The Wardrobe of Fellowship (Ephesians 4:25-32)

Father in heaven, as we come to this point in the service where

the Word of God is read and preached, we thank you for your

servant, Doctor David Gibson. We thank you for the life that

he has in you, the way he abides, way he seeks to

practice, the very things that you've led him to teach us this

day. We pray for his church in

Aberdeen. We pray that you would continue

to bless our dear brothers and sisters there.

We ask that you would cause your Holy Spirit to wake us, to give

us new eyes and new ears, hearts that might not be warm but very

cold, or minds that might be just dull and bored.

We pray that you would ignite and 'cause this sweet gospel,

the promises of who we are, the privilege of living out who we

are, would become the greatest joy of our life.

Only you can do this, and we pray you would.

In your holy name, Jesus, Amen. We're so grateful today in the

middle of winter grace to have Sandra with us and to have

Doctor David Gibson with us. I want to remind you that

tonight we will gather for another service at six.

You can keep your bulletin or leave it here and come back.

It'll be a wonderful night of fellowship together again and

worship and then the the preaching of the Word and then

fellowship that follows. We want to encourage you to come

again at 6:00 tonight. David is a friend of many in our

church, acquainted really to the ministry and life and friendship

with Sinclair Ferguson. He is the pastor of Trinity

Church in Aberdeen, where Sinclair Ferguson is a member.

He's Sinclair's pastor. David has been given many gifts.

You'll soon see the way in which God has equipped him to preach

the conviction, the genuine love that he brings, not just for the

Word, but for you, for the people of God.

He has been fed well from the Lord and it was going to feed

you very well this morning with truth.

Some that might be new and some that are old but need to be

renewed in your heart. Anytime we have a guest preacher

calm, I always want you to be praying for their family.

He's married to Angela. They have four children, so I'd

encourage you to continue to lift them up as he continues to

be away for a bit. We're so thankful that he is

here and the word that he's about to bring.

Let's give a warm welcome to Doctor David Gibson.

That's smart. Thank you, Thank you.

I want to invite you to stand with me for the reading of God's

Word. We're going to read from

Ephesians chapter 4 for our scripture reading.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

You'll find it printed in the bulletin, or if you have a

Bible, you might like to read it there.

Let's follow along together as we hear God Himself speak.

The reading is Ephesians chapter 4, verses 25 through 32.

Ephesians 4:25–32

Therefore put away having put away falsehood.

Let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we

are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin.

Do not let the sun go down on your anger and gave no

opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal,

but rather let him labour doing honest work with his own hands,

so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as

is good for building up as fits the occasion, that it may give

grace to those who hear, 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 clamour and

slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another,

as God in Christ forgave you. This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God, please be seated.

Friends, this morning I want to dive right in to our passage.

I want to invite you to keep either the either the bulletin

or your own version of the Scriptures open in front of you.

Ephesians chapter 4. While you find that, let me

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

simply say a very big thank you on behalf myself personally

obviously, of course, but also Trinity Church in Aberdeen.

We really feel the bonds of connection and fellowship, a

very precious topic to be speaking about when the lived

reality of it is so real here with you.

I first came to Dallas nearly four years ago and I the only

way I can describe this is my fifth trip.

And the only way I can describe it ever since is being in the

presence of friends where very quickly you simply realize, oh,

you too love the Lord. And because you love him and I

love Him, we are together. We are one in Him.

That very real bond of connection is very precious to

me. So thank you very much indeed

for having me. Like I said, we're going to dive

right into this chapter 4, verse 25.

I want you to notice right at the very start that this verse

is stapled to the last verse before it.

The staple is that word. Therefore it connects what we're

about to look at together with what some of us looked at

yesterday morning. If you weren't there, here is

the summary of yesterday morning.

It's Ephesians chapter 4, verses 17 to 24.

Ephesians 4:17–24

God has sent into our world one true and proper man.

He sent his Son, the last Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the exact likeness of God.

Jesus is the image of God. You, you, you, you look at Jesus

and you see who God is. Friends, there is no one more

beautiful in all the world than the Lord Jesus Christ, true man

and true God. One of the things I'm going to

do straight after this service, or as soon as I get a moment, is

to find Sandra Mccracken's song Christ is the Life of the World.

