Practical Advice for Christian Living (Part 3)
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Good morning and welcome to Dishman Baptist Church. Please take your Bibles and turn in them with me to Ephesians 4, Ephesians 4.
We are legitimately going to finish this chapter this morning - and what a finish it is gong to be. Paul started this section of Ephesians - the practical portion of the book - encouraging his readers to practice unity
Therefore I, the prisoner in the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received,
with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,
making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope at your calling—
one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.
Now here in the final sentences of this chapter he is going to highlight three killers of unity.
Hayden has started getting interested in historical novels, something that touches my heart deeply as I also enjoy historical fiction, and is particularly interested in the period and stories surrounding the Second World War. He’s read books about the Holocaust, D-Day and several other periods of World War 2. So for his birthday my mom gave him a little extra money to buy a book related to that period of history. After looking around we found a book about snipers in world war 2 on Audible but, knowing the character of war novels, I told him I would need to listen to it first. The book chronicles the personal battle of two snipers - one German and one American - in the days following D-Day. The pivotal moment comes during the battle for the fictional town of Bieneville, France. The Americans took the town and are now dug in to the town and the Germans want it back. The German sniper finds out from one of the German soldiers about a tunnel that leads from outside the town into the church at the center of the town. He sneaks through the tunnel and gains access to the church steeple within the lines of a small American force that is seeking to hold the town. He carefully chooses his spots and starts shooting the defenders of the town, one by one.
Now what does that story have to do with us this morning? Three of the characteristics that Paul is going to admonish the Ephesians against are like that sniper. Unless we guard against them, they will infiltrate the church at first silently, and then more vocally as we will see, and destroy any hopes of unity among the members. They are sneaky and can often show themselves in ways we may not expect but in every instance they will always lead to the same thing - a breakdown of love and unity among the church. Let’s take some time this morning to examine these characteristics and then search our hearts to see if there is any vestige of them within each of us and be devoted to rooting them out as we seek unity with one another. Look with me at Ephesians 4:35-32.
Therefore, putting away lying, speak the truth, each one to his neighbor, because we are members of one another.
Be angry and do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger,
and don’t give the devil an opportunity.
Let the thief no longer steal. Instead, he is to do honest work with his own hands, so that he has something to share with anyone in need.
No foul language should come from your mouth, but only what is good for building up someone in need, so that it gives grace to those who hear.
And don’t grieve God’s Holy Spirit. You were sealed by him for the day of redemption.
Let all bitterness, anger and wrath, shouting and slander be removed from you, along with all malice.
And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ.
Some see here a progressive list from Paul - and while it is possible that bitterness can lead to deep anger and then to wrath culminating in shouting and slander - it does not have to be that way. Each of these can also stand on their own as a lifestyle that is antithetical to what we are meant to portray as Christians. The progression of this passage reveals three keys to understanding what Paul is driving at here in the latter portions of this admonition to his readers. Coupled with the illustration from World War 2, there are the assassins, the ammunition and the antidotes.
The Assassins
The Assassins
Bitterness - Wisteria, a beautiful vine that has destructive power. These fast-growing and aggressive vines can wind their way over entryways and may crack or damage facades. The vines will creep through any cracks in the side of the home or in crevices, pushing their way through the exterior and buckling siding. It can wind its way under roof tiles and create water damage after a big rain. Wisteria can also clog gutters, cover and even break glass windows, remove decorative shutters, or otherwise damage the exterior of your home within just a few months during peak growing season. This vine can be controlled through rigorous pruning and, in the right circumstances can actually be a beautiful addition to a garden.
Bitterness can have much the same affect in the human heart. One obvious difference is that there is nothing beautiful about bitterness. And once bitterness takes root, no amount of pruning or self-control will keep the bitterness under control.
Make sure that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no root of bitterness springs up, causing trouble and defiling many.
The root of bitterness in the church. Someone may say something in a way that you don’t approve of and the seeds of bitterness are planted. You may resolve not to speak to that person or to avoid them all together. Even in a small congregation such as ours it is possible to come to church and not to speak to someone if you desire not to. So you start off avoiding them. But soon that’s not enough - even the sight of the person irks you. You are shocked that they would show up to church wearing that. How could they let their children act that way. Commentator Matthew Poole, who Charles Spurgeon recommended above Matthew Henry, describes bitterness as a secret lurking displeasure at another. Bitterness results in the inability to give any charity to the individual who is the recipient or target of your bitterness.
