Beware: Sinful Speech | Ephesians 4:29-31 | 2/8/26

All right. Well, it's great to be with

you all this morning.

Um, this morning we're going to we we're

going to be talking about a really

interesting text, Ephesians 4 29-32,

which largely deals with speech,

um, how we talk to each other, but also

about our relationship to God and our

relationship to the gospel and how that

informs these things.

And I was thinking about how to

introduce this, and I was very happy

with all of my introductions. I came up

with and

you know so I'm just going to kind of

speak speak from the heart here. You

know, every new year,

most of us, many of us, I don't know,

all of us maybe, think about what we're

using to nourish our bodies with. You

think about what you eat [laughter]

and how that's producing results um in

your body and in your in your feelings

and and certainly we did that again this

year. And, you know, just coming to

grips with almost being 40 and how

certain things don't sit quite right

like they used to and certain other

things give me rashes now and that

stinks. But whatever. Um, just as our

our food nourishes us, nourishes our

body, there's there's things which

nourish our heart,

there's things which nourish our faith.

Um, there's good food and there's bad

food.

And it turns out that we're nourished by

what we love, by what we focus on, by

what we think about as the subject of

our regular contemplation, affection,

concern, and care.

And what we're thinking about and

focused on and allowing to nourish us

spiritually is having a result in our

life.

And before we get into this long thing

that Paul has to say about speech, which

I feel like is very very critical and

important, it's it's just so

good to probably start things off by

acknowledging that before you can reform

your mouth, you have to reform your

heart.

Um, out of the overflow of our heart,

our mouth speaks. says, "We'll see in a

minute."

You change, we change when what we love

changes.

The only way to really modify behavior

in the Christian life in the real way,

the right way, the way that God ordains,

is by loving that which is good, loving

that which is most lovable. Which brings

me to what what I believe is going to be

Paul's main point. Although he's going

to go in a different order than, you

know, is is logical for my brain. My

main point is this. Loving God and the

gospel, loving God and the gospel is the

path to unity. So, we're still talking

about unity here. Loving God, loving the

gospel is the path to unity. So, let

that love shape everything. Please open

your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 4.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

And as I said a second ago, Paul is

still dealing in many ways with unity in

the body of Christ. He hasn't really

moved off that point yet.

The first half of chapter 4 was all

about the positive vision of vision of

the body building itself up in love as

we speak the truth to one another and we

pursue maturity. That was the first half

of chapter 4.

The second half of chapter 4 has been

trying to reckon with grapple with just

the frank reality

that you and I are not naturally

inclined nor were most of the readers of

this document or me or many of you

raised in a world where these sorts of

things these patterns of life that are

necessary to create unity were

normalized.

We have a bunch of things that we do

that are unhelpful. [laughter]

The Bible calls it sinful even.

We all need to reckon with the fact that

the way that we're used to handling

things, especially for this first

audience, apart from Christ, these

patterns that were set for us by others,

these values, priorities, and

obligations given to us apart from Jesus

were either deeply misguided or just

wrong or harmful or destructive.

Paul said a couple weeks ago, we need to

take off these old practices like a

garment. We need to take them off like

dirty clothes

and we need to put on the new.

We need to be renewed in the spirit of

our n our minds to put on this new self

that's not like anything you see in this

world, but like God and how God has

expressed his love in the gospel. Excuse

me.

Last week, Paul finally started to put

some real specific practical application

on what this love is meant to look like.

He gave us a handful of practices we

needed to stop doing and instead

exhorted us to replace them with new and

better practices

whose chief end was to cultivate and

sustain unity.

So for instance, Paul said, "Put away

all falsehood and instead speak the

truth with your neighbor." So don't do

that. Do this. He said, 'It okay to be

angry, but don't sin and don't let the

sun go down on your anger.

I know when we talked about that, that

was a little surprising for some people

because you can think of texts in the

New Testament that seem to suggest you

shouldn't get angry. Um,

I contended that Paul here introduces a

distinction between sinful anger and

righteous anger, that there is such a

thing. And I think it's theologically

necessary to affirm such a distinction

if you're also going to say that Jesus

Christ sometimes got angry and Jesus

Christ is also without sin.

Just something to keep thinking about.

