Talk or Walk (part 2)
Notes
Transcript
Introduction: Remind them about last week and tell them that there is more to putting on that new Jesus suit there what meets the eye.
Ephesians 4:25–32 (NASB95)
25 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.
Transitional Sentence: To walk as a child of God and to glorify your heavenly Father there are things you must put off and things you must put on.
The Put Off’s
a. Falsehood - Law Number 9 - Exodus 20:16
16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
From the Pocket Dictionary of Ethics -
Falsehood- A belief, assertion or perhaps even an act that does not accord with truth.
Holding to or articulating a falsehood may not necessarily be the result of a deliberate malicious intent. Nevertheless, the term is often used to denote a calculated deception, generally directed toward another person, but sometimes even directed toward oneself (i.e., in the case of people who deliberately deceive themselves). In this sense, a falsehood carries the connotation of being an overt (plain or apparent, not secret) lie. Although propagating a falsehood is generally considered unethical, some ethicists suggest that in a few circumstances such an act could be deemed the lesser of two evils, if not actually morally justifiable.
Lies hurt. They hurt the person who is doing the lying and the person who is lied to. Unfortunately not all lies have malicious intent or are meant to harm. However the harm caused is real and needs to be corrected and dealt with in an appropriate manner to prevent bigger issues.
Another problem with a lie is that it breeds more lies. One lie requires another to cover up the first, then another and another. Soon you have entangled yourself in a web of lies that is so impossible that you are unable to tell the truth any more. Don’t start down that path.
Stealing - Law Number 8 - Exodus 20:15
15 “You shall not steal.
Stealing- The action or offense of taking another person’s property without permission or legal right and without intending to return it; theft.
This is probably one of the easiest things to do. You want something that doesn’t belong to you and you can’t pay for it - so you just take it. It won’t be missed and you believe you can get away with it. Law number 8 tells us not to steal but if you follow law 10 which is Exodus 20:17 you won’t even want to steal because you aren’t coveting something you don’t have.
b. No unwholesome word
Unwholesome words are rotten, worthless and bad, they death and destruction in their wake. In other words no Rotten, worthless or bad words should come out of your mouth. Jesus said it this way:
36 “But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment.
37 “For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
Unwholesome words reflect rottenness in one’s heart and produce ruin, while gracious words reveal a heart after God, generating goodness and life.
Your grace will also be a witness of your walk with the Father. Show grace to others just as He showed grace to you.
When I was young and my father heard me saying things I ought not say he would tell me: If you don’t have anything good to say then don’t say anything at all.
c. Next for the put off’s is a big list of attitudes and actions that must go.
Bitterness - The emotional state of feeling distressed disappointment from unmet expectations or having the perception of being treated unfairly.
Bitterness is an inappropriate emotional state caused by continued refusal to deal with an issue that causes you anger and pain.
These feelings of anger and pain fester and can lead to physical health problems such as high blood pressure.
Bitterness is the root from which springs other offensive attitudes and behaviors. Such as:
Wrath - (Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary using wrath) to express several emotions, including anger, indignation, vexation, grief, bitterness, and fury. It is the emotional response to perceived wrong and injustice. Both humans and God express wrath. When used of God, wrath refers to His absolute opposition to sin and evil. When used of humans, however, wrath is one of those evils that is to be avoided.
Anger - the emotion of instant displeasure on account of something evil that presents itself to our view. In itself it is an original susceptibility of our nature, just as love is, and is not necessarily sinful. It may, however, become sinful when causeless, or excessive, or protracted Matthew 5:22
22 “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.
How often do you get angry? Is it a quick explosion like dynamite or is it a slow boiling over like a pot of water. Either way it is to be put off especially if there is no cause, it’s excessive, violent or held on to for a long period of time. Seldom does anger accomplish anything of value.
Clamor - Shout loudly and insistently
Clamor begins as your anger raises. You start getting angry and you start raising your voice, and letting your anger be known. The problem is that you seldom have control of your mouth as you get angry then you begin saying things that are unwholesome. Now your beginning to mix the emotions together which cause more harm.
Slander - Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary defines slander in this way: To speak critically of another person with the intent to hurt.
In a court of law it means to falsely accuse another. Jesus said, “I tell you that on the day of judgment people will have to account for every careless word they speak.” This should cause each person to be very careful what they say about others. The Bible shows that slander is a mark of the unregenerate world.
