[Transcript represents full sermon's text]

       We come to Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 25 today. We'll be finishing up the chapter verses 25 to 32. Let's go ahead and get into the text, and we'll be doing each verse at a time because there's quite a bit to cover here. We're going to have a lot to talk about in one message. Ephesians chapter 4, verse 25: "Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another” (ESV).

       Paul starts us off today diving into more detail about how we can better further develop our characters as Christians. And he had been talking about the big stuff the last time. If we remember, he talked about just an overview in verse 22, which he called our former manner of life, which was corrupt through deceitful desires. That's the overview, the summation we said. And now Paul's getting more into the nooks and crannies of how we can better present ourselves to ourselves and others, which is ultimately before God, right? So Paul had been discussing this whole falsehood stuff, which is a way of encapsulating everything he said, because he says, therefore, having put away falsehood. So he's assuming that as we've become a Christian and change, that we've moved out of falsehood. And now he's telling us that we should speak the truth to one another. And with that, there are three things we can note. So the first would be not telling lies to other people. I think that's pretty commonsensical. We understand that. We understand we're supposed to do that, though not everyone who identifies as a Christian obviously does that. I can think of examples, a couple of examples that come immediately to my mind in my personal life of people I've known who've identified as Christians and just haven't lived up to that. They’ve said things that aren't true. They've presented things in a way that's twisted, that's not right.

       And the second thing, one way we can look at this is to think of speaking the truth with our neighbors as speaking good, encouraging, positive things to them because we know our Bibles. And that's why one of the reasons why we're supposed to be studying our Bibles, knowing the New Testament, studying the Gospels, so that we are familiar with what it says. If we have those scriptures in mind, if we have what God expects from us at the top of our heads, easily accessible, then we are able to speak the truth with our neighbor. And Paul wraps that up by saying, for we are members one of another, right? And that's the thing. It's the idea that Paul talked about in the sister letter to Ephesians here, which is Colossians, Colossians 3:15. I'll tap over there real fast. Paul said over there, “And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body” (ESV). And that, if we look at that in a collective sense, not an individualistic sense, but with the collective in mind, one way we let the peace of Christ rule within the body of Christ is by speaking the truth to one another. It just seems commonsensical, right? That promotes peace. That means there's nothing shady going on, nothing that has to be hidden or questioned, etc., etc.

       Well, let's go ahead and back in Ephesians 4 and move to verse 26: “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.” And then I'll get the tail or the beginning of verse 27: “and give no opportunity to the devil” (ESV).

       A bit going on here; we can note several things. The first thing is he says, “Be angry and do not sin.” That tells me that we must be allowed to get angry. And I think the idea is a righteous, a godly anger, not an angry because we're not getting our way kind of thing. Now, just because Paul says be angry, that doesn't mean we now have a license to anger. We have to be very careful here with this. I would argue, in fact, that it's best not to get angry whenever possible. From all my studies in psychology, just studying psychological books and textbooks and everything, I would say that it's best, if at all possible, not to get angry in the first place. And I think that's something, especially for some people, it's something that takes time to cultivate into one's life. It's going to take many years of continual practice of surrendering and this and that situation and not choosing the pathway of anger. Now, anger can rise up quickly if we're used to reacting that way. But the goal, the ultimate goal is not to act that way.