There may be found some who rebuke the failings of their neighbors rather in the bitterness of hatred than out of charity, and not so much with a view to correct them as to give vent to the bad feeling they have in their hearts. This is certainly not according to God’s will, as it is prompted by revenge rather than by a love of discipline.
Hugh of St. Victor
Rather than a beautiful vine with attractive blossoms, bitterness, once root has taken, the only result can be greater, deeper anger.
Anger - Thymos - indignation. It was a quiet morning of May 18, 1980 when Mount Saint Helens erupted sending a column of ash and smoke into the sky. 1300 feet of the mountain was blown away. The blast killed 57 people, showered ash onto 11 states as well as Canada, destroyed 158 miles of highway, 200 homes and caused nearly 1.1 billion dollars in damage. Washington state alone removed 900,000 tons of ash from highways and roads.
This anger which Paul is referring to here carries with it these kinds of consequences. It is anger that is generally concealed beneath the surface of an individual’s life. It simmers, just waiting for a precipitating event. Then it explodes. One such example of this is the first sin chronicled in the Bible after the Fall.
but he did not have regard for Cain and his offering. Cain was furious, and he looked despondent.
Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you furious? And why do you look despondent?
If you do what is right, won’t you be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”
Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.
Cain was ruled over by his anger and the explosion cost Abel his life.
Maybe you know someone who lives like this. Maybe you are someone who lives like this. The anger you feel simmers just below the surface. The unfortunate truth about this sort of anger is that usually when it boils over, when it explodes it generally does so on someone other than the real target of the anger. A child. A spouse. A co-worker. A friend.
Don’t let your spirit rush to be angry, for anger abides in the heart of fools.
This sort of anger is different from the anger Paul previously referred to as this is selfish anger. This is the anger that is directed at the person who offends you, who slights you, who maligns you or who simply annoys you rather than one who is an enemy of God. It is selfish anger that says I’m annoyed and I’m going to make someone pay for that annoyance. It is a dangerous condition in which to live - and it is also one that is often sinfully explained away. That’s just who I am. It’s how I was raised. Charles Spurgeon said
I believe that if you who are subject to a bad temper will lay this besetting sin before God in prayer and ask the Holy Spirit’s help, you shall not only be able to curb it, but you will also acquire a sweeter and gentler spirit than some of those whose temperament is naturally even, with no propensity to fitful change or sudden storm. Do not tell me that there is anything in human nature too obdurate for the Lord to overcome, for there is not.
And this one is too great not to quote. Spurgeon also said this
I heard someone say that he was sorry he had lost his temper. I was uncommonly glad to hear that he had lost it, but I regretted that he found it again so soon.
It is this anger that spills over into the condition of wrath that Paul now addresses
Wrath - orge. Sometimes translated as anger but predominately translated as wrath. And mostly is a reference to the wrath of God.
Because of your hardened and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment is revealed.
We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also.
Because of these, God’s wrath is coming upon the disobedient,
When we are bitter and angry the natural result is that we feel justified in placing ourselves in the position of God and exacting some sort of vengeance on the object of our anger.
300 Quotations for Preachers from the Medieval Church (When Wrath Takes Possession, Wisdom Takes Flight)
When wrath takes possession of the breast, wisdom takes to flight even from the wise.
Bitterness, anger and wrath are all poisonous to the individual who allows them to fester within their heart. But they become even worse when they are released in the form of the next two categories that Paul addresses. The first three conditions are the assassins that take up residence within the church steeple - or within our hearts - the next two are the ammunition that is fired that results in the death of unity among the members of the church.
The Ammunition
The Ammunition
Shouting - clamor.
Matthew Poole - such inordinate loudness as men in anger are wont to break out into in their words. Oh what a world we live in in which this is made even more possible by the presence of social media. We even have names for this - keyboard warriors. Trolls. Those who lurk in the shadows and the safety of their own phones or homes and speak just to hear themselves speak. They actually bring the opposite of value to a conversation - instead they are often guilty of last week’s admonition against speaking “foul” or putrid words and language.
