EPHESIANS 4 I WILL WALK AS A MEMBER OF THE BODY OF CHRIST2019 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Ephesians 4 I Will Walk As A Member Of The Body Of Christ

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2019. Ephesians chapter 4. As we've been working our way through these letters of Paul on Wednesday nights, we've been talking about the foundations for Christian living.

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seeing who we are as believers in Jesus Christ, that is, who God declares that we are. And it includes things like, well, our righteousness in him. It includes, you know, the grace of God that extends to us to be forgiven and so that we stand before him as saints, right?

as those who are holy and set apart and perfect unto him. As one body, we are members of one another. We've been seeing also in the last couple chapters here of Ephesians and understanding the unity that God desires and has created and then calls us now to live out. And as we continue on now in Ephesians chapter 4,

We're going to jump into verse 17 and work our way through the end of the chapter this evening, but we're continuing that thought, continuing the thought of who we are in Christ and therefore how we are to live and how we are to relate to one another. Well, let's begin our journey through this passage this evening by looking at the first few verses, verses 17 through 24. Let's read those through and then we'll dive into the message that God has for us.

Ephesians 4, verse 17, Paul says,

to work all uncleanness with greediness. But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus, that you put off concerning your former conduct the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, that you may put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness."

As we look at this final portion of Ephesians chapter four this evening, I've titled the message, I Will Walk as a Member of the Body of Christ.

And we're considering this in this manner, in this light, with this subject, that these verses are related to and tied to the things that we've been studying already. And you can see that right there in verse 17, where Paul says, "'This I say therefore and testify in the Lord.'"

So because he uses the word therefore, again, we like to say, find out what it's there for, right? There's a reason, he's connecting thoughts. And what has Paul been talking about? Well, last week, as we looked at verses 12 through 16, or 11 through 16, we saw that Paul was talking about the body of Christ.

And just kind of recapping it in verse 16, Paul says, This is a major aspect of who we are in Christ. We are members of the body of Christ.

that in a real and powerful way, we are united together as members of one another, and we collectively form the body of Christ. And as the body is an illustration, it shows us the importance of every member,

It shows us the value, the different functions, and the differences that can be there. And we talked about that, that there's uniqueness and differences in the way that God works in our lives and God works through our lives. And yet together, we form the body of Christ. And there is this membership that we have as one entity, as believers in Jesus.

And so every believer in Jesus is a member of the body of Christ and it has some important and powerful impacts to who we are and how we live.

Well, this whole body, Paul says, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies. That's you and me. We're tied together. Our lives are intertwined together. We grow together in the spiritual things. We walk together with the Lord. And as a result, he says in verse 17, this I say therefore and testify in the Lord. Amen.

Therefore, since we grow as each member does its share, as we walk together, as we draw near to the Lord together, as we are instructed by spiritual leaders, that's earlier in Ephesians 4, verse 11, the Lord gave apostles and prophets and pastors and teachers to the church so that we could grow, so that we could be trained up, so that we could be equipped and edified. And so God sees us.

the church as the body of Christ. And because of that, because it's near and dear to him, it's important to him, he gave leadership and authority to the body so that the body could work together, so that the body could minister unto itself and unto one another so that it could grow. And since that is the case, Paul is saying, this I say therefore and testify in the Lord. Now, notice he adds the testify in the Lord. This is something he's wanting to stress.

He's wanting to emphasize this is something that we need to pay attention to. Since we are one body, since we are members and we have that connection to each other, in other words, since we have a responsibility to one another, this is how we are to walk. And he's gonna go on to talk about our walk, our conduct, our manner of life. Pastor David Guzik puts it this way.

He says, therefore, this makes the connection not only with the glorious spiritual privileges laid out in Ephesians 1 through 3, but also with the high call of a unified, mature body. Because of this high calling, we should walk or conduct our life in a different manner than the world around us does. The very fact that we are tied to one another. The idea here is that we, well, we're tied to one another in such a way that we're

We can only grow as each member does its share. We have, typically in our society, a very individualistic view and perspective on life and all things.