Finally, we are also told that the

person who steals, who takes things that

aren't theirs, should stop. They should

put that way of life away and instead

embrace a life of hard work, of giving

and sharing with those in need. This

enumerated the new way in contrast to

the old way. And all of these seem to be

aimed at helping us live in a way where

we're one, where we're united in Christ,

where we're not in antipathy with each

other all the time or in, you know,

hating each other or doing things going

to make unity more difficult.

Paul left us off of this putting off the

old, putting on the new in Ephesians

Ephesians 4:29

4:29. And we're now going to turn our

attention to these last few examples

Paul gives before he wants to shift in

chapter 5 to more general exhortations

to holiness. So let's now that being

said, let's humble our minds. Let's open

our hearts

for the reading of the word of God.

Ephesians 4:es 29-32.

Let no corrupting talk come out of your

mouths, but only such as is good for

building up as fits the occasion, that

it may give grace to those who hear.

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of

God, by whom you were sealed for the day

of redemption. Let all bitterness and

wrath and anger and clamor and slander

be put away from you, along with all

malice. Be kind to one another,

tender-hearted, forgiving one another as

God in Christ forgave you. These are the

words of the Lord.

Um,

just because of the nature of this text,

I'm going to spend a really long time on

that first text about righteous speech

because I think it's really important

and it touches something that all of us

do all the time and I think it actually

is very very critical to promoting

church unity. Uh Paul has talked a lot

about speech so far. And I think this is

his explanation of what speaking the

truth in love even means. So we'll spend

some time. So we're going to look at

three things. We're going to look at

unity in speech. We're going to look at

unity and the Holy Spirit. And we're

going to close by looking at unity in

the gospel. Unity in speech. Unity and

the spirit. Unity and the gospel.

So, I think when I wrote this manuscript

originally, I started with unpacking the

speech and I finished with something to

say about the heart. I think maybe that

was backwards. So, if you can give me a

second and just step away from my notes

here and and try to do this in a way

that I think is more helpful. Um,

Jesus taught us very clearly, very

clearly, and I don't have the references

right in front of me, but you'll know,

you'll recognize that. He said, "It's

out of the overflow of the heart that

the mouth speaks.

That's the order in which words proceed

forth from our person. Um it's not like

if we fix our speech, we fix our heart.

It's the opposite. If we fix our heart,

we fix our speech. Jesus another place

said, you know, you worry so much about

what goes into your mouth as the thing

that's going to defile you. But he's

like, your heart is the thing that's

full of sin. It's what comes out of your

mouth that defiles you. He had this very

clear set of thoughts about this that

fixing your mouth is not fixing the

problem. Fixing your heart is fixing the

problem. And the way to fix your heart

is to love God and love the gospel,

which is where Paul's going to take this

next in verses 29, 30, and 31. But if

you'll just be patient and believe that

that's actually what it says, we'll get

there in a few minutes. U in today's

text, Paul wants to address this issue

of how we talk to each other.

And Paul, like I said a second ago, has

been focused on this to some extent, but

he's been looking at it through a

slightly different lens. He's been

talking about it in terms of truth and

falsehood,

which are important distinctions to make

that we speak the truth, that we put

away all falsehood. But it turns out

there is also this whole other dimension

of concerns

that aren't just about true false. Yes,

true, false. But also there's something

called good, bad.

There's something called helpful or

harmful,

life-promoting or life crushing. Speech

can be fitting or speech can be

illfitting to the moment. It can also be

inappropriate, degrading, humiliating,

cruel. You can say true things in a way

that breaks another person.

There's more to speech than just true or

false. There's also good and bad,

lifegiving or life takingaking.

This is Paul's fundamental qualification

for what it means to speak the truth in

love.

You speak the truth in love when you

speak in a way that leads to life.

Verse 29 is one of my favorite verses in

all of scripture.

It's one of the first texts. So when I

first became a Christian, I started

reading the Proverbs chapter every day.

Every day for 12, 13, I don't even

remember how many years, but every day,

just internalizing everything the

Proverbs says. And of all the books of

the Bible, the book of Proverbs probably

talks about the tongue more than any

other. I I didn't actually go back and

count, but I'm willing to bet that

that's true.

