Battle Ready: "Stealing Lying & Grief" Ephesians 4:28-30 Pastor Daniel Reese

This morning we're meeting Ephesians 4.

We're going to wrap up Ephesians 4 next week, so two more weeks.

Here we go.

This morning Paul is going to continue his theme of taking off the old and putting on

the new.

Last week we talked about putting off falsehood and speaking in truth and we looked at putting

away anger that isn't a righteous anger.

And this morning Paul is going to give us a couple more things that we need to put away

and then he's going to give us the reason why.

So if you have your Bibles Ephesians 4 we're going to read 28 through 30 this morning.

Paul says, Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with

his hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such 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.

Now when Cine and I were in college we didn't have sororities or fraternities because we

went to Christian schools and those things weren't accepted on our campuses.

And so they did what a whole bunch of other Christian organizations do is they robbed

from culture and then they just changed the name.

And so we had social clubs on our campus.

At ACU Cine was in Sigma Theta Chi and at Hardin Simmons I was in Beta Delta Gamma.

Now we had Greek letters, each club had their own Greek letters and these were like massive

you know sheet of plywood type letters that you would paint and whatever.

And so we had the Greek letters and we did all the other things that sororities and fraternities

did on college campuses except we replaced the heavy drinking and partying with pranks

and Bible studies, right?

And so now I'm not a small guy, but believe it or not I can move like a cat when needed.

And there were many occasions where I was tasked with sneaking into a dorm room and stealing

other clubs letters and then we would hold them ransom for something that we wanted or

we would place them in places where it would get the other club in trouble.

Now I was a Bible major and so anytime I would get caught with them which happened occasionally

I had the excuse that I was studying Greek and these happened to be my favorite Greek

letters that I was holding on to.

It was a very spiritual excuse.

Now I think a lot of times when we think of stealing we think of something like that.

Even robbing a bank or getting robbed that certainly fits into this category and it was

for sure the case in Paul's day.

Now we know that many of the early followers of Jesus Christ came from among the down and

out of the culture of that day.

And so many of these people were day laborers, many were skilled tradesmen and many of their

occupation was seasonal and since there was no welfare system many of them resorted to

stealing in order to provide for themselves and their families.

And even though these people had become followers of Jesus they still found it hard to break

away from the cultural norms of that day.

But as Paul has already made clear in this section beginning in verse 22, when we become

followers of Jesus, when we surrender our life to him as a result of his work in our

lives we have to take off our old ways and we have to put on our new ways.

He's already described how we put off falsehood and put on the truth and how we put off the

tolerance for sin in the body and put on our righteous indignation.

Paul now applies that same concept to our work.

And so as a follower of Jesus we need to be people who work honestly.

Now so this isn't just about taking what is not yours but rather making sure that we are

working in a way that honors the Lord.

Let's see what the Bible says about stealing because maybe you've never taken anything

in your life that didn't belong to you.

Maybe you're like this doesn't apply to me but you still might be living in a way that's

not in line with what the Bible teaches.

In Leviticus chapter 6 it says this in verse 2, if anyone sins and commits a breach of faith

Leviticus 6 · chapter mention

against the Lord by deceiving his neighbor in a matter of deposit or security or through

robbery or if he has oppressed his neighbor or has found something lost and lied about

it, swearing falsely in any of all the things that people do and sin thereby, if he has

sinned and has realized his guilt and will restore what he took by robbery or what he

got by oppression or the deposit that was committed to him or the lost thing that he

has found or anything about what he has sworn falsely, he shall restore it in full and shall

add a fifth to it and give it to whom, to him, to whom it belongs on the day he realizes

his guilt.

In Psalm 37 it says that the wicked borrow and do not repay.

Paul writes in Colossians 3 that slaves should obey their masters when their eye is on them

and when their eye is not on them, that we should work in such a way as if we're working

for the Lord and not for man.

Now that is only a small sampling of what the Bible has to say about stealing and work,

but even in those few passages that we just read we can identify several ways that we

can be guilty of stealing.

And perhaps now the command to quit stealing hits a little closer to home.

For instance, have you ever sold a car or house without disclosing all the things that

are wrong with it or maybe you've been on the bad end of receiving or buying something

that somebody didn't disclose?

Have you ever borrowed something from a friend and damaged it and then never fixed it or

maybe you borrowed something from a friend and you failed to return it and then you're

cleaning out your garage and you find this thing from three years ago but you don't remember

who you borrowed it from?

Have you ever gotten paid for a full day of work but didn't work it?

You spend time on your phone playing games, you spend time making personal phone calls.

Have you ever withheld a tithe or an offering that God has called you to give away?

So I think it's fair to say that every single one of us at one time or another has been

guilty of stealing.

