“Outfitted for the Walk”

For our scripture reading today, we want to read verses 20 through 32. There's 20 through the end of the chapter.

Ephesians chapter 4, follow along in your copy of scriptures

I read beginning in verse 20. It says, but you have not so learned

Christ, if so be that ye have heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus, that ye put off concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and be renewed in the spirit of your mind and that you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

Wherefore, putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor, for we are members, one of another.

Be ye angry and sin not, let not the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the devil.

Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor working with his hands, the thing, which is good that he may have to give to him that needed, but no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers and grieve not the

Holy spirit of God, whereby you are sealed under the day of redemption, let all bitterness, wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice and be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you.

Prayer. So our father, I pray that as we examine this passage today, our hearts would be open to your spirits, a challenge of us individually, and as a body of believers, we pray in Jesus name, amen.

On one of our hiking expeditions adventures, Chris and I were in Vermont and we took the, it's called the sunset

Ridge trail. It starts in the Underhill state park, um, just North and a little

West of Stowe and it started off in Underhill and we followed this sunset

Ridge trail as it ascends up to the summit of Mount Mansfield. Mount Mansfield is the highest peak in Vermont, which in terms of, uh, like the 14 ,000 footers in Colorado, isn't all that high.

It's only 4 ,500 some feet. The trail itself is a pretty rigorous trail.

It's about a 2 ,500 foot elevation gain hike. So in two and a half miles up the mountain, you're gaining quite a bit of elevation pretty, um, pretty quickly.

Along the way, we encountered some hikers, a few passed us up, a few, we passed up and there were many more at the summit when we reached the summit and summit is a rather interesting thing because you, you can get to one point of the summit and then hike along the

Ridge and come to, um, you come to what's called the chin of, uh,

Mount Mansfield. If you look at Mount Mansfield from a profile, it looks like a person's head.

You see the forehead and then the nose and the chin. Anyway, we hiked up to the chin.

Now here's a fascinating thing. In that, uh, that entire hike all along the way up the

Ridge, up the sunset Ridge trail, up on the summit, we saw a bunch of guys who were hiking and not a one of them, not a one of them was wearing a shirt and tie and we saw some lady hikers, do you know there wasn't one single lady hiker wearing a skirt and heels and you're looking at me like, well, you're, you're, you're, you're silly, you're, you're being silly with us here.

Yeah, I actually kind of am being silly. I've done a lot of hiking and I've never yet seen anybody hiking, any guy hiking in a shirt and tie or any girl hiking, any woman hiking in a skirt and heels.

The hikers I've seen have all been dressed comparably, you know, a pair of hiking shoes, um, maybe hiking boots, hiking pants or shorts, uh, an appropriate shirt that goes along with the weather, um, depending on the time of year and so forth and some sort of pack, if they're backpacking, it's going to be a big pack.

If it's a day, day packing, a smaller pack, but they, they're all dressed, you know, basically with the same kind of stuff.

Now, of course, there's nothing strange about that at all. That's exactly what you would expect, isn't it?

You would not expect in the least bit to be out hiking and see somebody dressed up in a tux or a three piece suit or a shirt and tie or a skirt and heels.

That would be absurd. That would be insane. You're on a rigorous 10 mile hike.

You want to be outfitted properly. Well, the Ephesians four verse one,

Paul exhorts the believers in Ephesus and therefore, since this is the inscripturated word, he is exhorting us as well to walk worthy of the calling with which we are called to walk worthy of our calling as a

Christian. As he goes on and develops this in chapter four, he says that walk is supposed, it needs to be a thoughtful and intentional walk.

You can't be exhorted to walk worthy of some in some way without thinking through, well, what would that mean to walk in a worthy way?

And it also has to be very intentional. In verse two, he tells us that that walk is to be a humble walk, to walk with all lowliness, meekness, long suffering, forbearing one another in love.

Most of the rest of the next section, verses three through 16, tell us this walk that we are to walk worthy of is to be a church centered walk.

There is a unity in the church that needs to be maintained, but there's also a diversity, a diversity of spiritual gifts in the church that needs to be appreciated.

