Untitled Sermon

Walking in Christ

Walking in Christ

This evening we are continuing our study in Ephesians. So, if you would please turn your bibles to Ephesians 4 starting at verse 20. Now the text I was assigned actually begins at verse 25, but for context we are going to back up five verses Right before this portion which we are going to read, Paul has told the Ephesians not to walk as the Gentiles do (the Gentile ethic), and is going to explain to them the Christian ethic,(how Christians should act especially towards one another) and commands them to walk in that.

Ephesians 4:20-4:32.

20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!-- 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. 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. 28Let 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. 29Let 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. 30And 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 Heavenly Father, in your wisdom, you have given this letter of Ephesians, to instruct us how to live the Christian life, especially how to live with one another. We pray as we study small portion of it this evening that you would open our heart to understand it so we can apply it. For we ask in Jesus’s name.

To recap, in our study of Ephesians, we have made it through the theology of chapters 1 -3, and the exhortations of the first two thirds of Chapter 4, and now we are in the “How do we live it out” section of the Ephesians. In fact, in the section we will look at tonight, Paul gives five commands (or imperatives), on how we as people of the new creation (the church) are to put on the “new self” and to walk together as Christians in thought, word and deed or another word for it the “moral law.” One of the things that is problematic when you study the moral law or hear the moral law preached, is the propensity to hear an emphasis of the law over the gospel. We a read a section like the one we just read; our first thought is “I need to do these things”, which we should. Most Christians (new Christian especially) are spring-loaded to the law position. We want to know what God wants us to do. And unfortunately, sometimes, we may think if we follow it, we can justify ourselves before God. We can show God our good works and think God owes us something. No, that isn’t how it works. That isn’t the reason we want to obey God.

We looked at five Shorter Catechism questions and answers this evening, which is a couple more than usual in the Sunday evening service. But these questions and answers help us understand how the law and gospel work together.

The first question:

WSC 39 What is the duty which God requires of man? A. The duty which God requires of man, is obedience to his revealed will.

WSC 40 What did God at first reveal to man for the rule of his obedience? A. The rule which God at first revealed to man for his obedience, was the moral law.

WSC 41 Where is the moral law summarily comprehended? A. The moral law is summarily comprehended in the ten commandments.

The question we need to ask at this point, is “How does moral law relate to God and to us?” And to answer that question we are going to get help from Louis Berkhof wrote:

“The holiness of God is revealed in the moral law, implanted in man’s heart, and speaking through the conscience, and more particularly in God’s special revelation. It stood out prominently in the law given to Israel. That law in all its aspects was calculated to impress upon Israel the idea of the holiness of God, and to urge upon the people the necessity of leading a holy life.”

God’s holiness and his character is revealed in the moral law. God commanded Israel in Lev 11:45: For I am the LORD who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.

To sum up these three questions, our duty to God is the obedience of his revealed will, which is the moral law (in which God’s character is revealed), which is summarized in the ten commandments.

WSC 43 What is the preface to the ten commandments? A. The preface to the ten commandments is in these words, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

Sometimes when one reads a book, you’ll skip over a preface, but this is a preface you don’t want to skip over.

WSC 44 What doth the preface to the ten commandments teach us? A. The preface to the ten commandments teacheth us, That because God is the Lord, and our God, and Redeemer, therefore we are bound to keep all his commandments.

In these two questions and answers, there are clearly two gospel truths here.

1) The LORD (yhwh) (God’s covenant name) is their God.

2) He has delivered them graciously and sovereignly from bondage.

Even though the gospel here is abbreviated, it is clearly the gospel. The covenant God has saved his people.

In Ephesians, when Paul writes in the first half of the book, it could be said he is writing an expanded version of the preface of the ten commandments with a New Testament outlook. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob makes and keeps gracious promises. God has kept covenant of grace with his elect, the church. Paul explains in detail how we are redeemed from the bondage of our sin. And now our obligation as he explains in Ephesians is to put off the old self and put on the new self by living out the moral law. The moral law reflects God himself, but it is also how Christians should live in community with each other in the church. Not that shouldn’t live this way outside the church, but Paul’s emphasis here is how live with one another.

