2026 Retreat: “The Life of the Church”

I pray everyone got enough sleep, especially the crowd that

was having a lot of fun last night.

Hope you got your caffeine and you've been well fed and well

rested over these few weekends. Some of us may not be feeling

well. Abby is having a stomach

problem. If you could lift up remembering

your prayers and praying for good health for us, especially

as many of us will. Yeah.

I mean, all of us will be jumping right back into work

tomorrow. Sorry for that reminder.

Go ahead and turn your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 4.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

You can. If you don't have your Bibles,

you can also find the passage I believe provided for you in the

booklets. There's also a space where you

can take notes. And really as elders, we really

want to see in our church a habit of note taking, entering

sermons, and so just not not taking notes like you're in

class, everything that like as if there's going to be a test,

but just important key things that you do not want to forget

as God is speaking to you through his Word.

Now we are as we are at the end of our time together at this

retreat. Yeah, there's no better way to

gather around God's Word to learn again who we are and what

we are called to do in our lives with one another.

So, so far, we've seen a prayer for the church, a charge to the

church, and today's sermon is about the life of the church.

Now, we all enjoy transformation stories, don't we?

You know, even where we it's, it's interesting to see the

photos where it shows you the before and after picture where

it's so starkly different. And you just have to you're just

so curious, how could someone go from this to that?

How can how can this area or this land go from this to that?

How can this company that was failing to be turned around go

from this to that, that before and after?

But you have to remember that the kind of transformation that

the world exalts is the kind where you do it.

You put in the hard work, hashtag the hustle and the grind

and outcome success on the other side.

Your dreams come true. The life you always wanted is

yours, all because you made it happen with your blood, sweat

and tears. That's the kind of

transformation the world worships.

So that's the very message that the world preaches.

You can do it if you just work hard enough at it.

The Christian life is also about transformation.

Indeed. But it's distinct, unique on 2

levels. It is first a deep and profound

change within us that lasts forever.

The tools and the solutions of this world do not get deep

enough, are not powerful enough to have long lasting eternal

effects. Christian transformation is also

distinct and unique because of how good it is, how how long it

goes for, yes, but also how it's not dependent on how we do it.

It's not dependent on us. It only depends on the almighty

all knowing God who changes us and transforms us from the

inside out. And this is really good news for

us in a world that heralds that message that you just need to

try harder, just need to try work harder.

And when we found and we and how we feel hopeless when nothing

changes, when the before and after pictures look exactly the

same even after months and months and months of hard work.

The good news is that we though we cannot work to be transformed

because we are too weak, the good news is we are still indeed

changed by the grace and the power of God.

He caused this transformation in US and then He calls us to live

out that transformation and we have the very same resources to

be faithful in this, the grace and power of God.

We see this in Ephesians chapter 4.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

So please follow along with me as I read from verses 17 to 32.

Now this I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer

walk as a Gentiles zoo. In the futility of their minds.

They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from

the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them.

Due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and

king, and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to

practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you

learned Christ, assuming that you have heard about Him and

were taught in Him, as the truth is in Jesus.

To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of

life, and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be

renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new

self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and

holiness. Therefore, having put away

falsehood, let each of 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 give 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 are here, 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.

Mr. Word of God, Amen. This is the life of the church

that we are called to, and we have to make sure that we don't

import that perspective of the world, that we must do the hard

work of creating this, of transforming ourselves.

We bring that over into the church where we feel that our

church is lacking in this or lacking in that.

And so somehow we need to put an extra effort to change.

Rather we must lean and depend upon the power of God and the

grace of God that changes us to let him do the work of the

before and after and then to live out in the after by the

grace of God. So if you're taking notes,

either the three points of the sermon, first, the old Life

without God, verses 17 to 19, 2nd we see new life with God

verses 20 to 2124. And lastly, new life with one

another. So let's jump right in to old

life without God verse 17 to 19. We saw yesterday in the first

half of chapter 4 how Paul emphasized growth and maturity

of the church by the word of God equipping members and and by the

word of God equipping members and that truth spoken in love as

members to one another. He continues in today's passage

with the example of speaking truth and love speaking this

truth for the benefit of the church and we can see the

seriousness of the truth that Paul is saying.

He starts in verse 17. Now this I say and testify in

the Lord. And So what Paul is saying, he's

not just simply saying he is as if he just wants to share like

interesting facts that we didn't know.

