Ephesians 4 (part 2)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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Well, as many of you know, there are different preaching styles. Some people like to preach topical messages.

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There's a topic in scripture, heaven. And then the pastor explains from all the Bible, what does heaven mean?

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Where is it? Who goes there? Who doesn't go there? Who owns heaven? Nothing wrong with that.

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But as a normal course, what we do here at the church is something called expository preaching. It's kind of a fluid term.

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Everyone has their own definition of expository preaching. But really the root is expose.

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And we wanna make sure we expose you to the text that you have in your hands. The opposite of exposition would be imposition.

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I try to have an idea in my mind and I wanna try to jam it into the Bible. And so that wouldn't be a good thing.

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Many people, when they do exposition, go verse by verse. And I think that's the right way to go about it.

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But sometimes if you go too slowly, you don't see the entire broad overview that Paul, in today's case, wants you to see.

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So I'd like you to take your Bibles and turn to Ephesians chapter four. And one of the reasons why we're going chapter by chapter, at least two sermons a chapter, is

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I want you to see the overview, the sweeping, not necessarily details, although that's true, but just a sweeping overview.

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What happens is if I only did one verse a week, and then now we've got a week in between that one verse, sometimes we can't step back and say, oh,

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I see how Paul weds doctrine, Ephesians 1, 2, and 3, to how we should live out that doctrine by the grace of God in chapters four, five, and six.

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In other words, maybe if you spent years and years in Ephesians 1, 2, and 3, you might not think you had any responsibilities to obey

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God in light of what he's done. And then if you spend tons of time in Ephesians 4, 5, and 6, you might think that the essence of Christianity is in fact doing things.

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So one of the reasons why we're just going at it at this fast pace is because I wanna make sure you just grasp the epistle as a whole, so we don't have isolated text saying this, that, or the other.

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Today, we're in Ephesians chapter four, verses 17 through 32. We've been going chapter by chapter, two sermons a chapter, and it's already kind of warm in here with all these people in here, and I feel like I'm ready to get in a three -point stance and start sweating because we need to move quickly.

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Last week, somebody came up and they said to me, you spent more time on the first verses than you did on the last verses in our section.

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I said, and? Your point is? Remember, this is driving you to see the big picture, right?

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Ephesians would be read in its entirety when you'd receive that letter. And I also want you to say, oh, if you would have talked about that a little bit more, maybe

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I should go home and pull up a commentary online, read it on my own, et cetera. Paul has been extolling the

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Lord Jesus in chapter one. He just praises God the Father for choosing him, for having the son die for him and having him sealed, and that's exactly what the

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Lord has done for us. It talks about how we were dead in trespasses and sins in chapter two, remember, but God.

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We were alienated from the Commonwealth of Israel, but now in chapter two. We come to chapter four where there's that hinge verse in verse one,

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I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling by which you've been called.

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This sounds like Romans 12 to me. I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice.

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This is who we are. Now this is who we should be in our actions.

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So for outline today, if you want to take notes, I'm going to give you three exhortations from Ephesians four, 17 through 32.

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And they're kind of fun. Don't be who you used to be, act like who you are, become more of who you are.

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Now, maybe you don't think that's fun, but I kind of think it is. Were, are, become. What you were, don't do that anymore.

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Remember who you are and then become more of who you are. That's essentially what he's saying. That's biblical, holy living.

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Let's look at the first one, which really is an extension, by the way, this entire extension, entire passage rather, is an extension of God has created you in Christ Jesus for good works, has he not,

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Ephesians 2 .10. First exhortation, preaching exhortation, don't be who you used to be.

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That's not worthy of your calling, verses 17 through 19. And for all of us who are Christians, we had a past, we had sin, we were slaves, we were dead in sins.

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And you think, well, that might've been fun, sin's fun short term. But when you really think about what it was like, who would wanna go back to that disaster?

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Verse 17, now this I say in testifying the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, pagans.

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How do they walk in the futility of their minds? They're darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them.

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Due to their hardness of heart, they become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

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Paul wants you to remember what your old life was like. Don't go back to it.

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You look back and you think, oh, just how gross was that? Maybe I had good manners and maybe

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I could get along. Maybe I still climbed the corporate ladder and I was a good mom, but don't go back.

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It's kind of shocking when you think, oh, just how gross is an unbeliever's life? Paul is trying to say that it's important that the believer's life follow what he is and he is a

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Christian and now he should live in a Christ -like way. See how important it is for Paul, verse 17? Kind of is a double affirmation.

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I say, therefore, that would be enough and affirm together with the Lord. It's like, okay,

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I'm gonna put my hand up and swear in the court of law as a witness. This is important. This is not just amen,

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I say it. This is amen, amen, verily, verily. It's serious. It's an impression on the people hearing that he wants you to walk in a manner, what's the text say?

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Walk in a manner, what? Worthy in chapter four, verse one. Now he says, don't walk as the Gentiles do.

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Walk, what's that? It's just a metaphor for lifestyle and in the old days, when you would walk, it wasn't just a lifestyle.

