in Ephesians 4, verses 17 through 24, that we are to abstain from falling back on our former ways of life, those ways in which we once lived before we trusted in Christ. Now he referred to that way of life as the walk of the Gentiles. That's how he described it, the walk of the Gentiles. And what it did is we were catering to our old self, really our only self in that time, but he's admonishing the Ephesians to not turn back on those old ways. of the Gentiles. Well, he was, of course, speaking to the Ephesians and that was an exhortment that he gave them to never go back. He said, that is not the way that you learned Christ. That is not the way you learned Christ. And we discussed what that means, to learn Christ. It's, again, it seems a bit of a different way to, an odd way of saying something, but we mentioned that to learn Christ means to go through trials that reveal to us God's faithfulness while we're going through that. That's learning Christ. Reading the word. Privately, corporately, with your family. Hearing the word preached. Even in our service and ministering to others, we're learning Christ. And we discussed that last week. Well, in our passage today, which is found in the last paragraph of Ephesians chapter four, beginning in verse 25 and following to the end, Paul, he moves from telling us what we once were and what we are now to commanding us to become what we are. He's commanding us to become what we are. There's a series of commands in there. Again, as a reminder, we spent the first half of the letter of Ephesians learning about who we are in Christ. And now we're getting into that part where we're commanded about what to do about it. or we're commanded what we're supposed to do because of it, because we are in Christ. So if you're not already there in your Bibles, please turn with me to verse 25 in Ephesians four and follow along with me as I read to the end of the chapter. Verse 25, therefore, having put away all falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil. 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. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only 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. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God and Christ forgave you. Um, if you're just now coming in here, the reason why we don't have something up on the screen is because we're having, we continue to have technical difficulties. We'll try to get this fixed before next week, God willing. Um, so no slides this morning, folks. All right. So all of these commandments that we're reading here and beginning in verse 25 to the end of the chapter, um, that we are given, that the Ephesians were given, they're only made possible to follow and obey because of the power of the Holy Spirit, making us alive in Christ. So no longer living in a life that is dominated by sin, ruled by sin without any hope of conceding to its deceitfulness, we are now living in Christ as believers. Since we've been coupled with this reserved grace that's been shown to us by God, coupled with the grace of God, with the very righteousness of Christ, we're able to live in our new selves. So it's something that God's given us the ability to do. And we're to live out all our days faithfully in this new identity. And Paul's been straining hard throughout this letter to help us understand it. In 2 Corinthians, in chapter five, verse 17, Paul says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away, behold, the new has come. It's a common theme that Paul is working out through the churches in his time, and it's something that we continue to work through. You know, these letters are for us to read as well and to learn and grow. We need to be reminded to put off the old and put on the new by being renewed in the mind. Not only are the believers in Ephesus or in Corinth or us as renewed persons, but a whole new reality has come upon us. a whole new reality. And Paul makes it clear that when we move from death to life, there is a lot of implications that go along with it. And so he's listing some of these out in this paragraph. Things that we should be doing, not just things that we should not be doing. Something most of us here know full well about how we are to be doing these things. I don't think for many of us that when we read this list, it's foreign to us. We know that we've been called to do it. But knowing and doing can be as vastly different as the fool is from the wise, right? What is wisdom but applied knowledge, right? So we know about these things. Are we doing them? Are we challenging ourselves and gracefully challenging others? Well, Paul turns to a list of imperatives that follow the logic that he has been building where believers are taught how to grow in holiness and gradually being transformed in Christ likeness. So if you were to see, my next slide would be titled, Putting Off and Putting On. but it's not there. So in verses 25 through 32, I counted seven commands from Paul in this paragraph. And in verse 25, we are all to speak the truth with his neighbor. Secondly, in verse 26, we are to be angry and do not sin. Thirdly, in verse 28, the thief is commanded to not be a thief. Don't be a thief. He's commanded to not steal, but commit his hands to honest work. Number four, in verse 29, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths. Number five, in verse 30, we are told not to grieve the Holy Spirit. In verse 31, number six, it says to, we're to let a lot of ugliness. to be put away from, to be put away from you. Paul lists