1. "In the narrative of the Bible, we've witnessed not just buildings fall, but the whole human race. We've witnessed not simply the atrocities of a few humans, but the lasting rebellion of our entire race."

2. "Brothers and sisters, lying undermines trust. When someone starts lying to you, they essentially start hiding from you, and they manipulate you into having a relationship with a non-existent mirage."

3. "We have a thousand ways to justify our own deceptions, even when we condemn others."

4. "Feelings of anger are invitations to the devil, offering him just the kind of tasty morsels he loves. Anger is like a highway for the devil into the church, and that's why Paul is so urgent here."

5. "Honesty is a dangerous thing if the heart's natural indifference or malice has not been replaced by love."

6. "This world around us is all about getting and holding and hoarding, but we Christians are all about getting and giving."

7. "One of the most important reasons that you should give your money away is to show that it's not your master."

8. "The bullseye that you're trying to hit when you let fly any word from your lips is the good of those who are hearing you."

9. "There aren't enough accountability groups in the world to reign in a heart with its desires increasingly set on sin. So it is that we must pray that God change our desires."

10. "You know what you're truly interested in, what you're deeply excited about comes out in your words. For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks."

Observation Questions

1. According to Ephesians 4:25, what reason does Paul give for why believers should speak truth to one another?

2. In Ephesians 4:26-27, what does Paul warn will happen if believers let the sun go down on their anger?

3. What does Ephesians 4:28 say should be the purpose of a former thief's honest labor?

4. According to Ephesians 4:29, what standard does Paul give for evaluating whether our speech is appropriate—what should our words accomplish for those who hear them?

5. In Ephesians 4:31-32, what specific attitudes and behaviors does Paul say should be "put away," and what should replace them?

6. According to Ephesians 5:1-2, what is the model or pattern believers are to follow as they "walk in love"?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why does Paul connect the command to speak truth (4:25) specifically to the fact that believers are "members one of another"? How does this understanding of the church as a body shape how we think about honesty among Christians?

2. Paul warns believers not to "give opportunity to the devil" through unresolved anger (4:27). What does this suggest about the spiritual significance of how we handle conflict and emotions within the church?

3. In Ephesians 4:30, Paul tells believers not to "grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption." What does it mean that the Holy Spirit can be grieved, and how does the reality of being "sealed" provide both warning and assurance?

4. How does the phrase "as God in Christ forgave you" (4:32) serve as the foundation and motivation for the kindness, tenderheartedness, and forgiveness Paul commands? What would Christian forgiveness look like without this foundation?

5. Paul calls believers to be "imitators of God as beloved children" (5:1) and then immediately points to Christ's sacrificial love (5:2). How does Christ's self-giving sacrifice define what it means to imitate God, and why is this different from simply trying harder to be moral?

Application Questions

1. Paul says lying dissolves trust and works against the unity Christ is creating in His body. Is there a relationship in your life—especially within the church—where you have been tempted to shade the truth, exaggerate, or avoid hard conversations? What specific step could you take this week to speak more honestly?

2. The sermon pointed out that unresolved anger gives the devil an opportunity to sow division. Is there any anger or bitterness you have been holding onto—perhaps one that has "seen a lot of sunsets"? What would it look like to deal with it before it causes further harm?

3. Ephesians 4:28 teaches that we work not just to provide for ourselves but to have something to share with those in need. How does this purpose for work challenge or reshape your current attitude toward your job, finances, or generosity? What is one practical way you could be more generous this week?

4. Paul instructs that our words should "give grace to those who hear" (4:29). Think about your conversations from the past week—at home, at work, or online. Was there speech that would have embarrassed you if played publicly? What habit of speech do you most need to put off, and what could replace it?

5. The sermon emphasized that kindness should mark Christians in practical ways—where we park, where we sit, how we treat others in small things. What is one concrete act of kindness or consideration you could show to another church member or neighbor this week that reflects Christ's tenderhearted love?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Colossians 3:1-17 — This parallel passage expands on the theme of putting off the old self and putting on the new, with similar commands about speech, anger, kindness, and forgiveness rooted in Christ's work.

2. James 1:19-27 — James addresses the danger of anger and the importance of being slow to speak, reinforcing Paul's warning that human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires.

3. Zechariah 8:14-17 — Paul alludes to this passage when commanding believers to speak truth; it provides the Old Testament background for God's expectations of truthful, peaceable community life.

4. Romans 12:9-21 — This passage offers practical instruction on genuine love, overcoming evil with good, and living peaceably—themes that closely align with the marks of a healthy Christian in Ephesians 4-5.

