start tomorrow. Learning Contentment, a book by Nancy Wilson. I hope that it will challenge you and encourage you and hopefully after you throw it against the wall In bitterness, the next morning you will pick it up and confess your sins and plug along even further. So, amen to that. What else? Community groups are in session. And I hope that you are attending and making friends and getting to know those people who are united to you in Christ. And any other announcements? I think that's it. So, thanks for being here. Let's go ahead and jump in. We just finished an entire series on the fear of the Lord. And I hope that was a benefit to you and a blessing. And today we start a new series, a new series on grieving the spirit. We have a few people coming in, so I'm gonna stall a little bit. Grieving the spirit. Who's familiar with that particular passage in the book of Ephesians? You've heard this before. And grieve not. the Spirit of God by whom you have been sealed for the day of redemption. So this is our theme verse. Let's go ahead and begin though with our catechism. What is the church altogether? God chooses and preserves for Himself a community elected for eternal life and united by faith who love, follow, learn from, and worship God together. God sends out this community to proclaim the gospel and prefigure Christ's kingdom by the quality of their life together and their love for one another. Amen. One more for you. Where is Christ now? All together. Christ rose bodily from the grave on the third day after His death and is seated at the right hand of the Father, ruling His kingdom and interceding for us until He returns to judge and renew the whole world. Amen. Alright, now, a few questions, a few follow-ups here. Why is it essential that Christ rose bodily from the grave? Why the adverb there, bodily? I'm sorry? That's true, that's true. To fulfill prophecy, true. From the bodily resurrection, we can deduce the value and significance of the physical realm that God created. That's true. Amen. He is the first one to be raised from the dead. That's right. And that's right, the invisible evidence. Also, He is a human and humans have bodies. That's how God made us. And He, having been raised from the dead as a human, goes through the veil and into the Holy of Holies and has full and unencumbered access to the Father and is welcomed by the Father there as a human. not a floating orb or a fuzzy wavelength or a poltergeist, but as a human with arms and legs and eyeballs, et cetera, enters into the heavenly temple, into the Holy of Holies, into the immediate presence of God, not unlike Adam experienced before the fall, but way better, and offers the sacrifice. And what was the sacrifice that he offered? His blood, that's right, His execution and His propitiation on the cross, His blood offered there. It was a quality and perfect sacrifice, a lamb without spot or blemish. God, of course, accepted that once-for-all sacrifice for the sins of His covenant people. and therefore we no longer need to sacrifice. We no longer need to repeat the sacrifice. We no longer need to atone for our own sins or pay for our own sins. If we confess our sins, we have an advocate with the Father. Amen? All right. And we are those who are represented by Him, fellow humans, His brothers in the Lord, the elect, the church, and we go into the presence of God on His coattails, as it were. He's the trailblazer. and we now can enter into the presence of God. And when do we enter into the presence of God? That's a very complicated question, but just to discuss the topic. Yeah. In some sense, there will be a full consummation of His presence where we see the Son face-to-face, but we are in the presence of God. Paul says in the book of Ephesians that we are with Christ, united with Christ, and seated in the heavenlies. We already are in some sense. The book of Hebrews chapter 11 and 12, 12 I should say, 12 and later into 13, pictures a church gathering on the Lord's Day as a holy procession going through the holy place and into the holy of holies. singing there, joining with the angels, joining in the heavenly chorus, and renewing our covenantal vows. You see in the book of Hebrews, you see a parallel between the Old Testament worship and the New Testament worship. You see the Old Testament worship beginning with the sacrifices. There was, if I can get these ordered, the guilt offering, then the ascension offering, and then the peace offering. As a worshiper offered the sacrifice of the blood, came in further, offered the ascension sacrifice, and then came in a little bit further, offering the peace sacrifice, symbolizing to be at one with God, fully atoned, and right with Him in a relationship. Well, all that Jesus has done, and what we do on Sunday mornings, honestly, is we also follow in that procession, experiencing the presence of God, and worshiping together in a covenant renewal service altogether. So, if you want to learn more about that, it's Hebrews chapter 12. and 13. It is more than a concert. Amen. I wouldn't do this for a concert. I don't even like concerts. I've been to one concert that I stayed for the whole thing. It was Petra in the 80s. All right. I was nine and my uncle made me right and there was a keytar That's all I remember. I went to a Kenny Wayne Shepherd concert. I stayed for three songs