Who Won The Trade? // Eph 4.25 - 5.2

Welcome to the Movement Church podcast. We want you to know that God is

for you and so are we. You're about to hear a sermon from one

of our weekend services in Palmer Lake, Colorado. We pray that your faith

is provoked, your mind is renewed, and your heart is awakened as you

engage the Word of God. Stay tuned back from the message for ways to

get connected with us. God bless you. Thanks for tuning in. Hey,

good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Movement Church. You guys sounded

amazing this morning during worship. Was awesome to hear you singing. We are

in this series in the Book of Ephesians. And to start this morning,

going to have one of my favorite people that I've met since we moved back

to Colorado, a man with an amazing head of hair and just a beautiful

gift and talent for hockey of all things. And I want you to be

praying for him because he's having surgery. When's your surgery, Ruben? On

Friday this week and so it's the first hip. Yeah, So be praying

for Reuben. If you're listening to the podcast, be praying for Reuben Clark.

He's having surgery on Friday for his hip, and so he's gonna miss

a lot of hockey this year. But God has big plans for this young

man. And I'm excited to have you with us this morning to read our

scripture in Ephesians five, or sorry, Ephesians four. So ruben take it

away, buddy, read this for us. Therefore, having put away falsehood,

let each one of you speak the truth within his neighbor, for we

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

let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the

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

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

share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths,

but only such is 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 clamor and slander

be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one

another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore

be imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love as Christ loved

us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks to be to God.

Amen, Thank you, Reuben. All right, Well, this passage that

we're studying in Ephesians four is a passage all about trades. There's a trade

that has happened in the live and the lives of Christians. When I was

in high school, I loved to trade baseball cards. My prized possession was

the Ken Griffy Junior Rookie Card nineteen ninety four. I had the fleor,

I had the upper deck, I had the Dnris And I loved going to

baseball card conventions and bringing my baseball cards and walking through the conventions and making

trades. It was one of my favorite things to do. I had friends

in middle school who would trade friendship bracelets. Is that still a thing?

By the way, in high school students, friendship bracelets still a thing.

I had friends that would trade friendship bracelets all the time. Of course,

we know that the stock exchange is sort of a trade. People are making

trades all the time, and I don't want to miss out on an opportunity

this particular weekend to honor those of us in the room who decided to trade

in their status as civilians on this Veteran's Day weekend. They decided to serve

our country. So if you are a veteran, would you stand right now

in this moment, if you've served in our military, can we honor these

people and thank them? Thank you very much. They traded in their civilian

status for honor and bars and stripes and living on a fort. Of course,

those of you that are into fantasy football, you know all about trading.

You know too much about trading. You people are spending too much of

your time thinking about trading. Mastered the trade, you must. You can't

believe how many memes there are on the internet about fantasy football trades like this

one. A trade in your fantasy football league was vetoed. This is from

Captain Kirk when someone didn't my fantasy football trade. Have you ever seen your

husband make this face? Ladies, this is what's happened. I love this

one because men make this face all the time. Right, can't tell if

it's a bad trade or just plain disrespect. You know, this kind of

thing happens all the time. And if you're a fan of sports at all

and you listen to sports radio or you watch ESPN, we probably spend more

time on sports radio or on ESPN talking about what's going to happen off the

field than what actually happened on the sport of play. We talk about trade

propositions, trade opportunities. And there's a phrase in the last two or three

years that has been popping off on the screen that, to me, is

such a fascinating phrase. After someone gets traded, this is the phrase that

you'll hear who won the trade? Who won the trade? So this person

traded this player and they got this player in response, who won the trade?

So I want to show you just a few of the trades in the

history of sports that were so lopsided that it's so clear who won the trade.

In nineteen ninety six, the Charlotte Hornets, with their thirteenth pick in

the NBA Draft, selected Kobe Bryant. For nine minutes and thirteen seconds,

the Charlotte Hornets had on their roster a perennial All Star, a five time

NBA Champion, a two time League of MVP. For nine minutes and thirteen

seconds, this guy was a Charlotte Hornet, and then the Lakers, just

two picks later, drafted this guy, Vlotti dvox. Anybody ever heard of

Lotti d Box? Vlatti d Box at one point was thought to be one

of the greatest big man facilitator passers in the league. That is, until

we met Nikola jokicch somebody say, amen, And so you know what happened

was the Lakers drafted they drafted Vltti, and then they traded for one another,

just right there on the spot, nine minutes and thirteen seconds after the

Hornets drafted Kobe, the Lakers drafted Vlotti, and then they traded. Kobe

went on to be a five time NBA champ, two time Finals MVP,

Perennial All Star, arguably top five greatest players of all time. Your boy

Vlotti. He played two years for the Hornets, averaging eleven points per game,

six rebounds, and he made the most of his time on the court.