5. 1 John 4:7-21 — John develops the connection between God's love for us in Christ and our call to love one another, echoing Paul's command to walk in love as beloved children who imitate God.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Christian Life as Spiritual Warfare in a Fallen World

II. Be Honest (Ephesians 4:25)

III. Be Gracious (Ephesians 4:26-27, 31)

IV. Be Respectful (Ephesians 4:28a)

V. Be Productive and Generous (Ephesians 4:28b)

VI. Be Helpful (Ephesians 4:29, 5:4)

VII. Be Kind (Ephesians 4:32)

VIII. Be Loving (Ephesians 5:1-2)

IX. Be Pure (Ephesians 5:3)

X. Be Thankful (Ephesians 5:4)

XI. Godliness: Imitating God Through Christ's Redemptive Work

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Detailed Sermon Outline

Where were you 20 years ago on the morning of 9/11?

If you can remember, please stand.

Please be seated.

Our nation, along with many others, had to decide what we would do in response militarily, politically, and many of us today are involved in the direct consequences still happening because of those decisions. The path forward for growth and health for us as a nation is not always obvious.

As a church, our path forward for growth and health can also be uncertain.

Pandemics and politics threaten our ability to function.

Worldly distortions of ethnicity or victimhood can exacerbate, expose, or even impose divisions in our life together.

As individuals, we have choices to make. We are under attack. A little later this year we hope to come to the topic in chapter 6 of spiritual warfare. As Paul uses the military language of spiritual evil forces assaulting us to describe the Christian life, we see that we're involved in constant spiritual conflict. And that's challenging.

The optimists and naïve among us sometimes forget that there is real danger in this world.

Not just physically, but spiritually too. They mistake the world of the spiritual for simply an optional psychological park that we get to visit as often as we find it interesting or helpful. But Paul in his letter to the Ephesians reminds us that we are, as a church and as individuals, involved in conflict older and grander in scale and more dramatic than anything we're remembering as a country this weekend. In the narrative of the Bible, we've witnessed not just buildings fall, but the whole human race. We've witnessed not simply the atrocities of a few humans, but the lasting rebellion of our entire race.

We've witnessed being attacked not simply our nation, but the one and only true God. And yet even more amazing, we've seen not merely the imperfect and temporary responses we've made through our government and people to the events of 9/11, but in the Bible we see God's eternal and successful campaign to put down the rebellion and even to redeem many of the rebels. You realize that we here are a meeting of those who have been decisively Recovered and rescued. Praise the Lord. As a company of saints, that's what Christians are called in this passage, we are subject to constant spiritual assault.

The powers of evil have a firm grip on humanity in this age. In Ephesians 5:16 we see the terse description by Paul of our time, the days are evil. This is the age in which the prince of the power of the air rules.

So being in that situation, being in this time of spiritual crisis and conflict, what is the way forward? What does it mean for us to grow as Christians? What does it mean for us to be a sound, growing, healthy church? Or you a sound, growing, healthy Christian? Well, in our passage this morning, Paul lays out a number of basic instructions for you as an individual and for us as a church.

He fills out and illustrates more of what we were thinking about last week about putting off the old self and putting on the new and being renewed in our minds. So let's listen now to the passage that we have to study today, Ephesians, chapter 4:25 to chapter 5:4. You'll find this on the Bibles provided on page 978. And if you're not used to looking at a Bible, the larger numbers are the chapter numbers and the smaller numbers are the verse numbers. So we're going from chapter 4 verse 25 to chapter 5 verse 4.

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. 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. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths. 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, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you as is proper among saints.

Let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. Friends, in this passage let's note some characteristics, some marks of a healthy Christian. These marks of a healthy Christian have to do with how we relate to each other, so they also become marks of a healthy church. So listen and see what you can learn about these matters, about what it means to put some off and put others on. This is about being made, as one song puts it, a little more like Jesus, a little less like me.

I'll spend longer on some of these and be quite brief on others. So to be a healthy, growing Christian, we want to be, number one, honest, honest. Look again at verse 25, Therefore, having put away falsehood, therefore, you see, Paul is working out the practical implications of all that we've considered before in the letter and especially what he'd said in the passage we were looking at last week, Therefore, let each one of you speak the truth to his neighbor. Paul here is alluding to the verse that Steve Boyer is going to be speaking to us about tonight, Lord willing, that Bobby just read for us from Zechariah, chapter 8, these are the things that you shall do, speak the truth to one another.

Paul said this again to the Colossians when he said, Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices. And look and see why Paul says we shouldn't lie. For we are members one of another. Now that members one of another shows that when he says, Speak the truth with your neighbor, he's not talking about the person who lives next door to you. He's not saying you should lie to them, but he's talking specifically about fellow church members.