And those who are members of the church need to employ their giftedness as a measure, as a means of appreciating the diversity of spiritual gifts in the church.

And this church centered walk involves a loving of the body, the church, and the members that are in it.

That's to be a church centered walk. And then in verses 17 through 19, passage we focused on last

Lord's Day, verses 17 through 19 show us that this walk that we're called to walk and to walk in a particular worthy way is indeed a particular walk.

It's a distinct walk. It's a walk that is distinct from the path that the, shall

I use in quotes, Gentiles walk, the Gentile path, the non -believers path.

Yours is to be a distinctive path. You're on a distinctive walk.

So we are to walk worthy in all of those ways. Well, now in verses 21 through the rest of the chapter and the balance of this chapter,

Paul reminds you who are followers of Christ that if you're going to walk worthy of the

Lord, you're going to walk worthy of this calling as a Christian to which you've walked, and you're going to be walking on the path, the

Christian path that you've been called to walk on. You really need to be outfitted properly for that walk.

You need to be dressed right for the walk. Now notice in verses 20 and 21 that it is

Jesus himself who prescribes the outfit for this walk. Now you think about this, this, this shouldn't really be too surprising because those who are experts in a particular field, if you're going to, let's, let's just take hiking for an example, those who have, who've done a lot of hiking and they're, they're kind of experts, they're in the know, they will, they will give you guidance.

They will say, listen, if you're going to do this particular hike, this is what you need to take along with you.

This is the kind of clothing that you're going to need for this particular hike at this particular time of the year.

And you would listen to them if you were wise. Well, Jesus is the one who is leading the way on this walk as a follower of Christ.

And he's the one that tells us how to be outfitted. He prescribes us, for us, the outfit for that walk.

But I want you to notice again that Paul affirms that you who are on this path, you are on this path because you heard him.

You see this in verse 20 or verse 21. He says, you've not so learned Christ. You haven't learned

Christ in the sense of walking in the path of the Gentiles. If so be, verse 21, you have heard him, you have heard him.

So first question we need to consider this morning is, have you? Have you heard

Christ? Have you heard Christ? Maybe not in an audible voice where all of a sudden you're, you're walking along and all of a sudden his voice comes from heaven and speaks to you in some way.

No, not that at all. But have you heard the voice of Christ as he calls out in the pages of scripture and he says, come unto me, all you who are, all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.

This is the invitation. This is the gracious call, the gracious offer that Christ gives to you.

Come unto me. Have you heard that call personally where you said, that's me.

He's talking to me. He's calling me. I will go to him because he's calling me.

It's a gracious offer that he's made. And if you have heard him, if you have heard that call, if you've heard that offer, it's because of his own gracious call to you.

Remember what Jesus said in John chapter 10 in verse 16, he's, he's speaking to his disciples and he says to them, other sheep

I have, which are not of this fold. He's speaking metaphorically here, the sheep, his followers.

He says, them also I must bring. And listen, he says, they shall hear my voice and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.

Later on in verse 25, verse 26, he says, you believe me not because you are not of my sheep.

As I said unto you, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish.

Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. So this hearing of Jesus is the hearing of his call, as he says to you, as he says to you, come unto me, you who labor and are heavy laden,

I will give you rest. And the fact that you can hear that call is because Christ calls to you personally as one to be his sheep.

My sheep hear my voice. Those who don't hear my voice are not my sheep.

So if you're on this path following Christ, you're on this path because you heard him and in hearing him, you then follow to learn of him again.

That's what Jesus said in Matthew 11 after he said, verse 28, come unto me, all you that labor under heavy laden,

I will give you rest. Then he says, take my yoke upon you and learn of me.

Learn of me. So in hearing this call of Jesus to come unto him, it is not simply a call to come, say hello and then say goodbye.

It's a call to come and to yoke up with him, to partner along with him on the journey.

You join with him in the journey. Take my yoke upon you. And if you have heard that passage explained before, you know he's talking about like a yoke of oxen that are matched together where you have the yoke and Jesus is in one side of that yoke and you are in the other side of that yoke and you go along together in this journey.