Sometimes all I need is just one sentence that just cracks

everything open for me. I don't know if you heard her

sing it. That in that in that song Christ

was sent forth in beauty, sent forth in beauty, reconciling all

things, radiant in holiness. Such a stunningly beautiful

description. The Lord Jesus Christ in his

ministry friends, was a walking, talking, living, breathing

Garden of Eden. He is so beautiful and God has

given him to you. If you are a Christian, you are

bind to him. We sang it in that that lovely

hymn as well. My life is wholly bind to his,

that he is everything to us, isn't he?

This morning you are married to him.

Join to him, friends, in your baptism.

Paul says in Galatians chapter 3.

Galatians 3 · chapter mention

In your baptism, you are so close to him that you put him

on. It's literally what the text

says. The water poured down on your

body or you were submerged in the water and you were dressed

in Christ. You are wearing him.

This morning you are wearing him.

And in Ephesians chapter 4, what we're looking at this weekend,

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

the apostle Paul shows us there are only ever two people to

wear. Verse 22, chapter 4, there is

yourself to wear your old self, which belongs to your former

manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires.

You were Adam's family likeness. So it's what you say in the

maternity ward as a pastor when you visit the beaming couple and

the little babies there. And I say to them, ah, another

Adam. I don't don't worry, but it's

what I think another Adam brought into this world.

Will this child grow up to only ever wear Adam verse 24 you can

put on the Lord Jesus Christ and that new identity comes from

being united to Jesus. It it now leads to a whole new

way of life. That's why we have our text this

morning, put away things. Verse 25, put away falsehood.

Verse 31, verse 32, put away malice.

Get rid of those things. Everything that is not like the

Lord Jesus, get rid of it. Everything that is like him, put

it on. So friends, this morning, from

the theological heights of our union with Christ, right down

into the practical nitty gritty, the details of life, here is the

sermon in a nutshell. Be who you are, friends.

Be who you are. Dress according to who you are.

If you have put on Jesus, wear what Jesus wears.

When I was growing up, we had the WWJD bracelets.

What would Jesus do? Ephesians 4 is WWJW.

What would Jesus wear? And so here this morning,

friends, is what not to wear. See that negative language,

verse 25, verse 31, put it away. It's what you do in late spring,

isn't it? With the winter wardrobe, the

heavy coats you've been wearing, Spring comes and you put them

away. They go there.

There is a sense in which Paul is saying in this passage that

Jesus does for us what we do when people visit us in our home

in Aberdeen in the depths of winter, They come through the

door wearing their big heavy coat and we say to them, here,

let let me take that for you. You, you don't make it to the

living room still wearing your coat.

If you're coming in here, it's, it's warm, you don't need that.

Let me take it for you. Here I am, Lord Jesus, wearing

just me, my rules. I've got my own truth, my

beliefs. Here I am, Lord Jesus, wearing

my pride, my sin, my selfishness.

And then you are baptized and you're washed and you're now

wearing Christ, and you come through the doors of this place

and it's as if the Lord Jesus is there saying, here, let me take

these things from you now you don't need them anymore.

I hope this will be really practical for you.

I'm going to give us five things not to wear, and in their place,

5 things to wear instead, because here's the reality of

fellowship. Friends, what What you wear

affects me and what I wear effects you.

If you don't believe me, just ask your kids.

Dads, try and walk down the street with your teenage

daughters and see if what you're wearing does not affect them.

They, they don't want to be seen in public with you, do they?

I, I need some distance dad, between my coolness and your

dadness. It needs to be over there,

separate from me. We are not together, friends.

Your gospel wardrobe is my business and my gospel wardrobe

is your business. You see the language all the way

through the text. Verse 25, We are members one of

another. Verse 28 The idea is that you

have something to share with anyone in need.

Verse 29 Building up for the good of another.

Verse 32 Be kind to one another, one another, you, me together.

We can embarrass one another because because of what we wear.

We can shame one another because of what we wear, or we can bless

one another because of what we wear.

Ephesians, chapters one to three.

God has brought us together in Christ.

That's the message of chapters one to three.

We are together in Christ due Gentile.

We're one now. Chapters 4 to 6.