The people who are you're united together with in Christ. Paul has been presenting this beautiful picture of the Christians growing up together in the church. It's an image he's used earlier in chapter 4. Christians have been incorporated into the body of Christ, and he tells us here that we're all members one of another. How is it that we're members?

Only by God the Holy Spirit incorporating us. Our speech, then, should reflect this special status by making sure that the words we speak are always true.

That makes sense. If you think about it for a moment, if you use your words to lie and to deceive, that tends to dissolve real relationships, including among Christians. It works against the very real unity that Christ is about creating in His body.

Brothers and sisters, lying undermines trust. When someone starts lying to you, they essentially start hiding from you, and they manipulate you into having a relationship with a non-existent mirage.

Well, I say when they lie, they start. Friend, when do you lie? You won't want to see it, so you'll have to look hard to catch this elusive sin which tends to hide and camouflage itself among the rocks of our own self-justifications. But spend a little time searching. Do you exaggerate?

Do you make up excuses?

Do you fail to admit? Or shade the truth in the way you're stating something you remember or misrepresent. We have a thousand ways to justify our own deceptions, even when we condemn others.

Why would we do this? Why would we try to hide from each other? God already knows the truth. God sees all. He misses nothing.

It's Christ who justifies us, not others' opinions of us. Break the habit of lying, He's saying. Put off the old self. Realize that our words should be marked by truth. Put on the new self.

We are committed to share the message of the truth about Jesus. So should we ever dare to use our words for anything that are untrue and so give reason for people to doubt our words, even our words about Jesus. Friend, what lie could ever be worth that? You're undermining your credibility with someone. Do we misrepresent ourselves on social media?

Do we avoid hard conversations and so avoid telling the truth that way? Are we transparent about our own sin?

You know, the confession and forgiveness that are to mark our life together as a church are not you confessing your sins to me as your singular priest in the place of Christ, but rather it's us confessing our sins to each other. That's what's supposed to mark our lives together, speaking the truth about ourselves even to each other, even when that's hard.

Do you love others enough to ask them questions that will help them speak honestly about themselves to you? And do you invite others to be honest with you?

You realize that in joining this church, you make the other members love you like this, and you are now obliged to tell the truth. In the same way, out of their love to you. And you obligate yourself to love and serve them. Friends, be honest. Also, number two, be gracious.

That's how I would summarize all the things we see there in verses 26-27 and then down to verse 31. 26 and 27 and verse 31. Be angry, verse 26, and do not sin. Again, Paul here is alluding to or quoting the Old Testament. He's quoting from Psalm 4:4.

People always ask, Can you be angry without sin? Well, the answer to that is yes. We know that God is wrathful. We know that Jesus expressed anger. You can go to Mark 3:5 for one example.

Here, Paul is citing Psalm 4:4, and this is not an exhortation to righteous anger. It's more like, if you become angry, beware, you're at sin's door. In the Psalm, if you look back at Psalm 4, the psalmist is in distress. It seems that he's been lied about and he is exhorting the others and thereby himself not to sin in the natural response of anger to such a thing. So the idea here may be not so much to try to indulge in a righteous anger, but to be careful about sin when you do feel angry.

So when you feel angry, you should be on high alert spiritually. Now, why would Paul bring up anger? Well, friends, because Paul is writing to a church. And what a church is, is a congregation of people. That is, a bunch of people together.

And what happens when a bunch of people get together? People become angry. There are occasions for disagreements, sometimes fast, sometimes sharp. Paul is full of wise counsel here, isn't he? Do not let the sun go down on your anger.

I wonder who here has walked in with anger that has seen a lot of sunsets on it.

Friends, Paul speaks directly to you here. He's telling these Christians to deal with it before the day is over.

So how should we read his instructions here? I know we have a good number of people who have gotten married in the last couple of years, so let me just get practical on this for a moment, specifically for you friends. What if the couple gets into a fight early in the evening? Does this mean this fight has to be finished before sundown?

What if the fight doesn't start until nine o'clock?

See, that's not Paul's point. He's speaking proverbially. It's not like literally from now till sundown. It's talking about, you, don't let it lie, don't ignore it. Don't let it simmer.

No, this is a proverbial expression to capture vividly the importance of timely resolution of anger because anger is so destructive. By all means, young married couples, do not argue when you're tired. Do not look outside, realize it's about to be sunset, and quickly try to fix it when you're both just exhausted. Do not do that. Don't start an argument at 11 and say, We have to finish this before we go to sleep.

