Beware: Lying, Anger, Stealing, Grieving the Spirit | Ephesians 4:25-28| 2/1/26

This morning I want to start thinking

about the gospel. We've been talking

about the gospel. We've been reflecting

on the gospel. The first three chapters

of the book of Ephesians is this really

big, robust, dense, deep picture of the

gospel. And it's been wonderful just to

think about and contemplate.

But I want to just

think about it a little differently this

morning. Talk about it a little

differently this morning than we

normally talk about it. just for the

purpose of helping ourselves hear what

Paul's going to say in this letter.

Hopefully, this isn't radically

different, but

the gospel is a deeply personal,

extremely specific and raw claim

about who you are and what your life

means and how it could be redeemed.

It's actually,

if you take it out of the realm of the

abstract and just try to hear it again

with fresh ears, it's a pretty wild

thing to say. It's a pretty wild thing

to hear.

Some people hear it and their hearts are

closed to it and they're unwilling to

even consider it and so they dismiss it.

Some people listen and they they try to

internalize it, but it doesn't make

sense or there's parts of it they don't

get and so they don't receive it. They

think that they've got better things to

think or or higher thoughts to think and

it's largely rooted in a

misunderstanding.

Other people hear it and it transforms

them.

It completely changes their whole lives.

That's what happened to me.

What the gospel says is bigger and

denser and more profound than what I can

say in an introduction to a sermon. But

the cliffnotee version is we were all

made by God for lives of love, joy,

sacrifice, and dominion. We were created

to nourish and nurture and cause

everyone and everything around us to

flourish,

to bring life to both the earth and the

other people in the earth.

That's why we're here.

And the gospel says, "You and me

did not live up to this calling."

In fact, it says it in stronger terms

than that. It says that we have [snorts]

squandered that calling.

We have not only failed to love, we've

actually harmed.

We've wounded.

We've harmed ourselves. We've harmed and

wounded others. And we've defied God's

will for our life.

And

tr try to be honest about that, you

know. Um,

you think, well, no, I didn't. I'm not

that bad. And then you come up with an

arbitrary list of things that you

haven't done. But like, who have you in

your life hated?

You You've probably hated.

I have. I've hated people I thought did

wrong to me.

Sometimes we knew what we were doing

when we did this. Sometimes we didn't

know what we were doing, but that harm,

that stuff that we inflicted upon other

people, it still happened whether we

meant it to or not, whether we were

aware of it or not. And believe it or

not, ignorance does not dismiss you of

culpability. You still did the harm.

Let me tell you something.

In 10 years of counseling, one of the

things I've come to realize that maybe

is a surprise to you

is that there are things that people

have done or said or laughed at

that other people that weren't even the

object of those comments took deep into

the selves and it continues to affect

them into adulthood.

Did you know that?

I actually think if we could pull back

the curtain in real life, and this is

not about anyone specific. This is about

all of us, including me, we would be

shocked at the harm we've actually done

in this world.

We're all guilty.

We're all culpable. We've all had a hand

in making the world a worse place.

And if there is any justice,

if there's anyone somewhere out there

who cares that this wrong has been done,

there's going to be consequences.

There's going to be a just recompense

for what we've done.

And we can't do anything to make it

right. We've caused the injury. We've

caused the wound. There it is. There's

nothing you can go back and do about it.

This was one of the first things I that

really messed with my mind when I first

became a Christian. Janine can tell you

my first year in the faith, one of the

things I really struggled with was right

before converting, I'd got in this big

fight with someone

and

I was drunk

and I was being a bully

and I broke somebody's nose.

That was not doing anything wrong.

And then God saved me, but that guy's

nose was still broken.

What do I What do I do with that? How am

I supposed to think about this?

Unless God,

the one who deeply cares when people are

wounded unjustly in this world, unless

he makes a way for us to be forgiven,

redeemed, and restored, there is no

hope.

And the gospel is God sent his only son

to suffer and die for our sins, for the

ways that we've wounded others. The way

that we deserve justice, wrath, penalty,

whatever word you want to use, God doled

it out on him in our place for our sins.

