"Put On the New Self" - Ephesians 4:17-32

Bibles to Ephesians 4.

It'll be verses 17 through 32.

If you would please stand with me for the reading of the Word of God.

And again, it is very important that we go to the Scriptures, that we read the Word that God has given us.

Look to it.

And this is the standard.

I can tell you right now, this is the standard that the shepherds here at Prairie Baptist want to be held to.

So look to it, hear it, and test all things by it.

So if you would please follow along, we're going to be reading Ephesians 4, 17 through 32.

So this I say and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart.

And they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.

But you did not learn Christ in this way.

If indeed you have heard him and have been taught in him, just as truth is in Jesus, that in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit.

And that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind.

And put on the new self, which is in the likeness of God, has been, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth, each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.

Be angry and yet do not sin.

Do not let the sun go down on your anger.

And do not give the devil an opportunity.

He who steals must steal no longer, but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need.

Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification, according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you are 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, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.

This is the word of God, brothers and sisters.

You may be seated.

Brian, would you please come and lead us in proclaiming the truth?

I love the book of Ephesians, but passages like this are just so good for some of us who our brains don't function as quality as we would like all the time, where it gives us very, very basic instruction.

Here's how to do this, don't do this.

And I love that.

So let's pray that we would all apply that.

Father, lead us and guide us in your truth.

May your name be honored and glorified in our time.

That by your Spirit we would be transformed and changed into the image of Christ all the more today, and that we would truly be that sanctified people, striving side by side, united for your glory.

We pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.

So the first three chapters are indicatives of what God has done.

The last three are more toward, more geared toward what we are to do in light of what God has done.

And so we're in the middle of that.

And so you're going to see a lot of practical things here to help us to figure out what it looks like to have unity in the church and what it looks like to walk a holy life with Christ.

But what we find in this particular passage, I feel, is something absolutely amazing.

What we find is that since we have become new creations, if we're in Christ, since we've been brought together as a body of believers, since we now have this wonderful new ability to walk with Christ, what we find today is that we have the ability to continually repent, to continually profess Christ, and daily put on things that are godly.

And we're going to explain that more.

Or go through it more.

I personally find this immensely comforting and exciting.

It's a challenge, of course, to do this kind of thing daily, but it's so encouraging that we have the opportunity to be Christ-like and put on godliness.

What a blessing.

So as we dive into this, I want us to be challenged, but I want us to be excited to have this wonderful ability to grow in godliness.

And remember, what we've been talking about for a couple weeks is we're doing this together.

We're side by side in this, whether we like it or not.

We're together as a church.

Praise God.

And I like it.

So let's look at our first point.

You see in your bulletin, you got a sheet there.

Uh and it's the first point is just something simple that we need to cover, and that's the command.

The command.

We see that in verse 17.

And the reason we got to cover this briefly is one thing I think we often miss in our current culture, even in the evangelical church, is the fact that the New Testament is simply chocked full of commands, just like the Old Testament is.

Now, it may not have the sacrificial nor the ceremonial regulations and commands that the Old Testament did with the Mosaic covenant, but it is nonetheless full of commands from the Lord in his church.

This, of course, is all in light of his grace, but commands either way.

My point is that sometimes we read the New Testament and we just rightly relish in the grace of God and salvation, but many times we stop short of knowing and being convicted by the things that are actually commanded, alongside of his grace that is bestowed to us.

And so I want to say this about that truth.

It is his grace that gives the Christian the desire to obey the word.

Grace cannot be used as a license for taking the New Testament as just a collection of nice sayings or nice ideas and opportunities for a great life.

The one who comes to know the grace of God is the one who loves the commands of the Lord, like the commands we see here in Ephesians chapter 4.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

Paul begins verse 17 by saying, what he's about to articulate is divine scripture.

He says, So this I say to you and affirm, together with the Lord.

This isn't just Paul's word, this is with the Lord.

God breathed, we say.

It is God's own standard and his only standard for those who belong to him.

It is the very essence of the gospel, and it is set in bold contrast to the standards of the unredeemed.

That's what we're seeing today.

And so I would say to that, if your standards are no different than your non-believing friends or loved ones in much of life, then please, please, I beg of you pay attention to what Paul's saying here.

What so then it kind of begs a question, though, what is the command in verse 17 here?

What is the command?

Essentially, Paul is commanding God's people to no longer walk like the non-believing world.