       Now, did Jesus get angry? Well, there were a couple of times that he seemed to get angry. And the one that comes to our mind immediately is when he went into the temple and created the whip of cords or whatever it was. And he was driving out the money changers and whatnot there in the temple. And that was a righteous indignation for God the Father, right? His Father was not being honored, was not being reverenced as holy, because they were more concerned about making a prophet than they were about the righteousness of God and the heart of God. So that's where that anger came from. The second instance where we can think of anger was when Jesus was taken to court. I think it might have been the first round. I think it was the first round. He got a little wordy, to put it politely, with, “Why don't we just turn to the passage? I mean, that would be easier.” This is when, in John chapter 18, this is when Jesus was led to Annas, who was the high priest. Technically, he was high priest, and he wasn't high priest anymore. It's kind of convoluted. Technically, he was still a high priest under Jewish law, I believe is how it went. And even though they had switched it. But anyway, in chapter 18, verse 23, well, let's go to verse 22. So Jesus spoke about what he had done, about how he had spoken openly and taught the people in the synagogues and in the temple. And in verse 22, it says, “When he had said these things, one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand, saying, “Is that how you answer the high priest? Jesus answered him, “If what I said is wrong, bear witness about the wrong; but if what I said is right, why do you strike me?”” (ESV). So the "why do you strike me?” could be interpreted as a sign of anger on his part because the Jewish law is not being followed. After all, we've got two high priests in play. We’ve got Annas, and then he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was the actual currently practicing high priest. Bottom line, they weren't even following the Jewish law, and then Jesus says something that's totally correct, and then they fault him for that. They strike him. And so those are the two instances that come to my mind of Jesus being angry. Now, obviously, he did not stay angry for long. He did what Paul talks about in Ephesians 4, that he expressed what he wanted to express, but then he moved on from that.

       And as American Christians, that's probably one of our most difficult things. I think a lot of times when we get angry, we stay angry, and we do not tend to move on from that. I think it's because of our political system and the way it's structured. We think we have a right to get angry and to stay angry and demand justice and to fight for justice and all that. It’s like we use anger as the fuel for that fire. And that's what we're used to. That's what we're taught we're supposed to do. And so for us, it's a bit of a challenge, I think. Now, why is it that it's wrong? Why can't we just stay angry? Why the concern here? Well, it's Paul, tells us why at the beginning of verse 27, when he says, “and give no opportunity to the devil,” tail end of verse 26, “do not let the sun go down on your anger” and “give no opportunity to the devil.” When we let the sun go down on our anger, when we stay angry, that allows Satan to work through that, not only to our personal deficit, because now inside of us in our minds, we're being eaten up by whatever it is we're staying angry about, right? We're letting that eat us up. It's bothering us. We're treating others probably not at the level we should be because we're mad about this. Obviously, the person we're mad at or group of people, that interaction is not where it should be. This allows Satan to step in and cause even more destruction than the prolonged anger has caused. And that can manifest in many different ways, as we're all aware. And if we harbor that anger for a long period of time, that can cause a permanent separation with siblings, with brothers and sisters in the body of Christ, with husband and wife, you name it. We know what danger and destruction anger, prolonged anger can cause. And that's the thing. And we're going to talk about it in a little bit, but I'm going to hold off. But when we get angry fast and have an outburst, that can cause damage right away.

       Let's go ahead and read 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” (ESV).

       Now, this one doesn’t. When I first read it, I wasn't really puzzled by it. It seems pretty self-explanatory. There's nothing really to deep dive into, at least at first glance, but there are some things we can pull out of this. So “let the thief no longer steal.” The person who in their former manner of life, which Paul talked about already, and which we went over in the last message, being corrupt through deceitful desires, that old self, if that person used to be a thief, then they're obviously not supposed to do that anymore. But it also shows us in general that as Christians, thievery is not something that we are supposed to be doing. And I think, at least in the Evangelical church and really most sects of Christianity, I don't think this is something that I see Christians struggling with, and a literal sense of taking that which is not ours, just outright stealing something.

       But there are some areas that sort of branch off from this that are still in the vein of stealing that are a little more overt or a little more covert that we may not think of as stealing. And one of those instances is in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. If I tap over there, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, I'm going to read. Let's start in verse 4. Well, let's just start in verse 3: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God.” Now verse 6 is the key: “that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you.” Verse 7: “For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you” (ESV). That's a pretty strong passage there from Paul, right? That one, I think, makes the hair stand up on our skin a little bit, at least when we first read that or come back to it after a while.