He averaged five fouls per game. So I ask you who won the

trade? Who won the trade? The Lakers sad to say, because I

hate the Lakers. But who won the trade? The Lakers won the trade

in nineteen ninety one. In nineteen ninety one, the Atlanta Falcons selected this

guy from Southern miss University in the second round of the NFL Draft. You

know who this guy is. That is a young spry Brett Now. The

coach of the Falcons at that time was Jerry Glanville, and Jerry Glanville did

not like Brett Farvv and so the next year, in nineteen ninety two,

Glanville decided he wanted a trade Brett Farv, so he traded Brett Favre to

the Packers for a first round draft pick. The Falcons selected with their first

round draft pick a young man named Tony Smith. Tony Smith played two years

in the NFL Draft or in the NFL for the Falcons. His whole career,

he had eighty seven carries for three hundred and twenty nine yards. That

was his entire career. Brett Favre played twenty years in the NFL, three

time MVP, two times to the Super Bowl, and he holds eleven NFL

records. Who won the trade? The Green Bay Packers won the trade.

You can answer the question, it can we can go back and forth.

Now in nineteen eighty three, God smiled on Colorado, didn't he, Because

this man, Jim Ursay, who was the owner of the Indianapolis Colts,

had earned for himself because of the colts terrible record, the number one pick

in the NFL draft. And there was no question that year who the first

pick was going to be. A young quarterback from Stanford University named John Elway.

Inn't he dreamy look at him? Now? Elway's parents and Elway and

his agent made it very clear to Jim Irsay that were they to draft John

Elway, he would never set foot in Indianapolis, he would never play for

the Colts. In fact, if they drafted him, he told them that

he was going to go play for the Yankees. He said, if you

draft me to be at Indianapolis, cult, you'll never see me in the

blue and white. I'll go play for the Pinstripes. So Jim Mersey had

a hard decision to make. He had to figure out what he was going

to do with this first round draft pick. He decided that what he was

going to do was fleece whoever it was that decided they wanted to trade with

him. He made this famous quote, he said, if they want Lway,

by God, they're going to give up an arm and a leg to

get him. So the Denver Broncos said, how about we give you quarterback

Mark Herman, offensive lineman Chris Hinton, and the nineteen eighty four first round

draft pick, which turned out to be right guard Ron Sult. Pretty good

deal, right? In return? You know what, the Broncos got John

Freakin' l Way Okay, who went on to have a sixteen year NFL career.

He's a Hall of Famer, two time Super Bowl champ. He's the

only quarterback in the history of the league who had seven consecutive seasons of three

thousand yards passing and two hundred yards rushing. And the man can sell a

heck of a stake, right, So I ask you again, and you

can answer, who won the trade? The Broncos won the trade. Now,

I asked my son, who's all of eighteen years old, I said,

Justice, in your opinion, what's the most lopsided trade in the history

of sports? Now, when you ask an eighteen year old a question like

that, you're going to get an eighteen year old answer, right, and

so I just want to apologize to you, you know, on the front

end before you hear his answer, and maybe you might agree with him fullheartedly.

But he said, I'll tell you the top five worst trades in the

history of all sports. Number five Russell Wilson being traded from Seattle to Denver.

Number four Russell Wilson being traded to Denver. Number three Russell Wilson,

all the way down to number one. You get the drift. And I

would ask you who won the trade? And we don't know yet. Come

on, let's have some faith, right, We don't know yet, but

I think we know Seattle may have known a little something about our guy Russ.

Don't you think what's the point I'm making in all this? When we

think about the Book of Ephesians, when we think about the trade that happened

between your soul and the king of kings and the Lord of lords, we

think about the trade that happened between what you brought to the table and what

God gave to you, start asking yourself the question who won the trade?

Just think about that for a second. Vody Bochum said this. He's one

of my favorite preachers. I love this quote. He said, the Gospel

of Jesus Christ only requires two things. This is what you have to bring

to the table when you're making the trade. Two things, repentance and faith.