That's why he says Gentiles here.

The non-believing world is what he's getting at.

That sounds really easy, doesn't it?

Maybe we watch the news and we go, yeah.

Nope.

That's on me.

Okay, got that one.

Checkbox.

But as we look at the list of these things described in the next couple of verses, can we be confident that doesn't describe us?

Because the issue is this.

Anything that's not in accordance with his word is in accordance with the Gentile world.

And what he means is the heathen world, the pagan world.

Now, this is not saying, please don't hear me wrong, this is not saying that we can't eat ice cream because it's not in the Bible.

Unfortunately, I can't point you to a passage that it's okay to eat ice cream, but I it's, I mean, it's pretty close, okay?

It's almost there.

Nor is this saying that we can't fish with poles because they use nets.

It's not that kind of thing.

It is saying that we cannot live in and with the sin that the world relishes and thrives in, okay?

We cannot look like the world in our homes.

We cannot look like the world in all of our lives.

We cannot look like the world in our church.

Paul's command is to walk the narrow path of obedience because it leads to the throne of grace.

It is to walk according to chapter and verse, either specifically or principally.

It is to live and think biblically, simply put.

It is to test everything with Scripture and do all things for the glory of God.

When we walk in accordance to the patterns of the world, Paul says we walk in the futility of our minds.

What that really means is that all we are doing in our lives is utterly useless.

It's unimportant and really a complete waste of time and life.

If, if, we walk as we once did before we were saved.

Salvation implies and commands transformation by God's grace.

So if we walk according to the patterns of what we once did, Paul is saying here, it's a waste of life.

Don't do that.

Walk according to his word.

You're a Christian now.

It's kind of one way to summarize that, I guess.

So that's the command.

Walk this way.

Be like Christ.

We're gonna see that more.

So let's spend some time looking at some of these specifically, some of these things in our second point.

We're gonna first look at the specific traits of what is the futility of mind, or pagan, or gentile, or heathen living.

We see this in verses 18 and 19.

We've got to cover this because if you're like me, we all tend to fall back into this on it on occasion.

We're gonna look at the first thing we're gonna look at, actually, is the very end of verse 18.

Look at that.

This, the reason we start there is this is where it all begins: hardness of heart.

For example, when somebody looks around at our creation, when they look at the magnificent oceans, when they scan the horizon, when they sit beneath a forest of high trees, when they look intimately close to the detail of the petal of the flower, and then they say, oh, it just happened.

When they look at creation and they say those awful and damning words, there is no God.

Or maybe even worse, when they hear of the fame and the glory and the work and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, when they hear of the power and the beauty of the gospel message, when they are exposed to that truth while in sin and the absolute necessity of the grace of God in light of it, and they respond still by saying there is no God.

Or maybe they say it's all a fairy tale.

We find they've hardened their hearts.

They've hardened their hearts like Pharaoh of old, and millions and millions of other humans who spit in the face of their creator.

And they're telling the masses of the heathen world that they wholeheartedly agree that I'm the master of my own faith.

You heard that, right?

I'm really the creator of my destiny.

Like they cracked a fortune cookie.

There it is.

Then my pleasure, my fulfillment is what really matters most.

When that happens, the Bible says it's because the heart is like a stone.

And if they die in that state, they will endure the blazing heat of what the rejection of God has accomplished for them.

Now, good news, good news.

This doesn't mean that I must unharden my heart.

That I gotta soften it up.

I can't.

What it does mean, though, is that I need the gospel.

It means the gospel is needed to soften that hardened heart.

It's needed to really shatter that heart.

And then reform it into a heart that is bent on or pumping for the sole purpose of bringing God glory.

You ever heard the term maybe about somebody who's kind of stone-hearted?

Someone that has a heart like a stone, since they're maybe very stoic or just unmoved in emotional things?

Well, that's the idea of what's being conveyed here.

In fact, the Greek word here is pyrosis.

It really just is speaking of a stone that's actually harder than marble.

That's the thrust Paul's getting at.

Now, while we know that it is the Lord alone who does the calling and the drawing, it's the Lord alone who causes salvation to be fostered in the hearts of his people, just as Romans 3 teaches us as one example.

There's nobody who seeks after God on their own.

Nobody, no one.

While that's true, what we find is that within the great mystery of God's sovereignty in salvation, there is still a need for the sinner to respond to that drawing, that calling in repentance and faith.