He is testifying in the name of the Lord.

It's like he's in the middle of a courtroom scene.

Underoath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the

truth. For as an apostle of the Lord

Jesus Christ, whose life, his own life was transformed, Paul

was a witness of the Lord, and his testimony came with the

authority and the truth of Jesus.

And by such authority he says in verse 17 that you must no longer

walk as the Gentiles do. The action of walking was used

to describe the way of living your daily life.

Just like you take one step at a time as you walk, we live in one

moment at a time and what we do and say in those moments make up

our walk. The strange thing is that Paul

was writing to a bunch of Gentiles telling them don't walk

as Gentiles. Gentiles were non Jewish people

who were transformed indeed by the same gospel.

And there were some Jewish Christians in the church.

But Paul has been specifically addressing the Gentile

Christians like he did back in Ephesians chapter 3.

Ephesians 3 · chapter mention

He tells them you must not walk like the Gentiles walk.

It's because when these Gentiles became Christian by repenting of

their sins and believing in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior,

they went through a radical transformation, a complete

identity change. These Gentile believers in

Ephesus, their lives had a clear before and after because the

rest of the city that they continue to live in, they

worshipped idols. The Greek goddess Artemis, there

was a designated temple, a grand temple and then and a statue of

Artemis sold as well as throughout the city.

These these idols sold throughout the city and, and any

regular Ephesian person worship this fertility goddess.

That's how they walked. That's how they lived.

That's what their world revolved around.

But that's not how Christian Ephesians walked.

And so they turned heads because they looked Ephesian, but they

did not walk Ephesian. There were Christians walking

with Christ, walking like Christ.

This is still true for Christians today.

The old way and the old walk goes away for believers in Jesus

Christ, even though where you walk might remain the same if

you're a Christian. The rest of the world around us

is a picture of who we were before it was the past how we

used to walk. Now our families, our Co

workers, our friendships might not have changed, but we have,

even as we strive to maintain these relationships, but now for

a different purpose. It's for the sake of the gospel,

for the glory of God that they may come to know and believe in

Jesus Christ with us, that they too may, may, may experience

this radical transformation of God.

So to my Christian friends, my brothers and sisters in Christ,

will you honour the new identity you have in Christ as you

continue to live in a world that does not?

Will you honour strive to honour your new identity, the

transformation that God has done in you, while we live in a world

that does not honour Christ? While you're living with your

family who does not honour Christ, While living among your

Co workers and friends who do not know and believe and honour

Christ. I encourage you to reflect on

that question. Question how then will you

honour this identity you have in Christ while you live in a world

that does not? Because we are called by the

authority of Jesus. You must not walk as the

Gentiles do now. If there's ever a time you look

back to your old life and it just seems like those were the

good old days. Looking back to the time before

you believed in Christ and you for a moment you desire the

things of the world that you used to have where there was

wealth, power, or fame. Or you start thinking that your

old life apart from Christ was somehow better than what you

have now. As a Christian.

Then, friend, you might be forgetting where the end of that

walk leads to, because our walk always leads to a destination.

Look at the description Paul gives of the Gentiles who are on

the wrong path. Of the two options, the

descriptions at the end of verse 17 and 18, the futility of their

minds they're described by darkened in their understanding,

the ignorance that is in them. Now notice how these

descriptions emphasize the mind. What we have in our mind indeed

effects what we say and do. It is also true with what we

don't have in our minds. And that's what Paul points out

here when he when he says futility.

Futility is uselessness or meaninglessness, something not

doing what it's supposed to do. Now what were our minds supposed

to do? What were our minds created and

designed for? To think about the one true God.

To wonder and marvel at the depths of God, to understand who

God is and what He does. God created our minds to know

Him. But the unconverted

untransformed mind fails to have such knowledge of God.

In fact, a natural sinful mind rejects such knowledge with

arrogance and rebelliousness against God.

Romans 8 chapter 8 verse 7 says that the mind is set, that is

set on flesh is hostile to God. It does not submit to God.

So such minds, such few minds that are marked by futility, are

minds that are darkened in their understanding and that makes

sense spiritually. The light is the truth of God,

the truth of sinful man, and the truth of the gospel.

