Act Like You Have Been Made New
Notes
Transcript
Good Morning
I have been working on a project at the park. I have been training the squirrels to line up by height. When I was doing this, I got kicked out of the park.
Apparently, they don’t like me critter sizing.
Last week we looked at how we were made new in Christ in our salvation. Paul told us that we are to take of our old dirty dark self and replace it with the new self that is created after the likeness of God. Paul told us some of the evil and dark things that use to make up our old selves. He told us that we were alienated from a life with God due to our empty minds and the darkness that was in us. But, when we are in Christ, we have the light. Our minds are renewed and we are remade in the image of God. We were separated from God, when we have repented and believed in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour, we are brought back into fellowship with the Creator.
Today we are going to look at this new life that we have in Christ. Paul is going to tell us how to live with our new identity that He has given us. Our new union with Christ should change the way we live in community. Our sin affects others in a negative way, just as our righteousness will bless others in a positive way.
Paul is going to talk about some of the behaviors that we are to stop doing and the ones that we should replace them with. He gives us a negative action and then a positive one. Holiness is not just about saying no to sin; it is also about saying yes to God. We must not only put off the old self, we have to put on the new things of God.
Paul also gives a theological reason as to why we should throw off all these sinful vices and replace them with the Christian actions. Our action and our theology are tied together. Not only should we as professing Christians live differently than unbelievers, we should live differently for different reasons. We believe in God, sin, the Devil, the Spirit, the church, and Christ’s death on the cross. These truths should affect the way we live. Let’s dig in and see what Paul is talking about.
Please stand as we prepare to hear God’s Word
25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. 26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give no opportunity to the devil. 28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. 29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. 30 And 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, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Pray
These verses could have been written about the church today! All of these are prevalent in the church. We need to be intentional about making sure that we are not putting on the wrong virtues and behaviors.
There’s that word again, Therefore. So, we have to look and see what it is there for! Paul is transitioning from telling us about our new lives to how that should change how we live.
I want to make sure that you know that this list Paul is giving us, it is not an exhaustive list of all the things that we are to put off and the things that we are to put on in place of them. Paul probably is pointing out the major sins that the church in Ephesus is dealing with. He gives us enough to understand the concept and to realize that we are to stop sinning and replace those sins with the righteous acts that Jesus showed us and taught us.
Paul begins with lying.
In John 8:44
44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
When we lie, we are allowing our old dirty dark flesh to take control again. We allow do the works of our fleshly father. Lying is what he does. It is what he did in the garden. Not only is he a liar, he wants us to think that God is a liar.
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
When we lie, we allow Satan to work in our lives, but when we tell the truth, the Spirit of God is at work in us.
Sometimes we like to think that we are helping someone by not telling them the truth, that is not the case. We are only prolonging the sad consequences that will eventually come.
21 I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth.
Lying is never the right answer. The truth may hurt at the beginning, but in the long run, it is good and right. The truth brings healing.
Jesus is the truth! John 14:6
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
If He is in us, then the truth should be also. It can be hard to tell someone the truth sometimes. We are believers are called to do the hard things, the right things, the righteous things. The truth got Jesus on the cross, we must be willing to speak it at all cost as well.
If we don’t speak the truth, look at what is says in Revelation 22:15
14 Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life, and may enter the city by the gates. 15 Outside are the dogs, the sorcerers, the sexually immoral persons, the murderers, the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices lying.
This doesn’t mean everyone who has told a lie is going to hell, heaven would be empty if that were the case. What it does mean is that those who love lying and are controlled by their lies are lost forever.
The Christian life is controlled by truth.
Paul tells us why we should be honest. It is because we are one body. We are members of each other. When we are dishonest, we not only hurt ourselves, but each other.
If a member of the body had cancer and didn’t let the rest of the body know, that would be bad. It would lead to death.
If the eyes lied and didn’t tell the hand that the iron is hot and it touches it, it will be burned.
Rather than lying to each other, we should be building ourselves up in the truth of the Lord. We are to speak the truth in the Lord. As members of one another, our words affect each other, and it is in the truth that we are able to build each other up. The first sin that was judged in the early church that we are told about is lying. Act 5:1-11. Ananias and Sapphira lied about how much they sold their land for.
We must take of lying and put on truth.
Next is anger!! Paul does not tell us to not be angry. Being angry is not a sin, but it can easily cause us to sin. We have to be very careful about what we do and say when we are angry. Even God can get angry. Deut 9:8
8 Even at Horeb you provoked the Lord to anger, and the Lord was so angry with you that He would have destroyed you.
This is just one of several times in the Old Testament that it talks about God’s anger. God’s holy anger is a part of His judgement of sin, just as when Jesus cleansed the temple.
The Bible often talks about how anger can be kindled, like a fire. Genesis 30:2 and Deut 6:15 are a couple. The more wood you put on the fire, the hotter it burns. Sometimes our anger smolders, but it doesn’t take much for it to burst out into a raging wildfire and destroy!
It is difficult for us to practice a truly holy anger or righteous indignation because our emotions are tainted by sin, and we do not have the same knowledge that God has in all matters. In Exodus, Moses let his anger cause him to sin and it cost him being able to enter the promised land. That is in Numbers 20.
We are taught in the New Testament to be angry with the sin but to love the people. It is hard to keep those two separate. It is easy to lash out at the person because of the sin. We must guard against this.
It is possible to be angry and not sin, but if we do sin, we must settle the matter quickly and not let the sun go down on our wrath.