I don't know of another book that talks

about it as much as Proverbs does. And

it's always struck me that verse 29 is

about as concisely and as well put as

you can possibly summarize what Proverbs

says and in fact what the rest of the

Bible says about speech. The way that

this describes it is a great summary of

what the whole Bible says about how we

should talk to each other.

Let where does Paul start? Here's where

he starts. Right on the heels of

speaking the truth in love, of putting

away falsehood and speaking truth is

this command. Let no unh wholesome word,

verse 29, proceed out of your mouth, but

only such as this three things, good for

building up, fits the occasion, gives

grace. So nothing unh wholesome,

good for building up, fits the occasion,

gives grace. I want to briefly look at

all four of those components of this

sentence.

Let no one unh wholesome word. So that

word in Greek is the word sapross.

And the word sapross is the word you

describe used to describe when something

is rotting,

when fruit is going bad, when fish

starts to stink, even occasionally when

a body starts to turn. Let's not go down

that visual. It's the verbal equivalent

of a rotten egg.

The imagery here is trying to con convey

the idea that you shouldn't say things

that cause rot, that denature, that

destroy, that cause decay in other

people. Don't say things that tear down

and lead to death. [snorts]

Now, of course, you have to hear that

against the backdrop of everything else

the scripture says. It's not saying

don't correct a fool in his folly. It's

not saying don't tell your brother when

they've sinned against you. It's a way

of talking that proceeds forth from a

certain kind of attitude,

right?

You can be angry at someone

and in your anger want to just,

you know what I mean? [laughter]

Sometimes when I'm going to talk about

this, I'm like, how much do I have to

describe this? I feel like you all know

exactly what I mean. Maybe, but maybe

not.

Sometimes when someone hurts you, like

when someone genuinely hurts you

and you don't feel like you have any

other recourse, you can sort of in your

heart feel like I want to use words to

hurt them back.

I want to say something that will dig at

them, cut them, hurt them as they have

hurt me.

The way these things feel coming out of

your mouth, it's like it's like you're

trying to give them food poisoning.

You're trying to make the other person

sick.

That's sap raw speech.

Don't say things like that. Don't talk

to each other in a way that rots, that

denatures, that harms, that's meant to

inflict pain.

Instead of doing that,

say things from a heart that wants to

build up.

Try to do things and say things in a way

that you think are going to be

constructive.

Of course, you should tell the truth,

but you can tell the truth in a way

that's saproth.

You can tell someone something true in a

way that's meant to cut them to the

bone.

We're supposed to use speech in a way

that is good.

I [snorts] love that word good. It's

good for building up.

Remember earlier in chapter 4, we're

supposed to build up the body of Christ.

In verse 12, we had that temple and that

tree imagery. Build body. If you were

here for that,

that passage, that that whole context of

church unity is still ruminating in the

back of Paul's mind when he's thinking

about how you talk to each other. He's

thinking about how are we going to

flourish as a church?

How ought we to orient ourselves in our

speech towards each other

in your life? There are going to be a

lot of things that you think that are

true.

There's going to be a lot of things that

you feel that are real and maybe

justified.

There are things that you're going to

see that you feel like ought to change

or ought to be different than what they

are. And the right way to participate in

the building up of the body is by doing

it from a heart that's trying to do

good, not harm.

The right way to participate in the

building up of the church of God is

choosing to love Christ and love God

more than you want to be right, more

than even you want to change people.

Because if you love God and you love the

gospel, that's going to be the

controlling

uh emotion. That's going to be the

controlling interest for how you do

everything else.

So Paul says, "Let no sapro speech come

out. Only speak things that are good and

specifically good for building up."

Third, Paul says, "Do this in ways that

fit the occasion."

Paul uses the word fitting.

do it in a way that's fitting, that fits

the occasion. It's appropriate. It's

welltimed.

Wise King Solomon, Bible says he was one

of the wisest or the wisest person to

ever live. He says in Ecclesiastes 3:7

Ecclesiastes 3:7

that there is times to speak and there's

times to be silent.

I will admit trying to do the second

thing, speak in a way that builds up,

and try to do the fourth thing, give

grace, those are largely attitudinal.

That's like where is your heart at when

you're trying to talk. When it says

speak in a way that's fitting to the

occasion, that is something that is

explicitly grounded in wisdom, in trying

to learn and get better at doing it.

