OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW (Eph 4:25-32)

Psalm 33 and the Call to Worship

Let's sing it, sing it together. We will walk the path with you by our side You will go before us, you will lead the way We have found a rift in joy now, our God is for us The Father's love is a strong and mighty fortress Raise your voice now, no love is greater Who can stand against us if our God is for us? Will not defeat who gave his Son to free us? Holds me for death, can separate death Will not defeat us if his Son is for us? Our God is for us, the Father's love is a strong and mighty fortress Raise your voice now, no love is greater Who can stand against us if our God is for us?

In the 12th chapter of Apostle Paul's letter to the Romans, he says, for by grace given to me, I say to everyone among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

For as in one body, we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them.

If prophecy in proportion to our faith, if service in our serving, the one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who contributes in generosity, the one who leads with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness, let love be genuine.

Oh, abhor what is evil. Hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. I wanted us to read that passage because this is where our namesake comes from, Romans 12, five, to remind ourselves, so we, though many, are one body, one body in Christ.

We may be individuals here, but we all come together if we are in Christ as one,.

So welcome.

We are blessed, amen? What do you think of our new space that God has provided? We've been meeting in my backyard in a big metal building for a little over two years now and just praying, God, where do you want us?

Where are we gonna meet? The church isn't a building. Don't make the mistake. The church is not a building. Oh, but the gathering of the saints needs somewhere to gather, and God, in his good grace, grace upon grace, has bestowed upon us something far beyond anything we can imagine, so we should be grateful this morning.

We have much to worship, don't we? So welcome to the gathering. We mention it often, as the writer of Hebrews says, not to neglect the gathering together, which is a custom of the saints, for the purpose of encouraging one another, all the more until we see Christ return.

That's the purpose, and I hope that you will be encouraged today. Our desire is that all of you, our covenant members, all of you that are our guests, maybe first-time or regular attending guests, we pray that you would grow in the knowledge and fear of the triune God, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and leave molded more into the image of Christ because your minds have been renewed by his word.

Your soul has been encouraged by the fellowship of the saints. This is what God has prescribed, and it is good. Well, before we go into our call to worship, we always pray for a specific local church.

We pick a local church, and we pray for them. We pray for their service this morning, and today, because it's a special Sunday with us, coming into the dead center of Jonesboro, we thought that we would go to the Lord and pray for all true churches throughout the city of Jonesboro, all the true gospel churches that are out there.

We long to pray for them. We pray that God would bring about revival in this community. Even if he's not gonna do it here, we pray he does it there. We wanna see God work, so let's bow our heads. Let's pray for the churches of this community.

Dear Heavenly Father, God, we come to you this morning, and we thank you for your great blessings. Oh, but God, we're not alone. We are not the only saints doing the kingdom work in this community. You've placed us in this specific spot.

Oh, God, but you are working through the bride, through the body, as you see fit, and we thank you for that. Oh, God, we pray for all the true churches throughout this city, the gospel churches that are seeking to be obedient to you, that are molded by you, that are used by you.

We pray this morning that their worship services would be gospel-centered. Their worship services would be filled with what you've called the church to do and worship with the regulative principle of worship, singing, and reading, and praying, and preaching, and the elements of the Lord's Supper and baptism.

God, we pray that you would work in their midst. We ask that your spirit would move. We ask that the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead, would do his work in our hearts in this community. Lord, we know that just resolving addiction issues, we know that just resolving outward adherence to your law through preserving marriages, and all that go with that, God, we know that none of that has the power to change.

Only the gospel can truly change. And we ask that your gospel, the gospel of grace, would permeate the hearts of your people throughout this community, that you would save mightily, that you would break out in revival and an awakening in this community.

Oh, Lord, we ask that not only in these walls, but in the walls of all the churches in this community, we thank you for how you're working, for you are sovereign. You do as you see fit. You do all things well.

Oh, we have such a finite perspective. Oh, but God, as your children, we come to you and we ask these things, and we ask them in the magnificent name.

Of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and his righteousness.

In Christ's name, amen.

Amen.