All you've got to do at some point is to turn from the direction

that you're headed, with your back to the Lord and your heart to the

world. You have to turn the other direction, with your back to the

world and your heart to the Lord. That's repentance and then faith that this

God that you believe in is real, that this God that you're putting your

faith in is the real thing. That's all it takes. The Gospel of

Jesus Christ only requires two things, repentance and faith. Now, let me

just say this. If you grew up in a very staunch, very legalistic,

very performative faith, where part of your understanding of Christianity was that you

need to perform, is that you need to obey, that you need to

do all the right things in order to live up to God's standards for you,

that comment right there is incendiary. That comment right there is just rubbing

all up in you. It should bother you, It should bring tension to

you. If you believe on some level in your heart that you have to

perform for God to love you. This comment flies in the face of your

religion. The Gospel of Jesus Christ only requires two things, repentance and faith.

He went on to say this, The Gospel doesn't require obedience because if

you could obey God's ordinances on your own, then you wouldn't need the Gospel

at all. The Gospel is good news. What you can't accomplish on your

own, Jesus has accomplished for you, and you ought to say, amen.

So what the Gospel requires of us is repentance and faith. But what

the Gospel produces in us is obedience. Do you see that it's beautiful.

You don't come to the table, to the trade table with Jesus and say,

here's what I have to offer. If you will give me salvation,

if you will give me a relationship with the King of kings, what I

will bring to you is all of my obedience, all of the good that

I have to offer, all of my righteousness. Will bring all of that

to you, and you give me all of the best that you have.

That's not the trade that we made. That's not the transaction that we made

with God. That's not how it worked. Here's how it really worked.

You brought all of your problems, all of your mess all of your questions,

all of your emptiness, all of your angst, all of your trouble,

and you said, help. I believe that you're the only one that

can. And he brought to you all of Heaven, all of his goodness,

all of his righteousness, salvation forgiveness. So I would ask you who

won the trade? We did. We won the trade, and you ought

to be shouting. I don't know what's wrong with this church. We ought

to be shouting. Seriously. I understand, like, look, there's been

some lopsided trades, you know on this side of eternity. The Kobe and

Vodi trade that's lopsided. The Falcons and the packers, that's lopsided, you

know, John Elway, that slopsid. But what Jesus did for us,

that Jesus would die so that you could live, there has never been a

more lopsided trade on this side of eternity than the fact that our Savior would

give up his life so that you could live. And you ought to be

shouting about that. I mean, think back to that moment when you just

broke before God. Maybe you haven't done it yet. Maybe you're here today

and you haven't yet come to the trade table. You haven't yet, said

Jesus, I'm at this place where I've got nothing. I've got nothing to

give. I've got nothing to offer. What do you got? What can

you give to me? I got nothing? All I have is problems.

All I have is questions. All I have is anngst, anxiety, fear,

doubt, shame. All I have is mess. What do you got?

And God's like? I got it all? Man. I got peace,

I got patience, I got love, I got hope, I got

promise, I got future. I have so much purpose for your life.

You can't even believe what I've got for you. You can't even imagine it.

Jesus died so that you could live. Who won the trade? Man?

Come on, we won the trade. We won the trade. We

sang the song earlier today, and you guys didn't sing it loud enough.

Okay, I just want to tell you this. I don't understand you people

sometimes. Okay, you didn't sing it loud enough. Everything is changing now,

Everything is changing now. My life is different because of this trade that's

happened in my life. Everything is changing the spirit of the Lord is here.

The spirit of the Lord is in my life. I'm trading mourning for

dancing. I'm trading sorrow for joy. Everything in my life is different now.

Now listen, I understand when you get saved, some people, you

know, buy into some bad religion. They go, I'm gonna give my

life life to Jesus. And then they go back to their life and they

go, everything's the same. I got the same trouble, same problems,

same issues, same me. What's going on? I thought everything was going

to be different. Right, here's what's different. You got Jesus with you

now. You didn't have that before. You're still going to walk right back

into the same mess, but now you have the King of Kings and the

Lord of Lords to be your guide and your comfort. Right, everything is

changing. You traded your mess and got back his best. Who won the

trade? Who won the trade? What the Gospel requires is repentance and faith,

And what it produces is obedience. And the way I want to say

that today is like this. What it really produces is a life that displays

who won the trade. Man, if your life, if the way you

lived your life outside of these walls displayed that you know I won the trade.