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It was, you have to look where you walk. I always loved to go places with my grandma

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Nona and grandma Nona always found money whenever we walked to the fair or whatever.

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Why did she find money? Because old people have to look down when they walk, right? And so they don't look around and so similarly, it's a path in Israel, whatever.

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You're always looking down. It's deliberate. When I got out of the hospital, I could walk 22 steps and every step

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I would look right in front of me, a deliberate kind of walking. Well, Christians should walk deliberately, but they should literally not walk like they used to in this kind of gross, immoral lifestyle.

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First Thessalonians is not in lustful passions like the Gentiles who do not know God. I don't know if you've been to Ephesus before.

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I've taken a group of you there years ago and Ephesus is this cauldron, this cesspool of sin, especially sexual sin.

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Diana, this gross goddess that they've got with things on her that are just unmentionable, serving all the temple prostitutes and people running around saying,

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I'm not a woman, I'm a man. They're homosexual, perverted in every single area. Look kind of this weird idol that looked like a cow wolf, just a weird thing.

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And Paul is saying, okay, God has saved you. God has graced you. God has called you. Don't go back to that old life.

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Why go back? For your own good and for the glory of God. And what's at the top of the list for unbelievers' lives?

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It says in verse 17, in the futility of their minds. Unbelievers have broken minds, defective minds, minds that don't do what they were made to do.

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They were made to worship God and to receive His word. And now they're just empty. They're vain, purposeless, uselessness, worthlessness, futile minds.

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That reminds me of Romans 1. They became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened.

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Oh yes, they might be smart. They might have a high IQ, but their brains are broken. Their minds don't work rightly.

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It's been affected by the fall. No wonder Paul says in another epistle, set your minds on things above, not on things on earth.

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And that's exactly what an unbeliever would do. I did it, you did it. Setting your minds on things on this earth.

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The futility of the mind. Go back to Adam and Eve. This good God, this gracious God, this kind God, this benevolent

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God. And all of a sudden, with a little help from Satan, they now begin to think wrongly about God.

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He's holding out on us. He's not good. He's a vengeful God. He's not gracious.

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Instead of having communion with Him, a futile mind says, we want to run from Him. And as Augustine said, the punishment of sin is sin.

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Look at verse 18. That's exactly right. It's just a spiraling down, this cascading. Futile minds are now darkened in their understanding.

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Alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of hearts. It's as if God says, okay, the way of the transgressor is hard.

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You don't want me, you don't want to understand me. I'm going to just turn the lights down. Everybody here knows what a dimmer switch is.

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And you can just imagine you go to your living room. There's the dimmer switch for the light bulb. And you just slowly turn that thing down.

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The futile mind, the mind that's just getting darkened, darkened, darkened, darkened. You want sin. Here's more sin.

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Spiraling down into ungodliness. Darkened in their understanding. Excluded from the life of God.

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And you see kind of the root cause. Do you notice? Because of the ignorance that is in them. They know idols.

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They know Diana. We know our own idols very well in a very personal way before we were saved.

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But they don't know God. They're deaf, dumb, and blind. Dense and unresponsive.

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Stalagmatites and what's the other ones? Stalagmatites grow up. Stalagmatites and stalagmites.

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I knew that. There was a widow that had a mite, I want you to know. I used to work in the operating room and I remember one time going in for a case

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I had never been in on before. And they said, this is a carotid endarterectomy. And I said, what's that?

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And he said, well, there's a bunch of plaque in the carotid artery and it's not letting the blood flow.

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And so we have to go in there and take it out. And so they open it up. It's a dangerous procedure.

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And there was this kind of white, just hard, weird, rubbery, stuff that they took out.

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And I said to the doctor, what's that feel like? And he said, put a glove on. Because normally I just had to stand like this and watch.

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Put a glove on. And so he dropped that thing into my hand, this hard and gross, callous thing.

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I said, how do you get these? And he said, genetics and potato chips. Remember when we had hearts of stone?

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You might even had a friend that preached to you and you're like, forget you, stiff arm you. I've got my own life to live.

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We're just cold -blooded spiritually. Verse 19, they've become calloused.

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They've given themselves up to sensuality. I mean, they're all in. Why hold back at all? Just swipe right.

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Go for everything. Greedy to practice every kind of impurity. It's like the shame meter is no longer there.

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You first commit some sins. You kind of have shame. You can't sleep. You want to take a shower. You want to clean yourself off.

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You want to do this. You want to do that. I vow never to do it again. And then after a while, the shame is just gone.

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You just are insensitive to pain, insensitive to feeling. That's all judgment. That's what unbelievers do.

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Yeah, whatever. Spiritless, impassive, and they are all in.

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It's interesting, this giving themselves over. Nobody holds a gun to your head as an unbeliever and says, sin, you just want to do that.

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What a life. What an awful life. God gave them over to the lust of their hearts.