Let's go to our call to worship this morning as we prepare our hearts to go before the Lord in worship. And our call to worship comes from some select verses in Psalm 33. The psalmist says the steadfast love of the Lord.

Shout for joy in the Lord, oh, you righteous. Oh, give thanks to the Lord with a lyre. Oh, sing to him a new song. For the word of the Lord is upright. He loves righteousness and justice. By the word of the Lord, the heavens were made.

Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, that he may deliver their soul from death. Our soul waits for the Lord, for our heart is glad in him. Let your steadfast love, oh, Lord, be a part of us.

Amen.

Prayer is such a vital component in the life of a Christian and the whole body, amen? And so something that we've been given at our disposal is to be able to go to the Lord in prayer whenever we go. God not only provides for our physical needs daily, but he provides for our spiritual needs daily by going to him to confess our sin and to adore him with all that we have.

And so we get to do this with brothers and sisters in Christ and so from my own heart, I've been blessed by reading prayers from the saints of old, the Puritans. On my desk, I have the Valley of Vision.

I love getting to meditate on the prayers of the saints that have been filled with the Holy Spirit. And so I wanna share with you one of my favorite prayers that's so fitting because we go to God who is the source of all that is good.

So if you would, please pray with me this morning. Oh Lord God, who inhabits eternity, the heavens declare your glory, the earth your riches, the universe is your temple. Your presence feels immensely, yet you have of your own pleasure created life and communicated happiness.

You have made us what we are and given us what we have in you, Lord. We live and move and have our being. Your providence sets the bounds of our habitation and wisely administers all our affairs. Yes, we thank you for your riches to us in Jesus Christ, for the unclouded revelation of him in your word, where we behold his person, his character, grace, glory, humiliation, sufferings, death and resurrection.

Give us a feel of the need of our continual dependence on him as our savior. For we cry out with Job, I am vile. With Peter, I perish. With the publican, be merciful to me, a sinner, subduing us, the love of sin.

Let us know the need of renovation as well as forgiveness in order to serve and enjoy you forever. We come to you in the all-prevailing name of Jesus with nothing of our own, no works, no worthiness, no promises.

We are often straying, often knowingly opposing your authority, often abusing your goodness. Much of our guilt arises from our religious privileges, our low estimation of them, our failure to use them to our advantage, but we are not careless of your favor or regardless of your glory.

Lord, impress us deeply with a sense of your omnipresence, that we would be about your path. Our ways lining with your ways are lying down, Lord, looking to you for our end. We love you, Jesus. We pray this in your name, amen.

We shall see, glorified

Ephesians 4 and the New Self in Christ

As the men are coming by, passing the plates, go ahead and open your copy of God's word to Ephesians chapter four. We're gonna continue our sermon series through this letter that the apostle Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus this Christmas season as we just continue to look to our savior, but we see our savior in all of scripture, amen.

And hopefully we will see him today in our text. But in Ephesians chapter four, our primary text is gonna start in verse 25, but I want us to start reading in verse 17. So look there with me as the apostle Paul says, now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds.

They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greed, to practice every kind of impurity.

That is not the way you learned 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, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds and to put on the new self created after the likeness of God and true righteousness and holiness.

Oh, therefore having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor for we are members one of another. Be angry, do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil.

Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor doing honest work with his own hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. 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.

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God and Christ forgave you.

Now, this is the reading of God's word. Oh, Father, be honored in it. Your word is true, your word is clear, your word is good. Oh, but we are frail, finite, oh, Lord, we need the Holy Spirit that is within each one of us to illuminate these truths who are corrupted minds that are being renewed.

Oh, Lord, allow us to be doers of the word, not hearers only, in Christ's name, amen. Well, last Sunday, we looked at verses 17 through 24 where Brother Keith was bringing the word to us where he showed us how Paul is urging us to no longer live like unbelievers, right?

To no longer live like our old self with futile, corrupted minds and hardened hearts walking in darkness. For we ourselves were darkness, right? That was the old self. That's who we were. And he's saying, don't walk in that.

Now we've been brought into light. We've been brought into the light of Christ, amen. We've been given a heart of flesh. The heart of stone has been removed. A heart of flesh has been placed and we've been made a new creation.

