There’s a most bizarre episode in the Dad’s Army series in which the long lost brother of Captain Mainwaring comes to Warmington-on-Sea. Now this long-lost brother is a most different character, one who has not carefully climbed the career ladder, nor obtained the possessions of status and success.

As you can imagine, this long lost brother is not one whom Captain Mainwaring has either recently seen or who Captain Mainwaring really ever wants to see, for this long lost brother paints a different picture of our hero, of our pillar of the community, of our assured bank manager.

Video clip – BBC Dad’s Army, My Brother and I, 48:28 – 51:12 = 2 min 44 secs

So we see the long lost brother basically accusing Captain Mainwaring of abandoning his roots and of trying to be something he isn’t, and that long lost brother calls on the town to turn against our hero until our hero ……. Well I don’t wish to spoil the story.

Our passage today doesn’t just talk about a new life, but calls us to a new life, a life that is not as we once lived but as we now should live, to live the way of Christ. Ephesians 4 begins with a call to live a new life (Eph 4:1) and last week we saw how that vocation should be seen in the spiritual maturity of our fellowship as Christ’s body the church.

Our passage today is continues that call, but in far more practical terms. We are called to abandon the old way of living and to put on a new way of living. We need to look forward to a new way of living and not to look backwards at our old way of living, and in looking forward to look inward to the renewing of our hearts and minds.

So looking forward, not looking backward, and looking inward.

Looking forward (v.20-24)
Paul, our writer of Ephesians, reminds his readers of what they were once taught: ‘the truth that is in Jesus’ (v.21), and how the Ephesian Christians were to change from their former lifestyle and to be made new. That making new isn’t outward signs of holiness but inward changes to their attitudes: their mind was to be made new.

Paul graphically describes this renewing of their minds (and it’s a concept he talks about elsewhere – Rom 12:1-2, Col 3:10, Tit 3:5). These are inward changes that have outward effects, not outward manifestations that have no basis in inward reality.

So this renewing of the mind is graphically described by Paul as one in which a Christian puts off their old self (v.22) and puts on the new self (v.24). I’m reminded of the young youth minister speaking on such a passage. Now this young man was not known for his smart dress; invariably he wore rough jeans and ragged T-shirts.

So as he was preaching on the need to put off the old self and put on the new self, he left the podium and, while still preaching, went behind a stage screen and started removing his clothes, throwing them up onto the screen. At the point where he wanted to emphasise the difference that the new self made, he came out from behind the screen, to huge gasps, because he was, and never before seen, wearing an immaculate blue suit.

That’s the extraordinary effect that Paul is wanting to make, and it all starts in our minds – a new attitude in our minds. It’s not about creating an outward show as Captain Mainwaring had done, or in one sense as that youth minister had done, but it is a renewing of our minds that is needed. We need to fill our minds and hearts with those things that our helpful.

If we watch endless makeover programmes on TV then we are likely to wish that our house was made over similarly. If we read magazines that promote certain lifestyles or ways of thinking, then we will fill our minds and hearts with those things.

A new attitude of mind requires that we fill our minds with those things that provoke our new mind and heart. Jesus himself taught on this point most lucidly:
The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks. (Luke 6:45)

Our minds need a new attitude and that comes from what we put in them. The old self will reign as long as we persist in feeding it. The new self will blossom as nourish it with good things: worshipping God, praying to God, reading selectively, watching carefully, letting God’s word dwell richly within us.

But our problem is just the same as the Ephesians. They were tempted to look backwards.

Looking backwards (v.17-19)
Paul draws a line between the believers and the unbelievers. The unbelievers are living in a darkness of understanding, separated from the life of God (v.18), so much so that they have given themselves over to sensuality (indicating that that which is over them has some authority or control over them).

They were to live no longer as the Gentiles lived, as the unbelievers lived (v.17). There was to be no yearning for the past or attempts to straddle the gulf between a believer’s lifestyle and an unbeliever’s lifestyle.

Genesis 19 is a solemn story of looking back, of yearning for the past. Lot, the nephew of Abraham, together with his wife and daughters are rescued by 2 angels from the coming destruction of their home towns of Sodom and Gomorrah. They are literally led out of the city by the hand and told to flee for their lives. Except Lot plaintively asks that they be allowed not to have to flee too far (hardly rushing away from the ‘Gentiles’ as Paul would have it) and Lot’s wife, so yearning for the past, looks back and is immediately turned into a pillar of salt.

That’s how serious it is to look back to yearn for the old way of living, or to seek to straddle the gulf between the two. In fact, it’s so serious that Paul starts this section with a strong admonition (v.17a).

And don’t we look back as well? What is our life’s direction before we become believers? Upward mobility. What is it afterwards? Exactly the same. The only thing that has changed is that we believe (and sometimes we are taught) that God is now there to help us get up the mountain a little quicker. For all the talk of the Lordship of Jesus, we have sold ourselves the Western Dream with a little bit of Jesus overlaid.

We seek the answer to the question: How can this bless and encourage me? But in the 1st century, the first disciples were not living out Roman culture with church at the weekend. They understood that following Jesus was a whole-life proposition, and that required a new heart and a new mind.

Looking inwards (v.25-32)
Paul knows that and that’s why he says ‘therefore’ in v.25. If you are going to put on this new self, it will mean this, and he lists a string of attitudes that need to change: put off, do not, do not, no longer, do not, do not, get rid of.

And Paul rounds off the list with a positive command (v.32). I don’t know about you, but I reckon some of our TV scriptwriters could learn a thing or two from Paul. The basis of so many TV soaps is that people lie to all and sundry about all and sundry, stay angry for several episodes, steal others’ time or possessions or character, constantly speak unwholesomely (sparing us only by virtue of the 9pm watershed from worse) and keep bitterness, rage, anger, brawling, slander and malice bubbling over ever more.

See how important it is that we fill our lives, our hearts and minds with that which is wholesome, kind, compassionate, forgiving and so on. And that is harder than changing one’s clothes, or by putting on an outward show.

If we are going to put on a new self – to be the people Jesus calls us to be, to be the mature followers of Christ who experience and live out God’s love in every part of our lives – then we will need to take hold of a very different vision to that of our world.

Paul knew that Christianity was a whole-life proposition, which started from our hearts and minds and then influenced our lives. Let me propose that the first call of Gospel is not proclamation – though I firmly believe in evangelism; nor is the first call of the Gospel to social action – though I firmly believe in that too; but the first call of the Gospel of Christ is to incarnation – living out something that is radically different and radically attractive, that shows a life so beautiful.

So if we are to put off the old self and put on the new self, if we are to make new the attitude of our minds and no longer live as the Gentiles do, then we need to fill our hearts and minds with spiritual treasure.

All around us is the clamour for upward mobility or for personal satisfaction, but we must seek upward spirituality and divine satisfaction. All too easily we can let our faith be a leisure time pursuit, when it’s actually a whole-life proposition.

Will you change your family’s priorities: consider physical well-being, deeper relationships, better stewardship of your resources?

Will you change your time-styles: reducing irrelevant consumption (TV, junk food, shopping) and offer service before self?

Will you let your faith influence your work and your work-place: seeking to encourage those around you, actively standing back from wrong attitudes and wrong actions, even risking to suggest that there is another way to live?

At the heart of it all, is the question: Do we have more life than style or more style than life?