Grieve Not The Holy Spirit, Produce Life Instead

Today's Old Testament reading will be in Ezekiel 47, 1 through 12.

That's page 734 in your pew Bible. Please stand for the reading of God's word.

When he brought me back to the door of the temple, and behold, water was issuing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east, for the temple faced east.

The water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar.

Then he brought me out by the way of the north gate, and led me around on the outside of the outer gate that faces toward the east.

And behold, the water was trickling out on the south side. Going on eastward with a measuring line in his hand, the man measured a thousand cubits, and then led me through the water, and it was ankle deep.

Again he measured a thousand, and led me through the water, and it was knee deep. Again he measured a thousand, and led me through the water, and it was waist deep.

Again he measured a thousand, and it was a river that I could not pass through, for the water had risen.

It was deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be passed through. And he said to me, son of man, have you seen this?

Then he led me back to the bank of the river. As I went back, I saw on the bank of the river, many trees on the one side and on the other.

And he said to me, this water flows toward the eastern region that goes down to the Araba, and enters the sea.

When the water flows into the sea, the water will become fresh. And wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be many fish.

For this water goes there, and the waters of the sea may become fresh. So everything will live where the river goes.

Fishermen will stand beside the sea, from Enjeti to Eniglam. It will be a place for the spreading of nets.

Its fish will be of very many kinds, like the fish of the great sea. But its swamps and marshes will not become fresh.

They will be left for salt. And on the banks on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food.

Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fail. But they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary.

Their fruit will be good for food. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.

New Testament reading is from Revelation 22, verses 1 through 5, that's page 1041.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and the lamb through the middle of the streets of the city.

Also on either side of the river, the tree of life and its 12 kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month.

The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.

They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads, and night will be no more.

They will need no lamp, no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

Please remain standing. Good morning.

Open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4.

After a little break, we're back in Ephesians 4.

Hopefully, Lord willing to finish it today. As we have looked at it so far in Ephesians 4, we're in the blessed good land of the imperatives, just as Israel was being brought to the wanderings and to the good land of Canaan.

So Jesus has brought us to the land of imperatives, that is his commandments for us to do and to find our life.

And we saw, if you remember, in chapter 4, we saw the beginning of it.

We saw the unity in the land of the imperatives that we can have with one another as we all grow together after the image of Christ, who is the one who gives these blessed commands.

And we saw, starting in verse 17 to 24, the life of the new man and the death of the old in Jesus Christ.

That's the old man of ours, the one that we are born with, the one that is after the image of sin, is being done away with.

And we, through Christ, in the land of the imperatives, get to enjoy the new man. No longer after the desires of the flesh, but rather being renewed in the spirit of the mind, we get to obey

Jesus Christ from the heart. And then, the last sermon we had here, if you remember, in verses 25 to 27.

If you remember, we kind of put both of those two themes together of the unity in Christ that we have as a body, and also the putting away of the old man and the new man coming forth.

And we brought them together, and how we see each other, that we are to help one another, ditch the old man, and grow after the new man.

If you remember, we talked about putting away falsehood and speaking truth to each other. And we said, it's not just simply telling lies or telling truth, that's talking new man to one another.

New man -ish is our new language, that we speak to one another. And our anger is used when we see other people in sin, when we see other people not enjoying the good land of the imperatives, but rather the old man.

We have an action or reaction to it and love for them to get that out.

And we saw in this way, there will be no opportunity for Satan. And so now we find ourselves continuing on in this paragraph in Ephesians 4, 28, of how we can live in unity with one another, helping each other, get rid of the old man, and enjoying the new.

And so we see in verse 28, in the ESV, it comes pretty cleanly. We have three lets, and that's the negative followed by the positive.

If you look at verse 28, I'll read and then I'll pray. 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, wrath, anger, clamor, slander be put away from you along with all malice.

Rather, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God and Christ forgave you.

Father in heaven, help us please with this text. Help us, Lord, to look at your word, your perfect word that makes no mistakes.

And let us apply it to our heart, to who we are as people who are prone to mistakes. And we're prone,

Lord, to want our own selfish desires, rather than what you have for us in Jesus Christ.

But you have all things for us in Christ, and you have enabled by your spirit for us to help one another out, look more like the new man, and forsake the old.

God in heaven, so let us receive this instruction by grace. Lord, let us do these things motivated by the mercies that are found in our

Lord and the gift of the spirit he has given. God in heaven, thank you that we can treat one another in ways that produce life and not in ways that produce curses and death.

Thank you that we can look like Jesus and no longer like Satan. So let us look to this word, let us look to Christ, and let us behold the land of the imperatives, and enjoy its sweet fruit, and eat, and enjoy, and produce in its season.

In Jesus' name, amen. I love the imagery of Genesis chapter one, the first couple of verses there.

I love the text reads, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

And so before there was ever any kind of life, there's just this big blob of creation. In the beginnings,

God created the heavens and the earth. And so you just imagine this huge mass of something that has no particular life associated with it.

All the necessary elements of life is found in there, but it hasn't quite had the moving around and separating that is needed in order for life to start happening.

And what's fascinating is that in verse two, that Moses says, the earth was without form, and void and darkness was over the face of the deep.

And the spirit of God was hovering over this mass of chaos.

And the imagery there of the spirit hovering over this mass of chaos, no life at all, just kind of big blob -ness.

The Hebrew there that's used, that the spirit was hovering over there, is a good picture of mine is to consider a hen that's brooding over her eggs that have no life in it yet, because it needs a hen to brood over it for a while before life starts to form.