That's a glorious thing, isn't it? And we are to put on this new self. Notice he says to put it on as Brother Keith rightfully pointed us to. You must take action here. And how do we put on the new self?

By having our minds renewed, right? And how are our minds renewed? By the word of God, exactly. Because here's the thing, even though we've been made a new creation, even though we've been given a heart of flesh, we still, currently present, have residue of this old self, don't we?

Otherwise he wouldn't tell us to take it off and put on the new. This is an ongoing battle on this side of glory. Constantly, if you've been a Christian for any amount of time, you know, oh man, being a Christian is actually harder than being an unbeliever.

Back then, I had a master and I was enslaved to it and I just obeyed it without question. And now, now I have a good master and I struggle going back to the old because our minds are being renewed, right?

That's an ongoing action during this time here in the flesh. That's why we need God's word to inform us, doesn't it? It informs us of truth. It gives us the information that we need to have our minds renewed.

It tells us what God loves. It tells us what God hates. It tells us what God forbids and it tells us what God commands. And those are all good things, right?

We love the law of the Lord.

And we're to meditate on it day and night. Those are great things. Oh, but praise God, that's not where he leaves it in his word because if he left it at just what he loves and what he hates and what he forbids and what he commands, if he just left it there, you and I would be without hope, wouldn't we?

Unable to love what he loves. Unable to hate what he hates with no power to do anything or not to do anything he forbids and absolutely no ability to obey his commands. We would have no capability of doing so.

And you see, that is why every single page, anything that we read from this word, every sentence and every word from scripture just screams out in declaration the glorious gospel of grace, doesn't it?

It's not just God's law and what he hates and what he loves. Yes, in these words are God's law. And he does demand perfect obedience from all man. He demands it. Man who is thoroughly incapable of obeying it.

Well, that would be hopeless. That is except one man, the God man. You and I, oh, we can't obey it. Oh, but he did, didn't he? The one who obeyed it for us, the one who took our place for us to bear the due punishment for us of our trespasses upon himself, he bore those because he was able to fulfill it.

Oh, and then placing his very righteousness onto us, onto you and I. If you come in this morning and you're more excited about this new building and the stage and this lights and the sound system and the TVs and the seats and all of that, if that's what excites you this morning, I'm sorry, you came to worship the wrong thing.

This is what it's about. That he did this for us so we celebrate the Advent season. It's this, this, saints, is what we're looking to to have our minds renewed. You want your mind renewed, don't just look at the specifics of what you were commanded to do and what you're commanded not to do.

Look at them through the lens of what he has prescribed. Look at all of these things through the lens of our Redeemer. You see, by the grace of God, you and I have been set free to obey those commands now.

You see it, it's different now. Oh, but you cannot and you will not do it perfectly. Oh, but that is where we get to rest in that gospel of grace. You see, I wanted to remind us of this truth. I wanted to remind you of this truth before we jumped into these next few verses here, starting in verse 25, so that you and I won't fall prey to seeing these commands that we're about to be looking in detail at as a list of do's and don'ts that we must obey for God to be content with us.

Because we often do that, don't we? We see the Apostle Paul in these letters telling us, don't do this, do this, and we say, oh, do's and don'ts, and oh man, God's not gonna be happy with me if I don't.

We can't see these do's and don'ts as God not being content with us, but as a list of do's and don'ts that we get to obey because God is perfectly content with us. Do you see that? God is perfectly content with us by virtue of being perfectly content with his Son who is our righteousness.

Well, there's freedom in that, isn't there? And he calls us to live righteously in the power of that righteousness. So I want you to keep that in your minds as we look at these next few verses giving evidence to a mind that is being renewed because that's what we're gonna be seeing.

So if you wanna know if your mind is truly being renewed, have you ever wondered that? Am I really being sanctified? I don't seem to see progress. I don't seem to see myself becoming more like Jesus. I feel like I'm in the same place I was 20 years ago.

Is your mind truly being renewed? Is that what's happening? Are you truly putting off the old self and putting on the new? Well, I think these next five things will be progressively worked out in and through your life if your mind is being renewed.