At Ephesians 4:25, Paul is finally ready to elaborate on the kind of practices that characterize true believers. From verse 4:25 through 6:9, Paul is going to expand on the moral law found in the ten commandments. What Paul does; It is very similar to what Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount. For example, in Mt 5:21, Jesus taught "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.' But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.” Meaning the sixth commandment mean more than just don’t kill, but it also includes unrighteous anger.

In our text, we are going to look at five different imperatives. These practices have application in thought, word and deed. What I think, what I say and what I do.

The first imperative in verse 25 is 25Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. This verse has to with what I say. Putting off the falsehood we had we are to speak truth to our neighbor. In the first part of this verse, Paul speaks to putting away falsehood, which speaks to what he said in v 22, putting off the old self. Putting falsehood away, we are to speak the truth.

Now, nothing can short circuit a relationship faster than not telling the truth. It will destroy trust, and create mistrust in the future. There are a lot of reasons why we don’t tell the truth. But usually, we don’t tell the truth because we do not want to confess a serious sin or even a slight misdeed. I think all of us want to look good in front of each other, and try to exude a persona that looks like we have it altogether, when we don’t. We don’t want to be exposed so we lie and don’t tell the truth. We don’t practice James 5:16: “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” Now I am not suggesting we go on a confession spree and tell everyone the dirt in our lives. But what I am saying is when are asked a question, we need to tell the truth. One consequence of not telling the truth is Lord is against even Christians who do evil. The apostle Peter quotes Ps 33 and writes For

"Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; 11 let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it. 12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil."

An application of this Ananias and Saphira in the event recorded in Acts 5:1-11. Ananias and Saphira had sold a property and donated some of the proceeds, and kept some of it which was certainly their right to do. But apparently they lied that they had donated all the proceeds to the poor when they didn’t. The Apostle Peter said to Ananias, Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God." 5When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last. And great fear came upon all who heard of it. 6 The young men rose and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him. The response by the church was And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things.To summarize this first imperative, Christians need to tell the truth.

The second imperative is found in verse 26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27and give no opportunity to the devil. The first imperative we looked at had to do with “what we say”. This imperative has to do with “what I think”, at least initially. The first part of this “Be angry and do not sin” Paul quotes from Psalm 4:4. This is a not command to anger pe se, but there are certain kinds of anger and vexation that are warranted and permissible for the godly in this life, especially unjust accusations. But unrestrained anger is tantamount to murder and is a violation of the sixth commandment. As we looked at earlier in Matt 5:22: But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, 'You fool!' will be liable to the hell of fire.

In Psalm 7:11 in the KJV, it reads “God is angry with the wicked day” This is the judicial wrath of God against sin and evil, which humans can’t exercise without sin. As it says in James 1:20 “for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” We have to make a distinction between divine judicial wrath and human, selfish fury. That is why Paul adds "do not let the sun go down on your anger” at least this is how it is translated in the ESV. The ESV translators translate the Greek word parorgismosas “anger”. This word only appears once in the NT, and it is probably better to translate as “vexation” meaning the cause of my anger. So, the instruction Paul is giving us is to not let the sun go down on our vexation or the potential cause of our anger. We want to be able to work through these thoughts to a successful close. We don’t want those vexations to crow into full fledge anger. We want to shut down those things going on in our mind, that if we continue to meditate on them will cause unrighteous anger.

The second part of this two-verse passage tells us what our motivation is not to become angry, and that motivation is to “give no opportunity to the devil”. Or to say it another way, “Do not give the devil a chance to exert his influence. The church is called to peace and unity, but the devil would like nothing better to tear the church apart with fury, tumult, hostilities and divisions, and all other wicked effects of unresolved anger.

The third imperative is found in verse 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. This is an easy verse to understand, don’t steal. But it is worth pointing out that Paul develops the eighth commandment against stealing by exhorting the audience not only to refrain from this sin but to replace it with fruitful labor to share with those in need. It is easy to extend the pattern Paul uses here to other lifestyle sins the saints are to stop practicing and the corresponding virtues they are to develop for holy lives . At the heart of stealing is “covetousness” [the tenth commandment]) and laziness. But the thief is to displace his past mind-set with a positive life of diligent labor and generosity. Generosity is the key here, because it counteracts covetousness (greed) directly.