But nevertheless, the hen is brooding over those eggs, and there's life capable there, it just hasn't happened yet.

And it's the same kind of language that we see here, that the Holy Spirit is brooding over creation, anticipating when the word, the

Logos, would command, let there be light. And then everything else in the week that provided the life.

And the Holy Spirit is brooding over that whole situation, waiting for it so that life would come forth.

And then you have the whole week of life as the spirit is brooding over the earth, the whole week of life then happens.

And it's very, again, imagine seeing all that take place, it would be awesome in its truest form.

It'd be great to witness life just happening throughout that first week of creation, coming from the spirit with the command of Christ Jesus our

Lord. But it pales in comparison to the fact that the Holy Spirit was brooding over your spirit at one point.

That at one point you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked. And you had no life in you at all because of your rebellion, yet the

Holy Spirit was brooding over your lifeless chaos -ness. As he awaited the command of the

Logos of the Son of God to say, let there be light in your souls. And so I love the imagery and I love the shadowy forms of the fact that as the

Holy Spirit brooded over creation at the first as life produced, so he broods over you at first when life is produced.

And then in your own life now as a believer in Jesus, you have this sweet week of creation in which new life is forming in you as the

Holy Spirit doesn't say, okay, my work is done at the first. But he then makes his abode in you.

He's in you so that you would then start producing life throughout the whole week as we anticipate the great

Sabbath day rest in which all life is completed and we get to enjoy that life completed when he returns, when

Jesus returns. I like the imagery of life here and the Holy Spirit in the scripture is always like the cornerstone of that production of life, that means of life that is producing in us in this week of life that we have as we anticipate when

Jesus returns. And I think that little doctrine set there, that imagery there, keep that in your mind as we are looking at these verses here in Ephesians 4.

And the hinge that these let not do this instead, let not do this instead, let not do this instead, the hinge that these commands from Paul are on are found in chapter 4, verse 30, when he says,

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption, for that Sabbath day rest in which all is redeemed, life complete, as we just live the life that he has been working in us.

But notice Paul says, do not grieve the work of the Spirit as he works this lifeness in you in this week of creation in your life.

Do not grieve him or do not stop or attempt to stop his progress.

Now, before we get to the three lets and we look at these, I think it's important for us to see this verse 30, to see how this do not grieve the

Spirit as he's working this life in you, we got to understand this is the anthropomorphism.

It's a big word, I know. It's anthropomorphism. That is that Paul is putting an attribute of humanness on God for us to understand something about God.

You see what I mean? The Spirit doesn't enter into a state of grief. Okay, it's not like I can come in today and say, hey guys,

I've been grieving the Holy Spirit with my sin. I've been working against the life that he's trying to produce in me.

And so guess what? The Holy Spirit is in a state of grief right now. I'm sorry to say it, but he is just straight up grieving, right?

I can't say that because the Spirit doesn't enter into any other state than what he's already in. So the next person could come and be like,

I've been acting really righteously and full of life. I thought the Spirit is actually full of happiness. That's a state right now.

So we can't say that the Spirit literally joins or goes into another state of being.

But Paul, that doesn't mean that what he's saying here in verse 30 isn't true. There is something about when we are sinning against God and the life that he's producing in us that we are grieving the

Holy Spirit. Now we can't say it's completely understand what that looks like because he is God and we are not.

But there is something true about the fact that we are grieving him. We are making him sad as we counter work against that life that he's producing in us during this week of our life, so to speak, as we await the final end.

And so I think the three, let not or don't do that, do this instead, hinges on this verse in which he says, do not stop or impede or grieve the

Spirit as he's working life in you today, right now. The life that he's brooding over you that you had at first as he called you into life and the one that he's producing in you now as you live righteously, do not impede that.

Do not grieve him as he's working in that to make you look like that final day of redemption when you have it all.

Do not grieve him. So what are those three things that we can do to grieve him and that process, that life that he's given to us?

What are the three ways we can impede life in our life, so to speak, the way we live our life? And we'll see that in verse 28, verse 29 and verse 31.

28 is our work or the way if we steal, we need a labor instead, right?

We need to be producers of life in the way that we work instead of taking away from life in the way that we steal.

In verse 29, we'll see in the way that we talk, and we've already kind of talked about this before, in the way that we talk, it'll either be producing life or it'll be corruption and taking away life, grieving the

Spirit. And we'll see in verse 31 and 32, the way we respond to those who have sinned against us, we can either respond in a way that will produce life that the

Spirit is doing in us or we can grieve the Spirit in the way that we respond when people sin against us.

And so let us look at the first one. Let us look at the first thing Paul brings up of the way that we can either grieve the

Spirit or produce life as the Spirit is working in us anticipating that last day of full life.

He says in verse 28 of chapter 4, let the thief no longer steal.

Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands.

So that's kind of easy for us to put in our brain, right? If you want to talk about corruption and death and non -life, consider stealing, right?

Because that's literally what you're doing. I didn't labor. I didn't produce. I didn't work. I'm going to take someone else who labored and produce and take it as my own and literally corrupt or take away from life that was produced, right?

I'm going to steal and not produce myself. So we can see how that hinge of verse 30 works here, right?

If you want to grieve the Holy Spirit, if you want to work against the life that He's producing in you actively now, then steal and don't work hard and labor hard with your own hands.