And the good news is by repenting of

your sin and putting your faith in him,

there's grace for you. There's

forgiveness, compassion, and mercy.

We who have had a hand in ruining

everything can be reconciled. We can be

forgiven and restored. We can be given a

fresh start because of Jesus and his

cross and resurrection.

Praise be to God.

But there's still that lingering

problem.

What about that guy's nose?

What are we going to do?

We who have been reconciled, forgiven,

and restored with the lives that we have

left.

What can we who are broken and falling

short of God's call on our lives? What

can we do except make the world worse

still?

Unless

Unless God has come not only to give us

a clean slate, but to give us a new

life, a new way of thinking about the

world, a new way of perceiving the

people around us, a new way of

processing our anger and frustration, a

new way of dealing with people that

upset us and bother us, a new way of

life paradigmed

uh configured after the very nature and

character of Jesus Christ.

That's what Ephesians 4 has been about.

The gospel is not just that God came to

save us from hell. That's part of it.

The other part of it is he came to give

us a new life, eternal life, to make us

fit for heaven by his powerful spirit,

who we will talk about later.

The good news is that you've not only

been saved and redeemed through the

death and resurrection of Jesus, you've

been given new patterns in a new way so

that you can be transformed from someone

who's continuing to perpetrate harm in

this world to someone who becomes an

agent of healing and grace and peace and

restoration.

You can be transformed

from an agent of chaos and sin and

strife into an agent of healing,

helping, sharing, and change.

What can I do about that guy's nose?

I can teach my sons to walk in a

different example.

Sorry, I'm going to start preaching if I

walk away from my notes here. Let's just

I don't know your backgrounds, all of

you, but there is hope. There is a

better way forward than what there's

been. And it's in the example of Jesus.

And I'm I'm telling you from the bottom

of my heart, it's like a real thing.

It's not enough for any of us to try to

do this alone, to do this ourselves. You

have to do it in community. You have to

do it together. None of us are strong

enough to do this by ourselves. We need

each other. Which brings me to my main

point today.

Unity, which is what the subject of

Ephesians 4 is about. Unity requires

uprooting the old and cultivating the

new and doing it together. Unity

requires uprooting the old, cultivating

the new and doing it together. Please

open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 4.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

We have been studying through reading

through Paul's letter to the churches in

and around Ephesus. And Paul has been

telling us that given the gospel, that

stuff I just explained to you a second

ago, given everything God has done from

the foundation of the world until now to

bring about this redemption, he told us

at the beginning of chapter 4, we ought

now to walk in a manner

worthy of the calling that he's given

us.

And the way he started telling us to do

this was by showing humility, love,

gentleness, and patience with each other

as we pursue unity together.

We do this, we are told, not by focusing

on unity itself, but by focusing on

Christ and striving for maturity and

striving for Christ likeness, both as

individuals and as a group.

And one of the things that's just been

so

like concrete and clear this time going

through the book to me, hopefully to

you, it's as the thing that Eric pointed

out last week that it's not it's not so

much like the what you do exactly. It's

the who you're trying to be like. The

It's not that the what. Of course, the

what matters, but that's not the po. The

point isn't the what. The point is the

who. We're focusing on him. We're trying

to be more like him. And that's where we

start. The what finds its proper and

meaningful place as an overflow of the

who.

Jesus is not only our savior king. He's

also our example.

God did not give us a list of dos and

don'ts don'ts. He gave us an embodied

teacher to imitate.

As we saw in last week's passage, in

order to walk in this new way, we have

to recognize that we were once walking

in an old way, a broken way, a darkened

way.

Paul said that

before our ways were darkened in

understanding and alienated from the

life of God.

It's important to recognize that these

are God's verdicts over how we used to

live apart from Jesus. darkened in our

understanding, alienated from the life

of God.

And all of us, whether you're an adult

convert or a person raised in the faith,

we have to keep coming back to God's

word and go, why am I doing this? Is

this I just assumed this was the right

thing to do, or is this what God's word

actually says? We need to keep

reiterating that to ourselves. Are my

ways of life serving the purpose of

building you unity by a shared pursuit

of maturity in Jesus? Or are my ways of

life distracting from that? And the only

way to get real answers to those

questions, the only way to know if the

answer yes or no

is to humble yourself.