bitterness and wrath and anger, clamor, slander, malice, all that ugliness that comes from within. In the seventh one I counted in verse 32, we are commanded to be kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving. So Ferguson, in our main book that we're using here for a guide, he breaks these commands down into two main principles of sanctification. First, he says there is no progress in holiness unless we put away what belongs to the old lifestyle and put on what belongs to the new one. Okay, that's pretty clear. We've been told put off and put on. The point he's making is these things need to happen both at the same time. Simultaneously. We're to put off and put on. Our only ability to do this is marked by our union with the Lord. So there's a humility that's involved in this. Now anytime that we attempt to do one without the other, put off the old without putting on the new, or vice versa, it always leads to some kind of failure. To simply put off the old lifestyle is, it's not growing in Christ-likeness to just, if that's all you're doing, is to putting off the old and not putting on the new. That's not growing in Christ-likeness. It's akin to what the Pharisees sought to do with the Ten Commandments. They focused so much on what they weren't supposed to do. They were keen to add rules upon rules that restricted their lives and other people's lives, but they failed to act positively to these commandments. Take the positive side of it, the implied positive, doing good works out of love to God and to others. So it doesn't work if you just do one side. In fact, to follow the commandments of God where he in the negative says do not do this or do not do that, there is always that implied positive command that says that we're rather to do this or do that, those things that are good and holy. Paul, he touches on those positive commands in this passage that we have. It's not just not doing things, it's also doing good things at the same time. It's the point that Ferguson is making here. So if we attempt to only comply with putting off of sinful behavior and not putting on that new lifestyle of seeking the righteousness of God, then we're not living out our faith as we're intended to live it out. We're not building anything. So if you think about it, a life like that is going to be dull and it's unattractive. If all you're doing is what do I not do? There's no life in it in that regard. That's dull and unattractive. It could be safe. It could be feel like you're, it's a safe thing to do, but it's a lot like that wicked servant who was given that one talent and he thought to himself that it would be safer for him to not just rock the boat. and employ the gift that had been given to him. He buried it. He didn't do anything with it. Um, it wasn't fruitful, not doing anything is it's not being fruitful. And when you got to think about what the Lord did to that fig tree when he went up to it and it wasn't bearing fruit and it's due season, how he, what he, He cursed it and withered and died. So we would be very wise, even as children of God, to heed these warnings in Scripture about what fruitlessness has in store for itself. Just as it is important to put on the new and do godly things, we are now enabled to do these things for God's glory, of course, but it would be a dreadful thing to think that we can grow in Christ's likeness, doing all these things that Paul's telling us here without rejecting those lingering, sinful dispositions and habits that we have. If we were to ignore that it would be what Ferguson described like planting flowers in a garden that's been infested with weeds without either weeding or using weed killer. You know it's not going to be as fruitful, you're going to have that those weeds growing up around you. So we got to be about killing sin, putting off the old. So that that's the second main principle that Ferguson drew out of these verses. Um, and that in terms of for sanctification, where he's commanding us in very concrete ways that he's informing us what the will of God is. Um, and it underlines really, when you look at it and you stand back in context of all the scripture, it underlines for us that New Testament, it does not dispense with the need for God's law at all. It's quite the contrary. For we know that what Christ said, if you love me, then you obey my commandments, right? And he said he didn't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. It's really a part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit to be impressing God's law upon our hearts. And we can see this also of the work of the Spirit in Jeremiah 31 verse 33. So even in the Old Testament, looking forward, quote, For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days declares the Lord. I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people. And that very same verse is repeated in Hebrews eight. So it's clear that the New Testament does not dispense with God's law in any way. A lot of people come to these passages Like what Paul has here, and they read it, and it doesn't say thou shalt not steal, and those exact same terms and words, and they feel like the Ten Commandments are not as applicable to us today. That's not at all what Paul's doing here. The substance of the Ten Commandments, says Ferguson, is the blueprint for man's life. That's how he described it. It's the blueprint for man's life. We know it to be the summary of God's moral law, and it's how man was originally meant to function. Obviously, if Adam had never fell, wouldn't need