That's what you should do. And it's very fascinating in pagan culture, and what I mean by that is culture that is not influenced by Christian doctrine and teaching, stealing is very, very prominent.

Stealing is a very active thing in pagan culture. In fact, the Greek, the way that this is written in verse 28, let the thief no longer steal, you could translate it, those of you who are still stealing, stop it.

You can basically translate it that way. He's assuming that there's people, new converts in the

Ephesus area, who is still living out that common pagan practice of stealing, and he says those of you who are still doing that, you need to stop, right?

That is not life -giving. That's not what the Spirit is doing in you. You are grieving the Spirit by doing that. You need to stop stealing.

And we see in our own culture, don't we? We see in our own culture as our culture does this fascinating slide away from Christian, dominant

Christian principles to a pagan culture. We see the rise of what? Stealing. We see it on the news all the time, don't we?

And we see wicked magistrates have no laws to try to curb it. Instead, they support it with the way that they govern their land.

And so we see that there is something very prominent in pagan cultures that without the doctrine of Christ, without the truth of the scriptures, stealing is all too often a common practice that we do in our old man self.

We don't produce. Instead, we take away. We steal. A question I want to ask,

I want to just spend a few moments on, is why? Why is that the case? Why is stealing so prominent in the old man and the old way of living?

Why is that such a common practice? Well, if you look at verse 23 or 22 of chapter 4, you remember

Paul says, put off your old self, right? That is the self that we're born with, right?

The one that is without Christ. He says, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires.

Enough can't be said about the desires of the flesh. There could be a huge book written about how sin operates based off of deceitful desires.

That is a worthy study to behold. That is very helpful for you to understand where your own sin comes forth from.

But notice Paul here says in verse 22 that the old self is corrupt through deceitful desires. And the reason why stealing is so prominent in the world without Christ is because stealing is considered as how can

I have all the enjoyments of life? How can I have all the entertainments of life, all the play of life, without having to do that pesky thing called work?

How can I have these desires of the flesh, these deceitful desires of the flesh that come so easily with entertainments, come so easily with eating and drinking, right?

With all these things that are just easily you can have fun doing, how can I do those things without having to do that pesky thing called work?

And it really is a dominant mind, right? Whenever you are motivated and that becomes your idol,

I just want to have good feelings. I just want to feel good in every way. I don't like anything that impedes that.

It makes sense why the end result would be to steal. Because I don't want to do that thing called labor.

I don't want to do that thing called work that gets in the way of these deceitful desires that I want so bad. And so we could see why when we have a culture filled with old man -ness and philosophy that just comes forth from it, stealing would be the nth degree, would be the final end.

Because it's simply just wanting to appease your deceitful desires without doing anything that has to get in the way of that.

We see that in our own culture, don't we? And in fact, I grew up as a millennial. You know, I was raised by baby boomers.

And baby boomers, they had like an understanding, work hard, right? And don't steal, work hard, right? And that's what they would say.

And then millennials like me would say, well, why? It doesn't feel good to work hard. It feels really good to play.

So why would I want to work hard? Why would I want to do that? And so what you see is a very terrible work ethic in our own day.

And then you see the nth degree of that is a lot of stealing. You see how it kind of works that way.

But you see the scriptures, they don't have work and play separated.

And that work is some kind of necessary evil to do in order to get our desires to play. The scriptures don't have it separated that way.

The scriptures put work and play right here. They're two different things, no doubt, right? If you're working, you're not like, oh,

I'm having the greatest time of my life watching this movie or doing whatever the entertainment is. It's different things, but they're very much right here together.

They're not over here like that to where you got to throw one out in order to just grab the other. The scriptures have them right here next to each other.

To look at that, hear me as I read, or you can go there, Ecclesiastes. Look what

Solomon says in chapter 2, verse 24. He says there is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil.

This is also I saw is from the hand of God. For apart from him, who can eat or who can have an enjoyment?

And so look at, notice how those things are nestled together. There is nothing better than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil.

That's something that the world cannot understand today. In fact, in Ecclesiastes, look at chapter 3.

He says something similar when he says in verse 12, I perceive that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live.

Also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil. This is

God's gift to man. So notice there is this play aspect, eat and drink, play, entertainment, enjoy enjoyment in that way.

But there's also a take an enjoyment and toil and work and labor that both come together.

Your entertainment, your enjoyments, all that, it has meaning because of your hard work that you do.

Your hard labor actually makes you enjoy the things of enjoyment and entertainment more.

And they both kind of come together like this. And so when you take the work out and you just have an idol of just entertaining yourself, then what happens is that becomes everything.

You lose all the enjoyment that God has given you for entertainment and everything. It becomes everything to you.

And you end up doing things like stealing. And so Paul, what he's saying here is he's saying that instead of stealing, you need to work with your hands.

And again, those two things are not opposed to one another. A play of entertainment, they're not opposed to each other.

They're up here next to one another. He says, instead of having your God be play, let your

God be the true God and work hard. This is production of life.

This is how you produce. In verse 28, let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor and let him do honest work with his own hands.

So we see this is the answer. This is the answer to someone who wants to steal. The answer is that your full enjoyment in entertainment and play is not found in letting it be your

God, but rather it is found in proper work and working hard. Those things come together in that way.

Let him labor and do honest work with his own hands. But notice he doesn't stop there.

The production that Paul says we need to do isn't just simply work hard and stop stealing, but it is with the working hard, the wealth that you put on, you then need to share that with others.

