Living Different

Read The Word

Ephesians 4:21–32 “Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy. So stop telling lies. Let us tell our neighbors the truth, for we are all parts of the same body. And “don’t sin by letting anger control you.” Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives a foothold to the devil. If you are a thief, quit stealing. Instead, use your hands for good hard work, and then give generously to others in need. Don’t use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them. And do not bring sorrow to God’s Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember, he has identified you as his own, guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.”

Old vs. New Nature

Tonight, we are gonna be talking about the difference between the way our lives should look now, and the way that the world lives, or the way that your life used to live, look, when you were not a Christian, before Jesus had come into your life and changed your life, given you this new heart. There is a difference in how our natures work, right? We have an old nature, which is corrupted, right? We've talked about in Ephesians 2. that we were dead in sin, but now we are made alive in Christ. And so, When we talk about this nature, we have to talk about the fact that that nature is no longer how we should live our lives. And although we may fall sometimes, and there may be some sins on this list that maybe stuck out to you as something that you struggle with. It does not mean that we can continue in this just because we follow Jesus now and he forgives us, but rather we should be looking for ways to conform ourselves and allow God to transform us into the image of God. Because we were created to be like God, this new nature, holy and righteous. So I want to break down some of these verses starting at verse 25. We're going to kind of go through some of these sins, some of these ways that our old sinful nature wants us to return back to and to continue living our life. And we're gonna talk about why those things are not acceptable for us as Christians today. So let's start at verse 25.

Lying Isn’t Loving

The 1st point, if you want to write this down, lying isn't loving. We know that we should not watch. This is one of the 10 commandments, right? Nobody likes to be lied to, yet we often are very tempted to lie to other people, especially when lying gets us out of having to tell an uncomfortable truth or truth that may get us in trouble. Right? But mine is destructive to the body. Right? It says here in 25, write that, that, we are all parts of the same body. So when we are lying to our neighbors, right, when we're lying to other people around us, like other Christians, especially, right? We are destroying the way that the body is supposed to work, like imagine if your brain lied to your hand and told it that it could not work. This is actually a condition that can happen to some people. There are times when our brain lies to our body and says that a part of our body is not working, even though it's completely fine. Um, yet it makes it where that body part's basically useless, right? It makes it to where you can't use that body part. And so imagine if we are the body of Christ and we begin lying to each other, we render ourselves useless for the work of the kingdom because we are not able to trust each other. And of course, lying also is bad outside of just Christian circles, right? We should not lie to people who are not Christians because, um, that is a really bad way, a bad foundation to start a conversation about Jesus and the truth, right? is to be constantly lying. And what's interesting about this verse is if you go back and or if you look at the context of this verse, part of this verse is actually a quotation of Zechariah at 8.16, which is in Old Testament. So what's interesting about Zechariah, 816, is that it is God telling his people, telling the Israelites that, look, I've, like, did some bad things to you, right? You have deserved punishment, uh, and you've been, uh, outcast, you've been pushed away because of your sin, right? You've had punishment because of that. Um, but I, um, I'm not angry with you more. I'm restoring Jerusalem. And one of the things he says, um, is that that the Israelites must do is to tell the truth to each other, render verdicts in your courts that are just and that lead to peace. Don't scheme against each other, stop your love of telling lies that you swear are the truth. I hate all of these things, says the Lord. And if you continue reading in here and you get the context of Zechariah, it's actually really interesting that that part of what the Lord says is going to happen is that unbelievers, right, non-Jewish people, non- non-Israelites are going to see how God is blessing them and how they are living their lives and that they're literally going to run up and clutch the sleeve of their shirt saying, hey, please let us walk with you. For we have heard that God is with you. So this is a witness, right? Like, this is not the only thing, just not telling us is not the only thing you have to do in order to to share the gospel with people, of course, but part of us telling the truth to each other and telling the truth to everyone else is countercultural to to what the world wants us to do, what our sinful nature, our old nature wants us to do. So we have to remember that wine is not loving. We cannot fulfill the commandment of loving our neighbor as ourselves when we are lying to them.