The fourth imperative is found is 29-30: 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. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

A Christian must love the Lord with heart, mind, soul, and strength—and word. Paul now shows just how extensive the claims of Christ are on the lives of his hearers: it extends to the way we are to talk. This word translated corrupting talk, sapros, means bad to the extent of being harmful. So the “corrupting talk” that Paul is talking besides being bad, it harms people.

We should keep in mind that Paul is dealing with very few educated and political elites in the congregations he founded. The Ephesian audience no doubt contained at least partly a pretty rough crowd, and the Gentiles in the crowd were uneducated in OT wisdom literature and warnings on the mouth, the tongue, or the words of the wise and the fool. Verses like:

Proverbs 10:11 The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, But the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.

Proverbs 10:31-32 The mouth of the righteous flows with wisdom, But the perverted tongue will be cut out. 32 The lips of the righteous bring forth what is acceptable, But the mouth of the wicked what is perverted.

Proverbs 13:3 Whoever guards his mouth preserves his life; he who opens wide his lips comes to ruin.

The Ephesian Gentiles may have been surprised to learn that even the way they talk had to be reformed on conversion to Christ. But here we see how the unity of the congregation and its mutual growth and edification is paramount in Paul’s mind. What we say and how we say is important to one another, especially to other Christians.

Jesus, himself warns us in Matt 12:36 I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak. I am sure you have heard these words before like I have. The question we should have for ourselves, is what our response is when Jesus says that every careless word will be judged. Do we say to ourselves, oh well, I have said so many careless things, a couple more won’t hurt? No, no, no. It should change our behavior to be more careful about what we say.

Connected to Eph 4:29, the imperative about what we say, is verse: 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. This is one of the most mysterious and important verses in the Bible. It is mysterious because God’s ways and thoughts are not like ours, yet the church can grieve the Holy Spirit. The Triune God is personal and that his spirit, who dwells among his people, is not an impersonal wind or power but a person. We also notice this verse the references to being sealed with the Spirit and to the day of redemption. The sealing took place at the beginning of our Christian life; the Holy Spirit himself, indwelling us, is the seal with which God has stamped us as his own. The day of redemption, however, although we already have redemption in the sense of forgiveness), looks on to the end when our bodies will be redeemed, for only then will our redemption or liberation be complete. So the ‘sealing’ and the ‘redemption’ refer respectively to the beginning and the end of the salvation process. And in between these two points we are to grow in Christlikeness and to take care not to grieve the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit hates sin, discord and falsehood, and shrinks away from them. Therefore, if we wish to avoid grieving him, we shall shrink from those things too.

The fifth imperative is Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

As Paul starts to summarize this section, he lists six evils that believers are to remove from their lives. 1) Bitterness which is a sour spirit and sour speech. Those with a negative and cynical outlook on life. 2) Wrath, which is a passionate rage, 3) Angerwhich is a more settled and sullen hostility. 4) Clamor describes people who get excited, raise their voices in a quarrel, and start shouting, even screaming, at each other. 5)Slander is speaking evil of others, especially behind their backs, and so defaming and even destroying their reputation. 6)The sixth word is malice , or ill will, wishing and probably plotting evil against people. There is no place for any of these wicked actions in the Christian community; we have to reject them.

In contrast, Paul is urging his God’s people to “be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another”. Kindness is an attribute God possesses and displays to his creation, especially his covenant people, and one Paul desires believers to imitate. Tenderheartedness, which literally means to have healthy intestines, figuratively refers to internal feelings of compassion for another. Feelings of bitterness, anger, and malice must be replaced with tenderhearted compassion. The last exhortation, to be forgiving, comes with a compelling comment: “as God in Christ forgave you”. Because believers have freely received grace from God through the sacrificial work of Christ, they are called likewise to show grace and forgive others who have wronged them.

Now when I originally was assigned this text to preach, it included Ephesian 5:1-2: Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

But Pastor Sam had his heart set on preaching those verses, and so I elected to forego them tonight. However, Ephesians 4:25-32 doesn’t make any sense without these two verses, because Eph 5:1-2 is the application. Unless we imitate God, and walk in love, we can’t walk in obedience of the moral law that commands us to walk. As Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, that is how we should walk as we live with one another in the church.