"Beautiful Contrast" - Ephesians 4:25-32 - Jeff Stevens

[Music] [Music] [Applause] our Father and our God Lord we thank you we praise you we worship and adore you Lord we pray that today as we dig into your word we pray that your Holy Spirit would reveal these incredible pastoral charges and encouragement for us to differentiate ourselves from the world Lord in this new life that we have in Christ we pray that we would bring glory and honor to you and represent you in your ultimate beauty help us now to grow in your grace in the knowledge of your son amen Wow this text for a couple weeks now I've been in this text and studying this text and it is what I have called a beautiful contrast and we live in this world where we we are constantly comparing in fact most of our social medias are set up as such and we can't help but get on to whether it's Facebook or other social medias and we find ourselves taking our kind of our cerebral lowlights and comparing them to other people's highlights but I want to be clear in today's text Paul is not comparing he's not comparing the life of a Christian to the life of a non-christian he in fact is contrasting it and he's doing it so that you will understand that I will understand that there is a backdrop to which we should differentiate ourselves how we would view ourselves how we would hold ourselves how our lives are to be lived as people who proclaim the person of Jesus Christ he's going to use a word over and over again it's the simple word let and the word let requires two things it requires first and foremost that we surrender something if I have to let something happen that I have to let go of something and then the second part of that is the action that let brings in but we don't want to get lost in all the let's and the five pastoral charges that Paul is going to give here we want to ultimately focus on what it is that he's calling us to be and so as we look at the text I want you to try and imagine if you could these illustrations these word pictures and I promise you it'll all tie together again in Paul's word but just as we sang come thou fount around that same time and era there was a group of men that founded a a church which we now today know as the Methodist Church but back then it was these three men john and charles wesley they were brothers many of our hymns are written by john and charles wesley and the third man was a man by the name of george whitfield and these two men in particular john wesley and george whitfield used to fiercely debate each other on deep doctrinal issues they differed an opinion on the means of grace and salvation but I think that it's important to look at their example of debate and understand it in its appropriate context in fact in the 1700s they were having one of these such debates on the steps and the front steps of the church and back in those days the media actually covered these things and the newspapers were there in droves to hear this great debate between these two brothers in Christ and as they bantered back and forth George Whitfield annihilated John Wesley he completely broke down everything that John Wesley held and it just he overwhelmingly dominated the debate so much so that when the debate ended and the men walked their different directions the media followed Whitfield and Whitfield was not no for his desire to engage the media and be quoted in the paper he was a humble man but one of the paper people yelled out to him said pastor Whitfield do you even believe that you will see John Wesley in the kingdom of heaven Whitfield stopped he turned and he engaged the media and he said no all the fury Whitfield judging he's judging he's judging John Wesley this is incredible I can't believe this is going on no I won't see him because John Wesley will be far too close to the throne room of Jesus Christ for me to ever encounter him that is my brother in Christ he is a lover of God and God is a lover of him Whitfield would not allow there to be a separation a division that could take place just because they disagree over over an area of scripture Whitfield wanted to be clear that his kindness and his tenderheartedness was first and foremost Wesley in later years would go on as he wrestled continued to wrestle with these doctrines of grace and he finally came to a conclusion and literally this quote came from his death bed or Wesley has this epiphany and he starts to see a contrast in life and he says what use would we have for the stars if the Sun were to shine all day I don't even think we'd know to look at him I don't know that we would understand them if we always had daylight if we could never see the Stars and their ultimate beauty in their backdrop we would have to see them in the darkness of the sky the darkness of the heavens reveals the glory of the light this is the beauty the contrasted beauty of our savior and it's what Paul is going to pastoral and encouraged and charged us with in this scripture is there something a backdrop that differentiates you and me from the rest of the world or do you merely come into church and see nothing but Sun with no backdrop we start to realize that in a simplicity of life the backdrop of God's space is just like the real world and that he utilizes the backdrop of unrighteousness so that he can reveal the glory of his children of God in a light so as we look at the text today I'll remind you of what Bob spoke on two weeks ago just paraphrase at a fee for 17 through 19 it says now this I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds they are darkened in their understanding alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the heart their hardness of heart they have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality greedy to practice every kind of impurity that's the backdrop what Paul's gonna do now is he's going to segue with the word therefore in Ephesians 4:25 and he's gonna say therefore having put away falsehood let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor for we are members one of another be angry and do not sin do not let the Sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil but 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 