There are good times to say something

and there are bad times to say

something.

There are wise times and unwise times.

Well, what are those? Well, at the very

minimum, at the very minimum,

it requires trying to think about in

what sort of situation is this person

most likely to hear what it is that I'm

trying to say?

In what conditions are they going to be

most prepared to to especially if it's

something critical or something that you

you know that's difficult to say in what

circumstances are they most likely to

hear it

not just when do I feel like saying it

[laughter]

that's fundamentally selfish I wish

someone would have told me that 10 years

ago that's selfish to just go I have a

thought and a feeling so I should just

say it that's what I used to do

sorry for you guys who have been here

for a long time sorry Sure, I did that

to you.

I thought if I'm just saying truth,

that's the way to do it. But actually,

no, you're supposed to be thinking, how

do I build this person up? And when does

it fit the occasion?

It's othersoriented.

Let's say

you and I, and let's just use Phil as an

example. Sorry, Phil. Let's say we're

all talking and let's say you really

look up to Phil like I do and um I heard

you say something super harsh and

judgmental to him. Not that any of you

would ever do that, but let's just say

for example that that happened in that

context. Should I write there and be

like that was super harsh and judgmental

to you?

I mean, I might might want to because I

love Phil,

but are you going to hear that best

right there in that moment in front of

him?

Are you going to be able to even process

what you just said in a way that's

helpful and not more hurtful to Phil?

Sorry, I'm using you as an example. I

probably should have asked before I

started doing this. You know, you're

probably thinking, maybe I didn't know

that was harsh and judgmental. It's

like, well, that was harsh and

judgmental. Well, why? Well, here's why.

We're going to have a way more

productive conversation after the fact,

probably off to the side, than right

there in the moment. If my goal is to

help you learn how to not talk in a more

harsh, judgmental way.

It considers the context. It tries to do

it when it's fitting.

My goal, our goal with each other is to

try to help each other come to

God-honoring conclusions about why we do

what we do and how we do it.

So, no corrupting talk means no

destructive, degenerating, denaturing

speech. Only that which is good for

building up, only that which fits the

occasion. And finally, it gives grace.

It gives grace to the person who hears.

When I use the word grace there,

what do you think that means?

Um,

it means mercy.

It means tender mercy and forgiveness.

[snorts]

It can also mean help.

I'm trying to help you from a place of

compassion.

Paul wants our speech to give grace.

The big idea behind trying to build up

and find the right time and give grace

is that you are coming at your speech

from a perspective of actually trying to

help and build up and bless the person

you're talking to.

It's an otheroriented thing.

The big idea here is that we're supposed

to love Christ so much that it causes us

to want to love other people and do good

to them with how we speak to them.

Now again, this doesn't mean you never

get angry about anything. I don't think

that the Bible says that. I think that

there is a category for righteous anger.

Although, as the New Testament

repeatedly repeatedly says, it's really

easy to go off the rails with that.

Really easy. You got to be really

careful about that.

This doesn't mean you shouldn't say

things that can be hard for people to

hear. It means that we are always ever

and only trying to do this in a way

that's doing good to the other person,

not harming, not taking vengeance, not

venting our frustrations at them.

Love for God is meant to fill us with

love for others and that is meant to

shape how we speak to them.

Two more quick things to say about this

and then I'll move on.

The first is

I already said it. the whole thing about

the heart that Jesus teaches us that you

have to reform the heart to reform the

mouth. That's thing number one. Second

thing, sometimes when I'm getting ready

for a message on Sunday morning, I'll

talk to people about, you know, what do

you think this passage is about or or

how do you apply this passage? And it

was interesting because almost everybody

I talked to about this in their heads

immediately went to whether we should or

shouldn't cuss.

And that's I mean, maybe that's where

your head went too. I hope having

unpacked it, you see that it's actually

uh much broader and deeper than just

that. Not that that isn't part of it. In

fact, I'm going to say more about that

in a second. But I actually think the

worst things that people say to each

other are not four-letter words.

I hate you.

Get away from me. Don't talk to me

anymore.

I think I'd rather Okay, just speaking

for myself, I'd rather have you say a

four-letter word to me than that.