I won the trade. Now, listen, I'm not saying that you're

walking around DJ called every day. All I do is when when when,

No matter what, I'm not saying, okay, I'm not saying you walking

into every room going you're welcome, I'm a winner. I'm not saying that

there's an attitude of gratitude about it. Right, there's an attitude of like,

no, you guys don't understand. You don't know where I came from.

You don't understand what he saved me from. And you can't imagine how

much he gave to me versus how little I offered him. You can't understand

how good it is that my God has given me this salvation and this grace.

I'm living my life in a way that communicates I know very well who

won the trade? Amen? Does that make sense? And So today,

as we look through this Ephesians passage, that's how I want us to approach

it. How do our lives display that we won the trade? How do

our lives display that we won the trade? So let's look at it.

Ephesians four twenty five. It says this, therefore, having put away falsehood.

Let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor. For we

are members one of another, having put away falsehood. Let each one of

you speak the truth with his neighbor. We're members one of another. How

do we live our lives? How do our lives display that we won the

trade? It's really simple. Be real and not fake. Be real and

not fake. By and large, the world's opinion of the church at large

is that we are a group of hypocritical people who don't practice what we preach.

True or false? Okay, true? So can I just ask you

a quick question? What are you preaching? What are you preaching? I

know what I'm preaching. Look, I do it every week. I'm up

here every Sunday. I know what I'm preaching. I'm preaching that I'm a

sinner saved by Grace, that's walking every day with the full knowledge that if

I take one step away from him, I'm in a lot of trouble.

Right, That's what I'm preaching. What are you preaching? Are you going

around putting your fingers at people, telling people how good you are and how

bad they are. Is that what you're preaching? Because that would make you

a hypocrite. Okay, we hate that word, don't we. Ooh,

it's the meanest thing. Ooh. If somebody calls a Christian a hypocrite,

like our jowels get raised, right, we get so frustrated and angry,

like what did you say? Hold my earrings? Girl like? Like,

we get so frustrated when we hear that word hypocrite. But it's because I

just want to ask you, what are you preaching. What they're saying is

you don't practice what you preach. So what are you preaching. Are you

preaching I'm a sinner? Or are you preaching you're a sinner? Come on,

I love this. I saw this son a couple of weeks ago.

A hypocrite is a person who's not himself on Sunday. What are they saying?

Are saying you're the same perd Monday through Saturday. You're putting on a

show on Sundays. You're only a hypocrite if you're professing sinlessness. Now,

let's be careful. My pastor said, it's okay if I just walk around

telling them everybody about how simple I am. Yay, it's not what I'm

saying. Come on, this not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is,

let's be careful not to go around wagging our finger at people. Let's

be the kind of people like Paul who says, I just want you to

know. I know I've written a lot of stuff. You guys are going

to learn a lot about God because of the stuff I've written. Here's one

thing I want you to remember. I am the chief of all sinners.

I'm the worst of all of you. Like, what if that were our

attitude? What if we understood I won the trade, I won the trade.

I brought nothing to Jesus. I continue to bring nothing to Jesus.

He brings everything to me. What are you preaching? Does that make sense?

Put away falsehood, Stop trying to act like you got it all figured

out. Stop trying to pretend like you're somebody'or not man. So often,

so many people do this thing where they put on this persona of the

person that they think you think they want you to be. Right, I'm

going to act like the person I think you want me to be. Okay,

well, what if you accept that person? You haven't accepted me,

you haven't loved me, And so now I'm still walking around this planet with

no friends and no relationships and no acceptance and no community and nobody that knows

me. Right. So let me just ask you a few questions, and

I hope these get up all up in your chili. Okay, here's some

questions. Does anybody really know you? Like really know you, not the

you that you want me to know. Does anybody really know you? Is

there anyone in your life who knows the ditches of your life? Can you

call somebody on a Tuesday afternoon when you're in trouble, when you feel it

in your heart that you're going to fall into some trouble. Can you call

somebody and say, Hey, I need you to pray for me. Can

you meet with me right now? Is there anyone in your life who knows

the things that tend to call to your flesh? Is there anyone in your

life who you are confessing your sin to. We meet on Thursday mornings,

a bunch of us men, and there have been a few moments on our

Thursday mornings where a couple of the guys have taken risks to say, this

is what my sin looks like. I'm not proud of it. I got

no control over it. It's got more control over me than I wish it

did. Will you guys help me? You pray for me. You can't

believe what that does to everybody in the room's faith, to how that encourages

us to go, oh wow, me too. Right? Is there anyone

in your life who is sharing your burdens with you? I love this quote.