And it can be easy for us to just only focus on, you know, me, my personal relationship with God, me, my personal devotion life, me, you know, what I know and my calling and what I'm called to do and what I'm, you know, I'm hearing from the Lord. And we have that personal perspective, which to some degree is good, but not to the exclusion and not to forget that

that we also, well, we have been placed amongst one another. And because we've been placed amongst one another, because you depend on me and I depend on you and each of you depends on each other, that there is this responsibility that we have. It should influence the way that we live our lives and the decisions that we make. It gives us...

some, well, clear responsibility for the life that we live and how we walk according to the plan of God and according to the will of God. And so with that in mind, we're going to work our way now through these verses and spending a little bit of time first in these first few verses that we read, verses 17 through 24. Here's point number one for this evening. I will walk toward righteousness.

This evening, I would encourage you to come to this point where you will declare, where you will make this commitment, recognizing I am a member of the body of Christ. I will walk toward righteousness. Again, in verse 17, Paul says, this I say therefore, and testify in the Lord that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind.

As Paul here expounds on this idea, the reason why we're to walk differently is because

As we are connected together as one body, he's going on to say that we have to walk differently than the world around us, differently than we used to walk. No longer walk. Now again, we've been talking about walk for the past couple weeks because Paul has shifted focus from the doctrine about who we are in Christ to

To now that you know who you are, here's how you should walk. And in our case tonight with this passage, here's how you should not walk. You should not walk like the rest of the Gentiles. You should not walk like you used to walk.

Paul here is saying, look, your life should look different. Your actions, your behavior, your attitudes, your words, your life should look different than the way that your life looked before Christ came into your life. And Gentiles walk a certain way, and Paul explains why. In verse 18, he says their understanding is darkened.

Part of the reason why Gentiles, that is unbelievers, Paul is referring to unbelievers as Gentiles here, they walk in the way that they walk because they don't understand the things of God. Meanwhile, you, again, going back to Ephesians chapters one, two, and three, you have great understanding. You have the Holy Spirit. You have the word of God. You have a revelation and unveiling of the things of God as a result of you believing in Jesus, right?

And so you are not in that place of darkened understanding, but the Gentiles walk the way that they walk. And it makes sense that they walk that way. And maybe it's kind of like, okay, you know, sometimes we can look around us and go, well, you know, God doesn't seem to mind that they walk that way. So maybe that's okay for me, right? But Paul is saying, no, their understanding is darkened. Your understanding is not darkened. He goes on to describe them as being alienated from the life of God.

They're completely separated. They're separate. They're alienated from the life of God. That's not you. You're not to walk like that. It makes sense that someone would walk like that because they don't know God. They know nothing about God. They are not connected to God. He's not speaking to them. He's not leading them and guiding them. And so that's not a surprise that they behave that way. But you're not to behave that way. He speaks of the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of

Again, there's this darkened understanding. There's this separation from God. There's this blindness. You know, sometimes you're trying to share with somebody and it's a little bit frustrating because it's like, why can't you see? Like, it's so clear. It's so obvious. It's so apparent, right? But why can't you see? And the reality is, is because, well, there's this blindness of the heart.

And the Lord is able to pierce through those blinders and to remove those blinders and to minister to them. And that is his work. But generally speaking for unbelievers, there is this blindness. They cannot see the truth and the realities that exist and what the Lord says. Going on into verse 19, this puts these unbelievers in a place where they are past feeling and

They used to be convicted. They used to have a conscience. These things used to bother them, but they've moved beyond that. They've grown callous to those convictions, to that conscience, and have given themselves over to lewdness because they don't feel the guilt. They don't feel the pain. They don't feel, and so they just give themselves over. They just surrender completely to a sinful lifestyle, lewdness.

working all uncleanness with greediness. And it's that giving themselves over to sin. That's how unbelievers walk, Paul says. But you shouldn't walk like that. In verse 20, he goes on to say, but you have not so learned Christ. Here, Paul puts the responsibility squarely upon us. And he says, look, you have a choice. You know the truth. You have understanding. You