Stewing Cooks Up Sin

My 2nd point is this, as we continue in our verses in Ephesians, If you want to write this down, stewing cooks up sin. Stewing cooks up, sends. So who knows what a stew is? Yeah, right, stew. Part of a stew is that it takes a long time, right, to get to a cooked temperature. It's kind of like a barbecue, you know, something where the cooking it takes a long time to process. And so when we stew, right, in our anger, right, and we let it bubble up and we let it rise in temperature and we allow it to start seeping into every part of us, right? We, we, do ourselves as deserves because it leads us to sin. The feeling of anger in itself is not a sin. The idea that you could be upset about something is nice, and the problem with anger is that we take it too far, and we begin to try to pass judgment and do our own punishments instead of alone God to take care of those things. And maybe even to allow us to see where there may be some fault inside of ourselves. This is another quotation from the Old Testament. This is Psalm 4.4. And, um, it's really short. So if you wanted to read the full thing, you could, but what's interesting, I'm just going to read a couple verses at the beginning, says, answer me when I call to you, O God, who declares me innocent. Free me from my troubles. Have mercy on me and hear my prayer. How long will you people ruin my reputation? How long will you make groundless accusations? How long will you continue your lives? You can be sure of this. The Lord set apart the godly for himself. The Lord will answer when I call to him, here's our verse, don't sin by letting anger control you. Think about it overnight and remain silent. Pause real quick. Don't really like this translation because it makes it sound like you should sleep on your anger. But if you read other translations and get the context of what it's trying to say, it's basically saying, sit in your bed at night and be quiet, think about, um, these things that are bothering you. Um, but remain silent. Like, don't continue in anger, right? It almost seems a little contradictory, but it's just the way that they're translating some of these words. But again, this chapter in Psalms is only 8 versus long. And by the end of this psalm, you see, in peace, I will lie down and sleep for you alone. Oh, Lord, will keep me safe, right? Or 7, you have given me greater joy than those who have abundant harvests of grain and new wine, right? Um, Even in this, uh, time that, that, that David is very frustrated with the situation and frustrated that he is being treated or mistreated. He still understands very quickly, right? He turns it back to God and's like, hey, God, you are the one who gives me greater joy. You are in control of the situation. You will keep me safe. And so when we are upset and angry, even when we have the right to be angry, we have to make sure that we are fully trusting God, that he will rectify the situation, and that we don't have to try to put it in our own hands, that we don't let anger take over our life because anger is an opportunity. for Satan, right? It's a foothold, as it says in our versions, right? It gives a foothold to the devil. And so what is that? I mean, if you're climbing up a mountain, right? And you're trying to scale the wall of this rock, and you're looking for a place to put your foot, right? You're trying to figure out where the next step is. Well, if there's no place to put your foot it becomes a lot more difficult. And sometimes impossible to continue going up the mountain, yet, if you have a foothold, if you've got a place where you can put your foot, you can make progression, right? And from there, you may be able to get to the next step and to the next step. And so this is how Satan uses anger in our lives. He allows it to be a foothold, a place where he can push off of and push us into a deeper anger and into sin. ultimately, where he can place division between us and our brothers and sisters, right? to put us in opposition to each other and put us at ons with God even. I mean, because when we're angry, we may try to blame God for the situation. We cannot let that happen. you are a Christian, then you have to understand that anger does not have a place in your life. Especially anger that is controlling you. You cannot let anger control you.