To humble yourself under the very real p

possibility that some of the things that

you thought were right are actually

wrong. that some of the things that

you've said out loud or done in public

might have been the wrong things to do.

Humbling yourself,

but humbling yourself is the only way

we've learned Christ

who humbled himself.

Let's now humble our minds and open our

hearts. We have just a couple verses

today. Ephesians 4 25- 28.

Therefore,

having put away falsehood, let each one

of you speak the truth with his

neighbor, for we are members of one

another.

Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the

son go down on your anger and give no

opportunity to the devil. Let the thief

no longer steal, but rather let him

labor doing honest work with his own

hands, so that he may have something to

share with anyone in need. This is God's

word. God, help us to hear what you are

actually saying here in truth in Jesus

name. Amen.

Is there any way to put the clock on

that instead of the timer? It's okay if

not. I just I feel myself getting so

excited about this that I don't want to

go super duper. There it is. Okay,

great. 10:55. Thank you for that. I

should probably get started here. Um

let's begin by opening up verse 25.

Um Paul begins with an emphatic

conjunction therefore. It's a forceful

transition. It's the strongest way to

say say that

he's not saying this is the thing maybe

you should do given what I say. He's

saying given what I said about no longer

walking as the Gentiles do in verse 17.

Speak the truth.

I'm setting that up as hard as I can if

I'm Paul. But before he gets there, he's

going to qualify the context of this

truth speaking. He says,"Therefore,

having put away all falsehood,

having taken all the falsehood in your

life, tucking it in a safe, locking it,

and throwing it to the bottom of the

sea, having done that, speak truth." Um,

the the way that that says that in Greek

is stronger than it reads in English.

It's not like having put away falsehood

like just, you know, we kind of did

that. It's saying as a completed and

definitive past act,

having turned your back on that entire

way of thinking and being,

speak truth.

It's really important to understand what

Paul is doing here because it's really

profound. We discussed a couple weeks

ago that in Ephesians 4 11-16,

we're to speak the truth in love as we

pursue growth into maturity. And I said

that speaking the truth in love there,

the word speak wasn't actually in the

Greek. It was truthing in love as we

grow up into Christ. And what I was

trying to say there is that doesn't mean

somehow like less than speaking the

truth in love. It meant more. Your whole

way of life is meant to be truthful in

the truth according to truth.

Here in verse 25, we see that a little

more clearly what Paul has in mind. He

is quoting in this verse Zechariah 8 16.

He does what a typical teacher in

rabbitical Israel would have done which

is quote the first few words of the

verse and expect you to fill in the rest

of the passage in your own mind. So

Zechariah 8:1 16 says this.

Zechariah 8:1

These are the things you shall do. Speak

the truth to one another. What does that

mean Zechariah? It means this. Render in

your gates judgments that are true, and

make for peace. Do not devise evil in

your hearts against one another, and

love no false oath. For all these things

I hate, declares the Lord.

Put away falsehood and speak truth here

involves this bigger picture of life

together in community. Deal justly with

each other and uprightly with each other

in love. Of course, be honest. of course

say true things but you have to go

further than that. It has to be truth

without deception, truth without evil,

truth without falsehood.

What do I mean by that?

I mean you can say something true

without really telling the truth.

You can say true things while taking

advantage of someone.

You can say true things in a way that

favors getting the outcome that you

want.

You can say true things while still

lying.

What does I can't right now? I'm busy

mean?

What does that mean?

[laughter]

So, it could mean I legitimately have

things going on right now and I'm unable

to help you.

It can also mean I don't feel like it.

Uh, this is one of those times where

it's worth not going. But yeah, but

that's how we always I don't who cares.

What does the word say?

You can say something that's kind of

true that's not technically lying.

That's a falsehood.

And we're called to put away falsehood.

