If you'll remain standing with me as we turn to read God's Word together this evening, we return our attention to Ephesians chapter 4 as we continue to make our way through Ephesians chapter 4. And as we continue to make our way through, in particular, verses 25 and following all the way to chapter 5 verse 2 of the book of Ephesians this evening. And that will be the text that we'll read from, verses 25 through chapter 5 verse 2. Verse 25, Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor. For we are members of one 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 mouth, 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. 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, tenor-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. This is the word of our Lord. You may be seated. Let us pray once more. Heavenly Father, as we come once again to consider your word this evening, we pray that you would work in our midst. We pray, Lord, that you would allow us to hear you, that you would give to us humble hearts that would meditate upon what your word speaks and declares to us this evening so that we would be those who do not, as the haughty and foolish, sit above your word to judge it, but instead humble ourselves beneath it receive it, store it up in our mind and in our heart, and seek to walk in such a manner that we would not sin against you. We pray, O Lord, this evening that you would bless us now and that you would work powerfully in our midst as we meditate and consider these verses. We ask these things in the name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus. Amen. Well, as we return our attention this evening to Ephesians chapter 4, those of you who were with us last week know that we stopped partway through the sermon last week. And the reason for that is simple, is there is more material here than I realized there was. But, nevertheless, I think it's been an edifying text for us to consider. And this evening, we turn our attention to what was originally the second point of my sermon. Particularly, we turn our attention this evening to verses 28 through 31. And as we turn our attention to this particular section of text, what we find here is really the second of those two dangers which the Apostle Paul was warning us about in this passage. If you can cast your mind back to the beginning of last evening's sermon, perhaps you can remember that throughout this section, the Apostle Paul is laying before us the pattern of life which we are to employ and seek to emulate as believers. He has been calling us to live a new life in the Lord Jesus Christ. And as part of that call that he gives to us, throughout this section, he is ultimately seeking to encourage us, as we see in the latter portion of this section, particularly in chapter five, verses one and two, to be those who are imitators of God, who walk in love as Christ loved us. But as I noted last week, as he lays out for us how we should be those who walk in love, in union with the Lord Jesus Christ, he teaches us how to do so by pointing out to us three things. On the one hand, he points out to us two great dangers that can inhibit our walk as we seek to walk together in love. He first points to the danger of giving opportunity to Satan, giving opportunity to the devil. We read about that just a few moments ago as we again read over that verse, verse 27. He says there, and give no opportunity to the devil. We considered that topic last week and we considered how the first two verses that precede that are examples of ways that we may be liable to give opportunity, an opening, to the devil, so that he might come in and disrupt the work of the church, the work of the spirit in the church. We considered that first danger, but this evening we turn to consider the second danger, and perhaps some of you remember it, but if you don't, that's okay, we're going to consider it this evening under simply this heading. There is that second danger, which he describes here, of grieving the Holy Spirit of God. So we've considered the danger of giving opportunity to the devil, and now we come to consider the danger of grieving the Spirit of God. And we are going to consider under this heading of verses 28 through 30. And as we do so, we notice the text before us lays itself out rather nicely for us. We see in verse 28 that we can grieve the Spirit by doing something very particular, by stealing. And He calls us here in an eminently practical way to be those who no longer steal, but instead labor and seek to serve the people of God. No longer stealing, we are to become servants, He tells us here in verse 28. But we can also grieve the Spirit of God in verse 29 by being those who tear down with our speech. In other words, we can be those who disrupt the work and the unity of the church with the speech that we use. And he calls us to put that away and instead to be those who build up with our speech. And then lastly and thirdly, we turn in verse 30 simply to ask the question, what does it actually mean to grieve the Spirit of God? We could divide the text a little bit differently if you wanted to. You could divide it under two questions. One that's answered by our first two points, which is simply this, how do we grieve the Spirit? And one that's answered by verse 30, what does it mean to grieve the Spirit? So this is a way that