Then darkness is the absence of that truth, and those who walk

in this way suppress the truth, even if it were to be presented

right before them. This is their ignorance.

There is this dullness or a cluelessness about God in their

minds. They have no concept of God, no

definition of right and wrong according to God, to walk

according to His ways. And so when they walk like this,

their end is death. That's the destination of such a

walk, death. We see this in in verse 18.

They are alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance

that is in them. This has been the sad reality

ever since Genesis chapter 2. In the Garden of Eden, humanity

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

was created to be with God as Adam and Eve walked and talked

with God there. But soon their sinful

disobedience broke that relationship and they were cast

out of paradise because of their rebellion, because of their sin,

alienated from God, separated from him.

Because God is holy and for a sinful man to be in His

presence, we would not live to tell about it.

It is because God is the source of all life.

Being separated from Him means being dead.

Physical death, yes, as it's as it's the curse of sin, but

spiritually dead in our sins, as Ephesians chapter 2 describes so

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

vividly. We're not spiritually sick, as

if all we need was some spiritual rest and spiritual

vitamins, but spiritually dead, in need of a miraculous,

powerful resurrection. So if sin is the problem that

keeps us from the truth and having true life, then isn't

this what everyone needs to hear about?

Everyone, including our unbelieving friends and family

members. And I know it's not easy.

I struggle with this too. To talk with a non Christian

friend or family member whom we love, but to talk with them

about how they are sinners and how their ultimate problem is

that they cannot solve their own sin, no matter how hard it may

be. Isn't can't.

Don't you see that this is what they absolutely need to know?

That their way of sin and their walk, sinful walk, will lead to

death and eternal separation from God.

So prayerfully and lovingly, we must include these depressing

realities, these harsh realities of sin, and the outcome of

walking in the ways of the world.

Because remember, that is how all of us came to know the

truth. That is how we turn to Jesus

Christ in our conversion. We realize how sinful we were,

as someone explained to us how sinful we were.

So let's not somehow think that our unbelieving friends and

family members will come to believe in Jesus some other way

without talking to them about their sin.

Lord help us in this. Now there is a deeper reason for

the problem of our minds. See the rest of verse 18.

The ignorance that is in them is due to the hardness of heart.

The root of the problem of our minds is our stubbornness and

rebellious, rebellious against God in our hearts and no one is

excused. I'm not sure when my children

picked up this habit, but whenever I explain to them, I'm

trying to explain to them what they did wrong, why it's wrong,

how they should not do it the next time, they automatically

respond saying, oh, I didn't know.

Oh, I didn't know. That might be true the first

time, right? But not the fifth time.

The 10th time. I mean, it's, it's, it's an

excuse trying to get out of the guilt of the wrong that has been

done now before God. We also cannot say I didn't know

as if a way, as if we can just get away from our guilt because

our ignorance is willful. It is a deliberate ignorance due

to the hardness of heart. This is another picture of our

deadness because a hardened heart does not beat with

spiritual life. There is no spiritual pulse and

in such a heart there is no desire, no affection for God,

just excuses. We can only expect one kind of

life from a heart and heart. It's in the next verse, verse

19. They have become callous and

have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice

every kind of impurity. Being callous as being numb to

God, having an insensitivity toward God, meaning the truths

of God doesn't excite you, doesn't give you joy as much as

making money excites you, or the thrill of making friends or or

anything else in this world. Such a person continues to walk.

By giving themselves up to sensuality, they have let

themselves become undisciplined. Unrestrained, losing self, all

self-control, chasing after worldly pleasures and they are

never satisfied. Says they're greedy.

Can you feel such a greed to practice every kind of impurity?

No. And so they left hungering for

more, thirsty for more of impurities in the things, the

evil things of this world, evil things in the face of God.

Even though these descriptions are of worldly, ungodly ways of

living for those who are apart from Christ, there is an

exhortation for us who are Christians that we live

vigilantly, checking our hearts that we are not growing numb to

God. If I place my hands on burning

hot metal and it's sizzling my skin, you can hear it, but then

for some reason I don't feel the heat and I don't let go.

You would conclude that there's seriously something wrong with

my brain, my nervous system. I need to get it checked.

So it is true. When we are numb to the things

of God, we are burning our lives away with sin and we don't even

feel regret or remorse. That is when we really need to

get our hearts checked. So it's a call to press on,

checking our hearts and fighting our sins.