A celebration shared is doubled, a trial shared is cut in half.

Is there anybody that you're being real with and not fake? Live a life

that displays that you want the trade, be real and not fake? Okay?

Verse twenty six is one of my favorite verses to quote only half of

verse twenty six be angry. I love it. It's one of my favorite

verses. I quote it all the time. I used to tell my son

all the time. The Bible says be angry. I would tell them all

the time. It's right here if you go look it up Ephesians four twenty

six. I'm being a good father because the Bible says be angry. This

is what it says. Why are you so angry? Because the Bible told

me to be angry, You're giving me a reason. It's anyway, so

it says be angry, and do not sin, Do not let the sun

go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Now,

I really do love that it says, be angry. I really do

love that because you know what it could have said. It could have said,

Hey, you know what, don't be angry all the time, guys,

don't do that. Don't be angry. But that's not what it says.

It is telling us that anger, when used appropriately is good. Be

angry. This is active. Hey, friends, be angry. It's like

saying eat vegetables, like right, like exercise, be angry, but do

not sin. One of the best movies, to me, in cinematic history

that has displayed the concept of anger is the movie Inside Out. You ever

see this movie? I love this movie. I love this guy right here.

He's like my spirit animal. I love this guy. He shows up

in the daughter's life, the father's life, and the mother's life in three

different ways. And what it proves is that anger is a part of all

of us. Anger, when used appropriately, is a very good thing.

I saw this movie this summer. Anybody see this movie Sound of Freedom this

summer. So this, to me is an example of righteous anger. This

is a movie that came out this summer that surprised Hollywood. Is like,

I think it's going to end up in the top ten this year of top

ten highest grossing movies of the year. It's a Christian movie made by Angel

Studios. It's got Jim Cajesus in it over there, and I don't know

his real name, but anyway, so he plays an FBI agent who is

on the hunt for sex traffickers and the whole movie is about him just weaponizing

his righteous anger towards these people that are doing these terrible things to young kids.

Now, at the end of the movie, this is how the movie

turned out to be such really a movement this year, no pun intended.

At the end of the movie, Jim does this appeal during the credits where

he speaks directly to the audience and he says to them all of these facts

about sex trafficking across the country, across the world, and he tells people,

here's what I want you to do. Now that you've seen this movie,

you've heard this story. I want you to go to this website and

I want you to go buy two to five tickets to this movie, and

I want you to give those tickets to someone who needs to see this movie.

So what they did was they weaponized that righteous anger that couldn't help but

happen after you see this movie, and they put it in the hands of

people, and it became one of the highest grossing films of the year.

So what I'm saying is, how do we display that we won the trade.

I think what Paul is getting at when he talks about being angry and

do not sin, don't let the sun go down on your anger, is

he's saying that there's there's a way to utilize or to weaponize our anger for

kingdom purposes. To weaponize our anger for kingdom purposes. I wish that I

could weaponize the anger I feel on I twenty five when people are rubbernecking,

like I wish there was a way for me to weaponize that because it makes

me crazy. Just so you know, if you are a rubbernecker on I

twenty five, that's not your business. Okay, what's happening over there with

these people that got pulled over by the cops is not a reason for us

to go from seventy five to thirty five. Okay, just a public service

announcement. Yes, I'm trying not to sin. As I tell you this,

I'm angry. There's anger in me, and I'm trying to weaponize it.

Okay, this is what I'm saying, So be angry and do not

sin. I heard an incredible sermon a few weeks ago from this guy.

This is Robbie Gallady. He's at a church in Hendersonville, Tennessee, and

he was talking about the stats of college students who grew up in the church.

Kids like you, Emma, who grew up Christian, grew up in

a Christian home, and then go off to college. This is amazing.

Seventy percent of students who grew up in Christian homes and go off to college

leave the faith. Seventy percent. This is what the sermon was about.

And Robbie decided that their whole church was going to make an effort to do

something about it. Here's what they believed. They believed that the issue is

we're not doing an enough to train mom and dad to be the primary disciple

maker in the home. We're not doing enough. We're talking about the idea

that mom and dad are supposed to be discipling their kids. Right, who's

discipling mom and dad? And so they put out this entire idea called not

on our Watch? What is that that is righteous anger? That is saying

seventy percent? That number ticks me off. That number is no good.

