Sunday Sermon: Be Kind to One Another (Ephesians 4:25-32)

You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a

New Testament book. On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament, and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday.

Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series, presently going through the book of Ephesians. Here's Pastor Gabe.

The Apostle Paul writing to the church in Ephesus, Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.

Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the 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 is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

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

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

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

Let us pray again. Our God in heaven, we thank you for bringing us your word and giving us your spirit that might open up our hearts to understand what it is that we read.

As we had considered last week, this instruction to take off the old and put on the new now comes with more specific instructions as to what the new person in Christ is to look like, especially as it pertains to the way that we love one another in the body of Christ.

May we stand in reverent fear of God and because of the love we have for God, may it show itself in the love and kindness we are to have for one another.

These things we pray in Jesus' name and all God's people said, amen. Thank you, you may be seated.

Keith, could you pull down pulpit just a smidge? I'm kind of ringing a little bit up here. Thank you. There was a man who had a job painting houses.

He'd paint the inside of houses, paint the outside of houses. Any painting job that needed to be done, this was his occupation.

And he had a full slate of jobs and tasks to do. There was never enough hours in the day to get all the jobs done that he needed to get done.

One day he got a call from a church that was asking him if this man could come out and paint their church, paint the exterior of the church.

And he said, sure. And he asked what the dimensions were, the outside of the building. They said, well, some of it is surface area that needs to be painted.

Other parts of the building are brick. And so here's our estimate as to what we think you would need to have in order to have enough paint to come out and paint our church.

Well, this church was way out in the country as well. And where I grew up in western

Kansas, this was not so unusual a scenario. All kinds of churches out there in western

Kansas that are kind of out in the middle of nowhere. When I worked in Christian Radio, I did pulpit fill sometimes.

There'd be a church that would call me up and say, hey, can you come fill our pulpit on a Sunday? And it would be this church out in the middle of just nothing.

You would go through a town, you'd travel 10 more miles, and there would be the church. And it would still be a pretty sizable church.

There'd be 200 people there, probably because it was the only church for miles around. So you get all the country folks that would come to this church.

Well, it was one of those kinds of churches that this painter had to go and paint. He's out in the middle of nowhere.

And when he gets to this church, he realizes that the surface area that needed to be painted was actually a little bit more than what the pastor had told him on the phone.

And he wondered if he even had enough paint to finish the job. If he were to go back into town to get more paint, he could lose the entire day.

So he came up with this idea. He said, I'll thin the paint out. I'll thin it out just a little bit.

He had some extra buckets that were still in his truck. They were empty. He could mix some water in there, thin the paint out.

That way, he would have enough paint. Because if he were to go back into town to get more paint, he just wouldn't be able to get the job done.

So that's what he did. He felt guilty about it, but he said, hey, no one will ever know the difference. And he started thinning out the paint so that he would have enough buckets of paint to be able to do the job.

He set up his scaffolding. He got up on the side of the church, and he started doing one side of the church, got the broadest side done, and then he went to the other side of the church and began to work on another side.

Well, something that he did not realize was happening as he was painting was that a storm was coming up.

As he was on this side of the building, he didn't see the storm coming in until he heard the rumbles of thunder, and he looks around, realizes he'd been so concentrated on his work that he did not see the storm that had come up.

Well, the pastor had just pulled up, and he said, hey, do you not know that a storm is coming? I need to help you get these buckets covered and get the scaffolding down because it's going to be a whale of a storm.

So the painter gets down, they're starting to cover their stuff, they bring the scaffolding down, and then it just starts pouring buckets.

It's just raining and raining, and the painter stood there with the pastor in horror as he watched the side of the church that he just painted, all of the paint start coming off because he thinned the paint.

So it didn't stay on the building. It couldn't withstand the rain. The pastor's standing there, and he realizes what had gone on.

As he was covering up the buckets, he saw the extra buckets of water. He sees that the paint is not staying on the side of the church, and he knows this painter had just been cheating him.

He had been thinning out the paint. And as they're standing there taking shelter from the rain, lightning struck a tree.

There's this loud peal of thunder, and immediately the painter hits his knees, and he goes, oh, the God is mad at me because I was cheating a church, and I've been thinning out your paint, and I'm so sorry.

Pastor, what should I do? The pastor looked at him and said, repaint, you thinner. Now go and thin no more.

