We desire to live for your glory and for your honor. In Christ's name, amen. Well, good morning. Oh, we have to do that again. Good morning. It is good to be back. Thank you for your prayers over these last few weeks. And I'll tell you all about it over lunch today. It's been a good few weeks but I missed this place and I missed you guys and I'm glad to be back. This morning we've reached Ephesians chapter 4 verses 25 to 27 as we continue to walk through this incredible letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to the churches in Asia Minor. And we've looked at that first half of this letter the orthodoxy half of the letter, what we're to believe. And now we're into the second half, the how we're to behave. And if you remember, I told you that when we get to the second half of the letter, it would not be as comfortable. It would not be nearly as comfortable as the first half of the letter. And I told you, when we get to the second half of the letter, if you don't get your toes stepped on one week, Just be glad because the next week you probably will. This will hit us all where we live. Particularly today it will hit us all where we live. Because today we get to look at the picture of spiritual maturity. Marks of spiritual maturity. And particularly in two areas. Two areas where we see whether or not we are spiritually mature. One is in the area of honesty. and the other is in the area of forgiveness. Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 17, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things have passed away, new things have come. Galatians chapter 5 and verse 20, if I am crucified with Christ and yet I live, not I, but Christ who lives within me. So what, the life that we now live, we live by faith. to the Son of God. So what happens to us is we experience the redemption of Christ. We are born again. The Spirit of God indwells us. And when the Spirit of God indwells us, we begin this process called sanctification. And we've talked about this before. But sanctification is the process whereby we are conformed to the image of Christ. Now, sanctification does come to an end. But sanctification comes to an end when we reach glorification. And the only way you reach glorification is to die. Amen? So for the remainder of your days, you and I will be in this process called sanctification. More like Christ today than yesterday, and more like Christ tomorrow than today. That's sanctification. And one of the marks of a true believer, one of the marks of true repentance, remember we've talked about this concept of true biblical conversion. One of the marks of true biblical conversion is not if you walk to the magic part of the room and say magic words in a magic order. Listen to me, hell will be filled with people who have walked the aisle and prayed the sinner's prayer. That is not how you get saved. You are saved by true repentance and true faith. And the evidence of that is sanctification. And so if we are not experiencing sanctification, we have not experienced salvation. I've used the illustration before, but it bears repeating. We see this all the time. Individuals walking around with bananas hanging off of them, swearing that they're an apple tree. And you look at them, and the fruit that hangs off of them is obviously bananas. And they say to you, I don't care what fruit you see. I walked down the apple aisle. I prayed the apple prayer. I am an apple tree. Don't you dare pay attention to the fruit that you see in me. That is the modern American culture's version of biblical conversion. I prayed the prayer, leave me alone. Don't you dare examine my life. The Bible couldn't be clearer. In Galatians chapter 5, in the passage that we just read, talking about the fruit of the Spirit, when he talks about those desires of the flesh, when he talks about that wrath and that anger and being out of control, he says, if this is you, you won't inherit the kingdom. If this is the fruit that you're bearing in your life, you don't belong to Christ. There are marks of maturity along the way. sometimes we stagnate and we may not grow at the pace that we desire but there's a difference between being stagnant at times and not growing at the pace that you desire and not having any evidence or fruit whatsoever of true biblical conversion and over the next couple of weeks we're going to look particularly at some of those evidences and this week in our honesty and in our forgiveness Ephesians chapter 4 beginning at verse 25 therefore laying aside falsehood speak truth each one with his neighbor for we are members of one another be angry and yet do not sin do not let the sun go down on your anger and do not give the devil an opportunity simple, short, sweet, succinct, and packed full of biblical truth. If we are truly saved, if we are truly following Christ, there are going to be marks in our life that indicate that. Two of those marks in our life will be in our honesty and in our forgiveness. Notice what he says, therefore laying aside falsehood, if you back up to verse 22, He says that in reference to your former manner of life you lay aside the old self which is being corrupted in accordance with the lust of deceit and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Lay aside the old self. That is a theme throughout the New Testament. Laying aside the old and picking up