This is not what you have learned. So to give yourself over to sin, yes, other people around you do that. But that's not what you've learned in Christ. That's not what Jesus has revealed to you. That's not what the Lord is speaking to you. And the Lord is never leading you into that direction. He goes on to say, if indeed you have heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus. And so if you've not heard Jesus,

If the Lord is not speaking to you, if he is not teaching you, well, that's a separate thing. First of all, you need to come to salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. But believers who have received the offering of forgiveness in life that the Lord offers through his sacrifice on our behalf, we have heard him. We have been taught by him. Not that we have been taught everything yet, right? It's a work in progress, but we have heard his voice.

That's why we responded to the gospel message. And so we've heard him. We've been taught by him. He is not teaching us to give ourselves over to sin. And so again, coming back to the point, I will walk toward righteousness. I like it this way, and I worded it this way on purpose. Not I will walk in righteousness, although of course that is the objective. That's the goal. But I like the idea of toward righteousness because it's

Well, in my mind, it includes the reality of our frailty and sinfulness, and we will fall short. But then when I do, I will get back up and I will walk back towards righteousness. And it's that ongoing, just like last week, we talked about walking toward unity, that as members of the body of Christ, we are united, but we don't see that practically lived out, right? In all situations and all relationships, right?

But when we see that broken fellowship, that broken relationship, then we're to get back up and walk toward unity and seek to reconcile. In a similar way, I will walk toward righteousness. This is what we learn in Christ. This is what he speaks to us about. This is what he's teaching us. Going on into verse 22, Paul says that you put off concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.

Here in these few verses, Paul describes for us a really powerful and important concept. And I often refer to this. It's the concept of putting off and putting on. And he says here you are to put off your former conduct.

That he says it's the old man, the sinful nature. And it's growing corrupt according to deceitful lust. It's your sinful nature craving after things that are not of God, things that are not good for you. Put off those things. But it's an ongoing process. It's not a one time, okay, I put that off and now I never have to deal with that again. No, it's one of those things that, you know, you put it off, it kind of creeps back on. It sneaks back on.

And you have that sinful nature and you put it off and you're saying, oh my goodness, that's corrupt, right? It's rotting, it's gross, but you put it away and when you're not looking, it sneaks back up and it's right there on you. This is part of the reality for us as believers that we are not completely done with our sinful nature yet. Our sinful nature is still there and seeking to dominate and take over, right?

And so there's going to be this ongoing process and we need to have this ongoing commitment. I will walk toward righteousness. And that means that, well, when the sinful nature creeps up on me and I find myself chasing after those deceitful lusts, that I will put off those things. But it's not just the stopping of one behavior, stopping of something that is bad or negative in our lives. But there needs to be then a replacement process

of that pursuit. And so he goes on in verse 23 to say, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind that you put on the new man, which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. You have two natures in that sense. You have the old nature, the sinful nature, and you have, well, the nature that was created according to God.

As we often quote from 2 Corinthians, right? If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. And we have this new nature that was created according to God, which is in true righteousness and holiness. And we need to put on that new nature that we have in Christ and to put off the old nature. And it's going to be an ongoing decision that we must make. This

Putting off and putting on. Again, it's not a one time. I did it once. Now I'm done. I have the nature of Christ. I'm righteous and I'm holy. No, I continually, day by day, and taking it even further, throughout the day,

I recognize that I'm pursuing deceitful lusts and recognizing that my sinful nature is taking charge. And I recognize that and put that off. I make the decision to stop going that direction. And in its place, I make the decision to put on godly character, godly nature. We have this opportunity and we have this responsibility.

Pastor Thomas Constable puts it this way, This idea of putting on and putting off, it's terminology used of putting on clothes.

And, you know, when you've been out working in the mud and you come in and you're all stinky and sweaty and, you know, you put off those garments, you know, sometimes you're wearing some clothing and perhaps you don't even really recognize how stinky you are, right? But maybe someone else kind of helps you recognize that. And then you go, oh, wow, yeah. And so, okay, I'll take this off.

