Walk in Holiness Pt 2

And if you'd read verse 15 with me. As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness. I will be satisfied with your likeness when I awake. And Lord, that truly is what we hold on to, Lord, that hope that one day we will awake to see your face. And Lord, at that point in time, we will be fully satisfied, because the things of this earth will never do it. Only the presence of God will bring true satisfaction.

In your presence is true fullness of joy. And so, Lord, as we take time to study your word this morning, may we just be satisfied with your presence. And Lord, as we take time to study your word this morning, may we just bask in your presence. And may your Holy Spirit minister to us as you see fit. Father, we thank you and praise you. In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated.

And if you would, open up in your Bibles to the book of Ephesians chapter 4. We'll be looking at verses 25 through 32 this morning. Ephesians 4, verse 25. We started into a new series a few weeks ago on walking with God. The first half, of course, of Ephesians, was all about the riches that we have in Christ. The second half is about how we walk now based upon those riches that we have in Christ. And so the first thing that we looked at in this walk

is that we were to walk worthy. We said that walking worthy meant a heart of unity, but also a goal of maturity. But now we moved into a second portion of our walk. And the second portion of our walk that we started looking at is that we needed to walk in holiness, set apart unto God. And we said that walking in holiness meant two things. Number one, there was a principle,

number two, there is a practice. Last week, we talked about the principle. Just to bring us all back up to speed, I will sum up for you the three-part principle of walking in holiness. Number one was that we were to change the way that we walk. We were not to order our behavior like the rest of the world around us any longer, not to walk as the rest of the Gentiles walked

because it was emptiness, it was hardness of heart, it was ultimately sin that would lead to death. We don't want to walk like that any longer. Number two, we don't want to remember what we've learned because what we learned was Christ. We were taught it by Christ and in him is that essence of truth. And so we were to remember what we've learned. And then the third thing about this principle is that we were to put out with the old

and in with the new. We were to take off the old man, the old sin nature that had grown corrupt through the deceitfulness of sin. And we were to put on the new nature that had been renewed in Christ Jesus. Now, now that he's given us that principle, the last half of this section is him giving us practically what that is supposed to look like every day, how we put shoes on that and make it walk. And so we pick up in verse 25 of chapter

four, and this is what it says. Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth, each one of you with your neighbor. For we, excuse me, are members of one another. Be angry and yet do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and do not give the devil an opportunity. He who steals must steal no longer, but rather he must labor performing with his own hands what is good

so that he will have something to share with the one who has need. Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment. So that it will give grace to those who hear. 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 and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has forgiven you. And so as we talk about the practice in verses 25 and 26, we're going to talk about the practice of giving grace to one another. In verses 25 through 32, there are six things that he gives us that we need to know about what it would look like to put off the old and to put on the new. Six principles that I would like to pull for us out of here. The first thing that he deals with is falsehood. Notice what it says in

verse 25. Therefore, laying aside all falsehood, speak truth, each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. The first thing he tells us is to put away falsehood. Suppose the first thing that we should do is we should define the word falsehood. Because I don't know about you, but I've never just gone around and said, you know, that's falsehood. I see it.

I see it right in front of me. No. What is falsehood? Well, it's interesting because Kenneth Weiss translates this simply, putting aside the lie. Okay, now I know what that is. I know what that means. And the Amplified Bible goes on to put it this way. Any lie, any defrauding, any half-truth, and listen, any spreading of rumors. So apparently turn the news off, right? Because that's kind of

what goes on there. We are to put those things aside. Falsehood. What's the second thing that they did? Do you remember? It was a time of the day when God came and walked with them in the garden. And do you remember what they did? They hid themselves from God. You know why? Because sin automatically brings deception into the life all of man. Deception has been the natural when

was the father of lies. Therefore, falsehood, that defrauding, those half-truths, those rumors became the very clothes that we wore. Interestingly enough, the very first thing that Adam and Eve put on were the clothes of deception. Therefore, he says to put away all falsehood. Now, the second phrase I want to define for you there is the phrase put away. Because the word, the phrase put