Over the last couple of weeks, we've talked about the job that we all have in ministry.

Whenever we talk about working in ministry, oftentimes our mind goes to what I do, what a pastor does, what

Billy Graham does, what those guys with radio programs do, what a missionary does.

That's what we think about when it comes to the work of ministry. But as we've read in Ephesians chapter four, every

Christian is called to the work of ministry. God indeed gave apostles and prophets and evangelists and shepherds and teachers, but to do what?

Ephesians 4 .12, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.

And we've been told what the purpose is of this, that we would attain to unity, that we would grow in maturity, and we would be able to withstand the storms, not being tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes, rather speaking the truth in love.

We are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ.

So you understand that calling that is upon you as a believer. As we talked about last week, we have a responsibility and an obligation to one another to help each other grow.

Yes, the elders and the deacons and your Sunday school teachers and our Awana commander, yes, they all have responsibilities as far as teaching goes, but every one of us has a responsibility to one another to help grow each other in sanctification, growing in holiness, growing in godliness and in Christ -likeness.

And last week, as we were looking at the section in Ephesians chapter four, verses 17 through 24,

I put this question in front of you, how do I look? We look to one another in the body of Christ, and we ask each other, how do

I look? How can I be growing more in holiness than I'm already growing now?

And this is how we become a service to one another. So how much are you giving to that effort?

Are you as a Christian doing it half -heartedly? Are you thinning out the paint? And then when the storms of life come, is it going to be able to withstand?

Is the work that you are doing and the help that you are providing for other people, would it be able to withstand the trials of life that come our way?

Or are we equipping ourselves upon Christ with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength so that there would be nothing we have to fear of this life that could possibly shake us from the faith that we have?

Jesus was asked in Matthew 22, what is the greatest commandment?

And he said the greatest commandment is this, that you would love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

And a second command is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus summed up these two commandments by saying, on these two commands depend all the law and the prophets.

These two commandments are not the greatest commandments at the exclusion of all the other commandments.

They are the greatest commandments because they include all of the other commandments.

Every command that we are given in Scripture is meant to point us to loving God and loving each other.

And if we love God, we will love one another. John points this out in 1

John when he says that if you love God whom you cannot see, you should love your brother whom you do see.

If you don't love your brother whom you see, then you cannot love

God whom you do not see. So loving God will demonstrate itself in our lives by loving one another.

When we embarked upon this second half of Ephesians here, and that was starting in Ephesians chapter four,

I said to you, what we always have to keep in mind is the gospel because otherwise we'll come to these commandments and we'll receive them as law and we will despair believing

I'm not good enough to do this and I can't be a good enough Christian until I do all of these things.

Remember, we follow these instructions in light of the fact that Christ has died for our sins.

He has justified us in the presence of God. There is nothing that you can do to earn or gain your justification.

When I came in this morning and I was spending some time in prayer with God and reading the word and even singing hymns to myself,

I sang from Augustus Toplady, Rock of Ages Cleft for Me. And there's a verse in that song where it says that there's nothing that I can do to gain righteousness before Christ.

It is his work and his alone. The work of Christ that is upon our hearts, that justifies us in his presence, that we might be holy before him.

This is a work that God has done in our hearts. Now in light of that, in light of the fact that you have believed the gospel and you know that God has forgiven you of your sins, you know that you have an entrance into his eternal kingdom because of faith in Christ.

Therefore, verse 25, put away falsehood and everyone speak the truth with his neighbor.

For we are members of one another. We do this in light of the fact that we have been transformed by the gospel.

What will that transformation look like? Last week we looked at very general instructions, verses 17 through 24, where Paul says that we are no longer to walk in ignorance the way that we did before we came to Christ.

But now having learned Christ, you are to put off the 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, putting on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

So we talked very generally last week about putting on the new self. What Paul looks at now in verses 25 through 32, and indeed as we go on to chapter 5,

Paul gives more specific instructions. So he's prepared the heart for putting on the new.

Now what does the new look like? Well, first of all, it looks like speaking truth with your neighbor. Not lying to your neighbor, not speaking falsehood, but instead speaking truth.

When Jesus said to love your neighbor as yourself, does anybody know where he was quoting from?

He was quoting from Leviticus 19. Jesus wasn't making up a new commandment on the spot.