Let's do something about it. Okay. So here's the question I would ask

of you, and I think it's worthy for you to think about this.

What injustices do you see in your community? Where do you see hurt?

Where do you see inequity? Where do you see pain? Are you looking?

Are you so consumed with yourself that you're not looking? Start looking?

What are you going to do about it? Be angry? Be angry about

it, not sin, Do not let the devil get a chance to put

an end to that righteous indignation that you feel about those issues. We have

this phrase that's kind of our mantra at the Movement Church. God is for

you and so are we. It's the thing that we want this community,

the Triliks area to hear from us and to feel from us. But they're

not going to hear it and they're not going to feel it until we start

to do something about it. We talked about this at our vision night Wednesday

night. If you were here, you heard me say this that we believe

that our mission is to earn the right to share the gospel by loving and

serving people. Well, to earn the right to share the gospel by loving

and serving people, Well, what does that mean? We want to go

identify the problems in our community, and then we want to do whatever it

takes to rectify those problems so that we can then testify to the great power

and kingdom of Jesus Christ. And you ought to say, Amen, that's

the idea. So let's work together to weaponize righteous anger for kingdom purposes.

Amen, Let's keep moving, it says, 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. I'm going to

give you the point, and then I want to show you how clever this

really is. I think this is such a brilliant little turn of phrase that

Paul does here. How do our lives display that we won the trade?

Don't just stop taking, start giving. Don't just stop taking, start giving.

Paul could have stopped when he said that phrase. He could have stopped

at honest work with his own hands. Look at that phrase. Look at

how he said it again, let the thief no longer steal, but rather

let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands. He could have

just stopped right there. Look, instead of taking from somebody else, go

earn some money so you can earn for yourself. Leave people alone. That's

not what he says. He says, earn with your own hands. Why

so that you have something to share with someone else. So don't just stop

taking, but start giving. The opposite of taking isn't earning. The opposite

of taking is giving. Right, So you can't give until you've earned.

So go and earn, but to live like you want to trade. You

don't just stop taking. You replace destructive behavior with constructive behavior. You not

only stop hurting people, but you start helping people. Don't just stop taking,

start giving. So what constructive good are you doing for others with the

financial blessings of your life? What constructive good for others are you doing with

the financial blessings of your life? FIK, Are you talking about tithing?

Yeah, I'm talking about tithing. Are you talking about giving to the church?

Sure, yeah, I'm talking about that. But I'm also talking about

the people in your life. I'm talking about the people that are in your

purview, the people that are around you. Do you have your radar up?

Are you thinking? Are you watching? Are you being mindful of the

people that you have an opportunity to bless just by loving them, just by

serving them, just by giving some of the excess that God's given to you.

How are you sewing into others? What good do you do with the

good you've been given? Are you living like you know that you won the

trade? Dude, I came with nothing and He's given me this incredible bounty.

I'm not gonna hoard all this for myself. I've got to share it,

right, I'm going to live my life like I know who won the

trade? How do you display that you won the trade? Don't stop taking?

Don't just stop taking, start giving? And I think Verse twenty nine

is the same concept. Look at this. It says, 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.

You all know the phrase, right, sticks and stones will break my

bones, but words will crush my heart. Right, we tell our kids

six and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

But come on, you know, words will crush you. Words can destroy

you. Words can like absolutely penetrate the deepest parts of who you are.

Your mom and dad can say things to you that will echo through your mind

all the way through your whole adult life. There are people I know that

are living in opposition of things that their dad said to them when they were

twelve years old, and they're still living with their hand with a certain finger

raised to that phrase. You know you're lazy, You'll never amount to anything.

You're just like your mother. Don't ever say that to your wife,

even if you mean it in a good way, Just don't say it.

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. How do our lives display that we know that we won

the trade? Speak ever to build up and never to tear down. Ever

to build up, and never to tear down. Your Bible says that death

and life are in the power of your tongue. You have an incredible weapon

that you carry with you every day of your life. The words that you

speak, and don't the kindness that you show, and don't the encouragement that

you wield, and don't. You have an unbelievable weapon that you carry with

you, and you can use it to be constructive or to be destructive.