mouth but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice be kind to one another tender-hearted forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you the practice of the old man follows his condition the condition of his heart as is laid out to us in verses 17 through 19 and so the practices of the new man in verses 25 32 through 32 should follow his condition that he lays out in verses 20 through 24 but in verses 25 through 32 we find five pastoral charges each one has three parts a negative command a positive command and and the reason for the positive command I want you desperately to see the contrast that exists between the old man and the new man in this new life that we have in Jesus Christ so in Ephesians 4:25 Paul uses the therefore he's pointing back to the old man that Bob described two weeks ago and he says therefore having put away falsehood let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor for we are members one of another this first pastoral charge is to stop deceiving each other a falsehood deception is the mask that false teachers are referred to in verse 14 it's also the falsehood that is referred to the old man in verse 22 and this is the mask of deception that they wear instead the Christian should speak truth namely what is in harmony with reality here's the harmony of reality look if you would I tip on that on the screen Cowen's 3 8 and 9 but now you must put them all away anger wrath malice slander and obscene talk from your mouth do not lie to one another seeing that you put off the old self with its practices my old self is nowhere in comparison to my new self old self loved a good fistfight new self fears being hit in the face and it puts off those bitterness --is anger and wrath the reason is that the Christian belongs to and must function honestly in a group the church truthful speech is essential to the unity in the body we all know what a lie is but there's other things that don't seem to always qualify a half-truth I want you to know this is a whole lie the omission of truth is also an entire hole lie and I can tell you when it comes to lying I've said this to my kids you know you can do stupid things you can make poor choices but if I catch you lying to me God have mercy on your soul lying maybe it's an accepted weapon in the warfare that's waged by the world but it has no place in the Christian life a lie is a stab into the very vitals of the body of Christ to lie to a brother and a sister as you might as well just stab them right in the heart and Paul is giving us this first admonition to stop deceiving which requires us to be transparent in our lives oh how many countless times do I have to hear people when I say what can I be praying for you you know everything is good thanks for the lie the second pastoral charge is to avoid sinning when angry Paul says be angry and do not sin do not let the Sun go down on your anger he wants us to deal with the sin of anger quickly Psalm 4:4 says this be angry and do not sin you see Paul's not saying don't ever be angry he's recognizing that you're going to be angry but you can't let your anger compel you into sin we see that emotion of anger is not what's sinful in itself when we see Jesus himself in John 2 13 through 16 it says the Passover of the Jews was at hand and Jesus went up to Jerusalem in the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and money changers sitting there and making a whip of cords he drove them out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen and he poured out the coins of the moneychangers and he overturned their tables and he told those who sold the pigeons take these things away do not make my father's house a house of trade that is righteous anger you can be angry but the only thing you can be angry about is sin and that's why Paul puts a timer on it because if we would to be angry and not sin we must therefore only be angry at nothing but sin be careful on what you judge to be sin because I know that if many are like me you pull on to the free way of life and you immediately see all this traffic and you say to yourself who who are all these people on my freeway I have a place to be or if you're like me and you drive in your aimless little world kind of rocking out to whatever Christian musics on having a happy good old time and I just cut someone right off but I give him the traditional wave it's good sorry but they wave back with that one fingered salute they're angry I mean I had a guy just not too long ago who was so angry he wanted to fight old Jeff would have loved a fistfight new Jeff was like oh that's I'm 53 I don't do that and I went what are you talking about pull over why would I pull over and so we're we're going down the thing and and I can tell you here's what really angers people when you're looking at and say I'm sorry I'm praying I'm sorry now oh my gosh I mean you've done the worst thing in the world and then you have that awkward moment you pull up to the same red light it's been fun for a couple miles but now we're here we're side-by-side and I see his window come down my god this is gonna be fantastic the window comes down he's hurling obscenities I'm gonna kill ya you know and I'm like I looked at it I said sir sir I'm sorry I cut you off back there it's a hundred percent my fault he looked at me and he says what's wrong with you he said sir I'm not sure how you got up this morning in thought there was going to be a day where no one would cut you off but apparently I'm that guy I don't want to fight you it's easy to lose control of our anger and to let it control us instead of controlling it anger becomes sinful when it becomes inappropriate the way we deal with sinful anger is to confess it as sin first first John 1:9 tells us how to deal with this it says if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness but then Paul gives us that subtle little warning where he says to not let the Sun go down on your anger husbands and wives this is not an opportunity for you to stand outside your fight in the household and say the sun's almost down you better get to your apology he's merely giving a figure of speech that emphasizes the