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Romans 1, three times it says that. They love. We loved as unbelievers. The world with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

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That's a lot different than Ephesians 5 .2. Walk in love just as Christ also loved you and gave himself for us.

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While we give in to everything, the Lord has given up everything. Somebody ever meet you and they say, oh, what do you do for a living?

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Sometimes when I sit down on an airplane, somebody will say, what do you do for a living? And I'll say, well, there's two kinds of people you don't want to sit next to an airplane for six hours.

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Insurance salesman and me, a pastor, a Bible teaching pastor. Oh, earbuds go back in.

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No, no, I meant mine. I'm just kidding. What do you do for a living?

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When an unbeliever gets asked that question, basically it's sin, sin, and sin.

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And I return to my own vomit over and over and over. And I don't care. It takes work to sin like this.

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Look at the passage. Practice every kind of impurity with greediness at all costs.

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It's like drinking the sin of salt water. It's just like, you know, I just get thirstier and thirstier. Proverbs 10, doing wickedness is like sport to a fool.

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Paul says, don't be that way. We shouldn't go back to our past and just rehearse all these sins all the time, living in our past and sometimes thinking how fun some of those sins were.

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I'm not saying any of that. I am saying, though, for Paul, for God, it's important for you to just look back once in a while and say, that's not how

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I want to live. Mind broken, heart calloused, darkened, sinning, greedy, giving myself over to everything that I want.

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And this, by the way, isn't just for unrighteousness, but self -righteous people do this too.

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It's not just for prostitutes. This is for people that say, you know what? I think I can get to heaven based on my own morality because I'm a good mom,

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I'm a good dad, I'm a good grandfather, and I do some religious things. Don't be who you used to be.

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Ephesians 4 .1, walk in a manner worthy of your calling. And this isn't the way we want to walk. Side note, unrelated to the next point, but aren't you glad you don't have to live like you used to?

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Aren't you glad? Waking up with those headaches and waking up with a shame and purposeless, aimless, hoping it'll all work out, not understanding life, death, heaven, hell, not understanding the wisdom from God, just a minion just following the rest of the crowd.

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So let's not go back to that. Let's not live in that. Don't be who you used to be.

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Well, Paul goes on and now he says in verses 20 through 24, our second preaching exhortation, act like who you are, act like who you are.

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This is all about identification. This is who you are as a son or a daughter in the kingdom with God as father.

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You used to be this, now who are you? Because in verses 25 and following, he's gonna say, do things, but right now he's gonna say, remember who you are.

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And this is really the forgotten, the missing link in sanctification. Just tell me what to stop doing. Tell me what to do.

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It's fine to do that after this section. If I had one thing that I wanted to really, really hammer home today, it's that we immediately think as Christians, don't live like we used to.

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Now give me the list of things to do without remembering who we are in Christ. By the way, that's one of the reasons why we have the

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Lord's supper today because it's so easy to forget who we are in Christ. Let me read verses 20 through 24.

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And you dear Christian, along with me, need to remember what happened at your salvation and who Jesus is to you even now.

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But that is not the way you learn Christ. Assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus to put off your old self.

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What were you taught? You were taught to put off your old self which belongs to the former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires.

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What were you also taught? To be renewed in the spirit of your mind. What were you taught in him when you heard about him and the way you learned

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Christ? And to put off the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

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So Paul starts by saying, you might've learned Diana this way, the false god at Ephesus.

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You might've learned this from the person who taught you about life, but you didn't learn this from Jesus.

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Jesus said in Matthew 11, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. How do you learn Christ?

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Well, here's what we talk about a lot at Bethlehem Bible Church. We talk about what Jesus does, not just for your sins, pardon, but also for your holy living power.

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He gives you not just, I mean, just think about if God said, Art, I'm going to forgive you all your sins in Christ Jesus. You've trusted the risen savior and now you're on your own to live.

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How far would we go? We need to be reminded about who Jesus is, not just for our initial salvation.

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I could put it this way. Did you know, dear Christian, that Jesus died for the sins of Christians too? Jesus lived to try to help you live a holy life.

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Here he says, you didn't learn Christ that way. By the way, I know we have a math teacher here in our congregation, at least one, and a math major in our congregation.

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The word learn is where we get our word math. So there you go. There's the Greek word for the day, math, learn.

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You've got to learn if you're going to be in math class. And you heard about this Jesus, verse 21.

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You've been taught in him just as truth is in Jesus. You heard initially, got saved, converted.

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You've been taught in him ongoing sanctification. I'd like you to turn your

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Bibles to Colossians 3, a sister passage to Ephesians.

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Keep your finger in Ephesians 4 and turn to Colossians 3 because this will help you see what is sometimes not clear in the

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English text. All right, here's my point. What we're doing is we're saying something happened to you at salvation.

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You're in Christ now. You're united with Christ. Your sins are forgiven and you have power to live a holy life.

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Were you taught that when you got saved? Before you've put off and put on and you stop lying and telling the truth and don't be angry and everything else.

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I'll be angry and don't sin. Something you have to remember. So look at Colossians 3, 8 through 10.

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But now you must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander and obscene talk from your mouth.

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Do not lie to one another. And this is, by the way, what Paul is teaching in Ephesians 4.

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Seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its

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Creator. Oh, okay, now I get it. Do you see what he's doing? He's not saying,

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I commend you to put off and to put on. Put off the old man, put on the new man. He's saying at salvation that happened.

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Now sadly, let's go back to Ephesians 4. We see the word self there. Of course, we know that if I say man, it could be human, it could be men and women.

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People are very sensitive now for trying to make sure the Bible is gender neutral at times.

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And even sometimes ESV, I think they got caught here. Put off the old self, Ephesians 4 .22.

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Put on the new self, Ephesians 4 .24. But he's not saying self, he's saying man.

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If I say to you at salvation, the old man was put off, what should you be thinking? If I said to you at salvation, when

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God saved you, He forgave you, and He said, you know what? Your old self is gone, your new self is here. What would you be thinking with self?

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I wouldn't know what to think of a self. But what if I said man? If I say to you first man, last man.

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If I say to you the first man ever, what do you think of? Who do you think of? Adam, did you know, dear

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Christian, before you say, I need to love my wife more, I need to be kinder,

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I need to do this, I need to do that, I need to put off and put on. Before any of that starts, this is what you need to be reminded of.

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You're not who you used to be. You're a new creation in Christ Jesus. And now you have the ability and power to say no to sin.

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You had no ability to say no to sin when you were an unbeliever, but now you do. The first part of sanctification is something happened to you and it's more than forgiveness of sins.

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The old Adam, I remember Thomas Goodwin, by the way, you should read Thomas Goodwin. He said every person is hanging on one of the two

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Adam's girdles. I thought that was kind of funny because I never thought, I've been a pastor now for 25 years, that I'd ever say the word girdle from the pulpit.

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You're either hanging on Adam or you're hanging on the last Adam. He wants you to, and you say,

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Mike, why are you belaboring this? It's just kind of like this mental thing. No, no, I'm going to just stop and just let it just sink in.

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Before you begin to say, I shouldn't be anxious, I should trust. I should put off, I should put on.

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That's in 425 and following. But here he says, you know what?

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You don't have to do it anymore. Something happened to you. Who are you in Christ Jesus? Hey, son, hey, daughter, this is not how we act because you're an

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Abendroth, an officer. You're an officer. There should be conduct befitting an officer. It'd be one thing if you don't know how to act, but you are an officer.

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Over and over and over, we need to be reminded about who we are in Christ Jesus. Heidegger Catechism 43.

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What further benefit do we receive from the sacrifice and death of Christ on the cross? I mean, we get forgiveness, further benefit.

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Answer, that by his power, our old man is crucified, slain and buried.

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That so the evil lust of the flesh may no more reign in us, but we may offer ourselves unto him a sacrifice of thanksgiving.

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Christian, you're not who you used to be. You're not hanging on Adam. You're hanging on Christ Jesus by the grace of God.

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What is sanctification? Westminster Shorter Catechism. Sanctification is the work of God's free grace whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God and are enabled more and more to die unto sin and to live unto righteousness.

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Do you know God is working in you? You say, I'd like to not lie so much and tell the truth more. As a

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Christian, I struggle with that at work. I want to remind you, you are being sanctified. God is doing this working in you so that you now can say by the

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Spirit's power, no to sin and yes to righteousness. Does this sound familiar?

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What should we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. How can we who died in sin still live in it?

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Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him in the baptism of death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead for the glory of the

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Father, so we too might walk in the newness of life. This is Ephesians language right in Romans 6.

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For we have been united with Him in a death like His. We shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.

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We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

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Christian, you're no longer a slave to sin. You can say no. Before, it's like you go to the road and it's got a right turn and a left turn and you always had to take the left sin turn.

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You couldn't turn to the right. Do you know as a Christian, you can say no to sin. Jesus is alive.

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He's your Savior. The Holy Spirit is in you sanctifying you. So before you want to do anything,

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Paul says, I want you to be reminded who you are. You have a new identity in Christ Jesus.

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Sinclair Ferguson, when we trust in Christ, the ties that bind us to Adam are broken.

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We're adopted into a new family and culture. We now belong to Christ, the new Adam and representative head of God's people.

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Because we are in Christ, everything He did for us becomes ours. You say, can you make it as simple as possible?

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You're kind of losing me. Paul says, here's who God is, chapter one, two, and three. Here's what

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He's done. Don't go back to your old life. And by the way, before you want behavior modification and law keeping, remember who you are.

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Remember who you are. You are united with Christ. Ferguson goes on to say, we do not naturally think about ourselves this way.

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We need to be taught. We need to learn it better. We need to learn Christ. That will lead us to discover that our old identity is gone.

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We have been given a new identity in Christ. Our lives can never be the same again.

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This has happened. No imperatives here. This is something that has happened. You took off the old

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Adam clothes and you put on the new clothes because they were put on you by God.

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All right, now we come to the last section. Don't be who you used to be. Don't forget your identity in Christ.

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And number three, become more of what you are. Become more of what you are. There's gonna be five things he tells us here in Ephesians chapter four.

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There's gonna be something negative, something positive, and a reason. If I just told a group of people, this is what you need to do and forgot to remind them who they are in Christ, I would fail, according to Paul.

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But since we've gone over that, now we'll just get into this put off, put on. Somebody comes to you and they say,

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I'm struggling with this area in my life. We're tempted to say, stop it. Remember that old

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Bob Newhart counseling video, stop it. You can pull that up if you'd like.

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Those that laughed, understand. He who has ears, let him hear. It's okay.

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Somebody says, I'm struggling with sexual sin. Run, flee. That's what 1 Corinthians 6 says. But that's not all it says.

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There's something on the positive side. So there's no to something and there's yes to something.

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And the positive side is, I don't know, work on your holy living so that you can find a woman and marry her or be sacrificial to your wife, et cetera.

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There's a put off and put on. After we know who we are, we're identified with Christ. The spirit of God dwells in us.

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We can do it. We're no longer slaves to sin. So how do I live a life commensurate to the calling? There's five of them.

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The first one is, don't lie, tell the truth. Don't lie, tell the truth.

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Anytime you struggle with a sin as a Christian, there's a put off and a put on. But before that, there's identification with Christ, union with Christ.

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But now we come to these specific commands. Verse 25, therefore, having put away falsehood, let each of one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.

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As we go through this list, the list of don't lie, tell the truth.

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Be angry, do not sin. Don't steal, but work. Nothing corrupt out of your mouths, but what is edifying?

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Bitterness, wrath, anger, gone. Be kind to one another. He could be saying, since you're a

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Christian, act like one because this is, you know, you think about Jesus and every one of these, you could think through what

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Jesus did. Did Jesus ever lie? Did Jesus ever become angry with sinful, unrighteous anger?

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Did Jesus ever say anything inappropriately? Did Jesus ever slack off in his work from his

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Father? Did Jesus ever act anything but kind and tenderhearted and forgiving? Every one of these, it's like, well, you call yourself a

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Christ. This is what Christians do because it's who Christ is. If Jesus said,

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I'm the way, the truth, and the life, of course, we're going to want to make sure we tell the truth. He's not saying do better.

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He's not saying do more. He says negatively, don't lie. Positively, tell the truth.

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How do you learn Christ? I don't lie anymore. I tell the truth. God is not a man that he should lie.

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Numbers 23, and followers of Christ Jesus who believe in him shouldn't lie. Jesus calls the

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Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth. The psalmist David said, thy law is truth.

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The work of the hands is truth. So we need to put that behind us. Remember in chapter 4, it talked a lot about unity.

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You don't know a bad thing for church unity is people lying to one another in the local church even. It's the satanic lie, the father of lies to say it's okay to lie.

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Outright lies, white lies, exaggeration, cheating on taxes, false excuses, plagiarism, fraud, manipulation, betraying of confidence, false flattery.

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They're all included in this. This is not how we're to live. And why does he say we shouldn't lie?

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You might think Paul might say at the end of verse 25, because God hates liars. But it says, for we're members one of another.

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We're a member of a body. There's a head and there's hands and toes and feet. We shouldn't lie. If you tell a lie, you're damaging yourself.

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You're doing harm to the body that you're part of. Well, he goes on. There's another put on, put off after we know our identity.

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Don't lie, tell the truth. Verse 26. Oh, here's a good one. This should make your ears perk up. Be angry, but don't sin.

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Did you know there's a command in the Bible, be angry? That's right from Psalm 4, be angry, but don't sin.

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Be angry and don't sin. Don't let the sun go down in your anger. True or false, Jesus was angry at times.

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True. You think of the temple, right? With righteous indignation for zeal for his father's house, he goes in, he drives people out.

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John chapter 2. But we want to make sure we don't fall into the temptation of getting so mad we sin.

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Good things can turn often into bad things. John Trapp said, it's not a sin to be angry, but it's hard not to sin when we're angry.

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And a little proverb said, anger is just one letter short of danger. But okay.

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If you're ever going to be angry about something, you say, I want it to be something God's angry about.

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You think, okay, wholesale slaughter of infants in the womb. God's angry at that.

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I can be angry at that as well. Not because I'm offended or you hurt me, but I'm along with God angry at something.

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That would be right. Is God offended? Or is it just, I got offended, so therefore I'm mad?

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Am I mad because I was hurt or because Christ was slandered? What does he say in verse 26?

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Be angry and don't sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. Do you know anger can just so settle in you, even good anger, that before you know it, it turns into resentment and rage, stewing and mulling over things, festering.

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And so Paul is basically saying this. Probably not literally, the sun's almost down. I better check my solar watch app.

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Do something right away. Okay, by the end of the day, don't go to bed angry because you're going to wake up even madder.

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Deal with your anger right away. Then you can say, you know what? I really have some righteous anger, or maybe

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I've even got sinful anger. I need to talk to this other person and work through it. And if we're not resolved,

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I did what I could. I could say to myself, Lord, I did what I could before you. And I'm just going to bed as soon as time possible.

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I didn't want it to fester and turn into other things. And I just, I dealt with it. I'm going to leave it to you.

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That's what Paul is talking about. Building into this anger, all kinds of brooding.

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And it's never okay to go to bed with unrighteous anger. And it's not okay to go to bed with righteous anger until you've done something about it.

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Augustine said, anger is a weed, hate is the tree. Do you know there's something worse than anger?

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Even unrighteous anger. Verse 27, giving an opportunity to the devil.

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Things could be worse than righteous anger. That's not bad. Things could be worse rather than unrighteous anger.

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Letting the devil have an opportunity. So Paul is saying, one of the ways

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Satan slips into a church is when there's people bugged at each other, angry with self -righteous anger, unrighteous anger, or righteous anger, and it's not dealt with.

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You go to the person, you deal with it. Because otherwise, you go, you know what? I think I'll just prop the door open a little bit and let

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Satan in. You don't want to give Satan wiggle room because he's wily, as Ephesians 6 says.

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This is so true in marriage. You think, well, what could be worse than this situation we're in?

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Answer, not dealing with it and let Satan in. 1 Peter 5, be of sober spirit, be on the alert.

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Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone he may devour.

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As one man said, don't give the devil a key to your church door. Proverbs 20, keeping away from strife is an honor for a man, but any fool will quarrel.

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Did you know elders are to be not quick -tempered? Titus chapter one. Well, number three, the third put off, don't steal work.

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He actually, in verse 28, I'll read it wrongly. Remember when you used to steal? Don't steal any longer.

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No, verse 28, let the thief no longer steal. Probably some Christians cutting some corners, but rather let him labor doing honest work with his hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.

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I mean, did not Jesus say, my work is to do the will of the Father? Did not Jesus say, my

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Father's working until now and I am working? Did not Jesus say, my food is to do the will of Him who sent me and accomplishes

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His work? Certainly Jesus has righteous anger that's not sinful. He's working and He tells the truth.

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That's what we're supposed to do as well. Don't steal any longer. By the way, if somebody steals a lot and they call it kind of a disease, what do we call that?

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What's the word for it in our society? A, what kind of maniac? Kleptomaniac. There's your

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Greek word klepto. That's what we get right here. Don't be a kleptomaniac anymore. Cheating and cutting corners.

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Let him steal, steal no longer. Don't be pilfering. I mean, you know the biblical prohibitions.

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Exodus 20, you shall not steal. Jesus, Mark 10, you shall not steal. Paul, Romans 13, you shall not steal.

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I'll never forget the time I went to kind of like a Golden Corral restaurant with my grandparents.

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And you know, one of those buffets that, I don't know, maybe I'm just jaded when it comes to Golden Corral.

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So if you own one, I'm sorry. Can never say anything bad about McDonald's when

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Bruce Bolivar was here, but I see Bruce here now. So, and we walked out to the car and then grandma said, we ate and everything, walked out of the car and grandma said,

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Henry, did you pay? He said, no. Dropped it into drive, off we went.

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No, he said, no, I forgot. Grandpa's leg had been cut off in a car accident. So he had to kind of walk back in there.

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I thought it cost him not just money, but cost him walking back to make sure to just pay. And if an unbelieving grandpa knows enough to do that, what about us?

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Cheating on taxes and cheating your employers. He just said, don't do it anymore.

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That's not what we do. Yeah, but everybody does it. It's just a corporation. Others have so much and I have so little.

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You didn't learn Christ in that way, did you? Of course not. What's the antidote? It's one thing to tell people just stop cutting corners.

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But what's he say there? Let him labor. The one who steals, let him steal no longer, but let him labor.

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You were meant to work. I was meant to work. Matter of fact, so much. So Paul said, if no one works, then he shouldn't what?

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Some man doesn't work. He shouldn't eat. That's pretty amazing. Six days you shall labor and do all your work.

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Go to the ant. Oh, slugger. Observe her ways and be wise. Why? Because she works. They work.

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The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. What's the text say?

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Verse 28, performing with his own hands what is good, not just for yourself, but think about the community of the local church in order that he may have something to share with him who has need.

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We work with our own hands. By the way, that helps us from being busy bodies when we're working. We're too busy working compared to others who aren't working and they just want to be in everybody else's business.

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John 13, by this all men will know that you're my disciples if you have love for one another.

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Paul even knew the Church of Corinth in 2 Corinthians 8 loved to do extra work so they could give liberally.

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One man said the Jews didn't understand the sacred duty of work. They saw it as merely a common menial sort of human class second effort, whereas religious duties were first class, sacred, divine, noble things.

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Sometimes we do that. Well, there's secular work. That's what I have to do and go sell insurance. And then there's sacred work.

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No, no, no. We're going to learn in Ephesians chapter six. You can work to the glory of God. He wants you to do that.

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And if you're going to make good shoes, Tyndale said, you do that for the glory of God. Number four, the fourth put off put on five total found in verse 29.

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Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear.

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I mean, when I read that, I automatically think every time of Luke four and Jesus said to them today, the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing and all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth.

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Lines already covered, but now he's talking about all kinds of other speech. Colossians, let your speech be seasoned with salt.

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What's he say here? I find it fascinating when he describes it in verse 29 corrupting talk.

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That's like rotten fruit. That's like rotten milk. Did I say that right?

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Milk, milk, rotten milk. It's just kind of this gross. Just it's just awful.

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Don't let that come out of your mouth. It reminds me of Romans chapter three where out of the mouth of these unbelievers, it's like to whitewash sepulchers and out of their mouth.

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Oh, this is for body life. This is for life in God's kingdom.

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Do not speak against one another. James four. There's that old slogan. Loose lips sink ships, but also sinful lips, shipwrecked lives, destroyed friendships, wrecked marriages, and the list goes on.

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I don't want to talk that way. So how should I talk? Look at this. And by the way, if you talk about Jesus a lot to people, you've got it solved right there.

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But only such a word is good for edification according to the need of the moment that it may give grace to those who hear.

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It might encourage. How do I talk now? Well, I used to just talk kind of gutter mouth. Now I talk positively.

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Ephesians four said for the equipping of the saints. I don't tear down. I want to build up. I need to give an answer to this person, but what would be best for them to hear?

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I don't have to cut corners, but I need to think about them for edification and to make matters more important.

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Verse 30. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Certainly the

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Lord Jesus never grieved the Holy Spirit. We don't want to either. We don't live our lives with more moral kind of ethical backgrounds alone.

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We do it in the light of God. Quorum Deum in the face of God before the spirit of God, the

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Holy Spirit. He's a person. He has an intellect mind. We don't want to offend him. Paul says that because it's grave.

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Don't grieve him. And now we come to the fifth one. See, you didn't think we could do it today, did you?

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Is it hot in here? Makes you kind of sleepy, doesn't it? Number five.

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You'll see the put off and the put on. Let all bitterness, wrath and anger and clamor and slander to be put away from you along with all malice.

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Positively be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.

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Oh, we would never say Jesus had any of those sinful bitternesses angers and clamors and slanders and sinful.

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Wrath, we would never say that. What's bitterness? Bitterness is. The Greek word is kind of if you ever take a lemon, maybe you like to do when you're a kid, but when you're older, you don't really like to do it.

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And you cut the lemon in half and you just bite down and make sure you get your teeth all in there. And what do you do?

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It's the Greek word. I wow. I'm trying to keep you awake.

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In the old days, I would say this is God's word. It's incumbent upon you to pay attention. And that's true, but I'll try to do my part.

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This ill tempered, sour, poisonous. I can't forgive.

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I can't let go. I can't cover somebody's sins. I'm just going to keep rehearsing it over and over and over and over.

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Things aren't going well in my life. Strange, difficult providences.

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And I just, I'm mad at people, but I'm really mad at God. You want to meet the saddest person you'll ever meet in life.

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It's a bitter person. I constantly have to say to myself, don't be bitter. Don't be bitter.

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Don't be bitter. There's a positive side, but right now I think it's right.

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Resentment when you hold on to it and keep it, it turns into bitterness. Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them.

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Never would we call God bitter. Romans 3 though, unbelievers mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.

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Not only that, there's wrath. You just boil over, hair trigger. I'm going to just blow my top and you're going to know exactly what

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I think every time. It's an asset in life, isn't it? No, not for the

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Christian. Hair triggered people need to grow.

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They need to remember their identity. Anger, swelling, kind of the same thing here.

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I'm so bugged at you, so displeased at you. I'm going to focus on what you did and it's just going to, like Proverbs 30, for the churning of milk produces butter and the pressing of the nose brings forth blood.

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So the churning of anger produces strife. It's hard to have a marriage or a church without, or it's hard to have a lot of anger and strife and make it good.

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When this is gone, it's easier. Uproar, crying, clamoring. Clamor means to shout, slander, injurious speech behind people's backs, trying to wound them with all malice, with all evil.

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What do I do instead? Well, first we say, Lord, forgive us for those things. And now here's the opposite.

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And you can just see, this is who Jesus is. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.

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Literally become. So we have kind of a winter season now and there's still a few leaves on certain trees.

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How are we going to get all those leaves off the tree before the new green ones come in? Answer? Well, we're not.

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But they leave when the new green sprouts and comes out and then the old ones fall off.

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It's the same thing here. It works both ways. One of the ways I say to myself in holy living,

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I need to not be angry. Sinfully, I need to be kind. And also as I'm kind, it's helping me with the other.

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So it revolves around. Be kind to one another. This is the positive side.