Also, taking the Lord's name in vain is

way worse than a four-letter word.

Um,

Josh, take it easy here. [laughter]

Um,

no, no.

[laughter]

For those of you who are visiting, this

is part of the preaching ministry of

this church. It's me deciding whether or

not to go off on long tangents and

telling myself not to. And sometimes it

works and sometimes it doesn't. Um,

you know, I really, really care about

what the Old and New Testament tells us

about how to talk to each other. It's,

you know, as someone who talks kind of

for a living, I think about it a lot.

And it's a little like I've gone through

the whole gamut of ways you can feel

about this. When I first converted, and

I think I've shared this pretty openly,

I was addicted to a lot of drugs and a

lot of other things that were really,

really bad for me and bad for my soul.

And I wanted to stop and I couldn't

stop.

And my life was just this perpetual

state of mourning and self-hatred and

anger. And I was trying to understand

how the gospel spoken all that. But in

the middle of that, the only thing I

felt like I had any control over was my

speech. I used to say the f-word every

couple words. That was just how I spoke.

And I was like, you know what? I can't

stop doing these horrible things I

shouldn't be doing, but I can stop that.

I can stop talking that way. And it felt

for me this really I don't know

I don't know how you describe it. It's

like Jesus I love you. Do you see how

much in hard heart I'm trying? You know

I don't want to be this way anymore. And

you can I'll give you every part of me

that I can control. And here's the one

that I can control.

And so I radically shifted away from any

sort of speech that I felt was impure or

could be considered not above reproach.

And then I told you I started reading

the Proverbs and started reading the

scripture. And I had to be honest with

myself at a certain point that the New

Testament or the Old Testament doesn't

really talk about speech like that.

We're told not to um use abusive speech.

We're told not to make crude sexual

jokes, but then outside of that, there's

not really this black and white ethic

around this issue. You're sort of given

this positive vision of Ephesians 4.

I think if you're just looking at

scripture and trying to do what

scripture says, as I said a second ago,

taking the Lord's name in vain is it

that is the

I was going to say the Christian

equivalent of the four-letter word, but

that sounds terrible. Do you know what I

mean? Like that's that's supposed to be

our you don't do that. You don't treat

his name. You don't diminish the

holiness, the sanctity, the sacredness

of the name of Christ. You don't treat

it as this lesser thing. You know, I

have observed

John. Okay. Well, here we go. Trains

left the station.

I I I have observed

people in prayer, new Christians,

having just sinned, who are praying in

repentance,

saying bad words as they're repenting.

I'm so sorry.

I don't actually think it's pastorally

appropriate for me to stop that person

in the middle of that sacred act and go

you shouldn't be using

I'm not saying you should use those

words. I'm just saying the New Testament

doesn't give us this black and white

ethic about it. And I feel like the

second you try to make one it breaks

down immediately.

We're supposed to think about our

speech. We're supposed to look at our

speech through the lens of is this good?

Is this building up? Is this helping? Is

this blessing?

Is this controlled by my love for God

and my love for the gospel?

We're supposed to try to pattern our

speech after the character of Jesus.

And Jesus sometimes got really mad.

We're supposed to pattern our speech

after the character of Paul. And there's

one time in the New Testament where he

uses a word that people would consider

inappropriate.

And it's when he's talking about how he

thinks about his good works apart from

the cross.

And I kind of think the way you should

probably think about that is Paul said

what he meant. Paul didn't use fillers.

He didn't like when he thought something

was ugly and wrong, he called it ugly

and wrong.

Speech shaped by love for God is going

to be aimed at promoting unity, about

articulating with truth and clarity

about the goodness of good and the

badness of bad. Just like good art,

we're aiming at what's good. We're

aiming at what's fitting. We're aiming

at imparting grace. Speech is not meant

to be an outlet for our flesh or a way

for us to sin or tear each other down.

That's it's a tool for building up the

body in love into the maturity of

Christ. Okay, that's the long part of

the sermon. Okay, I'm going to go much

faster now, I promise.

Unity and speech. Let's talk now about

unity in the spirit.

Paul says in verse 30, where he goes

with this immediately afterwards is do

not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by

whom you were sealed for the day of

redemption.

Don't grieve the spirit.