So Paul tells us to put that off.

He tells us to stop being a thief and instead do honest work so that we have something to

share.

The word that is translated work here is a word that means work to the point where it

becomes weary.

Exhaust yourself.

And this is not an option, right?

This is a command.

And so Paul is instructing his readers that they are not only to quit stealing and get

a job but they are to work hard in that job.

Proverbs 24 says, a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to

rest and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man.

Now we need to work hard but we also don't want to take it to the other extreme and become

workaholics.

We don't have time to address that this morning but maybe we can find a good balance using

Paul's words here.

He tells us to do something useful with our hands and he tells us to work for the right

reason so that we are able to share with others that have need.

Now if you aren't meeting those two standards then you might begin to consider making a

change.

I've done it many times in my life where I was working for the right reasons such as trying

to provide for my family but I was in the wrong role and I would come home each and

every day miserable.

There wasn't fulfillment at the end of the day even though I was bringing home a paycheck.

But now I feel like I'm in the right role and I'm still able to share with those in

need, mainly my kids who are deprived.

Now if you are miserable going to work each and every day and the only reason you go to

work is to provide a paycheck you might want to consider a career change because if you

are not in the right role, if you are not in the right position you have a greater tendency

to become a thief because you're not going to work hard as a forker for the Lord and

not for man.

You're going to be working for a paycheck.

The point of this verse is to help us understand that we as believers in Jesus need to live

lives that are honest and meaningful.

We don't want to be leeches to those around us but serve as we have been served.

Now work as if the only person who notices us is the Lord.

That's how we are to live.

Next Paul writes that we need to speak to build up.

Now we all know people who are really effective at manipulating others with their words.

Unfortunately, the body of Christ is not immune to those who are quite adept at this practice.

We all know stories of televangelists who will manipulate their viewers for their own

personal benefit.

Many are currently being investigated by our government.

Now we know how investigations from Congress go so there's not a lot of hope in it but

nonetheless it's occurring.

But this practice can occur in much more subtle ways within local bodies.

It can happen anywhere.

How about those who threaten to withhold their financial support until they get put on church

leadership?

Or what about those who begin whisper campaigns in order to undermine some sort of change

that they don't like?

Or even those that make personal attacks against the church leadership in an attempt to get

their own way.

The Bible and the Proverbs in particular have a lot to say about those who use deceitful

words to manipulate others.

Here's just a couple of those.

It says the tongue that brings healing is a tree of life but a deceitful tongue crushes

the spirit.

Or another one as a north wind brings rain so a sly tongue brings angry looks.

We need to keep in mind if we're trying to stay in the context of Ephesians we need to

keep in mind that our words have the ability to disrupt church unity.

It's going to take each of us to remain on guard not just with what we say but also what

we allow to influence us.

My children are great manipulators.

They can say things in the right tone of voice.

They can look at you as if they actually care about you.

And they can almost always get their way when that happens.

Now it's cute when children are trying to get an extra snack from the pantry.

It can be devastating when it's happening in the church.

How many times have we said I didn't mean to say that.

How many times have we heard that.

I didn't mean to say that.

I didn't want to say that.

But Jesus is clear that one day we are going to give an account for the careless words

that we speak.

In Matthew 12 he says, but I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of

judgment for every careless word they have spoken.

For by your words you will be acquitted and by your words you will be condemned.

Once again we need to listen to the writer of the Proverbs.

He says, he who guards his mouth and his tongue keeps himself from calamity.

I've learned that the hard way.

In other words we need to think before we speak.

And we don't always do a very good job of that, do we?

I've gotten better as I've gotten older.

But sometimes that filter doesn't always work.

Sometimes things come out.

Another form of talk that comes out of our mouth is gossip.

Unfortunately it seems that like many of us don't really have a very good handle on what

the Bible considers to be gossip.

And therefore many of us are guilty of gossip and we aren't aware of it.

I looked up a lot of different definitions of gossip this week, but this one seems to

best reflect the biblical concept of gossip.

Here it is.

Gossip is sharing anything about someone.

When the act of sharing is not part of the solution to that person's problem.

So gossip is not so much a matter of what we say about others, but what our purpose is

when we say those things.

Even things that are true about another person can easily become gossip.

Even within the church we need to be careful that our prayer requests don't become gossip.

Have you ever been in a prayer meeting and somebody says we need to pray for such and

such because I think she's having an affair on her husband?

We need to pray that the Lord intervenes there.

Is that not a form of gossip?

If I wouldn't say something about a person in his or her presence I shouldn't say it

when they are not present.

Like we know this to be true, but it's still an issue within the church.

Once again the Proverbs gives some very clear warnings about gossip in Proverbs 16.

A perverse man stirs up dissension and a gossip separates close friends.