we're going to proceed as we turn our attention to this text and seek to humble ourselves before the word of God and to consider how we are to live in Christ Jesus in such a manner that we walk in love and are faithful members of the kingdom and servants in Christ's church. Now look with me then first at verse 28 as we begin to ask that question, how we might grieve the Spirit, and we turn to the first way in which we can grieve the Spirit that Paul points out to us here when he speaks to us about grieving the Spirit through stealing. Look at verse 28. Verse 28 reads this way, "...let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he might have something to share with anyone in need." Now before we dive in to the actual content of this verse, I just simply wanna take a step back and remind you of the larger context in which we find this verse. Because it's very important as we come here that we do not approach this text as a legalist. We don't approach this text as those who divorce these imperatives, these commands from the grace that God has given us in Christ. Let me just briefly remind you that what Paul is calling us to do throughout this entire section is to live in accordance with our identity in Jesus Christ. We are called to live in such a manner that our lives reflect what is true of us already in Christ Jesus. Namely, that we have died to sin. Not only the guilt of sin, that of course is great news, we are no longer under the burden of sin in the sense that we no longer bear the wrath of God, or liable if you will, to the wrath of God towards our sin, but the Lord Jesus Christ has delivered us from the guilt of sin and he has given to us his righteousness and therefore we stand before God totally free from the guilt of sin, but we're also freed from the power of sin. And that's a point we've made several times as we've considered this passage. And that is good news. Because as I often say, sin and misery are intimately connected. And what God has done for us in Christ Jesus is not only forgiven our sins, but he has given us the power to subdue our sins. He has given us the power to resist our sins. He has given us the power to mortify, to kill our sins. And here, of course, this is in the background of what he begins to say in verse 28. He says, let the thief no longer steal. Why? Why? Because he's in Christ Jesus. What is he suggesting? He's saying you Gentiles who at one time were living life apart from God, apart from the grace of Christ, apart from the grace of God in Christ, you used to engage in all sorts of sinful activities. One of those things which you used to engage in perhaps was thieving. And what he says now is that now that you are in Jesus Christ, the one who was a thief should no longer be a thief. He should turn from that sin which defined his life before and he should seek instead to be a servant. Now we could go pretty deep just simply on this one verse, couldn't we? We could consider, for instance, the nature of stealing, of theft. It's a simple thing in many ways, isn't it? But at the same time, we should just note briefly that all Paul is doing here is he is applying to these Gentile Christians the obligations that were already well known by the old covenant people of God. He's simply applying the Eight Commandments. Do not steal. It's actually not that complicated, pretty obvious to many of us, but nevertheless, this would have been a radical change in the typical mode of living for these Gentile Greeks. He says to them, you have an obligation in Christ Jesus to put away your stealing. You notice that, of course, that's obvious, but even deeper than that, perhaps, is the radical nature of the change in heart that he's speaking about here. We think about the Eighth Commandment, we often perhaps think about the Tenth Commandment as well. And if we do, that's the right thing to do, of course, right? Because what is the Tenth Commandment? Thou shalt not covet, right? It is what? It is seeking after, desiring that which God in his great providence has not given to you, but he's given to your neighbor. Don't covet your neighbor's wife. Don't covet your neighbor's house. Don't covet your neighbor's donkey, his oxen. I don't know what the equivalent of that would be today. His sedan, his SUV. Don't covet what is your neighbor's. Now, you might ask, how is that connected to the Eighth Commandment? Because that's where thieving, that's where stealing starts. It starts in the heart. It starts with a desire for that which is not our own. And it is rooted in discontent, yes, but it is also rooted in love for self and in disregard for one's neighbor. Think about that. The one who covets, the one who steals, is someone who is willing to do harm to others for the sake of their own good. Now, when you think about it that way and you return your attention to verse 28, you begin to see the radical nature of what Paul is talking about here. Listen to what he says here. "'Let the thief no longer steal. Don't steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands.' Why? so that he might have something to share with anyone in need." Look at what he's saying there. He is saying the one who at one time was willing to steal, kill, and destroy for the sake of his own good, and total disregard for his neighbor's good, now has become the one who desires to give what he