The Spirit stirs our hearts to respond, but we're still obligated to do this by turning away from sin, turning to Christ, confessing him as Lord and Savior.

How that exactly works out, his calling and my responding and the timing, I don't know all the intricate details.

I just know that's what the Bible teaches.

And that it is just like Pharaoh, just like Judas.

Millions of people down through the years who have a lost and corrupted heart that is hardened by refusing this glorious message of the gospel.

Their hardened heart refuses the cross of Christ.

So Paul says, you can't walk like that.

You can't.

And that, of course, then leads to what Paul says in the first part of 18: the heart is not only stony, it is darkened.

The one who has not Christ, the one who is living in rebellion to the will and word of God, is in complete darkness, really darkness of the soul.

It doesn't matter if they have 20-20 vision or better, they can't really see light.

Eternal light.

And so they sit in darkness.

They can't see their spiritual hand in front of their face.

They're blind to anything good.

Their hearts are closed off to light and their darkened heart, in fact, rejects light.

You see, at first, we may tend to feel sorry for ourselves or for others because of the darkness in which they live.

But what we find in the scriptures is that those who reside in that darkness, with those dark hearts, they actually don't despise being there.

In fact, they cling to it.

As they cherish their darkened state and reject God's grace and light.

And so being darkened in heart is to stand before God today, claiming either you don't need him or that you hate him by how you have responded to him and his truth, or not.

But what the one who is darkened doesn't understand is that one day, one day, they will stand before him with eyes wide open to his glory.

As their rebellion is judged, and their dark heart is now a heart that becomes a trembling heart, and wishing for mountains to fall upon them, not in repentance, but in fear and anger.

Do we not see that in our culture?

Not only with their mouths, but like many prominent atheists, but also with their lives.

Maybe it's even those people that are nice to you, who are kind to you yet hate God, and their arrogant rejection, as the swirling darkness of their cold hearts proudly boast of self-salvation or humanistic living.

They're darkened and they love every minute of it.

It's no accident.

Don't worry, we're gonna get to the other side of this, but Paul says next that their hearts are excluded in verse 18.

Excluded, separated, alienated from God and his goodness.

Again, Paul is telling us these things to say, you can't live like them.

To be excluded from God is to be dead in your rejection.

It is to be what Paul speaks of in Romans 1.

This is where the people of the world hate God.

And they call good evil and evil good.

I want you to listen to a part of Romans chapter 1, and you can turn there if you'd like, as Paul describes for us in detail what he is speaking of in Ephesians 4 in our text for today.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

And I want you, as I read this, I want you to think through our current culture and prayerfully consider it.

Paul says in Romans 1, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness, of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them.

For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen.

Look around, being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse.

For even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.

Therefore God gave them over.

God gave them over in the lust of their hearts to impurity so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.

For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever, amen.

For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions, for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons a due penalty of their error.

And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness.

Listen to this list wickedness, greed, envy, evil.

Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, they're gossip, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful.

And although they knew the ordinance of God that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, and here's the thing, they give hearty approval to those who practice them.

That passage is vividly describing what we see in verses 18 and 19 of our text.

And it is because of these things that they must be excluded from God or heaven.

And so they're separated, alienated, estranged, even hostile, antagonistic toward God in their darkened and hardened hearts.

Again, our culture is ripe with this.

We have much work to do.

Lastly, and then we'll move on, Paul says they're calloused in verse 19.

This is kind of the I would I would categorize this as the final result of a heart that hates God and his good truth.

They become callous, or you could say numb to what is good.

You ever worked hard enough to get callouses?

What does that skin feel like?

There's not a lot of feeling to it on the outside, right?

It's just kind of tough and abrasive.

That's what the heart of the God rejector is like, Paul says.

Not a pretty picture, is it?

In fact, just as Paul said in Romans 1, he says here that they have given themselves over to this.

He says, mentions here sensuality and every kind of impurity and greediness.

Therefore, God has given them over.

Basically, a person sins so grievously, so often, so violently against the Lord's word, they don't even feel anything about it anymore.

No conscience.

That's the end result of living in sin.

And they become calloused.

Totally numb to God, his creation, his truth.

I mean, think about it, they sin and they sin and they sin and they sin and they love it and they sin more and they sin and the callous is formed, and they no longer will even feel remorse.

The sting of causing pain to somebody else is not there.