       And what Paul's talking about is when a couple of young people, like, say, latter teens, early 20s, whatever it is, if the guy, probably it would be the guy, but it could be the girl. If one takes advantage of the other, Paul is saying that's stealing that person's purity. How does that wrong their brother? Well, it wrongs the other person, right? Because that person took advantage of them. But it also wrongs the parents. In the Jewish, or well, in the first century context, that would be the father. It wrongs him because now his daughter is no longer pure. It's that kind of stuff going on. But basically that's theft. And not only is that a stealing, but it now not only has those people involved here on the earth, but it has God involved. God's not happy when somebody does that. And it tells us , if it happens in a Christian context, that the people are believers, basically, that God himself will seek out to make restitution on that. He will seek to bring that person to justice, to bring punishment, if you will, for that deed.

       It's not very often that the New Testament comes out and says something like this. That's something that we should pay attention to, and especially in our highly sexually immoral culture here in the United States, and with the temptation to sin, really with all ages, but especially with the young people, that's something to keep in mind. You know, if there's a Christian guy and girl dating, you don't want to step over that line. You don't want to sin and then steal and then have God with his arms crossed coming after you. You don't want that. Pretty strong here, pretty strong passage. But that, I think, is a definite way that thievery can occur in our modern Evangelical setting.

       Now let's go back to Ephesians chapter 4. And I also want to talk about the discussion of thievery is another way that might be tempting for some of us within the church to steal. It is when we take handouts, assistance from the government when we really don't need it. We’re taking advantage of the government. Now, everybody's saying, well, why does that matter? Why do we have to watch the government's back? Aren't they the bad guys? You know, there's that common public perception that the government is just out to take our money. But remember, those people are appointed by God. , that's what Paul told us in Romans chapter 13. And however we interpret that, there are different ways of interpreting that, obviously. But we should not be viewing our government as bad and therefore think we are, we have the right to just take whatever we want from the government. That is not a true, honest Christian attitude. That should not be our attitude.

       Obviously, there are people who really need the handouts, even in the Christian community, and they may get help from the church, but they may also get help from the government. That's perfectly acceptable. That's perfectly fine. But for somebody who could work and is saying, “Well, you know, I could make more money sitting on the couch or sitting in the recliner.” We've all heard that one, I think. Well, that's not good. You're supposed to work. Paul said elsewhere, if you don't work, you should not eat. And we're supposed to work. We're supposed to make an honest living to live a quiet and peaceful life. So again, if somebody has a disability, if somebody's going through really tough times, that's totally understandable, but for some people, they're stealing. They're taking advantage of the system, so we don't want that. And thirdly, Paul tells us that why are we supposed to make an honest living? Why, he says, do honest work with his own hands. Well, it's so that he may have something to share with anyone in need, Paul says.

       It comes down to if we accumulate money, if we accumulate material goods, because we're doing right, working hard, etc., etc., then we have money to give away. When the church is trying to raise money for this or that, we can actually give some money. We can give material goods to brothers or sisters that when that arises. If a family needs something, churches often will do drives at Christmas or missions, drives or whatever to package stuff up and send it to people . Things like that, if we have abundance because we're living righteously, we get to share. And remember, Jesus said it's better to give than to receive, right? And I found that to be experientially true. Don't get me wrong, I do like to get. I do like to get gifts from people, but there's just a little bit more excitement, and a little bit more fun when you get to give things to people, especially material goods. Money is fun, too, but I think the material goods, we know that from Christmastime. We've all experienced that. It's just fun, especially if we picked out a gift that the person perhaps doesn't even know about, that we think and are trying to guess that they'll really like that gift, that's a fun thing to do. There's just a little bit more fun in that, I believe, versus receiving something that we want. And I think that's something that comes to us as we get older, at least for me, as I've gotten older, I've felt more that way. When I was younger, obviously I was focused more on getting, I think like a lot of other people are. It may take time to cultivate that. Admittedly, I wish it wasn't that way. Maybe there are some people out there that feel that from their teens, hopefully. But some of us, it takes time. And again, that giving is going to look different across the board. Sometimes it's monetarily, sometimes it's materially. Churches do different things in different ways. But the point is we get to share.