has to others. Isn't that an amazing transformation that Paul is speaking about? He is saying that the one who used to desire to steal because he hated his neighbor should now become the one who desires to work honestly with his hands so that he can have something so that he might give sacrificially to those who are in need. Think about that in the context of the broader passage. All He's doing here is calling us to love our neighbors, to love our fellow believers first, but perhaps others as well, in a manner that Christ has loved us, in a self-sacrificial manner, in a manner that ignores our own good for the sake of the good of others. That's what He's saying. Now, there are many other places in God's word that teach us about the nature of our work. We can think of the fourth commandment, of course, since we've been thinking about the 10 commandments. We can think about the first half of the fourth commandment, which many people miss. Six days you shall do what? Labor. And the seventh you shall keep as the Sabbath, right? Of course. We could think of Colossians chapter three. We should be, in the words of Colossians 3, those who work heartily as for the Lord, not simply for men, knowing that our faithfulness will be rewarded by the Lord and not simply by our employers. And we are also to seek to be those who do good, do good to all men. In the words of Paul, Galatians 6, verse 10, but especially those who are in the household of faith. We combine all of this and what we get is Paul's teaching here. That we are to be those who put away our theft and that we put on love for others so that we put away our stealing and instead we become servants. Servants of the Lord and servants of one another. I reference Galatians 6 verse 10. I don't want to spend too much time on this or get us sidetracked, which means I probably shouldn't say it, but I will anyway. I do want you to note here in verse 28 that it's not clear particularly who those who are in need are. I just want to put a bug in your ear. Throughout the Christian tradition, in the early church, in the medieval era, in the Reformation. One key aspect of Christian living, which seems to have fallen by the wayside in many, at least confessionally reformed churches today, is the practice of almsgiving. It's the practice of being self-sacrificial and our giving to the poor, not simply those who are believers, but even those outside of the church. Now, let me hasten to say, that's not the mission of the church. But let me also hasten to say, according to Galatians 6, perhaps according to Galatians 4, it is the obligation of individual believers. That's the end of my rabbit trail. We've seen then his admonition not to steal but to serve. But then we go to verse 29 and we see yet another way in which we can grieve the Spirit of God. Listen to what he says here in verse 29. "'Let no corrupting talk,' he says, "'come out of your mouth, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear." So on the one hand, he's spoken about how we can grieve the spirit by stealing from others, and now he explains to us that we can grieve the spirit through our careless and corrupting speech. Now, this is a passage which many have used for any number of reasons, but I don't want us to get bogged down in the question so much of what exactly corrupting talk is in the sense that we begin to create a list of words that we shouldn't say or a list of phrases that are inappropriate. I think we probably could do that, honestly, but that wouldn't be the best way to approach this. Instead, I want us to simply meditate upon the principles of speech that Paul lays out here. And as we do so, it's interesting, we come to verse 29 and we hear that language, corrupting speech, corrupting talk, and interestingly, that word corrupting perhaps doesn't get to the heart of what the original text is seeking to communicate. It's interesting, I was reading Charles Hodge a little bit earlier today on this very text, and he makes the point that it would be totally okay to translate the word that we've translated here as corrupting as putrid, or rotten, or offensive. And that is right from what I can see of the root of the text. It's interesting that if you come to this word, the idea is that this thing, this corruption, it smells bad. It's offensive. It causes people to recoil when they experience it. They want to avoid it. It's not attractive, it's not appealing. On the other hand, it's off-putting. Now when you begin to see that, you begin perhaps to understand the heart of what Paul is getting at. Let no putrid, let no stinky, we could say children, talk come out of your mouth. But instead, be those who seek to speak in a way that is good for building up. Now when we begin to apply that principle, I think it answers a lot of questions that people have about what is and what isn't okay to say. It's a pretty simple rule to apply. Does my speech build up others? Does it encourage them? Does it strengthen them in the faith? If I'm talking to an unbeliever, is my speech such that whenever I'm speaking they realize there's something different about me? Is my speech such that whenever they hear me talk, they understand, perhaps by what I avoid saying, or perhaps what I intentionally do say, that this is a person who is committed to the Lord Jesus? I think these are all legitimate questions