A New Walk

If you would, take your Bibles
and turn to Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4 as we
continue our flyover through this book. It’s a little bit
unfair, isn’t it? You kind of read passages that
you would really love to jump into and The purposes for which
we’re engaged in this particular study just don’t allow us to
really delve into every verse, but the appetite is not bad. And I would encourage you, if
you are able, to get online and dig into some of these passages
through sermon audio. And for our purposes this morning,
we want to start in chapter four. beginning in verse one, and if
you’re familiar with the book, the basic outline of the book
of Ephesians is that Paul deals with doctrinal matters first,
and we have certainly coursed through those particular portions
in the first three chapters, and then he gets very practical
in the latter portion, and I don’t wanna overstate it here, It’s
not that doctrine isn’t practical by any means, but he begins to
apply these things to the saints here in chapter four all the
way through the end of chapter six. Chapter four, verse one. I therefore, the prisoner of
the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling
with which you’ve been called. with all humility and gentleness,
with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love, being
diligent to preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of
peace. There is one body and one spirit, just as you were
called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and
in all. But to each one of us, grace
was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore,
it says, when he ascended on high, he led captive a host of
captives and he gave gifts to men. Now, this expression, he
ascended, what does it mean except that he also had descended into
the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is himself also
he who ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill
all things. And he gave some as apostles
and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastors
and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of
service to the building up of the body of Christ until we all
attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son
of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which
belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer
to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about
by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness
and deceitful scheming, but speaking the truth in love, we are to
grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, even Christ,
from whom the whole body being fitted and held together by that
which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each
individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building
up of itself in love. This I say, therefore, and affirm
together with the Lord, that you walk no longer as the Gentiles
also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in
their understanding, excluded from the life of God because
of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their
heart. And they, having become callous, have given themselves
over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with
greediness. But you did not learn Christ
in this way if indeed you have heard him and have been taught
in him just as truth is in Jesus that in reference to your former
manner of life you lay aside the old self which is being corrupted
in accordance with the lusts of deceit. and that you be renewed
in the spirit of your mind and put on the new self which in
the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and
holiness of the truth. Therefore lay aside falsehood. Speak truth each one of you with
his neighbor for we are members of one another. Be angry And
yet do not sin, do not let the sun go down on your anger, and
do not give the devil an opportunity. Let him who steals, steal no
longer, but rather let him labor, performing with his own hands
what is good, in order that he may have something to share with
him who has need. Let no unwholesome word proceed
from your mouth. but only such a word as is good
for edification according to the need of the moment that it
may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit
of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let
all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander
be put away from you along with all malice. And be kind to one
another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other just as God in Christ
also has forgiven you. You may have picked up on a little
subtle thing that Paul introduces in chapter four and that is the
idea, this metaphor of the Christian life that he calls a walk. And he uses this metaphor throughout
this whole section, all the way into chapter six, and he repeatedly
peppers his language with that metaphor. It’s a worthy walk
that Paul calls us to. It’s a particular kind of walk,
and essentially it is a walk that is entirely different than
that of the Gentiles. Verse 17 says, where Paul admonishes
them that they walk no longer as the Gentiles walk. He’s calling
these previously heathen Gentile people who now have placed their
faith in Christ, he’s calling them to a new kind of walk. Here
in the closing section of chapter four, Paul insists that we acknowledge
the context. Look, if you would, at verse
25. He starts verse 25, and again, for this entire closing section,
he starts by letting us know that he’s drawing a conclusion. based on what he’s discussed
so far up to this point in the chapter. And his whole aim here
in this epistle has been to encourage these formerly Gentile believers
in the fact that they are not second-class citizens in Christ
Church. By the way, I gave up being called
a Gentile a long time ago. I was raised in Denver, where
we had a large Jewish population of students in our school, and
there was this tendency for them, and I don’t think it was unkind,
but they would refer to anybody who was not a Jew as a Gentile. Well, in the Hebrew culture,
A Gentile is a godless one. And I know for sure that when
Christ drew me to himself, I am no longer godless. I’m not a
Gentile. I’m not a heathen. Not in that
sense of the word by any stretch. But Paul is writing to these
who used to be godless. Who used to be Gentiles. But now by God’s grace have been
drawn near. and drawn into a whole new kind
of relationship with him. And so that theme continues here
in this chapter, and he begins verses 1 through 6, we saw it,
by calling the whole church, Jew and Gentile, to a unity. And he informs the whole church
in verses 7 through 16 that they are gifted, valuable members
in the ministry life of the church. You probably heard it as we read
Every joint is to supply the building up of the church and
that means every individual if you are in Christ God has given
you a gift package and that is to be used in the service of
his church Well, then that’s verses 7 through 16 and then
in the third major section of this chapter, verses 17 through
24, he challenges these new members, formerly Gentiles, now believers
in Christ, and he challenges them with the reminder that they
are full members of Christ’s church. Remember, that was the
theme of chapter two. They are no longer to live like
the Gentiles. They are to live differently,
and to use Paul’s very distinctive metaphor here, they are to walk
differently. And so Paul lays down the command
to live, to walk differently. Look at verse 17 once again.