So notice how he kind of ups the ante of production. Not only are you to produce hard with your hard work, but you also are to then be eager to give to others.

Look what he says in verse 28. He says, so that he might have something to share with anyone in need.

Now, again, if your whole God, if your whole idol is, I just wanna have a good time and be entertained with my wealth, you're not gonna be thinking,

I want to use my wealth in a way that's going to help others, are you? And again, notice the culture that we're in that's obsessed with entertainment and play.

They are not thinking of how can I contribute to others? We notice that giving to charities and everything is on an all -time low when just simply entertaining and play becomes on an all -time high.

And so notice that the life of the spirit provides the new man is that you don't have a life just geared on,

I just want to play entertainment, but rather I want to work hard, enjoy my entertainment in light of working hard.

And so much is entertainment, not my idol, that I'm willing to give of the extra that I have to others.

This, as a Christian, this as a person who is a new man with his neighbor, this is one who is producing life.

I'm not gonna steal, I'm going to work, and with my labor, with the produce I get, I'm going to be happy to share with others.

Notice the contrast of that old man of stealing and that new man of giving there.

And it only happens when you have a grounded understanding of work and play. That the

Bible provides. So again, he says, let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, do an honest work with his own hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.

This is the answer that our culture is crying out for as we see the response of falling into paganism.

In verse 29, he continues with the next one of the work that the spirit does in us that we can grieve him with if we are not following and step with him when he talks about our talk, the way we communicate.

Look at verse 29, if you want to grieve the spirit, then, or if you don't want to grieve the spirit, then let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up.

So again, let no corrupt talk come out of your mouth, but only such as is good for building up.

So we see corruption there. We see that if you want to tear down, if you want to not produce, if you want to not build up, then you will have corrupting talk come out of your mouth to your neighbor.

You'll have talk of corruption. Now, what does that mean? And what does it mean, again, that the flip side of that is to have talk that is building up to one another?

Well, we just went from the physical, right, stealing and giving, right, that's deeply physical, to now the talk of corruption talk and building up talk is deeply spiritual.

Corrupting talk, if you, again, if we look at what he said previously, look what he says in verse 22 once more.

We already looked at that, but it's worth looking at it again for this context. He says, to put off, in verse 22, chapter four of Ephesians, he says, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires.

So that's what he's talking about there. Corruption is decaying death, right? And that old man death is living unrighteously, sinfully, right?

In a way that is not beneficial to God at all.

Instead, it's just simply death living, right? And so what he's saying is, going back to our verse right now, he says, don't let your talk to one another be of one of corruption to one another.

In other words, the things that you say do not influence the person you're talking to to be built up in Christ.

Rather, it only influences them to be built, or not built down, but to be corrupted down, not being built up in Christ.

There is a way that we talk to one another that we've kind of talked about in the last few weeks, in which we can either be corrupting someone with our talk, or we can be building them up into Christ with our talk.

And the desire in the imperative land, as we are unified together to look like Christ, is that every word that I say to my neighbor in Christ would be used for Christ to build them up in his image, and not to tear down, not to corrupt, not to bring them away from Christ.

And look at the strategic -ness of this. He says, as, in verse 29, in the middle there, as fits the occasion.

So he says, don't let any corrupt talk, right? Don't grieve the spirit by talking corruptly. Things that will tear down, bring people away from Christ with your words.

Only talk what is good for building up. That is the way that you won't grieve the spirit.

And notice he says, as fits the occasion. And that's worth meditating on for quite a while, because what he's referring to is our talk needs to be very strategic, right?

We need to consider what would fit the occasion best here, right? As we're going to fellowship with the saints, as we're going to talk with the saints, talk with others, we need to be strategic to say, what does this occasion require for my words to build them up in Christ?

How easy it is for us to talk like the Gentiles do, with no strategic or no plans to how we talk.

We just simply, whatever feels good in the moment, that's what we'll say. But the Christian is very mindful of his words.

The Christian is very mindful and strategic with the words he uses, because he wants every occasion to be met with a proper word for Christ to be showcased, so that person could be raised up in him.

So we are strategic in the way we talk. We don't just gab at the mouth. We don't just say whatever feels good in the moment, but we always want to fit, to meet the occasion with a proper word that will help someone be built up.

Proverbs 15, 23, to make an apt or appropriate answer is a joy to a man and a word in season and a proper occasion, a good word, how good is it?

How good it is to have a word, a proper word in the occasion to meet the occasion.

Colossians 4, 6, Paul says in Colossians 4, 6, let your speech, let your words always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

So again, it's the same kind of thing. There's a strategic, I want to answer, I want to speak well. I want to make sure that each, whatever occasion it is,

I'm meeting it with the best word I can to build people up in Christ. Or 1

Thessalonians 5, 14, when it comes to being strategic and meeting the need, Paul says, and we urge you brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the faint hearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.

Notice the distinction there. He says, and I urge you brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the faint hearted.

What if you admonish the faint hearted, and let me make sure I get this right. What if you admonish the faint hearted, and encourage, oh,

I'm gonna have a hard time with this. What if you, yeah, admonish the faint hearted, and encourage the idle? You get what

I'm saying? What if you were to admonish the faint hearted, and encourage the idle?

That wouldn't be a good thing. It wouldn't be a good word in season, right? The idle needs to be admonished.

They need to be corrected, right? The faint hearted, they need to be encouraged as they are faint hearted.

And so you need to have a proper word for each season. We are strategic in the way we talk to one another to make sure we are building each other up in Christ.

