I invite you to turn with me this morning to God's Word, Holy Word. And we are continuing our sermon series from the book of Ephesians, and we find ourselves now in the middle of the second half of Ephesians, Ephesians chapter four verses 25 and will actually conclude at verse 1 of chapter 5. So from verse 25 of chapter 4 up to verse 1 of chapter 5. Paul here is in the middle of giving the congregation in Ephesus a series of exhortations, a series of commands. And of course, the commands of God are rooted in the grace of God. God does not command us to do anything that he first hasn't empowered us to do by his word and spirit. And I hope that we'll see this as we work through our text. Before we read God's word, let's ask for his blessing upon our time. Our Holy Father, we come to Your Word this morning and we cry out to You. We pray and we plead that You would hear us for the sake of Jesus Christ, that You would speak to us now as we consider Your will for our lives. We give You thanks that in Jesus Christ You have made us new creation, that in the Savior we have newness of life and we have a new direction. We who were dead have now been made alive to walk in life. To walk in light. To walk in righteousness. Father, we pray that this day You would help us. Help us understand Your will. And help us to do Your will. By the power of Your Spirit, we pray. In the name of Jesus, Amen. This is God's Holy Word from Ephesians 4. Beginning at 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. 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 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, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children. Amen. This far God's Word. Have you ever said to yourself or to another person, when you've sinned, when you've done something wrong, when you've failed or done a mistake, I can't help myself. I'm only human. I can't help what I did. It's part of who I am. I'm only human. If you've not said that, maybe you've thought that, or maybe you've heard someone say that. You see, the sentiment behind that statement, I can't help myself, I'm only human, is actually not a biblical sentiment. Because in that statement, you see, what's being said is that to be human is to be a sinner. that God made humanity, mankind, Adam and Eve, in the Garden for sin. No, that's not true at all, because we know that God made Adam and Eve not for sin, but for righteousness. He made Adam and Eve to follow His holy character and to live in righteousness. He made man for righteousness to keep His law and thus to be eternally holy and happy What sin does is not make you human. What sin does is actually make you less than human. Sin makes you sub-human. And so if we wanted to be biblical, if we wanted to be faithful to the words of Scripture, when we sin, we should say, I can't help myself. I'm only sub-human. Although that would sound a little weird. As we considered last week, man apart from God, And Paul calls them Gentiles in verse 17. Man apart from God is confused and darkened in their thinking and in their living. And this is what happened in your life. This is what happened in my life when we were apart from God, right? But now in Christ, we have begun to think aright. We have begun to see life as it really is. We've begun to see God for who He really is. The Lord of all. The One who is sovereignly in control of our lives. That's why salvation, you see, is Christ making us human again. Christ making us fit for righteousness again. Christ giving us His Spirit to indwell us so that we can now, by the power of the Spirit, live and walk in His commandments that we considered just a few minutes ago in the Ten Commandments. God has given you His law to show you how perfect He is. And He's given you His Spirit so that now you can live in newness of life. Now, we know we'll never be perfect this side of eternity, right? So beware of people who say, oh, you can be perfect or I'm perfect. You know, I've arrived. I've achieved perfection. No, we know that that's not true from God's word. Right. First, John, he who says he is without sin is a liar and makes God a liar. Right. So we will never be perfect. And yet we begin on the road to perfection. We begin on the road of righteousness. To be and to do what we were created to be and to do. Righteous, to be righteous people who do righteous deeds. And I want you to see how this takes place in our text here. Keep your Bibles open because we'll be walking and working our way through the text here. There is a pattern that we considered last week, right? That is to put off sin. So, sin is like that old garment that just doesn't fit anymore. You need to put it off, Paul says, like that old garment. Don't even put it in the closet, put it in the trash. It's not yours anymore. It's inconsistent with the new life in Christ. But it's not enough to simply displace the old self. You have to replace it. You have to put on the new self. Paul says in verse 24, put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Displacement and replacement. Putting off and putting on is the dynamic of the Christian life. This is a lifelong