This type of speech is the direct outworking of bitterness, anger or wrath in the heart of a person. They feel they’ve been wronged in some way and they want the world to know. Even if their words bring little value to the situation they feel justified and vindicated in simply offering their opinion. My friend Zac would summarize this type of speech this way - hurt people hurt people. Because that is the source that feeds much of this type of speech. It is simply noise of the type that Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 13 - although it is important to say that these are two different words for clamor and clanging so it is not a direct parallel but the principle still holds.
If I speak human or angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
If we speak from a heart that is overgrown by bitterness, polluted by anger or presuming to exact wrath we are only a clanging cymbal and a noisy gong. We are nails on a chalk board. We’re the crows cawing or the seagulls screaming. But often this type of speech devolves into more than simply noise - it devolves into character assassination through slander.
Slander - the word for blasphemy. This is violent speech that is meant to harm someone - maybe not physically although we know that speech can lead to that outcome. And I’m not trying to take some soft view here and say that we should never speak out against someone if we know they are either in sin or are heretical or some other orthodox reason - but we should be very careful in our speech that we are not spewing forth a heart condition that should not be found among those of Christ’s body. And we should speak with an eye toward restraint of language that would ensure slander doesn’t happen
300 Quotations for Preachers from the Medieval Church (Lack of Restraint in Speech Leads to Greater Evil)
When we are unwilling to keep back the idle word, we soon pass to words that are really evil: we give way to grumbling and detraction—perhaps to disputes and strife, thence to anger and hatred.HUGH OF ST. VICTOR
I would say though that if we are unwilling to keep back the idle word that we have already passed to anger and that the idle word is proceeding from our angry heart.
Keep your tongue from criticizing and watch over your words. Know that in judging others you are passing sentence on yourself and that you are yourself guilty of the faults that you blame in them. It is no excuse to say, “If others tell me things I cannot be rude to them.” No one cares to speak to an unwilling listener. An arrow never lodges in a stone; often it recoils upon the shooter of it. Let the detractor learn from your unwillingness to listen not to be so ready to detract.
Malice
This word sums up the entire heart condition that contributes to the development of bitterness, anger and wrath. It is defined as wickedness, depravity. Paul reminds both the Colossians and Titus that not only we should remove malice but that we once were characterized by this condition.
But now, put away all the following: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy language from your mouth.
For we too were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved by various passions and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, detesting one another.
All of these characteristics are the opposite of what a Christian should demonstrate. As he has throughout this entire portion of Scripture Paul has delivered the negative of what we are not to be and now he shifts views to the positive of what we are to be.
The Antidote
The Antidote
Kindness -
The 2009 book the Help chronicled the story of black caretakers in the 1960’s south. They were women hired to care for the children of white families. One in particular would look at her charge and give her these words - You is kind. You is smart. You is important.
Kindness - it is such a simple word yet it is often so conspicuously missing from our society. Both in words and in action we live in a society that isn’t very kind.
How far does a kind word go? How far does an action of kindness go? The kindest man ever was Christ. He not only met people with inordinate grace but also with inordinate kindness.
Would people characterize you as a kind person?
Or do you despise the riches of his kindness, restraint, and patience, not recognizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?
so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
Our kindness, just like our love, is to flow out of the immeasurable riches of God’s kindness given to us in Christ Jesus. We should be kind to others because we have received such kindness from God.
300 Quotations for Preachers from the Modern Church (Kindness and Greatness)
When God fashioned the heart of man and endowed him with human affection, He first of all inspired him with the quality of kindness, like unto the essence of the divine nature itself, as a token of the beneficent hand that fashioned us. Kindness, therefore, ought to be the mainspring and guide of our heart, and ought at the same time to be the chief attraction that should, as it were, be a part of our very being, with which to win the hearts of others. Greatness, which is but the result of good fortune, so far from diminishing the quality of kindness, is but given one that he might the more freely spread broadcast its beneficent effects like a public fountain, which is but erected that its waters might be scattered to the sunlight.JAQUES-BÉNIGNE BOSSUET
Compassion
Compassion in speech. Do you listen to people? Do we listen to people. Do we empathize with their needs?
