:We leave behind the ignorance, the hardness, the callousness, the sensuality, the impurities, all of that behind because Jesus is not just calling us to believe things differently. He's calling us to live differently, and we can live differently because he's given us a new heart. We've been awakened. We can once again feel things again, actually feel things in a completely new way. Paul says that we are to put off our old self, and to put on our new self.
Jeffrey Heine:You could translate that word self as human being. Literally, we're to take off an old human being, and we're to become or to put on an entirely new human being. That phrase also, to put off and to put on, is isn't something we call the aorist tense in Greek. We actually don't have that in English. A lot of languages don't have the aorist tense, And basically what it means is it was a action that happened in the past, a definite action that happened in the past, but it has ongoing effects.
Jeffrey Heine:So we might use it to describe this, when he got married you took vows. That was a one time act, but it's got all of these present ongoing implications. So yes, you took the vows on your wedding day, that's when you became married, but every day after that you're living into those vows. You're fulfilling those vows. And when Paul says that we are to put off our old self or to put on our new self, but he's saying that in the aorist tense.
Jeffrey Heine:He's saying at one time in the past this happened to you. At one time you became a new person. Now every day we are living into that. Every day like like marriage, you're you're reminding yourselves of the vows and you're living into them. Every day, we are in a sense putting off our old self, and we're putting on our new self in Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:We're becoming a new person every day. Now, this expression that Paul uses here, to put off and to put on, was a common expression. Philosophers in that day all the time would talk about putting off things like anger and putting on patience, taking off slander, and putting on kindness. Putting off laziness, and putting on hard work. You find philosophers all the time talking in this way, but that is not, it is absolutely not what Paul is saying here.
Jeffrey Heine:He is not describing this. What he's describing here is something that's totally new with Christianity. Paul does not say we take off a certain evil action and we put on another good action. He's actually saying, we put off ourselves. We put off our whole being, and we put on an entirely new self.
Jeffrey Heine:We become somebody completely different. And nothing like that had ever come before. And if you don't understand this, you're not gonna understand Christianity. Christianity is not putting on a morality. It's not putting on a morality.
Jeffrey Heine:It's putting on an entirely new self. And I feel like you gotta you gotta say this, because people out there, they think, when they think of what it means to be a Christian, they think of all the things you have to put on. Oh, to be a Christian, well, I need to put on generosity. To be a Christian, I need to put on kindness. To be a Christian, I need to put on going to church.
Jeffrey Heine:I need to put on volunteering more. I need to put on reading my bible and praying. I need to put on these things. We think of actions, but that is not what Paul says. We put on an entire new self.
Jeffrey Heine:We become new people. If you don't understand this, you're not gonna understand what I would say is the heart of Christianity. We don't put on a new morality. We become a new person. And it's when we've been changed and we're a new person, we then can live a life that's pleasing to God.
Jeffrey Heine:I I believe one of the reasons that the American church is, we'll just say, in disarray right now. It's in disarray. We we look at the the church 30 years ago, and we think of the the morals that the church used to have. These really good morals, and now we look at the church now, and we're like, what happened? Well, the problem is this.
Jeffrey Heine:I see it as 30 years ago, the church was putting on morality and not putting on a new self. For those of you who grew up in church, and I grew up in a somewhat legalistic, church growing up, I associate my youth group experience with doing nothing but putting on or putting off certain forms of morality. That was it. You know, I had to put off smoking, put off drinking, put off sex, had to, you know, put those things off. You know, I had to put on things like being nice to your parents.
Jeffrey Heine:You know, put on obeying them. Put on going to church. Put on having my quiet time. It was, it was all these activities that I was told to either get rid of or to put on, but what was rarely dealt with was actually the heart. To put on a new self, the new self that was given to me through Jesus, and out of that, those other moralities, they they flow.
Jeffrey Heine:And so what I think we've seen in the church right now is just 20, 30 years ago, it had put on a certain morality, and that morality suited it because the rest of the world had that morality. But then as the morality changed, it no longer suits the church, and so you just But then as the morality changed, it no longer suits the church, and so you just drop that morality and you put on a new morality. But all the while, the heart's never been changed. That's what Paul's getting at here. He says don't we don't clean the cup from the outside in.
Jeffrey Heine:We We gotta clean the inside of the cup. Now the reason that that Paul tells us that we have to put on an entirely new self and not just put on some new form of morality is because you can never be moral enough. It doesn't matter how much morality you put on. It doesn't matter how many charitable events you go to. It doesn't matter how much you give.
Jeffrey Heine:It doesn't matter, you know, how many quiet times you have in a day. It doesn't matter if you pray for 3 hours. It doesn't matter what morality you have. It will never be enough. One of the best places that I see this in scripture is in a it's actually a random text in a Old Testament book, Zechariah, and in chapter 3.