need to deal with sin soon we then seen Ephesians 4:27 it says and give no opportunity to the devil it's important to deal with our anger because if we don't we open up a door for Satan to have an opportunity to lead us into further sin the phrase to give place to the devil means just that to give him room or scope for action anyone can become angry but to be angry with the right person to the right degree at the right time for the right purpose and in the right way that's a challenge it leads to this third pastoral charge that Paul gives the charge is to refrain from stealing but to labor instead he says 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 Paul did not mention other benefits of work here such as providing for one's own needs and doing something useful he emphasized the most noble of motives for our labor that we would use it as a means to give to the needy we struggle with this as people some struggle more than others but the word stealing here is the Greek word cleped on that's where we would get the term kleptomaniac it covers all forms of misappropriation this verse is a reaffirmation of the teaching of the seventh commandment Exodus 20:15 it's pretty simple you shall not steal Deuteronomy 5:19 and you shall not steal we don't need to form a Bible study to understand what this means but we may sometimes be confused at what kind of stealing is being used here for me my mind immediately goes to being in in in kindergarten and being at a store with my mother where I helped myself to a gingerbread man cookie and as we're driving home and we're almost home and my mom looks back and she says says where did you get that gingerbread cookie in the store I didn't pay for that my gosh we made a u-turn we went all the way back to the store where I had to walk in and apologize to the owner of the store and say I'm sorry I stole this gingerbread gingerbread man cookie and then my mother paid for it you see the stealing that we do in the church isn't necessarily in the form of money it may be that you're stealing from God in the form of time and talent that God himself has empowered each as one another certain gifts and you're not exploiting those gifts for Christ in his kingdom maybe it's possible that you and I in many ways are stealing from our God but what Paul is telling us is that we must refrain from stealing and instead we should work to give to those in need this is one of the marks of the of one of the pillars of the original church to devote themselves to the Apostles teaching to prayer and Thanksgiving and giving to those in need as they had need you see we may sit here at some point in time and say wow so-and-so donated millions of dollars to some sort of cause you know who the person I envy the widow and her mites the person who walked in and gave everything are we differentiating ourselves as a church in this way because Paul's gonna say in verse 28 let the thief no longer steal but rather him laborer and if you've understood that then the next thing makes perfect sense here's another way a fourth pastoral charge is to speak good things we sometimes get this wrong we mean well in what we're saying you can come to me with all the kindness on your face and say Jeff you're great manly you don't sweat that much for a big guy and you mean it as a compliment and I'm immediately in the conversation with my wife about a new weight loss program because you brought that up but Christians instead should use words to build each other up rather than to tear them down words can in fact give grace help and gratification in the sense that they communicate encouragement and direction and thus enable the hear of your words to do right Colossians 4:6 tells us let your speech always be gracious seasoned with salt so that you may know how you ought to answer each person the corrupt speech here is condemning his foul talk and not merely idle talk there's an old story that says this it is said that a man once came to a friend and asked how he could make amends for falsely accusing him he told him to put a feather on every doorstep in the entire village the next day he told the man to go and collect the feathers the man responded but that is impossible the wind has scattered them beyond recall and so the man says this so it is with your reckless words are you showing patience are you calculated in your words are you saying words to your children to your spouse to your friends to your family that are encouraging and edifying are they building them up oh how it is so beautiful to see a tender-hearted person that says words of encouragement I had the privilege this last Friday to marry our director of junior high ministry he and his wife are on their honeymoon but let me tell you about J Branson just for one second this is a tender-hearted man this is a lover of Christ and when he enters the room he loses Christ on people I love the teaching of John MacArthur I love the teaching of RC sprawl and I have often dreamt of being as knowledgeable as they are but I'll tell you what I wish I knew Jesus Christ the way that J Branson knows Jesus Christ Oh to be a lover of souls to be that person who enters into the room with words of encouragement the word in verse 30 starts with the word and it connects this first to the former one and what it's telling us is that we can grieve we can bring sorrow and pain to the Holy Spirit by our speech it is inappropriate for us to do so because he is the one by whom we were sealed for the day of redemption 2nd Corinthians 1:22 says this it says and it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us and who has put his seal on us and given us his spirit in our hearts as a guarantee does that not bless you does that not help you to understand that Jesus Christ has put his seal on you and it guarantees it assures you your entrance into the kingdom of God one day I hope that that encourages you when we start to realize that Paul himself is telling us we have the ability to grieve the Holy Spirit because of our sin your little white lie your half truth it grieves the Spirit of God because what he most desires for you is your surrender to let the Holy Spirit be in charge of your