this written law come out, it would have been something that would have been natural to mankind. to not go against God. And so, because of course he fell, this need was required to be expressed in a written form, and shaped in this negative way of thou shalt not, fill in the blank, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery. So we, the point Ferguson is making, and in his second point here, is that we gotta be putting off the old self. and putting on the new self, both at the same time. And I thought that was pretty insightful. It's something that we gotta be doing simultaneously. Not neglecting one for the other, because we can see what happens, even in looking back in your own life, you can probably see what happens when you let yourself do one over the other. You know, you're doing something that's You're trying to avoid sin, but you're not trying to do good works or vice versa. You can look at, again, the Pharisees as an example here. If you just put off the old self, you can make yourself Pharisaical with little grace evident in your life. And just putting on the new and not trying to kill sin, can make you appear as one of those of the new age who are really aren't so new in their thinking, right? It's been happening for centuries, but those new age church movements that talk of loving and doing and just being good to one another without ever dealing with the fact that they are unfit for the kingdom of heaven without Christ's robe of righteousness. So we can't ever think that the moral law doesn't apply to us New Testament Christians. Well, Ferguson goes on and he goes into another section here and he breaks it down and talks about new life patterns that we're supposed to be living out. Again, from these verses here, and if these principles If these are the principles that we're to gain from these verses, these one of putting off and putting on simultaneously and understanding that God's law still is live and well for us New Testament believers, if these still exist and apply to us, then how should we then live as part of the new creation in Christ? Now, our premise given is to grow gracefully by displacing the bad, the sin, and replacing with Christ and his graces. Displacing and replacing. That's the theme that's going on here in these verses. So working then through this list of commands that I've already read through, we're gonna go with this displace and replace theme. So number one, With verse 25, we have truth must replace falsehood. Truth must replace falsehood. So why is that important? Why is it important that truth is replacing falsehood? Well, one way you could look at it is because we are united in one body with Christ. Now what accord has Christ with Bilal or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? We are united with Christ. We cannot have ourselves not putting away falsehood and replacing it with truth. We've been called to maintain this unity and any sloughing off of integrity or dedication to this unity, it's going to cause division. and dysfunction within God's family. At the very least, your own relationship with the Lord. We got to replace lies, replace pretense and hypocrisy with truth and honesty and fellowship. So, We must replace falsehood with truth. All right, number two, and this is from verses 26 and 27. Anger, anger that is righteous must replace anger that controls us. Anger that is righteous must replace anger that controls us. Now, many do say today that to ever be angry at all is a sin, but that is a lie. That is a lie, a lie that they may not have come up with on their own, but it's one that they take part in spreading. Now, God has given us many basic inclinations that are in themselves not bad unless they express some sin that's within us. Right? In the right context, our basic inclinations according to our creation are indeed good. Anger is one of them. Being angry in the right context, a righteous anger is really expected of believers in certain circumstances. Now, what could be an example? Here's a question for y'all. What could be an example of a righteous anger? Okay. One more. What would be an example of a righteous anger? Right, Christ cleaning out the temple of the money changers. All right, anger over exalting an evil. When people go out there and they exalt things that are evil, we should be angered by that. We should be angered by that, and that's a good thing. Now, follow-up question. How can that righteous anger become something where now anger controls us? How can something become where it's starting, how can an anger become something that controls us? Megan. It's good. Right. We can certainly take it too far. Um, It's certainly right to get angry about some of these things, but remaining angry, taking it straight from our passage today, remaining angry when the sun goes down at the end of the day is a sign that instead of expressing right judgment, anger has mastered us. So when we let even righteous anger take control, then we're in danger of giving the devil a foothold in our relationships with one another. Giving the devil a foothold here invites stories, stories becoming twisted. It invites gossip and rumors flourishing, a wicked bent towards self-justification. I think that's a little bit what Megan's even talking about. Um, let anger become a point to where now we're, it's all about self justification. We must be in constant guard against our anger because the devil knows us very well, right? He knows where to target us, push our buttons, so to speak. Um, he knows when we're tired