This is the end result.

Any kind of accountability for their actions, nothing, and so they just live proudly in this.

And God gave them over.

I'll give you an example.

A prime example of this going on right now.

Many of the major cities back and forth, we see these protests trying to ensure that the most innocent among us have their life snuffed out.

Men and women alike are taken to the streets to scream and shout that they want to live in darkened hard and have their stony, calloused sin taken out on the most innocent possible victim.

They thrive in being alienated from God and they cry out, they beg to have people murdered so that their greed, their self-worship, their sexual perversion can continue to be appeased.

Massachusetts literally just became the tenth state, including Oregon, that now approves of killing children up to nine months old.

Right as they exit the womb.

We cannot give approval.

There's only one thing to do.

Now while I'm extremely grateful for the justices that stood for life and made a decision a few years back, there's a lot of work to do still, isn't there?

They need the gospel.

These people need the gospel.

That's what we do.

We proclaim Christ to the calloused heart.

Only Christ can chip away at that callous heart and smooth it over and get rid of the callous.

Allah cannot change a calloused heart, but the gospel can.

That doesn't mean we don't put our vote where our faith is as Americans, and we seek to protect the unborn through it, but that our primary role as Christians in the midst of a God-hating society is to proclaim the good news of Christ to a dying world.

We need to lay aside self.

We need to lay aside our time, our energy, and our money and do what it takes to proclaim Christ as we work hard to make sure that we're not pattering our lives after the world.

And we need to share with these people that there's forgiveness with Christ.

No matter what they've done.

There's forgiveness in Him alone.

And there's such a need of this right now.

Even in our modern evangelical church, to just lay aside the pursuit of self-love or comforts or pleasures that are not of God.

And just put on Christ.

Show the world they need Jesus and his gospel.

That's the only answer to all of it.

And so let's look at the next point: the need to lay aside the former ways and just put on Jesus.

We find a lot of this in 20 to 24 of our passage.

Remember, Paul says in verse 17, essentially, I'm speaking on behalf of the Lord, and he's just telling us to cease striving with the world.

Stop living like they do.

You know better.

You're no longer who you once were, you're a new creation.

That's why so many people that I've talked to say, no, I've done this.

I've done all these things.

I can't be saved.

So I had somebody tell me one time if I walked into the church, the paint would peel off the walls.

No.

Because I've been in church and the paint didn't come off.

Many of you would maybe say the same thing.

There's always forgiveness in Christ.

And we've got to point them to it and remind them that it's not us that's so great.

The reason I don't live day by day in verses 18 and 19 and cherish it is because of the gospel of Christ.

That's it.

Nothing I've done.

And so Paul says in verse 20, remember, you did not learn Christ this way.

This is not how you learned it.

Notice the gospel progression here that eliminates worldly living.

Verse 20, you didn't learn Christ this way.

As we come to the Bible, as we come to Old or New Testament, as we seek to learn about our Creator, anything we gain, anything we learn is ultimately learning about Jesus.

So he's the hero, he's what the book's about.

The Bible is the overarching story of redemption, and it just points us like a neon sign to Jesus.

That's the beginning point of our understanding of the gospel and our need to flee from the world.

Because remember what the book of James says: friendship with the world is hostility toward God.

And so we find in the Bible there's two ways to live.

One is to live for the world, the flesh, and the devil that we saw earlier in Ephesians.

The other is to live for and with Christ.

That's it.

No middle ground.

And so Paul reminds them to forsake the patterns of the world, and he's reminding them what he said in Romans 12.

Do not be conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed.

How?

By the renewing of your minds.

Remember what you learned.

I love what David Campbell teaches us in his book Sanctification.

That this word transformed, we find that again in Romans 12 and indicated here.

The word transformed in the Greek is metamorpho.

Does that sound familiar to you?

That's where we get our word metamorphosis.

Any of you school-aged children, I know you're gonna know what this means.

All of us forgot, but you get this.

I would say it's a great word, because similarly, when we are transformed in Christ, we're no longer who we once were, just crawling around.

We're no longer that old person.

There's still the remembrance and the semblance of what was, but we are a new work of Christ.

And so we have to remember what we know to be true.

We have to remember what we learned about Christ when those worldly temptations come along, when those verses 18 and 19 come along and we're we're pulled into it, or maybe verse 31, look at that.