We are strategic in that way. We are mindful of what we say because we are trying to point people to Christ.

Imagine if you will, there's someone who has a major project that he is working on.

Let's say he's building a house. He has a major project that he's working on, and imagine he has no strategy as he's involved with it.

He's just saying, yeah, I want to build this big house, and I'm just going to kind of just go willy -nilly at it. I might make a door first, maybe work on the walls after that, and start working on the upstairs after that.

Maybe I'll get to the foundation after that. We'll see what I want to do. You wouldn't expect that house to look like a house a year from now at all.

The labor would probably stop because he'd be so frustrated. The point is, if he has such a large project, a house to be built, there needs to be plans.

There needs to be strategy. There needs to be plans of how to make sure it gets done well, and if he has none, then we know that that job is not going to be done, and we have a project as Christians, don't we?

It's a major project. It's a big one. It is that we would help each other look more like Christ, that we would be in the land of imperatives and enjoy the land of imperatives and help each other enjoy that land of imperatives, and if we have no plan in the way that we communicate with one another, if we have no plan of how we show each other

Christ in each season of life, whatever they're in, then we can't expect at all for that project to get done the way we want it to get done, and so the point is that if we are loving

Christ, if we want to look like him so much, if we don't want to grieve the spirit, we'll only be producing life for one another, and Paul says our speech matters.

We need to be actively strategically thinking, how can I speak life in this situation with my neighbor?

I think far too often we can be like Gentiles, me included, in which we just simply say whatever feels good to us the most or whatever we think might be funniest, so the one

I struggle with a lot is sarcasm, is simply just being sarcastic constantly.

Sarcasm is very easy. It's a very lazy way to communicate with one another. There's a time where it can be helpful and funny and you can enjoy that, but sarcasm, a little bit goes a long way, and I personally find myself,

I can look at a conversation I had with a brother or sister and see that I did not give good words at all.

That was good for his upbuilding. I just simply just did whatever I thought was funny and easy to me, which again happens to be sarcasm.

There needs to be a way in which we challenge ourselves. After I've had a conversation, after I've had fellowship, can

I say that that can be used by God in a positive way to build my brother or sister up in Christ?

We need to be considering that daily as we're having that conversation, as we're having that kind of going to the

Lord and asking for help as we grow in this. He says, don't let any corrupt talk come out of your mouth.

In verse 29 of chapter four, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion that may give grace to those who hear, that may give grace to those who hear, that it may build them up in Christ, build them up in the grace of Christ, build them up in the image of Jesus.

And then again, we get to our hinge verse there. In verse 30, we get to that hinge verse that we kind of, everything goes off of, in which he says, and do not grieve the

Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Again, there's that day that the

Holy Spirit is looking to as he's working in you today, that final day of redemption in which you are only life, that's all you're producing is life, no more corruption.

He's working that in you now. We read in Ezekiel and then we read in Revelation that river of life that's coming forth from the temple in Ezekiel, that river of life that's coming forth from the temple and it's just going and it gets deeper and deeper.

It goes to the dead sea and guess what's not dead anymore? The sea, it's full of life. And in fact, there's fishermen and there's fish being brought up from the dead sea.

As of right now, it's dead, but it's anticipating a time in which everything will be alive. And we see, you gotta understand that that's a promise of the spirit who will come, who will produce massive life, right?

Massive life to his people, to where we live a life no longer of deadness, but of life. And then that's that final, what we write in Revelation 22 is that it's a final reality in which there's just simply the tree of life, the river that flows there and it's always producing fruit, right?

We're always producing fruit. We're always fruitful. We're not corrupted. We're not teaching.

We're not speaking corruptly. We're not stealing, rather we're laboring. We're doing these things that are full of life.

And we see that the spirit has an eye on that final reality as it's working production in your life today.

And he says, don't then grieve him as he's doing that work in you today. And notice he uses the word grieving.

It's a word that's really infused with gracious talk, isn't it?

He says, he doesn't say, don't make the spirit mad. Notice he doesn't say, don't make the spirit full of wrath.

He says, don't grieve the Holy Spirit. It's a very kind way to say, don't upset him.

A good imagery of it is like, you know, you grandparents or your parents that have children, you remember whenever they didn't do what you wanted them to do that was good for them, right?

And what does that do? Well, sometimes it would make you angry, mad, and wrathful. But what does that do in your heart, right?

In your better moments? At the very deep level, it grieves you, doesn't it? It saddens you.

The worst thing I could hear from my parents after I messed up was this really grieves me. I'd rather get a spanking any day of the week than to hear my parents say this grieves my heart, right?

It's a very gracious way. It's a very grace -infused way of saying that the spirit does not like when you work against his work of life in you that he's going to complete in the end.

And it grieves him when you work against him in that way. The way that talk there, it's to encourage us more by grace to say,

I don't want to grieve the spirit. I don't want to make him sad or cause him to be sad. I don't want to draw him to be grieved.

Instead, I want to do, as far as I'm called to do, I want my walk to be in tandem or together with him.

So that hinged verse there, do not grieve the spirit by whom you're sealed for the day of redemption.

Do not work against this life that he's producing in you. And then this final let in verse 31, he says, well, let me set it up first.

Verse 31 and 32, I think they're connected here, right? That's how we've been going through, right? It's let not negative, but rather do this, right?

And so it's the same thing here. Let all negative, bitterness, all that stuff be put away from you. And then it says, but rather do this.