Jeffrey Heine:Zechariah 3, and I'm just gonna take a bit to walk through that. Zechariah is given this vision. It's it's this vision that happens, in which he sees the high priest, Joshua, who was the high priest at the time, and he sees him standing before the Lord. Now there's only one time that the high priest could ever stand before the Lord, and that was during the day of atonement, what we would call Yom Kippur. The temple if if you've ever seen any diagrams or familiar with it had basically 3 layers to it.
Jeffrey Heine:You had the the outer court, then you had the inner court, and then you had this holy of holies, which is where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. And one day a year, the the high priest could go in there, and he could meet with the Lord. He would make sacrifices for the sins of the people. And it was on this day, that apparently that's what this vision was of Zechariah. He sees Joshua the high priest standing before the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:Now a number of years ago, I came across a book by doctor Albert Edersheim. He's a Jewish scholar on ancient temple worship within the Jewish faith. Internationally recognized. He's probably the tops in the world in this, and he wrote a little book that really walked through everything that was required to put off this day of atonement, and my eyes were just opened to Zechariah 3 in a unique way. The day of atonement took enormous amounts of preparation.
Jeffrey Heine:The high priest who had to perform this would isolate himself 7 days beforehand. He would actually go and he would live in the temple. They would have a little bedroom attached, and he would live there for the entire week. Basically, quarantine quarantining himself to where he couldn't touch anything that would defile him. You know, he's not gonna touch anything dead.
Jeffrey Heine:He's not gonna touch, a woman who's having her period. He's he's gonna have all of his meals specially made. They're gonna strain out every little gnat in it. He's gonna make himself, as pure as he can. And all during this week, he would be practicing the sacrifices that he had to make.
Jeffrey Heine:He'd be rehearsing the prayers that he had to say, because there could be no mistakes. He had all these elders and he had all these priests who would be on standby, in case he had any questions. They could go look up things in scripture and tell him real quick. They could remind him of the exact wording of the prayers, because everything had to be perfect. He had to know the exact order of all the sacrifices.
Jeffrey Heine:He had to know the direction that he had to lay each animal before he sacrificed. He would take a vow before everybody that he would not alter any word or any order of the events that would take place during that time. The night before the day of atonement, he would not go to sleep. He'd stay up all night dedicating himself to prayer and just studying the word as a way of consecrating himself for what would happen the next day. And then the service would begin at the very first streak of morning light, and already by this time, the temple would be packed.
Jeffrey Heine:All the priests of course would have been there in attendance. The public would be crowding in as well. During the Passover week, Jerusalem is flooded with 100 of thousands of people. As many as possible would be crowding all around the temple, essentially cheering on the priest, because he is their representative. They've got a lot at stake with with his task, And so they're all around, and they would also be spending the day fasting and praying, looking on with both a mixture of anxiety and also hope.
Jeffrey Heine:Their representative was going before them seeking God's forgiveness. Now when it was Well there was a total of 15 sacrifices that day. 12 of these sacrifices were common sacrifices that would be done throughout the year, but 3 of them were specific sacrifices only for that day. 500 priests would be on call if any task needed to be done immediately, but they were not allowed to help the high priest with these sacrifices. He had to make all 15 sacrifices by himself.
Jeffrey Heine:He was essentially a butcher that day. All day. So as he's going through these first 12 normal sacrifices, he's wearing his priestly clothes, which had a lot of gold on them. After each one of these sacrifices, he would then take off those robes, he would wash his hands, he would wash his feet, and then he would put on another priestly outfit. Then he would do the next sacrifice, and then he would come out and he would take off his robe, and he would wash his hands and his feet.
Jeffrey Heine:He did that for all 12 of those first sacrifices. When it came time to go into the holy of holies and to make the sacrifice of atonement there, the high priest would actually, this time strip down to where he was, completely naked, and there he would he would bathe publicly in front of everybody. Once again, people wanted to watch their representative. They wanted to watch every aspect of what he would do. So they actually made these screens.
Jeffrey Heine:You could slightly see through them, and they would screen off around the bath, So that the priest could actually bathe and the people could kind of see what was going on, yet the high priest would still have some privacy. So after bathing, the priest he would not put on his normal priestly clothes, this time he would put on vestments of pure white linen. That's what he would dress, and he would go in, and he would make his first sacrifice. And the first sacrifice was a sacrifice for his own personal sins, and as he entered into this holy of holies, it would have been surrounded by a thick curtain letting in almost no light. The only light in there would have been kind of the red coals that were burning, in which he would have thrown incense on these coals, and then it would have filled up the entire room with smoke, and so there's this dense smoke, no light, and he's going in there in his pure white garments.
Jeffrey Heine:And he makes a sacrifice for his own sins. Then he goes out, completely strips down, takes another bath. Puts on all new white linen again, and he goes in and he makes the next sacrifice. This sacrifice is for the sins of the priest, And after he makes that sacrifice, he comes out, strips down again, takes another bath, and puts on the white clothes again, and he goes inside. This time, to make atonement for all of Israel.
Jeffrey Heine:K. That's 15 baths. You can't get any more clean than this. And this is the scene that's being described in Zechariah 3. And then what Zechariah describes that he sees when he sees Joshua the high priest going in for this last sacrifice, what he sees, it's, nothing less than stunning.