Really, especially if you have the strange ability to sleep really well quickly, that's just not going to go well. Don't do that. Affirm your love for each other and resolve to pick it up again the next day when you have time and rest. Deal with it, though. Don't let it fester.

The significance of this is seen in verse 27. Notice how significant this is spiritually. Give no opportunity to the devil. You see, feelings of anger are invitations to the devil, offering him just the kind of tasty morsels he loves. This is the devil's opportunity to sow division.

Anger is like a highway for the devil into the church, and that's why Paul is so urgent here. Verse 31, Let all bitterness and wrath, so all, every kind of anger, all the corrupting evil we should comprehensively avoid. That's what he means by this list in verse 31: Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice. Beloved, anger is a dangerous thing. Even at its best among us, how easy is it for malice or pride or a desire for revenge to slip in with it.

Remember what James said, My dear brothers, take note of this: everyone should be Quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Paul addresses this here because he's concerned about the unity of the body.

Has anybody ever been angry at you at church? I mean, have you ever been in a conversation here with somebody when they've yelled at you? Friends, honesty is good. But a commitment to honesty doesn't sanctify unholy wrong feelings. It doesn't turn malice into love.

Honesty is a dangerous thing if the heart's natural indifference or malice has not been replaced by love. Honestly communicating sinful anger may be done very carefully in confession, but anger in communicating normally doesn't reflect the Spirit of Christ.

How easily are we angered over the wrong things? Or angered too much over the right things? Or angered over the right things but with a self-righteous spirit, worrying about the other person's speck when we have a whole forest of logs that the Lord keeps overlooking in our eye while we are exploding on this other person. Anger and harmony do not go together very well, do they?

You need to ask yourself why you're angry, what's causing the anger. Perhaps spend a little time reflecting on James 4 this afternoon.

So he exhorts us here in Ephesians 4:31 to let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away along with all malice, supposed to be comprehensive, the all, all, all. Friends, take a moment when you come across a list like this and use it to examine your own life. Maybe use this to pray about later this afternoon. Bitterness, having grudges, and maybe even nursing them. Resentment, hatred.

Get rid of them, Paul says. Wrath, rage, fierceness, losing your temper, indignant outbursts.

Put them away from you.

Anger, steadily seething about things, remove them completely from your life. Clamor, quarreling, brawling, roaring at people, raising your voice, screaming, shouting, wrangling, fighting. Get rid of the anger. Any other kind of malice or spitefulness, profane speech, defamation, vilifying, gossiping, put them away from you. All of these things, he says, you,'re to cut completely from your life if you're a Christian.

When you get angry and you will be careful, be even better Be gracious.

A third matter, be respectful. Number three, we see that here in verse 28 at the beginning, Let the thief no longer steal. That's it, very straightforward. Paul is basically citing the eighth commandment, you shall not steal. Now of course this can apply to everything from the secular get-rich-quick schemes to the more religious prosperity preachers.

I wonder if you understand ways in which you've stolen. Perhaps time from your employer.

Perhaps wages from your workers.

Perhaps someone else's good name by slander.

Do you download things you don't pay for? Or take credit for ideas that aren't yours.

Part of what we're called to do in trust and recognition of God's authority is to respect the bounds that He has laid out, including bounds of ownership and property and respect for other persons.

Be respectful.

Next number, number four: Be productive and generous. Be productive and generous. Do you notice the second half of verse 28? But rather let him labor. This world around us is all about getting and holding and hoarding, but we Christians are all about getting and giving.

Paul has this strong but rather here, contrasting the old self with the new, the old life with the new. Diligence contrasts with theft. Now, says Paul, the Christian, the church member is doing honest work with his own hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. We Christians are not to be like the lazy sluggard in Proverbs who impoverishes himself and so others have to drain themselves to take care of him and prevents him from being able to help those in need. Rather we are to be like the people who do good to everyone as we have opportunity, especially to fellow church members.

Paul may not have known that there was a particular problem with this among the Ephesians he was writing to, but he understood it was a basic human temptation and a result of the fall, and so he told them Christians must not do this. All this theft and self-concern is inconsistent with righteousness and holiness, so Paul here exhorts them to something positive. Hard work is to replace theft. Generosity is to replace self-concern or even greediness. The scheming and skill that it takes to be a good thief are now to be put to honest work, he says.

Manual labor is an honorable thing. So instead of getting by by stealing, these Christians are now to get by by laboring. And the purpose of their getting material goods to themselves is not to keep or hoard them, but to give them away again, only this time to those people in need. So, brother or sister, would you like a motivation to work? Work so that you may provide for yourself and have something to share with those in need.