16 ‘You shall not go about as a slanderer among your people, and you are not to act against the life of your neighbor; I am the Lord.
Malice - Is a disposition consisting of the desire to inflict injury or suffering on another person. Malice may take the form of simply gloating over another’s misfortune, or it can come to be expressed as an actual act of violence directed against another person.
Have you ever been so angry that you wanted to hurt someone? Maybe you threatened that person or even lashed out at them? Maybe you even went so far as to wish that, that person was dead. That’s malice - leave it behind.
2. Why does Paul want you to put these emotions away?
a. Well, think about it, these emotions will cause you to Sin!
Anger is that emotion of instant displeasure on account of something evil that presents itself to our view. Does it have to be something evil? Maybe the anger is stemming from a root of bitterness because the person you are angry with continually fails to meet an expectation you have.
Anger isn’t necessarily a sin, otherwise this would say to not get angry at all. The sin comes when the anger expresses itself in some way beyond the emotion. The sin begins when you start practicing these other things that we are to put off. When the anger becomes malice and you actually hurt someone, or maybe it becomes slander and you start talking bad about someone, or your volume goes up and you begin to clamor and then you go on to hurt someone. This is when anger goes to far. So be angry but control it, don’t let the anger control you. Until you can put it off and put on something else.
After living with myself all this time I know myself pretty well and I know that I don’t do well when I get angry. I used to have the bad habit of getting loud and causing damage to stuff. Not people but things. One example would be one day after too many poor shots on the golf course and my anger was up which made things worse so I wrapped my club around a tree. Have you ever been there and done that? Fortunately that is something from the past.
What about you? Do you keep your anger under control or does it take on a life of it’s own? How do you keep your anger under control so that you don’t sin? How long do you hang on to it before you let it go?
Verse 26 says to not let the sun go down on your anger. Have you ever tried to go to bed angry? It’s hard. You keep running the issue through your head and you can’t just stop thinking about it. Your blood pressure is up and you can feel the anger in your body. Whether or not you get to sleep depends upon on well you sleep. The problem is that when you wake up the issue will still be right there. Your anger will hang on and linger around as long as you want to keep it. If you keep a hold of it too long then that anger will grow into bitterness. Once the anger sets in as bitterness it becomes a lot harder to bring it to an end. Once the bitterness begins the odds of becoming angry over the same thing increases and your body will begin to suffer right along with your soul.
Most of you probably know what I am talking about. You’ve seen it in others or you’ve done it yourself. You let your anger hang around far too long and it turned into bitterness because you were unwilling to take the one step required to take care of the problem.
b. That one big step can take care of the problem of letting the Devil have an opportunity in your life which Paul tells us to avoid.
The problem with anger and bitterness is that it will open a door in your life and your soul for the Devil to take advantage of you. 1 Peter 5:8 says:
8 Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
As a lion the Devil wants to devour you. He wants to steal your joy and he wants to make you an ineffective witness for Christ Jesus. The anger brings forth many opportunities to sin. The anger can express it’s self in many ways that can hurt others and even hurt yourself. And the Devil can speak lies that in your anger you will accept and believe which cause even more trouble.
The anger keeps you separated and at odds with each other. There is little peace when anger hangs around. So don’t keep a hold of it. Deal with the issue. That is the idea of not letting the sun set on your anger. If you are angry with someone put off all that stuff and talk it out. Deal with it.
Matthew 5:23-24 says:
23 “Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you,
24 leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.
There is no unity if anger is left alone through the night. There is no unity between brothers if there is an issue between them. A husband in the dog house doesn’t improve the situation in the morning.
Besides all of the issues that can arise between people because of anger and your emotional state, this expression of emotions and the things you do because of it can grieve the Holy Spirit.
c. And Paul expressly says “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit”
But what does it mean to grieve the Holy Spirit?
The Greek word here is lypeo. The idea is that you cause the Holy Spirit to be saddened. Think about that for a minute. Your actions can bring sadness to God by grieving the Holy Spirit that dwells within you. Wow. These things that Paul tells us to put off bring sadness to God. He doesn’t want to see you angry and treating others in this way. He would have us treat others the way we want to be treated. That brings joy to His heart.
Do you remember what Paul told Timothy about pleasing the one who enlisted you into service?
4 No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.
Well God’s the one who enlisted you into His service. Do what pleases Him not what displeases Him. Don’t sadden the Holy Spirit by continuing to walk as a Gentile after He enlists you into His service.