And Paul lists them as he often does as a negative and a positive. Don't do this. Oh, instead do this. And I've borrowed these five subheadings that we're gonna see up here on the screen from Dr. John MacArthur.

I thought, well, they're so good, I'm not even gonna try and recreate the wheel. But we're gonna veer from them as we break each one down. I don't want us to see a follower of Christ should go, number one, from lying to speaking the truth.

A follower of Christ should go from lying to speaking the truth. Look at verse 25 with me. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor. Well, Paul immediately gets very practical here, doesn't he?

Right, we've been talking about it for months. We've been in Ephesians and all those first three chapters, man, that was just straight doctrine. It's just all information about who God is and how he saved us and our position now in Christ.

And now he's just jumping right into straight application. Look at the verse before it, verse 24. And to put on the new self, that's what he's calling us to, right? Put on the new self, created. What's this new self created after?

The likeness of God, right? So you're created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, what is true righteousness and holiness? Not falsehood. True righteousness and holiness is not falsehood.

Yeah, I think as Christians, we often look at texts like this and our self-righteousness just kicks in, doesn't it? And mine does. I immediately think of someone else who is an obvious outright liar.

That's what I think of. Yeah, I don't know if you've got any friends. I grew up with a friend who he was just a compulsive liar. I mean, he lied about everything. Everything for no reason. It didn't even benefit him.

He just lied about it. Whatever was coming out of his mouth, 80 of it was just straight lies. And so when I read a text like this, man, it's so easy for my flesh to immediately think of him and be like, yep, put away that falsehood.

He should have done that. We think of someone like this and we feel better about ourselves. We think, boy, I'm glad I don't lie like him. I've put away that falsehood. I speak the truth. Oh, but you see, scripture is often giving us a mirror, not a window.

You get that?

It's showing us who we are. Because Paul uses a word that encompasses so much more than just outright lying. The word that he uses that we translate into falsehood is sudas in the Greek. Matter of fact, you can hear where we get our word pseudo, which means not genuine.

This is more than just straight outright lying. Telling an outright lie is obvious sin, right? Even the world knows that. You try and go to testify in court and lie and see what they do to you. Even the world knows lying is wrong, even though they don't mind doing it usually.

But putting away falsehood, oh, it includes leading others to believe in untruth. Leading others to believe in untruth and we do this in many different ways. We can do this through omitting truth. We don't have to just speak the truth all the time or speak a lie for it to be falsehood.

Omitting information, allowing someone to think one thing for the sake of controlling the narrative. Remember, this is a mirror, not a window. We're all selfish, aren't we? I am. We're all selfish and we fall prey to this.

You know, another way that we do it, I actually once served with a pastor. He would use his facial expressions during conversations to lead someone to thinking one way about another person. That person would say something, hey, is this true about that other person?

He'd be like.

And walk away so that he could have immunity from being caught in a slanderous lie by saying he never said anything. You get what I'm talking about. You can feel the falsehood that comes from each one of us in many different ways.

But we're to put away anything, anything that is disingenuous. Why? Because we're supposed to put on the new man in the likeness of God and righteousness and holiness. God speaks truth. Everything that God does is truth.

Perfect truth, honest truth. So we should also. Look at the second part of verse 25. It says, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor. Paul over writing his letter in Colossians chapter three, he says, do not lie to one another.

Don't lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices. That falsehood is the old self. We're to let our yes be yes and our no be no, aren't we? Now here's the thing. This doesn't mean you have to say everything that you know or think.

But when you do speak, it is to be truth. Your facial expression shouldn't lead someone to be deceived. Your vagueness should not be meant to deceive. God's not calling us to go around berating everyone over the head with truth either.

We feel that, don't we? Also over in Colossians chapter four, Paul said, let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. So falsehood is, and I've actually, I've known Christians that have a, they have a very pricked conscience on this matter.

And so no matter what they know, they have to speak it at all times. That's not healthy. The purpose is to know in wisdom how do I speak and or am I selfishly seeking to deceive someone? I think that's what Paul's calling us to.