If the truth is you don't feel up for it

right now, if the truth is, can I I

can't I I really don't feel up for it

right now. Is it possible to help you

later? If that's the truth, speak the

truth.

for Paul and especially for Zachchariah,

the falsehood that meant that's meant to

be put away. That that was sort of an

innocuous example. Not it's not

innocuous, but like it's a very low

stakes example in for Paul and

especially for Zechariah. He has more

insidious [snorts] things in mind.

People coming into the church lying

about needing financial help so that

they can squander it.

squandering their money on worthly

things, worthless things. People seeking

to defraud the community under false

pretenses, people misrepresenting Christ

or claiming to know more than they

actually do about true doctrine. Pretty

soon, there's going to be political

persecution, even violence against

people who say that Christ is Lord and

refuse to say that Caesar is Lord. And

there's going to become this pressure to

go deny Christ in secret

to do it where no one can see so that

you can keep your your certificate that

allows you to buy and sell and trade.

There's going to be people going around

trying to pressure new converts to get

circumcised.

They're going to say, "You're not really

saved unless you're circumcised."

There's going to be people trying to

justify the sin of important people in

the congregation out of fear of not

wanting them to get in trouble. There's

going to be people in James chapter 3

James 3 · chapter mention

who are or two or three. What what is

it? Where the rich are going to come in

and you're going to treat the rich

better than the poor because you think

that, you know, amounts to doing

something better for your bottom line.

Is it two or three? Two. Okay. Sorry. I

swear I have most of that book

memorized. I don't know why I couldn't

call it that. Sorry about that. Um,

James 2, you're going to show favor to

the rich to the exclusion of the poor

because you think it's going to be

better for your budget.

There are going to be church leaders

getting into arguments. There's going to

be whole congregations gathering into

factions around different apostles. And

in the midst of this, there's going to

be conflicts about whether it's okay to

eat idol meat or not. And all kinds of

stuff like this. And it's against this

backdrop that each and every one of us,

each and every member of the church is

called to just put away falsehood and to

try to do your best to speak the truth,

to render judgments that are true and

make for peace

as we seek unity together.

In Zechariah 8:3, at the beginning of

Zechariah 8:3

that chapter, you get this vision of the

future city, the city of Zion, restored,

restored to everything God wants it to

be, the new community that God is going

to form by his powerful spirit. This

future Zion is called the faithful city.

The other way of translating that in

Hebrew is the city of truth.

the city, the community where people

deal honestly with each other and they

put aside falsehood forever and they

live together in an environment of total

trust.

In the city of truth, not everyone does

everything the same way that you would

do them. Not everyone is going to say

things the same way, same way that you

would say them. That's not what you're

supposed to be hoping for. You're not

hoping for or trying to create

uniformity. We're layering together for

unity in maturity as we put away

falsehood and do our best to speak the

truth to each other. You ever look at a

color and go, "I think that's red." And

someone else goes, "That's pink."

And you're like, "How do you think about

like who's telling the truth?" It's

you're both trusting each other that

you're being honest about what you feel

like you see.

I want to say it again just to make sure

you hear it. In a diverse community of

people coming to Christ, in a diverse

community out of a million different

people with a million different

backgrounds all coming together, the

chances of all of us thinking about

things and seeing things the exact same

way are exactly 0%.

If your goal is to look for a community

where there is 100% uniformity, you're

looking for something that's never going

to exist. The goal, the hope, the

striving together for maturity is not

that we'd see things the same way, but

that we'd all be equally honest and do

our best to tell the truth to each other

in love.

And we do this, it goes on to say,

because we're members of one another. We

are mutually interdependent. There's no,

for there's no concept for doing this

outside of a church community. Literally

the reason you do this is because we are

members. It's like he takes it for

granted.

We need each other.

You need people in your life who see the

world through different eyes than you

do.

If you don't have that, you miss a lot.

Our eyes are not that great at seeing

that much. It's really helpful to have

other people looking at the same thing

that you're looking at and giving you

alternative perspectives because it's so

easy to miss something.

Trusting other people to tell you the

truth requires you to listen and try to

understand even when things are really

different than how you would think about

them.