He immediately takes this teaching about

speech and puts it in relational terms.

Talking this way is not about doing a

list of right and wrong. Righteousness,

holiness, following Jesus. I know we've

talked about this a million times, but I

want to keep saying it. We're not about

a list of dos and don'ts. When I do

things that hurt my wife, it grieves

God.

And if I love God,

that's going to hurt my heart knowing

that that's true.

It's going to make me sad knowing that

in my relationship with him, I'm acting

in a way that grieves him.

The spirit of God sealed us

for the day of redemption.

He's with us, fitting us, preparing us

for a future. A future without sin. A

future where there's no more animosity

in my heart with his only love.

Relationship with God is like having a

relationship with a friend who cares

about you more than anyone else. It's

like having a a father.

There are ways of acting that your

perfect father is happy about. And

there's ways of acting that distresses

him, distresses the Holy Spirit who is

our friend, who's with us. Um, I spent

some time studying, more time than I

probably should have studying this week

about the history of how the church for

the last 2,000 years has thought about

grieving the Holy Spirit. It's very

interesting. It hasn't changed almost at

all. It's the same sort of idea that

when we walk in sin, we grieve him. And

when we walk in holiness, he's pleased.

The only thing that's really shifted

back and forth over the centuries is

whether we should think about that as an

individualistic thing, what I do, or

whether we should think about that as a

corporate thing, what we do.

What we do, how we talk to each other,

not just how do I talk to you.

God is deeply interested in helping us

become everything we were intended to be

as creatures in his image.

The idea was never that he would just

take our sins away and leave us as we

are. It wasn't, "Well, I forgive you and

that's good. It's over. Keep hurting

each other."

The goal was always to deal with our

sins, to cleanse us from all

unrighteousness, to fill us with his

Holy Spirit and transform us into

creatures

that feel at home in his presence and in

his glory. Creatures that desire him

more than we desire ourselves and our

pleasures.

It's about being transformed into

something and someone that is heaven

oriented.

When we resist what the spirit is doing

in us, it grieves him. And he responds

by convicting us concerning our sins and

righteousness. He brings to mind, he

irritates our consciences when we try to

walk and talk in darkness. And when we

close our ears to him, when we harden

our hearts towards him, when we resist

him, he's grieved. This says

sin is a deeply personal enterprise.

The spirit is by our side all the time.

Which means that there is nowhere in our

life that we are in the dark from God.

All of our life, our hearts and our

minds are open and laid bare before him.

We're told in Hebrews 4,

if the spirit lives in us, he is with us

everywhere we go and with everything we

do. He is the one committed to ensuring

our access to the father. Ephesians

Ephesians 2:18

2:18. He is always trying to move us

closer to our God. Jesus says he is here

to help us bring our thoughts,

attitudes, and affections closer to the

living true God. And in trying to move

us closer to God, he's trying to move us

closer to unity and love as a church.

That's what he's doing. And so to grieve

the spirit is to act in ways that are

contrary to that.

It's ignoring the one who has the

highest good in mind for our lives.

We grieve him when we value our own

comfort and pleasure over holiness, over

worship. We grieve him when we put our

own priorities over God's priorities and

say to the most high, "I'll do your

stuff later."

We grieve him when we tolerate

bitterness and greed and idolatry and

hatred in our hearts for other people.

When we tell ourselves that these things

are okay.

The spirit is deeply grieved. Jesus is

deeply grieved in the gospels by

hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy being

when I say you should all do this and

you're bad if you don't and then I go

home with zero intention of doing it

myself or when I act like I do something

that I don't do.

Um

it's not being someone who perfectly

does it. If if the only people who could

talk about what God tells us to do are

people who only ever do anything

perfectly, there would be no preachers,

right? There'd be no one who could get

up here and say anything about God's

moral will because none of us do it

perfectly. Hypocrisy is pretending like

you do and lying about the fact that you

don't.

If you've been living in ways that

grieve the spirit,

if you have been tolerating the flesh,

the world, the devil, if that's

describing you,

let today be the day you hit the refresh

button.

There is grace for us in this church and

at this cross. There is grace for us to

start over, to come back, to be renewed

in our desire to repent and put our

faith in Jesus and to follow him despite

our weaknesses, despite our failures.