This I say, therefore, and affirm together with the Lord that you
walk no longer as the Gentiles also walk. How did they walk,
Paul? In the futility of their mind.
They were clueless, spiritually speaking. They had no idea how
utterly sinful their life and their deeds were. It was here
today and gone tomorrow. Live for today, eat, drink, and
be merry, for tomorrow we die. That was their entire mindset,
the heathen world. They walk in the futility of
their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded,
verse 18, from the life of God because of the ignorance that
is in them, because of the hardness of their heart. Look at it. I
mean, it goes on. It gets worse as it goes. Sensuality,
impurity. They were just utter and thoroughgoing
sinners. What a horrid picture of humanity,
right? And at this point in time, they
knew it. They knew well what their former
lives were. They knew how sinful they were.
They knew from what they had been rescued. They couldn’t argue
with it. They knew that it was out of
this very condition that God in his mercy had come and saved
them. And because of that, they must
now live in a different way. And Paul drives home the point
with a new metaphor. essentially the metaphor of changing
clothes. Watch this, pick up in verse
20. And he turns it on his readers and he says, but you did not
learn Christ in this way. You didn’t live, you knew that
it wasn’t right to live like the Gentiles, you know better
now. You did not learn Christ in this
way if you have heard him have been taught in him just as truth
is in Jesus, there aren’t two ways or multiple ways of living
as a Christian, that in reference to your former manner of life,
you lay aside the old self, the metaphor of changing your clothes,
which is being corrupted in accordance with the lust of deceit, and
that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on Here’s
your new outfit, put on the new self. This is a masterful God-given
image. And Paul basically says, go change
your clothes, right? This is an image that any person
in any culture in any age would understand. But he’s not talking
about literal clothes here, you know that. He’s talking about
lifestyle. He’s talking about their manner
of life. He’s talking about how they conduct
themselves. And he tells them that their
former manner of life is like dirty clothes, totally inappropriate
for their new calling in Christ. I’m sure that this image resonates
with you, this metaphor that Paul is using. For me, it resonates
because during seminary, I had this job cleaning swimming pools. And I know that sound, especially
in Southern California, that has, boy, that sounds romantic,
doesn’t it? Sounds really fun. Well, except that in cleaning
swimming pools, you’re in, you’re in the grossest part of the swimming
pool itself. You’re by the filters and the
baskets and all the, the stuff that gets collected there, leaves
and everything else. And my family knows this. In Southern California, it’s
a little bit different here in Colorado. When it rains, we just
seclude ourselves indoors. In Southern California, when
it rains, you work. You keep working. You don’t quit
working just because it rains. And so my least favorite thing
in the entire world is to have wet feet. And when it rained,
there’s just no way around it. You would literally be drenched
in not only rain, cold, wet rain, but you’d also be drenched in
this filthy, vile stuff that you were working in all day long.
And I can remember coming into the house, I couldn’t wait to
change clothes. I couldn’t wait to get a warm
shower and to change clothes. And that’s the image that Paul
is pressing in on his formerly Gentile hearers. You need to
change your clothes. You need to live differently.