When those things become natural to us again and we want to live that way, we've got to remember what we learned about Christ.

What is the gospel?

Daily seek to lay aside that old worldly person and daily put on Christ, that new person.

And err with Christ.

And verse 21 reminds us that we've heard.

I just love that word.

We have heard the gospel message.

Again, it reminds the gospel is word spoken, it's a message proclaimed.

And if you're in Christ today, it's because somebody proclaimed the gospel to you.

Go back and thank them all the time.

And also they did what comes next.

They taught it to you.

Someone or a group of people taught you the truth of God and his word.

They taught you about Christ and who he is and his gospel.

Just as Matthew 28 teaches us when speaking about what all of our job is as Christians, Jesus says, go baptize people in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, doing what?

Teaching.

Teaching them not some, but all of what Jesus commanded.

That's why we're to be disciple makers.

That's lifelong, right?

So we're to teach the word as we make disciples with the message of the gospel of Christ.

Therefore, remember what you were taught.

It's a preventative for falling into sin.

Because the moment that you and I forget what we were taught in the gospel, that's the moment we abandon our walk and we begin walking with the world again.

And so the answer, the antithesis of worldly living, of pagan and heathen living, is knowing, cherishing, and living out the truth of the gospel of Christ as it changes you, transforms you from the inside out.

That's why Paul says here, hey, just lay aside that old stuff.

You don't need it.

Set aside worldly living like an old dirty garment that's stained with oil that's never going to come out.

Don't just try to patch it up and get it as clean as you can.

Don't try to mix the world with the faith.

Instead, throw away that old life, that old garment that used to house your soul.

Throw it out and pick up the grace-filled garment of the righteousness of Jesus Christ that is freely given and freely declared over you as you trust in him.

Don't go back.

That old master named Sin, he wants his throne back in your life.

Don't allow it to control you any longer.

Don't go back, don't look back like Lot's wife.

Don't allow yourself to be like the Israelites of old when leaving Egypt, thinking, oh, three hots in a cot wasn't bad after all.

No.

Suffer for Christ if needed.

Walk forward in him.

Walk forward in his truth.

Walk toward him in his grace.

Wake each day and put on that beautifully shining, that perfectly clean, wonderfully pure clothing which is none other than the imputed righteousness of Christ.

Because you see, as Paul says in verse 22, that old self, it's still being corrupted.

Why would you and I wake in the morning on our way to meet the King of Kings and decide to put on that nasty oil-stained shirt that has blood smudges, sawdust chips that irritate your neck, that shirt that's riddled with holes and smells like the dirty socks of a 12-year-old boy?

Why would we put that on again?

Why would we go back to wearing that?

Why would we do that when we have the new, clean, fresh, lovely, smooth, soft-feeling garment of the truth of Christ to put on every day?

Put on the new self, Paul says, every day.

Put on the glory of the redeemed man or woman that you are as you rise each day.

Put on the armor that we're going to see that later in Ephesians.

And refuse to be duped into wearing that old and soil-stained life skin of rebellion again.

And if that sounds really hard, I want you to remember something.

The grace of Christ.

Sticking with the theme of putting on the new self as though we're a garment, remember that we do not have to go out and make this garment.

I praise God for that, not only because I've tried to sew once, but because I cannot.

Neither can you.

We do not have the ability or know-how to make our clothes of righteous living.

Please notice here that all we're supposed to do, really, is put them on.

Pick it up, put them on.

It has been made for you.

It fits perfectly.

I mean, the sleeves of your new life are tailored so that your arms can bless others with your work.

The neck is just the right size, and it allows your mouth to speak what your God-given brain can articulate about his truth without having to adjust things.

The length is perfect, it perfectly covers you and does not leave anything showing.

No.

His grace is always sufficient, always perfectly fitting for each day and occasion.

Pick it up and put it on.

Read.

Pray.

Reflect on his word.

And you're going to be putting on that new self and covering yourself with his grace.

Sounds good, doesn't it?

Praise God for his kindness.

Here in our last point, we gotta get to our last point.

We see some practical outworkings of this kind of godly living.

This is this is what I love that the back and forth here we're gonna see.

We see this in verses 25 to 32.

Look again in verse 25.

Look at 25.

You ever heard somebody lie?

If you don't say yes, you're lying.

Come on.

In our day and age, people pride themselves on lying, don't they?

I was in the auto parts store a while back, not locally here.