And then I'll put on, now hopefully you'll wash first, but then you put on something new, right? And this is the idea here that when I begin to recognize, man, my attitude stinks. Man, my heart stinks. And you know, my actions stink. Then I put off those actions, right?

And maybe I don't recognize it myself, but maybe someone else around me recognizes and says, hey, you kind of stink right now. Okay, let me put off that attitude, that heart, that mindset, that behavior, and to put on. But it's a responsibility that we have. It's a decision that we have to make.

We, of course, want it to be that I just wake up tomorrow with the nature of Christ. I just wake up tomorrow and I'm perfect and I'm holy and then I don't ever have to do these things. But that's not the way that God has designed the Christian life. When we wake up in eternity, we will have that luxury, right? But until then, there is going to be the ongoing daily battle where we have to commit, I will walk towards righteousness.

And that means I will recognize when I'm beginning to stink, I will take off that action, that behavior, that attitude, and I will put on what corresponds with the nature of God. This is my responsibility. It's decisions I have to make. And it's a responsibility I have to God. But Paul's point here in this passage is it's a responsibility I have to the rest of the body.

And this is something that I think we need to really allow the Lord to minister to our hearts and establish in our hearts. For me to make the decision to put off and to put on, it's not just a decision that impacts me. And it's not just about, you know, how good my life is going or how great, you know, my relationship with the Lord is. But again, Paul is connecting it here in verse 17.

Therefore, since we are the body of Christ, since we grow as each part does its share, Paul is saying, look, when we don't put off that old nature, not only does it hinder my walk towards righteousness, but it hinders the body of Christ. There's an impact. There's an impact that my life has, that my relationship with God has, that my behavior has, that my spiritual condition has,

with those that God has attached to me and me to them. And so I have a responsibility to God to walk toward righteousness. But I also have a responsibility to you. And you have a responsibility to each other. This is the way that God has designed the body of Christ. We are intertwined, interconnected in a very real way. I will never be the full extent of what God has for me while you continue to walk toward

according to the old nature. And that's true for all of us. And it's as we collectively make the decision to walk toward righteousness that we collectively begin to experience more and more of the work of God and who God is in our lives.

And so again, I will walk as a member of the body of Christ. We're talking about walking our behavior, our life. It matters. And we need to factor in, it's not just, you know, sometimes there's the opportunity to sin and you're evaluating, okay, what are the consequences, right? And a lot of times when we're in that situation, we're just thinking about, okay, well, I can handle those consequences. That's not a bad, you know, not a big deal. I just lied a little bit.

Got me out of this situation, took care of this issue with my boss. And so no big deal. And we're just thinking about whether or not we can handle the consequences. We're just thinking about the impact on us and we forget. And in that moment, we're not walking as a member of the body of Christ. We're like, hey, forget all of you. I'm going to do what I think is good or what I want to do. I'm going to do what feels good for me. You know, who cares about the rest of you? And Paul is saying, no, no, no, we're tied to one another. Therefore,

I testify in the Lord, he says, don't walk like the Gentiles walk any longer. Don't throw off restraint. Don't go into those things and give yourself over to sin. Don't do that. Not just for your own sake, but also for the sake of everybody else that God has attached you to as a member of the body of Christ. We impact each other's lives.

And so we need to come to this place where I will put off, I'll recognize the stinky. And even if it's not for my own sake, for your sake, I'll put on the nature of God and I'll press on towards the things of God, walking toward righteousness. Because the rest of the body is depending on me, I will walk toward righteousness. Now, as we continue on in this passage, working our way now through the rest of the verses here in chapter four,

we're gonna look at some examples that Paul gives. And so he doesn't just teach the truth, but he gives some examples for us to think through. And we're not gonna spend a lot of time on each one of them, but just to kind of take a moment to think through some of the different examples that Paul gives here. We're gonna start in verse 25 and it gives us point number two. Point number two is I will speak truthfully to people. I will speak truthfully. Verse 25, Paul says, therefore,

Putting away lying, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Putting away lying, he says, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Now, first of all, stop and recognize the put off and the put on, right? I'm going to put you on the spot. What are we putting off here in verse 25? Lying, stinkiness. Yeah, stinky lies.

