Brothers and sisters friends, would you please have your Bibles open and stand with me for the reading of God's Word? Our passage for this morning is from Ephesians chapter 4 verses 30 to 32 and Since we dabbled on verse 29, let's pick up from there and then get a running start and look at all these imperatives. And as you have seen, Apostle Paul consistently uses the pattern, just one tiny little break, but consistently, the negative command, the positive command, and the reason for the positive command. And look for that pattern as we go through this passage together. This is the Christian clothing, beginning with Ephesians chapter four, verse 29. This is the reading of God's 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, so that it would give grace to those who hear. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Amen. Please be seated. Many people who work in our community and society wear uniforms. Some of them have to wear uniforms because it's required by their employers. Others choose to wear uniforms. for many, many decades and many centuries, the clergy, the pastors, professional pastors in America wore some type of a uniform. And there's kind of pros and cons to that. The pro side is, of course, you are held publicly accountable. The con is that some unscrupulous people use that garb as pretense of some sort of position. and authority and they lord it over men. And so we've learned to distinguish the difference between those who wear it for their own accountability and those who don't. If somebody showed up at your doorstep and knocked on your door and you look through your peephole and he's got tank tops and shorts and flip flops but he's got a gun and saying, this is the police, open the door, you would be very suspect. It's not what you expect and it's the same thing. You would expect a UPS man to wear his brown uniform not somebody with the hoodie and saying, this is the UPS deliverer. And so we can judge someone's job and activity and even character by what they wear. Judges today still, in the court of law, they put on a black gown. There's a lot of symbolisms behind that. There's a lot of tradition also. But there's a practical functionality about how we determine someone's personality, even character, even position, by what they wear. And it's hard to shake off. It's part of our social upbringing and fabric. I remember going multiple times to the same restaurant, AKA In-N-Out. I would go in there, I would be in my regular blue jeans, a shirt, and the clerk behind the counter saying, what can I do for you, man? And I said, I'd give him my order and say, Have a good one, okay? And next. But if I go in there after Sunday with my suits, I say, may I help you, sir? Completely different response. Sometimes from the same guy. And I noticed something there, and as an observant individual, you see, wow, what we wear, Sometimes, even when we don't do anything, can convey a certain message. Now, when we talk about Christian clothing, this is actually a metaphor. We're not wearing a literal piece of wardrobe clothing, but it is what we put on that manifests the aroma and the visage of our Lord. We are the reflection of God on Earth. That's quite humbling, I know. to think that you are God's representative, Christ's ambassador on earth, that is very humbling. And it should humble every one of us, publicly and privately, both at home and at work and in our community and society. It's very important because people will judge us, oftentimes, by how we conduct ourselves. More than that, there's two passages I hope you got here And we glossed over it, but it says, verse 30, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God. God is involved. So what's the opposite of grieving him? Bringing delight, bringing joy, bringing delight to our God. And this is the way we need to conduct ourselves. We must avoid all things that would bring him sorrow, but we must do everything that would bring him great joy and pleasure. What's another one? At the very end, it says, just as God in Christ has forgiven you. You see, this is not just our conduct to be practiced and benefiting in the church or our witness to outsiders. This is a direct consequence of our relationship with God himself. And that's what this passage is about. He gave us his clothing, the heavenly uniform, if you will, so that we can properly reflect who he is. Before we go out into the world with our uniform, our Christian wardrobe, into the world, our Heavenly Father is pleased when He says, now you look fantastic. Go out there, champ. That's what your mom and dad did when they put on new clothes, a brand new jacket, brand new pair of shoes, and saying, have a great day at school, son. And this is what our Heavenly Father is saying to each one of us, As Christ won these wonderful gifts to dawn us with this perfect righteousness, now he's telling us to conform to who we are. And he's sending us out into the world. He's expecting us to relate to one another both privately in the home and in the church and publicly in life. And so much of our Christian interaction in the home and in the church is based on conversation. Even with outsiders, we witness, we have to talk. If you're a Christian and you don't like to talk, I'm sorry, you're gonna have to learn. We have to learn a lot of new things, a lot of new habits. I was mostly an introvert most of my life. I think I still am for the most part. I do well by myself. Left alone, I don't ever feel lonely and there's no one around me. I don't need to seek companionships. I am a very duty, activity, task-oriented individual, I think. I like to get things done, get the job done. That's just kind of naturally who I am. and therefore I don't need to be surrounded by people all the time. I love Christian fellowship and companionship. Now I do. But in the past, this was not a desire of mine at all. When Christ gave me new life, when he saved me, I found the importance of talking with people. I'm naturally shy, but I had to overcome that. And so most people think I'm an extrovert, I'm not. All the tests that I've ever taken shows that I'm an introvert. So I had to go and talk about Jesus. Why? Because he is the throbbing subject in my heart, and I need to share. They need to know. And when we have a conversation, we should want to exalt the Lord. and you and I have that in common, so when we get together, that's why Christians love to talk, they love to get together, because so much of our interaction is based on talking, conversation, and witnessing to unbelievers. But so much of our sins also come from the mouth, from the speech, and that's why Apostle Paul revisits this area once again. He's already talked about the necessary language of truth. We must speak truth at all times and get rid of falsehood. He's already referenced this speaking already, but he says now we must do more than just speak the truth. We must speak constructively as well. It's not enough for believers to stop lying, but they need to get rid of all kinds of filthy talk plus unedifying talk. The fact that the positive command is given here and saying Only that gives grace to others, that edifies others, shows that we need to get rid of a lot of unnecessary and shall we say unproductive speech. And this is where the Lord fine-tunes us, and this is good for the church, right? You know, Christian life is not just about getting rid of the huge, gaping, visible sins. No, it's about fine-tuning our character to the very minute details, and the Lord polishes us. as the craftsman does that finishing work and he puts that final coat of lacquer on to make it shine. And then you put it on the pedestal as the museum piece that it could be. So the Lord is making a masterpiece and so don't despise the fact that he is trying to fine tune you. Don't disregard this and don't say, hey, I'm sanctified. I don't need to do this. All of us have room for improvement in this area. So he calls believers to put off corrupt speech and then to put on constructive speech. Now what does this look like? Well, we dabbled on it last week, verse 29, so let's pick up from there. Notice the typical pattern, the negative command. Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth. And that's a very clear command. Don't do this anymore. And the word for unwholesome there, as we studied, meant rotten. Rotten fruits and vegetables and meats, things that are decaying, that's what this word was used in the secular Greek. So this is vulgar speech. This is a speech that was part of your unregenerate past. Now some of you may think, well, that was a long, long time ago. I can't even imagine talking like that anymore. Well, praise God. God has been refining you. The Bible just doesn't talk about vulgar speech, that's obvious. No Christian should be talking that way. But the scripture talks about careless words, unedifying words. And this is where seasoned Christians must pay attention. Matthew 12, verse 36, Jesus said, but I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. Well, that should frighten every one of us because the Lord said, this is the Lord. He's not exaggeration. He doesn't mislead. Careless word, yeah, that's what this is. This is idle talk. The kind of unedifying speech that people engage in when they have too much time and very little concern for God's glory and others' growth. First Timothy chapter five, verse 13, the word of God says, at that time, at the same time, they also learn to be idle, as they go around from house to house, and not merely idle, but also gossips and busybodies, talking about things not proper to mention. There are many improper things to talk about. And some of you may have a habit of wanting to talk about improper things, idle speech, careless words. And Apostle Paul tells Timothy to look out for these things because as an apostolic delegate, as a spiritual leader representing the apostle in the church of Ephesus, the gateway, the largest church in Asia Minor, the mother church of the Gentile mission in Asia Minor here, the very church that's receiving the epistle to the Ephesians here, It says they're gossips and busybodies. That's what happens when people are idle. When people retire, what do they do? Hopefully not become gossips and busybodies. When stay-at-home moms have so much time and the kids are out of school, what do they do? I hope they don't become gossips and busybodies. When men, are taking a long break, a sabbatical, or even in between jobs as they're looking for employment. I hope they're not doing that. But people naturally gravitate toward the basest forms, and the Word of God exposes this. Paul wrote to the Colossians, and he said in Colossians 3, verse eight, but now you also put them all aside, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. James says the tongue is extremely difficult to control, as you and I well know. James 3.8, but no one can tame the tongue. If you say, but I can, well, you just deceived yourself. It's difficult to tame. No one can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. So now you can see the finer points of sanctification will happen in your speech. Expect it. Give God and the Holy Spirit the full control of it. Tongue is simply a metaphor for what goes on in the heart and in the mind. What you think and what you process will naturally be communicated. And it's like a knee-jerk reaction. It's like an athlete Exercising himself, honing himself to be responsive, reflective. It's called muscle memory. He doesn't even have to think about it. It just happens. It blurts. As a 100-meter runner would practice over and over again. The starting point, the first microsecond of how fast he can dash toward that final finish line can determine between gold and silver. And so he practices again and again until he doesn't even think about it. He just simply reacts to that gunfire and he dashes off. This is how we need to train ourselves that whenever the situations arise that what's in the heart will naturally come out. And all of us have erred in this area except the Lord Jesus Christ. When the people struck Jesus in the face, spat on him, Jesus said, who struck me? That's it. When the mob struck Paul in the face, he says, God will strike you, you whitewashed wall. Anger, justifiably. And yet, he spoke a little too quickly. Even the saintliest, most self-controlled apostle was not as perfect in self-control as the Lord Jesus was. Jesus never got angry at those who persecuted him. He prayed for them. And so when we see our model, man, we fall much short of where God wants us to be. And so how much grieved must Peter have been when he denied the Lord three times And the scripture tells us how he denied the Lord three times and the third time how he denied him. And as a matter of fact, we cannot get this from the Bible from any other person except from Peter himself. This must be a self-testimony because which one of the gospel writers would write something bad about Peter? It's the most embarrassing and probably the most Demeaning aspect about Peter's life and experience and yet we have it in the Bible in all of its details Matthew 26 verse 74 then he began to curse and swear. I do not know the man and Immediately the rooster crowed he didn't just deny Jesus if the scripture says he began to curse and swear so see even as he followed Jesus for three years and That was the language that he knew from his past that came out at the moment of pressure and danger. And so you and I should be equally shocked and grieved when in the heat of the moment ungodly speech blurts out of our mouth that we thought were gone through years of sanctification. How many of you know what I'm talking about and you have experienced this? All right, thank you for being honest. And so this should mean a lot for you and for me. Sin lies much deeper than we think. And sanctification is still incomplete. Only the naive and immature think that these things just go away so quickly. No, sin is much deeper than we think. And we are much weaker than we think. So it's important that we fill our minds with the things that honor God so that our speech would be transformed and that the knee-jerk reaction of our expression would be godliness. So this is what you and I need to work on or work out in the downtime. This is what soldiers do. They don't have to be in the front line fighting the enemy, but in the downtime, they sharpen their swords. They prepare their equipment. They practice their skills. so that they get ready. So we need to practice this. This is what God's word says. Philippians chapter four, verse eight, and here is the manual on what we need to start doing, practicing. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, Whatever is of good repute, if there's any excellence, if anything is worthy of praise, dwell on these things. You need to train your mind not to drift into some meaningless, lifeless, and vain preoccupation, but to meditate upon Philippians 4.8. Force your mind to look for and search for these things that the Word of God commands, and meditate upon them. Start from the Bible, start from the very beginning, and say whatever is true, whatever is honorable, and go down the list. And you will find quite a few that will remind you, and from your own experience, from your own life. And may those things be connected with your permanent memory base that you will regurgitate over and over and over again. Pray, speak to God, in the times of your meditations. Nothing fights unedifying speech. Nothing corrects and gets rid of and suppresses the sinful patterns of the past than new patterns that you develop. Nothing fights unedifying speech like edifying speech. Nothing fights sorrow like joy. Nothing fights grumbling discontentment like giving thanks. Nothing fights lust like sacrificial service. Think of all the things that you and I struggle with in our sin and look at what the Bible commends. Our Lord knows. It's the positive that ultimately crushes and suppresses all the things that we have learned as a matter of habit over the years. So that was the negative command. Don't allow these things to be part of your vocabulary anymore. Now here's the positive command. But only such a word as is good for edification. Of course the word edification means building up. eco domain and it comes from the architectural world. You build a house, you raise up the walls and put on the roof and on a foundation. Everybody knows what this means. It means that people need building up. They don't need tearing down. They need building up. So, notice it's other oriented speech. Notice that. Sure, you can talk to yourself and edify yourself. I guess you can talk. John, why are you so down today? Put your hope in God. Okay, I guess I can talk to myself, and that's good. But what we have here is a positive command on how you need to communicate to other people. The words of the Christians are to be good for edification. It must be helpful. It must be constructive. It must build up. Now, it doesn't mean that it must always be flowery. There's a big difference between edifying speech and flowery speech. There used to be a time in American's history where people paid money to hear flowery words because they didn't have movies and good respectable people didn't go to theaters. That's where shady people went. So they actually paid money to hear lectures. Yeah, they did. and the people would come and talk about sundry topics and it was flowery. That influence has crept into the church and they expected the preacher to be masterful in oratory skills. And some were, some were brilliant. They had such a command of the English language that everything that they said were incredibly rich and beautiful to hear than how we normally would say it. And so what a blessing it is for us to bring back the plain speech of clear communication. So there's a clear difference between flowery speech, things that, oh, they sound really good to hear, versus edifying speech. Proverbs 25 verse 12 says, like an earring of gold and an ornament of fine gold is a wise reprover, that's someone who reproves or corrects, to a listening ear. Wow, it's like a beautiful jewelry and adornment. Of what is? Reproof is. To what? A listening ear. So if a person wants to be edified, He will seek out things that he must hear, he needs to hear. And so this is the job of the preacher is that I am called to speak to you what you must hear, what God wants you to hear, not what you desire to hear. If you keep demanding what you desire to hear, then you may be in greater trouble than you think. Rather than saying, Lord, What is that you would have me hear? Speak, your servant is listening and I will obey. That needs to be our disposition. Now why is this important for the Christian? It's important because sometimes what we need to hear is correction. That's edifying. You know, any contractor knows, any builder knows, you know, if that beam is slightly crooked, even just a couple of degrees out of plumb, you got to correct that before you build the rest of the building. That's going to cause other beams to be misaligned and the whole thing to be weakened. And so, therefore, sometimes correction is exactly what we need. We don't need to hear somebody patting on the back and say, yeah, kinda eyeball it, looks pretty good to me, let's put the roof on. That will be a disaster, right? First sign of earthquake, this tilted thing will be the first one to tilt faster and it'll go. So it's very important for you and I to understand that edifying speech can sometimes be corrective speech, but that's necessary. Sometimes it is encouragement. When we're discouraged, we need encouragement. By the way, when we need correction, we don't need encouragement. We need correction. And so who knows this? A wise person knows this. So this is really a call, a positive call. It's like if you know what to say, when to say it, how much to say, and what to withhold, you are a very wise individual. and all of us lack wisdom. James says, let him ask of God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it shall be given. All of us need to pray, because all of us lack wisdom in that way. But here, the word of the Christian must be appropriate, according to the need, and now NASB translators carefully italicized, of the moment, That's probably the sense of it, but it's the need. What is the need? The need dictates how much, how little, how strong, how weak. That's a nuanced perspective. You students, how much should you study for that exam? I don't know. Depends on what grade are you seeking or how strong you feel. If you're a great math student, you probably don't need to study as much as you need to study for history. You need to study twice as much for history than for math because that's your weakness and so you want to strengthen your weakness. All of us have to make these calculations according to the need. Now, so what does this positive command tells you? You need to be more thoughtful and cautious of what comes out of your mouth and be concerned about the other person. So it forces the Christian to be sanctified and refined in a more sensitive way. So do our words meet the need of the conversation? Is it clarifying? Then you meet the need. Sometimes the topic that we're talking about, it's kinda unclear, it's fuzzy. What you say can clarify the whole thing, and everybody goes, oh, yeah, we get it. That's great, that's edifying. Is it helpful? No, no, no, that's not what I need help in. I need help in this. Can you please tell me about this? And you say, no, no, no, let's not talk about that. That's not important. Let's talk about this. Sometimes people say a lot of things, but it's not very helpful. Is it beneficial? Is it corrective? Is it loving? Is it kind? All these things need to be considered. We should avoid saying things that could harm people. Some things, which are perfectly correct and accurate, are better left unsaid. That takes a lot of wisdom, too, what to withhold. what to withhold. You can enjoy your dinner just as much, probably much more by withholding a lot of the condiments that you habitually sprinkle, right? It's probably not good for you. And you understand what this passage is saying. The need of the moment, the need of that conversation should dictate how much, what to, and what to withhold. This requires a lot of wisdom. 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 11 says, Here's an encouraging thing about those of you who are already doing this. Keep doing it. Don't be pressured by other people. Let's say one immature, unthoughtful person saying, hey, don't tell me that. You're not my God. Don't try to rule over me. Don't do that. And then you go home and go, you're shaking up. I didn't think he would say that. I just want to be helpful and loving and I didn't say anything that was wrong. You thought about it and you just realized that that person was just irate, unkind. So don't let other people's sinfulness or poor response stop you from doing good things or speaking the truth. Encourage one another, keep doing it. Build up one another, keep doing that, just as you also are doing. Here's a good test. When many people tell you, you know, what you told me, that was very helpful. Okay, take their word for it. Assume that they're not flattering you or lying to you. Because yes is yes, no is no. So I say, okay, well, that's working. If another person says the same thing, oh, that was very clear, thank you. Well, keep doing that. Keep doing it. Don't let negative people pressure you from doing what the word of God says. If you are an edifying person, you must speak. It's the other people who need to be quiet. You edify. You strengthen. You think of them. You are helpful. The Word of God says, keep doing it. Here's the reason for the positive command. Verse 29. It's a beautiful word. It's the word that we know very well. It's grace. Here's the Purpose statement, the purpose clause in the Greek is the Hina particle. Here it is, Hina, so that, in order that, that's the purpose clause. Here it is, so that it will give grace to those who hear. You're dispensing grace, the unmerited favor that you have received from God and you're channeling to others. Now raw truth is seldom appropriate and sometimes it can be destructive. We have been saved by grace, we live in grace, therefore we ought to speak in grace, gracious speech. So godly saints, over decades and decades of refinement, know how to be gracious. You know, people who are a bit more abrasive, they really haven't been fine-tuned in this area. They haven't been sanded by the work of the word and the spirit. They're often, they blur things out that can be often very abrasive. So, scripture says very clear here that we are to give grace to those who hear. Just as grace characterizes who God is, it should characterize who his children are. Matthew 5, verse 16, let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. God's desire is that we be attention-grabbing. Not for ourselves, not bring attention to ourselves, but as the moon radiates, reflects the light of the sun, we are to reflect who God is. Always give God glory. Oh no, that's not me, my friend, you got me wrong. That's my Lord. That's Jesus, who's working in my life. Let me tell you what I used to be like. I was a scoundrel, I was a rascal. But you know what the Lord did in my life? He saved me. He forgave me, and the Spirit refined me, all by His grace. Let me share you about Christ. Let him who boasts boast in the Lord. Don't draw attention to yourself, but give glory to God. That's what happens when you channel grace, when you funnel grace. Gracious words of a Christian act as a preservative, like salt. to help retard spoilage. As Paul said in Colossians 4, 6, let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person. That's quite interesting here. It says, if you allow your speech to be gracious, to be flavorful, Not just retarding, right? So when somebody's foul mouth in your presence, what do you do? You get angry and saying, shut your mouth, you dirty mouth person. Go wash your mouth out with the soap, you potty mouth. Do you do that? No, that's not very gracious. No, all you need to say is something that's very gracious and that's very helpful at that time. When you hear something that's foul and negative, Just need to bring the attention to the Lord. Praise be the Lord. I am so thankful that He saved a sinner like me. That's what you need to think in your heart. And then when you communicate, saying, friend, may I ask you, may I plead with you for my sake, because I have a weak disposition in this area, to refrain from that, to just help me out. Humble yourself, importune your neighbor, and guess what? Next time, he won't. Don't focus on his foulness. Focus on your need to hear less of this that you're already getting. And so it's always importune. It was always request. It's always humbling yourself. Not saying, you better stop or else I'm gonna tell the manager about you. Not that kind of an attitude. It's always this attitude. It's always seasoned with salt. Our speech must also contain this flavor because sometimes we can be very bland, unflavored. So ask God to help you to become a flavorful communicator, not just a jabbermouth who leaves the conversation saying a lot of things, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but not needful or flavorful speech. So if you love to talk, You need to practice these disciplines so that you would give grace. And if you keep giving grace to those who hear, wow, you have a gift. You are an encourager, you're an edifier. You're a gracious individual. And believe me, I will be asking you to talk much more often. Because the church needs to be edified, right? We do. We need to hear things that build us up. So this is very important, not only privately, but corporately. This is information, this is an instruction that's given to the church. Now we've seen the change of corrupt words to constructive words. Now let's take a look at the remainder of the passage, verses 30, 31, and 32. What we have here is two separate categories. Paul lists five vices followed by three virtues. So we would see this as sinful vices to take off and saintly virtues to put on. First, he begins with the predictable negative command. Negative, and then positive, and the reason for the positive. Here's the negative. Do not greed the Holy Spirit of God. Right away, we recognize this is the first instance where Paul uses the full title, the name of the third person of the Holy Trinity, including the definite article, the Holy Spirit of God. And here, and he attaches it to an emotion. Grief. Everybody has grieved. Everybody has wept. Everybody has been deeply sorrowful. Everybody knows this word. You and I know it. And so, we don't have to explain. This Holy Spirit is not a force. It's not a phantom. He can be grieved. He has emotion. Therefore, he's a personality. He also has a will. We know he's a person. Paul is reflecting upon the Israelites who grieved God. In Isaiah 63 10 it says, but they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit. Therefore He turned Himself to become their enemy. He fought against them. Wow. We see God's pain because of human sinfulness. Genesis 6 6, the Lord was sorry, sorrowful it says, that He had made man on the earth and that He was grieved in His heart. So sin does more than offend God, it grieves him. And the fact that he loves us so much means that he grieves very much. There are probably some names of people that if someone were to blurt out that name, because that person doesn't hurt him, but if that name were to blurt her out, it would hurt you. Because for him, he doesn't love that individual that much. We can talk about mean and nasty people. For example, we can say Adolf Hitler. We can even talk about him generally as a political leader who rose up in Weimar, Germany, and so on and so forth. It means nothing to us. But to a Holocaust survivor, or a son or a daughter of a Holocaust survivor, that name means pain, grief, great anger, and consternation of soul. You understand. We understand this. All of us have individuals that when you name, there's grief. Other individuals, when you hear that name, there's joy. All of us have this. Therefore, you understand. Why do you grieve over someone that much? This is grief. It's because you love that much. You care that much, that's why it still grieves you, even though the experience is long gone and the memory has faded some, it still affects you. That should remind you how much God loves you, how much the indwelling Holy Spirit loves your soul. Jesus died to demonstrate His great love and His compassion upon you, and the Holy Spirit loves you. Why would you want to grieve somebody like that? If you do not grieve much, then you may not have loved as much. Our Lord Jesus, who laid down His precious life, gave us a Spirit, who said that He will be in you, abides in you, will be in you. I'm gonna ask the Father, He will give you another counselor, He said in John 14. That's intimacy with God. When believers continue to grieve the Holy Spirit, through continual sin, And the Holy Spirit, through the inner pangs of the conscience, provokes us in saying, that's wrong, don't do that. And we continue to suppress that and say, no, but I want to, and we keep grieving and grieving. Then his power, his influence, his ministry can be quenched. That's why the Bible also talks about not quenching the spirit. Don't quench the spirit through sin. And don't grieve the Holy Spirit through resistance and rebellion. Now, how is this connected with what we have seen? See, notice all these vices. If we don't pay attention and get rid of all these negative commands that the word of God tells us to take off, if we don't do that, and we keep doing what God says it is harmful to us, then it grieves the spirit. It says, by whom? You were sealed for the day of redemption. The Holy Spirit is God's mark of authenticity. When you seal something, it means it has the image of the authority. The Caesar seal, delegated through the governor, governor seal was on the tomb of Jesus with the big letter that says anyone who dares to open this tomb will experience the full consequences of the Roman government, which is death. There's a seal. When you seal a letter, it has a sign of official authority. So God's authority is placed upon each one of us. And what is the seal? Paul already talked about this in Ephesians 1.13. You are sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise. And he calls him the deposit guaranteeing our future inheritance, the arabon, the pledge of our inheritance. The same word for an engagement ring. which means that the wedding is coming. This is the seal. It's the engagement ring of God's love in us. We were sealed for that. For what? The day of redemption. That's Hebraism. For the saying, there's a day of wrath, Yom Yahweh, the day of the Lord. And here is the day of redemption, the day of great glory, the day of our glorification. Redemption really means a ransom payment. Somebody made the payment to release us from the bondage of sin and death. And that's what Jesus did on the cross. The ultimate consequence of that redemption means that we are set free and now adopted into His family and enjoy an everlasting life and fellowship with Him. This is glorification. The day of redemption is the ultimate eschatological end of that plan and purposes of God, why He purchased us from the life of sin and death in the first place. This is an amazing cost that should remind every forgiven sinner of the heavy debt of sin that we could never repay. So, since He has given us a down payment, saying that this is indeed the case, we cannot grieve the One who is called to help us, to counsel us, to comfort us. We can't do that. He's our teacher, He's our advocate, He's our divine resident. Therefore, it doesn't matter how much our ego is bruised, when the Word of God is open and someone points it out, You need to turn from this. Change your attitude toward this. Believe this. This is the will of God. You can't suppress that and then think that you'll be okay because you're grieving the Holy Spirit. It's God's will. So we ought to rather show God, our Holy Spirit, through our obedience, our highest gratitude. You're right, Lord. Thy word is true. Let God be true and every man be a liar. I'm not even gonna listen to my feelings or opinions or ideas. I'm gonna submit to your will and not grieve him. Holy Spirit also reminds us that we've already learned things that are true. Therefore, he reminds us. He teaches us now deeper truths based on that truth we've already learned. It's a cumulative effect of our sanctification. And so the Lord Jesus explained that in John 16, 13. But when He, the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak, and He will disclose to you what is to come. Furthermore, Holy Spirit helps us with our weaknesses and intercedes with us. This is another amazing ministry of the Spirit. In Romans 8, verse 26 and 27, in the same way the Spirit also helps our weaknesses, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with the groanings too deep for words. Paul is talking about a man or a woman who is calling out to God and who desperately wants to commune with God. That's right, this is not your on and on gibberish that many people call prayer, not even that. People usually often pray when they're desperate for God. That's when they're sincere and open and genuine. So don't teach some formulaic canned prayer. Leave people alone saying you need to seek God as you seek out oxygen. Air to a drowning man is how you must seek out God. Because if you don't seek him out that way, you don't know how to pray. You don't know to whom and with whom you're communing. Here it says that even when we desperately try to commune with God, it's like words just don't do it. We don't even know how to pray as we should. But the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. This is not tongues as our charismatic friends are telling us. Not at all. It says, and He searches the hearts and knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. This is one of the beautiful ministries of the Holy Spirit. He knows your thoughts and your minds better than you do. And praise God, he is your advocate. He will always be your advocate and not your adversary. This is what the Lord has given to us as our personal indwelling friend. Why do you want to grieve someone like that? The third person of the Trinity, God himself. Should we not conduct ourselves in such a way to bring delight to the spirit rather than bringing grief to him? And so you need to understand what grieves Him and what delights Him. And if you follow the positive command, you delight Him. If you follow the negative command and not do, not give up, not take off what you were called to, then it grieves Him. And here are some things that grieve Him. Verse 31. Here are five things. Paul returns to the topic of speech. He now returns to the topic of anger. He mentioned five manifestations of unrighteous anger. He said, be angry and yet do not sin in the previous passage. Now he returns back to the manifestation. These five vices all flow from an angry heart. And what's interesting is that they're all connected by the simple conjunction chi, which means and. It almost seems redundant, doesn't it? can just put words next to each other, and the English translators can just put a comma, but it's not like that. There's a and, and this, and this, and this, and this. And it grabs our attention. So why does Paul write like this? Why does he say it like this? When you look at it, then it seems to kind of spiral down the ladder of depravity. It just goes from bad to worse. And then when you look at the three positive virtues, oh, it just goes from good to better. And there is an escalation in this movement. So we see this. And he begins with all kinds of anger. And the word for anger there here in the Greek is pikia. So it's passa pikia, all kinds. And this anger is the brooding anger. So some of us need to add some sweetness into our life by being kind to people, praying for people, be the first to greet people instead of waiting for someone to say hi to you and say, hi, how you doing? Good to see you. How's your week been? Start up the conversation. A lot of people are often unwilling to do this, but they need to add a little sweetness to their life to help people. To serve people, what can I do to help you? How can I serve you? That sweetness, adding that sweetness in your spirit to enter your soul, that will defeat all kinds of bitterness, pessimism, and anger. It really will. Christian husbands must guard their hearts against bitterness toward their wives. There's bitterness and all kinds of anger. That bitterness, boy, that just crushes intimacy, doesn't it? Colossians 3.19, husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them. Sometimes it's not just enemies. Sometimes it's not people who hate us from work or our nasty neighbors who are out to get us. It's not them. But the constant berating that we get from our closest neighbors, our friends, even our family members, that embitters. If you're a child and your parents constantly nag at your soul, you can become embittered at them if you're not careful. And second word here is wrath, thumos, which points to passionate anger. And that's deeply emotional. Some of you may not sense your emotions, but you're a passionate person, right? Your laughter is very hearty. Ah, your mouth is open and you laugh and you're just, you're very emotionally expressive. Well, be careful because on the dark side is thumos here, wrath. Others of you are very calm and sedate and you don't hardly laugh, you just kind of smile a little bit and open your mouth and show your teeth. Well, and that's good. You may not express your wrath a lot, but then you may find yourself simmering, which is another word. It's the boiling up kind of anger. So the brooding anger, pikia, or the fiery anger of thumos, whether it be brooding or explosive, Words are covered here. Some people have no problem expressing passionate anger, while others would never do that. They were taught not to do that. Their personality prevents them from doing that, but they are angry. As a matter of fact, they can be more angry than people who just like volcano erupts, but then next moment they're calm. It's those people who are brooding, boiling, simmering inside for a long time that's most dangerous, and it's harmful. And these are the people who often plot revenge and harm to others. And if that kind of emotion gets unchecked in the church, there's gonna be a lot of conflicts in the church. The word of God gives us an insight into our hearts. As you grow in the faith, you would size up people and what their sins are. You and I need to be helpful. speak edifying words, corrective words, calling them to repent from that, because that's harmful to them, harmful to the body, and it is certainly harmful to the witness. How is anyone going to be sweet and gracious, radiate the aroma of Christ when they're like this all day, all week, for years? They're just eating them up inside. And a lot of these are problems that come from sin. They're not personality issues. This is a sin issue. Here, the third most generic term, or gay, translated anger, is a close synonym of the other two. It points to internal feelings. It all comes from the same root of Adamic pride. It's me. I'm important. My feelings were hurt. It's me. My ideas are important, but they ignored me. It's me. Don't they know how beneficial and good I am and yet all these lesser people get on top and I get to be on the bottom. It's me that promotes a lot of anger, discontentment. And the enemy, our enemy, our great enemy, Satan knows how to work this to our ill. The problem with our anger is that no matter how justified they are, no matter how rational these anger, angry feelings may seem to us, it's a powerful emotion. It drives us. It's a spiritual condition, it's very difficult to control and contain. It's like a spark of fire that burns out millions of acres of forest and kills people in the devastation of destroying homes and property. We've seen it again and again and again. And that's what the word of God says. Our tongue is a spark of fire that burns. Rages, it's hard to control. So our anger is often uncontrolled, and like sparks of fire, destroys people in its path. This next word, clamor, krauge here, often results from boiled up anger. It explodes, and it reverts to outbursts, and reveals loss of control. NIV translates it as brawling, but that's over translation, but sometimes that's what happens in our society, it's what happens. People get into a mild disagreement and it turns into a heated argument, next thing you know, they're throwing punches. This is what the world of unbelievers see all the time, uncontrolled expressions of anger. And yet, this is all that must be taken off. And here's the final, Worst part of all this anger is slander, and this English word slander comes from the Greek blasphemeia, and it can be slander toward God