You partner with him for the journey. And as you go, you learn of him.

He says, take my yoke upon me, upon you and what? Learn of me, learn of me.

Now, what's interesting is after he says that, he communicates some of what you're going to learn.

He says, for I am meek and lowly. Does that sound familiar?

Maybe you're still in Ephesians chapter four, look back at verse two. You are to walk worthy of this calling with which you've been called, this calling to be a

Christian. And what is that to look like? What does that worthy walk look like?

You are to walk with all lowliness and meekness. Why? Why walk with lowliness and meekness?

Because if you're yoked together with Jesus and you have heard his call and you've answered that call and here you are yoked with him, following along with Jesus, you are learning of him.

And what you are learning of him is that he is meek and lowly of heart. So hearing the call, you follow along to learn of him.

And while you're learning, he teaches you to change clothes for this journey.

Because look as this verse continues here in Ephesians four, verse 21, he says, if you have heard of him, you've heard, you've answered the call, you've yoked together, you're following to learn of him.

If so be you have heard him and have been taught by him, there is the learning, and you've been taught as the truth is in Jesus.

And then notice, at least in my edition of the Bible, there's a colon. What is that truth that is in Jesus that you have been taught that he teaches you?

He teaches you to change clothes for the journey. Verses 22 through 24, this is what he has taught you.

He's taught you that you need to put off some clothing. And in verse 24, you need to put on some other clothing, teaches you that you need to change clothes for the journey.

So in verse 22, he tells you, Jesus tells you, teaches you that you need to put off concerning the former way of life, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.

Now, when he says put off the old man, he's not simply talking about abolishing a human being.

He's talking about put off the way of life that is characteristic of the old man, your pre -conversion days, put off the way of life that would be typical of one who is not following Jesus.

I don't know when you heard that call to follow Jesus. It may have been when you were young.

And in that case, then your life experience of a way of life that is described here as corrupt according to the deceitful lusts may not have come to much fruition.

In other words, the corruption may not have been able to manifest itself in all of its degradation, but it was nonetheless there.

Some of you came to Christ much later in life. And when you came to Christ, there was a radical transformation.

There was a, you were, you were going in a direction of life that where the corruption according to the deceitful lusts had, had reached fruition.

I mean, it was blossoming all over the place and everybody could see all of that.

And then you heard Jesus, you heard him. You heard his call and you came unto him and you yoked up with him and you followed after him and you started learning of him.

And as you learned of him, you learned, I need to get rid of some clothing here.

I need to put some stuff off. I need to discard that, those inappropriate garments that have no place on this particular journey.

Again, going back to the idea, the analogy of, of a hiking journey,

I had to learn this practical matter and the first real hike that I ever took, again, we were living in Vermont and the guy that was leading the young people in our church, he wanted to take, he wanted to take the young people on an overnight excursion and hike up Camel's Hump, it's another,

I think it's the second tallest mountain in Vermont, second, I think it's the second, anyway, wanted to hike up Camel's Hump.

And so what I decided to do since, you know, I'm a pastor, I want to bond with the young people in this experience and all this kind of stuff.

I had never really done any hiking to speak of before that, but I wanted to do this.

You know, I wanted to, I've seen Camel's Hump many, I mean, we lived right near it.

I mean, you could see it just about every day. We could see Camel's Hump and I always thought, oh, I'd like to climb up there someday.

So he says, let's do this. So I didn't do the overnight thing, but what I did was I got up Saturday morning and I drove to a trailhead and I was going to hike up this one particular path and meet them at a juncture.

And then we were going to go together up to the summit of the mountain. So I got to the trailhead and I started off on the hike and I'm about two tenths of a mile up this trail and I am like,

I am sucking wind, you know, and I'm like, man, I don't know that I'm going to make this.

And my legs are like wobbly and all this kind of, my feet are starting to hurt. And I've got another,

I've got another half a mile or more to get up to the meeting point. And then it's like a couple of miles or more up to the summit.

