Sermon Tone Analysis
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Our Talk and Our Walk - Eph 4:25-32
eph 4
What we say and do will have a profound effect on ability to witness and influence our community.
For your walk and talk to match you must have a Converted
I A Converted Character (4:25–26)
2. A Converted Disposition (4:25–26)
a.
A Transformed Tongue (4:25)
“Putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.”
Complete deliverance from the old nature is expressed in a converted disposition—including a transformed tongue, which James said no man can tame.
In Ephesians 4:25 Paul moved from principles of the faith to the practice of the faith.
He started spelling things out, giving specific examples of what happens when we put off the old nature and put on the new nature.
It seems incredible that Paul should have had to tell Christians not to lie.
Yet we are all surprised sometimes at “the hidden things of darkness” that lurk in our souls (1 Corinthians 4:5).
How easy it is in an unguarded moment when someone asks an awkward question to take refuge in a lie.
But a lie on the lips of a Christian instantly grieves the Holy Spirit, who describes Himself as “the Spirit of truth” (John 15:26).
Nothing short of confession and an application of the blood of Christ can erase that sin.
We are to discard all falsehood.
God is truth, unchanged and unchanging.
The lie is the idiom of Satan’s language.
Lies are the evil one’s common currency of speech.
He, above all else, is “the father of lies” (John 8:44).
Zechariah wrote, “Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbour” (Zechariah 8:16).
(Paul was quoting him in Ephesians 4:25.)
Zechariah was a postexilic prophet.
One of his great burdens was to urge the restored Jewish remnant not to repeat the sins that had made their exile necessary.
Throughout chapter 8, Zechariah reiterated the phrase, “Thus saith the Lord of hosts,” as the Lord contrasted His former acts of government and His present acts of grace.
One of the fundamentals for staying in the land, the Lord said, was to speak the truth.
How significant and sad that centuries later the Jewish people ended up hiring false witnesses against the Lord.
They paid for this sin when they were exiled again for nearly two thousand years.
Paul picked up Zechariah’s warning and addressed it to Christian believers.
But there are some fundamental differences between the restored Jewish remnant and Christian believers.
For instance, we are not in the land; we are in the Lord.
Our position is not in Canaan; our position is in Christ.
We are not concerned with a place; we are concerned with the person of Christ.
Israel could lose its position—and it did; we cannot lose our position in Christ.
We have something Israel did not have.
Israel had the divine statute, but we have the Holy Spirit!
If Israel needed to put away lying, how much more should we.
All deceit grieves the Holy Spirit and consequently leaves us bereft of joy, peace, and power.
There is something particularly deceitful about lying to a fellow member of the body of Christ, but all lying is destructive.
We are to have a transformed tongue, one that speaks the truth in love.
b.
A Transformed Temper (4:26)
“Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath.”
The Greek orgizō, translated here as “Be ye angry,” is imperative; it is a positive command.
There is nothing wrong with being angry for a righteous cause.
Anger can be wholesome.
There are times when we should be angry.
Anger can be kindled by the fire of Hell or by the fire from the altar of God.
Anger kindled by the old man is always sinful, destructive, and devilish.
Anger kindled by the Holy Spirit at the sight of some injustice, some great depravity, or some monstrous iniquity, is intended to give those who are engaging in the sinful activity reason to fear.
The person who cannot get angry at the seduction of an innocent girl, at the corrupting of a child, at those who practice and propagate perversion and pornography, must either be spineless or wholly without moral conviction.
Jesus was angry when He drove the moneychangers out of the temple.
A beautiful children’s hymn written long ago embodies a lovely prayer, but begins with a wholly false concept of the Lord Jesus:
Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,
Look upon a little child,
Pity my simplicity,
Suffer me to come to thee.
(Charles Wesley)
Is Jesus gentle?
Yes.
Is Jesus meek?
Yes, indeed.
Is Jesus mild?
A thousand times NO! Surely Charles Wesley used that word only because he could think of no other word to rhyme with child.
Jesus was anything but mild, bland, soft, and passive.
There was nothing mild about Him when He denounced the scribes and Pharisees for their hypocrisy and called them a “generation of vipers” (Matthew 3:7).
There was nothing mild about Him when, whip in hand, He strode into the temple (Matthew 21:12–13).
Jesus was angry, but he did not sin.
He also wept over the Christ-rejecting city of Jerusalem and its people in view of its impending doom (Luke 19:40–44; Matthew 23:34–39).
The Greek word translated “sin” in Ephesians 4:26 is hamartanō, which literally means “to miss the mark.”
Paul was saying, “Be angry, but don’t miss the mark.
Control your anger.”
The apostle was quoting from Psalm 4:4, which in the Septuagint version reads, “Tremble and sin not.”
Concentrated anger is powerful enough to produce trembling.
We should note carefully how Ephesians 4:26 is positioned in the text.
Its neighbor is the tongue (4:25) because it is all too easy for us to say wrong things when we are angry.
Its other neighbor is the devil (4:27), because Satan is swift to take advantage of powerful emotions.
We should also note that the Holy Spirit added this caution to Ephesians 4:26: “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.”
The word translated “wrath,” parorgismos, communicates the idea of provocation.
If you have to be angry—if the cause is righteous, the provocation severe—then let the storm burst but make sure the expression of your anger is not promiscuous or prolonged.
Let calm follow the storm and be sure that your fellowship with God is not broken.
Do not let the day end without quieting your spirit and making sure you have not grieved the Holy Spirit.
You must not nurse anger.
A converted disposition includes a transformed temper.
3. A Conquered Devil (4:27)
“Neither give place to the devil.”
The author of the bad behavior described in Ephesians 4:17–19, 22, 25 is unmasked in verse 27.
It is the devil.
The mother of all sin is lust, and the father of sin is the devil.
James said that when lust has conceived, it brings forth death (James 1:15).
Sin did not begin on earth; it began in Heaven.
Sin did not begin in the human heart but in the soul of Lucifer, the highest anointed cherub in glory.
Sin was already hoary with antiquity before the fallen Lucifer introduced it into this planet.
Satan does not like people.
He hates us with a hatred that beggars description.
His sole interest in Adam’s race is to deceive us, degrade us, distress us, and then destroy us.
Since man was made in the image and likeness of God, the more Satan can deface that image, distort it, and turn it into a mere caricature, the more his distorted soul is satisfied.
He constantly opposes us, even more so when we have been born again and the image of God has been restored in us.
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