3. This brings us to The Put On’s of this passage.
a. It all began with putting aside falsehood. The put on which is in direct contrast to this idea is to Speak Truth. Commandment number 9
Exodus 20:16 says: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
This means that you talk about people in an appropriate manner. No gossip, no slander no unwholesome words. Speaking truth to them. No out right lying and no little white lies.
Does anything but the truth please God? Do you think He tells little white lies. The problem is that sometimes there is fear in the truth. If you tell the truth you may hurt someones feelings or you may get in trouble because you did something wrong. Perhaps the way to tell the truth is in Love. Ephesians 4:15 says:
15 but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ,
If you are speaking the truth in love and using wholesome words that uplift the person the truth should be accepted well even though there may be pain or sorrow involved. Nobody likes being lied to, so tell the truth and bring unity to the body.
Another put off was to stop stealing.
b. The contrasting put on is to Labor and use your hands that you might have something to Share with those in need. The way we might put it today is to get a job. Back then, labor was hard work. There weren’t so many jobs that we might call blue collar, where one uses their wits instead of their back. But now, now we have a whole lot of different ways to make a living and have extra to share.
In the context of the culture at the time the church did more to help those in need than is currently practiced today. There were no government agencies providing aid, there was no social security or programs like workman's compensation. So when believers or others were in need the church helped provide for them. But there are always those who take advantage of the church. So Paul said each one should work, use your hands, do something to earn a living and even to have extra to share for the others who are in need. He said it this way to the church in Thessalonica:
10 For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either.
For some the idea of stealing is better than doing honest labor, but for the Children of God using the hands to earn a living and to be able to share is what glorifies God.
c. Another put on is to Edify others according to the need of the moment. This is in contrast to using those unwholesome words that bring pain and tear people down. Words that edify help others to grow, they strengthen the recipient and will encourage them.
You all probably know what criticism is and have probably been the target of critical words at some point in the past. I used “you should” as an example a couple weeks ago. Critical words are unwholesome words and are generally negative in nature. However, by using edifying words the same criticism can become constructive in nature to actually teach the listener without tearing them down or making them feel bad. Edifying words will actually help the listener to grow, both in their walk with Christ and in whatever endeavor the listener is currently under taking.
Just remember that edifying words in the moment is the put on. So before you speak put off the anger, clamor and unwholesome words and put on words that edify and teach. That will give grace to those who hear what you are saying.
That brings us to the big answer of the put off’s and put on’s. Be tenderhearted and forgive one another.
d. Forgiveness. That wonderful life saving action provided by God to all those who believe.
Easton’s Bible Dictionary says this about the Forgiveness of Sin
Forgiveness is one of the constituent parts of justification. In pardoning sin, God absolves the sinner from the condemnation of the law, and that on account of the work of Christ, he removes the guilt of sin, or the sinner’s actual liability to eternal wrath on account of it. All sins are forgiven freely. The sinner is by this act of grace for ever freed from the guilt and penalty of his sins. This is the peculiar prerogative of God. It is offered to all in the gospel.
That was according to God’s forgiveness and what that forgiveness does for us. However, there is a side to forgiveness that works in our lives in a different way. This comes from the
Lexham Theological Wordbook Forgiveness
Forgiveness is the release, on the part of the creditor or offended party, of any expectation that a debt will be repaid or that an offender will receive punishment for an offense. When describing the removal of an inappropriate offense in this way, the removal does not condone the behavior or suggest approval for the offense.
When you forgive someone of an offense against you, you are releasing that person from any expectation of repayment or punishment for the offense. You are no longer holding them accountable. This frees the offender from guilt and frees you from the bitterness that can set in because of the offense being held on to for a protracted amount of time.
If your own peace of mind isn’t a good enough reason to forgive others then maybe the command of Christ Jesus is a good enough reason.
Matthew 6:14-15 says:
14 “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
15 “But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.
So, forgive one another and forgive those who are not children of God so that they may see your good works and give glory to God. Forgiveness maybe the hardest thing you ever have to do at some point in the future, but it may also be the greatest thing you ever do.
Exit: So, to wrap this up. Remember that we are members of one another. The children of God are a family unified by faith. How each member of the family walks is a reflection on the family, Christ Jesus and our Father. If a member of the family does not put off the evil habits of a Gentile and put on the Spirit given habits of a child of God then the whole family suffers. Now is the time to walk as children of God.