Now we're New Testament people, so here's what you got to do. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.

He was going back to the law. As a matter of fact, love God and love people, a common slogan that you see on many churches.

Amen, Pastor Nate? We've had that slogan as part of our church before, love God, love people.

That is actually a summary of the 10 commandments. The first four commandments instruct us to love

God. The next six commandments instruct us to love our neighbor. This is what we call the first and second table of the law, summarized in love

God, love people. When Jesus said, love your neighbor as yourself, what he was quoting from was

Leviticus 19. And listen to some of the instructions that we have here that teach us not just what love should look like, but even who our neighbor is that we are to love.

Leviticus 19, starting in verse 9. When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest, and you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard.

You shall leave them for the poor and the sojourner. I am the Lord your God. Now having read that, you might be thinking, well,

I don't have a field, and I certainly don't have a vineyard, so how does this apply to me? Very simply, the principle is that we would reserve a portion of what the

Lord has given us to be able to benefit somebody else with what we have. We might give of what

God has blessed us with to bless another. Furthermore, God even lays out in these two verses who would be identified as our neighbor.

Who did we hear about here? We heard about the poor, we heard about the sojourner, the outsider, the person who's not even a native of our land.

In our case, in the church, it would include those who are in the church who are greatly in need and even those who are outside the church who are greatly in need, the poor and the sojourner.

And we should show this love and demonstration for one another because, as God said,

I am the Lord your God. I have loved you and considered your need. You Israel who

I called out of slavery in Egypt, and so you are to consider the needs of one another.

Let's go on. Verse 11, you shall not steal, you shall not deal falsely. This is important because we see the same instruction come up in Ephesians chapter four.

You shall not lie to one another. We've seen that, haven't we? Speak truth to your neighbor. You shall not swear by my name falsely and so profane the name of the

Lord your God. We've seen that also. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit, right? I am the

Lord. You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until morning.

You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind. You shall fear the

Lord your God. I am the Lord. And here we have more descriptions of who our neighbor would be.

Your neighbor would be your worker, the person whom you've hired to do a job.

Your neighbor would be the deaf or the blind. You shall not put a stumbling block before them, but you shall help them.

Where the deaf cannot hear, you help them. Where the blind cannot see, you help them to see. You be their eyes and their ears.

We help and care for each other, compassionate, loving, kindness, because our

God has been these things for us. I am the Lord your God. You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor.

Here we have another description of who our neighbor is. Our own brothers and sisters. And that might be your flesh and blood, brothers and sisters, or that might be your brothers and sisters in the faith, but they are included under this big umbrella of neighbor.

In fact, you can just take that umbrella, stick it on top of the world because everybody is your neighbor. You shall not hate your brother in your heart.

It's always already quoted from 1 John where he says that you must love your brother whom you see if you love

God whom you do not see. You shall reason frankly with your neighbor, speaking truth, lest you incur sin because of him.

We're going to come back to this again as well. As in Ephesians 4, we've been told, be angry, but in your anger do not sin.

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

I am the Lord. Where Paul says here at the end of this section in Ephesians chapter 4, forgiving one another as God has forgiven us.

Let all bitterness and wrath and clamor and malice be put away from you. Instead, let there be forgiveness.

You could take Leviticus chapter 19 verses 9 through 18 and put it side by side with what we're reading here in Ephesians chapter 4 verses 25 to 32 and you would see that these instructions line up.

The instructions that Israel was given in the Old Testament is the same as the church is being given in the

New Testament. There's no difference between these commandments. And in light of the fact, my brothers and sisters, that we have been called out of slavery, so we are to worship the

Lord our God and love our neighbor as ourselves. How have we been called out of slavery?

Every one of us were slaves to our sins and the passions of our flesh.

Remember what Paul had said in Ephesians 2 verses 1 through 3, you once walked, you were dead in these sins and transgressions in which you were walking.

We were slaves to these things, but we've been set free from that slavery in Christ. So we must therefore not demonstrate ourselves as being slaves to unrighteousness, but we must demonstrate ourselves as being slaves to righteousness.

If Christ has so imputed His righteousness to us, clothed us in His righteousness as we had considered either last week or the week before out of Revelation chapter 3,

I charge you to buy from me garments that have been washed white, garments of righteousness from Christ.