We're putting off lying. And then what are we putting on instead of lying? Truth, right? You see that swap he says, putting away lying, let each of you speak truth. And so here he's kind of illustrating for us. This is part of how it works.

when you're lying and you recognize, wow, that's stinky, then you, oh, let me stop that. Let me, you know, turn from that and then in its place. So again, it's not just don't speak the lie, but in its place, speak the truth. So we see the put off, we see the put on. Also notice, we see the attachment to one another. He attaches to this instruction,

There at the end of verse 25, for we are members of one another. Why should I stop lying? Why should I replace lies with the truth? Paul says, because we belong to one another. We're members of one another. We're attached together. And what we do matters in our relationships with each other. It impacts the rest of the body of Christ. Not only the person that I'm lying directly to, but

but those around me that God has placed in my life in that way. I need to come to the place where I will speak truthfully to people. Well, I'll remove the lies and in its place, speak the truth. Is that something that you struggle with?

You might look at that and think, well, that doesn't sound like that part of a thing. You know, not a big deal. I don't, you know, I'm not really tempted. Maybe I exaggerate a little bit here and there, but, you know, I don't really like directly lie, you know, maybe a little white lies, you know, that kind of thing. But I would encourage you to kind of think about it, not just in what comes to your mind with the word lie, but the idea of genuineness is what this speaks to me about.

There's a genuineness that the Lord desires of us. And especially as we're gathered together as members of the body of Christ, there's a need for honesty. And sometimes, you know, maybe we wouldn't call it lying, but we are pretending. As we interact with one another, as we talk to each other, as we spend time together, we are pretending about a great deal of things. And we're not really genuine in the things that we say, in the words,

the things that we convey to one another, we need to learn to be honest about our spirituality. Sometimes we're pretending to be spiritual when we aren't, right? Sometimes we're pretending to be righteous when we aren't. Sometimes we're not honest and genuine about our frailty. We're not wanting other people to know that we are weak or that we struggle or that we have issues. And so we pretend, we put on a front and listen carefully,

We may not think of it in those terms. We may not think that that's, you know, a severe thing or a serious thing, but it falls into this category and it impacts our relationships with one another and our fellow members in the body of Christ. Do you have doubts? Do you have struggles? Do you have hurts? Our genuineness with one another is, well, it's something we need to put off the disgenuineness, the ways that we're faking and pretending and to put on the

a real honesty about who we are and where we are. Pastor David Guzik puts it this way. He says, a body can only function properly if it tells itself the truth. If your hand touches something hot, but your hand tells your brain that the thing is cool, your hand will be severely burned. That's why telling the truth is so important because we're members of one another. If your hand is lying to the rest of your body, it's going to cause damage.

We also learn elsewhere in the scriptures when one member suffers, it's 1 Corinthians chapter 12, all the members suffer with it. But sometimes one member is suffering, but it's just like the hand. It's just pretending like, no, no, everything's fine and we're good. No problem. When one member rejoices, all the other members are to rejoice with it. And that we're sometimes more quick to share, right? But it's all sides. It's the reality of life that the Lord wants us to share together.

And so because I'm attached to you, because we're members of one another, because I'm a member of the body of Christ, I will speak truthfully to people to put off lying and to put on truth because the rest of the body is depending upon me. Moving on to verse 26 and 27, we get point number three. Point number three is I will not let my anger become sin.

And I'm going to skip these verses and just move on to the next one. No, I'm just kidding. Verse 26. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil. I said I was going to skip it and then Elsa breathed a sigh of relief, right? I'm just kidding. Just trying to see if I can stir up some anger. Be angry and do not sin. A couple things to point out here. He doesn't say never become angry. There is many situations where anger

The anger itself is not the issue, but it's how we handle the anger. And so there is many occasions for us to be angry and not sin. Here, Paul encourages us to not let anger develop into sin. The anger, it's an emotional response, right?