and, um, and someone comes into the room who's also tired, you know, We gotta be guard, we got to be guarding ourselves. You know, just as a quick aside here, it's hard to guard yourself if you're letting your heart become hard. If you're not staying in his word, if you're not in prayer, if you become like a sponge that's been dried out and it's scratchy, your, your, your conscience is not so helpful at those times, right? We've got to be on constant guard. Now, how many times has the Lord allowed sinful anger with your spouse? For those of you are married, show what is inside of you. How many times has God allowed that sinful anger to show what's inside of you, right? He does that marriage. is a blessing, but also is there to sanctify us as well, right? To show us a lot of the bad things that's inside of us. It's a challenge there. It's not pretty when it comes out sometimes. All right, number three, in verse 28, generosity must replace theft. Generosity must replace theft. Not only must we not steal, But the command to not steal is not fully obeyed until we express the opposite. We are called on to share our blessings with our neighbors, with those around us who are in need. We are commanded in scripture to have something to contribute. As those who have received generously from the Lord, we are to give generously. That's what we're commanded in scripture to do. And who better than our Lord himself to show us what it is to be generous. His generosity is sacrificial. To take what does not belong to us is to repeat the sin of our first parents. that fruit on that tree did not belong to them, and they took of it. The language of blessing must replace that of cursing, is the fourth one, and that's in verse 29. The language of blessing must replace that of cursing. Now, when our words are spawned from sin in our hearts, then they're gonna be full of poison, and it will be corrupting. This can be an area, however, where believers need to be on guard. Obviously, we need to be on guard for this as well. Certainly in regards to using foul or distasteful or crude language, which Paul calls out, we need to be on guard against using hurtful words. We've got to be on guard of our language. But some of us believers must be especially careful that we don't become prideful in, I'll use the word ability, in our ability to carefully select words that are not corrupting, and then think that we have this area of our lives under control. There are some of us that are really good about not using too many words. That's commendable. That is commendable. We have to be a guard for ourselves if that is you. Because we need to, in place of that type of language that's corrupting, you need to have language that is loving and building up others. You got to also be encouraging. There's not an excuse for anyone to just, well, they just never talk. You know, they never say anything that's encouraging to me. but they don't say anything hurtful either. It's got to also be about building up each other out of love. In Luke six, our Lord says, it is out of the heart that the mouth speaks. It is out of the heart that the mouth speaks. The Holy Spirit himself expresses his grace upon our tongues. He does that for us. A godly desire to serve others will work hard. If we have a godly desire to serve others, we're gonna work hard at finding the right words to encourage. Even rebuke out of love. We're gonna work on that. Ferguson, he considers that the command to not grieve the Holy Spirit is part of the command to let no corrupting talk come out of our mouths. He combines that. He thinks when Paul's talking about not grieving the Holy Spirit, that's in the vein of not letting this corrupting talk come out of our mouths. We should have words that build up. that we are grieving the Spirit of God when our words are characterized with harsh criticism or grumbling or complaining. That's we are grieving the Holy Spirit. So how is it that our sin can even affect God in such a way as to grieve the Holy Spirit? How can we grieve the Spirit of God? It's because, and we read about this earlier in Ephesians, we've been sealed with the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. We have been sealed with the Holy Spirit. That's a gift that's been given to us. And for us to live our lives in a way as if it did not matter, that will grieve the Spirit of God. When Pastor Voti came and preached, he preached from this passage here, from this paragraph, regarding forgiveness. And one of the things where we're not forgiving one another is we're gonna be grieving the Spirit of God. Part of forgiving one another is going to involve good language toward one another. And if you look in James 3, verses 9 and 10, it says, with it, that is with our tongues, we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. So we are to be speaking blessing to each other, which is why Paul adds to put away such corrupting speech that is bitter, wrathful, angry, clamorous, or slanderous. All such speech toward our brothers and sisters in Christ is going to grieve the spirit of God. So we must replace that language that is corrupting to one that is loving and building up. Now the fifth, the fifth thing that Ferguson points out comes from verse 31 where kindness must replace animosity. Kindness must replace animosity. Like corrupting talk or encouraging words, Often, both kindness and animosity can be expressed with our language. And when you consider over a prolonged length of time, just think about over a long length of time, true kindness is not