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Become kind. That's who you are in Christ. You're no longer an Adam anymore. Be kind. The word kind even sounds like the word

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Christos in the original. It sounds like the word Christ. I think it's meant to.

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Kind. I'm kind even though Jesus was kind to me. I'll be kind to people. True or false?

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Love is kind. True. That's 1 Corinthians 13. When the kindness of God, our

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Savior, and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us. So if God's been kind to me, I had to be kind to other people.

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I could probably ask you, do people think you're kind? You're kind to your wife? You're kind to your husband?

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You're kind to your children? You're kind to people here at BBC? Not saying you can't stand up for the truth.

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We should. We're to be kind. Sympathetic. Augustine said when he was unconverted, he was impressed by this

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Bishop Ambrose. He said, I began to like him at first. Indeed, not as a teacher of the truth, for I had no confidence in your church.

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But I began to like him because he was a human being who was kind to me. What else does he have?

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And we need to wrap it up. Tenderhearted. From the bowels. Sympathetic.

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Kind. And then lastly, maybe the most important one, become forgivers.

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How? Just as God in Christ has forgiven you. This is the word for forgiveness.

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That's not to be sent away, although that's a good biblical word for it. This is the one that says to be gracious, to grace people.

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Yeah, they don't deserve it. Grace them with forgiveness. Yeah, but do you know how many times they did that to me?

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You grace them. Remember what they did in the past and it's changed our relationship forever. Grace them.

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Have you been graced, Christian? Is that how God treats you? I'm going to bring those things up in the past and hold it against you when you've confessed them and forsaken them.

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This is the language of Romans 8. He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how will he not also with him freely or graciously give us all things?

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Acting in grace. When you see your own sin and then you realize how you've been forgiven, doesn't that make you want to forgive other people?

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Our church, you want to see the good marriages? They're the forgiving marriages. You want to see marriages with a lot of trouble?

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I'll show you the lack of grace marriages. This would revolutionize.

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This does revolutionize every relationship. You say, well, there's somebody at church I'm bugged at.

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You think, you know what? Kind, tenderhearted. It's not about me anyway. I've been forgiven millions of dollars of sin debt and I won't forgive somebody a few against me?

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You see the text, just as, the same way. We didn't deserve it. We didn't merit it. We didn't earn anything.

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And God graces us. Who is there in your life that you need to forgive? Pardon from an offended

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God. Pardon for sins of deepest die. Pardon bestowed through Jesus' blood. Pardon that brings the rebels nigh.

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Who is a pardoning God like thee? Or who has grace so rich and free? It's not only true because it's practical, obviously, but I just remember watching my two grandparents.

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And they did a lot of good for me, of course, but they were not believers. And watch them turn into bitter, unforgiving, lonely people dying in their nineties alone because nobody else was good enough.

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They couldn't forgive anybody. And so they just had to be the sour, bitter, angry people.

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And then I met a lady named Evelyn Nichols, Kim's grandmother. This is how you act.

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She probably was taken advantage of 10 times more than my grandparents, but she treated people with kindness and generosity.

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Sometimes, you know, when people get too old, you have to take the car keys from them. And we needed to take her car keys, but she's like,

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I gotta go to the store. For what? We've got tons of raspberries and bananas here. Well, because I have to go talk to the produce man about the

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Lord Jesus. Okay. So many people took so great advantage of her financially in many other ways.

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It had nothing to do with Grandma Evie, but it's a heart that's been forgiven. And then you forgive other people. I deserve to go to hell how many times over and I've been forgiven, but I can't overlook something that's been done to me.

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There are people that you're gonna say, they're hard to forgive. My spouse or my kids or someone in the church.

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But just like what Jesus said in Luke 7, the woman loves much because she has been forgiven much.

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And you love little because you've been forgiven little. The person doesn't deserve it, we forgive.

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Whatever the person has done, we forgive freely. We forgive their transgressions.

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We don't rake up old offenses, God forgives. And he says, I'm not gonna bring it up ever again. Isn't Ephesians a wonderful book?

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Convicting book. What's Paul say? Don't run back to your old life, that was gross. Remember who you are in Christ, because now you can obey and you wanna live out who you are.

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And then he gives some very sensible things to the church at Ephesus. There could be many other things, but for Ephesus, this is what they dealt with.

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Bow with me, please. Father in heaven, would you give us opportunity this week to reflect on our past life and then reflect on the

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Lord Jesus and who he is to us as the last Adam, so that we might then walk in a manner worthy.

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I pray for Bethlehem Bible Church that you would have us be a congregation that realizes our old self is gone, new self is here.

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You've closed us with the righteousness of Jesus. You want to live in light of that. And would you have this be a church,

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Father, where there's no falsehood, but truth, no sinful anger. And if there is even anger, may it be dealt with quickly.

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Would you help us to be hardworking people? Would you help us to give grace to those who need it with our words?

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And would you help us to be forgiving people? Give us opportunity even this week, if we need to, to go forgive, to go be reconciled, to go say,

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I love you. And it's the least I could do in light of my sins before the Father. In his name we pray.