I don't know how in the world I'm going to make this. So I stopped to rest and I got my breath and I got back to, you know, my pulse rate down below 100 again and took off and had to do that again.

And I finally, finally met up with the, with the leader who does an awful lot of hiking.

I mean, he lived in the outdoors and the young people and they get up there and meet with them and I, I get the leader and I said, man,

I don't know if I can do this. He said, yeah, just stay with me. You can do it. And he said, but honestly, he said, whenever you're going to go hiking, don't wear blue jeans.

I'm looking, you know, I'm going on a rugged hike, that just would seem like a logical thing to do is wear a pair of blue jeans.

He says, don't wear blue jeans. They restrict your movement. They're heavy and they don't breathe.

Never wear blue jeans when you go hiking. And he said, and where'd you get those boots?

And I was wearing a pair of brand new hiking boots. I knew I was going to do this trip, you know, so this, this hike.

And so I went out and bought a pair of hiking boots and I bought them. They were cheap, you know, 20 bucks for a pair.

I thought I was getting a good deal. I mean, they had leather uppers and all the rest of this kind of stuff. And I knew I was going to wear thick socks.

So I got them a little big, got them way too big. That's why my feet were hurting so bad.

And they were stiff and they weren't broken in. My feet were hurting. My legs were hurting.

I was miserable. And he basically said, it's because you're not dressed properly.

You need to get rid of the inappropriate garments for this kind of thing. Now, this is the, this is what, this is what the

Lord Jesus is teaching us here in verse 22. He says, there are garments that you need to put off if you're going to follow me, if you're going to be walking on this journey with me.

The garments that you need to put off are those that are suited for walking the old path.

The former, the King James puts it, conversation or the former way of living, the former way of life, those things need to be put off.

They are garments that are, and here's how he puts it here. They are ruined by deceptive desires.

They're ruined by deceptive desires. In other words, due to the following of sinful patterns of thinking and desiring and behaving, those, that way of living has tended toward the ruining of things.

This is the way I used to live. This is the way you used to live. And if you were a child when you were converted and you were spared a lot of the fruition of the deceitful lust, this is all the more of what you would have been, you have missed out on.

Patterns of thinking, sinful patterns of thinking, sinful desiring, sinful ways of behaving that have tended toward the ruining of things.

Even if you were converted as a child, you still engaged in enough of that kind of stuff.

You wore enough of that kind of clothing to know exactly what I'm talking about. These are not just jeans when you're trying to hike a long, rigorous hike.

These are jeans that are soiled and holy, not

H -O -L -Y as in holy, holy, holy, filled with holes and rips and tears, ready for the rag bag.

These are inappropriate garments that need to be discarded. Now, before in verse 24, he tells us there are some garments to put on.

He says, you know, really, you need to radically change your thinking. Your thinking needs to be radically changed.

You see this in verse 23. He says, and it's in the present tense, be being renewed in the spirit of your mind.

Be being renewed in the spirit of your mind. This is calling for a radical reorientation of the way you think.

So, again, with the hiking analogy, you can't go to the

Sunset Ridge Trail at Mount Mansfield and think that this is going to be like walking the walking path out by woodlawn.

You know, a nice paved, asphalt paved path. You put on your tennis shoes and your, you know, athletic socks and it doesn't much matter what else you wear.

You're just walking along a fairly level path and it's nice and smooth and comfortable, an easy thing to do.

Now, listen, if you're going to make it to the summit of Camel's Hump or Mount Mansfield, you have to orient your thinking toward the kind of path that you're going to be climbing.

Likewise, this new walk that you're on as a follower of Jesus calls you to radically reorient your thinking.

Paul speaks of this as well in Romans chapter 12. Remember that couple of verses,

Romans 12, 1 and 2? Paul does a similar thing in Romans that he's doing in the book of Ephesians.

And that is, in the book of Romans, the first 11 chapters of the book, Paul talks a lot about doctrine, a lot about theology.

The way theologians put it, a lot of Bible teachers put it, he does a lot of the giving of indicatives.

This is the way things are. This is the truth that you need to accept and you need to hold to.