One of the most important reasons that you should give your money away is to show that it's not your master. Work, make money so that you have something to share with those in need. We mean to be good examples at work and among our family and friends. And friends, get to know the other members of the church well enough that you'll know when someone is in need. Just a quick smile and a hello on Sunday morning is not really going to get you into relationship with people.

You're going to have to have a longer conversation with that. Perhaps you could contact Michael Reeb about helping some of the Afghan refugees that we're trying to help. One of the joys that I have in this congregation is watching you guys care for older members in our church. I think this congregation does a very good job of this. I'm so encouraged by it.

Just in the last couple of weeks, I could tell you stories of people caring by giving rides, of helping someone with their car, of helping somebody else with their house, of another family having someone move in with them. All of this in the last couple of weeks. Praise God for the work of His Spirit among us. So good work is going on right now through this church. And through our Benevolence Fund, through 9 Marks, all of these things could benefit from your generous financial support, each of which would make them be able to be stewards of still more.

We have been given so much. Pray that God make us generous with what He entrusts to us as He has been so kind to us. We are to be holy with our desires and our possessions and part of that means that we should be productive and generous. Another mark of a healthy Christian, number five, is be helpful, be helpful. Look at verse 29 in chapter 4.

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, corrupting talk. So talk that corrupts the one who speaks and the one who hears. When you think of how a circle of friends, even in a church, can help to degrade the conversation by the humor or the comments that are made.

But Paul gives us a measure here in verse 29, very helpful, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear. Give grace. You see how that's the opposite of corrupting. So do you take account of how your words land on others? Do you try to be considerate when you speak to someone?

I try to. And as someone who tends to speak quickly, I certainly don't always get it right. But that's my goal, that's my desire. I'm trying to always be improving my ability to speak appropriately. What about to those you think don't deserve your help?

Well then maybe obeying this gives you an opportunity to bless those who persecute you, to obey Christ's command there. Some things we should cut out entirely, things like gossip or flattery. Why? Well friends, it says here our words should be wholesome, not corrupting. Paul is saying that what we euphemistically call off-color comments are really nothing but evil.

Or take flattery as an example. You see why flattery is so unhelpful, so not grace-giving? The fact that it may immediately taste good to somebody is just part of the problem of flattery. The Greeks used to say the opposite of a friend isn't an enemy, it's a flatterer. Because a flatterer will tell you what you want to hear when it's not true.

And friends, we're all open to being self-deceived. There's not one of us that's beyond that. So when we have somebody around us who takes their gauge on what to say to us, but what they can tell we want to hear, We're putting themselves and ourselves in a very dangerous position. Now the best friends you have are people who, yes, will say good things to you and encourage you about things that are good and right in your life, but who will also speak honestly to you when there are problems. Friends, let there be no flattery among us.

Just as we've seen that our words should not be lies, there shouldn't be any other kind of evil in our speech. So if you find out that you've been influencing someone else this week and they've started to repeat things you say, would that be an encouragement to you? Or does that make you worry that maybe they picked up some of your bad habits? He returns to this a few verses later down in chapter 5 verse 4, Let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking, which are out of place.

Just think about your conversations from this past week. From Sunday 8 a.m. last week till midnight last night. And now let's say we had the time and inclination to put them all over the PA system right now, every conversation you had. Would there be anything that when it's starting to come up and getting close, you're thinking like, oh no, oh this is going to be bad.

Friends, would there be any salacious talking, any vulgar, simply inappropriate things coming from a Christian? Any profanity? Anything that would be considered obscene by the prevailing community standards of heaven?

I assure you God already knows all of our conversations. He's been listening. He always will. Friends, we have a great charge to use our words as heralds of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We don't want to use them to contrary purposes.

Our words should never be unwholesome. Positively, Paul says here that our words should always be good, helpful to others, that it may give grace to those who hear. So the bullseye that you're trying to hit when you let fly any word from your lips is the good of those who are hearing you. Let me say that again. The bullseye that you're trying to hit when you let fly any word from your lips is the good of those who are hearing you.

Now, I try to do this regularly. I'm a preacher. It's a regular part of my ministry, my job, and I don't always succeed, but this is what I'm aiming at. I wonder if your conversation has changed at all since you've become a Christian. I wonder how it's changed.

Our words should always be helpful, which brings me to number six. Number six, be kind. Look at the beginning of verse 32. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another.

Instead of the anger that's forbidden there in verse 31, we should, Paul says in verse 32, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another. We should live like we follow the Christ that we say that we follow. And we should follow Him in His kindness. We should follow Him in His compassion. We should follow Him in His forgiveness.