Stealing Steals Joy

Let's go to our 3rd point. Here it is stealing, steals, joy. This is verse 28. If you were a thief, quit stealing and said, use your hands for good hard work, and then give generously to others in need. Now, I think when we think of stealing, we often think of the immediate things, right? We think of stealing, like, items from a store, like shoplifting or something, we think of stealing money, um, or maybe a car or something, right? We think of these items that are big items, things that are often associated with the idea of being a thief. But there's more to stealing than just money or items. I mean, how many of you don't raise your hands right now? We'll just have to have confession in front of everybody. How many of you have ever taken the answers to homework that you didn't do? And you turned it in like you did it. That's stealing. That is being a thief. You did not do the work that was required of you, and instead of owning up to your mistake. Uh, or or trying to to learn how to be better at what you're doing, you you just took it from somebody else, even if they gave you that answer. The person that you got the answers from is not you stole from, you stole from both the teacher that is trying to instruct you and you stole from yourself. No, it doesn't matter if you're taking money from your mom's purse. Or you're taking answers from a test, You miss out on joy. stealing takes away the joy that comes from actually doing the hard work. Right? Like hard work is worth it when you take that test that you were studying for that I don't, you're like, I don't even know what these words mean. And you study and you work hard and you start it off by getting a C on the 1st test and then you get a B on the next test and then you get that A on that test, that last test that you've been studying so hard for, it pays off and there is a joy that comes from knowing that you completed something. And even if you don't get better at it, even if you stay at a sea the entire time and you're trying your hardest and you're working hard, you know what you're doing. You're building perseverance. You're building integrity. That this is the work that I'm doing. Yes, I know it could be better, but I'm gonna keep trying my hardest to make sure that this is my work and that I do my best without taking any other answers or taking anything from anyone else and doing it the easy way. Now, on top of hard work being a blessing, it's a blessing to give to other people when you begin to have over abundance of things because of your hard work. This can be difficult in your life right now because you might not feel like you have a ton of money or a ton of resources. And that's okay. Because you probably don't, right? You're not in a season of life, where you can have a bunch of excess. But what you do have access of, you should be faithful with because, If you learn to be faithful with the little that you have, We know from scripture that God will give us more. And that is not a prosperity gospel in the sense that if I do good all the time, you know, I'm just gonna get more money or whatever it is. But it is a level of responsibility and trust and and a faithfulness to God that grows us when we give. There is a spiritual blessing that we get when we give to others. That doesn't have a monetary value. There's no dollar amount you can put on that. But it's a blessing to give. It is a blessing to have hard work. So don't let stealing steal your joy.

Words Have Power

All right, we're gonna keep going. This is our 4th point. We go, Words have power. Here we go. We're gonna talk about words. Don't use foul or abusive language. Now, foul, the word here for foul that Paul uses is a reference to a decaying animal or a decaying tree or a decaying fruit. Okay? It is rotten. It's gross. It's not something that you want to have partake in. You don't want to see it, you don't want to smell it, but this is what foul language is. That's what he's saying. And so, We can struggle with the way that we talk about people. It's very common in our culture to to want to say things behind people's backs. to say things that are offensive about people, maybe to make ourselves look better or to make a joke. Um, We have to be careful about what we say. I mean, James would talk about the tongue being set on fire from the devil himself, right? Like, our tongues get us into so much trouble. Because we don't pay attention and we don't try to allow the Holy Spirit to guide us in what we say. We just aren't saying things. If you want to look with me in Matthew 12, Matthew 12, um, verses 33 to 37. read them really quickly to you. Yeah, here we go. 3337. Um, A tree is identified by its fruit. If a tree is good, it's fruit will be good. If a tree is bad, its fruit will be bad. You brood of snakes. How could evil men like you speak what is good and right? For whatever is in your heart determines what you say. Another translation was say from out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. And I tell you this, you must give an account on judgment day for every idol word you speak. The words you say will either acquit you, or they'll condemn you. Now, Jesus in this moment is talking about Blaspheming the Holy Spirit, right? That the words like when they're saying that Jesus is casting things out by demons, right? Jesus pushes back very strongly and tells these Pharisees, right, these non-believers, right? That, that, look, the words that you're saying, if you claim to believe in what I'm saying, confess Jesus Christ as Lord, right? That will acquit you, right? That will that will free you, that will take away your punishment in that sense, right? But we'll continue because if your words are that you don't believe this, if the words are, you reject Jesus as Lord. You are condemned already. Like, if you don't believe this, if you have not said this, if you have not made this faith real in your life by committing to Jesus, then you are condemned in that sense. And so, In the same way that we have the good and bad fruit coming from the good and bad trees, right? And know that we must, um, eat accountable for the words we speak, then we need to ensure that the words we are saying are accurate and are true. And so quickly, I don't want to spend too much time on this, but we know that, uh, this these verses can bring up a lot of things about cussing, right? Like, is it okay for Christians to cut? This question has been around for, I don't even know how long, years and years, years. And I will say this, that. There are arguments on both sides about what this is talking about, but I think I'm growing closer and closer and more clear in the fact that. The words that we use have power. And we should be very careful of what we're saying. We should choose our words wisely, and we should not allow the culture to determine Whether or not I feel comfortable saying a word or not. Because at the end of the day, I'm accountable for what I say, and most of the time, 99% of the time, 100% of the time. When a word may want to be said that is a cuss word, a meaningless word, a vanity word, right? just has no meaning whatsoever. It's just used to, you know, try to flavor up a sentence for some reason, whatever, right? We know these things are funny or said because typically we know that they're wrong. I was watching, I was reading about a kids' movie and they used some, some words that they were trying to, you know, obviously alluding to using badware. I'm like, why would that be funny? Um, unless we knew that we probably shouldn't say the other word. So, again, I'm, I have been on a couple different sides of this argument, so I just want to kind of, for you, if you're struggling with this, or have questions, or maybe you think you're very solidified and, yeah, cussing's okay or whatever. I would I would challenge you to really look at some of the stuff that the Bible says about how we speak and the importance of what we say and then think about your life and how you speak and are you actually choosing those words wisely for what they mean? Are you saying those things? Because you think they're funny or you think that, um, It's just okay to say there's nothing wrong with these things. It's just what people do, right? Words do change over time, but this is important, right? We need to be careful because words have power, almost done, guys.