away means to cast off. It is the same Greek word that we're talking about. It's the same Greek word given in verse 22 when it says we are to lay aside, put away, cast off the old self. We have to take off deception like an old set of clothes so that we can put on truth. Because the way that you deal with deception, the way that you disarm falsehood in your life, the way that you disarm

deception in your life is by now speaking the truth. Speaking the truth. I tried to look up the word truth to see if there's something major there and there's not. It just means, it means truth. It means that which is genuine. That which is real. Reality. You should speak the truth with your neighbor. You should speak the truth with your neighbor. Now, before we get into

who our neighbor is, I want to talk about speaking the truth for just a moment. Because there's a couple of caveats I think that are biblical that we need to put on this. Number one, you don't have to tell everybody everything about you all the time. Okay? That does not mean, and I'm talking to the people like, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't

know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't me out there that are over thinkers that are like, okay, so, so to put aside falsehood, I have to tell everybody what I'm thinking all the time. Listen, I don't know, want to know what you're thinking all the time. Okay? Some, sometimes it's best if it's up here, just leave it up there,

right? It's okay. You don't have to tell me everything. Just be genuine. Be who you really are. So that's the first thing. Be careful who you're honest with and how you're honest with him. Being genuine doesn't mean you have to tell everybody what you're thinking all the time. The second thing about speaking truth is this. We were already given the parameters for what

it looks like to speak the truth earlier in the book of Ephesians. Do you remember what that parameter was? We are to speak to ourselves. What does he mean by speaking the truth with our neighbor? Well, I think there's a broad sense to that. And I think there's a very narrow sense to that. The broad sense to that was given to us in the gospels. When somebody asked Jesus, who's my

neighbor, buddy? Because the greatest thing that we can be as believers in Jesus Christ is genuine, genuine believers who are honest with the world around us about how we fail. So we lay aside false, lay aside falsehood by speaking the truth and being genuine with the world around us. But there's a more specific context to this word neighbor because the specific context to this word neighbor is fellow believers in Jesus Christ. Let me tell you what I mean by this. If my hand hurts

and I don't tell the rest of my body that my hand hurts, then my hand will go on hurting and I'll have no idea. And pretty soon an infection breaks out in my hand and my entire body is damaged because my hand never told the rest of me that it hurt. We are all members of one another as believers in Jesus Christ. We are all members of one another as believers in Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ. He's going to tell us that next. Therefore, as we have to be honest about our failures, we have to be honest about our shortcomings. We have to be honest about our feelings. We have to be honest about the things that are getting us down because one of the greatest issues that we face in the culture today is putting on crying on the inside, putting out

the right face for everybody else to see while on the inside I'm dying, but I don't want to let you know about it because if I let you in, then you won't think I've got it all together aside falsehood. And speak the truth with our neighbor because we are all members of one another. So the first thing he deals with there is falsehood. The second thing that he deals with is anger. Notice what he

says. Verse 26, be angry and yet do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and do not give the devil an opportunity. Don't let the sun go down on your anger. Be angry and don't sin and don't give the devil an opportunity. The three things that he tells us there about anger. Now that first one that he tells us is a difficult one. Be angry and don't sin. I bet you ask yourself the same question I

ask myself. How do you do that? How are you angry and yet not in sin? Because anger seems to fall into a whole lot of other sins. As a matter of fact, when we get down to the very bottom and when he deals with bitterness, we'll deal with the outflowing of that anger, which turns into bitterness and clamor and wrath and all that. And so we're going to be angry and don't sin.

That other kind of stuff. So how are we angry without sinning? Well, let me read this to you again out of the Amplified Bible, because I think it sheds some light on what it means to deal with our anger. Being angry and not sinning means to be angry at sin. It means to be angry at immorality, at injustice, at ungodly behavior. You see, there is a righteous anger and that righteous anger is

when you see the injustices, the immoralities and the sin of the world and how it's affecting the world. So how are we angry without sinning? Well, let me read this to you again out of the people and you find yourself angry with it. When you watch the movie Sound of Freedom, I bet some of you started to get angry. That's called righteous indignation because you see that God's kids are

being sold and God's kids are being injured and you find yourself angry at that. That is not an ungodly anger. That is being angry without sinning because you're angry at a situation where somebody is being harmed. It turns into sin when that emotion overtakes you and it spills over into sinful things. It's okay to be angry at the things that are going on in the world. It's not okay to be angry with the

