Steal No More: Embracing the New Life in Christ - Eph 4:28-30

Good morning, and welcome to the

broadcast service of Dillingham Moravian Church. My name is Pastor Simon.

Our goal here at DMC is to make disciples of Christ through the study of God's

Word as we trust in Christ together.

I'd like you to turn with me today to Ephesians 4, verse 28-32,

Ephesians 4:28–32

where Paul wrote, 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 building up what is needed, so that it will 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's pray. Oh, Father God, we are grateful for your word, for you teaching

us and guiding us and changing us from the inside out by your Holy Spirit through your precious word.

I pray, Lord, as we go to your word today, may it be you that is speaking and teaching us, Lord.

Help us, Father, to, by your Holy Spirit,

to assimilate your word into our lives and our actions as we surrender to you

operating us or your Son operating us through the power of your Spirit.

In your precious Son's name, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. Here at Dillingham

Moravian Church, we have been studying Paul's letter to the Ephesians.

The theme of this letter is the unity of God displayed in Christ's church.

And last week, in Ephesians 4, God, through Paul,

commanded us as part of Christ's church to not speak lies and falsehoods against

each other, but rather to speak the truth of God's word to each other in the church.

Secondly, Paul lovingly warned the Ephesians and us as Christians not to let

our emotions of anger change into self-focused angry thoughts and actions, which are sin,

and will open us up to Satan to consume us with evil.

God has also taught us that as believers in Christ, we are not to let the sun

go down on our anger, because if we go to sleep with an angry mind,

there is a high probability we will wake up furious and ready to commit sin.

I also want to strongly encourage us to not speak lies or entertain gossip or

slander against one another, because lies are a fire that will destroy everything in its wake.

In our passage today, we continue in what seems like a laundry list about the spiritual life.

Paul was communicating important principles of how believers are to live in a new life with Christ.

And I must say that these teachings.

That you're going to hear are hard ones. But the Ephesians need to hear these truths.

And so does the larger church today as well. We're going to look at these three biblical principles.

The first truth that God is teaching us today is that as Christians,

we are to steal no longer, but work with our hands on what is good.

When I was a kid, we had a bulk food store in the town that I lived in.

One day, when we were shopping at that store, I was exploring the store while

my mother was shopping for her list that she had.

Now, you must understand that I was hungry going into that store.

And when I saw a candy that I really liked, I wanted it badly. I desired.

I had to have that. I reached out my hand, I picked up the candy, and I put it in my pocket.

However, since I was born, it was drilled into me that stealing was wrong and

was one of the top ten commandments of God not to break.

And so, immediately, my conscience began to plague me so bad that before we

left the store, I returned the candy to its shelf.

I'd never stolen anything again on purpose.

To this day, I remembered that whole event clearly.

My point with telling you a little bit of my testimony here is because Paul

commanded the Ephesians that if they had stolen in the past,

they were to do so no longer.

And this is what Paul commanded in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 28.

Ephesians 4:28

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.

I want you to see in verse 28 that Paul contrasts what was committed in the

old person of evil versus what the Christian is to do in the new man in Christ.

Paul warned followers of Price Way that if they were to steal,

they were to steal no longer.

One of the things I love about Ephesians 4 is that Paul does not just give the

command to stop committing sin, but he also tells Christians how to live according to Christ.

Thus, Paul commanded the believers to stop stealing and then to turn their efforts

towards laboring with their own hands for what is good.

The word that Paul used for labor meant to toil or do some wearisome labor or

labor onto extreme fatigue.

Paul was not just telling the Ephesians to get a job and work for their food.

Rather, Paul was telling them that they were to work extremely hard at a job,

and not just any job, but one that was good.

Meaning the Ephesians were not to find a job that was wrong according to the

Lord, that dishonored the Lord, but one that honored God from whom all goodness comes from.

Why? Because God is the very definition of good.

Paul in Colossians 3.23-24 also commanded, Whatever you do, do your work heartily,

as for the Lord rather than for men,

knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance, serve the Lord Christ.

Now, in the ancient world, there were a few motives for stealing.

One was that because of societal issues, the thief was super poor,

and his or her family may have been starving as well. That kind of stealing is wrong.

But at least we can understand the motivations behind that.

That is one type of stealing that Paul would have been referring to.

Yet there is another type of stealing that Paul dealt with a lot in his letters,

and that was laziness or stealing by taking advantage of others' generosity.

Paul in 2 Thessalonians 3, verses 7-12 took a strong stance on those who stole in this manner.

