Please take your bibles and turn once again to Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4, I'll be reading verses 29 through 32. Ephesians chapter 4, 29 through 32. That's my preaching portion. Actually, my preaching portion for this evening is verse 32. But again, reading a little bit of the context. is your attention to the reading and hearing of God's Holy Word. Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, 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, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Grass withers, thou face, but the word of our God abides forever. Let's pray and ask God's blessing upon our time of study. Father, God, again, we're so thankful that As we began the day with the worship of you, we close out the day with the worship of you. And again, consideration of your word to us. We're thankful, oh God, that you have been pleased to protect your scriptures throughout the ages. And though in the past there was, and currently are those who seek to destroy your word, we're thankful for your providential preservation of it through the ages. We're thankful, Lord, that we have copies of your word, many copies of your word in our homes. We pray that the Bible, which is well known as one of the well-written books and most published books, would not remain the great unread in our homes. Lord, that we might be diligent in reading your word and studying your word and meditating and musing upon your word. We're thankful again for the text that's set before us. And we pray again, Lord God, that you'd be pleased to give us eyes to see and ears to hear the marvelous truths of your scripture. And Lord, that you would give us faith and that you would grow us in faith and give us an understanding that we might walk in obedience by faith. Of course, in Jesus Christ's name we pray, amen. There's a cartoon in a religious magazine that was depicting two Christians who were involved in a quarrel with one another, and they had apparently injured one another. And so, in a gesture of reconciliation, they're shaking their hands in this cartoon. But in this cartoon, behind their back, they all holding their left hands while shaking their hands, and in the hand of one individual was a knife, and in the hand of another individual was a hatchet, and the caption on the bottom of the cartoon said, yes, brother, I can forgive you, but I'll not forget. That's not biblical forgiveness. The point of the sermon. the one point sermon that you will take home with you this evening and think about this through this week. Indeed, I encourage you to think about it through your Christian walk is forgive others just as God in Christ has forgiven you. Now, after showing what believers are, who they are, what they are, and who they are positionally in Jesus Christ, we read about that in Ephesians chapter one through three, The apostle Paul in the book of Ephesians goes on and he gives a general basic instruction for practicality and what it means to live in Jesus Christ in chapter 4 verses 1 through 24. And he continues throughout the rest of the epistle to give specific commands concerning life as a Christian. Now in chapter 4 and verses 25 through 32, He gives commands that reflect several contrasts between the old life, which we were living as unregenerate people, contrasting that with the new life that we are now as new creatures in Christ. Old things have passed away. Behold, new things have come. He tells us that in 1 Corinthians 5, 17. We're to put off the old man, the baggage, as it were, of our former life as unbelievers, and put on the virtues that please the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what he's been instructing us here, beginning actually in verses 20 and down through the end of this particular chapter. The latter part of Ephesians chapter four, he gives us four specific examples, four commands, how to change from lying. We've got to put off lying. We are to speak the truth. from unrighteous anger to righteous anger. We're supposed to put off our unrighteous anger and put on righteous anger. We are to put off stealing to laboring and working with our hands, from unwholesome words to edifying words. The final change Paul mentions is from natural vices to supernatural virtues. Thus these verses serve as a summary of the other changes. So let's look at the, a little bit, as we look at these verses, the characteristics of the old life. And I hope you still have your Bibles open. Ephesians chapter four, verse 31. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice. Man's natural tendency in his fallen state is to sin. And the natural tendency of sin is to grow into greater sin. And Christian, your sin will grow to a greater sin unless you put that off. And if you don't hold it in check, Our sins of bitterness and wrath and anger will inevitably lead to outward expressions of clamor, slander, with all malice. Someone once said in verse 31, it's as a crescendo. Those of you who know music, there's a crescendo where it starts out softly and it goes louder and louder and louder. You see that in these verses here. bitterness that's stirring within, and wrath and anger and clamor and slander with all malice. So there's a crescendo there of sinful attitudes and emotions that in time only will manifest themselves outwardly. Start small, but it grows larger and larger and larger unless it's checked or unless it's eradicated. Bitterness resembles a smoldering resentment It's a brooding, grudge-filled attitude. In Acts 8.23, Peter said of Simon Magus that he was in the gall of bitterness. The book of Hebrews speaks about how bitterness is a root, the root of bitterness, springing up and it causes all sorts of trouble. Luperillo, who's a biblical consul, wrote an interesting little booklet. It's called Bitterness, the Root that Pollutes. Bitterness is a spirit of irritability that keeps a person in a perpetual animosity, making him or her venomous, sour. It's like the lethal poison of a viper or of a spider. So it percolates within you. It's this attitude that you always have for someone that you are angry at and unable to forgive. Wrath has to do with a wild rage. It's the passion of the moment. Anger is more of an instant smoldering, but yet a subtle and a deeper feeling. Clamor is a shout or an outcry of strife and it reflects that like a public outburst that revels in a loss of control, that reveals a loss of control. Slander is translated from the word blasphemia, the Greek word blasphemia, where which we get the word blasphemy. Slander is the outgoing defamation of someone that rises from a bitter heart, And then Paul adds malice. It's kind of a general term for evil that seems to be the root of many of these vices that are listed here in verse 31. We've seen from previous verses, Paul again gives us a list of these vices of the world. These are characteristics of an unbeliever. They're not to be characteristics that are found in Christians. They are found in Christians, but they ought not to be. It's part of the baggage that we bring over from our former life of being unregenerate people, unsaved people, people not born again. It's the baggage we got from where we tend to bring it over into the new life that we have in Christ. So let's look at the characteristics of a new believer in Christ. Note the Christian virtues in verse 32. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other just as God in Christ has forgiven you. These are the graces that God has shown us, and they are gracious virtues that we ought to show to others. The Lord did not love us. He did not choose us. He did not redeem us because we were deserving, but purely because God is gracious. God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He didn't wait for us to become a little bit better, but while we were yet sinners, while we were dead in our trespasses and sins, Christ died for us. While we were yet enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son. That's Romans 5, verses 8 and 10. I mean, if God is that gracious to us, How much more should we be gracious to others? We ought to be kind-hearted. We ought to be tender-hearted. We ought to be forgiving to our fellow sinners, but especially to one another, to our brothers and sisters in the Lord. Being unconditionally kind characterizes our Lord, as Luke 6.35 shows, for he himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. Paul speaks about the riches of his kindness that leads you to repentance in Romans 2.4. You see, we're to be like our Heavenly Father. That's what Christ says. We are to love our enemies and do good and lend, expecting nothing in return. And our reward will be great and we'll be sons of the Most High. Tenderhearted has the idea of being compassionate. of reflecting a feeling as the King James Version indicates. It's a deep feeling within the bowels, the stomach. It's kind of that, it's like that gnawing inner man, outer man pain due to empathy. And so when I say the inner man, I'm talking about our heart. I'm talking about the conscious, the mind, the inner person. That's the real you. The outer man is the body, the physical body. So God created us with a material, physical body. He created us with an immaterial, spiritual inside, the inner person. And so what I'm trying to set forth here is that you know someone who's hurting, you empathize with them, you put yourselves in their shoes, and you actually feel their hurt. And so that's what this tender heartedness is, of being compassionate. And I think you know what I'm talking about. Forgiving each other. The believer in Jesus Christ is to be forgiving. You as a believer in Jesus Christ, you are to be forgiving. Now more on biblical forgiveness in a couple of minutes. Let's review. We spent quite a bit of time just wanting to look at this, but just to give you by way of review, in case there's those who are meeting with us this evening and wasn't here with us this morning, we're going to talk about the put off and put on dynamic. Put off and put on dynamic. And so we began to look at that in verses 2, verse 20. Again, I've mentioned it already. We're to put off our stealing. We're to put on working labor. We are to put off lying, and we're supposed to put on speaking the truth. And so we're supposed to put off unwholesome words and put on words that are edifying. So we looked at that this morning. Paul, again, in verse 31, lists the things that must go. It's the old man, it's the old life. Those of us who at one time are outside a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, those ungodly, sinful patterns and passions of life must be replaced with biblical ones. So the put-off, the put-on dynamic of which he's been teaching, Paul's been teaching here in verses 21 and following is again applied in verses 31 and 32. All of these unrighteous vices of verse 31, Paul says, must be put away from you. You see that? It must be replaced with the supernatural virtues of verse 22. So again, verse 31, this is put off. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you. Put it off, cast them off, along with malice. Malice has to go too. And then to put on is in verse 32 and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has forgiven you. Brother, you just don't break sinful habits. They need to be replaced with righteous virtues. And the Lord gives us the grace to fulfill his exhortation and his commands to us. He's not going to command us to do something. He doesn't give us the grace to do it. As we mentioned this morning, those of you who are born again, you have the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit resides within you. We have God, the Holy Spirit, residing within us. He gives us the power. We read the Word. We're convicted of our sins, our shortcomings. We're convicted of that. The Holy Spirit convicts us. He brings us to repentance. We turn from our wicked ways. We put off those old sins. We put on the things. We do the things that please Jesus. That's the Christian walk. That's the Christian life. Now, there is motivation. There's an underlying component behind replacing these sinful attitudes, these actions with virtuous, godly thoughts and behavior. And so we're going to look at the Platinum Rule, forgiving God, forgiving one another as God forgave us, the Platinum Rule. The moral law of God, the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, sometimes called the Summary of the Law, instructs us in our duty to God in Commandments 1 through 4, and our duty to our fellow man in Commandments 5 through 10. Jesus summarizes the law, if you remember, the Ten Commandments and his general commandments of the First Commandment, the Great Commandment, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And the second is great as unto the first, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. The two great commandments. That's a summary of the 10 commandments, but the 10 commandments are summary of all the law of God. The so-called the golden rule is found in the second great commandment that Jesus gave his disciples. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus was merely quoting the words from Leviticus 19, 18. So those, Words were found in Leviticus, again, part of the law, case law, judicial law, the moral law. It's found in Leviticus 19, 18. Jesus is merely repeating it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. So the golden rule is based on Jesus' words and summarizes the second table of the law. And the second table of law is like commandments five through commandment 10. That's how we're supposed to love our neighbor. So they give examples, how to love our neighbor. Of course, the love of the neighbor is further defined in the case laws or the judicial laws that you find in the Old Testament. But generally, the law of doing good is based upon my motivation. The golden rule is how I want to be treated. I'm not going to lie to somebody because I don't like being lied to. That's the motivation there. I'm not going to vent my anger at somebody because, frankly, I don't like being yelled at either. See, the golden rule is enacted because that's how I want to be treated. The rule is gold. The first time I heard about the Platinum Rule was from Dr. Roger Schultz, who preached here last Lord's Day, who, if my memory serves me correctly, he was leading a Bible study on the Ten Commandments. And he referred to the first great commandment as being the Platinum Rule, the Platinum Rule. It's a far higher notch than the Golden Rule. So allow me to apply the Platinum Rule to Ephesians 4.32, forgiving each other as God has forgiven you. You see, you're not to forgive because you want others to forgive you. But you forgive because God in Christ has forgiven you. You see, it's higher than the golden rule. It's a platinum rule. You are to forgive others because God in Christ has forgiven you. So God gives you a platinum reason why your brother and sister in Christ needs to be forgiven. Forgive each other as God in Christ has forgiven you. That packs a wallop, doesn't it? It really does. It's a very high standard. I mean, think about this for a moment. We Christian people are the most forgiven people in the world. We Christians are the most forgiven people in the world. Perhaps the most graphic illustration of forgiveness in Christ is the parable of Matthew 18, verses 21 through 35. That's the context where Peter asked, Lord, how many times should we forgive? Once, twice, seven times? Jesus said, what, seven times 70? Okay, only 490 times I'm supposed