If we wear His righteousness, we should demonstrate righteousness. When I talked to the high school students about this in Bible Lunch Tuesday, I had asked them, what is righteousness?

It's very easy to define just by looking at the first five letters of the word,

R -I -G -H -T. What is righteousness? Right. It's doing what is right.

But not just doing what you think is right, it's doing what

God has said is right. And what is right for us as believers in loving one another, we have here in Ephesians 4 verses 25 through 32.

In light of the instruction that we were just given, that we looked at last week, to take off the old and put on the new, verse 25 says, therefore, we put away falsehood.

You take off the old. You don't walk in lies and falsehood, believing lies, sharing lies, speaking dishonestly, telling half -truths, white lies, put all of that away.

That was your old self. That was your old manner. The old manner was in Satan, who is the father of lies, as Jesus describes him in John chapters 8 and 10.

So we are not to walk in these lies anymore, in falsehood, but we speak truth with our neighbor, for we are members one of another.

In light of the fact that Paul has talked about unity, and we should aspire to unity. Unity has already been purchased in Christ.

He paid for it on the cross. But now we must walk in it. That was the instruction we had in Ephesians 4 verses 11 through 16.

So now, since unity is our desire in the Spirit of God that lives within us all, one body, one spirit, just as we were called to the one hope that belongs to our call.

In light of being called to this, we must have unity with each other because we are members of one another.

How easily is it to keep a relationship together when two people are not honest with one another?

Surely every one of us knows of at least one marriage that fell apart because two people couldn't be honest with each other, because they were lying to one another, because they weren't transparent.

They weren't sharing the truth with each other. You may have had a marriage that fell apart for that same reason.

The lies that you told each other, the truth that you kept from one another, the relationship quickly fell apart.

This happens not just in marriages, it happens in friendships. When two people can't be honest with one another, the relationship is doomed.

It will erode. It will crumble. There's nothing holding it together. It's not built on any sure foundation, which is what the truth is.

The truth is true for everybody, whether they accept it as true or not. But lies are constantly changing, constantly shifting.

In order to maintain one lie, you have to tell another, and you just continue to build this foundation of sand that the building that is being built upon will not survive.

It is only in truth that we are able to have unity with one another in this body.

You've probably heard it said, no one lies to you more than you lie to yourself.

Have you ever heard that said before? Anybody ever shared that? Or maybe you've said that to somebody? That's true, that no one lies to you more than you lie to yourself.

How sane are you able to keep yourself if you continue to tell yourself lies and believe those lies, and suppress the truth, and instead go after the lie because you would rather have this sin that you've convinced yourself is okay?

It will destroy you eventually. That will happen to yourself. It happens in marriages.

It happens in friendships. It happens in families. It can even happen in the body of Christ. If we are not careful, if we do not devote ourselves to the truth, the truth of God's word first of all, because this is going to be the foundation for the building up of our church, but even the way you speak with one another, the things you share with each other, may it be truth, not half stories.

If somebody is asking you a question about something that you don't want to divulge, simply say to that person,

I don't want to answer that question. Don't make up a story. Don't tell a lie, because then you have to tell more lies to maintain the lie, and the trust is gone, and the relationship falls apart.

You're constantly suspicious of one another. You can't believe each other.

And this is not the way that we are to be in the body of Christ. We are to speak truth with one another because we're unified.

In light of the fact that we are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord, as we sing about, and they will know that we are

Christians by our love. So we must put away falsehood and let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.

Now, in this case, the word neighbor often, as I said, you can take that umbrella, you can stick it on top of the world, your neighbor includes everybody.

But the context here specifically is in regards to one another, brothers and sisters in Christ in the church.

And not even just this church, but other churches, others who would proclaim the name of Christ. We're members of one another.

We might worship in different buildings, but if we hold these truths together in Christ, all those basics that we must come to understand in order to be a

Christian, that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father, then we are all brothers and sisters in Christ.

Though we might worship in different places, though we might interpret how that worship is supposed to be done in different ways, yet we are still one together in Christ.

So speak truth with each other, be honest with one another. And it is the truth that helps to grow one another in holiness.

Jesus prayed to the Father in John 17, 17, sanctify them in your truth.