So that's what 31 and 32 is looking at. But I want to set it up this way. This is, imagine you have a brother or sister in Christ, and they act in a way to you that is sinful, that is not right, right?

They treat you in a way that is wrong. And really to make this even more,

I think, to make it more understandable, imagine it's someone whom you're very, very close to.

Because the things that he's going to describe here, we can typically keep that out of the way when it's someone that we're not too close to, right?

If it's someone that we see maybe every Sunday, we can perhaps kind of avoid some of the things he says, don't do, that's going to be corruption.

But the ones who are very near to you, imagine if you're, you know, the relationships you have in your home, right?

Your spouse, your child, or if you're a child, imagine your parents, your best friend, right? That you are so intimately close to.

It's ironic that the ones that we struggle most to not do what we're about to talk about here are the ones that are closest to us.

So as you're looking at this, as you're looking at how to react to people who have wronged you, imagine it being the closest person to you in which it is so easy to react wrongly to.

And he says the negative first, he says, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice.

So if you want to grieve the spirit, then when someone wrongs you like that, imagine your closest, your husband, your wife, your child, whatever, when someone wrongs you, if you want to grieve the spirit, then act bitterly, right?

He says, let all bitterness be put away from you. Bitterness here in verse 31, someone wrongs you, bitterness here is like the fountainhead where everything else comes forth from.

Bitterness, you know that feeling within you, right? When you've been wrong and in the pit of your stomach, you are feeling a certain way about this person that is not for their wellbeing, is it?

That bitterness, that bad feeling you have in your stomach for that person that has wronged you, right?

That's like a bitter feeling that you don't want their best at all, you want revenge. And he says that this is a fountainhead, or this is the beginning, this is the fountainhead of everything that comes forth, that when you have that settled feeling of bitterness when someone wrongs you, then wrath and anger come shortly after.

But then just real quick, look at the flip side of that though. Instead, he says in verse 32, be kind.

And so that's the counterbalance here. Instead of having bitterness come within your heart in which anger and wrath come forth, he says rather be kind instead.

When someone wrongs you, you have two options. You can be bitter or you can be kind, is what he's saying here.

And bitterness is the fountainhead of wrath and anger. Now you might say, weren't we just told by Paul to be angry at sin?

Yes, but that's in the context of wanting the betterment of your neighbor. This is in the context of embitterment.

You want the worst for your neighbor. I am angry that they did that to me. And so now I'm going to let them have it.

It is far too often when we are upset with our closest neighbor because that's when it happens most often.

Instead of having a, they did this wrong and now I just want them to grow from it.

I want their betterment for it. It is so often that bitterment takes its place. And so then what comes forth from us as we deal with that sin is wrath and anger.

In fact, he gives two other descriptions of it. He says clamor and slander, clamor and slander.

Clamor is like a loud noise. You know, clamor is like a loud noise. And so what happens is you are bitter because of what they did.

And so now you react with what? Yelling, yelling. And we might say, well, I'm yelling because of what they did.

You should see what they did. And that explains my yelling, right? And Paul here is saying, do not let bitterness take hold of your heart when someone reacts to you wrongly in which it leads to yelling or clamor.

And he says, let slander be put away from you as well. In verse 31, slander is kind of like, you know, if clamor is the yelling, slander is kind of like the quiet, you know, angrily speaking against someone maybe behind their back, right?

That's like the two different evidences of bitterness in your heart that you would either yell, that's typically a male way to do it, or kind of like the speaking behind their back or quietly about them.

You're still doing the same thing as yelling. It's just, you're doing it in a different way, in a more slanderous way, speaking about them behind their back, trying to cut them down because you're bitter against them.

You don't want their building up. You don't want their life. Instead, you want to speak ill about them.

And the greatest way we can see, right, if this is happening, right, you as a

Christian, you can ask yourself, am I letting bitterness take hold of my heart when something's wronged me?

As you can say, what goes on in my house? And I've already been alluding to that because this stuff tends to show itself in the privacy of your home.

Typically, you can put on a good enough smile on Sunday mornings for a couple hours and then get out without this stuff showcasing your bitter heart.

But the question you can ask yourself to really challenge yourself this morning is what does my house look like?

What happens when my spouse does something that I perceive to be wrong? What happens when my child does something that I perceive to be wrong?

If you find yourself in a situation where you are yelling or you're slandering or speaking down upon them, you are doing it wrong.

That is not the right way. You can, as self -assured, you know that bitterness is within your heart because you're looking at the person that you love, you're supposed to love, and you do not want their best, but instead you want to feel better by making them feel worse.

This is a way of death. This is a cancer. This is a way of which life is not going to follow that.

And so we need to see this, that bitterness, when it takes hold, it will lead to wrath, anger, clamor, and slander.

It will bring a desire within our heart to not help our loved ones out.

Being a parent, I can't help it. This is where I struggle most with this, right? And then my wife and then everyone else around is

I can tell in my heart when my child does something wrong, I can tell when I have a desire for their good in that.

And I can tell when I'm just straight up this has irritated me and I'm annoyed and I just want to cut them down because I'm annoyed, right?

And that's the same with our spouse. It's the same with our best friends, their closest ones. You can tell whenever they have wronged you, you can tell what's in there.

Is it bitterness? And which is going to produce a desire to cut them down and not build them up, not produce life.

Paul says, put this all away from you. Put it all away from you. When someone has wronged you, do not let bitterness take root in your heart.