So let's stick together. If God has done the hard bit and

joined me to you, here's what we need to do to have fellowship

with each other. Point number one, friends, truth

must replace falsehood. That's the first thing to wear

in this fellowship. Truth put away falsehood.

Brothers and sisters in Park City's church family, the Bible

tells you and me today to stop being untruthful with each

other. That to never be dressed in

falsehood, but instead to be dressed from top to toe, from

winter hat to ski boot down below.

To be dressed in truth, not falsehood.

So clear, isn't it? Verse 25?

Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you

speak the truth with his neighbor.

Look at the reason for we are members one of another.

So here in Dallas, in the depths of ice and snow and winter, you

step outside one morning and there is ice and snow

everywhere. And you, you look at your hand

and you say to your hand, hey, good news, hand, it's 90° out

today. Would you do that?

Or you come to Scotland and visit the most beautiful lands

on earth, after Texas, of course.

And you, you climb one of our Monroes, 3000 feet high in the

height of summer. There is not a cloud in the sky.

The sun is beating down. And you say to your bald head,

good news, you do not need sunscreen today.

We, we wouldn't do it, would we? No, because your own body is

precious to you. You tell your own members the

truth. Handed is cold, you need a glove

today. Bald head, you need a hat today.

See Paul's point in verse 25. If we wouldn't lie to our own

member, members of our own body, why would I lie to you?

For you belong to Christ, and I belong to Christ.

Friends, your body needs the truth.

This body needs the truth always.

An honest answer is like a kiss on the lips.

Proverbs 24 There is only one person in the world I kiss on

the lips. It's intimate, isn't it?

An honest answer is like a kiss. Not not a Peck on the cheek, a

kiss on the lips. Friends you.

You speaking honestly with me, and me speaking honestly with

you. It is the very essence of

fellowship. We have intimacy together.

Proverbs 25 Telling lies about others is as harmful as hitting

them with an axe, wounding them with a sword, or shooting them

with a sharp arrow. Amazing, isn't it?

Truth is a kiss. Falsehood is a wound.

Truth brings you near into my embrace.

Falsehood begins to separate US one from the other.

It begins to pick apart what God has joined together.

Maybe you know this morning, verse 25 is for you.

You. You've done that.

White lies, little lies that become big lies, dishonesty.

Maybe you've had it done to you in a Church of all places.

Reputations ruined, character tainted by falsehood.

Our friends, let let it not be so not not here, not in this

place. It never never pull apart.

Ephesians chapters one to three never pull apart what God has

been doing in the world, but bringing us together.

You know the older commentators on on verse 25 very beautifully.

They point out that Paul Paul must be beginning with this item

of closing clothing first because there is nothing so

essentially true and part of who God is other than truth.

He is a God of truth. He he cannot lie.

That's what's why Mark said to us, the Lord Jesus is the way,

the truth and the life, and I belong to you, the truth, and

I'm going to speak falsehood. No #1 truth must replace

falsehood #2 righteous anger must replace selfish anger.

Ever, ever come to church and be and been told be angry.

It's not what you expect, is it? It's what verse 26 says, Be

angry. Be angry, friends, that the

Bible is not against anger, that those words in verse 26 Be angry

and do not sin are a direct quotation from Psalm 4.

John Stott says this There is such a thing as Christian anger,

and too few Christians either feel it or express it.

When we fail to do so, we deny God, we damage ourselves, and we

encourage the spread of evil. If nothing makes you angry, you

have not suffered and you're living in isolation.

Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, Rape, abuse, trauma, injustice, anger

is a right reaction to all that is wrong.

And yet Paul says, oh, he knows us so well.

Be angry and do not sin. See, I think the rest of that

phrase in verse 26, be angry and do not sin.

Do not, do not let the sun go down on your anger.

I think I think that verse assumes that most of what makes

us angry in fact, is not the big great social evils that we

should be angry about. No, most of what makes us angry

is the stuff that makes us curl up in bed in a huff with the

world and makes me go to sleep with my back to my spouse

licking my wounds. For I have been so wronged and

therefore I am now so angry. We slide, don't we, from right

anger to selfish self pity, Paul says.

If you don't deal with that, by the time a new day begins, here

you are starting a new day just that little bit further apart

from each other, no longer in fellowship.