Your word is truth. I told a joke to start out the sermon this morning, just kind of get your attention and to make a point out of what it is that we've been learning out of Ephesians chapter four.

But the joke doesn't sanctify you. It might help you to understand things a little bit better, but it's not sanctifying.

The word of God is sanctifying. The word of God grows you in holiness. The word of God teaches you

Christ likeness. And Jesus spoke truth with us.

So we must speak truth with one another. Verse 26, be angry and do not sin.

Do not let the sun go down on your anger. Paul, once again, is quoting from the Old Testament when he references this passage out of the

Psalms, that we would be angry, but do not sin. There are times when anger is completely warranted.

If you heard this past week, the Democrat town hall that they had on Friday night and you heard the new, or it was

Thursday night, then you heard the news on Friday morning that Beto O 'Rourke, one of the Democrat candidates said that if somebody will not accept the

LGBTQ agenda, then we are going to take away their tax exempt status. Doesn't matter if they are a church, if they're a university, if they're some other charity or ministry, they will lose their tax exempt status because they will not fall in line and bow to our totalitarian government.

And by the way, Beto O 'Rourke is not unique in this. Every Democrat candidate believes the same thing.

He was just the one that decided to say it because he was asked the question. And if you heard that said and you got angry about it,

I tell you, your anger is completely justified that the government would try to inflict upon us.

You can be a Christian, but you have to be a Christian the way we tell you to be a Christian. If you're not a

Christian the way the government says that you must be a Christian, well, we're going to penalize you for it.

It will be illegal and there will be consequences for that behavior. We are completely justified in being angry about that, and that's a completely rational anger.

That is a righteous anger. When someone would blaspheme the name of God, we can be angry about that, and that's not sinful.

But what Paul is cautioning against here is letting that anger fester and then turning into something sinful.

It would turn into what he describes in verse 31 as bitterness, wrath, anger, and clamor.

Bitterness just festers, becomes nasty, gross, wrath.

You actually even want to play out this anger now by either making fun of somebody, calling them names, or even physically harming them or threatening them.

And that's what happens if we let the anger fester. If it goes from being a righteous anger to an unrighteous anger, then it becomes sin.

So Paul says, be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger.

Now some have taken this instruction very literally, that I'm not going to go to bed with any kind of anger in my heart.

Well, if you're like me and you go to bed reading the news, that's really, really hard to do. I really try not to do that.

I try to pick up a book and read instead of reading the news. But sometimes, yeah, my mind gets the better of me and I'm pulling up headlines and reading that before I'm going to sleep and making myself angry as I'm going to sleep.

So some have taken this literally and said, you cannot be angry when you go to bed. I think that's certainly a good principle, especially as I've often heard it applied to marriages.

I'm not going to be mad at my spouse and I'm not going to go to bed angry. I'm going to resolve this matter before we go to bed.

My friends, that's great. That is a wonderful principle to instill in your marriage, to not be angry at the person you're lying next to.

Has anybody ever done that before? You kind of feel the tension because you haven't resolved this problem yet, right?

So it is very, very important, I believe, that before we lay our head down on the pillow, that we are resolving with our spouse.

In fact, the good practice would be you pray with your spouse before bed. You read the Bible together before you go to sleep.

And what is on your minds together as a husband and a wife is the Word of God, is the

Holy Spirit that fills the two of you. That's a wonderful thing to instill in a marriage. So it's a good principle, but don't take this so legalistically to think that you've done something horrible if you went to bed and you went to sleep angry instead of resolving that anger before you went into dreamland.

That's not what's being said here. The principle, rather, that Paul is laying down is that you would just simply not let that anger fester in your heart.

Take care of it soon. Be quick with it. You can go in the Psalms and you can read imprecatory

Psalms. You know what I mean by those imprecatory Psalms? God, break the teeth of the wicked.

Okay, that's an imprecatory Psalm. And some of us struggle with how to, like in light of loving your enemy, how are we to pray those imprecatory

Psalms? Well, you can come to our Thursday night Bible study and hear me teach on that and then you'll learn about the imprecatory

Psalms. Can't come this Thursday night. I won't be here. But that's what we've been talking about on Thursday night.

We've been talking about the Psalms. So you have those certain Psalms that God, crush my enemies, deliver me, and some of those

Psalms are a little bit tough for us sometimes because I'm supposed to love my enemies, and yet here's David praying that you would break the teeth of my enemies.