And then after sharing a wealth of indicatives, he follows it with the imperatives.

This is, all right, with this truth, this is what you need to do. This is how you need to live.

So in Romans chapters 1 through 11, Paul provides a whole bunch of indicatives.

This is the truth. This is the way things are. And now in Romans 12, 1 and 2, he says, I beseech you,

I exhort you earnestly, therefore, by the mercies of God, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto

God, which is your reasonable service. So this radical reorientation of our thinking must begin with a whole self -submission to our

God. We offer up ourself completely to our God. Okay, this is my life, this is my body, it's yours.

You bought it, you take it. I offer it unto you. And now in verse 2, he says, and be not conformed to this world.

That's the same thing as saying, put off all the old clothes, those inappropriate garments that have no place on this new journey.

He says, be not conformed to this world. Instead, he says, be transformed, be being transformed.

How? You know the verse, what does he say? By the renewing of your mind, by the renewing of your mind.

So this radical reorientation, the same thing Paul says in Ephesians 4, verse 20, verse 23, right?

Be being renewed in the spirit of your mind. So this radical reorientation of our thinking occurs as God's spirit,

God the Holy Spirit uses the ordinary means of grace, if I can use that phrase, to renew our thinking, to reorient our thinking.

What do I mean by that? He uses the ordinary means of grace. God's spirit takes the word of God that he himself inspired as we, as you, partake of that word in your time every day, when you get into the

Bible and you read the scriptures for yourself. Whenever you do that, first thing in the morning, last thing at night, sometime during the course of the day, when you get in the word yourself, what the

Holy Spirit does is you depend upon him and you're reading and endeavoring to understand the word.

What the Holy Spirit does is he takes that interaction with his word and he uses that word to work on the reorienting of your thinking.

As you yourself engage in the word of God, as you sit and listen to the preaching and teaching of God's word, as you meditate on what you have heard and of what you have read and learned of the scriptures, as you pray through the scripture, even something as, maybe you don't normally think of it this way, but even the

Lord's table is a means that God's spirit uses to help reorient your thinking.

Why? Because when we gather, we'll do this next Sunday, we'll do this next Lord's day. When we gather together at the

Lord's table, what did Jesus say? He says, do this, what? In remembrance of me.

So what are you doing? What are we doing to get collectively together when we see these elements spread before us and we know what they are and we're reflecting that these things represent

Jesus. What do they represent about Jesus? Jesus, God became man, lived among us, lived a perfectly sinless life.

Went to a cross. Why did he go to the cross? Did I need him to go to the cross for me?

I absolutely did. What did he do on that cross? Why did he do that on the cross?

You see, Jesus says, do this in remembrance of me. And if I actually do it in remembrance of me,

I am meditating on the truth of scripture. I'm meditating on the truth that is in Christ Jesus.

And that meditation, that reflection helps to reorient my thinking.

That's critically needed. But there's another means of grace that God's spirit uses to help reorient our thinking.

And that is the local church itself. Let me show you this. Turn to Colossians chapter three.

Two books later, the companion letter that Paul wrote when he was in prison. When he wrote

Ephesians, he also wrote at the same time Colossians. And look what he wrote in chapter three, verse 16.

And bear in mind that he's writing this to the local church at Colossae. And he says to the church, he says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.

Let it dwell among you richly in all wisdom. And what are you to do?

What are we to do together? Teaching and admonishing one another.

How? In psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

Singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. So even the church, the local church, as we gather together, assembling ourselves together in worship of our

God. And we lift our voices in praise. And we sing, and we sing doctrinally sound hymns and songs and psalms.

As we read together the psalm selection of the day. As we sing these hymns to one another.

What are we doing? We're teaching each other. Listen, if I can put it this way, all of these things, what we're doing with all of these things is we are reorienting our thinking.

Why? Because this is what Jesus is telling us we need to do to change our clothes for this journey.

We need to get rid of some old garments that are not appropriate for this hike. And we need to completely reorient our thinking about this hike.

And then he tells us in verse 24, we need to put on some appropriate garments.