And somebody told me that if the part just didn't work, just don't tell them lie about it and return it.

And just say you didn't use it.

Kind of one of those, know what I'm saying?

Wink wink.

That's so normal for our society.

It's even appreciated and commended in our day and age, isn't it?

How many times have we heard about somebody being accused of something in the public sphere, and instead of people getting into trouble over it, it's actually excused and really exalted as if it needed to be said anyway, so to start the conversation.

Because we know they're all bad.

Or on the flip side, somebody lies about somebody and nobody seems to care.

Nobody says, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

You just lied to us.

You lied about that.

Why is that not a big deal anymore?

It's the normal garment for the world.

Does the Christian dive into this on occasion as well?

Unfortunately, yeah.

That's why there's an admonition here from Paul.

He's speaking to the church.

We've all been there, right?

If you say it's just you, Jesus, and Abraham Lincoln, not there, then guess what you are?

Liar.

Did Abraham Lincoln lie?

Absolutely.

Did he lie a lot?

Maybe not.

Doesn't matter.

The point is, there's a reason why Paul says this.

We're all prone to it.

But like worldly living in general, Paul says, cease striving in your lying.

Lay it aside.

Lay it aside.

And by the Lord's grace, we can kill this sin in our lives.

Maybe you have.

But you know what I've observed?

People that lie a lot have a greater fear of man than most.

They're so concerned for looking a certain way, for wanting to be liked, for wanting to be a victim, and so on, that they become habitual liars.

They lie so often it's just normal.

Paul says, you gotta set it aside.

Remember, who's Paul talking to here?

He's talking to the church.

And it's not just that that Ephesian church, I tell you.

It's for us today.

Set it aside.

For we are members of one another, Paul says there.

Meaning we're we're the family.

Remember, we're to be united.

We obviously can't go around lying to each other about each other.

There's so many ways to do this.

There's blatant lies.

There's letting somebody think that something that's not true because you're gonna gain something from it.

Also included into that is constantly assuming somebody else is lying without even having a conversation.

Season with salt and grace.

I mention that because it's so much easier to assume what you heard is right and not go to the source, right?

That's also lying.

It's easy.

It's so easy to lie, isn't it?

That's the issue.

That's why Paul says you've got to lay it down.

Don't fall victim to the trap of thinking that it's gonna benefit you.

Instead, I love what Paul says here.

This is what I like, this back and forth.

Paul says, instead, speak the truth.

Instead, speak the truth, and as we talked about last week, do it in love.

Do it with grace, with kindness, do it with humility.

Speak truth, each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another, the church.

Speak truth.

Lovingly.

Paul gives an answer to the sins.

Next, Paul says in verse 26, it's okay to be angry.

Alright, we can move on past that one.

Just kidding.

No, he says, it's okay to have righteous anger.

That's actually godliness.

To hate what God hates, to abhor what he abores.

Like with the abortion conversation, it's okay to hate the thought of killing babies and to be righteously angry about it because that's a heart of God.

Not to enact violence to stop it, no.

But angry in prayer.

Not a sinful anger that punishes in the place of God, but an anger that prays through the Psalms over the issue.

An anger that speaks the truth with passion.

An anger that allows and hopes for God's justice to come forth when he determines it's time.

If we are angry in a way that is not aligned with God and his truth, if we do it in sin, then Paul says here in verse 27, we are giving the devil an opportunity to captivate us to his will.

That doesn't sound fun.

Our lives will become the devil's playground if we're angry in our sin.

That's what he's saying.

We've got to repent of that and beg God to align us with his will again.

Verse 28 If you're a thief, guess what?

Stop stealing.

That's kind of obvious.

But here's the difference between the world and the truth.

Instead of stealing, the Bible says, give.

Most of the time, people will steal for a reason.

They need, right?

Or maybe they're kleptomaniac, I guess.

But the cure for being a thief is to give of what you do have.

This is true with almost any sin, by the way.

When we sin, we can't just gain victory over it by the power of the Spirit and then just not sin anymore and leave that hole in our lives where that sin used to reside.

We've got to fill it with something.

That's what Paul's talking about.

When we're tempted to be sinfully angry, we pray.

When we're tempted to lust and therefore remove that possibility, we open our Bibles.

When we want to steal something, we give something away instead.

Not a Robin Hood, steal from somebody, give to somebody else stuff.

The giving of what we have.