And the emotion itself isn't wrong. Isn't it in itself sinful? In the same way that being sad isn't necessarily sinful, but you can allow your sadness, well, to prompt you to sin. And you can allow other emotions to prompt you to sin in a similar way. You can be angry and then handle that anger in a way that is not sinful. And that's what Paul is saying here. Be angry and do not sin. It's a quote from Psalm chapter four, verse four.

And how do we do that? How do we handle that anger in a way that is not sinful? Well, he continues on to say, do not let the sun go down on your wrath. So one of the ways that anger becomes sin is when you just let it stew, when you just kind of let it simmer and you allow the sun to go down. In other words, you don't deal with it. You don't address it.

If you try to pretend like there is no anger or you try to, you know, kind of, maybe you kind of like the feeling, you know, sometimes we like pity parties and sometimes we like those angry parties as well. You kind of, you know, get stirred up by that. And so you allow it to continue and the sun goes down on your wrath. A day goes by, days go by and it simmers and it stews. And Paul says, don't do that. Instead, address your anger, right?

If your anger is righteous indignation, you know, well, then you address it one way. But if your anger is because I'm selfish and, you know, you offended me and I'm selfish and I'm angry about it, well, then it's repentance time, right? I come as I recognize that, you know, oh man, I'm stinky. You know, I need to put off that anger because it's because of my selfishness. It's because of my sinfulness that I'm angry. It's not a righteous indignation. Now, a lot of people,

especially when it comes to anger, you know, they will have the ready excuse, you know, well, I can't help it. You know, I just have a really bad temper. I inherited it from, you know, my grandfather and he inherited it from his grandfather. And, you know, it just runs in our family. We just have a bad temper. And yes, we have those natural things and those tendencies and that, you know, trained behavior from when we were growing up, we have all of that. But then, you

I would just remind us that we're a new creation in Christ. And you may not be able to prevent yourself ever from being angry, but you can learn to be angry and not sin. I don't know. I don't know if I could do that. I mean, I don't know. I have a really bad temper. It just like flares up. And I always like to ask the question, well, okay, so you get angry and you just blow up and then you start throwing things. Well, do you behave that way at work?

Like sometimes, yeah, you're angry and you're throwing things, you're throwing a tantrum, but you would say, I can't control it. But in other contexts, you're in public, you're at work, you're at church, you're at somewhere else. And, you know, maybe usually someone cuts you off, you behave, you know, in one way, but, you know, Harvey's in the car with you. Okay, well now you don't behave that way. And it shoots holes in your theory. I can't control it because in other contexts, you do control it. And it's,

It's something that we need to come to terms with. It is a choice that I have to make so that I bring myself to the place where I say I will not let my anger become sin. Now, Paul goes on to say in verse 27, nor give place to the devil. He highlights this. He illustrates this as a particular area where the devil has opportunity when we are stirred up in anger. Pastor Warren Wiersbe puts it this way.

Satan hates God and God's people. And when he finds a believer with the sparks of anger in his heart, he fans those sparks, adds fuel to the fire, and does a great deal of damage to God's people and God's church.

You ever get angry and then relive a situation over and over and over and over and over in your head? And you ever notice like just how wonderful that makes things? It just like calms everything down, you know? You know, what happens? You're stirring it over, you're stirring it over. It's not just your mind and it's not just your emotions. It's not just your flesh doing that. But the enemy, he has an advantage when we're angry and when we will not let it go.

He stirs those things up. He refreshes those things. He stokes the fires. And even when they begin to die out, there's that stirring up of the coals again. This provides a foothold and an opportunity for Satan to bring destruction to us and to the members of the body of Christ around us. We need to put off that anger that leads to sin because the rest of the body is depending on me. I will not let my anger become sin.

Moving on to verse 28 for point number four, I will work to meet people's needs. Verse 28 says, let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need. Now, as we look at this verse again, I'll put you on the spot. Recognize there's something we're putting off and there's something that we are putting on. So what is it that we are putting off here in verse 28?