something that can be made up. When you get to know someone over a long enough time, you can tell if someone is kind or not. True kindness comes from a tender heart. One that's been softened, one that's humble. A heart that readily calls for the kindness from the Lord and knows it is going to reciprocate that kindness back to others. If your heart knows the kindness of God, it truly knows the kindness of God, it's gonna wanna reciprocate that to others. back to especially our fellow believers. It shows up in our eagerness also to forgive one another. Now Sinclair Ferguson, he suggests that our refusal or even a habitual failure to be kind to others would be a sure sign that we have never really tasted the kindness of the Lord. Because if we had, then we'd want to pass it on. Now there's going to be times when we're, we're not so kind, but over a long period of time, we need every believer should be marked with kindness. Kindness is one of those characteristics that draws people. It just draws people in. I can look back over the years of my own life and different churches and in different organizations like work and the like, just people that are just so kind. They're magnetic. You can see almost instantly in others and just about anybody, a believer or an unbeliever, admires this quality in other people. You don't even have to be a believer to admire their quality of kindness. Now, you may take advantage of that kindness if you're an unbeliever or even a believer, God forbid, but everyone is, generally looks at kindness favorably. And now when you found yourself to play the part of a jerk, you might think to yourself, as I have, unfortunately, why would I choose to be so unkind? If God is gracious enough to give you that moment of clarity after you've maybe said something that is hurtful, to realize, why did I just say that? Why would I say something like that? It reminds me. of something that I heard on the radio, talk radio, a bit of an unlikely place, a saying that's kind of stuck with me despite knowing a bit of the character of the person who said it. Well, the saying was, kindness costs you nothing. Kindness costs you nothing. The next time you're standing in a long line, And the person at the end of the line waits on you like you're just picturing your mind like the DMV. When you get to that employee, and she has probably seen enough Yahoo's throughout her day that she is just about spent on helpful suggestions, then remember that it really doesn't cost you anything to be kind to her. Proverbs 15 verse one, the first part of it says, a soft answer turns away wrath. That soft answer comes from gentleness, from kindness. We are ambassadors of Christ. Being kind should be a key characteristic. So those are the five things that I had listed seven commands. Ferguson put them in these neat categories of five where we see this one truth is supposed to replace another. And we're supposed to replace these characteristics of our old self with these new characteristics in our lives. And we're supposed to do it at the same time. The instruction that Paul provides us in these verses, I want you to notice something. They do not describe the heroic acts of an old Testament saint that is often cast to some dare to be Sunday school series. They are instead simply good deeds by a humble heart, depending upon the Holy Spirit for strength. There's a short story that Ferguson tells regarding the early church father Augustine that I would like to read. I'll read that real quick. It won't take long. He says, the testimony of Augustine, one of the towering figures of church history and of all Western thought, is telling in this regard, and he's talking about kindness. Having lived for self, if you know anything about Augustine's background, before he became a believer, he lived a sordid past. While having lived for self and dabbled in false cults, pursued the satisfaction of his desires, he was eventually brought to faith in Christ in the city of Milan, whose bishop was the eloquent Ambrose. Anyone heard of Ambrose? Recalling on one occasion how he had come to faith, Augustine reflects on the influence of Ambrose. He said, it was not your great teaching. This is Augustine speaking of Ambrose. It was not your great teaching. I scarcely expected to find that in the Christian church in any case, but that you were kind to me. The Bishop of Milan. This Ambrose, this towering figure showed a unique kindness and it drew Augustine to him. We all have the ability by the grace of God to show kindness to one another. Why did this make such an impression on Augustine? Why does it make an impression on us? For many unbelievers, the kindness that we can show may be what draws them to seeing the kindness of God. If they find out, if they see a Jesus fish on the back of our bumper sticker and we're a madman, you know, we need, if people, God forbid someone knows that we're a believer, that we profess to know Christ and we're ugly. We need to be kind. And it goes also with the other new patterns that should be seen in our life. Again, truth replacing falsehood. Anger that is righteous replacing anger that controls us. Generosity replacing thievery. Language of blessing that replaces that of cursing or tearing down. And a kindness that mirrors the kindness known given by God that replaces animosity. I pray that all of us here can see the desire to have that desire and to see the dire need to exhibit such a changed lifestyle that these commands are something that we all desire to work on and obeying faithfully.