Don't believe the lie that just because

someone sees something different than

you, they're your enemy.

That's not true. In Christ, people are

not your enemy. They're your brothers

and your sisters. Even if they think

very differently than you do.

Don't despise your brother for being

different. Don't be shocked by your

sister that she sees something in a

different way than you do. You are

members of one another, inter

interdependent upon each other.

Speaking the truth to each other

requires us to overcome false beliefs

about each other, false conclusions

about each other, trying to understand

each other.

The only way to cultivate an environment

of trust is to do your best to put away

falsehood, to do your best to speak the

truth.

And it even includes the truth that

[snorts] you might be wrong about stuff.

I'm literally not talking about anything

specific. I'm just talking about in

general, we get things wrong.

The way someone else sees something

might be right.

Being united as members of each other

requires trust. You have to uproot the

old and you have to put on the new and

you have to try to do it together with

people who are different than you.

That's unity and trust. Let's now

transition to unity and our feelings.

Look down at verse 26.

Here in verse 26, we get what some

people consider a puzzling imperative.

An imperative being a command. It says,

"Be angry."

Be angry, but don't sin.

So, just if I can give you the fast

forward version of this, there's people

who are like, "But doesn't the Bible say

a bunch of times, don't be angry." It's

like, "Yeah." And then here it's saying,

"Be angry." Yeah. Well, what should we

do with that? Is are they contradicting

each other? The the thing to do with

that, whenever this happens, I go,

"Jesus."

And I think about Jesus.

And it occurs to me when thinking about

Jesus that Jesus got angry.

He got angry.

He got furious sometimes.

Which means being angry can't be

inherently sinful.

However,

we're also taught in the New Testament,

and you've probably all seen in your own

life, that anger is super easy to lose

control of.

It's like a wild raging fire.

So, what Paul seems to be saying here is

that there are going to be times to get

angry that are appropriate, but when

that happens, you have to be super duper

careful not to let it veer into sin. You

have to be really proactive about it.

Paul's going to reiterate in verse 31 of

Ephesians 4 that we should really be

trying to put anger away. It's not the

normal thing we should be doing, but

just if I can very quickly say, there

would be something weird and wrong. And

I think I feel like I've said this

before. If someone after church hit my

wife, sorry for such a raw example, and

I didn't feel anything.

Wouldn't you think I was kind of weird?

The right thing to do is to want to

vindicate justice, protect the weak,

uphold innocence. And when you see

violations of that, that's righteous

indignation. It's just also super true

for that to veer out of control.

Don't hit my wife

because you're going to realize I'm not

that much godlier than anybody else

here, right?

I mean, you do you get that? Like

[laughter]

there's going to be times where it's

approp for me to feel angry, but it is

so easy to just lose your stuff, right?

Paul is saying in a community that is

oriented towards truth, that's trying to

pursue unity,

that's filled with people who are

sinners and are still struggling to be

righteous, the chances of us doing

things to each other on accident or on

purpose that are going to make one of us

feel angry are basically 100%.

We're going to do things to offend each

other.

And the wrong way to look at church is

like that's where I go to never have any

it's

never have any problems. I mean, you've

met me, right? I bring all kinds of

problems into this place. I bet you do,

too. That's just the the nature of the

beast. We We're all trying to learn how

to be more loving and godly, and none of

us just know how to do it perfectly

already. And it's almost unreasonable

that we'd expect each other to know how

to do that.

This is important

because we are going to get angry. And

when we're angry, we need to know what

to do to avoid sin.

Is this where I talk about this? Did I

sorry I have something in here about

being angry correctly. Okay, it's coming

next. Sorry. Second part of this. Do

don't let your son go down on your

anger. So

well-meaning people. So so sorry. The

next part of this verse, be angry. Don't

sin. Don't let the sun go down on your

anger. These are establishing paradigms

for how we're supposed to think about

the world. It's not a checklist of do

and don'ts. It's giving us a new and

better way. You're going to get angry.

You're going to have emotions. You're

going to have strong feelings. What you

ought to do with them is not allow them

to just run free into sin. That's number

thing number one. Next, it says, "Don't

let the sun go down on your anger."