I have a feeling all of us have been on the receiving end of that.

We're not.

Relationships broken because of gossip.

Proverbs 20 says a gossip betrays confidence.

So avoid a man who talks too much.

So Paul tells us, don't let those things come out of your mouth, but he then tells us what

to replace it with.

Our words are to build up.

That could be words that encourage.

That could be words that instruct.

It could even be words that rebuke.

I've learned that since we've moved to Iowa that there's this thing called Midwest nice.

I mean, reality is everyone is really very friendly here.

I really don't think that I've been flipped off once since we've moved here.

Just wait, I like that.

But really that might be the longest streak of my life where I haven't been flipped a bird

as I'm driving.

Now here's the issue.

The problem with Midwest nice is that sometimes that isn't always the best option.

Sometimes we have to say hard things for the betterment of fellow believers.

Encouragement is always a good thing and that fits into the area of Midwest nice, but sometimes

we have to instruct.

If I've learned anything this semester by helping out with crossroads is that if you

don't take time to instruct those kids, they will run all over you.

When a kid is jumping from table to table, I don't sit back and encourage them.

Hey, next time make sure you plant your feet really well before you make the leap.

I instruct them by making them come down and saying, hey, a better option is walking to

the next table.

Now I try to do that in a way that's not scary to them and doesn't want them to come back,

but kids need instruction.

At our previous church, there were several opportunities for me and the elders to rebuke

a member of the church.

The purpose was not meant to attack them, but rather to correct them.

We saw them walking down a path that was going to be destructive to their family.

It was going to be destructive to the relationship with the Lord, and we wanted to do everything

we could to protect them from themselves.

Never once in those conversations did any of them say, you all are so nice.

Thank you.

Thanks for being such an encouragement to me.

Instead they get defensive, or even worse, they go on the attack.

Sometimes the most loving thing that we can do for fellow believers is to call them out

on their sin.

I've told this story before, I believe, but I'm going to tell it again anyway.

When my kids were younger, they had a hard time, I'm sure many of your kids are the same

way, had a hard time staying out of the street.

Because I loved them, I would get on to them, and there would be some sort of punishment

like you can't play outside for a little while.

Now there's this pretty busy road that intersected with our street.

When the come inside and stay out of the street didn't work, I had to take it up a level.

We would go for a walk down to that road that was pretty busy.

There was always a dead animal on there somewhere.

I would walk the kids down, show them some roadkill, and tell them that if they were

to continue to ride their bikes in the street, that's what they would look like.

I didn't do that to be mean.

I did that because I love them.

Sometimes in our relationship with others, we need to take them for a walk and show them

some roadkill if they don't stop playing in the street.

When we see that friend walking too close to sin and being comfortable with it, we need

to call them out on it.

We need to build them up.

When we see that fellow Christian leaving a wake of destruction behind them, we need to

call them out on it.

Those things are not harsh.

They are some of the best ways that we can love people.

Because we live amongst sinful human beings, there's going to be times when people say

things and people do things that hurt us deeply.

As we've seen, those words and actions cannot be taken back.

We can't change the past, but we can't choose how to respond to those hurts.

We can either dwell on them and allow them to fester into bitterness or we can choose

to forgive.

There is no doubt which of the alternatives that I just mentioned ought to characterize

our relationships within the body of Christ.

As Paul clearly points out in his letter to the Colossians in chapter 3, bear with each

other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another.

Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

When we are hurt, regardless of whether the other person asks for it or not, we have the

ability to forgive and to speak words of forgiveness to the other person.

When we speak those three little words, I forgive you.

We end up edifying two lives, our own and the person that we are forgiving.

After all, isn't that exactly what Jesus did on the cross?

He asked his father to forgive those who were crucifying him, even though they hadn't even

asked for forgiveness?

Sometimes we wait to forgive somebody until they ask us for their forgiveness.

That's not what Jesus did.

And those words had a tremendous impact on at least one person who heard him that day.

I think that those words are the main reason the Roman Centurion praised God and recognized

Jesus as a righteous man.

Now the final verse we're going to cover this morning is verse 30 where Paul tells us not

to grieve the Holy Spirit.

Although we certainly don't have time to cover this principle exhaustively this morning,

the Bible makes it clear that the Holy Spirit is 100% God.

He is one of the three members of the Godhead or what we often refer to as the trinity.

Therefore he is not an object.

He's not as some people would claim merely in essence or an impersonal force such as

the force be with you from Sarwar.

Like God, the Father and God the Son, he exhibits the traits of a person.

We know that he speaks according to Acts 13.

We know that he has a will according to 1 Corinthians 12.

And as we see in our passage this morning, he can also be grieved.

Now the Greek word that Paul uses here denotes pain or grief that is experienced between

two people.