Look at verse 24, back in Ephesians 4. You put on the new man, the garments that are consistent with being a

Christian, walking on the Christian path, following, yoked with and following Christ along this journey.

You put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

The idea of verse 24 could be expressed this way. The nature of your journey, the nature of your hike, is going to determine the kind of clothing you need to wear.

Makes sense when we think of it on a very practical level, right? So for example, a few years back, we had the opportunity of visiting the

Grand Canyon. We were there in late May. It was the end of May around Memorial Day, was Memorial Day.

And so Chris and I wanted to hike down into the canyon on the Bright Angel Trail, a very popular trail.

Now the thing about that hike is, on the way out on the hike, you're going downhill the whole time, into the canyon.

So you're going three miles down into the canyon. And the farther down you go, the hotter it gets.

They tell you to start early in the morning and be finished with your, hike by late morning, because it's going to get hot.

And it was. I mean, we ended up finishing the hike around 10, 30, 11 o 'clock, I think. And it was already around 90 degrees in the canyon.

Well, now when you know that's going to be the case, see, when your thinking has been oriented properly, you know what you're going to be facing, you dress accordingly.

Hiking shorts, a t -shirt, and lightweight hiking socks. Now in contrast to that, if you're going to be in northern

Vermont in early October, and you want to summit Mount Mansfield, then it's going to be maybe 50 degrees, if you're lucky, when you get to the summit.

And you're not going to be wearing lightweight hiking socks and a pair of hiking, well you might wear the hiking shorts, but you're not going to be wearing a short sleeve, polyester, moisture wicking t -shirt.

Why? It wouldn't be appropriate, not for that hike. All right, Jesus is telling us here, you're on a journey with me.

You need to put on appropriate clothing for this journey. Reorienting your thinking is going to help.

Now follow along, he says. You need to put on the garments that are consistent with the new way of life, the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

These garments that you're going to be put on, that you're going to put on, are suited to the new you, if you will, to the new path, the new man.

And they are garments that are crafted, notice, they're crafted by the divine designer.

You see that here? They are after God, created in righteousness and true holiness.

Literally, you could read this this way. They are created after the likeness of God.

In other words, these new garments that you need to put on will reflect him.

It's like you are made in the image of God, in the likeness of God, you reflect certain things about God.

Well, likewise, on this new journey, as you put on the garments consistent with the new man, they are going to be garments that will in some way reflect him, what he is like.

They reflect him. And they're garments that are consistent with this path of the truth that is in Jesus.

Look at our verse again, and I want you to draw a connection here, draw a line. He says, put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

Now, literally, that could read this way, created, they are created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

Righteousness and holiness of the truth. Now, draw a line there from that word true back up to verse 21, the end of the verse, you have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus.

So, the garments that Paul is talking about here, that Jesus is teaching us to put on here in verse 24 are garments that are consistent with the path of truth in Jesus.

Well, what is that like? Righteousness and holiness, righteousness and holiness.

Now, there can be some overlap in the understanding of those two words, righteousness, holiness, and the application of them and so on.

But when those two words are put together in the same sentence, like they are here, there is a distinction.

And the distinction is this, righteousness has to do with your behavior toward your fellow man, toward other people.

Holiness has to do with your behavior toward God. Another way we can put it is this, righteousness has to do with the second half of the

Ten Commandments, holiness the first half of the Ten Commandments. Or if you like, we can put it like this, righteousness has to do with loving your neighbor as yourself.

Holiness has to do with loving your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. The garments that you put on in this new path are garments that will reflect those two fundamental truths that are in Jesus.

You need to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and you need to love your neighbor as yourself.

You will live that out. These are the garments that we need to put on. All right, now, all of this so far, you might think, well, that's all, you know, that's all, yeah, okay, it's all really right.

I get that. Now, see, the rubber meets the road. In the rest of this chapter,

Paul gives some specifics about the kind of clothes you need to throw away and the kind of clothes you need to put on.

So in verses 25 through 32, notice how he begins. He says, therefore, all right, because Jesus has taught you this, because Jesus has taught you there are garments you need to put off, you need to reorient your thinking, and there are garments you need to put on.