Rather, what needs to be there is you need to be kind. I love that in verse 32.

This is the way of life right here is that when someone wrongs you, the first desire within your heart, the first thing that you need to do is be kind.

But that's a verb. That is literally, he says, be kind. There's gonna be times where someone wrongs you and you feel that bitterness in there, right?

And as you challenge yourself more, you can kind of, you can feel things better. You know what's going on more.

And so you'll feel that tug of bitterness, right? That irritation. And that there needs to be the word of God in your heart that says,

I'm called to be kind instead. I'm called to be kind. And how we can define kindness or being kind is to want the best for one another, to want life for that person.

That you're able to look past the fact that you are offended and say, but I want your best to look like Christ here.

That the greatest thing that's wrong with the situation is not that you offended me, is that you have offended

God by sinning against me, right? That I want you to look more like Christ so much that I'm willing to not get bitter and everything over the fact that you've wronged me.

And I just simply want to look to you for your best interest. I want you to look more like Christ. You have sinned in this way. There's a big difference how we approach someone with you have sinned against me and I'm angry or you have sinned against the

Lord by your sin against me and I wanna help you. A huge difference between the two. The former is going to bring someone to death.

The latter is gonna bring that person, well, it's gonna be, it can be used by God to bring them to life.

And so as you're approaching someone, ask yourself, as you're approaching your child, your spouse, close friend, ask yourself,

I'm going to point out something that they did that I perceive to be sin and are you doing it because you want them to grow after the image of Christ or are you doing it because you have been offended and how dare they do such a thing?

Now, one little sidebar from that is a lot of times, the offense, we see something happen, we hear something that's happened, right?

And we get angry, we feel like it's a sin, right? And they did something wrong, we need to approach them.

And a lot of times, if we stay sober -minded with the desire for their good, when we go up to them and say, hey, this is what happened and I feel like you sinned.

Then they say, well, no, no, I didn't mean it that way. This is what I was thinking. And it becomes actually, they didn't really sin, it just seemed like it.

But once you guys talked, it looked, actually wasn't that bad. But if you go to them saying, you did this against me, how dare you do this against me?

Are you gonna have an ear to listen to them say, well, I think you're seeing it wrong? No, and so what's gonna happen is there's big miscommunication, all this hatred, all this corruption, all this death because you did not have a heart that says,

I want their best first and foremost before I just let them have it because I've been offended. This is the way of life that when we have been wronged, we do not follow the dictates of bitterness, of their hurt, but rather we follow what is kind, that is what's for their upbuilding.

And look at verse 32, it produces a tenderheartedness. That's not a good word right there, tenderhearted.

Your heart is tender to what? To my own needs, to the fact that they sin against me.

How dare they? No, you're tenderhearted to your brother or sister who needs Christ, right? That this potential sin points to an error that they have that's keeping them from enjoying the imperative land of Christ.

And you're so tenderhearted for them, I want them to enjoy Christ. That's what I want more than anything. I want them to enjoy

Christ. And so what will that then lead you? It'll lead you to have a forgiving heart.

He says forgiving one another in verse 32, forgiving one another. It leads you to have a forgiving heart, a desire to forgive them.

So even as your brother or sister sin against you, your greatest desire is to want to forgive them. You want to point out their sins so they can say, please forgive me.

And you can say, of course, my brother and sister, you are forgiven. But whenever we have, again, bitterness instead, really forgiveness is not really on your mind.

It's letting them have it is on your mind. But as we desire their best, as we desire life, as we desire production, the things that the spirit is working in us for that day of full redemption, we have a desire to forgive one another.

And I like how he settles this here, ending out this verse. It's, we all, we all struggle with forgiving one another.

Not one of us is so clean with that. Like, oh, I just always have a forgiving heart. I never had bitterness in my heart.

We all struggle with this. We all struggle with, and this is one of the biggest things you'll hear as you're trying to help someone to forgive, to have a heart of forgiveness for them, is you'll say, yeah, but you didn't see what they did.

You didn't, you don't know what they did. You don't know what I've been through. You didn't see that. Or let me tell you just what they did.

You won't be telling me to have a forgiving heart, to be kind, to want their upbuilding, right? You'll hear that.

You just, you don't know the situation. You don't know the evil that they did. And so I like how Paul grounds the ability or desire to forgive one another when we're wrong with what?

Look at the end of verse 32. As God and Christ forgave you. And we've, most of us has probably heard that.

The sin that anyone commits against you pales in comparison with the sin that you've committed against the eternally awesome, holy, perfect God.

And the moment that you have a hard time forgiving other people, it shows that you are not meditating and appreciating the fact that God in Christ has forgiven you.

And so really the problem there then becomes not the sin that they've done against you to where you point to it and say, well, look at that.

The problem is that you are not meditating on the great sin you've committed against the Father that he willingly forgave in Christ for you.

And so the person who's struggling, you who are struggling with forgiving a brother or sister, now you might have done it a week ago, but it's still lingering.

You got the bitterness that came back on. Oh, I feel it, right? And so you get to bring it back to the Lord. And how do you bring it back to the

Lord? Oh God, you've forgiven me greatly. And so I want to gladly forgive others.

And so the greatest problem with this cancer of not giving life to others by having a forgiving heart is that you are not meditating on the forgiveness that Christ has provided for you.

And as you meditate upon that, then it gives you that energy, that desire, that love for one another, the kindness to give them life as Christ has given to you, to give them forgiveness as Christ has given you forgiveness.