to ask. Does our speech build up? Does it fit the occasion? It's another requirement here. Our speech should build others up, it should fit the occasion. Is it inappropriate for the time and the place that we are in? Now I think many of us immediately jump from that statement to something like this. Well, it's okay for me to use horrific language on the job site, but it's not okay for me to use that kind of language when I'm sitting in the pew at church. Let me say, I don't think that's what he's saying because that kind of language isn't edifying to anyone ever. I think actually what he's saying here is does it fit the occasion in the sense that you are speaking in such a manner that when the opportunity presents itself for you to build up the believers in the congregation by saying a particular word in season of that person, are you taking advantage of that? Are you seeing an opportunity to say something to someone that you think they need to hear, whether good or bad? Are you taking Are you taking advantage of the occasions to speak well when God gives you the opportunity? And then the next thing he says is that it must give grace to those who hear. And what does he mean here? He means again something similar, I think, to what he means when he says that it must build up. It must be gracious speech. It must be grace, or it must be speech that is seasoned, as it were, with grace. It shouldn't be harsh. It shouldn't be shrill. It should be gracious. It should be kind. Again, it should be edifying speech. Again, notice he's particularly thinking about the church and the relationships that we have in the church, but I think the application is much wider than that. I think it's fair for all of us to ask the question of ourselves even now. Are we those who conform our speech to these parameters? Whenever you were talking to someone, when you walked into the congregation this evening, were you building that person up with your speech? Or were you distracting them? Were you pulling them away from the things of God? Were you weighing them down with the concerns of the world? Were you perhaps even leading them into sin? Or were you building them up? Do you take the opportunities that God has given to you to speak well, to speak a word either of gospel truth or of grace and encouragement to believers? Is your speech gracious? Does it communicate grace to those who hear it? All of these, I think, are very valid questions to ask ourselves and to consider as often as we can before we open our mouth. It's interesting, as I was considering this passage today, I was thinking, right before I came, how so often in the world in which we live, people can adopt the mantra that sticks and stones will break their bones, but words will never hurt them. But I was thinking about how radically contrary to the word of God that is. I don't know when the last time you read James chapter three was, but it has some pretty powerful things to say about the tongue. If you were to flip over, perhaps you would see this. You could read, for instance, beginning simply at verse three, if we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, will guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also, though they are so large, they are driven by strong storms. They are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So the tongue is a small member, and yet It boasts of great things, he goes on, how great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire. And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life and set on fire by hell. some powerful statements about the power of the tongue there. And when you consider that for a moment, you begin to see why the Apostle Paul is seeking to drive home this point to the believers at Ephesus. Because if you are not one who is building up the believers with your speech, you can be one who interrupts, and even at times perhaps destroys the work that God is seeking to do in his church. And if you think that's a bold statement, just hang with me for a second. Because look at what he says next. He's told us we can grieve the spirit by stealing. He's told us we can grieve the spirit with our speech. He's told us how. But now we come to consider the question of what exactly does this mean to grieve the Spirit? And for this we turn to verse 30. Verse 30 reads this way. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Now I hope you called a little earlier when we read from Isaiah 63 that that's the passage from which Paul has plucked this phrase, grieving the Spirit of God. Now I want you to contemplate the setting of Isaiah 63 for a moment because it's actually quite profound, it's quite important. If you think about it for a moment, you begin to see that what God was teaching his people there in Isaiah 63 is he was teaching them about how in the past he had been gracious to them, how he had delivered them, how he had brought them out by his servant Moses and by his Holy Spirit from the land of Egypt, how he had delivered them from their enemies, he had brought them through the Red Sea, He had brought them into the wilderness, and He had been so gracious and merciful unto them in such a glorious manner." They had witnessed all of these marvelous and miraculous things that He had done, and yet amazingly, after He had done all of those things, here they are in the