The Spirit Grieves Our Sin

Number five. The spirit grieves our sin. And so we see this in verses 30 or verse 30, excuse me, and do not bring sorrow to God's Holy Spirit. Grieving is kind of from the same word as grief, like when someone dies, right? or have grief about a person dying. Uh, or something, a grief about a situation because we were sad. Uh, this is uh, the Holy Spirit feels sad. Um, when we live our lives in a way that is not acceptable, right? And so we should pay special attention to how we live our lives. Again, this new nature that we've been given is for us to live in a way that is pleasing to God. And I started thinking about, what does it mean to grieve the Holy Spirit? Why? Why is it so important? What's a way to describe this? And I, I kind of came up with this analogy. You started thinking about, like, imagine if you went to a shelter, like a animal shelter, and they had just been cruel to all these animals, right? You can tell they are mistreated, uh, and that ultimately all of these animals that are here gonna die. Right? Like they're they're gonna die a terrible death there. They are going to be tortured. It is awful. And so you come in and you buy one of those puppies. You say, you know what, I'm taking that one home. You buy it and you, you take it with, you put it on a leash, you start walking, right? And then the dog keeps wanting to go back to the shelter. And every time you turn around, your dog is doing the stuff that, that they did in the shelter and the way they acted when they were in the shelter and it would make you upset, right? It would make you even sad to see your dog wanting to go back to a place that is so awful and that led to death. When you were trying to give this dog new life and that you you paid for this dog. This is your dog. Why would you not want to to live in a way that pleases the one who bought you? Why would you want to live in a way that pleases, that doesn't please the one who bought you? That is what we're talking about, that our sin, when we run back to all of the ways that the world and the way of destruction that leads to hell, like when we live like that, it makes the spirit sad because Jesus bought us on the cross. He wants us to live in the life that he bought us for.

Evil Must Be Expelled

Our last point is this, evil must be expelled. Evil behavior has no place in our lives. We have to learn to eradicate sin, kill it. Jesus talks about, um, sin and a portion of the Bible where he says that, you know, if your eye causes you to send, gouge it out, if your hand causes you to send, chop it off. If your foot causes you in, chop it off. Look, it is better to go into eternity maimed. It is better to go and turn you without a hand or an eye or a foot than it is to allow that to send you to hell. Jesus was not saying that if you sin, That you lose salvation. What he was saying is, Sin leads people down. Why on earth wouldn't we do everything possible? to keep ourselves from that. Sanctification is the fancy word for the process that God uses in Christians to leap, to eradicate sin in our lives. Now, he makes us look more and more like Jesus every day. Listen, if you are not, focusing on letting God expose sin in your life so that you can expel it, that you can eradicate it, right? You can push it out. You are a breeding ground for Satan. to work all kinds of evil things in your heart. Because the more comfortable you get with sin. The less likely you are that you're ever gonna want to leave it. We have to live differently. This is my final closing thoughts, my closing statement.

We need to live differently because we have been forgiven graciously.

It is by grace we are saved through faith. Take time to examine your life. What areas have you not given up to God? What areas are you still living in sin? Which one of these things that have has been detailed by Paul in Ephesians, which one stuck out to you as something that you're like, yep, I still do that. Cut it off. Kill it, eradicate it, expel it from your life. It is evil and it leads to death. Get away from sin.