2 Thessalonians 3:7–12

This is what he says in verse 7, For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate

us, because we did not act in an unruly manner among you,

nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, meaning that they didn't

steal the food, nor did they live lazily off the generosity of others.

But with labor and hardship, we kept working night and day so that we would

not be a burden to any of you,

not because we did not have the authority, but in order to offer ourselves as

a model for you so that you would imitate us.

For even when we were with you, we used to command this to you,

if anyone is not willing to work, neither let him eat.

For we hear that some among you are walking in an unruly manner,

doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies.

Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ that,

working with quietness, they eat their own bread.

Meaning that those people were to work for their own food.

I want you to see something else in 2 Thessalonians passage.

That being deliberately lazy and living off the kindness of the church members

led to them being busybodies.

The word for to act as a busybody meant to behave as one who meddles intrusively

and unprofitably in the affair of others.

Other ways to translate this passage could be busybodies instead of busy,

neglecting their own business to mind other people's.

Gossip and slander often is connected with being a busybody as well.

Paul's response was to say, if they do not work, they do not eat.

Again, I share all this with you because deliberate laziness,

so as to have other people support you, is just another form of stealing.

And Paul dealt with it harshly and commanded believers to live working hard

for the Lord to earn money, not just so as to support themselves,

but to be able to share with others.

This is an important aspect of working hard. We work hard for the Lord in our

jobs so that we can share what we have with others as Christ has done for us.

Sharing with others does include providing for our families,

But it's more than just our families.

Paul's focus in Ephesians was that we as Christians work hard so that with the

compassionate mercy of the Lord, we may serve and help others who are in need.

James in James 2, verse 14 to 17 instructed Christians,

James 2:14–17

if a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food,

and one of you says to them, go in peace, be warm and be filled,

And yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?

Even so, faith, if it has no works, is dead by itself.

Hopefully, no one here or who is listening would blatantly steal anything from another person.

But what about stealing another person's time because we do not want to be bothered to serve?

Are there times when we're at home or we're feeling lazy and we don't want to

get up and do the dishes or clean the floor or the living room,

which then makes our tired spouse or someone else in the house have to go ahead and do that job?

Often in church settings throughout North America, it's less than 20% of congregations.

That are actually doing program ministry in the church, as well as serving and cleaning out.

I share this with you not to browbeat anybody, but rather to encourage us to

look at this concept of stealing from a different angle.

May we all focus on serving each other as Christ has served us.

Moreover, we have learned that we are given jobs by God so that we can share with those in need.

Granted, we must categorize our family as those in need, especially when they

were dependent upon us to live.

And yet God is calling each one of us, as Isaiah 58 convicts us,

to spend ourselves for the needy and divide our food for the poor and take the

homeless into our houses.

And what was God's promise when we do these things with a heart of faith and love for the Lord?

Isaiah 58, verse eight through nine says this, then your light will break like

the dawn and your recovery will speedily spring forth and your righteousness will go before you.

The glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.

Then you will call and the Lord will answer. You will cry and he will say, here I am.

So far we've learned that Paul taught the Ephesians that Christ believers are

called by God not to steal any longer, but to work diligently so as to be able

to share with those in need.

Another action of our new life in Christ that I want to show you is that as

followers of the way of Christ, we are to speak words that will give grace to those who hear.

A few weeks ago, I was on the phone with leaders of the Manakotek Moravian Church

who were describing to me the state of their church building.

The fellowship hall in the church is so rotten that there are holes in the floor

where someone could fall through.

Other walls are so decayed that you can put your hand through them.

One building expert told the church council that the building may only last eight or nine months.

The church council has been rapidly fundraising for a new build.

I shared this story with you to explain that like a building that is rotten

and ready to fall down, unwholesome words that come out of our mouth are also rotten and unsound.

Paul in Ephesians 4, verse 29 commanded this,

Ephesians 4:29

Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is

good for building up what is needed, so that it will give grace to those who hear.

I want you to notice that there is a building theme going on in this verse.

On one hand, Paul wrote about the concept of unwholesome words or unsound meaning,

not in good condition, damaged, decayed, and hence, unsound and useless,

like a building that is rotten and decaying.

On the other hand, Paul contrasts that the rotting, decaying building with one

that is good or has a good foundation for building what is good on top of it.

What Paul was getting at was that with unwholesome words.

But these words are not words that we would communicate what is needed to build

a solid foundation for life with Christ.