wilderness with the Spirit of God dwelling in their midst. And what did they do? They grieved Him. They saddened Him. They offended Him. Now, it's not unusual at all, by the way. for Paul in particular to point Christians back to the Exodus and to the people of God as they wander in the wilderness as an example for our life in the church today. You see that, for instance, in Hebrews 3 and 4. You see it, for instance, in 1 Corinthians 10. But one of the interesting things about that is that in both of those places, as is the case here, Paul very clearly has a particular focus when he uses these texts. What he is doing is he is warning us. He warns us in Hebrews chapter 3 and 4 about the danger of faithlessness. He warns us about a similar danger in 1 Corinthians 10. In both of these places, what he is saying is, do not be like the wilderness generation, because God was not pleased with them. Indeed, as you might remember, those whom God had delivered, that first generation out of Egypt, what happened to them? They perished in the wilderness. We could put it this way. given what Paul has said here in Ephesians 4. They perished in the wilderness because they grieved the Holy Spirit of God. Now, He has plucked this language out from Isaiah and He has said it before us here to exhort us and to display for us how serious it is to grieve the spirit of God. To be one who has the privilege of dwelling in communion and fellowship in intimate relationship with God through his spirit and yet, in the words of Charles Hodge, to offend his holiness and to wound his love. Don't do that, he says. Don't do that. And we can grieve the spirit by offending his holiness, as Hodge says, but we can also, as Hodge says, grieve the spirit in a way because we are, in his words, wounding his love for us. And I think that's the emphasis that the Apostle Paul takes here, isn't it? Listen to the way he describes his spirit. It doesn't just describe him as the Holy Spirit, that would have been enough. But he adds a bit to his use of Isaiah by noting that this is the spirit by whom we were sealed for the day of redemption. Think about that. When we grieve the spirit, we not only grieve the Holy Spirit of God, but we grieve the one by whom God has been immensely gracious, loving, and merciful to us. This is the spirit that we have the privilege of having in our midst, of having in our hearts. Why? So that we might be assured that we have been sealed for the day of redemption. And it's that one who we are offending. It's that one whom we are getting in the way of, in a sense, as we live in accordance with our old patterns of life, as we steal, as we tear down with our speech. What we're doing is we're offending the Spirit, but we're particularly offending Him, I believe, by destroying His building project. Again, if you were to look over at 1 Corinthians 3, another text from 1 Corinthians, you would read these words in verse 16, Paul speaking to the Corinthians, warning them again of their ungodly behavior. He says there in verse 16, do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you? And if anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy and you are that temple. If you're wondering there, the yous are plural. He's speaking about the church. He's speaking about the congregation at Corinth. And what is he saying there? He is saying that by your disunity, by your sinfulness, by your behavior, you are doing nothing short of undoing the work that God's spirit is seeking to do as he builds up the temple. And brothers and sisters, that's what's so offensive. We're walking contra to him. And instead, what Paul is calling us to do here, though he never states it outright, is what he would say later. He's calling us to keep in step with the Spirit. To walk in accordance with God's will and word. and to be those who are cognizant of the dangers that lay before us as we seek to walk in love in Christ Jesus together. So brothers and sisters, as we conclude our consideration of this portion of the text this evening, let me just simply say this to you. Do not offend, grieve the Spirit of God. who have sealed you for salvation, either by your actions or by your speech. But instead, keep in step with him that we all might be faithful servants of our Lord, and that we might contribute not to the tearing down and the disruption, but to the building and to the expansion of his church in this world. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we are thankful for your word. We're thankful for how it instructs and guides us. We are thankful that you have set before us clearly your will for our life. We are thankful that you have empowered us in Christ Jesus by the work of the Spirit to be those who can indeed walk in a way that is worthy of the calling which we have received. We pray, Father, that you would work in us, that you would rub off the rough edges of our life, that you would chip away at our calloused hearts and our harsh exteriors, and that you would make us, Lord, to be those who would be marked by love. marked by love for you and marked by love for our brothers and sisters and indeed marked by love for our neighbors. We pray that you would do this in Christ Jesus for the sake of your own glory and the good of your kingdom. We pray this in the name of Christ Jesus, the king and the head of his church. Amen.