The Holy Spirit (2)

Scripture reading: Psalm 90:1-6

Primary sermon resources.

Phillips, R. D. (2016). Ephesians(p. 360). Mentor.

Cole, S. J. (2017). In Ephesians (Eph 4:25-29). Galaxie Software.

The Holy Spirit

Ephesians 4:25-32

I think it would be great if when we became Christians we never had to worry about sin and temptation again. I mean think about it, wouldn’t it be great if the longer we walked with the Lord, we built up some kind of immunity to sin, but that’s just not the case.

There are some sins in our life that God removes immediately, and the moment we are saved we never have to deal with it again. There are other sins that act like kryptonite to Superman, and we struggle with them the rest of our life.

I am reminded of King Davd, who the bible refers to as a man after God’s own heart. He served God faithfully and experienced great victories in his life. He slayed the giant Goliath out on the battlefield. He refused to be rescued from the hand of King Saul, because he was God’s anointed. He wrote thousands of Psalms of praise to the Lord. Yet, when he was older, he gave into the temptation of adultery, deception, and murder.

So, if you think you have arrived at a place where sin and temptation are no longer an issue, you’re mistaken. Paul warns us in 1 Corinthians 10:12, “let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.” You see, sin is a powerful force, and it offers us instant gratification, and we need motivation to overcome it.

And the bible gives us a lot of good reasons not to sin. For example, it tells us, our sin hurts us. We know that we reap what we sow. So, we always suffer the consequences for our sin.

It’s like not obeying the laws of traffic. You can speed, you can run through red lights and stop signs. And you might think it’s great, and you’re getting away with it. But eventually you get hit by a truck, and you realize why you were not supposed to do it. Well, that is the way sin works in our life.

The bible also tells us that our sin hurts others. Now some of this is obvious, things like murder, rape, stealing and gossip. But Ephesians 4:25 says, “we are members of one another.” So, consider the affect sin has on my family. My wife, my children, my grandchildren, my church. Sin in our life not only hurts us, but it hurts everyone around us, and that should motivate us to stop sinning.

We can probably come up with a lot of other reasons not to sin, but Paul gives us the very best reason in Vs. 30. He teaches us that it grieves the heart of God. And that’s what we learn from this passage. We learn, the personal nature of the Holy Spirit should motivate us to stop sinning. (Read Eph. 4:25-32)

Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.

26 Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger,

27 and do not give the devil an opportunity.

28 He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need.

29 Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.

30 Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

32 Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. (Pray)

In our passage this morning, Paul is showing us how we are supposed to live this Christian life. We are supposed to live different from the world around us because we have been recreated in the image of God.

In verses 20-24 he told us to put off the old way of life, be renewed in the spirit of our mind and put on the new life we have in Christ. Then he began to teach us how to embrace that. He began to give us some practical applications.

In Vs. 25-29 he said, do not to lie, but speak the truth. He said, it’s okay to become angry if we can maintain control. He taught us not to steal and not to slander. He goes on in Vs. 31-32 to say, we are to get rid of the wickedness in our heart and forgive each other because God has forgiven us.

Well right in the middle of all these specific changes he tells us to make, he gives us a command. He says, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”

And that is an incredible statement. That is a monumental thought. That the God of the universe, the creator of the world, would be sad by the way I act. That’s what the word grieved means, it means to be made sad.

It breaks my heart to think, I break the heart of God. What we learn from this passage, the nature of the Holy Spirit should motivate us to stop sinning. Paul teaches us three things about the Holy Spirit in Vs. 30 I want to share with you today.

The first thing we learn is The Holy Spirit is a person. This is one of the clearest verses in the bible that prove that. He is not just a power. He is not just an influence. He is a person.

There are cults like the Jehovah’s Witnesses who deny the Trinity and they say the Spirit of God is just a force at work in the world. But you can’t grieve a force. You can only grieve, a person.

And you can especially grieve a person that loves you. Now a stranger might say things that hurt your feelings, but it really doesn’t matter because you don’t love them, and they don’t love you. But when someone you love hurts you, you are grieved because it matters.

Well, that is the picture Paul is painting here. when we realize the Holy Spirit is a person then we realize how personal our relationship is with God.

The sin our life matters. It hurts Him because He loves us, and He is invested in us. That sets Christianity apart from every other religion or ethical system of the world.

Paul is not trying to get us to stop sinning because it is the right thing to do, and we need to live up to some higher moral standards. He is teaching us to stop doing it because you have a personal relationship with the God of the universe. If you know the Lord Jesus Christ, then the Holy Spirit lives in you and He is calling us to honor that relationship.

That’s what Paul teaches us in 1 Cor. 6:19-20, Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore, glorify God in your body.

In other words, we are to live in a way that brings glory to God not because we are following the rules but because He loves us and wants what is best for us.

Listen God wants better for your life than you want for yourself, and it breaks His heart when you don’t want to live up to that potential. The potential of the person He knows you can be.

Now, we often think about the love of the Father and the love of the Son, but we don’t think very often about the love of the Holy Spirit. Yet we believe God loves us and we know the Holy Spirit is God. Romans 15:30 says, Now I urge you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God for me,

And we probably often think of the fellowship we have with the father and the fellowship we have with the Son, but the bible talks about the fellowship we have with the Spirit. In 2 Cor. 13:14, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.”

The point is, the Holy Spirit is a divine person and not just a divine force. And because He loves us, He desires fellowship with us our sin grieves Him.

Think about this, as parents and grandparents we love our children so much. We want them to have a better life than we had. And it breaks our heart when they get into trouble and do things like use drugs or break the law. And even if they come and apologize for what they have done they have missed the point.