Therefore, put off a bunch of stuff and put on some other stuff. And specifically, he says, put on or put off, discard, throw away, all about me garments and put on I care about you garments.

You say, what? Well, look at the list. Now, we're not going to take the time to go through each of these items one by one and describe them and define them and all the rest of that.

I think you pretty much know what these things are. And if you think about it, the stuff that he tells you, the garments he tells you, you need to put off and throw away.

They're all about you. They're all about me. Put away lying, he says.

Put away lying. You know what lying is? Any form of dishonesty, deceiving somebody to try to make yourself look better or to get out of trouble or whatever.

He says, put away lying. Lying is all about you, isn't it? It's all about making you look better, all about covering up your trail or whatever.

It's all about getting what you want. It's all about deceiving the other person so that you accomplish something that you want to accomplish.

It's all about you. Throw it away. Throw away that garment. It doesn't belong on you, he says.

Also, you need to throw away the garment of seething anger. Seething anger.

He puts it this way in verse 26. Be ye angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.

Now what he's dealing with, we'll come back to that in a few minutes, but what he's dealing with there is the garment that we can so easily wear when we've been offended or whatever, where we get angry and it just seethes.

We just hang on to it. We're just constantly angry.

And he tells us in verse 27 that that kind of behavior gives place to the devil.

It gives the devil an opportunity to do all kinds of damage. And you know, you know as well as I, because you've experienced the damage yourself that seething anger has inflicted upon you.

You felt the pain and maybe you've inflicted some of it.

And you probably have also seen how the wicked one has used that seething anger as an opportunity to cause further damage in a relationship, in a marriage, in a family, in extended families, in churches.

I don't have any statistics to back this up, but my observation and things I've read seem to indicate that.

Most church splits, do you know most church splits do not happen over doctrine?

They don't. They happen over opinions and personalities.

Well, how does that happen? Opinions and personalities, because your opinion differs from my opinion and then we start talking about our differences of opinion.

And when we do that, come on, you know, you know what happens? We get angry with each other.

We get angry with each other because your opinion isn't my opinion and you won't back down and you won't accept my opinion. And I'm not going to accept your opinion, your opinion is just dumb.

I mean, it should be blue carpet, not red carpet, you know, that kind of silliness. And yet it's that kind of silliness, it's that kind of silliness that the devil takes an opportunity for that and he runs amok with it.

Before you know it, you got a split on your hand. Put off lying, put off seething anger, put off, verse 28, stealing.

And if you look at that verse, you realize that the stealing that's involved there is rooted in laziness.

He says, let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor working with his hands, the thing which is good.

Why is he stealing? Because he isn't working. And he wants stuff. Notice again how this is all about me.

He wants stuff. He's too lazy to work, to earn money, to get stuff.

So he takes stuff. And the laziness is all about me and the stealing is all about me.

Put it away, throw away that garment. It doesn't work here, doesn't belong here. And in verse 29, he says, let no corrupting communication proceed out of your mouth.

Corrupting, put off, throw away, corrupting, corrosive speech. It doesn't belong.

It doesn't fit. It's not the right garment for this journey. By the way, have you ever heard anybody say trying to defend themselves for their corrosive, caustic speech?

You ever heard anybody say something like this? I just say what I think and I let the chips fall where they may.

Or, hey, look, this is just who I am. You're going to have to learn to live with it.

Well, no, wait a minute. Is that a Christian attitude? Is that a way of thinking that is properly oriented to this path?

It's not. It's not. This is just the way

I am, learn to live with it? No, wait a minute. I thought Christ was in the transforming of individuals mode. I thought that was his business of transforming you.

This is what I just say what I think and let the chips fall where they may. How does that fit with let no corrupting communication proceed out of your mouth?

Stop what you're thinking. Stop the way you're thinking and phrase what you're thinking in a way that isn't going to be corruptive and corrosive.

Let it be put away from you. And then verse 31 is this nice little list, a catalog of caustic, caustic, destructive attitudes and behaviors that don't belong on your back.

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking with all malice, let it all be put away from you.