Rather, Christians are called to speak words that will communicate the truth

and the love of God to all they speak.

And I say that because the word grace refers to the outworking of the undeserved

favor of God given to us in Jesus Christ.

Therefore, Paul was communicating to the Ephesian congregation that their words

were to be focused on sharing the undeserved favor of God to those around them.

What can we as Christ believers today learn from this verse?

That as Christ followers, we are to not let vulgar, rotten, decaying words leave

our mouth, but only speak words that are good to build up a foundation of Christ's

grace in another person's life.

Now, this does not necessarily mean that every single word or sentence that

we speak has to be directly about the gospel, but that the grace of God is working

out through what we say to others and how we say it.

And that is rarely apparent from what we speak and the way we speak that we

are disciples of Christ.

Now you may ask, well, what kind of words constitutes unwholesome words?

Are there certain words that I can't say and some that I can say?

Some examples of unwholesome words could be what we call swearing or vulgar

words, taking the Lord's name in vain, or swearing on the name of the Lord,

like saying, I swear on the name of my grandmother's dead cat that I didn't do it.

Or it can be also referring to using

our words to call people names to belittle them

or to slander about someone or gossip about

them and may also be speaking but the lord in ways that is not in court with

sound doctrine which would be very dishonoring to him that would be very unglorifying

to God and would not display the true grace of God with others.

Paul's criteria with any words and types of speeches that doesn't line up with

displaying the grace of God through our words are that if we wouldn't use to

share the gospel with someone,

these words we shouldn't use anyways, right?

Or I need to make a caveat here. Just because we're speaking with grace does

not mean it cannot be a hard truth.

Paul said it well in Colossians 4, verse 6. Let your words always be with grace,

Colossians 4:6

seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should answer each person.

Sometimes we need to speak the hard truth to people, especially our brothers and sisters in Christ.

We can do it with gentleness and tact, but God's truth can be offensive,

especially when someone is being rebellious in their sin to the Lord.

Remember, God disciplines the sons whom he loves, right?

The third principle of living a new life with Christ that I want you to understand

is that as Christ's disciples, we are not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God.

A number of weeks ago, our family had been out berry picking on our land,

and while there were not many berries out that year, there were enough red currants,

watermelon berries, combined with the strawberries from our garden for Abigail to make jam.

And boy, does Abigail make great

jam. To make the jam, Abigail cooks the berries to her specification,

places the hot jam mixture into clean glass jars with the lids,

places them in the canner, making

sure the water level is about one or two inches over the top of the jars.

The lid is then placed on the canner. The water is brought to a rolling boil

for the time on her recipe.

And once the processing is complete, the jars are then left to sit for a while before removing them.

After removing the jars from the canner, when they were done boiling,

they were to be let sit for 12 to 24 hours.

And after the cooling time is over, the jars are then checked to make sure the

lids are tightly sealed.

Then the sealed jars are stored until we want to eat Abigail's Wonderful Jam.

I'm sharing this story with you because the concept of being sealed and protected

for a later time is similar to what Paul was teaching about in Ephesians 4,

Ephesians 4:30

verse 30, to instruct Ephesian Christ's disciples.

Let's look at verse 30. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you

were sealed for the day of redemption.

This verse is a little more tricky to understand. What Paul was not saying was

that we were not to make the Holy Spirit sad.

This verse is about much, much worse than making the Holy Spirit sad.

I think many think that making the Holy Spirit sad is not just such a bad thing

because, hey, we get sad and we go over it, right?

No, the word that Paul used for grieve meant to cause severe or meant emotional

distress, to vex, to irritate, to offend, to insult.

Meaning that we're not to tick off God's Spirit, who along with the Father and

Son made the entire universe.

We're not to vex or offend or insult God.

Does any of these things sound safe to us?

No, they are not safe. The question is, what does it mean to offend or insult the Holy Spirit?

To understand this better, we need to turn to Isaiah 63, verse 8 through 12.

Isaiah 63:8–12

And God said, Surely they are my people, sons who will not deal falsely.

So he became their Savior.

In all their distress, he was distressed. And the angel of his presence saved them.

And in his love and his mercy, he redeemed them. and he lifted them and carried

them all the ancient days. And here's what I want you to focus on.

Verse 10, But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit.

Therefore, He turned Himself to become their enemy. He fought against them.

Psalm 78, verse 40, Proclaimed, How often they rebelled against Him in the wilderness

Psalms 78:40

and grieved Him in the wasteland.