I was like, I got the gist, you know, it's sweaty in here and I left, you know, I wouldn't do this for a concert I hope you wouldn't either right and but this what we are doing is is Renewing our covenant with the Lord who is steadfast and faithful to us every week And that's one of the reasons why my children would miss church over my dead body Amen? Over my dead body. They have missed probably two or three times in their lifetimes because of immense sickness or whatnot. Not for their sake, but for the sake of others, right? But this is an important thing that we do here, and so I'm glad you're here. He rose bodily from the grave. He didn't just rise, He went through the veil into the heavenly temple and into the Holy of Holies with the presence of God, offering the sacrifice, accepted the atonement for all of His people. Amen? And why is He seated? What's the significance of the sitting? His legs were tired? it's finished, it is done, he's accomplished. And he sits, we're not supposed to imagine, Jesus is not like feeble, you understand what I mean? The point is not that, it's a symbol that his work has been accomplished, it has been finished, and that seat that he is on is what we would commonly call a throne, that's right, that's right. In the right hand of the father is the place of authority, as the prime minister, ruling over what? ruling over his kingdom which has come to what realm? Our realm. When did that happen? Daniel said it would happen in the era of the Romans, and it did. It came. John the Baptist said, repent for the kingdom is at hand. It showed up on earth. Jesus said it would expand like a mustard seed until it filled the entire globe like a giant tree where birds would nestle under branches. He said it would be like a mountain. Daniel said it would. A mountain would spread over the entire earth. His kingdom will have no end. His government shall have no end, and he will reign as the son of David forever and ever. And that's happening now. on the throne of heaven over this realm, over this material realm. He is the mediatorial ruler. Was he the mediatorial ruler in the Old Testament? No, in fact, the demons and the devil was. But the devil was cast down from heaven. Jesus saw him fall like lightning, and Jesus was raised up, drawing all men to himself, and he ascended to the throne, removing the usurper, taking his rightful place, and sending out his disciples to the nations. He is bound Leviathan. He has chained him with a chain. He can no longer deceive the nations, and the gospel goes forward. So, where did you get all that from this, Pastor Brandon? I'm just, I'm embellishing here, but anyway. He rules his kingdom. He prays for us, interceding for us. If he wasn't interceding for us, we'd be done for. Amen? And he's going to do this until he fully returns, consummates the kingdom, and we see him face to face. All right. Amen. Great stuff. I would like to, this brings up another point. Lazarus raised from the dead was not the same thing as Jesus being raised from the dead. Right? Lazarus' body was not a new glorified, new creation body. Lazarus' resurrected body was a part of the old creation, the fallen order. It eventually died and went into the tomb. Jesus rose the first act of the new creation, what is called redemption. His body is immortal, so to speak. I don't like that word, that's from Greek philosophy, but to give you the idea, his body knows no decay or no death whatsoever. It's a perfectly glorified body. And so that he was the only one. And I would also say this, that nowhere in any literature of any pagan society on the face of the planet at any time was the idea of a resurrection like that ever even mentioned once. So, when next time you hear Lord Horace and Osiris and all that nonsense that you read on, watch on YouTube videos, don't believe it, all right? It is not true. And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, then good for you, right? All right, moving on. Grieving the Spirit of God. Why is this important? And why does this matter? Because we at Christ Church, right? This is who we speak on behalf of, and hopefully this is true of every local church, but because we are determined to maintain the presence of an ungrieved Holy Spirit in every facet of our lives individually and collectively. Amen. We as a church want to experience day in and day out an ungrieved Spirit of God. And you'll see what I mean by that as we go on this morning. Let's open up our Bibles if you need to Ephesians chapter 4. We'll read a few verses to get the context here. As you're turning there, I did a little poll on our special group. And I asked what topics you'd like to cover. Parenting, nobody cared about the children. Marriage, health, no one cared about that either. So they did care about this ambiguous, vague, safe topic of grieving the spirit. But I'll do my best to make this one painful too, right? We'll do spanking next class. That was one of them. I want to do a whole class on that because it's just an epidemic out there. Parents just don't understand, as Will Smith said. All right, Ephesians chapter four, verse 30. And do not, he says, it's a command. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you are sealed. for the day of redemption. Amen, amen. If someone could, just real quick, if someone could read verses 25 through 29 for me, verses 25 through 29, and see the specific sins and whatnot that are being addressed there. You have it, Wade, go ahead, real loud. Therefore, having slid away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth of 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. Okay, notice the specific sins that are addressed. Tell the truth. Right? No falsehood, no corrupt speech, no vulgar, profane, perverted speech and innuendos and et cetera, et cetera, but rather speak that which is edifying and lifts up. No more stealing and mooching, but rather work in order that you might have something to share. And there was one more, that's right, no more unresolved anger and bitterness. Reconcile those interpersonal relationships within the life of the church. So He addresses the life of the local body and He addresses particular sins. And you can see that each and every one of these sins revolve around our relationships one to another. Don't steal from each other, but work hard with your own hands that God has given you in order that you might have something to share with one another. Don't hold the truth from each other. Don't lie to each other, but speak the truth in love, with gentleness. Don't be angry. and upset with each other, holding on to grudges and bitterness, but rather be reconciled and do everything you can to have healthy, peaceful relationships one to another. You see the general, I mean not the general, but the specific sins that are being addressed here in the local church. But then in verse 30, he caps off the whole exhortation with a rather ambiguous, and it is an ambiguous command. Because he doesn't exactly say specifically what he's getting at. It's almost like he's just summarizing the whole thing with this tagline, assuming that they know what he's talking about. You see that? Someone read verse 34 for us one more time. I've got it right here actually. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Now, what does this mean? We're gonna have to take our time getting to this because it's not necessarily simple, but it is a general address to them, a general command, and there's some assumptions underneath it. Whenever you're studying your Bibles, you need to do everything you possibly can to read not only the text, but try to read the assumptions that are there. Read the assumptions, read the foundation upon which the text stands, if that makes sense. Notice one. The foundation, one of the foundations of this text is that the spirit of God is personal. It's personal. Now when I'm saying personal, I'm using this in a technical sense. I have a particular definition for this. What do you think I'm getting at here? Can you grieve the law of gravity? No. That's an absurd statement. Can you grieve a flower? Some people may think you can. I don't think you can. He is assuming that you can break the heart of personal beings. That's right, personal beings, like your wife or like your children or like another human. Can you grieve a rock or a geological structure? No. Can you grieve stars or the sun? No. Now, this is important to say because many worldviews don't believe in a personal God. They don't believe in a God who is, what would be the theological word for that? Imminent. They believe in a God who is transcendent, overall, or omnipresent, like an amorphous, ambiguous force or energy. Is God transcendent? Is He omnipresent? Absolutely. But He is also, as revealed in Scripture, personal. Interpersonal. He speaks. In fact, at times He speaks to individuals directly. Now Zeus and, give me some others, some relatives of Zeus. Apollo. Okay, Apollo, the god of war, right. Or no, that's Mars, or is that the Greek name? Apollo is. Thor. Thor. Daredevil, Superman, Batman. These demigods, these gods are personal, you know? They're very imminent. They're in fact so imminent, so personal, that if you do or say the wrong things, they get irritated with you and strike you with lightning, right? I mean, I'm not an expert on Greek mythology, but you have to understand, like, if you read the Odyssey or the Alien, those gods come down to Earth and, you know, have relationships and whatnot. They're very imminent. When we think of Mars or Poseidon, we don't think of an omnipresent transcendent force. as we would with maybe the Native American understanding of the great spirit or whatnot. Or the force underlying the yin yang, if you know that. Or the Star Wars God. If we're gonna talk about Batman and Superman and Thor, the Star Wars God is a force. And a force can be manipulated. It can be techniques. techniques can be used to, you know, sort of like wield the force, that's right. The prosperity gospel is a religion like that. And all of its various versions, which are ubiquitous around, 40% of the American church is in, under the sway of the doctrine of the prosperity gospel. And most evangelicals don't think, oh, that's not prosperity gospel, they don't think God's gonna make you rich necessarily, that's not it, it's way bigger than that. In fact, the word prosperity is not even referring to money. It's referring to polish and social leverage and connections. The word wealth is referring to money in particular. So it's sort of an idea that God is a force, that if you do the right techniques, pray the right prayers, behave the right way, that you can then sort of manipulated