And I remember when I first read that, I

was like, "Okay." And for some reason, I

just thought it applied to marriage. In

marriage, we should never let an

argument continue until after nightfall.

And if the sun goes down before the

argument is over, we've somehow sinned.

I now realize that's probably not the

correct way to apply this, especially

given most of our fights happen late at

night when the sun's already down and

we're way too tired and we shouldn't be

talking about this right now, but we're

talking about it anyway and I'm getting

upset. And then we wake up the next

morning and it's like, what were we even

talking about again? Oh yeah, I don't

know why I got so upset about that. I'm

sorry. And we move on with our life. Um,

I'm sure none of you do that ever at

all.

That saying, don't let the sun go down

on this, that's actually a proverbial

saying in the first century. Plutarch,

the Roman historian, talks about how

within the groups of Stoics, they don't

want to let the sun go down on

arguments. They want to resolve things.

Uh, in Jewish, there's Jewish

theologians that talk about don't let

the sun go down before you've paid a

poor man his wages. It's just a way of

saying don't put off things that are

important. It's important to like

properly emphasize, properly prioritize

things that matter that if you don't

deal with it quickly, it's going to

produce harm.

And that's what this is talking about.

Be the kind of person who deals with

conflicts, that doesn't let anger just

sit inside and fester and become

bitterness. And it's really important

that you don't do that because it says

that in doing so, you give the devil an

opportunity.

You know, there's I don't know of

another place in scripture, I probably

should have looked it up before I said

this, but just off the top of my head,

where the Bible warns you that there's a

certain emotion you can feel that gives

the devil an opening into your life.

Uh anger is wild. An anger is easy to

lose control of. And so we're supposed

to be careful and vigilant over oursel.

This is commending us to a way of life.

Don't be the kind of person who sins in

your anger. So let me quickly say

something about righteous and

unrighteous anger.

Righteous anger

is anger at the right things

for the right reasons

in the right proportion.

Say that again. Righteous anger is anger

at the right things for the right

reasons in proper proportion.

Let's let's do a case study. Let's try

this on for size.

Let's say after church we're all

standing here talking and I'll use I'll

I'll make myself the bad guy in the

story. me, you, and someone that you

respect are all sitting there talking

and you start saying something and

before you can finish saying what you're

saying, I talk over you and say

something kind of harsh and judgmental

in front of this person that you look up

to and respect and you in the moment

don't really know how to respond and

you're thinking to yourself, that was

kind of rude, but you don't know what to

say in the moment. And then we church

ends and you go home and I go home and

now you're left with that feeling of

like, man, that was what do I do with

that?

Well,

first you start by thinking, what am I

actually angry about? Am I angry at the

right thing? Well, I'm angry that Josh

rendered judgment over me without really

understanding what I was saying. I was

going to explain that thing and he

didn't let me finish. So, I'm angry

about that. Why else am I angry? Well, I

feel misunderstood and I sort of feel

embarrassed because that person I looked

up to was standing right there and that

kind of hurts my pride if I'm being

honest.

Then we ask, well, how mad am I?

Am I mad in proper proportion to what

took place?

That's a super convicting one to try to

ask yourself at the moment.

Someone said something untrue about me

in front of someone else and I feel

embarrassed. Is that something I should

be furious and enraged about?

I don't know. If you inserted me in that

story as the person that was perpetrated

against and I was furious, and raged,

would you think I was doing the right

thing?

Probably not.

Is this something that you can

reasonably be upset about and frustrated

by? Yeah. Should I be super angry about

the fact that my pride was hurt?

Probably not. You know, my pride is not

a good thing. My pride has not helped me

in this world, in this earthly

pilgrimage with Jesus. My pride has

mostly been my enemy. The things that

hurt my pride are usually ultimately

helpful to me. I'm not going to get

upset about that part. However,

I am mad that this person was really

that that sorry, you were m I can't keep

it straight. You were mad that I did

something. Okay.