Paul says in verse 29, when we speak with unwholesome speech, whether it be swearing, cursing, dirty jokes, or profane comments, instead Paul says, use that mouth to bless others.

It's almost like you know, you hear the like the 1950s image of a mom.

What did I hear you say out of that mouth, young man?

Use your mouth for another purpose.

Don't try to get gratification from the people around you by telling jokes that ought not to be told or saying things or using language that ought not to be spoken.

Use your mouth to bless people, Paul says.

So don't do this, do this instead.

Put off this, put on this instead.

That's the theme here.

And then when that happens, we give grace to our hears.

Do you want to give grace or sin toward your hears?

Because Paul says if you don't do that, you're actually going to grieve the Holy Spirit.

Verse 30.

I don't have to tell you that's not a good spot to be in.

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit by how you speak to one another.

And then Paul concludes today, where we're going to conclude.

We'll come back to 32 in just a minute, or 31 in just a minute, but he concludes by just saying, hey, hey, hey, listen.

Be kind.

Be kind.

This isn't the worldly be kind, just live in that live.

This is be kind according to the Lord in his word.

Don't speak ill of each other.

Don't seek each other's harm at your game.

Don't be vengeful toward one another.

No bitterness, no wrath, no clamor, no slander, no malice, as 31 says.

Instead, be kind.

Be full of grace.

Be full of tender-hearted compassion.

Forgive each other just as Christ has forgiven you, because what does it say in the Gospels?

If we don't forgive, we won't be forgiven.

Be kind to one another.

Because here's the thing: you and I have all accomplished the list of verses 18 and 19, haven't we?

We've all done the evil part of verses 21 to or 25 to 31.

We've all sinned toward the Lord in these things and sinned against each other.

We've all rejected God by living these things out, and yet our Lord has chosen to come to the earth.

Now think about that.

Hardened of heart, darkened, calloused, excluded from God.

And our Lord says, I'm coming for you.

That's who we were, and yet Jesus comes to the earth, dies in our place, to be raised on high as a firstborn from the dead, to make sure that we could be raised as well.

He then ascended on high and is now at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us in this moment, even though that's how we've treated him and his people.

So Paul says, tear off the old self.

Tear off that old soil self.

Put on the new person every day.

Put on Christ in light of his marvelous grace.

Lay it all aside.

It will not benefit you.

And instead, be like Christ to your church into a dying world.

Speak what is edifying, give generously to others of your time and energy.

Hate sin, but love what is good and godly.

Remember how you learn Christ.

Keep your heart tender.

That's a tough one, isn't it?

Our hearts can become callous pretty quick.

Keep your heart tender and pure as you live for his glory.

And do this together.

Do this with the church that you love, your family right here at Pray Baptist.

But above all, do it for his glory and the fame of his name.

Trust me, it's worth sacrificing for.

So in the end, lay aside the old self that loves to rear its head, doesn't it?

And instead put on Christ, his grace, and those wonderful fruits of the Spirit.

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit, as 30 says.

Instead, walk by the Spirit.

Bless those around you.

Bear the fruit of following Christ.

Let kindness reign in this church.

Let tender hearts be the disposition of this body of believers.

Let us forgive as Christ forgives.

Let us put on the freely offered, I would say, the dazzling garment that he offers us.

Let us put on Christ, lay aside the world and all of its desires.

Let us together stand firm in his grace, living for his glory, all under the blessing of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

As you think about that, sometimes we automatically go to think about that other person in the church.

Man, I hope they're hearing that.

I hope they're hearing to lay that thing aside.

Begin with self.

Begin with yourself.

What do you need to lay aside to bless your church and honor your God?

What part of the world encompasses and entangles you?

Hate the sin and love what is godly.

First in yourself and then in those around you.

What a blessing to hear these truths today.

Be kind, brothers and sisters.

Be tender-hearted.

Forgive because Christ has forgiven you.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for the truth of your word.

We ask you that you would continue to shape and mold us.

So many different times in your word, you teach us things about our previous life of sin or maybe our current life of sin, and you challenge us and you warn us.

But you always show us the grace.

You always point us to your Son.

And so may that theme be the continual theme of this church.

That we would be a gospel people centered around Christ, gazing in his direction together.

May we be that kind of people who are truly kind to one another, soft hearted, no calluses.

For your glory.

We pray this all in Christ's name.

Amen.