And Paul saying, man, it's not befitting of someone who knows that when

they came to the trade table, they brought nothing. If you know that

about yourself, Whenever you have a chance to build somebody up, that's what

you're doing. Whenever you have a chance to pour into somebody, that's what

you're doing. You're looking for ways to encourage people, looking for ways to

say nice things to people, look for ways to build people up. It's

not enough for us to stop doing some of the old destructive behaviors of our

past. The gospel produces a life that moves in a different direction. I

saw this online and I think it's a little bit fooy, but it's also

interesting. Have you heard of this the rice challenge? You you guys heard

about this? Anybody anybody in the room heard of this? Okay, cool,

then I'm going to totally blow your minds. All right. So these

people for thirty days, they put rice in three different glass jars, and

on one of them it says love, one of them it says hate,

and one of them it says ignore. To the glass jar that it says

love. Three times a day they pick up this glass jar filled with rice

and they say beautiful, wonderful, amazing things to this jar of rice.

I'm not making this up. This is a real thing. They say,

you're just the best rice. Look at how beautiful and white and grainy and

sustening you are whatever. I don't know what they say, You're just amazing.

I can't wait to feed you to my family. But they say incredible

things. And then they pick up the hate jar and they say, you're

the nastiest, most disgusting piece of filth. I will never feed you to

my family. You're worthless, You're awful. And to the ignore, they

just never pick it up, never talk to it, never look at it.

They put it in a corner. And after thirty days and look,

I'm gonna try it at some point because I kind of I don't know if

it's real or not, but I've seen it like five or six different times

on the internet. You know, everything on the internet is true. But

the love jar after thirty days, the rice is like buoyant and perfect and

beautiful and amazing and like edible. The hate is like black and moldy and

gross, and the ignore is like chalk. It's like it's totally dissipated.

It's gone. Now. The analogy there is just with our words, we

have the power to do this to rice. What kind of power do you

think you might have with the people in your life? Who are you loving,

who are you hating? Who are you ignoring? How might you change?

Paul says, speak constructive words. Ever to build up, never to

tear down. Right, Ever to build up, and never to tear down.

Okay, now I'm gonna give you the hardest one. This is the

hardest one. This is one where Paul is going to go from preaching to

meddling. Okay. This is like like buckle up, buttercup. Okay,

this is hard. Okay. Verse thirty, he says, and do not

grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Just take a moment and think about the

weight of that phrase. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom

you were sealed for the day of redemption. That moment at the trade table,

let all bitterness and wrath and anger, and clamor and slander be put

away from you along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted,

forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. So what Paul's saying

is that when we came to the trade table, yes we got eternity,

yes we got purpose, yes we got love, we got all of the

good things of God. But you know what, the absolute most important and

best thing that we got when we won the trade. The best thing we

got was the forgiveness that came to us through the blood of Jesus Christ.

The absolute best thing that none of us could ever have earned for ourselves,

that was just given to us at the trade table. The reason we won

the trade is because we were given forgiveness. And so because of that,

the thing that grieves the Holy Spirit, Paul says, do not grieve the

Holy Spirit? Well, what grieves the Holy Spirit? And by the way,

the Holy Spirit is not a thing, it's a person, and he's

God. So let me put it this way. What grieves God? Here's

what grieves God. That any one of us would not offer forgiveness to anyone

else for any reason. That's what grieves God that any one of us would

choose to hold on to bitterness, that we would decide not to forgive people.

It grieves God. It's not just that we stop behaving badly. We

have to replace our old way of thinking and believing with something else. We

have to actively substitute a new way of living for the old way. The

Gospel requires repentance and faith. It produces a life that displays who won the

trade. And so in order for us to do that, we have to,

and this is hard, we have to deny retribution and we have to

pursue forgiveness. We have to deny retribution and we have to pursue forgiveness.

I don't know if you've noticed this or not, but retribution revenge is big,

big, big, big, big, big, big money making ideas

in Hollywood. Like every year, huge, huge movies make lots of money

on the idea of revenge, whether it be The Equalizer, True Grit,

Kill Bill Djanga. So this movie, John Wick, you know they've made

four of them so far. Do you know the premise of this movie?