Friends, what does what does the devil want to do?

He wants to pull apart what God has joined.

It's why you have the famous spiritual warfare language at

the end of Chapter 6. The greatest need in the world

is for churches to be full of people who are together, for

families to be full of husbands, wives, children who are

together. I want to say to you men,

husbands, head, heads of homes, the moments of great spiritual

warfare in your home. Do you know where they happen?

I can tell you where they happen in our home.

They're either over the breakfast table at 8:30 in the

morning when we've only seen each other for 10 minutes and

we're no longer friends, or between 6:00 and 8:00 in the

evening. Husbands, heads of homes, those

are your moments. To wage war on the enemy.

To say to your children I'm sorry that my anger was wrong.

To say to your spouse my anger was wrong, would you forgive me?

Brothers and sisters, do you know what verse 26 is saying?

It's saying learn to nip anger in the bud.

You know how to do that? Or are you growing a garden of

anger? I have met many Christians who

have whole greenhouses of the stuff.

Come and look at it. Pastor, let me show you, this

person wronged me. That person wronged me and I've

been growing it and keeping it. Do not try and take their anger

off them. Risk of your own life.

No, they wear it with pride. Robert Burns, the Scottish poet,

has a wonderful poem called Tam O Shanter.

Tam is a man, a person, and in the poem it describes how while

Tam is at the pub drunk, his wife Kate is at home gathering

her brows like gathering storm, nursing her wrath to keep it

warm. You ever done that?

Just another log on the fire. Frederick Buchner says of the

seven deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun.

To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long

past, to roll over your tongue, the prospect of bitter

confrontation still to come, to savour, to the last toothsome

morsel both the pain you have been giving and the pain you

intend to lavish back. In many ways, it is a feast fit

for a king. The chief drawback is that what

you are wolfing down is yourself.

The skeleton at the feast is you.

And friends, this morning the Lord Jesus says to us, can I

take that from you? Won't you let me take that here?

Put it in my hand. You don't.

You don't need that here. We don't wear that here #3

Generosity must replace theft, truth must replace falsehood,

Righteous anger must replace selfish anger, Generosity must

replace theft. Verse 28.

Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labour doing

honest work with his own hands so that he may have something to

share with anyone in need. What?

What do you think of when you hear the word thief?

Now I I think immediately of the images in my children's

storybooks. Black mask on black and white

striped sweater tiptoeing along the wall at night, over the wall

into the house. But thieves don't wear uniforms,

do they? But people steal all the time.

Thieves wear padded expense forms that they submit at the

end of each month. Thieves wear inadequate

reporting on their IRS form. Thieves do things for themselves

on their employers. Time.

Did you see the principal and the verse friends?

Thieves take that. That's the contrast here, isn't

it? Thieves take, but instead rather

let him work doing honest labour, and not just because

honest labour is better than stealing.

Do you see the reason? So that he may have something to

share with anyone in need. Now, are you a taker or a giver?

Now, do you suck the well dry or do you spread a table?

That that's the message. I knew of a church that had

somebody in it who struggled to work.

And this person didn't struggle to work because there were no

jobs out there. He struggled to work because he

couldn't get up before midday age day.

His life was chaotic, his personal care was disintegrating

and he find a loving church family who cared for him, paid

his bills, fed him, paid for things for him to go to until

eventually one day the pastor said we love you and because we

love you there is no more money for you have not yet given to

us. You have nothing to share with

us. Paul is saying, you know what

keeps the church together? You know what makes fellowship

sweet together when people work hard so that they can spread a

feast for others. Have you, have you done that,

friends? You know the old saying, 90% of

the work is done by 10% of the people.

And Paul says not in here it's not.

We find ourselves in the 90% #4 building up must replace

breaking down. I'm going to do this one very

briefly. Let no corrupting talk come out

of your mouth, but only such as is good for building up as fits

the occasion that that word for corrupting talk.

It's the it's the word word that's used of rotten trees and

rotting fruit. We, we have back in the UK, in

our kitchens, a green bin and when you cut fruit and apple

cores, tea bags, everything, it all goes in the green bin and it

goes out to the compost heap and it begins to disintegrate.

And three weeks later you do not want to open the lid of the

green bin. It is putrid and rotting.