Sin happened. Judgment happened that

harmed you. And in your mind, you're

thinking,"If you did that to me, the

likelihood that you're going to do that

to someone else is probably pretty high.

That's frustrating. That's unjust. And I

actually think I need to go address that

with you to help everyone, to help the

group.

So, it's reasonable for you to be upset,

not for the violation of the pride, but

for the fact that this person was harsh

and careless with their judgment, and

you don't want that same pain to be

afflicted on another person.

Should I let myself start directing my

anger at that person specifically? Oh,

this person's so mean and dumb and

stupid and probably not. That person's

your brother or your sister. That

person's someone that has been ransomed

and redeemed by the blood of Christ and

that you're called to try and help. So,

is it right to be mad at the sin and

about the sin? Yes. Is it reasonable to

think, you know what, this is

frustrating because it actually did hurt

me and it could hurt others? Yes. Is the

proper proportion an explosion and a

young? Probably not, but probably a

direct and specific confrontation about

something that actually hurt your

feelings is warranted.

Our anger should be directed toward a

desire to see God glorified and for love

to triumph over judgment in the church.

We should be careful of our own sin and

our neighbors sin as we do this sort of

thing in anger.

If my anger is leading me to hate my

brother or despise my brother or in my

mind to belittle or destroy my brother,

I am giving an opportunity to the devil.

I am giving an opportunity to my

emotions to do something harmful and

destructive.

Maturity requires me to be angry at the

right thing for the right reasons in the

right proportion. I believe that is how

you experience righteous anger without

sin. If you'd like verse further verses

to look at, talk to me afterwards. I'll

give them to you.

So, that's one illustration of something

that could happen. But the next time

you're really upset about something, I

just want to suggest that's a great set

of questions to ask yourself.

What am I mad about? What are the

reasons that I'm mad? And is the

intensity of my anger appropriate to

what just took place?

So, what have we seen so far? We've seen

that we need to pursue unity and truth

by putting away falsehood, by living in

truth towards each other.

We've seen that we need to seek this

unity in the midst of our honest

feelings, expressing ourselves

righteously to the best of our ability.

It is already 11:18. How is this going

so quick? Unity and our stuff.

Okay,

I'm just going to talk through this and

forsake my notes.

It says, ' Let the thief no longer

steal, but do honest work with your

hands that you might have something to

share with those in need. So instead of

being the kind of person who's on this

trajectory, who's someone who takes,

someone who looks for ways to be served,

instead go the other direction as

someone who gives, who contributes, who

helps.

You know, one of the things I get asked

a lot in this, I don't know if it's in

this area or if it's everywhere, but

certainly here is how should I think

about my work? Like, is it helping? Does

it contribute? And especially if like

I'm building some widget that doesn't do

anything that I consider important. Fair

question and it's something that a lot

of people worry about, but I would like

to suggest that that's an overly narrow

way of looking at your work. Your work

isn't reduced down to what you output.

It's both how you go about it. Do you

try to do with excellence? how you treat

the other people you work with. Are you

doing it in love? It's about, you know,

the way that you've oriented yourself

towards Christ as the one who's going to

ultimately give you reward. Colossians

3. And then there's also what you do

with the money that you earn from it.

Share with those who are in need. You're

given this big robust picture for what

honest work is supposed to be. And it's

supposed to encompass much more of your

life than just that narrow question of

what do I output?

So then the other question that's kind

of important is what kind of people or

you know who is this kind of command

aimed at and it's really interesting

because you read let the thief no longer

steal and I immediately think of someone

like myself someone who was had a real

bad drug habit couldn't afford to

sustain it with a job and so I had to

steal and you know cities like Ephesus

they're big cities and so it's not like

there wasn't theft or wasn't you know uh

that sort of thing h everywhere there's

a big city that sort of thing happens.

But when I think about big picture,

who's Paul really talking to here? Does

he just have in mind the people who do

petty theft on the streets? Maybe.

But one of the things that you learn

about that area in around Ephesus was

that there was a lot of taking advantage

of people in the markets, false weights,

misrepresenting the price of something.