Stealing or stinky thievery or however you want to word it, right? Let him who stole. This is what we are to put off. Steal no longer. Put that away. Now, what are we putting on in its place? Giving. We're putting on giving and we're putting on working. He says, let him labor. And this word labor literally means to labor to the point of exhaustion. So work hard to

Now, you could think of it like this, right? Okay, like I have needs. I don't have the means. So I steal from you to provide for myself. And you could think, okay, now Paul's going to say, okay, now work hard and provide for yourself. But again, that's not where Paul leaves it. It's not just a stopping of the stealing. And it's not just working hard to provide for yourself. Repentance is a full 180 degree turn, right? So it's not just stop lying, repent.

But it's speak the truth. In the same way, it's not just stop stealing, but you can tell that a thief is repentant when the thief not just provides for themselves, but then starts to give. And when that becomes generosity instead of thievery, then you can see that repentance has taken place. Now for you and I as believers, as members of the body of Christ, we believe

We need to be practicing repentance regularly and continually. And if there is an issue of stealing, Paul says, you need to stop it. And in its place, you need to work hard so that you can give. Again, not just to meet your own needs, not just to provide for yourself, but then to be able to be generous and to help others who have needs. Others who were in your situation previously.

But you can help them by giving to them.

Now there's a variety of ways that we could talk about stealing. Obviously swiping something out of someone's purse or off of someone's desk, those kinds of things. We can also steal in holding onto things that are not ours or misusing our time when somebody's paying us for that time and so on and so forth. I'll let you consider those ideas on your own. But we need to put off stealing and to put on labor and generosity and

Because the rest of the body is depending upon me. The rest of the body of Christ is depending upon you to turn from those things and to progress in labor and generosity. Well, now verse 29 gives us point number five. I will build people up with my words. In verse 29, it says, let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification that it may impart grace to the hearers.

So notice again this pattern, the put off and the put on. What are we putting off here in verse 29? Corrupt words. She's my star student tonight. Put off corrupt words. This word corrupt refers to where it's used to speak of rotten fruit. You ever had rotten fruit in your house?

And, you know, like you start getting flies. You're like, why are all these flies around? You know, what's going on? Well, that basket of fruit that you thought, well, hey, I'm going to be, you know, a really great, awesome example of how to eat right and healthy and everything. And so you bought all this fruit and then it's sitting there in the basket and you never actually eat it because it never looks as good at home as it does in the store, right? So it's just sitting there and it's rotting. And then you go to touch it, right? And it's just like squishy and falls apart and the juice falls down all over the table. It's just...

corrupt, right? Paul says, let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth. That's what we put off, rotten words, stinky words. What do we put on? We put on what is good for necessary edification. That is words that build up, words that help, words that, as Paul puts it here, imparts grace.

Can you imagine what would it be like if every conversation that we have with people, the people walk away built up and while having experienced grace. I don't know if that can be said of all my conversations. I don't know if that can be said of all your conversations. But it is, well, something we are to work towards.

And it's important, not just in our interactions with each other, but with those around us, wherever we may be. Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth. The rest of the body is depending upon me to grow in this area, to put off words that cut down, words that spread rotten things, and to put on in its place words that build up and show grace and are a blessing to those who hear them.

Well, point number six, moving on to verse 30, I will not grieve the Holy Spirit. Here in verse 30, he says, and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. You can attach this idea of grieving the Holy Spirit to the things that Paul has been saying before and also the things that Paul is saying after.

This general concept of pursuing and allowing our sinful nature to dominate in our lives is a grieving of the Holy Spirit. In Romans, Paul talks about that battle, right? Between the flesh lusts against the spirit, the spirit against the flesh. There's this tug of war in a sense to grieve the Holy Spirit is to cater to our flesh. Now notice this.