Some churches can smell like the inside of those bins, can't

they? It's all because of the the

words that we speak, small cliques and whispering corners

in hushed corridors, and the speech inside them takes people

from here and it leaves them down here, cuts their their feet

out from beneath them. The the way to think about this

is how many how many letters of complaint have I ever written

compared to letters of encouragement?

Why am I so in intentional about knowing what someone failed me

in rather than saying to someone here is how you've been Christ

to me and all your kindness to me.

Building up must replace tearing down.

I want to finish with #5 kindness must replace hostility.

Kindness must replace hostility LED all bitterness and wrath and

anger and clamour and slander. Friends, hang them on the

wardrobe and lock the door and put them away along with all

malice. Instead, be kind to one another,

tender hearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave

you. How has God treated me One word

kindly. He's treated me kindly.

Can I say to this morning, friends, kindness is not

niceness. Anybody can be nice, but this is

Christian kindness. Of all the fruit of the Spirit,

isn't it true? We think kindness is the most

bland. Do you have Magnolia paint here?

Just no blank faces. So you don't.

It's exactly that. No one's heard of it.

It's it's it's nothing. It's like vanilla ice cream.

No flavour, no, no punch. We think kindness is just like

that. No, it's not.

In the Bible, Kindness all through the Old Testament.

It is God's hesed love. His, his covenant love.

It's the word for steadfast love.

Do you know what steadfast love is?

It is loyal love. Do you know what the best

definition of loyal love is? It is love that sticks with the

stuck. That's what kindness is.

Love that sticks with the stuck. How has God treated me?

He stuck with me when I was stuck, when I entered His world

and continued to trash it the way that everybody else had done

before me, when I took what is good and true and beautiful in

the moment I touched it, I tainted it and spoiled it and

trampled all over it in Christ. He forgave me.

Is that what the verse says? He treated me kindly, brothers

and sisters this morning. How can I ever not forgive you?

You know, you know to believe this first.

You know what it means. We say to each other, there is

nothing you can do to me that I will not forgive you for that

that that right view of myself that God has done this for me.

If I stand on that mountain top, I can see everything clearly.

The the God who had every right to be angry at my sin.

The God whose world I've played a major part in trashing.

Forgive me. Instead of all these things in

verse 31, instead of all of them, be kind to one another,

tenderhearted. Can I speak to you, man?

Again, Mankindness is a Christian virtue, not a feminine

virtue. It is a Christian trait that the

Lord Jesus was kind. He's been kind to me.

You know the famous story of Augustine, one of the greatest

theologians in church history. We we owe a tremendous amount to

his intellect, to his love for Christ, his teaching.

He came to faith in Christ in the city of Milan.

He had lived for self through his life, dabbled in false

cults. He pursued satisfaction of all

his desires. He had thrown himself in wanton,

abandoned into everything he possibly could.

And he came to Christ in Milan, where Bishop Ambrose was

preaching. Bishop Ambrose was the great

preacher of the day, known for his eloquence, known for his

great wisdom. People flocked to listen to him.

Do you know what Agustin said about how he came to faith

listening to Ambrose? He said to him one day, it was

not your great teaching, but that you were kind to me, but

that you were kind to me, Friends.

He saw in one man. He saw the life of the Lord

Jesus Christ lived out in all its beauty.

Oh, we've sung about it together.

We've treasured it all the way through our worship together.

If you have Christ, you have all you need for all of life.

If you have put him on, can I say to you, friends, this

morning, if you have put him on, then put him on.

Where his love, where his truth, where his gentleness, where his

pure and perfect speech, where his generosity, where his

kindness? So May God help us and keep us

all our days. Let's pray together, gracious

God, in these moments, how precious they are.

In these moments, we simply say back to you that you have done

to us what we did not deserve. You have lavished on us what we

could not earn. Instead of giving to us the

permanent exile from your perfect world, You have called

us in, dressed us in the robes, perfect robes of righteousness,

seated us at your table. You have fed us and washed us,

called us your own children, made us brothers with Christ our

head. Oh, how we love you.

We simply return to you all the affection and praise and

adoration and love of our hearts, and ask you to keep us

growing in you all our days. For we ask it together in

Christ's precious name, Amen.