to your success. The whole leadership movement, the leadership gurus, the zig-ziglers, all that, you know, it comes back to you. It's all about your choices. Your choices determine your destiny. That's all this other religion. And it has the idea that God is a force, that He's imminent. But here we see the Apostle Paul assume that the Holy Spirit of God can be heartbroken, so to speak, can be hurt on his insides. You understand? So this is, he is anything but some sort of malleable force, right? He's a personal being. And the Apostle Paul assumes that. Now God is transcendent and God is omnipresent, but he is also eminent and personal. So other religions will have one or the other usually, you know? Plato rejected the imminent gods, but he had a force-like god in his own mind. You have one of these others, but in Christianity you have a god who reveals himself as having attributes of both. And that, honestly, if you work this down, this doesn't make sense, logically. You wouldn't be able to persuade someone of this with a mathematical formula. It's only been revealed to us that we know that God is both imminent and transcendent. And he revealed that to us. In fact, it's assumed here that the Ephesian church knows it, that the Holy Spirit of God is not a force. He's not an aura. He's not something you catch. like catch the spirit. He's not a vibe or a buzz, he's a personal being. Make sense? And he assumes they know that already because they, of course, have the Bible already, the Old Testament scriptures. The New Testament covenant works haven't yet been canonized, but they have the entire Old Testament, and they have the prophets, and they have the apostles there as well. So, he assumes the Spirit of God is personal and has the innate abilities to experience internal grief and pain. Moving on, you see the assumption there in the text that the Apostle Paul assumes that we know that he can be grieved. And grieve not the Spirit of God. Hold up, Pastor. He can be grieved. He doesn't even build a case about that. He just assumes that these hearers know that he can be grieved and that we can do the grieving. Yes? No? You see the fundamental assumptions here? Okay. And then another one. He assumes that we know how not to grieve Him. Because He doesn't say, right? He doesn't explain it. He just says, oh, and don't grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. And so, the only thing that we can deduce is that perhaps they know something that we don't know. Or they are more familiar with particular texts in the Old Testament than we are. And that perhaps there is an Old Testament text that they are keenly aware of, that he was alluding to, that we are not specifically aware of. Anyone know of any Old Testament texts that speak of the Spirit of God or God being grieved? There's only one in the entire Old Testament. And so commentators and scholars believe he is referring to Isaiah chapter 63. So we can turn there in a second. But the basic meaning here, we can look at the word grieve. You know what the word grieve means. It's used in various other places in the New Testament. To be sorry, to be sorrowful, full of sorrow. The rich young ruler, the word is used there. Remember the rich young ruler? He had a lot of money. A lot of stuff. He wanted to follow Jesus, but he was torn. And he went away sad because he wanted to add Jesus to his portfolio, but Jesus doesn't play that game. And so he went away sad, sorrowful. Jesus is sort of an all or nothing, complete and total, ultimate allegiance. And the rich young ruler was sad that he couldn't work him in. And same word there. Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane experienced this same word. He began to be exceedingly sorrowful, the Scriptures say, as he began to imagine, perhaps, or begin to experience the first stages of the wrath of God being poured out on him. He began to be exceedingly sorrowful And it was not something exercised on Him from the outside just yet. He was in His heart, looking forward to the cross, filled with great sorrow and sadness and grief. Peter, when Jesus sat down with Peter on the shore of Galilee, and He asked Peter, remember three times, do you love me, right? And it says after the third time that Peter was sorrowful, he was sad, that his witness perhaps was so damaged that Jesus would need to ask him this three times. I don't exactly know why he was sad, but he was sad and he said, Lord, you know that I love you. You know all things. Amen. I'm kind of sad just thinking of the scene, right? And in the Corinthian church, the Apostle Paul says they sorrowed with a godly sorrow that led them to what? Repentance. Alright. It is the grief attending the awareness of sin before a crucified Lord. In the Corinthian letters, the Apostle Paul uses it to describe that feeling you have when you are aware of your sin. and its corresponding relationship with the death of Jesus Christ on the cross and all that He's done for you. Have you ever felt that before? Okay, so this is all the same word. Either God is trying to confuse us or the Holy Spirit can feel that too. You see what I'm saying? Okay. Either God's trying to confuse us using words with no apparent meaning our connection to the rest of the Bible, which he's not, of course. Therefore, we deduce that the Holy Spirit of God can also experience that sort of a feeling minus any sin, any ulterior motives, any imperfections or impurities mixed in with it. So, you know, just white, hot, pure sorrow in his being, in his insides. You know why I'm saying insides. He doesn't have insides, like we do. That's as good as I got for you. Alright, so here's the basic meaning of Ephesians chapter 4 verse 30. To grieve the Spirit of God means to do that which would cause the Spirit of God to experience the emotion of internal sadness, wounding and hurt without any taint of sin or self-centeredness or self-deception or bitter begrudging. Our grief may be mixed with blame shifting. Have you ever felt that one? Or our grief might be experienced simultaneously with an unhealthy obsession with what other people have done to us. You know what I mean? It's just tainted with sin. That's just the way it is. It might be real pouty. Like we might have godly sorrow mixed with pouting. Or self-centeredness. Why me? But with His, it's perfect and pure. White hot sorrow and grief. that can be caused by his covenant people doing or not doing certain things. Now, I haven't defined what that would be yet. It's just that which would cause. Any questions or any thoughts on this? Is this helpful? Should I wrap up early? Should we keep going? Yeah. All right. Sobering. Yeah. Amen. Have you thought of the Spirit of God as a personal being that can experience grief in response to what you do or don't do? Wow, serious. Would this perhaps be one tool in our toolbox in the fight against sin and the quest for holiness? Yeah, okay. Any other thoughts, any other applications? I think we're close. I think that's close. As we're going to see when we get to Isaiah. I think that's close. Alright, so what are the motivations? Ephesians chapter 4 verse 30. If you would, look down at that text one more time. What are the motives? There's two motives there. If you read very, very, very carefully, meditating on each word, you can pull out from that text the two motives. Anybody got it there? That's right. Two motives for not grieving Him. That's right, because of what He has done, He sealed you. And what He will do? Yeah, sure, I like that. That's all one phrase referring to the sealing. There's another one, it's kind of a trickier one. But did you know that Holy is not His first name? Right? You know, there's Brandon Neely. but there's not the Holy Spirit. It's not His first and His last name. He's the Spirit of God and He's often referred to as the Holy Spirit of God in order to communicate to us who He is. and His characteristics, His nature of being absolutely perfectly set apart from sin, brokenness, and evil, and wickedness. He is absolutely and utterly holy. So you can see why that's a motivation, right? So the first motivation is who He is. He is the Spirit of God who is, and the emphasis is on, holy. Holiness, that's right. Holy literally means to be set apart, to be sanctified. The instruments in the tabernacle had blood sprinkled upon them to cause them to be or make them to be holy in status. We are the holy ones or saints is how it's said in English. And we have been set apart as the saints or the holy ones. Of course, that holiness is the holiness of Christ imputed to us. But He is the Holy One. So motive, He is the Holy One and His God. So why would you not want to grieve Him? He is God. Let's all say that together. The Holy Spirit is God. Jesus is God. God the Father is God. The Holy Spirit is all God, all of God. He doesn't have one third of God. If the Holy Spirit is in your heart, God is in your heart. All of His being and all of His totality. Now, in what logic class would you be able to do that proof? Maybe in statistics or math. What microscope could you look under to discover that? What telescope could you look through? Right? Is there any experiment that could be run where you could draw from it a conclusion that the Holy Spirit is full and totally God, and so too is Jesus, and so too is the Father, and it's not one in three? Right? Do you see the point I'm making? Do we have human reason given to us by God? Are we supposed to draw conclusions from things we see in this world? and things we do in experiments, or look through a telescope, or microscope, or perhaps arguments that are made, good arguments, strong arguments. God has given us that as a gift, it's reason, right? Do animals have that? Yeah, I tell my kids all the time when they're like, how, how? I say, God has given you reasoning capacities much greater than the smartest monkey. And I want you to use those reasoning gifts to figure out where the can opener might be. Because you tell them to do one task, and if it's not just right there in front of them, I was like, I'm promoting you. You're more than a gopher around here. You're resourceful. You make things happen. I just delegate it to you, and you make it happen. But they're in that stage where they're between gopher and make things happen. And so I say, you know, we need green beans tonight. I don't know where the can opener is. You gotta work on that. They have reasoning abilities. You know, animals have that too, by the way. Animals can do that too. Just not to the capacity we can. But there is no reasoning capacity that would ever conclude the doctrine of the Trinity. There is no rock you could lift up and look underneath