In my own life I can grieve the people around me.

I can grieve my wife, which I've done.

I can grieve my kids.

I can even grieve some of you.

But I can't grieve an object or an essence or a force.

I can't grieve my TV.

I can't grieve my car.

I can't grieve Mother Earth.

So the very fact that the Holy Spirit can be grieved is evidence that he's a person.

He's fully God, fully omniscient, omnipresent and eternal.

The word Paul uses here for grieve originally was used to picture a husband or wife who

discovered that his or her spouse had been unfaithful.

As a result of that betrayal, the offended person was shocked and devastated, hurt and

wounded.

So when Paul uses this word, he is picturing the fact that the Holy Spirit is in a love

relationship with a similar but greatly exceeds the way that we love our spouse.

Basically, what Paul is saying is that when we sin, it is a betrayal of the Holy Spirit

inside of us.

One of the ways that we can avoid grieving him is by focusing on our redemption.

Now like our salvation, redemption has three aspects to it.

I have been redeemed by the blood of Christ.

I am being redeemed right now as I live an abundant life in Christ, and I will be redeemed

in the future where I will experience the full extent of that redemption.

When we remember and are focused on that redemption, when we're remember and focused on what Jesus

has done for us, it becomes easier to not have anger.

It is easier to work hard.

It's easier for grace to be in our conversations.

Now my son River, believe it or not, for those of you that know him, can talk a lot.

You get him on a topic that he enjoys, and he will go on and on and on and on.

There have been several times that Sina and I will just look at him and be like, you really

got to stop talking.

You really got to be quiet.

This is the same kid that we used to get frustrated with because he was like a closed book, and

he would just kind of stare at you.

He wouldn't really talk to you.

But now he talks a lot.

Last month when he was laying in a hospital bed unable to talk, there was nothing more

that I wanted to hear than him talk about anything.

If he wanted to get on Amazon and talk about 30 minutes of why he wanted a particular pair

of shoes, and he has, I would have loved that.

If he wanted to talk about why this particular food was his favorite, then I would have listened

to that all day long.

When he started getting back to himself and starting to feel better, I told Sina that

if I ever complain about him talking too much, slap me.

Apparently, there are others that will take me up on that.

But in that moment, I stopped caring about the annoyances that sometimes come from somebody

constantly talking.

I focused on the good that I had.

When our focus is on what Christ has done for us, a lot of these things that we've been

talking about the last couple weeks will be so much easier.

When I focus on the forgiveness that has been granted to me, it is so much easier to forgive

and not hold a grudge.

When I think about the generosity that has been shown to me with every spiritual blessing,

it is easier to be generous to those around me.

When I understand the grace that has been given to me, even when I was at my worst, it

is easier for me to be a minister of grace to the people in my life.

Your redemption is the greatest gift you have ever received.

When you think about what that really means, when you think about what that really means

to be redeemed by him, even when you're at your worst, it helps us put off our old self.

It helps us put off our old way of thinking and put on the new.

You want to stop being a thief, focus on your redemption.

You want to speak words that build life, focus on your redemption.

You want to put away anger, focus on your redemption.

If you want to get angry about sin, focus on your redemption.

See, it's so, so easy to play church and to come in here week after week after week and

sing some songs and hear me speak and pray and go to... It's so easy to fall into a

routine where we fail to remember what we're here for, where we fail to remember all that

he has done for us, to fail to remember how much we have been forgiven, how much grace

has been extended.

It's so easy to forget those things.

In order to put off the old and put on the new, we have to focus on our redemption.

We have to think about our redemption.

I'm going to pray for us and we'll call it another Sunday here in a second.

As I pray and as we sing, I'm going to really challenge you to focus on your redemption,

to think about what you've been saved from while you were still sinners, Christ died

for you.

All of your sins were future sins when he chose you.

Do you understand what that means?

It's the greatest gift you can ever receive.

We need to give him praise for that.

Let's pray.

Father God, I pray.

I pray, Father, that as we sing and as we respond that you will speak.

God, I pray that you will protect our minds from the enemy right now to distract us.

I pray, God, that you will help us understand and be aware of all the good we have around

us.

All the good we have because of you.

God make these moments, holy moments, as we think about our redemption in you.

As we think about the love you have for us.

As you forgave those even when they didn't deserve it or ask for it.

So Father, help us make peace, help us be a church that builds up with our words.

Help us be a church that works as if you were the only person that can see us.

Help us honor you with everything that we do.

So Father, I pray right now for those that need to continue to take off their old self.

I pray, Father, that you will clothe them in your righteousness.

I Father, I pray that you will lead this response.

Let us respond in a way that honors you and what you call this to.

Let us call these things in your name.