You need to be different. You need to put off the old and
put on the new. But it’s not enough for Paul
to just give a general command like to say, go clean yourselves
up. Go make yourselves more presentable. Go put on something more appropriate
for the occasion. He’s going to tell them all about
the filthy rags that need to be removed and destroyed and
replaced. What one commentator called special
forms of evil. And I take it to mean that the
way that Paul glides effortlessly into this situation is that these
were areas of their life that had not yet fully been addressed. They had not eradicated these
areas of sin from their lives yet. Paul knew these people. He had spent as much as four
years in the area of Ephesus and he’s writing to them with
a brother, a pastor who has first-hand knowledge of their life and lifestyle.
He knows how they live. He knows who they are. He knows
them by name. And he basically tells them,
reminds them, that the old man is dead and everything about
him is to be removed. The new man is a righteous man. The new man is a godly man, a
life modeled after none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. But
it’s a process. If you’re a Christian and you’ve
walked with the Lord for five years, you know that it’s a process.
If you’re a Christian and you’ve walked with the Lord for 30 years,
you know that it’s a process. You know that every day you’re
discovering, by God’s grace, new areas that need to be put
off and new things that need to be put on. Both must be done,
first things first, put off. Look at the passage. What Paul
does here, I believe, is give us seven principles. He’s going
to address seven areas of our lives that need to be put off,
seven principles for walking in newness of life. First of
all, falsehood. And I want you to note the order
here first. You have to lay aside falsehood
in order to speak the truth. First things first. He says,
cultivate an attitude of genuineness. It starts from within. Cultivate
a heart of truthfulness. Cultivate a sincere nature. By falsehood, Paul is pointing
here to not just lies, but really to a false view, to a false presentation
of oneself. It’s falsehood in every conceivable
form. Those falsehoods, those areas
of falseness really come naturally from a heart that is naturally
sinful and naturally selfish and wants to present only the
best image of oneself. And it’s, mind you, that it’s
willful, intentional falsehood that he’s talking about here,
not just a mistaken statement of fact. where you think something
to be true and so you cite it. You have no malice in the course
of that. You’re just saying what you believe
to be true. That’s not what Paul’s talking
about. He’s talking about intentional falsehood, willful falsehood,
deception. It’s dishonesty, whether it’s
done in the course of our school or in the course of our business
or in the course of our relationships, anywhere really. And he says
this sin would certainly include that of pretentiousness, presenting
yourself as something that you’re not, living a lie, if you will,
not just telling a lie. But note, while some manifestations
of this sin boil, bubble up to the surface in the form of lies
or pretentiousness, It really begins in the heart, that’s what
Paul says. It’s falseness of the heart that
Paul is dealing with here. You have many examples throughout
scripture. It all started with Adam and
Eve and their attempt to deceive not only one another, but to
deceive the Lord himself, Abraham and Sarah. Ananias and Sapphira,
all throughout the Bible you have these very rich, very graphic
images really of ourselves, right? In this attempt to be something
we’re not and to lie in order to present a false perspective
of ourselves. One pastor said that all hope
of mutual understanding, of social interaction, all effective corporate
action is bound up with the sense of sacredness of language as
our chief means of communication. Did you hear what he said? If
we lie, if we live a lie, we destroy the fabric of the community. We destroy the fabric of our
relationships. And he concludes by saying, lying
is before all things an antisocial sin. It tears apart at the very fabric
of what the Christian community is to be. And so Paul says, deal
with the attitude, the hard attitude of falsehood first. And then,
and remember he’s speaking to the church. Laying aside falsehood,
speak truth. each one of you with his neighbor.