The fire of anger if it is not quenched by loving forgiveness, will spread and defile and destroy the work of God. Jesus taught that if we hate a person, we are a murderer. Anger is the first step towards murder, since anger gives the devil a foothold in our lives, and Satan is a murderer. John 8:44 again.
Satan hates God and God’s people, and when he finds a believer with a spark of anger in their heart, he fans that spark into a raging fire by adding fuel to it with his lies, and he does great damage to God’s people and to God’s church. Both lying and anger give peace to the devil.
A good way to fight anger is with Proverbs 15:1
1 A soft answer turns away wrath,
but a harsh word stirs up anger.
Be slow to speak and speak with love.
Next Paul deals with stealing.
We are told from historians that stealing was typical in the first century in Asia Minor. Paul is urging the church to not be the same as society. He wants them to be different. It also violates the 8th commandment.
Just as Satan is a liar and a murder, he is also a thief. John 10:10
10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Satan got a hold of Judas’ heart and turned him into a thief. He is trying to do the same with us if we will let him!
In the garden, he lead Eve to become a thief and lead her to take the fruit that God forbid her to eat. In turn, she gave the fruit to Adam and he ate and became a thief also. The first Adam was a thief and was kick out of the garden, the second Adam turned to a thief and told him “today you will be with me in paradise”.
Paul tells the thief to stop stealing and go to work! He gives a reason for everyone to work, not just the thief. So that we would have something to share with church members, right. No, so that we would have something to share with anyone who was in need. The church used to be good at this, but we stopped and that is when government assistance started. It was never God’s plan for the government to provide for it people. That is the job of the church. We need to make sure that we are working so that we are able to provide for those in need.
The Bible tells us what should happen to those who are able to work and do not. 2 Thessalonians 3:10
10 For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.
Work is good, God worked for six days and then rested. If we do the same, we will have plenty. We may not have all we want, but we will have plenty of what we need! Our country has lost the idea that work is good. I have always felt good after a hard day of work. Yes, I was tired, but it felt good to know that I worked. God blesses those who work and He expects those who work to use what He blesses them with to bless others.
John Wesley put it: ‘Work as hard as you can, make as much as you can, then give as much as you can!”
Piper tells us that are really three options regarding work: you can steal to get, you can work to get for yourself, or you can work to get in order to give. Paul is obviously commending Piper’s third option.
Corrupt speech is next. The heart and mouth are connected. Matt 12:34
34 You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
The word for corrupt is used in the New Testament to refer to rotten fruit and rotten fish. Both are appropriate pictures of sinful speech. Corrupt talk does not nourish you, it makes you sick. Corrupt talk comes from a corrupt heart.
Here are a few examples of corrupt talk
lying
abusive language
vulgar references
vicious and unkind words
gossip
slander
These are not all the types of corrupt talk but just a few. Jesus tells us that we will give an account for every careless word that we speak. Matt 12:36.
Augustine hung a sign on his dinning room wall: “Whoever speaks evil of an absent man or woman is not welcome at this table.”
Romans 3:14 tells us that a sinners mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. But when we trust Christ, we gladly confesses with our mouths, Jesus Christ is Lord.
We have to first change the heart and then the speech will follow.
We can see the difference between Paul’s speech before and after his conversion. He went from speaking ill of all believers and Jesus to praising and teaching about Him.
We have to make sure that the heart if full of blessing. Fill the heart with the love of Christ and it will overflow out of the mouth.
Keep in mind that our words have power, either for good or evil. Paul tells us to speak in a way that will build up the hearer, and not tear them down. Our words should minister grace and help to draw others closer to Jesus. If you want to be reminded of the power of the tongue, read James chapter 3.
Paul tells us not to grieve the Holy Spirit. Every believer has the Holy Spirit in them. He is a down payment on our life in heaven. The Spirit of Jesus/God lives in us. That means that every time we sin as a believer, we are making the Holy Spirit sit and watch us sin. That grieves him. The Holy Spirit is no less holy than God. We wouldn’t want to sin if God was with us, it is no different than when we do it with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God.
The Spirit can be lied to, offended, dishonored, and disobeyed. Anything that goes against the nature of the Spirit, grieves Him. Sins of the tongue lead to the withdrawal of the influences of the Spirit.
Instead, believers must be sensitive to the One who sealed us for the day of redemption. Ask this question: will what I’m about to say or do please the Spirit of grieve the Spirit?
We must learn to walk by the Spirit and yield to Him in our conversation and attitudes, eagerly maintaining the unity of the Spirit. One of the ways we must learn to do this is by practicing verses 31-32.
We must let go of all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander, and malice. We must replace them with kindness and tenderheartedness and forgiveness.
If we can do those three things every day, we will be doing well! We as the church should be known for these three virtues. Because of the depth that God has shown these to us.
Bitterness poisons the whole inner being. Bitterness leads to wrath, which is the explosion on the outside of the feelings on the inside. Wrath and anger often lead to clamor/fighting. It is hard to imagine a person who confesses to be a Christian acting this way, but it happens far to often. None of these things are good for us or for the body of Christ. When the world sees us acting like this, it says, see they are no different than we are.
We should be slow to act these ways and we should be quick to forgive! All of those listed in verse 31 can be combated with forgiveness. If we forgive, these will never be able to take hold in our hearts.
We are to be kind to one another, and always be forgiving one another, because God has forgiven us in Christ Jesus!