Because the greater wrong was to grieve our heart. It strained the relationship we have with them. Well, Paul says don’t sin because you are straining the relationship with God and the Spirit inside of you.

Listen, it is important to understand my anger, my slander, and my rage, grieves the Spirit not because of the affect it has on God, but because of the affect it has on me. God is not grieved because He can’t handle my sin, but because of the destruction it has on my life.

The second thing we learn about the Holy Spirit is He is Holy. And you would think that would go without saying, I mean after all, we call Him the Holy Spirit, but this is not some church cliché, this is important for us to understand.

In the Greek Vs. 30 is not written, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.” But in the Greek, it is written “do not grieve the Spirit, the holy one of God.” You see the difference? The emphasis is placed on Holiness.

The fact that He is holy means that He is absolutely set apart and opposed to everything that is evil and sinful. 1 John 1:5 says, “God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” 1 Timothy 6:16 says, God “dwells in unapproachable light.” In Isaiah’s vision of God (Isa. 6:3), the angels cry out, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God almighty.”

Why is that important? Because we have this image of God in our mind that He is a Santa Clause figure in the sky who looks down at our sin and winks and says, “I love them anyway.” But the Holy Spirit never winks at our sin, it grieves Him, and we need to have a bigger picture of the holiness of God.

It was the absolute holiness of God that sent His Son into the world to pay the penalty and die on a cross for our sin. If God were not holy, He could have just dismissed it, but His holiness demanded justice. It demands the penalty be paid. It demanded the son be sacrificed.

If you have trusted in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you never have to fear standing in judgment for your sins, but because He is Holy and loves us, the Holy Spirit is grieved by our sin. He knows we will never live in the fullness of Christ until we live in God’s holiness.

So, there are consequences for grieving the Holy Spirit. That’s what the author of the book of Hebrews teaches us. Hebrews 12:5-11, “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, Nor faint when you are reproved by Him; For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines,

And He scourges every son whom He receives.” It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

In other words, there are times in our life God will send trial to train us in righteousness and turn us back to Him. Sometimes He allows us to suffer the consequences of our actions because it is what’s best for us. Some of those consequences affect our relationship with God.

For example, if we grieve the Holy Spirit, we lose a sense of God’s presence in our life. It doesn’t mean His presence is not with us. Jesus is Emanuel. He is God with us, and He will never leave us or forsake us. but if we continue in sin we are not going to feel as close to Him as we once did.

We lose a sense of God’s love in our life. It doesn’t mean that God has stopped loving us but if we continue in sin, we don’t feel it, or experience it. Romans 8:39 makes it clear that nothing can separate us from the love of God, but our sin can absolutely separate us from feeling it.

We lose the assurance of our salvation. The Bible is clear that we can not lose our salvation, but if we continue in sin, it will cause us to question it and doubt it. We lose our peace of mind we have that we are saved.

We lose the assurance of answered prayer. Psalm 66:18 says, “If I regard wickedness in my heart, The Lord will not hear.” God listens to every prayer of repentance, but we can’t ask God to bless us while we plan to continue to live in sin.

We lose fellowship with other believers. Sin doesn’t only separate us from God, but it separates us from one another. That’s because if we are living in sin, we’re not going to want to be around other believers. That just brings conviction to our heart. The list can go on, but this is what it cost us to grieve the Spirit.

A few years ago, a teenage boy I know is saved and living for God, came to me and said he was struggling with sexual addiction. He was struggling with pornography and homosexuality, and even though he continued to pray and seek God he didn’t feel God’s presence anymore.

And I told him it was because he was grieving the Holy Spirit. He was breaking his relationship with God. When he realized it, and stopped, his relationship was restored.

And the same thing can be true in your life. If you don’t sense God’s presence maybe it is because you are grieving the Holy Spirit. Maybe you are allowing sin to separate you from the love of God. But your relationship can be restored by choosing God over your sin.

The third thing we learn about the Holy Spirit is He is a seal. Paul ends vs. 30 by reminding us that the Holy Spirit is the one who has sealed us for the day of redemption.

This takes us back to Ephesians 1:13-14 where Paul told us when we heard the gospel and believed in Jesus we were sealed with promise of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance until we take possession of it.

God has purchased us from our sin through the blood of Jesus and like a lot of things we purchase, final delivery has not taken place yet. That will take place on the day of redemption when Christ returns to take us home with Him. Until then God has given us the Spirit as a seal to mark His ownership of us. It is like an advance on the blessings that are still to come.

The Spirit is our guardian and provider, the one who oversees our progress until we get to heaven. He is the one who feeds us with the heavenly fruit until we get to the banquet where we have a seat waiting for us.

I got an email last week from a woman who was so concerned she had blasphemed the Holy Spirit and lost her salvation, because years ago she felt like God was calling her to do something and she refused to do it.

But I assured her she could not lose her salvation and that is exactly the point Paul is making here. The reason we should not grieve the Holy Spirit is because we have been sealed for the day of redemption.

Your sin may cost you greatly. It might cost you a relationship with your family, your church, and your God. But if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ it will not cost you your eternity.

What we learn from this passage, the personal nature of the Holy Spirit should motivate us to stop sinning. If we want to live in close relationship with God and experience His presence and love in our life, then we should honor Him with our behavior not because we are following the rules but because He is important to us, and we are important to Him.

When I was a young man there were times, I ran with a rough crowd. And sometimes the friends I chose were doing things like drinking, and breaking the law, and getting into trouble. And those were things I never wanted to do. Not because I wasn’t tough enough or incapable of doing them, but because I knew how much it would break my father’s heart if I did.

That is the idea Paul gives us here. We should think twice about the sin in our life because it grieves the Holy Spirit who has sealed us for the day of our redemption.