And it’s fascinating, really, until we begin to take inventory
of our own latent sinful nature. It’s interesting, fascinating
that Paul is addressing falsehood and promoting truth speaking
here to Christians. You would think that that just
comes naturally. Why do they need this? because of the leftover
measure of their own sinful nature, not unlike you and I, that leaves
us with a constant battle for our hearts over the matter of
truthfulness. And if we’re honest, we see just
how difficult that is, don’t we? How difficult being truthful,
how difficult being just brutally honest with ourselves first,
We have a serious tendency, don’t we, to gloss the truth, to blunt
it, to color the truth, or shade the truth, or embellish the truth. If at the end of it all, it can
even be called truth. Paul says, lay aside falsehood
and speak the truth. And when we speak the truth,
it’s just like walking into a court of law, right? We’re to tell
the whole truth. We’re not to shade the truth
or distort the truth or reduce the story to the level of only
need-to-know elements of the truth. We’re not to exaggerate
the truth or to blow it up beyond what could even be remotely called
the truth. Speak truth, each one of you,
with his neighbor. And then he lays down the motivation
for this admonition. Speak truth each one of you with
his neighbor for we are members of one another. We’re part of
the body of Christ. We can’t tear at the fabric and
then alternately seek to be part of that fabric, can we? Paul
gives the motivation here for truthfulness and he says it’s
because we’re all part of the same body, it’s the body of Christ. We’re all members of one another,
we’re intertwined. From time to time I’ll remind
the saints when we come to the Lord’s table that it is a table
of communion and we are communing with God when we participate
in the Lord’s table. But we are also communing with
one another. We’re members of one another.
Paul is telling believers here that they are so intimately connected
with other believers. It’s not mere neighbors, really.
We have lots of neighbors around us that are unsaved. That’s not
who Paul’s talking about. He’s talking about other Christians. And it rounds out to a powerful
exhortation here to be absolutely truthful with one another. Truthful
in all of our dealings. Truthful in how we present ourselves.
Truthful with any matters that we’re called on which to speak. I don’t want to lay that to you.
I want to ask you to examine your hearts regarding your own
truthfulness, regarding your own reality of living out the
truth. Does it start in the heart and
orient To when you open your mouth, truth just naturally comes
forth. I believe that’s why Paul addressed
the Ephesian believers, because it wasn’t necessarily the case
with them. And it isn’t always the case with us, is it? Paul
addresses a second, not only walking in truth, but walking
in peace. Walking in peace. This is a fascinating
one. These are all fascinating. How
can he be saying these things to a church, a New Testament
church? Verse 26, be angry and yet do
not sin. Do not let the sun go down on
your anger and do not give the devil an opportunity. What Paul
does here is just amazing. He lets fly four imperatives
and they hit with this irrepressible force. If you could sustain one
blow, you’re certainly not going to sustain all four. No sooner
do you begin to recover from the first, the second hits, and
then a third, and then a fourth. Be angry. Do not sin. Do not let the sun go down in
your anger. Do not give the devil an opportunity. What he says
first here, be angry, he seems to imply here and acknowledge
what is certainly true from scriptures standpoint, there is a place
for anger of a sort. It’s certainly qualified as the
passage unfolds, but there seems to be an acknowledgement that
there is a kind of anger that is just, if you will. It’s very
possible, rather, that Paul is at least quoting or alluding
here to Psalm 4. Here’s how Psalm 4 reads. tremble
and do not sin, meditate upon your bed and be still. There
are some parallels there. But he does say, be angry. I looked and there have been
attempts throughout centuries to try and soften this or mute
this or explain it away. That’s literally what it says,
be angry. And so anger here isn’t completely
forbidden. But it’s the cultivation of it,
it’s the savoring of it, the indulgence of it that becomes
sin as we’ll see in a moment. We know that anger in scripture,
even as the Psalm we read today, Psalm 38, anger is ascribed even
to God. So if anger in and of itself
is sinful, well it can’t possibly be. Anger is not, in and of itself,
sinful, but anger opens the door to sinful attitudes and behaviors.
The Lord, 1 Kings 11.9, the Lord was angry with Solomon. Psalm
11, God has indignation every day. Psalm 79, will you be angry
forever, O Lord? Jesus Christ came to the earth,
God and human flesh. And it says that Jesus Christ
was angry on several different occasions, not the least of which
was the cleansing of the temple. And so there is this, without
a doubt, there is anger. There is a so-called righteous
indignation, but he says, be angry. and yet
do not sin. And there’s the second blow. That we’re not to allow anger
to fester and mutate and become an opportunity to sin against
others or against God. Sin can’t be held in the heart.