to forgive my, what about 491? No, it's a blanket thing. We're always to be forgiving. But the Lord goes on, he tells the story of a man who, had an incredibly high debt. It was an unpayable debt. It was just so humongous that he couldn't pay it. But who was forgiven by his creditor, the king, is to be a picture of salvation. When we think about our sins against Almighty God, how innumerable they are, we can't pay for it. We can't put enough money in the offering plate to pay and purchase our salvation. It's insurmountable. That's the picture of it. Those of us who had an unrighteous rebellion against the Lord. Well, parable, remember, continues. The unforgiven man then goes to someone who owed him a very, very small amount, who pleaded with him, please have mercy on me and my family. But the forgiven man of his debt would not released this man, and so we had him imprisoned. And so this man who eagerly accepted a massive, comprehensive forgiveness would not forgive a small, easy, payable debt of another person. You see, an incongruity of this action shows the heinousness of a believer's unforgiving heart. That's what it's being compared to. And the man was severely chastened by the Lord for his wicked attitude. The second half of this parable depicts the unbelieving world's practice of forgiving. The world, the people who do not have a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, don't know a thing about biblical forgiveness or forgiving. The world's code is to hold a grudge against the person who has wronged us. The world says, I forgive you, but I will never ever forget this. Or the world will say, I forgive you, but I won't forget what you did to me. The world's ethic is to get even if possible. That's the world's ethic. The world's lifestyle is never really to forgive the wrongdoer. The world does not know how to forgive, as our Lord teaches us. Now, one of the problems today, So we Christians carry over baggage, as I say, from our old unregenerate lifestyle. We bring it into the new life that we have in Christ. We bring over these sinful habits, patterns. We bring over these bad, these wrong attitudes of forgiveness. Newborn Christians don't know how to forgive, and they need to be taught from God's word how to forgive. And sometimes us veteran Christians have never learned how to apply biblical forgiveness in our various relationships. We have to have our minds renewed, as we see in verse 21, the renewing of our minds. We have to reorient. we have to reprogram our thinking. That's what God has given us, so we're renewing our mind with the Word of God. It's God's Word that reprograms us. By the power of the Spirit, He reorients us. He helps us see afresh what the Lord would have us to think in our hearts and speak and in our actions. And so the Platinum Rule the standard, the MO or the modus operandi, the motive is on Christ. We forgive because God in Christ has forgiven us. It's patterned after God's forgiveness of us in Christ. Our forgiveness is to be patterned after how God has forgiven us. Now remember, us Christians, we Christians, we are the most forgiven in the world. Just think for a moment, we'll pause for a moment here. We're going to think about this and kind of camp out in this for a minute. Think about what God has done for you in Jesus Christ. You and me, we have accumulated so much debt because of our sins. All sins are against God. Not all sins are against man, but all sins are against God. We've accumulated so much debt against God and against our fellow men that it would fill volumes and volumes of books. Sins against an almighty, infinite God. Innumerable sins. Sins that I can't pay for, sins that you cannot pay for. We cannot work paying off our debt of our sins. No one can keep one of God's law without breaking God's law. And James says, if you offend one point of the law, you offend it all. And sometimes I use this illustration. I wonder how many times a day I sin. You know, just no more than three times a day. See, I just said three times a day. No more would I have an evil thought, fail to do something good towards God or man, or have another evil thought. Three sins. Three sins times a year, 365, well, it's over a thousand. Times my age, I'm not telling you how old I am. Well, I'll tell you how old I am. Those of you who know biblical math can figure this out. Some of you don't know that. I gave this to a pastor once, he said he didn't do biblical math. I am three score and 13. Three score and 13. All right, so you multiply that times a thousand. That's a lot of sins, and that's only three cents a day. The point is, we've all fallen short of the glory of God. We all deserve damnation. We are all doomed. We can't pay it off. It's insurmountable, the debt that we owe. And yet, in Christ, God has forgiven us. Isn't that amazing? That's what we do with our guilt. We take it to the cross. Ask someone on the street what they do with their guilt. Well, it's entertainment, or out of sight, out of mind, or any number of things. We, as Christians, take our guilt to the foot of the cross. And that's where we have forgiveness. Forgiveness of sins. But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we