life and to let the Holy Spirit compel you into an action of the fruit of his Spirit love joy peace patience kindness goodness gentleness they have self-control he is the one that is driving it it's not of the fruit of Jeff but it is the fruit of the Spirit that is the one that should show up at church that should show up at on on the freeway of life in his fifth pastoral charge Paul says for us is to get rid of six vices and adopt three virtues Bob referenced two weeks ago and if a person went out and had their old tattered coat in the cold and they went to the store and they bought a new coat you don't take the new coat and put it over the old coat you take off the old and you put on the new and the old that needs to go from any of us is let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice Paul listed some of the sins that grieve the spirit bitterness it is the opposite of sweetness and or kindness Colossians 3:19 commands us husbands love your wives and do not be harsh with them men is this the way you act in your home CS Lewis said it best if one doesn't have manners in the privacy of their own home then one doesn't have manners at all husbands you are to love your wives as Christ loves the church it's not just that he sacrificed it's how he views her the beauty of the bride is best seen through the eyes of the groom it's understanding that when Jesus himself looks at your wife and looks at your bride and looks at the entirety of his whole bride he sees it as holy and blameless with absolute perfection not because of something you've done or I've done but because of everything he's done to purify his bride in his church it harbors resentment and keeps a record of wrongs done right it doesn't do this it's easy to come and say I forgive you but can you honestly say I forget what you did every Christian might well pray that God would teach him how to forget if the words I'm sorry will you forgive me come out of your mouth your next prayer should be Lord will you help me to forget this so that I can move on in a harmonious relationship wrath or rage follows or flows from bitterness and refers to outbursts of uncontrolled passionate frustration anger just simply comes from blocked goals constraints that are keeping me from getting what I selfishly want rather than what God has adequately provided it is inappropriate noisy assertiveness and abuse clamor as he refers to are shouting slander refers to words that hurt another person malice is bad feelings towards another person and/or people and as the source of the other five vices someone has defined malice as hard hatred this verse appears to suddenly contradict verse 26 where Paul permitted anger but here he seems to condemn it James 1:19 and 20 says no this my beloved brothers let every person be quick to hear slow to speak slow to anger for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God it does not produce the righteous life that God desires for you so as a rule we should avoid it but when we encounter it it can't compel me to sin I must obey but the three virtues that Paul brings to in verse 32 I hope you see this beauty this contrast what use would we have for the stars of the Sun were to shine all day is there something that differentiates this church this body you as an individual from the rest of the world is the backdrop of unrighteousness revealing the glory of light in the person of Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit in you and it Paul could have used just about anything here you could have said he could have gone to the to the great old love the Lord your God with all your heart soul mind and strength and your neighbor is like it he could have quoted all ten of the commandments he could have said let your good works do great things but look at what Paul says be kind not let be this is what all the let's the surrender to the Holy Spirit the trusting in the holy spirit produces and compels a be let me be kind to one another tender-hearted forgiving as Christ through God has forgiven me Oh to be tender-hearted to not only be a lover of Christ but a lover of people a person who says encouraging things who doesn't allow their anger to drive them into a pit we start to understand that what Paul is saying here in the Epistle this letter to the Ephesians it's characterized by its contrast between the estate of the lost and the estate of the saved the light of God's church is most notice when it is contrasted with the backdrop of unrighteousness be kind to one another what a bright light be tender-hearted to one another a bright light forgive one another as Christ has forgiven you this is what differentiates the glory of God's light is most beautiful when seen in its contrast to the darkness of the world so it is with his church there's something that's so appealing something that is so winsome to those outside of the church when they see a person simply be kind so winsome to the light that is in a dark world be that light my father lived his entire life til he passed away a year ago hating the church because he saw no difference between the people at church and the people of the world be the light be kind to one another be tender-hearted with one another and when you get angry forgive as Christ has forgiven you our Father our loving Savior we come to you as your humbled creatures asking for your grace and your mercy in our lives asking Lord that you would empower us by your Holy Spirit to glorify you to differentiate ourselves from the rest of the world with a kind and tender-hearted spirit a forgiving heart in recognizing that we're not here because of anything we've done but we're here because of what you have done may that be the light we shine it is in Christ's name that we pray amen [Music]

Channel: Highlands Church

Views: 1,873

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: sermon, church, highlands church, bible, scottsdale, arizona, jesus, god, religion, christian, non-denominational, evangelical, christianity, theology, christ, pastor, Ephesians, Ephesians: Made Worthy. Walk Worthy., Jeff Stevens, Ephesians 4:25-32

Id: gL9ku1egICA

Length: 39min 27sec (2367 seconds)

Published: Mon May 21 2018