I mean, can you imagine gathering this morning to pray and to sing and to worship a God who is no more kind or compassionate than you or I are.

We do fail, but such forgiveness is what we're called to in Christ. Christ has been merciful to us and He is ready to help us in our need, so we should be that way to each other. The way we treat each other should be like a refreshing spring in a sometimes too dry and difficult world. Pray that God will help us to recognize and grow in this area. So this affects everything you do when we gather.

Where you park? Do you leave parking spaces close to the church empty for those who are older or maybe have a lot of little kids? Or are you 24, selfish and never thought about it much? Well, here's some instruction. Park away and walk.

Or where you sit, do you sit where you like it on the end of a pew, two-thirds of the way back so that everybody else has to climb over you and walk in front of you? Well, friends, you could sit like that, or you could be more thoughtful and try to sit in the front like these three PAs did today. Hello. They must have heard this was coming. And then fill in from there so people who walk in later who aren't as accustomed to coming to church can fill in behind and not have to be embarrassed unnecessarily when they come.

Friends, there's all kinds of small things. Do you leave your coffee cups or bulletins around you so that the office building manager has to pick it up during the afternoon? Or do you remember to try to take the things around you? Friends, the kindness that should mark us in so many ways can be shown even today.

There are so many ways we can be kind to each other. If you know you need more of this in your life, then pray. I'll try to make sure that we pray about these things in our prayer time tonight. We'll go over these things, and I'm listening here as we pray tonight. Friends, we can't forgive as we should by our own resources, so we need to pray about these things.

The kind of mercy that we're called to show and share is bigger than our own small hearts can manage. So just admit that and turn your heart over to Christ for Him to allow His mercy to flow through you to those around you. Pray that God will make you tenderhearted and sympathetic to all those around you, especially other church members. And pray that God make us unfailingly kind to each other. And as one brother pointed out to me yesterday, which I really appreciate, You realize that any view of masculinity which ignores kindness, that is using our powers for the good of others, tenderly considering the needs of others more important than our own, any such view of what it means to be a man which ignores kindness is an anti-Christian distortion.

It is no correct thing for a man to aim at being stoic to the point of being unkind. That does not reflect the Lord Jesus Christ. Christians are to be marked by kindness and Christian men are to be marked by kindness. This Christian church is to be marked by kindness. I thank God for how much this congregation is marked by a tenderheartedness.

I see God's work in us in that. Do you see that? What a joyful task the Lord calls us to in this command, to be kind.

Number seven, be loving. Look at the beginning of chapter 5, verse 2, and walk in love. We've seen this word walk before. It means live. We've seen it up in chapter 4, verse 1, where Paul told Christians to walk worthily in chapter 4, verse 17, where Paul warned them not to walk as the Gentiles do, that is, don't live like all the non-Christians around you live, live like you too used to live before you were Christian.

Now we are to walk, to live in love. Love is to characterize our lives. It's scattered generously through this letter. Friends, even in recent weeks in chapter 4 we've seen this. Remember up in verse 2 where Paul exhorted them to bear with one another in love.

Or verse 15 where he called Christians to speak the truth in love, or verse 16 where he mentioned the local church building itself up in love. We should speak only out of love for God and for each other. The famous African theologian, Augustine, said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Now you love yourself suitably when you love God better than yourself. What then do you aim at in yourself?

You must aim at in your neighbor, namely that he may love God with a perfect affection. For you do not love Him as yourself unless you try to draw him to that good which you are yourself pursuing. For this is the one good which has room for all to pursue it. Along with thee. From this precept proceed the duties of human society.

This kind of God-pointing, God-honoring, God-treasuring, God-directed love is the most distinctively Christian thing about us. Jesus said in John 13, A new commandment I give you that you love one another just as I have loved you. You also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples if you have love.

For one another. Be loving. Another mark, number eight, be pure. He means it morally, be pure. Look at chapter 5 verse 3, But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you as is proper among saints.

So sexual immorality would be any transgression of God's laws, any sexual activity outside of marriage. Sexual relations are so easily distorted. God has tied them so deeply to the way we experience life, and whether we're tempted to idolize them or to trivialize them, we distort them. Because of the other words used here, I think that word covetousness is an insatiableness that may have a special reference to sexual desires, maybe like when we're forbidden in the Ten Commandments to covet your neighbor's wife. And we see here at the end of verse 3, Paul exhorts the Ephesians to holiness because to live any other way would be, he says, improper for saints, God's holy people.