the new. Therefore take off and put on. So like, I remember when I was a boy, you know, and I would come home from school and didn't have a whole lot of money and didn't have a whole lot of clothes. And if I wanted to get in trouble big time when I got home, all I had to do was come into the house, put down my school bags and run outside to play without taking off my school clothes and putting on my play clothes. Mama would wear me out. Why? Boy, we don't have money to go around buying you all these new school clothes. By the way, my play clothes were my school clothes that had either gotten too small or gotten holes that couldn't be patched. Amen? Can anybody identify with that, you know? We'd patch him up, you know, as much as we could. And after a while, if we couldn't patch him anymore, then we'd, you know, patch him at the knee. And if you couldn't patch him anymore, then you cut him off right above the patch. And those are your play pants, all right? And so when I came home, I had to take off those school clothes and put on my play clothes. As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, what happens when we are saved is we take off the grave clothes. from when we're dead in trespasses and sins. And we put on Christ. We clothe ourselves in Christ. And it becomes more and more obvious as we walk through this life. Turn with me to the right and look at Colossians chapter 3 and verse 8. I want you to see something there. It would help if I got to the right book. But now you also put them all aside. See that same terminology? Put these things aside. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. Put these things aside. Here's an interesting note when it comes to our sanctification. These marks aren't something that happened without our participation. These marks aren't something that we just sit there and by osmosis, you know, they sort of come over us. No, we actually have to participate with God. We get into His Word and He transforms us. Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, Romans 12.2, but be transformed by what? The renewing of your mind. Interestingly enough, what we read in Ephesians chapter 4 earlier, in verse 22, was us being renewed and by not going back to the lust of deceit in our mind. And so we are in this process of being renewed. And here's what we have to understand. And we'll see here in our text this morning. How you grew up is no excuse. What your personality was like is no excuse. Where you come from is no excuse. If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature. You are not where you come from. You are not where you were raised. You are not the sins that used to define you. If you are in Christ, you are a new creature and it's time to lay the old you aside. See if I can explain that. Look at what he says here, verse 25. The first one is in our honesty. Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth, each one with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. There are several aspects of this. The first aspect of this is that this is talking about how we treat one another within the community of faith. We are members of one another. That's very important. It doesn't say that there are no implications for how we treat people outside the community of faith. But specifically, he's talking about the way we interact with members of the community of faith. So what we do is, first of all, in the community of faith, when something needs to be said, we say it. Amen. Within the community of faith, when something needs to be said, we say it. Speaking the truth first involves speaking. And so here's what we don't do, because so many times in our culture what happens is we believe that to be forthright with people somehow is unchristian. When the scriptures couldn't be clearer, speak the truth. In chapter 4 and verse 15 it says, speak the truth in love. Has to be spoken. So if there is something that needs to be said from one brother to another, from one sister to another in the community of faith, and it goes unsaid or it is said to somebody other than the one to whom it needs to be said, you're in sin and you're not bearing the marks of sanctification. If there is something that needs to be said to another brother or another sister and you don't say it or you say it to someone other than the one to whom it needs to be said, you are in sin and you need to repent. It's sinful. Well, see, you just don't understand. I'm just not a confrontational person. No, no, no, no. Here's the deal. But you're a Christian. And if you're a Christian, Christ says, speak the truth to one another. Don't tell me how you were raised. Don't tell me what your personality is like. If the Bible says that we're to do something, what I feel like on the inside is no excuse for disobedience to a direct command from God. I done cut it. I done cut it. The Christian walk is all about us bringing how we were raised and what our personality was like and everything else in subjection and obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. I wasn't raised to be a husband and a father. I was raised in the family, you know, but Bridget and I, both over the last two generations, I've told you this. Last two generations, both sides of our families, 25 marriages, 22 divorces. I was not raised to be a husband and father. I was not raised by my father. I was