These things don't belong. Notice how each of these pieces of clothing, if you will, are all about me, all about me.

You and I need to throw away clothing that says, hey, it's all about me.

Instead, we need to put on, wrap ourselves in garments that say,

I care about you. I care about you. Notice in this passage, the emphasis on an other's orientation.

So in verse 25, he says, speak every man truth with his neighbor.

In verse 28, he says he may have to give to him that needeth.

In verse 29, the last part of the verse, that you speak that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.

Verse 32, be kind to one another, forgiving one another.

You see the other's orientation here? I am to put off garments that are all about me, and I am to put on garments that say,

I care about you. And what are those pieces of clothing? Well, in contrast to lying, truthfulness and honesty in verse 25.

Put away lying and speak every man truth with his neighbor. And notice that Paul is really focusing here on life within the church.

He said, here's this explanation of why you need to speak truth to one another. He says, because we are members one of another.

He's not talking about we're members of the human race together, although there's an element of truth to that. And don't take this to mean that I don't have to be honest and truthful to people outside the church.

No, not at all. You know better than that. But he's talking about relationships within the church. I mean, he says, be sure that you wear the garment of truthfulness and honesty with one another because you're members of each other.

You're going to hurt the church if you don't wear this garment. In verse 26 and 7, put on the garment of brief, brief, righteous anger.

Be angry about the right things. See, about the right things. There is an appropriate thing to be appropriate stuff to be angry about.

Be angry, but don't let the sun go down upon your wrath.

Brief, righteous anger that is not marked by sinfulness.

Anger with sin is harmful and it's dangerous. It gives place to the devil.

Put on the garment in verse 28 of diligent labor, of diligent labor, instead of stealing because you don't want to steal.

Let the one who stole steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good.

Notice one of the reasons why, see, that he may have to give to him that needeth.

So one of the garments that we need to put on is this diligent labor, but it is coupled with the garment of compassionate generosity, an other's orientation.

You realize there is really honestly no place in the Christian life for stinginess, the kind of stinginess that says, hey, this is mine,

I worked for it. I'm not giving this to anybody else. I'm not sharing this with anybody else. No, there's a need.

There's a need. You have labored and God has blessed you in your labor. Give to him that is in need.

And then put on the garment in verse 29, the last part of verse 29, the garment of edifying communication.

No corrupting communication proceed out of your mouth, but instead, what should proceed out of your mouth is that which is good to the use of edifying, the use of building up, of encouraging, of strengthening, a kind of communication that expresses grace, not animosity, not harshness, but that which encourages builds up and causes the other person to say, thank you for that.

And then lastly, put on the garment of profligate grace, profligate grace.

Verse 32, be kind to one another, be tenderhearted to one another, forgive one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you, profligate grace.

In Hamilton, in commenting on this last section of the passage, he says this, how transformed church life would be if we all treated one another as God in Christ has treated us.

Every day, we should meditate on the Lord's patient, long -suffering, kind, and generous love.

The wonder of the Lord's unfailing love to us should surely shape and style our calling to love one another.

He says this, listen, love for the brethren is not an ideal for Christians to seek.

It is a lifestyle they are to practice. Every time we meet a fellow believer, it would transform our attitude toward them if our first thought was, this is my brother, this is my sister, washed like me in the precious blood of our common

Lord and Savior. So, look at what you're wearing, what do those garments look like?

Is it really suited for the path of the Christian life, the life that Jesus calls us to walk?

Is it how Jesus is clothed? Or are your garments more suited to the corrupt path of the old you?

Maybe you've never heard Jesus call till today. When I mentioned earlier when he said, if you come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Maybe today is the first time you really heard Jesus call and speak to you. If that's the case, hear his, heed his call, come to him, come to him, begin this journey with him, take his yoke upon you, learn of him.

He will take you along the path all the way to glory, where our garments will finally shine as spotless robes for all eternity.

Our Father in heaven, I pray we would see the importance, not merely the value, but the critical importance to our

Christian walk of being dressed appropriately. This we pray in Jesus' name, amen.