process. This is what holiness looks like. We're continually dragged down into the gutter by sin. We're continually assaulted and assailed by doubts, by our sinful desires, by our past. Paul says you have to continually put off, put off, put off sin. And continually put on Jesus. Put on the new self that's made in righteousness. It's not enough to stop sinning. We are called now to start righteousness. And the things that he talks about, five things as you can see on the board here, there are five sins or five areas that he concretely, specifically directs his attention to. Each of these has a reason. He grounds each of these, putting off and putting on, in a reason, in a basis that needs to readjust our thinking. He gives reasons for why we should do this. Let's actually dive in then. Verse 25, he says, Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Literally, Paul is saying here, stop speaking lies, stop telling lies because it's inconsistent with who you are. The old self, the self the old man created according to the first Adam, fed off lies and deception. But that's not who you are anymore, Paul says. You are a new man, a new woman, a new child that you need to feed off the truth. Stop telling lies and start speaking the truth. Notice to whom he says this to. To the Ephesians Christians, he says, each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor. For we are members one of another. This is not just being honest, right, and telling the truth in general. This is rather speaking the truth within the body of Christ. Paul here is very emphatic. There cannot be any lying within the Christian church. There cannot be any falsehood within the body of Christ. Your neighbor, Paul says here, is not someone out there, is not someone around the world. Your neighbor is right next to you. Your fellow Christian. And isn't it true that we often so quickly, so easily, offend those who are right next to us? There are a lot of families here, a lot of siblings, a lot of parents, a lot of children. And in family, you know that there's no one who can press your button like your family member. There's no one who can incite you to do wrong as a family member. And Paul says, this ought not be. It's inconsistent with who you are. In your families, those proximate, those closest to you, you are to speak to them the truth. Stop lying. Start telling the truth. Why? He gives a reason here. He has stated the area negatively. Stop lying. He stated it positively. Start telling the truth. And then he gives a reason because We are members one of another. We belong to each other. The fellowship of Christ depends on trust. And trust depends on truth. But where you don't have truth, you don't have trust and you don't have fellowship. And if you don't have truth, guess what happens to the body of Christ? Lies rip apart the body of Christ. Truth brings life. Lying brings death. Lying brings factions and divisions in the body of Christ. You want to see if a church is united? Are we united? Is there truth-telling? Is there truth-telling in that body, in that church? There's an ancient preacher, Chrysostom, who lived in the 300's. He said this. He said, If the eye sees a danger, will it lie to the foot? If your eyes see a danger ahead of you, there's an 18-wheeler tractor trailer in front of you, are your eyes going to lie to your feet? Oh yeah, keep walking, no problem. Just step in front of it. There's nothing there. No, of course not. The members of your body do not lie to one another. Does your mouth, if it's eating something that's poisonous, lie to the stomach? No, it doesn't. You don't eat it. You don't put yourself in danger. You don't bring harm upon your body. And it's the same way in the body of Christ. We are not to lie to one another, but we are to speak the truth because that is consistent with the new life in Jesus. Let's continue. Verse 26 and 27. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil. Be angry and do not sin. Paul here isn't saying, he's not commanding us to be angry, okay? Be upset all the time. Be outraged 24-7. No, he's saying there's a place for legitimate anger. You know, there's some Folks who say, well, as a Christian, you're never supposed to be angry. And that's, there's truth in that statement, right? Our lives are not supposed to be characterized by anger. Have you ever met someone who's just angry all the time? There's always outrage. There's always some cause to be fighting against. It's like, take a chill pill. You've not understood the joy of Christ, right? So anger is not supposed to characterize us. And yet there's a place for legitimate anger. And how do we know this? God is angry. Is He not? He's angry at sin. He's angry at injustice. When evil and wickedness is committed in the world, is God not angry? He's upset. He's moved. He's not a rock. He's not stoic. He's not a stone. No. He's angry. He's moved by the character of His righteousness. And so, Paul says, when you see injustice, when you see wickedness, when you see things that are wrong with the world, Yeah, there's a place for anger. So be angry. There's permission to be angry. But alongside the permission is given a prohibition. Do not sin. Do not sin. Right? So much of what we call righteous anger is just our own annoyance and irritation masquerading as righteousness. Paul says, do not sin. Be careful that in your anger, You don't violate God's law. That you not offend and dishonor God. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. What does this mean, this phrase, don't let the sun go down on your anger? Paul is saying when you're angry, okay, you're human. God is angry. And if you're being remade in the image of God, you will be moved to anger sometimes. But don't sin and address it quickly. If someone's offended you, don't let that fester. Don't let that accumulate. Don't nurture, don't nurse, don't pet, don't harbor your anger. Are you angry with someone? Has someone offended you? Address them. Go to them. Are you angry today? Did you come to church angry, annoyed by someone, maybe a sibling? Maybe a parent. Maybe a child. Don't let, God says, don't let another day go by without being reconciled to your neighbor. Why? He gives us a reason. Verse 27, give no opportunity to the devil. When you're angry, And when you're saying, oh, I deserve to be angry. Oh, I'm so happy I got offended. I mean, this is how crooked we are. This is how twisted we are, right? We look forward to getting angry in order to get the righteous moral stand, the moral high ground. I'm gonna let them hear about this, right? This isn't going away easily. Oh no, they're gonna get a piece of my mind. And I'm gonna let them live in limbo for a couple of days, right? Because I'm gonna go at them with a hammer. Whoever offended me, watch out. Paul's saying, you're inviting the devil in. Literally, the word for opportunity here is tapas in the Greek. And tapas is the word from where we get topography. In older translations, verse 27 says, don't give a place, don't give an opportunity, but don't give a place to the devil. When you're angry and you love that anger and you're letting it fester and you're harboring anger against someone, you know what you're doing? You're opening the door of your heart to the devil and you're saying, come on in, have a seat, this is your place. The Puritans used to say, the devil loves to fish in troubled waters. Where Christians are alienated from each other, where family members are alienated from each other, the devil has come in. The devil and his work are being housed in your heart and in your life. And Paul says, don't give a place to the devil. But Paul continues here. And as you see, each of these areas corresponds to a commandment, right? The commandment in 425 is, don't take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Don't bear false witness, right? The ninth commandment against your neighbor. These have to do with telling the truth. The sixth commandment do not murder right that has to do with anger Jesus tells us in Matthew and on the Sermon on the Mount and then the third area stealing that has Correspondence to the eighth commandment do not steal and the tenth commandment you shall not covet anything of your neighbors and Paul says in verse 28 let the thief no longer steal and 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 the thief no longer steal." And this applies to, in Paul's context, all sorts of people. Employers who would steal from their workers and not pay them. what they were owed, what they deserved because of their work. It applied to employers. It applied to customers who would steal from the marketplace. It would apply to employees, laborers, who would steal from their bosses. They should be working, but they're not. It applied to the unemployed who, instead of working, sponged off the community. And Paul says, no, no, no. This ought not be. Let him labor. Literally, labor there means let him know hard work. Let him know work and labor that's exhausting and tiring. I spoke with someone recently, actually this past week, and they said they were tired. They'd been working the whole day. They said, I'm exhausted. I'm tired. And I said, that's not a bad thing. That's a good thing oftentimes. You don't want to be a workaholic, right? You don't want to find your identity in your work. Our identity is in Christ. But that's oftentimes a good sign, a good indicator that things are going right in your life, that you're not idling away, but you're working and working hard. And at the end of the day, you come exhausted from work, from honest work, Paul says, not skimming from the top, cheating or cutting corners. Paul says, the one who did this ought to know honest labor. He must know honest labor, he says, with his own hands. Isn't this such a marvelous picture of what life once was and of what life now is? Right. The thief used to use his hands as instruments of unrighteousness and would say, you know, the five finger disc on right. Oh, there's something here. OK. Thank you very much. Put it in his pocket. But now Paul says, oh, that hand that you use for unrighteousness, use it for righteousness. Use it for work. Use it for labor. Why? Again, he gives us a reason. God is so gracious. He not only tells us what to