       Let's move on to verse 29 now: “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” (ESV).

       This one again seems pretty self-explanatory, kind of like the stealing, but there are some things we can note . The idea of corrupt talk seems to be something perverse , so obviously inappropriate jokes, jokes, and bad taste. We know secular persons can get pretty raunchy with their jokes, so we don't want to be part of that when that happens at the workplace or happens in a group of friends who don't believe we want to try our best not to participate in that to get involved with that and to go along with it. We do not want to go along with it. It can also include perhaps things like gossiping. We could think of that as corrupting talk. That's probably a little bit more tempting for the women out there, for the girls, just because girls, they like to talk so much as we know, obviously, when they get together. So that could be a little bit more tempting for them. I know that's not politically correct, but it seems to be the experiential reality. And then worrying to others, not worrying in general, but worrying, being concerned about things to others.

       Speaking that great excess or abundance, what's a better word than abundance? That great dumping that where we try to offload our concern about something to another, which has to do with the future, which we don't even know if it's going to happen. That kind of stuff. Worrying to others. We want to be careful with that. We don't want to be a downer, where people don't want to talk to us because we're always prophesying the latest bad thing that's going to happen next, whether that's politically, nationally, with the church, personally, with the family, whatever it is. That could be corrupting talk. What do we do in contrast to that? Well, Paul said, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. So good words that give grace are those of which encourage and help others, right? So as fits the occasion: different occasions call for different words, different conversations.

       One potential scenario that comes to my mind is like at a Bible study, if you're there to study God's Word, you don't want to be that person that has something going on in their life that steers the conversation towards that and away from studying the Bible so that the whole Bible study then gets consumed and caught up in that person's issue. I've seen that happen maybe a couple of times. That is something to watch out for. Kind of keeping that conversation on the right track . And we want to be encouraging and positive to others. We don't want to be that person that's downfall to others. That's the downer. Now, there are times for honest conversation. There are times to say things that we may not even want to say. But in general, we want to be the encourager, the helper when it comes to our speech.

       Let's go to verse 30 now: “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (ESV).

       Now that one, I think in a lot of Evangelical circles, that one is a little foreign. Because if you operate from a Calvinistic mindset where God calls people to himself, basically, and it's going to sound, a lot of people aren't probably going to like this, but Calvinism doesn't allow really for the grieving of the Holy Spirit because no one can resist his will. They pull that from Romans chapter 9, right? But I would say that's a misunderstanding of the passage. But in reality, I would say the true reality is that, yes, we can grieve the Holy Spirit. How does that happen? Well, that happens when we continue to practice sin that God has shown us to be, things that he's shown us to be sin, but yet we continue to do them regardless. And, I'm not talking about someone who's struggling with a sin and they fail and then they repent and they fail and repent. What I'm talking about is someone who has either been shown it's a sin or knows it's a sin, but they continue to do it without any repentance. That's grieving the Holy Spirit. Bottom line is we have the free will, and we can go against God.

       Now, there are two kinds of grieving of the Holy Spirit that occur that I'm aware of in Scripture, and it's pretty basic. The first kind would be that from unbelievers who resist the Spirit of God. , I do not believe that God has irresistible grace. I do not subscribe to that notion. So people can resist the Holy Spirit, as the Pharisees often did, as is demonstrated in Acts chapter 7. We’re familiar with that. And the second kind is what I just talked about with the believer resisting the Holy Spirit. Even though we're indwelled by the Spirit, that doesn't mean we're going to do everything correctly or only mess up for five or ten seconds and then immediately course-correct back. I think there is that thought, “Well, if the Holy Spirit indwells me, I can't really mess up that badly. Or if I do, it won't be for very long.” Yeah, we can. Even as Christians, we can still be going down wrong pathways. And again, it's uncomfortable to talk about, but it needs to be said. There is hope in the situation. We're not to resist the Spirit. Who are we to resist? Well, James told us who we're to resist. Remember James chapter 4 and verse 7, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (ESV). We know that verse. That's who we're supposed to resist. It's Satan, not the Holy Spirit.