It's the very nature of our being Christians, of our being specially marked out by God, that He demands our lives to be like His, marked by His holiness. Once again, we're not to be like the pagans around us who indulge in every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more. Sexual relations between people who are not married to each other or any other kind of promiscuity or lewdness are not even to be suggested among us. We must keep it far away from us as a community of God's people. This kind of self-centered, self-indulgent love is the opposite of the self-sacrificial love that Paul was just instructing Christians to walk in and live in there in verse 2.

So, Christian, you and I are to live in such a way as individuals and as a church that the honor of Christ's name is foremost in our lives. How can that be? Well, only through our desires being sanctified. There aren't enough accountability groups in the world to reign in a heart with its desires increasingly set on sin. So it is that we must pray that God change our desires.

That's what we're going to do together tonight, Lord willing. That's how we will live in such a way that it's never unbecoming to honor Christ. And we have to realize that a surrender to sexual immorality is a revolt against God. If you're a young Christian and particularly struggling with this, let me commend you the value of spending time with older mature Christians who are more mature in this particular area. And that will spare you from some of the temptations that will surround you with your peers.

We must be pure. And we must be, number nine, thankful. Look there at verse 4: Let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. So the self-centered view of life where the ginormous me is at the center of everything you do or think of and how you look at anything, which trivializes things and is amused by coarseness or crudeness or even vulgarity, the ginormous me should subside. And the more I think you find God comes into the center of your thinking, the more you see everything in relationship to Him and His plans, then thankfulness naturally begins to replace the foolishness that we are so easily given to.

This is certainly about one's individual life, but it also applies to our times together as a church. Paul is thinking about what builds up a church, and thanksgiving is the opposite of the kind of self-serving sins that Paul is warning about here. Thankfulness stifles self-centeredness. Just think of some of the speech that you're prone to. You know yourself.

Just get one thing in mind, one habit of your speech. That you think is not lining up with what we're being told to be like here.

Now consider how thankfulness could help you combat and supplant that sin. How it might be able to replace your desire to say something worse with something better.

What is there better for us to spend our words on than talking about God?

So our own words should be full of thanksgiving. Our talk should naturally not be self-centered, but God-centered. Friends, you know what you're truly interested in, what you're deeply excited about comes out in your words. Just think about your own past week. What's had your most passionate, your most excited conversations been about this past week?

Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 12. For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. What was the last time you thanked someone else for modeling God's work in their own lives?

Tell them. Start being more thankful this afternoon. Find some conversation that you're a part of and turn it to thankfulness. Do you see how that would be loving for others? How that would start to help to serve others?

These things Paul is exhorting us here in these verses, they all kind of go together, don't they? You see how they fit and reinforce each other? Be thankful. A word which summarizes all of these others, not so much a tenth thing, but really a summary of the whole passage together is the word godliness. Godliness.

All of this is really a kind of definition of godliness. Godliness is living in such a way that reflects God's own character, that pleases God. That's what Paul is stating negatively. You see there in that very famous chapter 4 verse 30, Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit is not a force, an it.

The Holy Spirit is a person, Him. And He can be grieved. Why can He be grieved? Because He cares about us. He loves us.

He's our friend. He indwells us. He teaches us.

Now, friends, please don't take all this as just some list of things you need to do in order to save yourself. I have not given you a ladder list to heaven. No, it's the Holy Spirit who works these characteristics in us. In our church, and His work in us is gracious. In our rebellion we have disobeyed the Father, we have crucified the incarnated Son, and we also spurned and grieved the Holy Spirit.

But God's Spirit has been so gracious toward us. He has regenerated us when we were spiritually dead, and now we are able to love and obey God. So this whole passage is giving us various ways that we can grieve the Spirit with our words, our hearts, our actions. And yet the Spirit has given us the new birth. He's set His seal on us.

For all of these imperatives, these commands in these verses, don't miss what it says about God's work. You see that phrase at the end of verse 30, By whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. What does that mean? It means the Holy Spirit has set His mark of ownership on you. That He will secure you for that final day.

Owned by God will be kept by God. When we live in ways which hurt and wound needlessly, which divide and rend the body of Christ maliciously, when we grieve the Spirit who dwells in us, In that sense, this injunction is a summation of all those things that are forbidden in our passage. Sin is always a personal thing with God. God takes sin personally. It is personal.

We are made in His image. If we're Christians, we're even renewed in His image. When we sin and We should make no mistake about it. We sin against Him. That is the Bible's view of sin.

So we should forsake sin. Paul makes it clear throughout this passage that God has drawn Christians into an intimate, loving relationship with Himself. He's saying that we're labeled. We are luggage waiting to be finally collected, finally claimed. God has marked His own with a seal which may be invisible to others, but his own searching eyes can see it.