are dead in trespasses and sins, saved us by grace through faith in Christ. It's the gift of God. Again, as I said, we Christians are the most forgiven people in the world, and therefore we ought to be the most forgiving people in the world. However, we know that forgiving others genuinely And completely is really difficult. It's really hard. Forgiving others genuinely and completely is difficult because the world certainly doesn't know how to do it. And we've grown up in the world and we were part of the world before we came to Christ. But secondly, because that's hard because of that. But then secondly, because many churches today do not teach how to forgive one another biblically. There's a great need for this forgiving spirit among Christian people. I mean, some of them have a zeal for God, some of them have a zeal for the truth of God, yet in reality neutralize the effectiveness of their testimony by their bitter, unforgiving spirit. I mean, it's to be feared that this sin, warned against by the description of this cartoon that I spoke about at the beginning of the sermon, is all too common among Christians. And again, this is just another indicator of a low spiritual state of the church today. I mean, revival, brethren, is badly needed. but not the superficial, not the emotional kind of revival, but the real revival that's brought about by the Holy Spirit, will lead Christians to realize their sins, own their sins, confess their sins, and repent from their sins, and walk in righteousness, not for their sake, but for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so these particular sins involve conflict between person and person. Believer and unbeliever, but worse, between believer and believer. These are the sins that break fellowship. These are the sins that destroy relationships. These are the sins that weaken the church. And Mark's testimony before the world. And so when an unbeliever sees Christians acting the way that all of society acts, the church is blemished in the eyes of the unbelieving world, the rest of society, and just confirms in their hearts, well, why should I be a Christian if they do the same thing that the world does? And John says, you will know that we are Christians. They will know you're Christians by your love. And if we're not expressing that love and forgiving our brothers and sisters in Christ, we're not any different than the world. The Christian will really forgive His forgiveness is not a mere formality. It's not concealing a heart that's full of bitterness, but his forgiveness is without reservations and it comes from the heart. The Christian himself knows what forgiveness is. He's experienced it himself. He's been forgiven himself. And thus it's a gratitude to God that we forgive others, forgiving as God has forgiven us. Now, the question is, how do we really do that? How do we do that? Well, first, we need to take to heart Jeremiah 31, 24. Jeremiah 31, 24 says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and I'll remember their sins no more. Now, wrap your head around this a little bit. Here we worship the omniscient. The all-knowing God who says in His word, I will remember your sins no more. God who knows the word on your lips even before you speak it, says, I will remember your sins no more. God who knows what's in your heart. I don't know what's in your heart. God who knows what's in your heart, who knows what all men think, what all men believe, who knows all things, says in his word, I will remember your sins no more. How does God do that? Well, it's because of the blood of Christ. And when he looks at us, he doesn't see our sins, but he sees us clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. He remembers our sins, but he doesn't see our sins. He remembers our sins no more. But there's more. Psalm 103, verse 12. Psalm 103, verse 12. As far as the East is from the West, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. Now I might be able to measure the distance from the North Pole to the South Pole. I can't measure the distance between the East from the West. It keeps going and going and going. That's how far God has taken your sins from you. He remembers them no more, and they're cast out. The Greek word for forgiveness really means to loose, to send away. Again, that's a distance no man can measure. Your sins are taken from you as far as the east is from the west, and your God tells you, I remember your sins no more. That's how we're supposed to forgive those that have sinned against us. So we Christians have hard work at forgiving and forgetting, when those who come seeking our forgiveness for their sins against us. J. Adams, a biblical counselor, former OPC minister, who's now in glory, has a very good book I recommend to you. It's called From Forgiven to Forgiving. From Forgiven to Forgiving. Okay, so let me give you some tips on how we are to forgive as God in Christ has forgiven us. First of all, We don't apologize. We do not apologize. Now think about the word apologize. It comes from the word apology. Now there's a branch of Christian theology known as apologetics. What's apologetics? It means a defense. We give a defense for