I believe that when Paul taught not to grieve or offend the Holy Spirit,

he was warning that Christians are not to rebel or turn away from God,

to walk away from the new life in Christ and disregard His word.

Remember, it's the Holy Spirit that wrote the Bible through the people whom He guided it to write.

Remember that it was by the Holy Spirit that we live this new life.

Another, even more challenging scripture is from Mark, where Jesus warned,

Truly, truly, I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men,

and whatever blasphemy they utter,

but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness,

but is guilty of an eternal sin because they were saying he had an unclean spirit.

Now, the word that Jesus used for blaspheme and the word that Paul used for

grieving the Holy Spirit are not the same words.

And for blaspheming or saying the Holy Spirit was unclean and therefore not God.

Jesus taught that there is no forgiveness from God ever for that sin,

meaning that the Pharisees were telling Jesus that the spirit that was within

him, the Holy Spirit, was a demon.

And Jesus said that no one can have forgiveness for saying that.

Yet Paul commanded believers not to grieve or insult the Holy Spirit.

Right after he commanded the Ephesians and us not to speak unwholesome words.

Whether Paul and Jesus were referring to the same thing here or not, I am not sure.

But what I am sure of is that it's extremely dangerous to offend or blaspheme the Holy Spirit.

Essential that we do not do either. We can't turn away from God,

from the salvation that he has given us, and then disregard it and walk away.

We also cannot call the Holy Spirit a demon.

I want to encourage us here that we're not to offend the Holy Spirit.

Because similar to my canning illustration, it was by the Holy Spirit that we

were sealed for the day of redemption. What then is the seal of the Holy Spirit?

According to John MacArthur, the sealing which Paul refers to is an unofficial

mark of identification placed on a letter, a contract, or a document.

That document was thereby officially under the authority of the person whose stamp was on the seal.

Four primary truths are signified by the seal, security, authenticity,

ownership, and authority, meaning God filling us with His Spirit and sealing

us guarantees that our position as heirs of God is secure and real.

Why? Because God owns us through the shed blood of Jesus Christ,

and we are now completely under the authority of the Almighty God of the universe.

There's another feature of this sealing of the Holy Spirit that I wish to point

out to you, and that is that we are protected from Satan.

Just as a seal on the ancient scroll was assigned, the document was under the

protection of the owner of the document.

So also, we as believers in Christ are under the protection of Almighty God,

which the sealing of the Holy Spirit attests to.

Satan and his demons can tempt us. He can harass us, possibly use outward stimuli

and circumstances to manipulate our emotions and our actions.

Satan can definitely use people to do evil towards us, but Satan and his demons cannot possess us.

They cannot take us back into the realm of darkness.

We are protected from that. The Holy Spirit now dwells in us,

and we belong to God himself in Christ as we wait for Christ to return with power and with majesty.

And thus, Paul was writing that we as believers must not offend the one who

guarantees our salvation for the day of redemption, who identifies us with God

and protects our souls from Satan.

It just would not be a wise move.

What then has God been teaching us through Paul's list on how to live in our new life with Christ?

The first truth that God has taught us is that we as Christ believers are called

by God not to steal, but to work diligently to be able to share with those in need.

Secondly, we're not to let unwholesome words leave our mouth,

but also speak words that are good to build a foundation of Christ's grace in another person's life.

And lastly, we must not offend the Holy Spirit, who guarantees our salvation in Christ.

Again, these are extremely serious warnings from God through Paul,

with grave consequences.

Paul's point for this whole passage is that we as Christians have been saved

and born again into a new life with Christ by the Holy Spirit's power,

and thus we are to live always in such ways that honor God and displays the

grace of God to all we come in contact with.

And I want to encourage you today. If you've been given such a wonderful life

in Christ with so many blessings,

why would you go back to the old life that is under the power and control of Satan? Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we are thankful for the Word of God, the truth of your spirit

that gives us life, shows us how to live for you.

Without your word, we wouldn't know about you in the first place,

your specific revelation about you, Lord.

Thank you so much for your word. Thank you for loving us so much in Jesus Christ and saving us.

Help us, O Lord, to live in this new life. Give us your strength and courage

and power to be able to boldly go out and proclaim this new life in your Son,

Jesus Christ, as our only Lord and God.

In your precious Son's name, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.

I'll leave you with this benediction from 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 23-24.

1 Thessalonians 5:23–24

Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole

spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He who calls you is faithful.

He will surely do it.

Have a wonderful Sunday and may the Lord bless you.