So there is a righteous anger that we can have, but we shouldn't let that fester.

And even in those Psalms, what you see is David praying, deliver me from my enemies, have vengeance on my enemies, but it quickly shifts right back to praise your name,

O God. The Psalm doesn't end with kill them all. That's not the way the Psalm ends.

Psalm ends with praise unto God. So we're able to resolve that anger that would otherwise turn into something evil if we focus on Christ.

If we understand the patience and the kindness that He has had toward us, then we will be patient with one another, kind to each other.

In Romans 2, we're told that God's kindness and patience toward you is meant to lead you to repentance.

And so likewise, we can be kind to one another even when someone has seriously wronged us, and we would be completely justified in calling that person down and even making a spectacle out of, look at what this person did to me.

But instead being patient toward them with the same motivation that God has toward us, being patient toward us, that we would repent.

So be patient toward them, loving them in kindness so that they too may come to understand their error and repent.

If you try to, for lack of better term, fight fire with fire, someone reviles you so you revile them back, it's just going to escalate, hearts are going to get harder.

You may never see any kind of resolution to that conflict. But what's said to us in 1

Peter 2 is that as our Lord Christ was reviled, He did not revile back, but He entrusted

Himself to Him who judges justly. When I come out of a conflict and I'm looking back on that conflict, here's what

I want to measure myself by. When I'm looking at my behavior in that conflict,

I don't want to measure myself by, did I get every answer right? Did I totally win and dominate that person?

Ha ha. I came out the victor. That's not what I want. What I want to look at is, what was my behavior in the course of that conflict?

Did I behave myself like Christ? Did I revile back?

Or was I as Christ was? When He was reviled, He did not revile back. When He was threatened,

He did not threaten back, but He entrusted Himself to God. And so likewise,

I entrust myself to my Lord, not taking vengeance into my own hands, but placing all things in the hands of God, who is judge of all, including me.

And I'm going to have to answer for the words that I have said to somebody else. And so in our anger, we can be angry in a righteous way, but do not let it turn into bitterness, wrath, anger, unjust anger, and clamor.

Lest we give an opportunity to the devil. That's verse 27. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil.

We read in verse 28, 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 someone in need.

That's almost word for word. That's almost verbatim. The instruction that we saw in Leviticus 19, work, do your work with your hands.

And then you have something that you can share with somebody else. You know what this develops in you?

It matures the charitable heart that you've been given in Christ. It's possible for everyone to be loving.

You can see even unbelievers be loving to one another. Love that looks like love, but in the heart is actually selfish.

It's self -motivated. It's self -righteous. A person who thinks that they can love without God, or they don't have to have

God in order to do good to other people, well, that's self -righteousness. That's idolatry. And God will judge the idolatrous heart.

But we as Christians must understand that we love first because God loved us, 1 John 4, 19. So we have something to give to someone else because God has given to us.

As God has given us love that we are to share with one another, so we must strive to mature in this charity.

And how do we mature in charity? But we do our work with our hands so that we might have something that we can give to one another.

Have you ever heard the old saying, it's not in the Bible, many people think it is, but the old saying, idleness is the devil's handiwork, they're idle hands or the devil's playthings.

You might hear it said that way. Well, it's not in the Bible worded like that anyway, but the principle certainly is.

John Chrysostom, a theologian in the late fourth century said, idleness makes thieves.

If you're idle, if you don't do your work with your hands, then you're going to start thinking about how

I can get something without having to work for it. And you start thinking about robbing from others, manipulating others, taking that which you did not earn and then not giving to anybody.

So let the thief no longer steal. How do we combat thievery? The idea in our minds to take from somebody else to benefit ourselves.

You labor, you do honest work with your own hands so that you may have something to share with someone in need.

Verse 29, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion so that it may give grace to those who hear.

If you've got a pen, underline that one, Ephesians 4 .29.

Anybody know the Christian band Building 429, you know that band? The name of the band comes from this verse.

In fact, I've heard them share the story about this. They were all in a youth group together and in that youth group, they had kind of a slogan or a saying that they would say to one another.

So whenever they saw each other at work or at school or something else, they could say, hey, Building 429, that would be the saying that they would say to each other to remind one another of Ephesians 4 .29.