Maybe you don't remember because they've made four of them, But do you know

what happened? That made John Wick crazy in the very first movie, somebody

killed his dog, And so for four movies, four hundred and ninety five

characters have died in four movies because John Wick's dog died. Okay, he's

still not over it. They're making another movie, Okay, Retribution and Revenge

is like, oh, it's delicious. We love it, we want it

so bad. And I just recently walked through a season in a relationship where

I wanted to go John Wick on a friend of mine. I wanted absolutely

to just four hundred and ninety five my way through that relationship. I mean,

I really did, and I just knew that it was wrong. And

I have a friend, a good friend, who's really good at forgiving,

and I'm really bad at it. I've always been good at forgiving people when

they're sorry, but I don't know if you can relate to this. I

have a really hard time forgiving people when they're not sorry. I have a

really hard time if you say I'm sorry, I'm like, oh, we're

good, give me a hug, like we're best friends again, because I

want to redeem the relationship. And sometimes you have to forgive, and the

relationship's not going to be good and that's okay. And I think that's where

I had to figure out how to get. So I went to this friend

and I said, I got to figure out how to get what you've got

because I don't have it. And he talked me through this process. I

said, how do you forgive someone who isn't sorry? And he said,

this is what he said. He said, I had the same John Wick

experience. I wanted to john Wick my way through a relationship. And so

what I did was I wrote down every single thing that I thought that person

owed me, line by line. You owe me this, you owe me

this, you owe me this, you owe me this. A lot of

it was you owe me this apology, you owe me this amount of money,

you owe me this amount of days that I've spent pouring into you.

You owe me that back, right, you owe me this, you owe

me this. And he said, over the course of six months, day

by day, I went through that list and I crossed one thing off every

day and then I just kind of unclinched my hand and released it to God.

He doesn't owe me that anymore. And I said, okay, cool,

I've got to get I have like four hundred and ninety five and I

have to get all of them off my list today. And he was like,

well, you've got to get started right away, because I got to

get to the place where I can say, you owe me nothing, you

owe me nothing. Because you know what grieves the Holy Spirit is that we

would say to one another, you owe me, you owe me, you

owe me when we came to the table and we had nothing to offer,

thing to offer, and God had everything to offer, that we would walk

around this world acting like anybody owes us anything. It grieves our God.

And so we have to get to the place where we can say to the

Lord and say to the friends and our life, to the people in our

life, even if it means that we're not going to have the same kind

of relationship that we once did. We have to get to the place where

we can say, you know what, you owe me nothing, you owe

me nothing. You're clinging to the debt you feel they owe you. It's

hurting you and it's grieving God. It's not what he wants for you.

And that's the heart of it. That's why it's grieving him. It's not

that he's angry with you. It's not that He's like, guys, being

so stubborn. I'm so sick of him. She's such a That's not it.

He's saying, Oh, this is hurting her so bad, this is

holding him back for so long. This isn't what I want for him.

This isn't what I want for her. Ah, it's grieving me. That's

who our God is. So how do our lives display that we won the

trade? Deny retribution, and pursue forgiveness. Here's the last one. It's

quick, Paul finishes. He kind of you know, the chapter markers in

our Bible are not ordained by God. Somebody did that way later. So

I think these last two verses in Ephesians five are kind of the end of

this phrase. He says, Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children,

and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us,

a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Be imitators of God. How

do our lives display that we won the trade? Imitate God by sacrificing yourself?

Boy? Doesn't that sound fun? Doesn't that sound exciting? Good news?

Everybody, Get on out there and sacrifice yourself. Yay? Right,

I know that sounds exciting, But man, what could be more honoring for

us to him then that we would imitate our God. He showed us what

it looks like. We brought him our mess. He gave us his best

right. So what does it look like for us to go live our lives

like that? That we would go live our lives looking for people who all

they have is mess? All they have is mess, and we say,

great, I'm going to give you my best. What if we imitated God

by sacrificing ourself that way? We gave God our mess, He gave back

his best. The Gospel requires repentance and faith that produces a life that displays

that we won the trade. So be real and not fake. Weaponize your

anger for kingdom purposes. Don't just stop taking, but start giving. Speak

ever to build up and never to tear down, deny retribution, pursue forgiveness,

and imitate God by sacrificing yourself. Man, if you can live your

life that way, if you can live your life in a way that people

go, what is it about you that makes you so different? What is

it about the way that you express your faith? No one's going to call

you a hypocrite. If you live your life this way, no one's going

to have anything to say about you except I want what you have, and

you can say I can tell you what I have. I have the knowledge

that I came to the trade table with nothing and He gave me everything.

I won the trade and you can too. Amen. Amen. So what's

God leading you to do next? And how can we help? Would you

send us an email to info at Movementchurch dot co and tell us how we

can pray for you and help you take the next step in your spiritual journey.

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and remember God is for you, and so are we.