do, what not to do. He tells us why. He tells us here. in verse 28. He says, "...so that he may have something to share with anyone in need, so that he may be generous to those who are in need physically." Right? Before, the past life, the life according to sin used to say, what can I get? What can I grab for myself? Paul says now the life in Christ doesn't ask that question. It asks, what can I give? How can I extend my hand and open my hand to those who are in need in the church, in my community? To be generous like God is generous. Fourthly, and we need to skip on here. Fourthly, verse 29 and 30 tell us about how and what we should say. What should come out of our mouths? Paul says, 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. Paul says, before in the world, in the life according to sin, you used to have a filthy mouth, you used to talk rotten. Corrupt there means putrid, rotten, the stuff you throw away, right? The trimmings of whatever, the vegetables and chicken, what you throw in the trash, and it festers and it stinks. Paul says, that's what used to come out of your mouth, garbage. But now, let only wholesome speech proceed from your mouth. Only that which builds up. Only that which encourages. Only that which is true and right and beautiful and righteous. Let that come out of your mouth. What God is telling us here is know the power of your words. And this is something we all need to hear. And there's not really a demographic that needs to hear it more. I hear a lot of times, and I'm not saying it's here, but often younger people, they're saying things and things just come out of their mouths. There's no thought given to what's being said. Just idle buffoonery. Just nonsense. Just blech. Give thought to what you say. Because what you say can either pull someone down, destroy them, Or it can build them up. It can build them up. Know the power of your words. Know that your words can lift someone up, can encourage someone, or can just destroy someone. This is what Paul tells us. This is the reason he gives for why no more corrupt talk should come out of our mouths, only that which builds up. He says at the end, But only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear so that it may give grace to those who hear. Your words are meant to build up the body of Christ. The way you talk, what you say is meant to encourage and to address the spiritual needs in the church. But if all we're hearing is nonsense from one another, how is the body of Christ ever going to be built up? In the previous commandment, Paul says, work so that you have something to give to those in physical need. Here, Paul says, be careful what you say, because what you say addresses the spiritual needy in the congregation. Is there someone who's sad? Someone who's discouraged? Your words can encourage them. Your words can build them up. If there's someone who's struggling with an issue in their life, someone who's struggling with a decision to make, your words can direct them. Your words as given by the Holy Spirit can help them make a godly decision in terms of work, in terms of a relationship, in terms of what to do in their lives, in their careers. Is someone doubting? Is someone struggling with the faith? Is someone struggling with sin, wrestling with a desire they're trying to put away? Your words can encourage them, can point them back to the promise of Jesus, that He will never leave us or forsake us, that He will be with us to the end of the age. Your words, you see, address and help the needs, the spiritual needs in the body of Christ. But there's a second reason Paul gives in verse 30, and it's because our words can grieve the Holy Spirit. If we're talking nonsense, if we're talking frivolous things, not only are our brothers and sisters affected, but God's affected. He's personally affected. And here, the picture is that God is so personally grieved and pained. He's put in sorrow because of what may come out of your mouth. Our sin not only affects others horizontally, our sin affects God vertically. We're told that we can grieve the Holy Spirit of God. And who is this Holy Spirit of God? He's the one who has sealed you. He's the one who has saved you for the day of redemption. You've been set apart, in other words, by God for the future, but also for the present. You have been set apart. You have been sealed by the Holy Spirit. Finally, we get to verse 31 and 32. And here Paul just gives a whole summary list of things to put off and things to put on. He gives six things in verse 31. He says, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor. Clamor is an old kind of word. We don't really use it, but clamor just means shouting. Shouting. Shouting matches. Let clamor be put off. Slander. Speaking ill of one another. And then he says, along with all malice, along with everything that isn't in this list, you need to put it away. Everything that is evil, everything that springs up, everything that rises out of sin, out of evil heart desires, all that needs to be put away, put off. In verse 32, instead, he says, instead, put on kindness to one another. Be tender-hearted. Be forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. Put off sin, Paul is saying, and put on Jesus Christ. Why? Why? Here too, he gives a reason. And the reason has to do with the heart of the Gospel. The good news of Jesus Christ. Is Jesus Christ someone who speaks ill of you? Is Jesus Christ someone who harbors a resentment against you? Is Jesus Christ someone who is bitter towards you? Is Jesus Christ someone who is continually angry? Who holds your sin up in your face and throws it back at you? Is Jesus Christ someone who takes from you? Someone who has malice towards you? No. But rather, Jesus Christ is the very opposite of sin. He's the opposite of all the things Paul is telling us to put off. Why should I, you might ask, why should I be forgiving to my neighbor? Why should I be loving to my sibling? And I guarantee it, I'm not a prophet or a son of a prophet, but today, tomorrow, at some point this week, at some point in your life, someone's going to offend you. Maybe a sibling. Maybe your parent. Maybe your child. Your son or daughter. The question is going to be, why should I forgive them? Why should I forgive those who have wronged me? Because Jesus has forgiven you. That's the root. That's the basis for why we live the way we do. Because Jesus doesn't harbor ill will against you. Jesus Christ even now bears up impatience and forbearance with your sin. Did you know that? You sin, I sin, and Jesus forgives us. He forgives us when we sin once, when we sin a thousand times, as we continually repent and turn away from our sins. He forgives us. And Paul says that's the reason you can live this way. Because God in Christ forgave you. And because you are united to Christ by His Spirit, guess what that means for you? You can forgive. You can love one another. You can be tender-hearted, compassionate, and kind towards one another. The conclusion. of our time is given in verse 1 of chapter 5. Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children. What an encouraging word. What a word of grace. The Christian life is nothing less than the imitation of God. The Christian life is nothing less, it's nothing short, than the imitation of God. Why? Because we are beloved children. In Christ, God is our Father. And we are His children. And so, if we are His children, what do children love to do? They love to grow up to be like Daddy. Like their Father. And the same is to be true of us. We are to grow up to be like our perfect Father, our righteous Father in Heaven. Who loves us. Who is kind to us. Who is forgiving. Who is reconciled to us. Because we are His children. We don't seek to obey the law of God in order to earn salvation somehow. In order to gain brownie points with God. We love the law of God. The perfections of God. Because we are His children. And we want to be like our Father in heaven. May God help us. May God empower us this week and throughout our lives to live this way. To live in righteousness and in holiness. Because that's the Christian life. An imitation, albeit imperfect, but an imitation of our Father in heaven. Let's pray. Father, our Father, Lord, we praise You. We thank You for Your Word. You are a good God to us. And You do not hold our sins against us. Lord, we thank You for that, because we would have an infinite amount of sins, Lord, but You have thrown them into the depths of the ocean. We thank You for the work of Jesus, for the life of Jesus, for the person of Jesus who is our righteousness. And we pray, Lord, that as we live new lives, You would teach us once more how to be human. Your work is a work of re-humanizing us. Sin makes us less than human, but You return us to what You purposed in Your creation of Adam and Eve. You return us to that place of righteousness. And You restore unto us all that sin has taken away. Father, we pray. We cannot do these things on our own strength. This is too high a calling for us. But Father, I pray that by Your Holy Spirit, You would work these truths in our hearts, in our minds, that we would live not out of the old man, but out of the new man that You've created for us. That we would continually put on those garments of righteousness. Put on the clothing, the new clothing of life and holiness. That we would understand that holiness doesn't occur in a vacuum In some kind of mystical state, but holiness is earthy. It's mundane It's to be the regular course of our lives. It occurs in relation to people in our everyday walk and so father we pray that you would give us strength and give us grace as we as we rub shoulders with one another as we bump into an into one another as we perhaps offend one another as Lord, give us grace to bear up as you have borne us up in love. To not just put up with, but to truly love. To speak forth rightly, lovingly, and truthfully to our neighbor. And Father, would this church, would this community of Christ be an example and be a testimony of your work of redemption to everyone around us. whether we live here, whether we live elsewhere. Lord, we pray that this would mark us and characterize us. And we pray these things now in the name of Jesus, our Savior and Lord. Amen.