That's where your heart needs to meditate on as you're struggling to forgive one another. Your heart needs to meditate on that.

And to conclude this overall, right? If you're looking at your life, and you're thinking,

I'm going to be honest with you, I don't see much life happening. I don't see much life happening around me.

I don't steal, because most of you probably aren't stealing. Perhaps some of you are.

But as a Christian, I'm not stealing. But to be honest with you, I don't see work in the way that the

Bible does, in which I get to produce as the Holy Spirit produces. I get to produce and provide for those in need.

I don't consider my speech in that strategic deep way that I want so badly to build people up and not create corruption with my mindless speaking.

To be honest with you, as I look at my life, I see people have wronged me, my children, my spouse. And I'm going to be honest with you, bitterness has taken root, and I haven't really done anything to counteract that.

Well, look at the hinge. I want to leave this sermon. Look at the hinge verse again of verse 30.

Again, he says, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God. That's not meant to make you just grieve the fact that life has not been producing around me as the

Holy Spirit wants to do, and just leave you there at grief so you can just be sorrowful and depressed and leave you there.

But instead, I want you to, of course, be saddened over those things. It is good to grieve.

If you're doing things that would grieve the Spirit, it's good for you to grieve about that. But you're not to stay there.

Instead, you are to finish your mind and your prayers and your thoughts as you're considering your own failures on how he finishes that verse, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

I encourage you that let your mind settle on what the Spirit is doing in total, what he will do in eternity, in which you will be perfectly life -giving to all.

You'll receive life and give life, and it'll be perfect. You will not have any curses or corruption coming forth from you.

There'll be no desire for bitterness. None of that. It will all be done away with as the Spirit will complete his work.

Let your mind rest as you are like, I don't see life happening in my life right now in the way that I see it here.

Let your mind settle on the fact that this is the work that the Spirit is doing in you today as he completes it in eternity.

Going back to my, and I know I'm getting a lot on time. I'm finishing here. Going back to my analogy of being strategic of how you build that building, how you talk, and you need to be strategic how you build that building edifying people, right?

You need to be strategic as you do it. Sometimes as you're laboring and doing a very long, laborious project, in the middle of it, it can get very tedious.

Hardships, right? You can think, am I ever going to get done? Am I even making progress? You could be so fainthearted.

And what is a really good thing to do in that moment is to then consider the full project completed, right?

Consider the full project of what you're doing. Eventually, I'm going to get to this where it's going to look like this, right?

This house is going to look beautiful. And so even though I'm in a tedious spot here, and I feel like things aren't going to get done, it's going to one day look like that, and that will encourage you on to that final reality.

And the way the Christian life works is the same way. Are you weary? Are you feeling like I'm not looking like this?

Grieve over that as it grieves the spirit, but then put your mind on that final reality in which he will complete his work in you, and let that encourage you for the day today.

That will breathe new life in you as you work today with the spirit of what he's doing as he is sealing you for that day of full redemption.

Let that final day encourage you for your work today. I like,

I'll finish with this quote, and then I'll go to the Lord in prayer. I listened to this song yesterday, and I felt like it fit well with this.

So I'll read it and end it here. He says, soon at last at the dawning, we become who we are.

The redemption of Jesus through the blood of forgiveness, we spread near and far.

Yet we've never stopped seeking for the kingdom complete, for the hurt to be whole, for the poor to be full, for the scared to be free.

Break forth, O light. We have walked as we worshiped in our hearts Sabbath rest, representing our sovereign who can move earth and heaven and his power to bless.

We have lived out his beauties, shown the light of his face, silenced every accuser, broke the chains of each burden, clothed the shameful in grace.

Break forth, O light, O healing rise. The earth that had grown now leaps and cries.

The soul that had yearned is satisfied. We hold out our flame, and in hope we wait until you arrive.

And now the hour is brimming, fullness almost has come, when the earth stands receiving its king and its kingdom, and heaven comes down.

And we'll fully know him by the touch and by sight, and we'll drink deep together, surrounded in splendor, increasing in life.

So break forth, O light, O healing rise. O God in heaven, I pray, Lord, that we would look at the spirit's role and the work that he does in us, that he is hovering over those whom

God has chosen. You have chosen for salvation. And as that great son of God proclaims, let there be life, the spirit works that life in us, and he doesn't leave us, but he stays, and he produces life in us throughout these days that we have.

Now, God in heaven, I know far too often, as we look at our week, as our days, it can be so easy for us to conclude that there is no life happening in us.

We can see that we've been grieving the spirit in the way that we speak to one another, in the way that we allow bitterness to take root, and we don't seek the greater benefit for another whenever they've sinned against us.

It can be so easy for us, Lord, to not have life coming forth from us, but rather curses. I pray,

Lord, that we would look to the spirit who is working this, working us each day for that final reality in which we'll have life completed, and we'll only ever grow in this life with no corruption.

And know that that's the work he's doing now as we place our faith in Jesus. And so the answer is the same,

Lord. The answer is the same for us to look to Jesus for salvation and grab hold of the promise of the spirit that you have promised to those who love him.

And to know that even though there's periods of setbacks and hardships, we know that the spirit does not give up on us.

He doesn't abandon us or leave us. Instead, he continues to work in us. So let us be encouraged by that.

Let us be encouraged as we look to our families, to our lives, to know that although there's weakness in me, there's strength in the spirit.

And let us walk according to that strength that the spirit provides by his mercies and grace. We thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen.