This is what the new life in Christ looks like
Ephesians 4:25-29 · Roger Henderson · Sep 2, 2018
Ephesians (2018-19), No. 32
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261911451408

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Alright, so we're going to continue on in Ephesians chapter 4. We've got the verses 25 through 29. And as is often the case, I'd really like to read all of Ephesians up to this point in time so that you can really get context. That's probably a little grandiose for the time constraints we have, so we'll limit ourselves to Well, we'll say, I'll start in 24, but 24 starts with a conjunction, so hopefully you'll forgive me, but 23 also starts with a conjunction, and that's building on some reasoning from 21, which goes from before that, and 20 has a conjunction, so we'll start in 24.

He says, and put on the new self, which is in the likeness of God, has been created in righteousness or which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth, each one of you, with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.

Be angry, and yet do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity. He who steals must steal no longer, but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need. Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear."

Alright, so Paul and his infamous way of blending ideas on into run-on sentences here is continuing on with this idea that The church needs to be unified. The church needs to come together and the church needs to be treating one another well. This is a great passage that proves Paul knew his audience.

He had in Ephesus a settlement. We have a settlement from Rome. They are a colony. and the Romans gave them tax benefits so if you were a a former soldier in the Roman army you would get to move there and live tax-free that's not a bad gig if you can get it and if you move from somewhere else you'd probably move there and get some tax benefits so you have the Pharisees have They're the evangelistic group of traditional Jews. They've come into Ephesus. You've got the Roman Empire in Ephesus.

And then you have the Greek influence from the people that were there before. So you've got three major cultural influences that might have been influencing inside the church. Because once you become a believer, you're part of the church. Awesome. But you didn't come from nowhere. You came from somewhere. And so Paul knows his audience. And we're going to see that this morning.

He just talked about Gentile philosophers in verses 17 through 19, which Roger covered for us. And now he's bringing out Old Testament truths. You'll see he's quoting the Old Testament in several places here. And he's going to take those Old Testament truths to counter the Gentile philosophers and the Gentile way of thinking. If you grew up Jewish, these things would be maybe more familiar. But if you grew up a Gentile and you're in in a Greco-Roman culture, you're going to find yourself maybe not knowing Old Testament truths. They definitely didn't know New Testament truths, there was no New Testament yet. So Paul is taking the Old Testament truth and he's clarifying it and extending it and applying it very carefully to the New Testament context. So Paul says therefore, and we always have to ask the infamous trope, what is the therefore therefore, right?

So Paul has been building up an argument in the previous verses about how the believer is positionally secure, as we saw in verse 24, and that as they abide in their former manner of life is no longer the expected behavior. So since the former life is no longer expected, what is expected. And so in these verses we're going to see some of those expectations. He's providing or he's engaging in doctrinal application that's rooted in what we saw in the earlier chapters. We saw in chapters 1-3 were a lot of doctrinal statement about who we are in Christ, our position, our condition, and of course he sprinkled it through here in chapter 4, but now we're going to get into some appropriation of those things. He's building on this idea that's in the previous verses that there's truth and it's rooted in Christ.

So he says, Therefore, laying aside the falsehood, speak the truth, each one of you, with his neighbor. So why are the Ephesians needing to lay aside falsehood? That seems like that's a little bit of an obvious low-hanging fruit statement. Why do the Ephesians have to lay aside falsehood?

This is actually pretty cool. I mean, in a gross sort of way, but historically it's cool. A little factoid. Anyone have any guesses? We actually have this sort of thing common in certain cultures today still. How many of you are familiar with Greek or Roman mythology? Anybody have any exposure to that? How wholesome and morally grounded were the gods of Greek and Roman mythology? I mean, Zeus was, I mean, if you're going to have the father of the gods be Zeus and he's going around sleeping around and sneaking around and disguising people and deceiving people, lying's not that big of a deal.

Everybody's doing it, even the gods are doing it. Falsehood, not a big surprise. Falsehood, that's an easy low-hanging fruit kind of a thing for us in our current culture to observe and think, yeah, this makes sense. We should be doing that. But for them, it was so common to be using language and falsehood for manipulation to get the outcome you wanted that culturally, Paul had to actually counter it because it was too common in the Greco-Roman culture.

Now, in today's world, do we have situations where this sort of thing is normal? We do. What's the classic example? I'm sure everybody's thinking of at least one of two things, but you tell me your thing that comes to mind where this is okay. Somebody pick a thing. That was one of two places. It was either politics or the other one that comes to mind is advertising.

We are going to promise you that we are going to build a wall and make Mexico fix it or pay for it I mean. Or we are going to promise you that this thing will make you young or happy or successful or popular or whatever it is if you just own this thing. Marketers have figured out that by the age of five years old they have trained children that when they get something new it makes them happy. and so they just bombard you with the idea that if you just own this it would continue the sense of happiness. You just need the toy at the bottom of the cereal box.

I got it. It's so cool. And it's like gone and lost in a week, right? If not a day. But you were happy for a moment. You just need another one, right? So that's deceptive. That's lying. That's falsehood, right? The stuff never makes you truly happy. It's temporary. Formal will rush, and then it goes away. And they need a bigger one, or a faster one, or a cooler one, or a more expensive one.

So, lay aside the falsehood. But inside the church, you have to remember that inside the church this was not completely foreign for people to probably still be coming into church and thinking, that's what I do. It's a day that ends in why we say these things that are false.

But Paul quotes the Old Testament. approximately. And that's one thing I want to highlight just briefly. Sometimes Paul quotes things indirectly, as an apostle, and he re-appropriates them in the New Testament. We see it here. We see it in the next verse in 26 here. He says, and be angry and yet do not sin. But it will go back into Psalm into the Psalms and we'll read that Psalm, and it doesn't say exactly exactly that. It says really closely that.

So Paul does some reappropriating. He takes the old and he puts it in the new. But I think it's really important for us to recognize that Paul gets to do that, but we don't. Don't just go hand-picking Old Testament verses and be like, Ta-da! New Testament truth. I know that this is a little exaggerated, but I've run into a lot of teachers who have done that, and a lot of really dangerous theology comes out of that. For example, we're under the Ten Commandments still. That's one of my favorite things I've seen people do. Well, that's an Old Testament truth for Old Testament saints who are in Israel under an agreement, a contract, a covenant with God that is no longer operative. just considering that in 25 he says speak truth each one of you with his neighbor who are members of one another so in in verse 15 what did Paul say somebody go ahead and read verse 15 you probably have it open already so let's let's do a little comparison and contrast it says but speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things which is the head even Christ So he says speak the truth and love twice here in this passage.

But there's a nuanced difference here. So in verse 15 we're speaking the truth and love, and in verse 24 we're speaking the truth and love. I'm sorry, 25. Speak truth, each one, but not into love. In 24 it's love, we're to grow up in all aspects into Christ, and in 25 we're speaking the truth with your neighbors, for we're members of one another. Those ideas are very complementary and similar, but while there's sameness, there's also difference.

If I speak the truth in love, who am I speaking the truth in love to, in Paul's context in 15? A select few people, like we only speak truth in love to Christians. It has more to do with growing in love with Christ. So, we're speaking truth and love in 15 to grow into Christ. This is for Christians. Now, when we get to 25 here, it's also speaking truth and love, or speaking truth each one of you with his neighbor. again with this idea of love, but the love is not stated as love.

How is it stated? You're members one of another. So he's restating it. It's not the exact same wording, but he's restating the idea. But if you missed it in round one, round two is an interconnectivity. And we'll get back to the member side of things here in just a moment. But Paul is creating a little bit of contrast there.

Let's turn to Proverbs 12.17. I know that this will be maybe a little less familiar with some, but if you've ever done one of those reading programs where you read a psalm and a proverb chapter and you alternate and then you go through those often, this might be more familiar. He who speaks truth tells what is right, but a false witness deceit. Okay, now that's not particularly shocking to us again, but if you grew up Hebrew, that would be not shocking in his audience, but if you grew up Gentile, This would be a shocking thing, but Paul restates that.

Another verse that says something very similar is Zechariah 8.16. We're not going to read that, but the point is that Paul is appropriating these Old Testament principles in a way that his new Gentile listeners are going to go, huh, and they're going to have to think about it. There's nothing wrong with having to take a think on these things, but his motive is for the body to come together in a similar pattern that the Old Testament saints would have been told and expected to do.

They would have been speaking the truth before in the law, but now in the Old Testament grace of Christ's life. In the Old Testament, you'd be walking around. You'd constantly be talking about the law. In the New Testament, what are we speaking? It's not the law. It's graciousness. It's encouraging one another. It's coming alongside. It's speaking the truth. It's loving one another. It's considering one another in intimacy. The nuance is different, but the intent is the same. Through truthful, Christ-life-based language, we are to be edifying one another.

The short-term goal is to draw us into a perspective of spiritual and personal intimacy rooted in our co-relationship with Christ, and the long-term goal is for our view of being conformed to the image of Christ conditionally. So there's some short-term benefits and some long-term benefits. In talking to Mike about sales, Mike Doyle, he's like, you gotta help people understand the benefits. The benefits are both short and long-term here.

Now he says neighbor and he says members versus members of one another and I'm bringing this out because I've heard different people teach different things about neighbors over the years not necessarily Holly Hills I'm just saying I've heard different people teach so let's take a few moments to look at that the Greek word translated neighbors here refers to those who are actually geographically near you That's not too stunning, but it's important for us to recognize that the idea of neighbors could be translated different ways, so we better look at context.

So if we were to look at, and you don't have to turn here, if we look at Luke 10.27-37, it's the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Do you remember what precipitated the parable of the Good Samaritan? What do they ask Jesus? Who's your neighbor? And so Jesus tells the story, and he goes through, and the righteous Pharisee comes by, and all these righteous people are coming by, but they don't want to touch the dead body because that would violate the law, but they don't know that he's dead.

And so the Samaritan comes along, and the Samaritans, from the Jewish perspective, are scum. Let's just be blunt about it. They didn't like him. They thought they were heretics and wrong. The Samaritans had rewritten parts of the Old Testament to make their own geography and their own lineage directly related to Abraham. So the Jews had a kind of disdain there that was probably rooted in the fact that they had rewritten the scriptures. So it's somewhat warranted there, right?

But Christ says, who was this man who was beaten up? Who was his neighbor? And of course the response is, well, the man who saved him. And then Jesus says, go and do likewise. Right? And so that would have been extremely convicting or controversial, probably a little bit of both, to his listeners then.

But that context defines neighbor in a specific way for that context. Paul gives us context to tell us that in this place neighbor means something else. So we just want to be careful here. We're not saying that we shouldn't love others outside of our church, right? That's not what I'm saying by saying this isn't that context. But he says in the last half of the verse, for we are members of one another. Are your secular neighbors who are not believers members of you? Paul wouldn't say that.

So the context lets us know that here the word neighbor does not just mean any person that you come across. Because the purpose of the speaking of the truth is the edification. Now, just because we want to be thorough, how should we respond to our neighbors who are secular?

How should we interact with them? We'd be evangelistic. We still are kind to them. We still love them. We should still speak the truth, right? But the purpose of how you'd interact would be evangelistic rather than to say, oh, well, you just need to walk in the Spirit. And they'd be like, I don't even know what that means. You're one of those religious nuts. Are you Mormon? No, they don't use the title Mormon anymore. It's Latter-day Saints. OK.

But whatever it is, The nuance here is we should just be careful to understand that Paul gives us clarity so that we know that when he says neighbors here, he is referring or inferring the principle to these saints. Now, let's talk about members again.

So I subtitled this lesson, Remembering That You're Members, or Remembering We're Members. What does being members one of another tell us about our perspective that we should be having about one another? And that's a long weirdly worded sentence but I couldn't come up with another way to say it. Member for the record means limb. So we'll start with that. Remember that you're limbs of one another. What's a limb? Part of a body.

We have a disease that is at least we're growing an awareness of in the first world countries called multiple sclerosis. And in multiple sclerosis what happens is you actually have this myelin sheath on your neurological network that breaks up and the neurological signals get distorted and they get broken. And so what you get is falsehood neurologically in your own body. So you'll get searing pain, you'll get jerks and spasms, you'll get complete and lack of control of a limb. That's a disease.

But inside the body, falsehood, inside the body of Christ, falsehood is a disease. And so Paul is warning these people, listen, we have falsehood that is apparently been culturally appropriated, and we're bringing it into the church, and it has no place here. Because, in part, we're members of one another. And if I happen to be... I like to... Historically, I've liked to joke that I am an appendix. I'm one of those.

At the time, it was considered an organ that had no purpose, but we've figured out what it's for now. So I'm not a vestigial organ anymore. The reality of the situation is that no one in the church is a vestigial organ. We're still learning about the human body.

We've been cutting them up and checking out cadavers and doing things. And just this year, doctors discovered a new tendon in the knee. We've been doing knee surgeries for a long time! And they go, hey, there's a new tendon. We just realized that we've been cutting through this whole time. And I don't say that to mock medicine.

The reality of the situation is that if we're members one of another, this idea of doctrine and theology being appropriated here means that we're going to be looking at how we communicate with one another, how we love one another, how we interact, has to do with an intimacy and an interconnectedness that is super important in the body. So Paul is going to appropriate this idea of speaking truth and this idea of being members of one another through the topic of anger.

Now the topic of anger is maybe one that we don't spend a lot of time on in most teaching. Not a lot of time. We've heard of anger counseling or anger management maybe, but that's a secular thing. We've heard of the fruit of the spirit, doesn't involve anger. Like, okay cool. But is there a good place for anger in the church? And the answer to that is a shocking, to me at least, yes.

Paul's not going that direction with this, so we'll circle back around to that to cover it. But let's see where Paul is going. Paul is going to quote, I blended cite and quote in the same word. He's going to cite or quote Psalm 44, 4. So I'm going to jump back there. You're welcome to join me. Psalm 44, 4. I got an extra four in there. What's the four there for? Let's jump back. Let's get that right. Yes. Psalm 4-4. If you correct that in your handout, I'll appreciate it. I'm going to make a note so I can upload the correction on the website. Psalm 4-4. Thank you. I'm glad you had that so readily because I was like, I am now stuck.

So it says, i.e. with anger or fear, tremble and do not sin. Meditate in your heart upon your bed and be still. Selah. But tremble and do not sin, the psalm there, the idea of trembling is to be emotionally stirred up or angry. The translation between the Hebrew and the Greek gets a bit of finessing by Paul, but the intent is the same. Paul wants the believers, even if their passions are inflamed, to not sin. From a unified body-life perspective, Paul is commanding them to avoid the division of anger. Anger divides. When you're emotionally inflamed, does that bring togetherness? Usually not. If I'm upset, if I'm angry, I don't ever feel joined with anybody. Unless, of course, you find there are some manipulation techniques people use.

If I can get the right people angry in a large enough group, like in Acts, we've been going through Acts in the main service. What did they do in Ephesians or in Ephesus? They were yelling, you know, great is Artemis in Ephesus and the idol makers were getting everybody riled up. So Paul kind of knew his audience, right? He's like, hey, you can get incited, right?

You can get inflamed. Paul's perspective is that we need to avoid the division of anger. So, is anger always evil? We kind of asked that earlier, and the answer is anger can be righteous anger. God was angry more than once in the Old Testament, and I've got several cross-references there.

Exodus 4.14 or Deuteronomy 32.16. What I love about the Deuteronomy passage is that God promises Israel he's going to get angry. He's like, hey, we made this covenant. If you disobey it, I'm going to be angry. It's going to be righteous anger. It's going to be okay. You signed up for it. But it did not violate his character to be angry. I think it's important for us to recognize that God's character was not violated by the anger. God is love. Was his anger rooted in hate? His anger was rooted in loving Israel.

I'm jealous for you. God is a jealous for us because he wants intimacy kind of jealousy not jealous in a carnal gross way like I'm jealous you have a Ferrari and I don't. I can tell by some of the facial expressions in this room not all of you care about Ferraris. But even Christ, when he was in the temple and he grabs a group of cords and makes a whip out of them, he's angry at those who are trading the doves for the currency to make a little extra money on the side in the temple. He's angry that they're doing this thing because they've turned God's house into a place of trading rather than a place of righteousness.

If we look at Galatians 5.20, what do we see is a fruit of the flesh?

Galatians 5.20. I'll start in 19. He says, Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. And then in verse 20, he says, And to know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge. Wait a minute, I jumped. I held my place marker and I jumped a whole book. Let's go back here. Galatians. I am in the right book now.

22, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness. And then in 23, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. So if anger or passions of rage are a fruit of the flesh, then self-control and patience would be spiritual counters to those things. But instead, as believers, we're to reflect the fruit of the Spirit, which will look like gentleness and self-control, despite the emotional intensity. It isn't that the emotional intensity is by itself wrong.

There may have been injustice. That's a thing. I have two daughters, and of the two daughters, I've noticed one of them tends to be much, much more concerned about justice than the other. And if you're wondering which one you are, Evelyn is the more justice-focused of the two. And my less justice-focused daughter is nodding, yes, I understand. For her, if it's not fair, if it's not equal, if it's not just in every way, she is not neutral. That's going to slam here in a second if you'll grab it. It's going to get to the very end there. Oh, no, no, open it, otherwise it'll get hot in here. Thank you. She's my helpmate in so many ways. So let's ask this important question.

Why does God give us emotions? This is actually really important because this is a recent learning I've had, but I think it's really, really important. Why does God give us emotions? Maybe if we don't have emotion, we can't really experience love. Okay, that's definitely true. Can't disagree with that. That's not what I have as an answer, but let's add that to my answer. That's good. We definitely need that truth.

Well, God displayed emotion. God displayed emotion. So we're created in His image. So that's a reflection of being made in His image. One of the things that I think is important is that we often describe ourselves as having physical senses. We have sight, sound, sight, touch, taste, smell, and hearing. Sound is not a sense. It is a thing that triggers the sense. But part of the complexity that God created in his image includes emotion. All emotions are indicators. They are like a sense. But what happens if you obsess on one of your senses? You get out of balance. Now, how many of you have heard of people who have some kind of impairment where they're blind or something and it heightens one of their other senses usually?

Recently I heard of a guy who calls himself a card mechanic, although he doesn't use it for evil. As far as I know he actually goes to church. He's blind. But he knows his way around a deck of cards. His name is Richard Turner, if I have my names correctly. He knows his way around a deck of cards so that he can shuffle them and then shuffle them back into order. and he can control them, but he can feel on his fingertips the ornate details of the cards so that he knows what they are.

The bicycle playing card company changed the way they were cutting their deck of cards and he wrote him a letter. He said, you guys, you ruined the cards. And they said, what are you talking about? He goes, you changed the way that they feel. And they said, wait a minute. And they had to get a microscope out. And they could look at the edge and say, oh, that cuts differently. So they changed it back. He's now in charge of quality control.

But the thing is that when it comes to senses, if we look at senses, and anger is kind of an emotional sense that comes there, it's an indicator of something. But if you obsess over the indicator, or you let the indicator rule over your personhood, you will have problems. If I get emotionally charged up any direction, if I'm in pursuit of some emotional intensity, it's just as bad as if I am in pursuit of other things that are just physical. As it turns out, when we talk about music, and as a musician I speak of this to my own detriment here for a moment, but if we pursue music as a source of pleasure, and we're always pursuing a pleasure, and I did this for a living for a short while.

I was a music department buyer at the Christian bookstore and by the time you could buy a CD I was tired of it. I've already heard this 50 times. It's old. Oh my gosh. 50 times. I've already listened to 600 new albums and you're on this. This is brand new to me. Dumb. Old. The pleasure of the music had gone away because I had become by virtue of my job obsessed with the new thing and that sense was there. Drugs often are a sensory stimulator or a reducer and those are the same kind of thing.

If we let anger take control of us the same intensity can lead to the same patterns of sin. And so Paul wants to counter that and he wants us to be aware of injustice, aware of prejudice or abuse or inequality or mistreatment within the body in some way. But he didn't want it to lead to sinning or division. And instead use it as an indicator of several things as the outcome. He already told us in verse 421 that teaching and correction should come along there. Coming alongside verse 4.16 that we would be coming alongside.

Verses 4.3 and 31, which Roger gets to teach next weekend, are about spirit-led correction, the Holy Spirit being involved. And then in 4.3 also peace. So we have this principle of emotions, but they're leading as indicators to a different state that isn't driven by the emotion. Okay? So this is a big principle.

Paul chose anger. He could cite the Old Testament with anger, but really with this body it could be any number of things. When we went through the book of Corinthians, what we find is that there are all kinds of emotions caused... I'm sorry, 1st and 2nd Corinthians. It's not one book. All kinds of emotions, all kinds of passions and things driving people to all kinds of division.

And Paul said to this, this should be a censor. It should not be the deciding factor. Any questions on anger so far? Because we're not done yet, but we'll keep going. He says, do not let the sun go down on your anger. And you know what's really funny in studying this? I realized that that's not in the Old Testament. I thought that was an Old Testament verse he was quoting. It's not.

But he's taking an application, an appropriation of that in your anger do not sin principle. He's saying do not let the sun go down on your anger. Now why would you not want to let the sun go down on your anger? It's going to be haunting you through the night and you'll be overly occupied with it.

Yeah. That's a great way to describe the problem. Jessica and I, in our marriage, have a rule to apply this. And when I say rule, I mean literally we have a rule to apply this. We don't let the sun go down in our anger. This is not legalism. This is preservation for our marriage. And I mean that quite seriously. And we've had some late nights. I'm not going to say too much more because I know she's going, don't share too many details.

But the reality of the matter is that when we let anger fester, it builds and you can have scars that last for lifetimes if you let that anger roll over. And I feel like anger is like a cancer. If you let it go, it just gets bigger and bigger and all-consuming. It spreads. You can start to judge. Maybe you don't do this. I, I'll say I just in case.

Once you find that seed of division, that seed of anger, isn't it easy to start building on it? How many times, this is not meant to be too much of a political statement, but how many times have you watched on the news where someone will make a statement and then of course immediately division happens and each side starts to build this rolling level of justifications of their side that started out as just two simple polarizing statements, but over time they're like, and there's also this reason. And so now we're both angry at each other and we've got a long list and the ammunition gets deep and lofty and long. But let's talk about some resolutions to anger because I think this is important. Paul wants to not let the sun go down on anger, so how do we do that? only several potential outcomes.

There's many many that the Lord may do through his Holy Spirit. But the first thing we want to do is pray. I mean really that's the first place to start is prayer. God you show me in your light the way that you see this. I'm angry. What do you see? And in multiple cases I've had to eat humble pie. I should be diabetic how much humble pie I've had to eat. Okay this is bad. But, starting in prayer, let God be in charge of our thoughts, our emotions, and our perspective.

The next one, forgiveness. Paul is about to talk about forgiveness in verse 32, so I don't want to steal Roger's lesson, because it's a good one. I guarantee you, if he's teaching this verse, it's a good one. But in 32, it's a key tool for peace within the body. And since I brought it up, I will read it, but let's let him teach it. He says, Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Hey, you're forgiven. So forgive everybody else. Okay. Reconciliation. When anger arises, talking about the details with the offender and seeking reconciliation is often important.

If you don't tell somebody you're upset, sometimes they don't know. As was indicated earlier, sometimes you'll have a crummy night of sleep. on account of anger, whatever. Sometimes I worry that I've offended somebody else and I will lose sleep on account of it. And Jessica can testify that it's probably more often than it should be that I worry about that I have upset somebody else.

Sometimes we're the offender, sometimes we're the offended. But either way, reconciliation is to intentionally talk about it and come together is a key part of that process. And then the last one is one of my least favorite words in the English vocabulary. tolerance because it's been so misappropriated. But Paul tells us earlier in verse 2, he says, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love. Sometimes you're offended. Sometimes I'm offended. And we just got to look the other way.

We just got to say, you know what, that's Randy. Well, you have to say that. I don't have to say that unless there's somebody else named Randy. But you have to say it, right? Sometimes we just say, you know, he's a weirdo. He opens his mouth and garbage comes out. Sometimes you didn't mean what he said. Actually, that's probably more often than I'd like to admit. I didn't mean what I said. I meant something else, but they came out so fast, all the words.

But tolerance, tolerance is important. So Paul's pursuit is not merely sociological. That's the thing. What we see are sociological indicators in Paul's writing, but it's not sociological. He's not doing a sociology experiment. He's not saying, hey, what would happen if a group of believers in Ephesus just were kind of not lying to each other and maybe a little less angry. It's theological. It's doctrinal. It's appropriating what is true.

And he's tying those things together because he says, what happens in a body if there's not festering anger? What happens in a body if there's not resentment or shame or a culture of abuse where love and godliness should instead be reigning? Well, it turns out there's going to be love and godliness. And that's a pretty cool place. I want to be there.

So as our days go by, we need to have frustration, anger, anguish, shame, all those things not be the end of our day, but instead peace and a togetherness in the body. I will say this, usually after you've had those frustrating times in the late nights, And I don't mean this in the making out sort of a sense. The making up and being closer together, the healing that comes from that is a thing, it's a bond that will last and make your marriage even further proven and tested. So even in that principle I mentioned with my wife that we don't go to bed angry, that bond is there.

But that same truth extends into friendships. Friendships that you repair are usually friendships that last a lifetime versus friendships that you go, oh, that didn't work out. And you move on. It's the difference between those stainless steel coffee mugs and a Dixie cup, right? It's got some staying power. So Paul continues on. He doesn't want there to be anger. He doesn't want there to be deceit. He wants there to be speaking truth and love and being members of one another so that we do not give the devil an opportunity. This is like a whole rabbit trail of theology. There have been entire books written on it.

I'm going to give you the Reader's Digest version. Because if we take the appropriate time, we'll have to study all of chapter 6. But we're going to do that already. So since we're going to come up to chapter 6, I'm going to let chapter 6 be chapter 6. And we'll just look at some principles here. Paul is not referring to some sort of demon possession. And we're going to take a look at what he probably means about this in chapter 6. And instead, we're going to look at the idea that Satan wants to lie and accuse and divide and generally break the church body apart. He's trying to limit God's work. Now, since I said he's trying to limit God's work, can the devil thwart God? Who has all authority? God has all authority. God has dominion over all things.

And I've got some cross-references here, but I'm going to refrain from reading all of them, but let's turn to one of them, Genesis 1.28. We're going to challenge our theological presuppositions with this one here for just a moment. Well, I suspect in this classroom there won't be too many people challenged, but we'll try.

Genesis 1.28.

God's made man in His image and He says, God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth. So why is this giving God dominion? That's the theology question. Why does this verse give God dominion? When you get this, this will be a good $5 theology nugget. You're saying, why does God have dominion? Why does this verse indicate that God has dominion?

He made it. He made it. That's it. As creator, He was owner. The word that comes to mind is sublet. That's wrong. He can hand off subletting is rental. He can hand off this dominion to whomever he pleases. And he hands it off to Adam and Eve. And we know that dominion is implied there because it says rule, right? If he just said, take care of, that's a stewardship. Dominion is rule over. So God as creator owns those things. He has dominion over them.

And then later on, when we get to Job and Job 1.6, what is Satan doing? Everybody should know this if you've ever studied Job.

What's Satan doing in Job 1.6? Well, Satan's asking.

Because God has dominion. And so, Paul is saying God has dominion. Satan's looking for places to divide. But if you just hand it over because you're being a numbskull, Paul doesn't use the word numbskull. That's Randy. If you just hand it over, you're giving Satan an opportunity to have influence.

God is still sovereign. We want to make sure that we never, ever, ever misrepresent that. But God gave Adam dominion over the earth and gave him direction to subdue it. I'm only halfway through my lesson. That bell cannot go off now. We want to make sure that we understand that God is sovereign, but we can sometimes give the devil opportunity to let our flesh reign. Then he says, he who steals must steal no longer. This is really cool. This is a historical nugget. Once you hear this one, you can tell all your friends. Put it on Facebook. He says, he who steals must steal no longer. Like we said, don't lie. This seems like it's pretty obvious.

Except for in Ephesus, at the temple of Artemis, Artemis was the goddess of hunting. So they had a rule. If you could steal something in Ephesus and run and get it safely to within bow shot, remember hunters hunted with bows on average, bow shot of the temple, it was yours. That became your stuff now. So there were entire families who were provided for by stealing. Hey, I need that.

Five-finger discount, right? As we said when I was a kid, maybe nobody says that anymore. But rather, instead of stealing, which is obviously wrong, but rather he must labor, performing with his own hand what is good. And that's why everybody's Amish, right? Literally, the Amish are Amish because he says, hey, work with your hands. That's part of their cultural subsect. I would say that being Amish is not a Christian group by itself, but they like to say they're rooted in those things. But literally, this verse is one of their core texts. Now, is Paul concerned that every Christian only do things that they can make with their hands for a living? Is that the focus of what he's saying here? saying earn a living.

You will use your own hands. The idea of using your own hands, whether you're in sales, whether you're... I use my hands for a living. I program. I have to type on the keyboard, which means that if I ever break a finger, I'm going to be unemployed for a while, right? But the idea is you are working for yourself. So we can not be legalistic about this. I don't know too many jobs that don't involve hands, but you could be maybe a professional singer. There we go, I thought of one. But even singers often use their hands. the idea still is that you're working for yourself instead of stealing.

And then he says, so that he will have something to share with one who has need. And I think that's super duper important. We've already been focused inside the church. I'm going to tell you that Paul is equally in this first focused inside the church. That does not mean the church doesn't do outreach. We may participate In working in a soup kitchen, we may participate and donate to organizations that feed the homeless, or World Vision are one of those kinds of organizations, and I know there's some theological implications about World Vision since their president wrote a book. I'm going to not go down that rabbit trail.

But the idea of need is actually critical. If we look at Philippians 4, 18 and 19, My God has supplied all my needs according to His riches and glory. And when you have need, when I have need, and you can fulfill that need, God uses that need to His glory. Which makes needing way cooler, although none of us like it, right? The Church's provision is not an outreach program by itself, but we can see God's provision as he creates the opportunities to show his love through need.

And I know I'm out of time, but let's try to tackle at least a little bit. No unwholesome word proceed from your mouth. I put a lot of time into thinking about words. It matters to me for my living, as it turns out, because I have to give presentations and speeches and It also matters at church, what do I say? It matters in my relationships with my family. The idea of language started in Genesis.

Adam's first job was expanding the language. Right? Name these animals. Cool. So you have some linguistic constructs, you're going to expand the language. Words matter. Naming things matter. When we learn other languages, that's because the Tower of Babel. So we have these principles of language and words and what they say and what they mean.

Paul says, let no unwholesome words. The Greek word for unwholesomeness is sapros there, which means rotten or corrupted. So don't let rotten, corrupted words come out of your mouth, but instead only words that are good for edification according to the need at the time. so that it will give grace to those who hear. I can't go over the rest of my lesson in as much detail as I would like, but let's consider this.

If the words that we say can give grace, and this isn't the unfathomable, unmerited riches of God due to the totally adequate work of Christ on the cross, this is blessing. Because you're involved. You're not giving God's grace. You're sharing it, maybe. But the idea of grace here is the idea of blessing. It's at a time when someone else needs it. It'll be grace that they need to hear. It'll be words that encourage. It'll be words that build up. And as Paul has been trying to point out, it's not words that bring division.

And the last question I have on here, and do please read the handout for that section, I've got some good notes in there that I wish I could go over. The last question I have here is what one thing that anyone has ever said to you in the church has been the most encouraging? And if you think back to what that was, if you think back to what did somebody say to you, what does that teach us about how love works in the body? How does that change how we interact and choose to speak to one another? And the answer is, it'll change the rest of your life.

Because it's the Holy Spirit working through us, speaking what we need at that moment as we abide. All right, let's close in prayer. I went long, I'm sorry. Heavenly Father, we come before you. We are so grateful for the truth that you have revealed. We pray that we would be speaking that in love to one another as we consider being members of one another. We pray that you would be drawing these things to our attention. Thank you that, to my knowledge, no one is making a living stealing. Thank you that we can Be gracious to one another with our words and wholesome. And we just pray that your spirit would direct those things in our lives. In Jesus name, Amen.