not raised with a father in my home. But that is no excuse for me to not be the kind of father that the Bible commands me to be. Here's another reason that we use that excuse, not a confrontational person, because we don't understand the nature of telling the truth. Listen to what he says. Lay aside falsehoods, speak truth to one another, each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Truth has to be balanced with tact. Can I say that one more time? Truth has to be balanced with tact. Because here's the other side of that sin. There are some people who sin because they don't speak the truth to their neighbor. There are some people who sin because they say it without tact. And so we say things in a way that is hurtful to our neighbor. Scripture says speak the truth in love. We are members of one another. There is no excuse for saying something to someone in a way that is hurtful to them. Well, I'm just a blunt person. No, you're a sinner. The Bible says we're members of one another and we're to speak to one another as members of one another. Proverbs 15, verse 1, a gentle word turns away wrath. What is the opposite of that? The opposite of that actually increases anger. That's not a biblical response. Boy, this is something that was so hard for me to learn. This is something, this is part of my sanctification process. I mean, I grew up playing ball, you know, and I grew up as an athlete and I grew up in that environment. And in that environment, when somebody does something, you get in their face and you let them have it. But it's no big deal, because when we're on the field, we say things to one another that are awful. And as soon as you take the pads off, it's like it never happened. Well, that's one thing in the midst of a combative sport environment where that kind of bluntness is important and you don't have a lot of time to be gentle. But that is no excuse for treating people like that in the household of faith. Doesn't matter what we're used to. If you're a person who lacks tact, go find some in the scriptures. Think before you speak. Before you speak to your brother or your sister, recognize the fact that they are your brother and your sister. And don't say things in a hurtful way just because they're true, because that's no excuse. That's absolutely no excuse. Husbands, there may be things that are true that you need to say to your wife, but the way that you say them is everything. Wives, there may be things that are true that you need to say to your husband, but the way that you say them means everything. The way we handle honesty is a mark of our maturity in Christ or our lack thereof. If I don't handle honestly properly, then I am not being mature in the faith. You know what? It's sort of like children. Children don't handle honesty well. When children are very small, they will blurt out anything just because it's true, you know? And you'll be walking through somewhere, and you know, you got a little kid with you. I'm in airports quite a bit, and those of you know, you know. And I just, every once in a while, you're walking around, and there's some kid, because I like the people watch in the airport. I do. But when I'm people-watching the airport as a mature adult, I see things and in my head I say stuff to myself. But there have been instances where I've been people-watching in the airport and there's some kid who doesn't quite have this thing down that there's some things you say in your head and some things that you say out loud, you know. And this kid is sitting there, you know, and will say that, Mommy, why she got that funny-looking hat on? I'm just sitting there going, yeah, I thought it but I just wouldn't have said it. That's a sign of immaturity, folks. To just blurt things out and then your excuse is, well, it was true. The Bible says we're supposed to speak the truth in love. Here in our text, it says, keep in mind that we are members of one another. Balance truth with tact and don't wear verbal brutality as a badge of honor. Being brutal to people with your tongue is not a badge of honor. Here's the other side of it. It says speak the truth. We have to say what's true. We've got to. And sometimes the truth hurts. And that's okay. If the truth hurts you, that's okay. If I hurt you, it's sin and immaturity. Did you catch that? If I come to you as humbly and gently and honestly as I know how, because there are some things that we have to say to one another that are truthful, that are just going to hurt. And we sit down and we say, you know what? I love you and I'm getting ready to say this to you because I have to. And here it is. I can't avoid that. Because if we are members of one another, and there's truth that needs to be spoken into your life in order to get you to the next level of your sanctification, or in order to get us into a place where we're right with one another, right before the Lord, I have to say that even if it's hurtful. So there's a balance here. We don't neglect truthfulness in order to spare people's feelings, but we don't hurt people's feelings. intentionally in the name of being truthful. It's a matter of maturity, folks. One of the marks of a mature Christian is we learn how to balance truth and tact. One of the marks of a mature Christian is people look at us and they can say, you know what, I know he's going to tell me the truth. I know she's going to tell me the truth and right behind it they can say, and I know she loves me. I have no doubt about that. I have no doubt about those two things. No doubt about number one. He's going to tell me the truth. She's going to tell me the truth and no doubt about number two. He loves me. She loves me. See when it's balanced that way, we can get away with a whole lot more. Amen. But if it's not balanced that way, we can't get away with it. If somebody doesn't know you love them, you may have the most valuable truth that they've ever needed to hear in their life. But if they know that you don't love them and your desire is to crush them with your words, they won't even hear and be healed by the very truth that they need. What use is that? What good is that? It's not. It's not. Okay. Moms, please hold on to this. As you deal with your children in your home every day, please hold on to this. Dads, as we deal with our wives and we deal with our children every day, please hold on to this. The second measure is in our forgiveness. Look at what he says here. Be angry and yet do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath. Be angry and yet do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath. Here's what's interesting. Most of us, if we're honest, we look at that and the first response is that we kind of, I don't know, we're kind of taken aback by that. Because we are probably conditioned to think that anger in and of itself is sinful. Well, the text is clear. Be angry. Amen. Be angry. There are some times when we need to be angry. There are some things that ought to anger us. Anger is an emotion. What you feel is what you feel. Stop beating yourself up for feeling what you feel. We're human beings. We were designed to react to certain things certain ways. Be angry. Yet, do not sin. Listen to what James and Faust and Brown have to say about this. Our natural feelings are not wrong when directed to their legitimate object and when not exceeding due bounds. I like that. If it's directed at a legitimate object and it doesn't exceed due bounds. John Calvin commenting on the same passage says this, in my opinion Paul merely alludes to the passage with the following view. There are three faults by which we offend God in being angry. The first is when our anger arises from slight causes and often from no cause whatever or at least from or private injuries or offenses. The second is when we go beyond the proper bounds and are hurried into intemperate excess. The third is when our anger, which ought to have been directed against ourselves or against sins, is turned against other brethren. I like that. When does anger become sinful? When we're angered by the wrong thing. Do you know there are people who are angered by righteousness? Do you know there are people, and I run into these people all the time. I'll stand up and I'll preach something and I'm going through the text and I'm going verse by verse and I read a verse of scripture and let that verse of scripture say what it says and people will come and be angry with me because of what the Bible says. I had that happen to me this weekend. I was in North Dakota this weekend preaching at a leadership conference for pastors in North and South Dakota. And it was a leadership conference about leadership in the church. And I talked about some leadership issues in the church. And quite frankly, there was a pastor who had just brought someone on his pastoral staff who was biblically disqualified. And so when we read the text about the biblical qualifications for leaders in the church, he got angry. And he wanted to talk about this. and all I could do was point him back to the text and point him back to the text and all he could do was try to make excuses and excuses and at first I didn't understand why and then finally he let the cat out of the bag because this friend of his was just given a position in his church but the text was clear as crystal he's disqualified you see it's sinful when we're angered by righteousness When the Bible says something as clear as day and we allow that something that the Bible says to make us angry, it's sinful. It's sinful when we ought to be angry with ourselves but we turn it outwardly on others. If there's something in me And I should be angered because of whatever it is in me that rolls its ugly head. But I turn that outward and I become angry with somebody else and I pass the blame off to somebody else. Don't we see this with our children all the time? All of a sudden one sibling has done something and the other sibling goes way beyond the pale You deal with the sibling who went way beyond the pale and all they can talk about is what the other child did to make them sin Okay, that's fine we'll deal with the other child but right now we're dealing with you and your sin Yeah, but they It's a sign of spiritual immaturity. When we did something that was completely uncalled for, and all we can do is point to what somebody else did to facilitate our sin. You know, I was listening to the radio. I don't remember particularly what program I was listening to. But it was a call-in program. And it was very interesting because they were calling in and they were talking about traffic laws and things of that nature. It was a national call-in program. And people were calling in talking about what made them upset on the road. And one person called in, was talking about Texas roads. And he said, you know in Texas we have these two-lane highways. And I just get angry because you get people who ride in the left lane and they're slower traffic. According to the law, the slower traffic is supposed to be in the right. And if somebody approaches you at a higher rate of speed, you're supposed to move over out of the left lane into the right lane to let the faster traffic pass by. You don't just get in the left lane and say, hey, if you want to go around me, you go around. No, you've got to get over into the right lane. And this person was just going off about that. And then here's what the broadcaster said to him. Now, when you're in the left lane, are you speeding? And he goes, well, yeah. And he says, so you're mad because the law that they're breaking impedes the law that you want to break. And he's kind of went, well, I, but this is the greatest call. I love it. But don't we do that? I'm mad at you because you're getting in the way of my self. My selfishness. Something that I want, that you're impeding me from. When that is what causes my anger, it's sinful. But when I see injustice, I'm to be angry. When I see sin, especially in myself, I'm to be angry. It's okay to be angry. But he says, be angry and do not sin. There's a point when my anger becomes sin. You know what that point is? When emotion becomes action. That's when anger becomes sin. And so, when sibling A does something to sibling B that is sinful, and sibling B sits there, you know, you got two kids and they're both playing with their toys and they're sitting on the floor and all of a sudden one child comes over, not even part of the game, that child grabs one of the toys and takes it away. That child did something sinful. And it's okay for the child who was just sinned against to be angry with that. That's the natural emotion. But when you ball up your fist and suck the other child, your anger just turned into sin. Do you follow me? Yeah, but you just don't know. I'm hot-tempered. No, you're sinful. You were hot-tempered. Take that off and clothe yourself with Christ. There is no excuse. None whatsoever. Be angry, but sin not. By the way, you don't have to just ball up your fist and hit somebody else. If you say a harmful word to a brother or sister, your anger has crossed the line. And it is a sign of spiritual immaturity and a lack of sanctification when your anger crosses the line. and your anger causes you to say something hurtful to another brother or sister, or your anger causes you to do something hurtful to another brother or sister, when your anger decides that you will vindicate yourself instead of recognizing that vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, that's when your anger becomes sin. The other instance is when your anger is held onto. Look at the next part of this. Be angry and yet do not sin. And then he clarifies. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. When you're angry for two, three days, you're in sin. And it's a sign of spiritual immaturity when you hang on to anger. When you're angry and you don't deal with it. We just talked about honesty. If I'm angry, what is the Christian response to that? The Christian response to that is to go back up to verse 25. Therefore lay aside falsehood, speak truth one to another. Brother, sister, I agree. And here's why. So that it's dealt with. You don't let that go. Two, three, four days, weeks, months, years, decades. And hold on to it. You know the best statement I've ever heard about holding on to anger is, me holding on to anger against you is like me drinking poison and hoping you die. Another statement that just resonated with me. There are people in this world who are being controlled by individuals who are dead and buried because they won't let go of anger. Some of you have dead people controlling you. Because you're angry with them and they're not even living anymore. But you're holding on to it for their life. Words of Dr. Phil, how's that working for you? That is a sign of spiritual immaturity. We are not properly walking through the sanctification process when we hold on to anger. Husbands and wives, hear me. If your spouse did something last week and you bring it up this week, you sinned. You can't say amen, you ought to say ouch. And I'm just glad to be honest here, ladies, that's usually you. Because y'all remember stuff like we never could in our lives. That's why it's so hard to win an argument with you ladies. Because we sit there and we're talking about something and all of a sudden the ladies will bring up something and when ladies bring up something that happened like a month ago, we're sitting there trying to go, okay, what happened a month ago? And they are going, you were wearing a blue shirt and you had on a red tie and you were late that day because you couldn't find your keys and because you couldn't Okay. In all seriousness, for husbands and wives, we have to learn how to forgive. Part of forgiveness is when something happens, we deal with it then. Doesn't mean that we forget it. We weren't created to forget. We were created with these things called memories. And so it's one thing for me to remember something as we work through. I was talking to a friend very recently and he and his spouse are working through a situation of adultery. You don't work through that overnight. It'll take them years to work through that. And so having to work through something over a long period of time is one thing. But holding on to anger is quite another. And it takes a spiritually mature person to be angry, open and honest and deal with it and let it go. If your spouse did something to you last week and you're holding on to it, at best, you're showing that you're spiritually mature. At worst, You're an ongoing sin. And you need to repent before Almighty God and to your spouse. And if that's going on with brothers and sisters, in the household or in the community of faith, at best, you're demonstrating that you are not a mature prisoner. At worst, you're harboring, holding on to, and excusing sin. These are marks of spiritual maturity. Show me a person who can handle honesty. By being truthful and not being hurtful, I'll show you a person who's spiritually mature. Show me a person who holds on to the truth and doesn't speak it, or a person who speaks it in a hurtful manner, I will show you someone who is not spiritually mature. Show me someone who is angry about the right things, and desires for justice to be vindicated, and experiences righteous indignation over the right things, and knows how to let it go, and not let it lead to sinful action, and not let it linger and linger and linger and linger. Show me somebody who knows how to do that. I'll show you somebody who's mature in Christ. Because our natural inclination My fleshly inclination, I don't just want to speak truth to you. I want to get a dig in when I do it. My natural inclination, my fleshly inclination, I don't really want to talk to you at all. I want to talk about you to somebody else. My natural inclination, I want to be angry with you and even when I am culpable, I want to blame you for it. My natural inclination, I want to be mad at you today, tomorrow and the next day and whenever it is convenient for me and whenever I can use it to throw it up in your face to gain some points for myself. That is the natural inclination. That is spiritual immaturity. Marks of maturity. We know how to handle honesty. And we know how to handle anger. Let me tell you, these are two of the most difficult things that any Christian will have to deal with. Because it's not part of our natural inclination. That's why you have to put off your natural inclinations. And put on Christ. If we don't, we can't do this. I can't do this. If I don't, I can't do this. April 24th, my father died. Got a call a couple of days later. There are a lot of things that I've dealt with over the years with my father. A lot of hurts, a lot of anger because of his abandonment of me and my mother. We get to call him to make it worse. His wife tells me he wants me to bridge his funeral. What am I going to say? I have to honor my father. What am I going to do? Let me tell you something. It was in that moment that I realized my own lack of maturity. Because if I'm honest with you, my first gut level inclination was he didn't really deserve for me to say anything good about it. I just gotta be honest. It's my first gut level inclination. But being a Christian is about not going with your gut. It is about taking off the old man and putting on the new man. And when we do that, we are capable of things that we can never ever accomplish in and of ourselves. If it had happened five, six, seven years ago, I might not have been able to do it. I might not have been at that level of spiritual maturity to be able to do it. And I stagnated at any one of a number of points in my development as a follower of Christ. I just got to tell you, I might not have been able to handle it. But what good would it have done to speak things about my father at his funeral that would have dishonored him, so that I could get it off my chest? What is that about? What would that have accomplished? What good would it have done for me to hold on to anger? I chose instead to hang on to the best and the most memorable. It wasn't all that much, but I found it and I grabbed it and I held it. next time you gotta say something to a brother or sister be truthful and be tactful because remember we belong to each other next time somebody does something and you run a little hot remember the emotion that you feel in that moment is not the sin you act on it that's the sin you hold on to it that's the sin the last phrase He says, do not give the devil an opportunity. What does that mean? If we don't learn how to speak to one another, and we don't learn how to handle anger, the enemy will wear us out. You want to destroy a family? Start a practice of speaking ugly to one another. You want to destroy a family? Start a practice of reacting in your anger and holding on to it. You want to destroy a friendship? You want to destroy a church? But the opposite is also true. You want to build a family? You want to build a friendship? You want to build a church? You want to edify any of those things? Learn how to balance truth with tact. Learn how to be angry and not sin. Learn how not to hold on to those things. And you won't give the devil an opportunity. Instead, you'll give Christ the glory. Would you bow with me? Father, thank you for being so good to us. Thank you for not leaving us to our own devices. Thank you that our sanctification doesn't depend on us.