It’s like a fire that is touched to some incendiary device that
just seems to erupt, doesn’t it? And it has to be dealt with
soon and quickly. If we don’t, it soon catches
fire in our own heart and runs its own course. It turns into
resentment in our heart. for our brothers, it turns into
an angry sullen mood where we go around and now we’re no longer
angry at the individual, we’re just angry. And it breeds and
grows and festers from there, doesn’t it? So Paul may be talking there
in that first imperative about a righteous indignation, what
started off as just indignation, a real anger at a real sinful
behavior, but it soon jumps its bounds. If it’s not checked,
it soon runs rampant. Be angry and yet do not sin.
The third, do not let the sun go down in your anger. Now, I
didn’t even realize this when I started to study this. I’ve
always loved J.B. Phillips, that translation. It’s
a good, fresh, somewhat of a, it’s kind of like the olden days
version of the NIV, where it’s a little bit of a paraphrase
of the scriptures. But J.B. Phillips did a great
job on a lot of different nuances of the Greek in bringing it into
modern day English. Here’s what he did with verse
26. He said, never go to bed angry. You’ve heard that a million
times, haven’t you? Well, that came from J.B. Phillips and his
treatment of this very passage, never go to bed angry. Well,
that’s great counsel, not just for a newly married couple. That’s good counsel, not just
for a married couple. That’s good counsel. And this
passage doesn’t stop at the household. It doesn’t stop with marriage.
It doesn’t stop in the home. talks about every relationship.
The longer you let an issue fester, the worse it’s going to be. And so what Paul essentially
urges here is to seek reconciliation with anybody that we’ve irritated
or upset or angered. I love the way one pastor said,
the day of anger should be the day of reconciliation. We read
about Paul and John Mark, and we know that that one took years,
likely, The day of anger should be the day of reconciliation.
It is to be but a brief emotion, slowly excited and very soon
dismissed. If it be allowed to lie in the
mind, it degenerates into enmity, hatred or revenge, all of which
are positively and in all circumstances sinful. To harbor ill will, to
feed a grudge, and to keep it rankly in the bosom or to wait
for a fitting opportunity for successful retaliation is inconsistent
with Christian discipleship.” He says, be angry. Do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on
your anger, and there’s a fourth imperative in this section, verse
27. Do not give the devil an opportunity.
Now, if you’ve ever really been sinfully angry, you know exactly
what he’s talking about. Because the devil will almost
immediately begin to chirp in our ear, won’t he? Oh, I can’t
believe he did that. I can’t believe that of all people
he did that to you. You know, you shouldn’t even,
oh, you shouldn’t have anything to do with it. I know what you
should do. And then you begin to fester with all of these ideas.
You begin to mull these means of retaliation over who you’re
going to tell, how you’re going to get back. And if we deal with our anger,
when and where we should, and in the way that we should, we
close the door on the devil. We don’t want him, we don’t want
to invite him to the table, to the so-called table of reconciliation. The devil is quickly going to
turn our hearts into hatred and to hold a grudge to justify every
evil thing that we would do. I don’t want him in there, do
you? I don’t want him in that meeting. I don’t want him trying
to negotiate peace. The devil is not a peacemaker. We don’t want him in our heart.
We don’t want to cultivate that kind of anger in our hearts. We want to deal with it. We want
to go to our brother. We want to tell him his sin.
We want to plead for him to be reconciled. There’s a third. There’s a third principle for
walking in newness of life, walking in Christ, not only walking in
the truth, walking in peace, walking in integrity. Now try
this one on. If you’re a newly converted,
formerly Gentile heathen, How would you like this one laid
upon your plate? Verse 28, let him who steals,
steal no longer. Oh, you saw that, Paul? Oh, you know that about me, Paul? Let him who steals, steal no
longer, but rather let him labor. Perhaps the most humbling admonition
on the list, isn’t it? It’s shameful. Stop stealing
is essentially what he says. Knock it off. Quit taking things
that aren’t yours. Quit milking the clock. Quit
sloughing off on your God-given duties. Stop it. And that’s the form of the verb.