as well. That's blasphemy. That's what's translated literally. But here when it's directed toward men, it's slander. It's defamation of character that rises from a bitter heart. It's abusive language intended to cause as much damage to the other as possible. It's often, it's an exaggeration or outright falsehood designed to damage a reputation or attack someone. We often associate that term, offensive speech hurled against God, but it's often used against people, when someone has an ax to grind, against someone that they don't like. And if you're not careful and you don't control that and forsake that, then it can turn into something sinister, abusive language, And if you're witty, you're clever, and you're quick with your words, you can be more destructive. Then Paul adds, with all malice, the general term for moral badness here, kakia, that's the root of all vices, desiring harm, or ill will, or hostility against others. This must be all put away, put away from you. These sins involve conflicts between believers, or the believer with an unbeliever, conflicts. If left untreated, it will destroy relationships. Conflicts are not all necessarily bad. Some conflicts, when it's resolved wonderfully, shows that, wow, you had significant differences, and you've identified them. That's a good conflict resolution. But conflict should be resolved, not remain continually in a state of conflict. That was a state that we were in with God. His holy or unholy continual state of hostility and conflict. And yet he brought us peace. And he took away our sins. So we need to understand that when conflicts arises and we discover something, then we resolve them. We have to do everything to resolve them. But if it is not resolved, if it's left untreated, it will be destructed. Just look at how many sins these vices produce. Take a look at this one verse in James 3, verse 14. James 3, 14. In James 3.14, we have, but if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. Look how many sins are mentioned in that one little verse. And where does it all arise? Arise from malice. Arises from anger towards someone. The old feelings, unresolved conflicts. That's where it arises. And that must be put away, completely be done away. That is the negative command. If we just do that, take that off, we're ready now for the positive command. Verse 32, be kind to one another. It's the first attribute of love. Love is kind. So now Paul places three wonderful virtues to replace the five vices of the previous verse. Just as the five declined down the ladder of vices, these three seem to climb up the ladder of virtues. It starts with kindness, and then it goes into tenderheartedness, and then it goes into forgiveness. So, what is being kind? It's the opposite of being malicious, in previous vice here. being filled with compassion, a heart that grows in compassion, and finally, the most significant and godly of all the virtues, forgiveness, and even forgiving your enemy, those who hurt you the most. That's what God did. Now, you can either be fueled by Satan, who loves to foment vices, or you can bring delight and give strength to the Holy Spirit to aid you. and to help you overcome these stumbling blocks, these roadblocks in your life. And here it is. Since our Lord is kind to us and taught us and demonstrated to us what it is to be kind, what does this look like? Here it is, Luke 6, 35. But love your enemies and do good and lend, expecting nothing in return. Let's just pause here for a moment and just meditate deep. Love your enemies. I mean, if you even think of loving your enemy, you've come much farther than you think, my friend. God has done an amazing work of sanctification in your heart. This is supernatural. It's not you. It's the Lord who has done this. And do good and lend expecting nothing to return. You know how much people love money? It's their idol, their job. Money, career, achievement, this is their idol. People live for this and they will die for that. They'll sell their soul for that. Then you work hard and you're willing to lend without even expecting anything back? That's total unselfishness. Who thinks like this? Christians do. Christians do, shouldn't you? Shouldn't we think like this? Yeah. Yeah. Why do we think that this is possible? Because the supernatural work of God. Take a look. And your reward will be great. What reward? Reward from men? No. No. There's a higher reward. And you will be the sons of the Most High. It's your identifying marker. It shows you that you are practicing what you see your Heavenly Father, the Lord Jesus, do. For he himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. Wow. And if you can't do that, if you refuse to do that, then either you are still very immature, you're unregenerate. You just simply don't understand the grace of God. Sure, you talk about grace. Sure, you say you believe, but you don't believe. And you haven't experienced grace. But if you do, then you're just consistent with what you've received, and what you're doing is you're obeying God and the Spirit. You bring delight to his heart. The second word here is a compound word in the Greek, tender-hearted. It's a rare word, eu-splank-noi. And eu, of course, is the same word, the Greek adjective for Good, it's a euangelion, we get good news from that, the gospel. Here is good gut, that's what it literally means. Splanchnon is the gut or the bowels, your stomach. So tender hearted means good gut, rare word. Good bowels, what does this mean? The idea of compassion, Deep empathy, this is an idea, the biblical idea of the gut. You know, your gut feeling, this is how they would express it. Not your heart, not cardia, that's the center of the mind and the will, but the gut is the center of emotion in the biblical or ancient thought. So here it is, this is reacting to someone's need. You feel it, oh, you feel the pangs in the gut. You have a heart of compassion. This is good, this is good. You wanna do something about it, this is good. Now you need wisdom. to go along with your compassion, to do the right thing the right way to be most effective. Then you will be a wonderfully helpful, compassionate, serving individual, and the church needs you. We need you to show us more and more. We need you to lead in this area so that we will all be like Jesus. All right? This is a very good thing, being tenderhearted. Could you imagine you're like that to one another? You'll probably be opening up your pocketbooks all the time. You find out as soon as someone has a need, you wanna help, you wanna give, you wanna serve. Praise God. That's why there's a sweetness about a Christian fellowship because of people who think this way. And this is what God wants us to, all of us, to practice. It's the central emotion of the Good Samaritan toward the prejudicial Jew in Jesus' parable. He felt the gut. I need to do something. Here's a person who's dying. I have the means to help. I don't care if he's a Jew. I don't care if he despises me. I need to help. That was the central heart, tenderhearted. And then here's the forgiving each other. Two words, each other is actually one word, heotois in the Greek. What does this forgiving each other mean? It's