He also points out here in verse 30, you were sealed for the day of redemption. So he's not talking about you lose the Holy Spirit. As believers in Jesus, we were sealed. We have the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit doesn't depart from us, but we can grieve the Holy Spirit by, well, not responding to him and not allowing him to have control of our lives and by giving in to our sinful desires and our sinful nature. The rest,

of the body is depending on me. We talked a little bit about spiritual gifts last week. If I am involved in grieving the Holy Spirit, I'm not going to be as effective as administering to you. I'm going to be hindering the Holy Spirit's work in my life. And that doesn't just impact me, but that impacts you. And I'm not just saying that because I'm up here teaching, but wherever I'm at and whatever member you are in the body of Christ, when you grieve the Holy Spirit and

It reduces your effectiveness at ministering to one another. And again, going back to verse 16, the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies according to the effect of working by which each part does its share. As we all are responding to the Holy Spirit and working with what the Lord is leading us, then we're able to grow. That's how we develop. And so the rest of the body is depending upon us to not grieve the Holy Spirit, but to walk in the Spirit and to experience the fruit

of the spirit. Well, finally, verses 31 and 32 give us the final point. Verse seven, I'm sorry, point seven is I will be kind and forgiving like God. Verse 31, let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.

And so here Paul again has the pattern, put off, verse 31, bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, evil speaking. Let all that stuff be put away. Put away all of those things. Bitterness, that holding on. You remember in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, it describes love as keeping no record of wrongs. Bitterness is the opposite of that. It's keeping a record of wrongs done.

And you know what that stirs up? Wrath and anger and all of this battle, this evil speaking. He says, put all of that away. Don't let any of that be harbored or fostered in your heart. And in its place, be kind to one another. Be tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.

Considering bitterness, Warren Wiersbe says this, I don't know about you, but that kind of like, whoa, you know, kind of just put some perspective on things. Well, he says,

Paul says, here's what we are to do. We're to look at the way that God is related to us and use that as the example of how we relate to one another. And it is really important that we learn to be kind, to be tenderhearted, just like God is to us, to forgive just like God does to us. Now, again, as we talked about unity and us being a body, that means we're in close proximity to each other. We're going to have

issues. We're going to offend each other. We're going to sin against each other. We're going to be angry at each other and try not to sin. You know, we're going to have these issues. That's part of our sinful nature and our close proximity, but we need to. We must. And the rest of us depend on us learning to be kind and to forgive like God forgives.

Sometimes we hold on to bitterness. We hold on to unforgiveness. We refuse to let things go. We refuse to reconcile. But I would encourage you to stop and think about what picture does that paint? It's impossible for us to represent God while harboring unforgiveness.

Think about that. Forgiveness is a chief aspect of God's nature and his message to all humanity. Forgiveness, it's like the core of the gospel message, right? We cannot represent God when we're demonstrating the opposite of that. And so forgiveness and kindness, it's something that we must put on. Putting off bitterness, malice, and in its place, choosing to forgive.

choosing to be kind, choosing to treat others the way that God treats us. And so here we have some good examples of how to walk as a member of the body of Christ. You have all the resources because of who you are in Christ. You have everything you need and you have the support of the body of Christ, but you also have that responsibility.

Everybody else is depending upon you. Walk as a member of the body of Christ, walking towards righteousness. We recognize it's not gonna be perfect, but get back up when you fall, when you fail, and go back towards righteousness and continue to go back and back and back and learn to put off those stinky clothes, those stinky behaviors, those stinky attitudes, and to put on the nature and the character of Christ. Let's pray. God, I pray that you would help us

As we consider these things, Lord, we need help just in identifying, Lord. Sometimes we have such a hard time recognizing how stinky we are. But Lord, would you give us a fresh sense, Lord, a fresh awareness, Lord, of our behaviors and our attitudes that are not according to who we are in you. Lord, would you show us those things that we could turn from them, that we could put them off, and that we could put on your nature, your character in its place. Help us, God.

by the power of your Holy Spirit. Give us strength. And Lord, when we fall, when we fail, help us not to run away, but to draw near to you, to receive your forgiveness, to get back up and to continue to walk and progress in the life that you've called us to. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of His Word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.