If they heard somebody speaking in a way that was unrighteous or ungodly or un -Christian, they would call out each other and say, take one another aside and say, hey,

Building 429, build one another up with your words, not tear each other down.

It's very common to have soldiers come to me and say, man,

I'm really having a problem controlling my tongue because there are soldiers all around me that can't control theirs.

Amen, soldiers? All kinds of swearing and flowery speech that you find in the army.

And so with that kind of influence, it's very, very difficult for some of these young soldiers that have come to me and talked to me about this to control their tongues.

And so we'll go through the word of God together and understand it. You know, David praying in the psalm, set a guard over my lips so that I may say what is honoring and pleasing to you.

So we all have this call to not tear one another down with our words, not even let any corrupting talk come out of our mouths in such a way that would tear down a person's conscience.

Maybe you're not directly leveling an insult at somebody else, but are you speaking in such a way that would cause somebody else to stumble?

Even in these ways, we must be careful to submit our speech unto the

Lord. Remember, the greatest commandment again, right? Love the Lord your God with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your...

I did all this in the wrong order, and so now I'm confused. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Mind and strength in particular pertains to the body, does it not? So even our tongues being part of our bodies and with the strength that we have in the

Holy Spirit, submitting our tongues even unto the Lord. For as it says in the book of Proverbs, God hates perverted speech.

Speak that which gives glory unto God and grace to our neighbor, that it may give grace to those who hear.

Maybe even the way that you talk with somebody, maybe the person that you're talking to is not getting what you are saying, but somebody next to you could overhear that.

Would the words that you say give grace even to those who are outside the conversation? They would hear a person who is loving, who speaks with the grace of Christ and not with their own personal human judgment.

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

In reading this verse in particular, I think back to Samson in the book of Judges, when Samson disobeyed and disobeyed and disobeyed, and he tried to do things his way and he would not submit to God's way.

When he finally revealed to Delilah the source of his strength was in his hair, and she brought in a Philistine barber to cut his braids off.

It says next that when Samson, or when Delilah told Samson, the

Philistines are upon you, he jumped up to fight them. But the passage says he did not know that the

Holy Spirit had left him. And this is what can happen to us if we persist in disobedience, is that the

Spirit of God that once governed over our lives, that once unified us with the body of Christ would be grieved to the point of abandonment.

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Remember that we started reading Ephesians, reading that we have been predestined.

We have been chosen. We have been sealed by the Holy Spirit for that day of redemption.

So in light of the fact that God has chosen us, in light of the fact that He has given us the

Holy Spirit of God and sealed us for that day of Christ, shouldn't that want you to submit yourself fully unto the one who chose you and called you in His name?

Lord, you have chosen me. I was a sinful wretch. I had rebelled against God in every way, and yet you loved me, and Jesus died for me.

What a great sacrifice to purchase me by His blood.

And so in light of this, God, my Savior, I want to do all things to please you.

Should that not be the attitude and the response in our hearts? Knowing that sealed in the

Spirit of God, we conduct ourselves in a way that is reflective of the

Holy Spirit that is within our hearts. Verse 31, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice.

Slander, again, that's contrasted with speak the truth to your neighbor. Do not slander one another.

Verse 32, summed up, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.

My friends, I'm really quite astounded at the number of professing Christians that I encounter who say to me that they have a grudge against somebody else and cannot forgive them.

Now I don't say this self -righteously. I've been in this place before as well, holding grudges and bitterness in my heart toward someone else, but this is not the way that we as Christians are supposed to live.

And bitterness destroys people. And instead, we should have an attitude of forgiveness.

Though this person never comes to us and asks us for forgiveness, yet the condition in our heart should be forgiving and not holding a grudge, not letting bitterness fester.

When I was in college, I had a pastor who talked about this, who talked about holding grudges, and he explained holding a grudge like this.

Holding a grudge is when you have taken a person that you're directing your bitterness toward and you have a dungeon in your heart, you've taken them down to and chained them up in that dungeon.

And every once in a while, you like to venture down into the dungeon and just beat them up a little bit. Now does that actually affect the person that you have a grudge against?

No. You're doing it to yourself. You just harm yourself. But it will destroy you if you let the sun go down on your anger.

Joshua Myers is a police officer in Alabama and somebody who listens to when we understand the text.