and find the doctrine of the Trinity. How do Christians have this truth? It has been revealed to us in special revelation of scripture. And the world non-Christians don't have that and they don't get it. and they can't read it. Well, they can read it in some sense, but they cannot see it the way we can. So the doctrine of the Trinity is a mystery outside of the realm of reason. And we do believe that if we were to have more information, that our reasoning capacities minus sin could perhaps come close to comprehending something close to it. But that's gonna be in another world, right? In this world, we just receive it in the revelation of Scripture. He is God, He is the Holy One, amen? And He should not be grieved. He is God and possesses all that God is and God like in His person. Amen? Next one, what He has done. Notice what the text says there in verse 30. What has He done for us? We should not grieve Him because He's the one who created us. He could have said that, but He didn't. He's the one who regenerated us, caused us to be born again. He could have said that, couldn't he? He's the one that called us with irresistible grace upon the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He could have said that. There's a lot of things the Spirit of God does. But the one He chose was the sealed one. So, I don't exactly know why, but we would have to study it a little bit further to try to come to a good conclusion. But to be sealed is to be stamped with a wax seal, to be... authenticated, to be guaranteed. When you were saved, saved? When you were regenerated by the Spirit of God, God the Father stamped you with the seal which is the Spirit of God, okay? If you have that seal on you, you are guaranteed that God will finish what He started. Makes sense? Amen. Amen. Amen. So now, He says from that seal, you should deduce, because you've been sealed, you are guaranteed eternal life, guaranteed God's going to finish what He started. He draws from that, you should therefore not grieve the Spirit of God. He's with you. He's the seal. He's on you. He's in you. Guaranteed. And therefore, don't grieve Him. That's the motivation. Who He is and what He has done. Now, if you would... I just skipped forward too far. Isaiah 63. Isaiah 63. Let's look at that. And that'll be the last thing we look at for today. Isaiah chapter 63. And if you would, start in verse 7. Start in verse 7. If someone could read that out loud for us. Pastor Joe, do you have it there? Could you read it real loud for us? I will recount the steadfast love of the Lord, the praises of the Lord, according to all the Lord has granted us, and the great goodness to the house of Israel, that He has granted them according to His compassion, according to the abundance of His steadfast love. For He said, Surely they are My people, children who will not deal falsely, and He became their Savior. In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them. In His love and in His pity He redeemed them. He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old. But they rebelled. Alright, that's verse 10, right? That's not all. Okay, hold one second. Notice the context. The redemptive mercies of God to His special people. steadfast covenantal love, mercy, affliction to Himself, persevering with them, saving them. Do you see the context there? His special people. Now, when you read those, couldn't every single one of those verses be applied to us, the Church? Yes, they are, in fact. Those are our Scriptures. But what did they do, they being Israel, the nation of Israel, His special people, what did they do in verse 10, Pastor Joe? But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit. Therefore He turned to be their enemy and Himself fought against them. Verse 15. Look down from heaven and see from your holy and beautiful habitation where your zeal and your might, the stirring of your inner parts and your compassion are held back from you. Can you read 10 one more time? I've lost the verse that I actually needed. But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit. There it is. All right. You see it? That is the one. Here it is. in the Septuagint, the LXX, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. you have the same word right there. And this is it. That's the text. This is the only potential parallel passage in the Old Testament for that word grieve. The ESV translators notice it, and they translated grieve on both. Good for them. That's good. What we can conclude, I do believe, is that that is the context that the Apostle Paul has in his mind and that he assumes the Ephesian listeners know about. They were much more familiar with Isaiah than we are. You have to understand in 63 the context is the covenantal faithfulness and mercies of God to Israel. But in verse 10, they rebelled and grieved him. Is he referring to all of Israel in totality as a collective unit or is he referring to each and every individual? It's the collective, because there were some who did not grieve him, right? Joshua and Caleb, you know, the faithful remnant. But as a whole, the nation grieved him and rebelled against him. So look what happens in verse 17 through 19. Oh Lord, why do you make us wander from your ways and harden our heart so that we fear you not? Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your heritage, your holy people held possession For a little while, our adversaries have trampled down your sanctuary. We have become like those over whom you have never ruled, like those who are not called by your name." Cut off. The trampling of the temple. The destruction of the temple. All of the above. You can see other words used, vexation. And if you look in 17 through 19, that that grief that was caused by their rebellion leads to God's vexation. And how does it ultimately get expressed in the Old Testament? The destruction of the northern tribes by the Assyrians? in the 700s, and the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in 586, somewhere in that area, and complete and total obliteration of the temple, thrown them into exile, and from that point on, all the way into Jesus' coming, they are under the thumb of oppressors. The Babylonians, the Persians, then the Greeks, and then the Romans, in exile, so to speak. Does that mean that no Jew became a Christian or went to heaven? No, but the nation as a whole fell under the vexation or the wrath of God, so to speak, and that all culminates. You can read about that in the book of Revelation. It's the main point of the book of Revelation. It all culminates in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, that which Jesus prophesied when he said, not one stone will be left standing. All of this will happen before this generation passes away. And the Jerusalem temple was destroyed. The Romans came in there and absolutely massacred the entire city. And you see in the book of Revelations the emergence of the new city of God, the new Jerusalem, and the new temple, which is the church. And we enter into a new era of the kingdom of heaven, the one we are in currently. We take all of that, I just gave you a huge overview of the whole thing, we take that in Isaiah and we put it over here in Ephesians, and what we have here is a warning to a church, to the Ephesian church. Do not grieve the Spirit of God. And the implication is that if this church does, then what will happen? They will be disenfranchised. The Spirit of God will remove their lampstand, as it says in the book of Revelation. An individual saint, here's my summary, an individual saint cannot be condemned if you've been sealed with the Spirit of God. But a certain congregation, one like Christchurch, or one like the church at Philippi, or Thessalonica, or Corinth, a certain congregation can have her lampstand removed. She can be disenfranchised as a church. The church can become a mere statue pointing to a past life, have a building, have a preacher, have job slots, have some stained glass, have a big giant Bible somewhere on a table, like a dead statue that commemorates something that no longer exists. Therefore, Christ's church must be determined to experience the ongoing presence of an ungrieved spirit of God. You see, I think this is the gist. If we as a church would grieve the Spirit of God to such an extent that He would become vexed and His anger would be kindled, and like what Hebrews chapter 10 says, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God, that it is possible for we as a congregation to be disenfranchised and to be scattered Individual Christians cannot lose their salvation, but there is no absolute seal or guarantee that Christ's church as a local church will last forever. But there is one surefire way to make sure we do, as long as God would see fit, and that is that we do not grieve the Spirit of God. If we have preaching and we don't have the Spirit of God, what do we have? Lectures. No thank you. Amen? Could you have good rhetoric and no spirit? Yes, could you have true doctrine and no spirit? Could you have awesome songs and no spirit? Could you have the hymns of the faith that make you feel all sorts of nostalgia and yet have no spirit of God? Is that possible? Could you have an awesome building, a stained glass, and rafters that reach up to the heavens? You can have all of these things. But if you don't have the spirit of God because He has been vexed, because He has been grieved, and He has removed Himself from your presence, you have nothing. You could have prayer, and they could say some of the similar words that folks used to say, but no Holy Spirit power. You see? You might have a certain message, but the message must come not only in truth, but also in the power. And you can worship, but if you're not worshiping in Spirit and truth, then you're not worshiping. You see that? I do believe that this is what the admonition is for us. The exhortation is do not grieve the Spirit of God as a congregation. The context was specific sins of interpersonal dynamics. Don't anger. Don't have bitterness, but resolve. Live in peace with each other. Don't steal, but work and share. Don't lie to each other. Tell the truth. And then he says, don't grieve the Spirit of God. You see how it fits with the context. I do believe this is the overall point. And so, for the next few weeks, we'll be talking about how to to be healthy and flourishing as a church, and to experience the unvexed and ungrieved spirit of God in all that we do. Amen? That's what we want. That's what we want. All right, well, let's have a great Lord's Day. Amen. You're welcome. There is a lost and found on the counter in there. Y'all can look and see if you have coffee mugs or anything.