Have you made an excuse for your sin?

Sin that offends God that you know is wrong?

Have you justified it in any way?

Are you blaming other things for your sins?

Is traffic always the reason for your sins?

Work difficult people. No, we sin not because of our

situations. We sin because of our hearts.

And so we ought to ask ourselves, what do I really

desire in the depths of my heart?

What is it that that I really get excited and passionate

about? Dig away at your desires.

Discuss it with other, with another brother, with another

sister, as you confess your sins to one another.

The heart, as the book of Proverbs says, it's a wellspring

of life. And by God's grace we can

understand, we, we can guard it with the truth, we can

understand it more how wicked our heart is so that we can

continue to honour Christ. So Paul testified in the Lord

this gloomy, hopeless picture of sinners, but praise God, the

story does not end there. Because by faith we can say that

was our old life, that's who we were.

So let's now consider the new life with God.

Look at verse 20. But that is not the way you

learn Christ, assuming that you have heard about him and were

taught in Him. As the truth is in Jesus.

To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of

life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be

renewed in the spirit of your mind and to put on the new self

created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and

holiness. I hope you noticed the sharp

contrast here between the new life and the old.

The before and after are complete opposites.

How does this happen? Verse 20, by learning Christ, we

go through life learning a lot of things.

You know, students here, you're learning a lot of subjects in

your different classes. And I know you can have up to

like a dozen different exams, final exams at the end.

Sorry if that was another bad reminder, but but importantly,

we also go through life learning people, don't we?

Especially if you have a particular interest in that

special someone, you take the time, the energy to observe, to

investigate, to learn him, to learn her in personal and

intimate relationships. And so so it is with our

relationship with Christ. Our relationship with Christ

must also be personal and intimate.

And that's Paul explains that here by saying how we have

learned Christ, not just a subject, not just a topic, but a

person. It will happen as you become

students of Christ. As believers, we are students,

disciples of Jesus Christ enrolled into a school of truth.

The next verse, verse 21, explains how we have come to

learn Christ. Verse 21, assuming that you have

heard about him and were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus.

It's possible here to keep the translation heard about him as

the original language puts it, as simply heard him without the

word about. It's literally written that way.

And so how do you hear him hear Jesus?

Well, it's by the reading of Scripture.

It's by hearing the preaching of God's Word.

Through God's Word we hear, yes, about Jesus, but we also hear

Him. And how do you know if you hear

him? Well, Jesus said in John chapter

John 10 · chapter mention

10, My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me.

We know if you have heard his voice, we have heard Christ

because we are overtaken by the gospel and there's a willingness

to forsake and abandoned everything else in life to

follow him. These are the people, the people

who have heard Christ or those who have been mastered, taken

over, for Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior.

That's how we know if we have heard him.

Now if this does not describe you as someone who has heard

Christ, who have been overtaken and then so moved deeply by the

love and grace of Jesus Christ, then I exhort you to desperately

pray and ask God the very prayers that we've been seeing

in the book of Ephesians that the God that God may give you

the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of

him. And we saw in chapter 3, verse

17 to asking to be strengthened with the power of the Holy

Spirit to comprehend Christ and his love for the teens here.

I just want to make this one note.

If you don't listen to anything else, this is important for you

to hear, especially if you grew up in a Christian home where

your parents have been teaching you what it means to be

Christian. Because it is easy to miss the

target of all these lessons. The point of Bible teaching is

not so that you learn about Jesus as if he is a textbook you

know yesterday if you didn't know all the obscure Bible

details, even if you knew it, it's still possible to miss the

main point. If you didn't know all the

lyrics to all the songs of praise, even if you did, you

could still miss the main point because the main point of all of

God's Word is Jesus Christ beginning from Moses to the

prophets. All the scriptures are about

Jesus. Jesus is the teacher you want to

learn from, His school is a school you want to learn in.

And there is no entrance exam. There is no requirement because

all of us would fail anyway miserably.

It is simply to hear Christ and I pray that you and all of us

are doing that. Now through the sermon in the

next verses, we see three lessons that we learn in the

school of Jesus Christ. First lesson, chapter, verse 22,

to put off your old self, to put off your old self is like

putting off dirty clothes, putting it away.

You know, after our outdoor activity yesterday, I had mud on

my clothes, so I just did the right thing to put them away.