Compassion in action - Paul just encouraged his readers to work for the purpose of being able to care for those in need when the need arises. Compassion enables us not only to identify and experience
300 Sermon Illustrations from Charles Spurgeon (Sorrowing with the Sorrowful (Luke 15:1; Romans 12:15; Hebrews 5:2))
Who loves a bag of old nails, or a sack of sawdust? And yet some men and women are almost as hard and dry. If you want to draw people around you, you must have sympathy with them: Compassion magnetizes a man and makes him attract as the lodestone fascinates the needle.A big heart is one of the main essentials to great usefulness. Try and cultivate it. Do not let another man’s sorrow fall on a deaf ear as far as you are concerned, but have sorrow with the sorrowful, and have compassion upon the ignorant and those that are out of the way. They will soon perceive it, and they will do to you as they did to your Master, of whom we read, “All the tax collectors and the sinners were drawing near to hear him” (Luke 15:1).
Forgiveness
Turn in your Bibles with me to Matthew 18:21-35
Then Peter approached him and asked, “Lord, how many times must I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? As many as seven times?”
“I tell you, not as many as seven,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven.
“For this reason, the kingdom of heaven can be compared to a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.
When he began to settle accounts, one who owed ten thousand talents was brought before him.
Since he did not have the money to pay it back, his master commanded that he, his wife, his children, and everything he had be sold to pay the debt.
“At this, the servant fell facedown before him and said, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you everything.’
Then the master of that servant had compassion, released him, and forgave him the loan.
“That servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him, started choking him, and said, ‘Pay what you owe!’
“At this, his fellow servant fell down and began begging him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’
But he wasn’t willing. Instead, he went and threw him into prison until he could pay what was owed.
When the other servants saw what had taken place, they were deeply distressed and went and reported to their master everything that had happened.
Then, after he had summoned him, his master said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me.
Shouldn’t you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’
And because he was angry, his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he could pay everything that was owed.
So also my heavenly Father will do to you unless every one of you forgives his brother or sister from your heart.”
This parable is the preeminent teaching in Scripture on forgiveness and the measure to which we have each been forgiven.
Refusal to forgive reveals we have minimized our offense against God and we have maximized a brother’s offense against us.
We need to recognize that forgiveness costs us something - even when it may cost the other person little. There is no mandate that we only forgive those who seek it. We are instead called to forgive all. Why do I say this? Christ on the cross prays for the forgiveness of those who were standing there mocking him. Stephen prays for the forgiveness of those who were hurling stones upon his head. You cannot pray for forgiveness of those whom you have not forgiven. Yet many of this would say - but this is too hard. You have no idea how much they hurt me. You have no idea how triggered I am every time they walk into a room or even to hear their name. You mean I’m actually just supposed to forgive them?
In the parable we just looked at Jesus says that if you are unwilling to forgive you may not actually be forgiven. When Peter asks Christ how often he should be willing to forgive someone Jesus responds 70 times 7 times. Forgiveness will cost you something. And of course it should be this way. Our forgiveness cost God much, how could it cost us so little. Voddie Baucham recently said
It amazes me that we believe this: That God would crush and kill His own Son, but let you slide.
Why did God crush and kill His own Son - to purchase our forgiveness. How could we assume that forgiveness is optional for us? How could we assume that it will not cost us anything. Forgiveness is the ultimate antidote to the three conditions that Paul started this morning with. If you have forgiveness in your heart bitterness cannot take root. If you have the cooling influence of forgiveness in your heart the simmering embers of anger are extinguished before they can ever blow up on someone else. If you have the humbling knowledge of forgiveness in your heart you know that you rightly should be the recipient of God’s wrath not the disburser of that wrath. That you have no right to stand in His place of judgement over anyone but instead are simply grateful for the forgiveness that you have received.
These three assassins lurk within our midst - seeking to destroy our unity as they demolish our relationships with one another and more importantly our relationship with God. This fourth chapter of Ephesians has taught us that there is no individual plan for Christianity but rather it is meant to be a life lived in connection with other believers for the building up and maturing process to happen. If that relationship - the relationship with other believers - is marred by bitterness, anger or wrath and exemplified by shouting and slander then our relationship with God cannot be right either.
Our relationship with God will never be right as long as our relationship with others is wrong.
The paradox to this is that our relationship with others will never be right as long as our relationship with God is wrong. We must be committed to Christ, submitted to Christ. We must be We must be cultivating an atmosphere, a culture of kindness, compassion and forgiveness in all our relationships but certainly and foremost those within the church if we desire to fulfill the next charge that Paul is going to deliver to us.