There's people grifting off of the

Aremis worship. There's people fe

stealing off like people that were

checking in boats at the port were

taking stuff. skibon off the top. I

mean, it was pretty shocking actually to

read about it. Uh there was quite a bit

of theft. I mean, it's theft that was

happening in the first century in that

area. White I'd consider it white collar

theft. People taking stuff, people

taking advantage of systems that weren't

really monitoring them and using it to

enrich themselves personally. And Paul's

idea is we need to like put that sort of

thinking away, that whole way of life

away. We need to be the kinds of people

who contribute, give and share. We are

servant-hearted with those in need.

All these texts are committing to us a

way of life, a way to grow up into

maturity, to be more like Jesus, and how

we orient ourselves towards God, towards

each other, and towards the world.

We are not called to be someone who

makes unity more difficult. We're called

to be someone who adds instead of

subtracts, who promotes Christian peace

and love and justice instead of being

the kind of person that creates the need

for those things.

How can I become the kind of person that

is an agent for healing in the world?

How do I become the kind of person

that's no longer harming, but instead

contributing to the good, to the

healing? How can I become an agent of

grace? How do I live out that emphatic

gospel therefore at the beginning of

this text?

Well, it really comes down to what is

the kind of person you're striving to

become.

It's really easy to think if I'm doing

nothing that I'm not becoming like

anything, but that's not true.

You know, every time I go home, this is

a stupid example for my own life, but

every time I come home from work and I'm

tired, I have a kid or two that's like,

"Dad, come do this with me." But I want

to sit down on my couch because I'm

tired. It's been a long day. And I have

a choice [snorts] every day. I'm

becoming more like a dad who does that

or I'm becoming more like a dad who does

that.

And it's with everything, with

self-control,

with saying no to this bad behavior and

saying yes to this. It's not about dos

and don'ts. It's about who I'm becoming.

It's about what is being produced in my

life every time I say yes and every time

I say no to all these things that face

me every day.

The only way to lift our heart hearts

and our minds above the simple yeses and

nos of this world is to just look at

Christ, to worship him, to give our

hearts to him, to pray and ask God, make

me more like him as I contemplate his

ways as I think about what he loved and

what he hated and what he cared about

and what mattered to him and to try to

imitate his example.

Are you trying to become the kind of

person who is contributing to the

healing and blessing and giving of this

world or are you becoming the kind of

person who's harming and taking away?

What attitudes, what practices do you

engage in that might take from the

people around you that might hurt the

people around you?

It's usually stuff involved being

selfish and self-centered and thinking

about me and not you.

If that's been you, if you've been doing

that, if you've been walking in a cycle

of perpetual selfishness and thinking

about what I want without really regard

to what you want, listen to me.

There is grace.

There is forgiveness for you at the

cross.

The lie that you'll tell yourself is,

"If I'm open about this, someone's going

to punch me in the face." or I'm I'm

sure not all of you think that. That's

my weird brain. But something bad's

going to happen if I just tell if I'm

just open about what's really going on.

The sky is going to fall down or

whatever. But it's not true. The path

towards healing is walking in the light.

Is telling the truth and letting the

grace of God, the healing, loving grace

of God and mercy of God that's come to

us through the cross begin the work of

undoing the harm that's been done in

you.

and you become the kind of person who

helps to heal.

Brothers and sisters,

if you want to make that change this

morning, please come talk to me at the

front afterwards. I want to help you.

And I don't want to help you as someone

who's better than you. I want to help

you as someone who went through this

myself,

who God by his grace has set free from

these kinds of things, and who is

learning to get better at it with the

years that go by.

It's not just me. Scott will help you.

Bernie will help you. Phil will help

you. There's a bunch of people in this

Kyle. There's a bunch of girls that are

amazing here, too. Women, sorry.

You You are enriched

with resources at this church. people

who love Christ and who want to help and

who see how the gospel connects to these

things in a way that's actually really

really really restorative, not punitive,

not like you're going to get hit or

something, but like you're going to be

helped to heal.

Unity requires this becoming tighter as

a church requires uprooting these old

things and proactively cultivating the

new. But we have to do it together.