But imagine the clothes that you had on became so we're so

filthy, so disgusting that you didn't even want to wash them.

You know, such accidents can happen.

OK, So what do you do? You don't try to wash them.

You just throw them away. That's what the radical change

of the Christian experience is like.

Christians are freed from the hardness of heart, freed from

the darkness of mind, freed from the deadness of their souls as

they heard Christ. And by his grace, they put away

their old self, their old way of life once and for all.

They put away what was corrupted by evil, deceitful desires.

So Paul reminds him that by saying these don't ever want to

go back. It's as ridiculous as putting

wanting to put on dirty soiled clothing again.

This leads to the next lesson. Jump down to verse 24 to put on

the new self again. This is a another one time once

for all action to put on the new self.

Don't put on your filthy clothes again, but remain in your new

fresh clean clothes. Remember Paul is not suddenly

saying that you need to change yourself here as he's been

preaching grace. No, remember that this is what

Christians learn when they learn Christ to put on the new self.

It also says here in in verse 24 that in verse 24 that Christians

have become a new creation. God did the work of creating

them to be like God in His righteousness and holiness.

We considered these truths of God at the start of our surface

service. Being righteous means that we

are right with God, that we satisfy His standard of

perfection, of perfect love, perfect obedience to a perfect

and worthy God. Being holy is being set apart to

love God and to serve Him only. There is a unique, singular

purpose for God. We have no other master, no

other king, but God and Him alone.

The only way we can be like God, righteous as He is, holy as He

is, is by faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

We learn to trust Christ when we learn Christ, and we learn to

put on the new self, put off the old self, and put on the new

self. It's only possible because Jesus

came to live the perfect life of obedience that sinners should

have lived as fully God and fully man.

Jesus was righteous like God is, yet He chose to die on the cross

for our sins in our place and by grace alone, through faith alone

and Christ alone, we receive. Simply receive the perfect

righteousness of Christ and we put that on like a fresh, clean

robe. This is the only way to be made

right with God. This is the only way that we can

walk in this new life with God, no longer separated from Him,

but not walking with Him. When we believe we are born

again, as the gospel writer John puts it, and we put off our old

self and put on the new. Now the last lesson is found in

the middle of these two defining actions.

Unlike actions that we have learned to take, to put on, to

put off, this one is clearly done to us.

It's written passive, but it's passive voice.

But it's also something that happens not just once, but

progressively again and again over time.

Verse 23 and says to be renewed in the spirit of your minds.

Again, God is the one doing the work, renewing our minds, and it

has provided the context of where that happens.

God has provided, just like a flower that blooms, needs soil

to grow in, so Christians are planted into God's word to grow

and mature in our sanctification, in the renewing,

constant renewing of our minds. We're also planted into God's

family, into a church where believers help one another, not

to be deceived, not to be swayed by the things of this world, not

to make excuses for our sins, but to repent.

We're planted in his family, God's family, to hear regular

preaching of the gospel and through faithful preaching here

Christ through his words. This is what God is doing now in

the life of Christians who have put off the old self and put on

the new. And Paul is reminding us, and so

we must remind one another as we seek to be renewed in the school

of Christ, to remember the gospel, to remember what he has

done that motivates us to live in his likeness as new

creations. Which brings us to the Third

Point. What does that life look like?

Specifically? If you were to detail it out,

what would that look like? We see the new life that we have

with one another, not just with God, but with one another in

verses 25 to 32. Now, if you notice here as I

read it earlier, you probably noticed the the change of pace

in the writing because there's a lot of these quick fire commands

that come one after another. And you can rightfully come to

the conclusion, yeah, our new life together seems to be filled

with a lot of commands, 12 commands packed in here, grouped

in about 5 or 6 categories depending on how you group them.

But before we think Christianity is just another list of do's and

don'ts in order to be right with God, let's consider one word

that starts the whole list of commands in verse 25.

Therefore, it means that all the commandments of God are rooted

in God's grace. The melodic line of Ephesians,

if Ephesians was a song, the melody that is repeated is

throughout is is all things for the praise of the glory of God

and the glory of His grace. And so we read the whole book

with this melody in mind that we cannot work to be like God, as

if God is like the last level of a game that we can beat.

No, by our own merits and our own efforts, we will also fail

and fall short again and again fall short of God.