The church is Christ's body.

If you've been pulling back, let the

Holy Spirit draw you in. If you've been

allowing sin to sort of flourish in your

life, say to that sin, "Today is the day

you begin to die."

You don't have to say it out loud. Say

in your heart, "I've had enough of this.

I want God. I don't want this sin

anymore."

But don't try to do this alone.

We're a body. Ephesians 4 has been

really clear that each part is meant to

be working together to build itself up

in love, which means we need each other.

We need to be honest with each other and

open with each other that we might help

each other.

Living out these high callings is only

going to work if it's motivated by a

love for God and a love for the gospel.

You have to look to him for help. Let's

close by thinking about unity and the

gospel as Paul leaves it here.

Paul gives us one last succinct picture

of the kind of life that leads us away

from unity and away from God.

He says, "Let all bitterness, wrath,

anger, clamor, slander be put away from

you with all malice."

Bitterness is when your heart just sour

towards others.

It's when your heart sour towards life.

It's the commitment to never forgive and

never let things go. That's what

bitterness is.

It's to embrace a j jaded negative

outlook on people, things, or life

itself. As one author put it, there is

nothing good or redeemable about

bitterness

unless it's bitterness towards sin.

Wrath and anger describe a subtle

disposition of hostility towards other

people.

You burn with a desire to inflict

what you perceive to be justified harm

against other people. Well, that's

wrath. Sinful anger is similar. It's

anger at the wrong things, for the wrong

reasons, and in the wrong proportion.

I wanted to camp for a minute on the

word clamor.

There arose such a

clatter.

[laughter]

What is clamor? We don't use that word

too often.

A clamorous person is someone who yells

and shouts when they're angry.

That's literally what it means in Greek.

Someone who yells and shouts when

they're angry. Who gets really loud when

they're frustrated about something.

And given that the whole context of this

passage is relational,

I don't think it's likely that Paul has

in mind people who bump their foot and

go, "Ah, dang it."

It's the people who get mad at others

and they express that anger by shouting

at them.

So,

dads

[laughter]

shouting and anger is not a God-honoring

pattern for your home.

It is not a Christ glorifying, Christex

exalting pattern to establish in your

house with your kids.

Is it going to happen sometimes because

you're weak just like I am? Because it

also happens to me sometimes.

Yes.

But the right way to respond to it is to

go, "That was clamor.

That was something that the scripture

told me not to do and it was wrong

and I've now sinned against my children

and I should Repent to them and ask them

for forgiveness.

Moms, this is also not a good, healthy,

life-giving way of communicating to your

kids.

Um, Janine's

more often than not has been sharing

this thing that she learned about how

shouting at kids affects their brains

and specifically how most of the time

you kind of live in the frontal lobe of

your brain. You're thinking, you're

reasoning, whatever. But when you shout

at a kid, often times if especially if

they're not super used to it, their sort

of thought process moves back into their

amydala, their fight orflight

response. And it becomes almost

impossible for them to understand or

comprehend or internalize anything

you're saying because they don't know if

you're about to hurt them.

So you think, well, why am I yelling?

What am I hoping to accomplish? Am I

trying to scare them into obedience, or

am I trying to talk to them and correct

their behavior?

And also, just to reiterate, I'm not

trying to be a hypocrite about this,

okay? It's something that we work on,

that we don't do perfectly, that we mess

up on all the time.

Are there going to be some times that

yelling is is appropriate?

There are a handful of times where

yelling is appropriate.

Does that fit 99.9% of the situations

that frustrate you? Probably not.

Kid running out into the street when

there's a car coming. That's the time to

shout.

There are times to shout, but they're

probably smaller than most of us would

naturally be inclined to think.

Finally, Paul says, "Put away all

slander and malice."

Slander is tearing down another person's

reputation.

Slander is

talking in denigrative denigrating ways

about someone behind their back.

Let me clarify this.

Is it slandering someone? If you're

trying to love someone and they're

treating you in a way that you don't

understand and it no matter what you do,

it doesn't seem to work and you're

frustrated and you want to help but you

don't know how to help. And so you go

and ask a more spiritually mature

person, hey, here's a situation. What do

I do about this? Is that slandering

someone? No,

that's trying to help. That's trying to

build up and bless.