And I've visited with him via social media. I had set up with him a time to give him a call this past week, but I got busy and it didn't work out.

Joshua Myers was on duty during the largest mass shooting that happened in the state of Alabama's history.

It's called the Geneva County Massacre, which occurred on March 10th, 2009. There was a man that started killing his own relatives and then he just started killing people as he was going down the street.

Joshua Myers was on duty when the massacre began and pursued the subject into a factory.

Joshua Myers did not know at this time that his wife and daughter were already two of the victims.

And when the subject was chased into the factory, he turned the gun on himself and killed himself. And it just kind of popped into Josh's mind.

He thought, you know, I wonder if my family's okay. You know, you hear about things like something will happen in the news, something that hits close to home.

So you want, well, I wonder if my family's okay. So that occurred to him and he called his home and someone answered the phone and said, you need to get here as quickly as you can.

In talking about this, Josh said the following, forgiveness is required in the

Christian life. My wife and 18 -month -old daughter were shot multiple times in a mass shooting murder.

The grace of God empowered me to forgive almost immediately.

Bitterness and hate will destroy you. We as Christians cannot afford to keep these grudges and this bitterness in our heart toward one another.

And Jesus even lays it down in some harsh, but some very loving words.

When at the end of the Lord's prayer in Matthew chapter six, he says, for if you forgive others their sins, your heavenly father will also forgive you of your sins.

But if you do not forgive others their sins, neither will your heavenly father forgive you of your sins.

If we know that the forgiveness of God is ours, then we must demonstrate this forgiveness with one another.

In Colossians chapter three, often a place that I go to whenever we start talking about instructions for the

Christian, instructions for the believer. We are told in Colossians 3, 12, put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.

Verse 13, now for those following along with me, bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the

Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. No one has sinned against you nearly to the degree that you have sinned against God.

And yet, if you are a follower of Christ, God has forgiven you.

As Paul even said to the Colossians, he took your sin debt and nailed it to the cross.

It was paid for by the blood of Christ. And so if you know that you who are undeserving of forgiveness have been forgiven by the grace of God, so you must forgive others, even though what they probably deserve is the anger and bitterness that you have toward them and more.

You know, we're always kind of looking for a pass and you see this in the culture all the time. We're looking for a license to be able to complain about our circumstance and hate someone else and for the rest of the culture to get alongside us.

I hate this person because what they did to me. Well, what did they do to you? They did this, this, and this. Oh yeah, well you, you're right.

You have all manner and reason to hate or be angry at that other person. You will find people in this world who will be totally okay with the anger and the bitterness and the grudge that you hold against someone else because they likewise have anger and bitterness and grudges that they're holding toward other people.

But we're not supposed to behave and live and conduct ourselves in a way according to the world standard.

We are to be as Christ, Christians, meaning we wear the name of Christ growing in Christ likeness and holiness.

We must be forgiving for our Lord God was forgiving toward us. We must all conduct ourselves in such a way that is reflective of the love that Christ has for us and the forgiveness that He has toward us.

Bitterness will destroy us, lies will break down relationships, laziness and idleness will cause us to covet what other people have.

If we don't keep watch over our own lips, we speak corrupting talk instead of those things which gives glory to God and grace to those who hear.

My friends, we must constantly be reminded of the gospel of Christ. You who were once dead in your sins have been made alive together with Christ.

So walk in love, in the love that God has shown you. With you

I'm sure, Redeemer, art.

While I stand, Savior of my heart,

Who counts all cares to take,

Bounty and of grace,

Reign in my soul from all things stray,

Shine on us with the light of Thy pure day.

Sustain us by Thy faith,

And by Thy strength,

May we ever stay with Thee.

Our faith is built, it's free.

Lord, give us peace and make us calm and sure.

If we ever... From the

Apostle writing to the church in Corinthians, 2 Corinthians chapter 13, verse 11 and 14.

Finally, brothers, rejoice, aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the

God of love and peace will be with you. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the

Holy Spirit be with you all. And all God's people say, Amen. Thank you.

Thank you for listening to our weekly sermon presented by First Southern Baptist Church of Junction City, Kansas.

For more information about our church, visit fsbcjc .org.

On behalf of our church family, my name is Becky, inviting you to join us again this week, Throwing Together in Christ, when we understand the text.