But he tells us to speak the truth to our neighbor. Yeah, neighbor can mean all of humanity, right? Neighbor can mean a specific nationality. Neighbor can mean geographical location. But in this context, Paul defines it.

Look at the last part of verse 25. Says, for we are all, we are members one of another. That's familiar language, isn't it? It's like that passage we just read over in Romans 12, right? Members of one another, who is that?

He's speaking specifically about believers that we are to speak the truth with our brothers and sisters. Now this does not mean that we have license for falsehood with unbelievers, right? Our legalistic perspective, we want the boundaries.

And we're like, wait a second, I can lie to my neighbor. My actual neighbor is an unbeliever. That's not what this means. It's that Paul focuses here in this letter on the unity of the body, isn't it?

That's what we've been talking about. That's been the whole purpose of this whole section of this letter is the unity of the body. And by nature of that unity, there is a violation of that union for a Christian to deceive another, isn't it?

It's a violation. When one body part starts to deceive another body part, the whole of that body is brought into chaos. What if your hand decides to deceive your left foot? I don't know what that looks like, but it's not right.

Something has gone desperately wrong. Well, this is a body. And that's what Paul's purpose is, to put on the new self and specifically in the union of the body. This is for the purpose of uniting the body.

We are one. We should speak truth to each other. Put away anything false. Set it aside, quit trying to manipulate. Quit trying to get your way. Quit trying to control the narrative. Lay it aside, put off the old self.

That's selfish.

The only narrative that you should be going after is the head of that body, Christ narrative. And that's one of honesty, love, compassion, and grace. That's the Christian. That's the new self. The second one that I want us to see is a follower of Christ should go from unrighteous anger to righteous anger.

A follower of Christ should go from unrighteous anger to righteous anger. Look at verse 26 with me. Oh, be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. Paul's quoting Psalm 4 here of be angry and do not sin.

But you see the word that Paul uses here translated into anger, it's not momentary outward boiling over or inward seething resentment. That's what we think of when we think of anger, right? Because it's the only context we have for anger.

When we get angry, it's something boiling over inside of us. It's something that gets us going, right? But the word that he uses, it rather it speaks of a deep seated, determined and settled conviction.

That just changed it a little bit, didn't it? Let me read that again. This isn't what we think of anger. The word that Paul uses here is a deep seated, determined and settled conviction. You see, unrighteous anger is selfish, isn't it?

It leads to outbursts and rage. It leads to me being determined to get my way. It leads to me doing something that is ungodly because my anger is uncontrolled. Oh, but righteous anger, oh, it's rooted in what dishonors God and perverts his creation.

There's a righteous anger in there. God has a righteous indignation. God hates the evildoer even. There's an anger that God has towards wickedness and rightfully so. And that is a righteous anger. We are to be angry, but not sin.

Let me give you an example. Something as horrific as abortion. Think about that for a second. You see, we have a deep rooted conviction that those children are made in the image of God and are being brutally murdered.

Something that perverts God's creation. Something that goes against the heart of God. You see, there is such a thing as a righteous anger. There should be something that wells up inside of you all of a sudden when you think of an unborn child being murdered.

There's something that should well up inside of you when you think of child trafficking. There's something that should well up inside of you when you think about a spousal abuse. There's something that wells up inside of you when you think of wicked deeds being done to God's creation, right?

It's right. We should have some kind of response to what's wicked. The problem is that our old self still being in the mix causes an issue. Look at the text. This is why he says, be angry, do not sin.

Do not let the sun go down on your anger. You see, we try to make this passage practical. We try and give it principles like, hey, now listen, if you're angry with your spouse and you guys are in a fight, you better get it right before you go to bed.

And that's probably some practical wisdom, but I don't think that's necessarily what the Apostle Paul is speaking of here in this text. To not let the sun go down on your anger. I think Paul's meaning something much deeper.

You see, Paul knows that our flesh can be turned from righteous anger into unrighteous anger at the drop of a hat. You see, the moment we see injustice, the moment we see unrighteousness and we respond with a righteous indignation, our flesh begins to distort and pervert that.