reflecting the most Christ-like, the most godly characteristic, is forgiveness. When Peter asked about the limits of forgiveness, Jesus told him a story, and that's found in Matthew 18. So let's go there. Matthew 18, and this is where Jesus taught a passage that we know very well as what we call restoration and forgiveness in the area of church discipline. Verse 21 of Matthew 18, and Peter came and said to him, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times? That would be a lot. the perfect number and complete number in the Hebrew thought. Jesus said to him, I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to 70 times seven. That's just Hebraism for, no, forever, on and on. And then he tells a story, for this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle his accounts with his slaves. When he had begun to settle them, One who owed him 10,000 talents was brought to him, but since he did not have the means to repay, his Lord commanded him to be sold, along with his wife and children and all that he had, and repayment to be made. So the slave fell to the ground and prostrated himself before him, saying, have patience with me, and I will repay you everything. Right, that's impossible. But verse 27, the Lord of that slave felt compassion, that's a blank noun there, and released him and forgave him the debt. But that slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves and owed him 100 denarii. That's 100 days of work. That's still a significant sum of money, but it's nothing compared to what he owed the king, right? And he seized him and began to choke him, saying, pay back what you owe. So his fellow slaves fell to the ground and began to plea with him, saying, have patience with me and I will repay you. Basically, it's almost the same, except he didn't say everything. He said, I will repay you, just be patient. Verse 30, but he was unwilling and went and threw him in prison until he should pay back what he was owed. So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their lord all that had happened. Then summoning him, his lord said to him, you wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave in the same way that I had mercy on you? And his lord moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until you should repay all that was owed him. Look at verse 35, here's the punchline. Here's the climax, here's the summation of the whole story. My heavenly Father will also do the same to you if, there's the condition, each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart. Notice it says from your heart. Points to the fact that it has to be genuine, and it already starts internally before it is expressed externally. Even before you say, I forgive you, you need to say in your heart, I'm ready to forgive, Lord. See that? That's what it looks like. This is the most godly, because it says, just as God in Christ, here's the reason for the positive command, verse 32, has forgiven you. going back to Ephesians 4, just as kathos means showing direct comparison, kathos, just as. We of all people should always be eager to forgive. Right? That's Christianity, eagerness to forgive. If we are not very forgiving, we do not know God's forgiveness very much. But if we are eager to forgive, We're very godly. That's how you can tell. Your eagerness to forgive. Your willingness to forgive. Not reluctance, not dragging your heels, but eagerness. I'm willing to forgive. Now, of course, have you seen the conditional? This is not this carte blanche, prideful, arrogant forgiveness where it says, I forgive you. Even though they haven't even acknowledged their sin, they haven't even asked for forgiveness, you say, I forgive you. No, God's not like that. Did you know that there is that condition there? Yeah, we have to confess our sins. We have to acknowledge. Then there is eagerness to forgive. So sinful speech can bring great harm to the church. As you and I know, Hitler just spoke. As far as we can tell, there's nothing written where it says that Hitler took a machine gun and started mowing down Jews. He didn't do any of that. Nor did he go into the lecture halls of Berlin and educated an entire nation to, or he wasn't a professor, educating them of nihilistic philosophy. He already, he recruited people, like nihilistic philosophers and professors at the University of Berlin. and engineers, he spoke to them and saying, this is what we need to do. And they came up with the gas chambers, concentration camps, mass annihilation. They asked the question, how can we kill the most amount of people with least amount of effort and resources? They actually thought of all that. Why? Because Hitler spoke. He said there's certain people are parasites of society and we need to get rid of them. That was his speech. And they said, right. And they took it to the logical extreme. Don't ever think that destructive words are benign. Very powerful and can have tremendous impact. However, let's look at the other side. Virtuous words and deeds, wow. What did Jesus say and what did he do? 2,000 years later, we love him and worship him or transform by what he said and what he did. Brothers and sisters, we wear the uniform of our company, if you will, and our representative, we are all representative of the Lord Jesus Christ. We belong to the church. When people hear us talk and when they see us act, we can reflect who God is and in the world that is dark. These mandates should not seem so lofty for us. As a matter of fact, this should be as comfortable as the clothing that you put on. And these ugly things that were part of our past, they should be so repulsive that we are more than glad to take off. Do we want to bring joy to the Holy Spirit or grief to Him? Do we want to reflect the most godly characteristics of our Heavenly Father who loved us, or do we still want to reflect the characteristics of Satan, the father of this world. We need to renew our mind because unless we renew our mind, we cannot renew our speech or our actions. But praise God, the fact that these commands are given shows you it's not just possible, but this is what should be normalized in the church. And the fact that it hasn't been, so many places where Christ's worship, where God is honored, tells us that God's people haven't been very obedient. Let's confess that. Let's stop blaming other people on how poorly we were taught, or there's no models of godliness. Let's just acknowledge the fact that we weren't very obedient. We're disobedient children, and yet our Heavenly Father loved us so. So now, Let it be different. Put on the Christian clothing, the believer's wardrobe, represent and radiate your heavenly Father in the church and in the world. Do this and live. These are all the signs of life in you and Christ exalted. May the Lord be glorified through you, his children who love him. Let's pray. Father, thank you that Our every thought, word, and deed, we desire to reflect and radiate who you are. You made us, you redeemed us, we are always yours, we will ever be, and we're truly grateful. So Lord, enable your people to now live in such a manner that the world cannot ignore who you are. because they see Christ in us. In Jesus' name, Amen.