We have to understand that it is that God does not call us

knowing this about ourselves. God does not call us to say you

just need to try to be a better version of yourself.

No, because we will fail. The commands are not for us to

do that. The commands of God are to

remind us of what God is like, to remind us of what life, what

life with God looks like. And that we were created new,

that we have put on the new self with new desires, new attitudes,

new practices. So now that they have been made

right with God. Therefore, Paul says, having put

away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his

neighbor, for we are all members one of another, our God, He does

not lie. He has no darkness of deception

or any fraud in him. He only speaks the truth.

And we have been made to be like God, so we are to do the same.

Yet the main reason Paul emphasizes here is relational

relationship with God. Yeah, is assumed, but what's

made clear is our relationship with one another as the reason

why we should speak. Not lies, but truth.

The reason is that our right living is of doing good, is not

done in a vacuum, isolated from other people, other believers.

Our right living is in the reality of living with other

believers in the church, for we are members one of another, Paul

says. This is the foundational reason.

We do not lie to each other. We do not, we do not choose to

pass on any deception or deceit the truth, because the truth

that we speak benefits the whole body, including ourselves, the

man. We were spending time realizing

that looking into that in God's Word yesterday during our

fellowship time, how if one part of the body suffers, all

suffers. So what happens when members lie

to each other? Imagine a body is eating food

with a fork. The hand does the work of moving

the food and placing the food into the mouth.

The mouth does the work of opening and chewing, and so on

and so forth. But imagine if the eye begins to

lie to the hand and the hand is confused where the mouth is.

The hand might just poke himself, poke itself in the eye,

poke it's and and and cause hurt to the own eye.

And and that's I think what Paul is getting at here.

Because if we lie to one another, that keeping truth back

from each other, yeah, we hurt the body, we hurt others, but we

hurt ourselves. And so have you kept back the

truth in your relationship with with other members?

Have you lied and deceived when they ask you just honest

questions out of love for you? By doing so, you do hurt your

neighbor, this whole body. We all suffer, but you hurt

yourself. Repent and and and believe and

may each one of us speak the truth to one another.

It's meant for the benefit of each other.

Paul continues to address our relationship with one another.

He addresses anger next in verses 26 and 27.

Be angry and do not sin, and do not let the sun go down on your

anger and give no opportunity to the devil.

We all know there's such a thing as righteous anger, but I don't

think we that's the one we struggle with, do we?

Because even when our anger may be righteous, if we let it go on

too long, it becomes unrighteous.

That's the warning here. That's what he's Paul's teaching

us. If we do so, verse 27, we are

giving an opportunity to the devil.

It allows the door. That gap allows the door for

satanic activity if we let our anger go on too long, as we

allow anger to boil over into bitterness and division even,

what opportunity do we give the devil when we stay angry and

keep grudges other than, I mean, that's the big one, division in

the body, but it's an also giving an opportunity to the

devil to make a mockery of God. Remember, we were created new in

God's likeness. But when we stay angry and keep

grudges, we become bad witnesses of God to the world.

Instead, we are called to do the spiritual work, the spiritual

battle of being reconciled, and reconciled quickly with your

fellow church members, all by the grace of God.

We do not want to be on Team Satan in this, of course, and we

serve God's purposes when we do not sin in our anger and we do

not let our anger go on too long.

More on how we're going to be reconciled at the end of this

verse, but for now, let's see what he addresses.

Third, he addresses stealing in verse 28.

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

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

share with anyone in need. Now, it's probably obvious that

in the life of the church, they should not be stealing from one

another. We actually, we don't know

exactly what kind of problem that they had regarding this,

but obviously it would seriously attack the unity of the church

if members were scamming one another, stealing money,

property from each other, taking advantage of each other for

their own financial gain and benefit.

But what's interesting here is that, and just quickly note that

Paul is addressing the problem of stealing with positive

instruction instead of stealing. The life of the church should be

marked by this, that each one works hard, does honest work, so

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

That's the life of the church. That's what it looks like, that

we do work, do honest work, hard work, and then we give it away

to each other as others are in need.

So just imagine with me, a group of people living like this in

any city in any part of the world where they're willing to

work hard. Where when everyone else is

working hard for themselves, to make a name for themselves, to

secure a life for themselves, to see a group of people working

hard, doing honest work so that they could share and benefit one

another. How compelling, how attractive

would we be to those in need, to the lost in need of the gospel,

where it shows that we're not just here to to bring religious

teaching and make you change your religious identity.