Stop something that you are actively doing. Knock it off. Let him
who steals steal no longer. It’s a timeless Sad but true,
right? It’s a timeless admonition. Because our former habits, our
practices come forth into our current life, don’t they? The
word here literally, you know it, I’ll tell you in the Greek,
but you’ll hear it, it’s klepto. And whether it’s displayed right
out in the open, That’s what I’ve always said. I have much
more respect for a robber who at least comes in the night,
comes in the daylight and sticks a gun in your ribs. I have much
more respect for him who’s willing to look you in the eye and tell
me, give me everything you got than that sneaky thief who comes
busting in through the window when you’re not there in the
dark and takes what’s not his. I say that tongue in cheek. There’s
many ways that we steal. We work the time clock. We tweak
our taxes, right? We mess with our insurance and
our insurance company. I counseled a young man one time
that almost boasted of the fact that he had worked at this insurance deal It was wrong, I mean, he knew
it was wrong, but he felt it was his right to do. And I just
asked him, what if God wants you poor? If you’re in business, charging
the wrong price, there’s many ways to do this in business or
in school. It’s every kind of unjust acquisition. And Paul, by telling the Ephesians
this, He basically tells every single one of us, stop it. Stop stealing. But rather let him labor. And
what he does here is he restores dignity. Whereas you were a thief
in your former manner of life, it’s time to change. It’s time
to walk differently. It’s time to walk like a saved
person, and he says, rather let him labor, performing with his
own hands what is good. So he says to these previous
thieves who used to live by stealing from others, now he says, now
I want you to labor and I want you to be willing to give. The
same hands that used to steal are now to labor for the purpose
of giving. This is an important principle
for Paul. Paul said it to the Thessalonians as well. Make it
your ambition to lead a quiet life, to attend to your own business,
to work with your hands, just as we commanded you, so that
you may behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need. In other words, you want to have
something to give. The Westleys had a quote, They
encourage people to make all they can, give all they can,
and save all they can. Sometimes I’ve met Christians
that are almost afraid to make money. Making money isn’t a sin. And certainly the main reason
that we even work to make money is not to enrich ourselves, it
is to have something That’s how Paul closes this particular
admonition. He says, in order that he may
have something to share with him who has need. This isn’t
forced. This isn’t communism. Even in
Acts 2 and the sharing, the mutual sharing of things, that’s not
communism. It was never commanded. Just as graciousness, it’s kindness,
it’s looking out for the needs of others. And we want to be
in a position to be able to do that, don’t we? Stop stealing. Work with our hands. So that
we can have something to give. There’s a fourth principle walking
in truth, walking in peace, walking in integrity, walking in graciousness. I’ve preached this a couple of
different times to Younger groups, and it really is a simple outline
you could preach just verse 29 And my outline when I’ve preached
it is garbage or grace. There’s only two things that
are gonna come out of your mouth Let no unwholesome word proceed
from your mouth garbage But only such a word as is good for edification
according to the need of the moment that it may give grace
to those who hear grace. There’s only two things, Paul
says, that are gonna come out of your mouth and don’t misunderstand
me. It’s not that you can’t give just basic direction, information,
answer a question. Even that in and of itself is
gracious speech. But he says, let no unwholesome
word proceed from your mouth. It couldn’t be any more graphic,
this word, foul, rotten, useless. We used to have this, there was
a leak in somebody’s sprinkler system in a home near where I
grew up. And that leak proceeded across
the gutter and into the, or across the sidewalk and into the gutter.
And we just know, we just knew this puddle was perpetual. It was always there all summer
long. It was there. And you can imagine that if the
puddle sat there all summer, what began to grow and migrate
and mutate into that puddle? And it was this green slime.
And we knew this puddle because you did not want to ride your
10-speed narrow-tired bike through that puddle. I’ll tell you why
later. I knew well that to ride your
bike through that slimy puddle meant that you were going to
take a nasty spill. Well, let me tell you, it never
even crossed my mind to scoop up some of that green slime for
lunch. That’s the kind of thing that
Paul is talking about here. That’s the graphic illustration
that he’s laying on us here. It’s the idea of not just decayed,
but old and obsolete and worthless and utterly, utterly unfit to
consume. And he says, these kinds of things
proceed from people’s mouths. in the lies that they tell, in
the slander, in the coarse language that they employ, let no unwholesome
word proceed from your mouth. And you know what he says, even
by that little caution? He says, we have the ability
to stop it here. It is a sin to think and to cultivate
those things, but those things can be stopped here in the mind. They don’t have to come to our
mouth. They don’t have to boil to the surface. We don’t have
to say them. And thank the Lord that the other
thing is true as well. Not only garbage comes forth
from our mouth, but grace. Let no unwholesome word proceed
from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification,
building up of your brothers and sisters in Christ, According
to the need of the moment, and I guess the longer I live, I have noticed a new thing in
my life, that there are a lot of things that I just, they come
to my mind, and I think about it, and I realize I don’t even
need to enter into this conversation. I don’t even need to say what
I just thought about. It’s not that it was necessarily
bad, it just wasn’t needful. And by God’s grace, I’m allowed
to stay silent for that one moment. Only such a word is as good for
edification according to the need of the moment that it may
give grace to those who hear. Do you realize that grace is
God’s to give, but that if we are able to give grace to one
another, all we’re doing really is functioning as a conduit?
We’re opening our mouth and functioning as a conduit for God’s grace
to flow to some other believer. And so our conversation should
always be seasoned, as Paul says, that these words are like seed
that can either germinate good and wholesome things or vile
and hateful things. Proverb 15.23 says, a man has
joy in an apt answer. How delightfully is a timely
word. That’s what we want to have,
right? We want to speak what’s true and right. We want to do
it in a timely manner. Whether it’s counsel, Whether
it’s to excite someone and stir someone up to noble service to
God. Or whether it’s to warn them
and to deter them from some fateful step. Whether it’s to counsel
them and just to give your opinion on a matter. Whether it’s to
stir somebody up to reflection on what is good and right. That’s what we want to do with
others. We don’t wanna pour out our garbage out of our mouth. We wanna give them grace, don’t
we? There are three others, and we’re not gonna get to it today. In these principles of walking
in Christ, let me just, I’ll tell you what they are, and you
can go and consider them on your own. not only walking in truth,
walking in peace, walking in integrity, walking in graciousness,
especially in our speech, walking in the Spirit, doing what we
do in the Spirit, not grieving with our sin and our rebellion,
as Isaiah 63.10 points out, not living a life that makes the
Spirit recoil. He’ll never leave you if you
are in Christ. walking in freedom. Verse 31, and at least on paper,
don’t we long to be rid of these things? Let all bitterness and
wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you
along with all malice. What a nasty list this is. This
is an ungodly man who now has given full vent to his anger. And he’s dead set on not just,
not just tearing apart someone with words, but actually harming
him and his character in his malice. We can’t live that way. We can’t live that way. We want
to be free of those things. And so finally we come to number
seven, not only walking in the spirit, walking in freedom, but
walking in forgiveness. This one touches all of us too,
doesn’t it? This one touched Paul, as we read, when he forgave
in practical measures this young man, John Mark, who had cashed
in the ministry, and now Paul says, he’s useful to me, bring
him. Walking in forgiveness, look
at verse 32, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each
other just as God in Christ has forgiven you. Do you hear what
he does? Do you hear the argument he uses? It’s Matthew 18. Right, Matthew 18, the slave
goes before the king, pleads his case, $10 million sin. And the king, he doesn’t set
him up on a payment plan, he forgives him, wipes out the debt
completely. And what does this worthless
slave do? He goes out, having been forgiven
a $10 million debt, and he grabs the neck of his fellow slave
and begins to choke him. Do you remember the story? For
a 16 penny debt. That’s how we live sometimes,
isn’t it? Our offenses against a holy God were infinite in comparison to
whatever puny offense we ever suffer. How could we harbor unforgiveness? How could we live that way? We
need to walk differently. Let’s plead for God’s grace to
do just that. Merciful God, we thank you so
much. We feel so much like these Ephesian
believers. We know so well that wicked life
of old, the life of Gentile heathen, who lived like the godless, we
remember it. And Lord, we know that in some
cases those sins still cling to us. So Father, we plead for your
grace. We plead that you would continue
your work of sanctification and change in our lives. Grant us
the grace to recognize these sinful deeds and to confess them
To do as the Puritans admonished us to do and to mortify these
things, put them to death. Lord God, we plead for the grace,
not just to do that, but to live and walk differently. To live
and walk as Christian people in this fallen world. Grant us
that grace, Father, we pray. We pray all of these things in
Jesus’ name.