When you hear that someone did wrong or

you see someone do wrong and without any

intention of helping or trying to speak

life, you just go and talk about it with

other people.

What do you call that?

It's called slander.

Some people just like to talk about

other people. Not because they're trying

to help, not because they're trying to

understand. They just get a weird

pleasure from participating in exchanges

of other people's embarrassing

information.

That is sinful.

Slander is tearing people down in the

eyes of others or diminishing their

reputation in the eyes of others when

you have no real desire to help or build

up or bless.

Malice with that is like hatred. It's

wishing ill.

On the contrary, we are summoned by Paul

into a fundamentally different attitude

toward each other. We're to be kind

toward each other. He says,

tenderhearted, forgiving one another.

But the biggest thing here, I think, to

see is not the what, it's the why. He

says, because this is what God in Christ

has done for you.

So the reason you're supposed to care

about speaking in a way that leads to

unity, acting in a way that lives to

unity, is because you don't want to

grieve the Holy Spirit. You love God and

because this is what God has done for

you in Christ. You love the gospel.

That's like literally what he says.

That's what you're supposed to care

about. That he's loved us in Christ so

much that he's given his son for us. And

that's supposed to shape how we treat

other people, talk to other people,

orient ourselves to other people.

The way you become more gentle and more

tender-hearted with others is by coming

to grips with how gentle and

tender-hearted God is with you all the

time.

Thinking about how gentle and

tender-hearted he is towards us when we

sin and when we sin bad. How he doesn't

strike us down.

You know, I think about when I was a new

Christian and how it initially felt like

God was showing me every single sin in

my life and everything felt so

overwhelming. And now, whatever it's

been 18 years after the fact, it's like

he was barely scratching the surface of

how terrible I am. And what a mercy and

a kindness and a grace of him to not

show it to me all at once.

to not just club me in the head with a

2x4 and be like, "Look at how stupid you

are."

My fundamental exhortation today, what I

think Paul is getting at, it's supposed

to let your love for God and your love

for the gospel shape how you treat

others.

How do you do that in closing? Two

suggestions.

First suggestion, and both of these feel

obvious, but the more I do counseling,

the more I realize even if it's obvious,

we just have to repeat this to

ourselves. You have to think about it

when you're upset,

when something is bothering you, when

you feel like you need to have a

difficult inter interaction. Think about

how does God's love for me in Christ and

my desire not to grieve the Holy Spirit?

How does Paul's teaching in Ephesians

Ephesians 4:29

4:29 shape how I should respond to this

person?

I don't know if this is true, but I'd be

willing to bet money that most of the

worst things that you've said in your

life were said without a lot of

forethought.

You just reacted in anger and said

something you wish you wouldn't have

said.

And we need to learn from that.

Which brings me to my second application

point. When you do this wrong, you have

to actually repent.

So what does that mean? Repent doesn't

just mean that was bad. I should have

done that. I'm sorry, Lord. Will you

forgive me? That's the first half of

repent. That's help me take off.

But gospel repentance, Christian

repentance, Christian sanctification in

the New Testament is not just take off.

It's take off and put on. Help me, Lord.

Put on. I want to turn from that old way

and put on the new way. I want to turn

from these patterns that have been

destructive and abusive and harmful and

have led to brokenness in my life,

frankly.

And I want to learn to do this in a way

that gives life,

in a way that brings blessing and causes

flourishing

in the world around me.

I was just remembering a conversation

that Matt and I had about, you know,

when you become a Christian, you have

this new thing to like try to make Eden

in your home. Remember talking about

that? Creating Eden.

I should want to create Eden in my home

and create Eden in this church with you

guys.

I want to be the kind of person that

builds up and blesses it. The only way

to do that is by thinking about how

these convers how I'm going to have

these interactions.

And then when I do them wrong, genuinely

repenting, turning from the old and

embracing the new. Does that make sense?

Is that lacking any clarity for anybody?

Okay. Thanks, Reeba. That was a

definitive headshake.

Brothers and sisters, we're striving to

live a life fit for heaven because we've

been sealed by the spirit for the day of

redemption.

Loving God, loving the gospel is the way

that we're going to have unity together.

So, let that love shape everything.

Let's pray.