But no, we're here to serve and meet your real needs so that we

may serve the ultimate need for you to be forgiven of your sins.

By doing so, as a church, we will also show the world that

money, greed for money, is not our master, that we don't serve

money. No, instead we show the world

that no, my money is meant to serve you if you are in need.

So for some of us who are as members in the church who are in

financial need, whether now or maybe later on, because that's

just how life is, money is fleeting.

No matter how much you want to be secure in finances, it's

always fleeting, isn't it? Especially in a world that's

ridden with war and economic crises.

Whenever you are in financial need, you don't have to feel bad

to to ask and receive help and support because as a church

that's what we are working for. Paul says Next, let's consider

our words speaking speaking in in in general verse 29.

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. Let's just do a thought

experiment and imagine you had an audio recorder that never ran

out of batteries that's waterproof.

You can bring it everywhere and it's recording every single word

that you have said, recording any, any and all words and, and

speech. Yes, there might be good words

there, but there might be some bad words, corrupting talk,

degrading, insulting, condescending, perhaps even

complaining. Later in Chapter 5, it includes

foolish talk, even crude joking. Now I know that illustration

falls apart because some of us might say, well, I never curse

out loud. I just keep it inside.

Well, imagine that audio recorder records even those

words. But to be to be honest, Jesus

keeps record of every word that has come that comes out of our

mouths. In Matthew 12, chapter 12, verse

36, He's 37, He says this. I tell you, on the day of

judgement, people would give account for every careless word

they speak. For by your words you will be

justified and by your words you will be condemned.

And so we are to be a people that speak in such a way that

gives grace to those who hear. We must strive to speak words.

Not only are we responsible to yeah, to not let those bad words

out, but to speak the words of grace, to build up and to

encourage as it fits the occasion.

For those who are discouraged, to encourage them, those those

who are anxious and unsettled, to speak peace to them.

For those who feel isolated and alone, words of care and

comfort, there will be a people who speak to give grace to one

another until the day Jesus Christ comes.

What's interesting is that such wrong behaviour in our speech,

it really offends God. We see that connection there the

word and in the next verse, verse 30 and do not grieve the

Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of

redemption. That connection there it's it's

again we note the connection there to speech.

The Holy Spirit is especially grieved.

That word is means to cause severe distress.

So, if you can imagine, the Holy Spirit is severely distressed

when we do not speak to one another in the way that we

should, when the followers of Christ are speaking unkindly to

each other, engaging in such sinful behaviour, that would

destroy the unity and bring one another down.

Because that is not what the work, that is not what the Holy

Spirit worked for to cause in US.

But even as we fail, we can we have this hope that believers

are sealed for the day of redemption.

And so by by looking again to the work of the Holy Spirit and

the assurance that we have that He is at work in us, in the

guarantee that we have of our, of our future inheritance at the

day of redemption. Verse 31, we should live in

lives contrast to verse 31, to let all bitterness and wrath and

anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all

malice. These things should not be any

words that describe the people of God.

So we must not speak this way primarily along with not acting

in ways in these ways either. Lastly, in verse 32, be kind to

one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another as Christ

as God in Christ forgave you. If we consider what can be the

the ultimate way to to care for one another, to love one another

to serve one another to speak the the ultimate kindness that

we can speak ultimate tender heartedness that we can have to

one another. It's this to forgive one another

another. Forgiving when we have been

wronged and when we have been sinned against is the greatest

kindness that we can do to one another.

I realized and I learned as I got married and I started my own

family, something that I forgot when I was growing up with my

parents and my family, that the people who are the closest to

you, who love you the most, hurt you also the most.

You know, I grew up in a pretty tough environment.

All sorts of things spoken against me to insult me and

offended me, whether it was who I was and what I did.

But it was the words of my parents that always struck me

most deeply. I said, anyone can say whatever

to me, but you're nothing to me. But the people who I love and I

care for so deeply, their words, their actions meant the most.

I realized that even as I'm married now, the the woman I

have given my life to, my heart to, that that has loved me and

understood me so deeply, why is it that she has the power to

hurt me the most? Often times it's unintentional,

but still, that is the reality. And so it is true with our

spiritual family as well. It comes from this expectation

that if we are the family of God, yeah, we should love one

another, we should care for each other.