       Let's go to verse 31 in Ephesians chapter 4: “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice” (ESV).

       Paul just gives a massive list—really it's five big things that were to avoid and it's interesting because it really could be six if we include anger as a separate instance. So it would be bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander that's one, two, three, four, five, five and then the malice would be number six. And this is interesting because didn't Paul just say, be angry and do not sin? Why is he contradicting himself several verses later? Well, let's talk about that. And that's why I said, I think in most situations, if at all possible, it's best not to get angry. I've known people over the years who just love to practice that righteous indignation. I myself, with my hand raised, used to be in the righteous indignation. I almost took pleasure in getting angry about injustices. And I think we all still fall on that to a degree, right? Especially if it's in our personal life. But we want to strive away from anger, if at all possible. So let's go through these.

       Bitterness. Usually, I think that comes from unforgiveness. There's somebody in our life or a group of people that we have not forgiven. And that eats away at our soul. That eats away at our insides. That's why, again, if you want to hold on to righteous indignation, that'll oftentimes draw bitterness. You'll be bitter getting eaten up inside because you won't let that offense go. And that's tough. I understand that people can do really, really bad things. I'm not saying they can, but bitterness is not the way. That's not two wrongs don't make a right. Getting all sour inside over many years and all, all raged up inside over something isn't going to help.

       Another thing, the second thing, wrath , there are different kinds of wrath. Paul talked about this in Galatians chapter 5, so if I tap over there, Galatians 5:20, Paul says he's going through a list of sins. He says, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions. Then verse 21, envy , so there are a lot of things in there that stem from wrath, that stem from anger , so again, it shows us that anger really is not the way , it's really detrimental to us. And that's why we should work to avoid it more and more , and someone obviously is going to raise their hand at this point and say, well, Paul prohibits us from being wrathful , but isn't God wrathful? After all, isn't Paul going to say a few verses down in Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 1, “be imitators of God ,” so why are we prohibited then from being wrathful? Because if God's wrathful, shouldn't we be wrathful? Well, I'm glad somebody brought that up, because the reality is, what I would say is that God doesn't delight in bringing out his wrath. I brought up, even in the atonement theories, the Christus Victor view over the penal substitutionary atonement, wherein Christus Victor, God doesn't unleash his wrath on Jesus on the cross because God's not just so filled with anger and wrath that he has to do that. And that's one thing.

       Then we have, “Well, what about the end times? What about in Revelation when Jesus comes back and kills everybody that's against him, right?—with the sword coming out of his mouth?” Well, it may be the case that those people's hearts are so hardened that they wouldn't come to him anyway. So he has no choice but to take them out if he wants to move on with the earth, with his plan, they can't be there. They're in active rebellion against God, and they would prohibit him from reigning on the earth for 1,000 years. If we read Zechariah chapter 14, it may even be the case that Jesus isn't the one that directly kills them—that they turn against each other. That's a possibility. But either way, whether Jesus directly does it or it indirectly occurs, the bottom line is those people, it would seem, they have the mark of the beast. They can't come back to the good side. When you take the mark of the beast, that's a permanent condition of separation from God. That's what the Scripture tells us. So the wrath is not just Jesus can't take it anymore. He finally got his enemies. He's going to kill them. It's that they're too far gone. They can't come back. So there's no other alternative. So that's a little bit different. When you frame it that way, it's not exactly the same thing, is it? So that is what I would say to that.

       We've already discussed anger so much, so let's just go ahead and move on to clamor. What is clamor? Well, it's like arguing out loud with others, right? Whether that be at church, with friends, at work, with a husband and wife. And it's something that is not anger to produce a positive result. It's anger because the people are just honestly sick of each other and they're just going at it. That’s clamor , not anger as in you're trying to correct the course to get things back to where they should be. So it's what is the intent there and the anger. And again, Paul talked about in Galatians chapter 5, which we just read, “fits of anger.” Fits of anger show us something that is not under our control. There's anger that is under our control, like Jesus had, and then there's anger that's not under our control that's coming from our sinful nature. But again, we want to try to avoid this anger as much as possible.