people of the world. We are to be angry and not sin. The second thing that he tells us about anger is if we want to disarm anger, we cannot let the sun go down on your anger. More literally, don't let your anger last till the sun goes down. Now, I have a little bit of a different take on this than everybody else in the world does. And if you agree with me, great. If you disagree,

you have the right to be wrong. But I have a little different take on this than everybody else in the world does. So I do a lot of premarital counseling. We talk about conflict resolution. We talk about anger and those kinds of things. And I always hear a couple say this. We determine we would never go to bed angry. Listen, if I'm angry and I don't go to bed, I'm never going to bed

again, right? Because the longer I stay up, the angrier I get because I like sleep. And if I don't have sleep, my mind doesn't work properly. And if my mind doesn't work properly, I don't have sleep. I get more angry. You see the vicious cycle that goes on here? You see, I don't think you have to take this as a law and say, you cannot go to bed unless you've completely resolved it. I don't care

if it's five in the morning, don't go to bed. Because this is the problem most people really have is that they get angry and they just let it continue to grow. And I need you to understand something. Anger is like a muscle. It continues to build strength. The longer that it sits, the more strength it builds. And it just keeps building and building and building until eventually it blows up on everybody

else around it. That's why if you ever talked to somebody and you said one wrong thing that set them off and they literally blew up their anger all over you and you're like, where'd that come from? Weren't angry at you. They were angry at something from a month ago. You just happened to be in the line of fire. Don't let your anger last till the sun goes down. Eventually you have to

deal with it. Listen, one of the greatest things that you can do for conflict is to let your anger go down. Don't let the sun go down on your anger. Why? Because that brings us to the third one. We should not give the devil an opportunity. We should not give the devil an opportunity. Again, from the amplified, an opportunity to lead you into sin by holding a grudge, by nurturing anger, by harboring resentment, by cultivating

bitterness. You see, if I never deal with anger, then I give the devil the perfect opportunity. And all he's looking for is a chink, a chink in the armor, one spot that he can get a foothold so that he can start climbing and beating on you. And as soon as you give him that opportunity, he will come in with the strength to do it. And if you give him that opportunity, he will come in with

the strength to do it. And as soon as you give him that opportunity, he will come in with the strength with the sin of a grudge, with the sin of nurturing anger, of harboring resentment, of cultivating bitterness, and it will overtake your life. And all it took was you deciding, I'm just not going to deal with that. Listen, if you choose not to deal with it, that is how you've chosen to deal with it. And it will always be there until you choose a different way. We have to beware of our

anger and we have to deal with our anger. Don't let it fester and don't give the devil an opportunity. I would like to give you one verse that I think is so important. I think it's one of the most key verses that you can have in dealing with people and in dealing with anger. And it comes from Proverbs chapter 15 verse 1. You might just jot that down in the margin of your Bible. Proverbs

15 verse 1 says this, a gentle answer turns away wrath. That literally is the simplest statement you could ever make. And yet the greatest wisdom ever shared in the midst of conflict, resolution. Listen, I've done this the right way and I've done this the wrong way. I've done it the wrong way. When someone comes to me with their guns blazing and you're like, oh,

you know what? I got them too, buddy. Right? And we are going to town, right? It turns into a shooting match. And pretty soon the texts are getting fired back and forth. The emails are getting fired off. You guys are yelling at each other across the room and nothing's getting solved. The vein on your head is popping out. The vein on my head is popping out. Nothing good is happening.

Right? Some moments where the Holy Spirit has won and I've just given a gentle answer and just said, you know what? You're right. I'm sorry. And you know what's happened every time I've ever done that? The problem diffuses immediately. You see, fire won't put out fire. It takes water for that. And that, that cool water of that gentle spirit always puts out that flame. Soft answer,

turns away wrath. So he's dealt with this on falsehood. Be genuine. He's dealt with something to share with one who has need. Now, as I started studying this the other day, I'm actually sitting on the front porch of college hill coffee and I'm studying away and I'm going, does anybody in our church struggle with theft? Not right now. Put your phone away. Now, when you go home, Google

richest men that have been caught shoplifting.