But why is it then there are moments that when we are hurt,

that we are hurt and offended by each other.

But I think it's the same like in our biological families,

because those whom are the closest to us, yeah, we, we, we

expect more from them. But not only that, it's because

we spend the most time with them.

We interact a lot with them, and they see the depths of who we

are. We see the depths of who they

are. There are much, many more

opportunities then to be disappointed, to be discouraged

and disheartened from one another.

You know that brother's supposed to love me, but why did he say

that to me? You know that sister is supposed

to be my friend, but why did she forget about me or leave me out

of this? And there might be a whole bunch

of combinations of ways that we hurt one another.

And so here at the end of all the things of what we are, what

we ought to do, these commands that should describe who we are

come. This comes this command that we

forgive one another. That is the greatest kindness.

It it requires much tender heartedness.

We cannot forgive somebody with a hard heart as we remember how

much our God in Christ forgave us.

When you are hurt by a fellow member in the church.

I didn't say if when. When you are hurt by a fellow

brother or sister in Christ in this church, would you then

direct all your energy and efforts not to make a list, Make

a full list of how wrong they were and what they did to you,

but would you direct your energy and efforts to remember how God

in Christ forgave you? Go there first.

Don't think about if they deserve your forgiveness or not.

Go to Christ first. Who did?

Our God, our Father, who did not spare even his own Son, but gave

him up, gave him up for us all. Our God in Christ who welcomed

undeserving sinners, rebellious sinners into His family, and who

then pours out upon us new mercies for every day, for each

day, grace upon grace upon grace.

How could we not treat our brothers and sisters in these

ways? Then God commands us to by His

Word, so that by His Word we know that our God is a God of

forgiveness. But also by His Word He has

given us the ability to forgive. He has shown us not only by

example as He demonstrated His love, that while Christ as we

were still sinners, Christ died for us, but He also radically

transformed us so that we can forgive one another.

In light of this passage in the reality of the old life without

God and the new life with God, and now all these commands that

are that that define the life of the church, we see that it

matters to God how you treat others in the body of Christ.

It's we cannot go out thinking, Oh, it's enough that I just, I'm

just in a good relationship with God that I'm buddy buddy with

Jesus and that's, that's all that I need to know.

It matters to God how we treat and relate with other believers

in the body of Christ because he has given us new life with him

and with the church. But let's remember again God's

grace as we close. If we fail class, yeah, we fail

out of school, we don't get that degree.

If we don't hit our yearly targets, yeah, we don't make it

through performance review. But not so with God.

Not so in the school of Christ. Not so in his family, in the

church, because we have been brought together, brought in by

the grace of God, and we'll be sustained by the grace of God,

empowered by the grace of God, motivated by the grace of God to

live out the new life, the new walk, the new creation, that we

are created in the likeness of God, in his righteousness and

holiness. So may we lean all the more on

the grace of God to be the church that He calls us to be.

All to the praise, to the glory of God, and to the glory of His

grace. Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your grace.

And by your grace, Lord, would you make us into a people that

rightfully reflects who you are ultimately that you are a

forgiving God. Give us a grace in our give us

this grace in our weakness to then forgive one another and

help us to the be the people who lives out the life of Christ.

Where where we can say when we look to Scripture and we glance

up at our church and look back to scripture and look back at

our church, we can say our church is becoming is growing

and maturing more and more into the church that you call us to

be. Lord, help us in this for your

glory in Jesus name, Amen. Let's take a moment to

personally reflect on the word of God that was preached.

Consider for yourself, is your life this, if you, is your life

described by the faithfulness to these commands, not only to be

faithful to God, but to be faithful to one another in all

the ways that we fall short. Let's depend upon God.

Let's come to him, remember him in all the ways that we have

done successfully. Perhaps at this retreat.

Let's turn to God still and thank him for it.

Was his power at work in US. In that way, let's look to God.

What do we learn about God? Who is he?

What is important to Him? And if we truly believed in what

we heard today, how would our life look different?

As we leave this place, as we go back into our individual lives,

our lives with one another, what would our lives look like?

How would it be different? What would be that before and

after? Picture that after picture?

What would that look like? Consider these things before we

close out together in song and in prayer.

The. Music.