       So slander. We know what that is. It's saying untruthful things about someone or a group of people to others. We're familiar with that. People do that to try to gain advantage, to try to hurt somebody else, to try to hurt their reputation, whatever it is. We obviously don't want to do that. That's a cousin concept or a cousin sin to the sin of stealing, right? It's similar to stealing. Because if we hurt somebody's reputation when they really didn't do wrong, we've robbed them of that good reputation that they had by putting a question mark there. Even if the person has been proven that they didn't do wrong, there still might be a few people that hold the question mark. And that is bad.

       Finally, malice. So what is malice? Well, isn't that a more intense hatred with the intent to harm others? So it's anger at the next level. It might just be verbal. It might just be actions that a person takes. We know malicious behavior, malicious intent. That's a legal term . Or it might be physical violence . That could be classified, I think, as malicious. That's the breakdown there.

       Paul, in verse 32, our final verse, gives us the actual thing that we're supposed to be doing in contrast to all we just talked about. So verse 32: “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (ESV).

       Wow. There it is. That's a lot going on there. And there are basically three things going on that we should know. First is kindness. We want to be kind to others as much as we possibly can be. That should be our primary operational sphere or operational setting point is that we are kind . Now, what is tenderness? Well, tenderness is a willingness, we could say, to adapt to others' needs. It's a willingness to adapt to others' needs. That's the definition I came up with. And it's being sensitive to what's going on with others, right? It's not just being aware, but thinking this person is suffering in this way. What is there that I can do in this situation? What action can I take? What can I say? What affection can I show that is good for the situation, that helps them to become better in their situation, that helps relieve some of their hurtingness, some of their hurt? What can I do? And that's the attitude there.

       And finally, forgiving one another. We know what that is. We know we want to have that forgiving attitude toward other people. We want to be forgiving towards others because that promotes peace within the body. Plus, that helps us to feel good. That helps us to feel good internally so that we feel good within ourselves and have our relationships the best they can possibly be. Why do we do that? Well, we do it. We should be willing to do it. Why? Because Christ did that for us. God did that for us because of what Christ accomplished on the cross, right? So we're forgiven of all of our sins. God's forgiven our sins, which were nailed to the cross, so that we can have peace with God. And then just as those sins were wiped away, we should be willing to wipe away the sins of others. Again, that's something that can take time over years, in fact, to cultivate. Unless we're particularly just naturally forgiving and it depends on what people do to us, but it can take a long time to come to that place where we just truly genuinely want to forgive and freely do forgive, but that's something we need to work towards because again, if we don’t, that bitterness will creep in there and eat us alive. And really, that's the only way. We're all going to have offenses that occur against us.

       And you might be out there listening today and not have a relationship with God, at least a good one, and you know that, “Oh, well, bad things have happened in my life from others and I've not forgiven them. I'm eaten up, my insides are eaten up, and it's just not good.” Well, I'm here today to tell you that you can have forgiveness from God for all your sins and you can work towards forgiving that person or group of people, which will ultimately free yourself. That's what you want to do long term. It may not feel like you want to do it right now because of justice or whatever, but wouldn't you rather be free from all the pain and suffering that that bitterness causes? I mean, everybody has their free choice, but God offers today a way for anyone who comes into relationship with him to be forgiven of their sins and to freely be able to forgive others. It's an awesome thing, and it's available to anyone who is willing to come to God today just by saying, one can just say a simple prayer and come into relationship with God. Just say, God, I want to know you. I want to be in relationship with you. I want the forgiveness that you offer through Jesus' death and resurrection. Just going to God today in prayer and telling Him that can gain you that relationship with God and then start that process of working to forgive others and your life. It's awesome stuff.

- Daniel Litton