the faith. It doesn't mean I'm really sorry that I'm a Christian. It doesn't mean that at all. But as Peter says, we give that hope that's within us. It's a defense of faith, so apologetics. Apology literally means Making a defense. You know how this works. I'm sorry I hurt you, but whatever comes after but is the defense. I'm sorry I did this to you, but we'll give some examples. I'm sorry I took from your restaurant, but I was hungry. I'm sorry I looted your store, but I had a need. I'm sorry I lied to you, but you made me do it. And politicians are really good at this, well, maybe really bad at it, at apologizing. I'm sorry, but, and then fill in the blanks. When the but comes, there's always an excuse. There's always a reason for why they did what they did to you. That's apologizing. We as Christians don't apologize, but we as Christians confess our sins. We confess our sins. If the scripture calls it a sin, then we own it, we call it a sin. And if we've sinned, we need to admit it, we need to own it. No buts when we confess our sins. I'll give you some examples. I'm sorry I sinned against you by lying about you. I'm sorry I sinned against you by gossiping against you. So you confess your sin specifically. What specifically did you do? You might even have to name the instant when that happened. I'm sorry I broke your confidence. You share with me something in confidentiality, you share with me something in secret, and I went and told someone else about it. I sinned against God and I've sinned against you. Would you please forgive me for breaking your confidentiality? We as Christians don't apologize, we confess our sins. Thirdly, when someone asks for our forgiveness, when we give it, we make promises. Now you maybe never thought about this before. When someone comes to you and says, I'm sorry, I sinned against you by gossiping against you, will you please forgive me? And I would respond, yes, I forgive you. I'm making a promise. Now, Adams suggests that there's three promises. I'm adding a fourth, fourth promises. First of all, when you forgive someone, you don't stew about it in your heart what they did to you. You don't let it percolate. You don't let it go into that slow cooker and marinate it in your heart. When you forgive them, you put that off. You put off all bitterness. You put off your stewing in your hearts. You're not going to let bitterness take root. As far as the East is from the West, you've taken their sins from you. You've forgiven them. That's one promise. Second promise. You don't tell others about the sin that this person committed. You don't post it on Facebook. Hey, did you hear what Brother John did to me? You don't put it on Facebook. You don't tweet about it. You don't tell anybody else about the sin that they committed against you. That's the second promise you make. Third promise you make is that you don't bring the sin up again with them. I've forgiven you of that sin. As far as the East is from the West, I don't remember your sin anymore. I remember your sins no more. And the problem is, I find as a biblical counselor, this one, they're always bringing up sins that happened 20 years ago. Well, wait a minute. You never dealt with that from a Christian perspective about forgiveness? You're not forgiving them as God in Christ has forgiven you. you don't bring it up again. They've confessed their sins, you've promised to forgive them, you don't bring it up again. And then fourthly, is what I would add, we don't allow the sin to break our fellowship. There is true reconciliation. We don't let it break our fellowship. Now brethren, I recognize that's hard to do, but it's what the Lord Jesus would have you to do, that we are to forgive one another as God in Christ has forgiven you. Can we, who have been forgiven so much, can we not forgive our brother and sister for something small and minute? Some sin that's been done against us? I mean, we of all people should always be eager to forgive. So what's the point of the sermon? What have you learned? What are you going to take home? What are you going to apply? to your Christian life for the rest of your earthly pilgrimage. You have to figure out others as God in Christ has forgiven you. Let's pray together. Father God, you've taught us much this day from your word. And we're thankful for your word. And we recognize the Lord God, how sharp the word is, the sword of the spirit. of having our hearts carved up with the word of God, but yet with the sharp two-edged sword comes hope. You give us hope, and you enable us by your grace to do the things that please you. As difficult as it is, and Lord, sometimes we know it's clear in the scriptures what you have us to do, but we confess, Lord, that we always don't have the will or the attitude to do it. And so we pray, oh Lord God, that you'd be pleased to reach down from highest heaven and change and realign the gears in our hearts, that we would have a willing attitude and we'd make it our aim to do the things that please you. Whether home or absent, we do the things that please you. That whatever we do, we eat or drink, whatever, we do all for the glory of God. As in Christ Jesus' name we pray, amen.