Jeffrey Heine:We read this. Says now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments. Clothed with filthy the word filthy there is excrement. Literally, covered with excrement. Zechariah, I mean, he would have seen this and like, that's not possible.
Jeffrey Heine:I mean, he would have been in horror. This this high priest should not have had a speck of dust on him, probably didn't even have a germ on him. I mean and yet now he's standing there and he's literally covered in excrement. I mean, this is there could not be a worse situation than this, and what's happening here is the Lord is allowing Zechariah to see to see the high priest how he sees the high priest. Basically, Zechariah is being allowed to see man at his absolute righteous best.
Jeffrey Heine:This is the best man can get. You cannot get more pure or consecrated than this high priest there, and the Lord looks at them and sees somebody covered with excrement. Filthy racks. I mean, so so what are you supposed to do? I mean, certainly you realize at this moment that there is nothing.
Jeffrey Heine:You can't get more righteous than this. There's nothing more that you could And so what hope do we have? Well then something shocking happens after this. We actually read that the lord removes these filthy garments, and he puts on pure white vestments. He dresses Joshua in pure white clothes.
Jeffrey Heine:And then the angel announces that the branch is coming. This this figure called the branch. And says that he will remove all the sins from Israel in a single day. In a single day. And once again Zechariah would have thought, that's not possible.
Jeffrey Heine:I mean the one thing Zechariah knows as a prophet and one who's gone to the temple regularly is that the sins are never removed. I mean they're they're temporarily maybe pushed out of the way, but you have to keep making sacrifices, keep making sacrifices every year just hoping it it will put off judgment for another year, but but the sins don't actually go away. But now this angel says that there's this person coming the branch, he's gonna remove all sin in one day. One day. This happened through Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:Did you know that in Aramaic and in Hebrew and in Greek, the word Joshua and the word Jesus are the same? Yeshua. So that high priest, Joshua, he he's pointing us forward to a truer and better high priest, and Yeshua, Jesus. And there's a lot of commonalities that that take place, as Jesus approached the cross, the day of atonement. The week before the day of atonement, Jesus began preparing himself.
Jeffrey Heine:The night before the day of atonement, just like the high priest, Jesus stayed up all night in prayer. But there the commonalities stop, because Jesus, he asked for his aids to remain with him, and to help him out. He asked for the disciples to stay and to keep watch, but his help all fell asleep. Jesus endured that night alone. And and the next day, he did not have the crowds there cheering him on as he went to make the sacrifices.
Jeffrey Heine:No. He had the crowds mocking him. And everybody who was close to him had fled by that point. Jesus went to the day of atonement all alone. And Jesus wasn't wearing pure white linen.
Jeffrey Heine:His clothing was stripped and removed from him. Jesus didn't have the the baths. Instead, Jesus was bathed with everyone spit as he approached, and Jesus didn't have the sacrifices there to make. He gave himself as the sacrifice. 2nd Corinthians 5 says, he who knew no sin was made to be sin So that so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God.
Jeffrey Heine:What we see here sets Christianity apart from what I would say every other religion. Every other religion believes in this outside in approach that you have to do something in order to reach God, but Christianity says, no, we don't do anything. It's Christ who has reached out to us. It's not what we do, it's what Christ has done and what he did for us on the cross. He has removed our sin at the very cost of his life.
Jeffrey Heine:When we become a new person, when we put on the new self, what we're doing is putting on Christ. We're putting on his righteousness. There's this beautiful exchange that happens on the cross in which our filthy rags, all of our best works that are nothing more than excrement, we take those off and they are placed on Christ, and He is treated as we deserve, and then Christ takes his pure white linen, and he puts it on us, his righteousness, and now we are treated as he deserves. There's this beautiful exchange that happens in the cross. It's what we call the gospel.
Jeffrey Heine:Have you done this? Have you done this? Have you put on a new self or are you still trying to put on a new morality? Are you just trying to keep doing better and better works? You know, the church fathers had a saying, it's not your sins that keep you out of heaven.
Jeffrey Heine:It's your damnable good works. It's when you hold on to those and you think, I look good. Look at my righteousness. It's not righteous, it's filthy rags. Your only hope is to be dressed in Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:To be a new person in him. If this is you who's been calling out, or who's been trying to put on morality your entire life, I plead with you to call out to Christ. Call out to Christ. Be dressed in his righteousness. Have him make your heart new.
Jeffrey Heine:If you would pray with me. Lord Jesus, when we stand before you, not one of us will ever pull out a good work and say, look. Look, I'm something. Our only hope is to plead Jesus, your blood, to plead your righteousness that you have secured for us on the cross. You are the ones who have you are the one who has made us a new person, and we give you thanks for that.
Jeffrey Heine:And now I pray that we would live into that, the new life that you have given us. Spirit, I ask that you would work in this room, and you would move in our midst. Lord, that you would purify our hearts during this time. And we pray this in your name, Jesus. Amen.