We await only the day of redemption, that is the glorification, when we'll be finally brought into the full presence of God. So the Holy Spirit's presence with us now is the down payment which tells us that that day is coming when God takes full possession. And therefore, in light of all of this, we read in chapter five, verse one, be imitators of God as beloved children.

So if you have your own copy of the Bible with you, you might just draw a line from 4:30 to 5:1. Because 4:30, do not grieve the Holy Spirit, is just the negative form of 5:1. That's the positive form, Be imitators of God. That's really one of the summary verses here in this letter of the Ephesians. And when he says, Be imitators of God, we don't imitate God in His omnipotence or His omniscience.

His eternity or His self-existence. No, we imitate God in His moral character, the very things we're considering in this passage. That's why they can be summarized by this word, godliness, godlikeness, like godness. And it makes sense that we would be like Him because we see here in verse 1, we are His children. So kids, have you ever noticed how you kind of look like your family?

You look like your parents. There is a physical resemblance often between a child and his or her parents. That's what God is saying here in His Word. We are called to resemble God. And we are His beloved children, dearly loved.

So everything He has done for us in Christ, we realize is founded on His love for us. God has sealed us by His Spirit. He has incorporated us into the body of Christ. God has called Christians to be holy, as He is holy. He's made us in order to be like Him, to imitate Him in our lives and our loves, therefore be imitators of God as beloved children.

Verse 2, and walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. So in our actions we are to mimic God. In our life, We are to love as Christ has loved us. Jesus taught His followers that we are to be merciful, just as your Father in heaven is merciful. The kindness that we were exhorted to in 4:32 was based on God's kindness in Christ.

Look again at the very end there of chapter 4 verse 32, As God in Christ forgave you. So we of all people should be marked by forgiveness, shouldn't we?

This is how God rescued us. And how has He done this? Simply by waving His hand and saying, Sins, penalties are gone? No, He has forgiven us, we see here, in Christ. Well, how did that work?

Look at the end of chapter 5, verse 2. As Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, for us. You see, it's Christ's self-sacrifice that makes our forgiveness possible. Friends, this is the good news for you. If you're sitting here this morning and you're feeling absolutely nailed, like, oh my goodness, this is describing me.

I am like all of these things. And you're beginning to realize you are guilty before God for all of these things. And yet you've never trusted in Christ as your Savior. For in God sent His only Son to live a life of perfect trust, a life like all of the things that He's commanding and not like any of the things He's forbidding. And He offered His life up here, it says, as a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable to God.

And God accepted that sacrifice in the place of all of us who would turn and trust in Him. If you want to know more about that new life that we see at the resurrection and that we are promised Through faith in Christ, please talk to me or any of the other pastors at the door on the way out. All of these examples of obedience are ways we imitate God and follow the example of Christ and obey God. We consider how God has reached out in love to us when we were outcasts, and so our lives should be characterized by that same outgoing kind of love so that God will see in us a reflection of Christ's love. How has God saved us, forgiven us?

In Christ. He's made an atonement for our sins. Christ loved us, and as a result He gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. So in verse 32 we see that God was the actor in forgiving us, and then in 5 verse 2 we see that Christ was as well. He gave Himself up.

And here are the key substitutionary words there. For us. He gave Himself up for us. So all of this loving, forgiving, atoning God has done in order in His love to rescue us. God found us in our depravity.

He rescued us in Christ. And this is the grand story of our redemption that we've been reading in this letter to the church at Ephesus. And it's our story too as a church. And for us as Christians. So Christ is the perfect image of the invisible God.

The Spirit of Christ has given us the new birth and remade us in His image, and this local church is composed of such reborn people. So these characteristics should mark us as a church and should mark you and me as Christians. So take some time over the next few days to hold up your life to this list. Thank God for the good renewing work that He's done and pray for those areas of your life which don't reflect these characteristics. Pray that God help you, that the Spirit continue His remaking, reshaping, sanctifying work, making us honest and gracious and honoring and productive and generous and helpful and kind.

And loving and pure and thankful as we love God and neighbor. So do you need to grow up spiritually? Then you need to become more godly, more like Christ. And we can be sure that this plan of God from eternity past which has caught us up in it will succeed. Jesus will reign.

Praise God. What a great rescue plan. Let's pray.

Lord God, we thank youk that yout have not left us in our sins and folly. We thank youk that yout've not left us to our own. We thank youk that yout've loved us in Christ. We rejoice to see the beginnings of youf good work among us.

We pray that you would continue on for your glory and our good. We ask in Jesus' name, Amen.