The very moment it hits our soul. An example of that, look at the vile, venomous hatred that much of the religious right spews towards obvious unrighteousness. They're obviously against something that is wicked and we should be against, but look at how they do it.

There's not a lot of Christ-likeness in that, is there? That possibly starting as righteous anger turned into unrighteous anger and starts to come out of them in a wicked way. That initial hatred of it isn't wrong, but we turn it into something ugly.

And you see, Satan knows this and he takes advantage of it, doesn't he? Look at verse 27. That's why this is tied in here. And give no opportunity to the devil. Paul knows exactly what's gonna happen here.

Give no opportunity to the devil. You allow anger to settle and fester in your life instead of laying your head on your pillow, having given it over to the Lord, trusting that he is sovereign and in control of even that wicked deed, then you are allowing opportunity for Satan to plant a seed of resentment and unrighteous anger.

And that begins to bring a virus into the body. And what does it do? It creates division. Because we are not putting off the old self and putting on the new after the likeness of God. God has a perfect righteous indignation.

Oh, but we distort it. And then it comes out through selfish purposes. It comes out through the antithesis of Christ likeness, even though it initially began as a good thing. Do not allow that anger to fester in you so that Satan has no opportunity, so that your flesh has no opportunity, so that it doesn't distort the body and it doesn't distort you.

Well, let's look at the third one. A follower of Christ should go from stealing to sharing. We're getting a lot of practical information here, aren't we? This is very abnormal for us on a Sunday. It's usually very doctrinal, but here we are.

From stealing to sharing. Look at verse 28. Oh, let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.

Now, at first glance, this might seem out of place. I don't know about you, but you think, yeah, I mean, falsehood and anger, those are real issues in our lives and in the life of the church. But how many of us are really out there robbing the convenience store?

Is this a real problem for us? You see, Paul isn't just merely referring to theft as our civil law would deal with. He's talking about all unjust dealings. All unjust dealings. What you did might be legal, but is it holy?

The early church, or one of the early church fathers, Jerome, on this very topic, he writes that Paul admonishes the Ephesians not to commit the crime of theft under the occasion of profit, calling theft all that is sought at the expense of another.

All that is sought at the expense of another. You think, well, I don't know that I do that. Let's think about it for a second. Do you cheat on your taxes? Do you ever hold anything back? That's the old self.

Do you milk your employer's time clock? Not giving everything you physically have to every minute you're on the clock for him? That's the old self. Do you overcharge for goods and services? That's the old self.

Maybe you're just outright lazy. Paul had something to say about that to the church in Thessalonica, didn't he? Said if anyone's not willing to work, let him not eat. If a man's not willing to work, don't give him no food.

He has to work. You say, well, honestly, pastor, who am I hurting with my laziness? Who am I hurting with just not working my hardest? You see, I'm perfectly content with what I have. I work just enough to eat.

Put a roof over my head. Well, Paul, he gives us some parameters for that. Look at the end of verse 28. So that you may have something to share with anyone in need. What happens when a brother or sister truly has need and you're a part of that body?

You see, they may legitimately not be able to work for health reasons, circumstances. It may be a mother whose husband has abandoned her and the children. He has completely neglected his duty of providing for a home and he just leaves.

Should she have to go to work instead of raising her children? Or are there able bodies capable of working with their own two hands so that they and other men in the church can provide for her so that she can do what God called her to do was raise children in the fear and knowledge of the Lord.

That is until she remarries as Paul encourages. And that other man can take that responsibility. But you see, who am I hurting with my laziness? That's what Paul's calling theft. To do otherwise is theft.

God has called us to do all things as unto the Lord. God has called us to work hard as unto the Lord. God has called us not to be stingy or selfish with the resources that they belong to him anyways. Or even another practical way by looking at this particular text so that you may have, you may be able to help someone else in need.

What else is theft? You may work hard, you may have lots of money, you may be able to provide for your family well, but you live at 110 of your means. I'm not trying to create law where there is no law here, guys, I'm just pointing out some practical things of what Paul is pointing to.

Do I need that boat? Do I need that fourth car? Do I need that vacation home? Or do I want to use my resources for the betterment of the unity of the body for those that do not have the blessings externally that I have?