Sermon // Ephesians 4:25-32
In light of who God is, Christ’s perfect life, sacrificial death, and His justifying, death-defeating, victorious, and glorious resurrection and ascension, and His redeeming love, mercy, and grace that He has and will lavish on sinners like us, Paul has been calling us to walk in a manner worthy of our calling in Christ and for Christ. Jesus Christ is the risen and victorious Lord who has already, and will fully and finally show Himself to have conquered sin, Satan, and death. And the same power that enabled Jesus to rise from the grave, the same Spirit that enabled and empowered all of that, dwells within us, enabling us to fight sin, resist the evil one, and live in true newness of life in Christ. Because the third person of the Trinity, God the Holy Spirit, dwells within us, we can walk in victory… We can walk in the victory of Christ, seeking to know Him, love Him, live for Him, and help others do the same. We can, and we must, by God’s grace, bring every area of life into joyful submission to Christ because Christ is the victorious Lord of lords and King of kings.
Because of who Christ is and what He’s done, is doing, and will do, we are now new creations in Christ, but we must walk out that reality. We must walk in a manner worthy of that reality. We must live our lives with all humility, gentleness, patience, and forbearance in love, fighting to maintain unity. We must be all in, giving ourselves over to God and His covenant people, recognizing that God has not only brought us into His Covenant of Grace in Christ, but also the covenant people of God in Christ. We are bound together with the body of Christ in the bond of peace, by the Spirit. And so we must be all in in love. We must be committed to speaking the truth in love, which means not only being committed to the Truth of God’s Word, but the good of God’s people. We must truly love the church, and that means treating them lawfully from the heart in a way that is marked by sacrifice and for their good, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself for us. True love is marked not only by God’s Law but by God’s gospel, and we are a people who are to walk in, to live out this true love, the very love of God.
We are to so hate sin that we would all the more love Christ. The bitterness of sin is meant to drive us to the sweetness of Christ. So we must make war on our sin, we must hate our sin, and we must therefore love Christ. And this is what is to drive us to repent and believe in the gospel again and again, to go back to Christ and His Word and His church again and again, and seek to be transformed by the renewal of our minds. We must continually walk out repentance, going back to the fundamentals of Christianity, doing just as we did in the beginning, and putting off the old self and putting on the new. And that gets us to our passage today.
Paul says in verse 25, “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.” Paul begins with therefore, because he’s pointing us back to everything that has been laid out thus far. So, in light of the gospel of Christ and who we are in Christ, and how that’s made us new creations who continually put off the old self marked by sin and put on the new self marked by Christ, therefore… It’s as if Paul is saying, “In light of the gospel, therefore… In light of Jesus, therefore… Because of the person and work of Christ and how He has saved you, therefore…”
This is actually how our passage ends as well. Paul says in verse 32, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” In other words, we are to be kind because God in Christ has been kind to us. We are to be tenderhearted because God in Christ has been tenderhearted to us. We are to be forgiving because God in Christ has forgiven us. I’ll address this more later, but for now notice how Jesus and His gospel are what motivate and enable us to do the next right thing. And that’s really what Paul is getting at when he says therefore in verse 25. Our obedience to the Lord, if it is going to be done rightly, must always be done in view of who He is, and His grace and love toward us. From the very beginning, for the people of God, obedience to God has always been a right response, a faithful response to His gracious blessings that He has lavished upon us. And so it is here. If we would trust and obey we must look to Christ, remember Christ, marvel at the love of God in Christ, and therefore seek to love Him by trusting Him and obeying Him.
Now here in verse 25 Paul is not only calling attention to the gospel of Christ, but our gospel reality of being new creations in Christ. He’s essentially summarizing that gospel reality with, “having put away falsehood.” This is what we did when we trusted in Christ. We gave up the lies of sin, self, Satan, and the world for the Truth and love in Christ. By becoming and being Christians we put away falsehood for the truth of God’s Word and God’s Son. We became dead to sin and were raised to newness of life in Christ, a life of truth and love. And that’s where he goes.
In light of who we are in Christ, and what we’ve done by putting off the old and putting on the new, which means putting away falsehood, each one of us now are to speak the truth with our neighbor, and he doesn’t mean that generically, because he tells us that in this context our neighbors are the other members of the body of Christ. He says, “for we are members one of another.” So he means our fellow Christians, and specifically our brothers and sisters in Christ who are a part of the covenant community of Christ that we are a part of. Now, that doesn’t mean we should make a habit of lying to those who are not our neighbors, who are not our brothers and sisters in Christ. Though sometimes it is right and good to lie to our enemies. But here Paul does not have in mind our enemies, but the members of our local church.
We are to speak the truth to one another. Now on the one hand that means God’s Word, but on the other hand it means not lying. It’s putting on the truth and putting off falsehood. As God’s Law lays out in the 9th Commandment, we are not to bear false witness. In my experience, more often than not, when people think of speaking the truth they think of saying things that may be hard for others to hear, like telling someone that they are in sin. And that’s surely part of it. But it’s also being bold and vulnerable enough to admit that you’re in sin. It’s not only telling people hard truths about themselves, but also about yourself. It’s putting off falsehood in every sense.
Speaking the truth in love shouldn’t make us think of someone hitting people with a Bible, it should make us think of someone who is humble and transparent. It’s not just pointing out habits of sin in other people’s lives, but it’s owning our own sin, and repenting of it and seeking reconciliation. In one way or another, we tend to lie to make ourselves look better, even if that means lying and making others look bad. As hard as it may be to address other people in their sin, we seem to have a much harder time admitting our own sin.
No doubt, we must be a people who are willing to address sin, but what is far more amazing, far more transformative and life changing is when a people are so humble and honest that you don’t need to call out their sin because before you can do so they have already owned it and repented of it. The church should absolutely be a people who hates sin, and takes seriously fighting it and putting it to death. But we should take that most seriously in our selves.
I’m reminded of what the great Jonathan Edwards resolved in his 8th Resolution. He said, “Resolved, to act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God.” In other words, even when Edwards saw legitimate sin in someone else, long before he ever addressed their sin he would address any and all sin in himself, especially his tendency to do the same sorts of sins. Or as Jesus said, “how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:4-5).
Just imagine how beautiful this would be. Let’s say you see some sin in someone’s life that concerns you, but before you say anything to them about that sin you take this as a prompt to first pray for them, and then to search your own life and see if that sin or any other is in your own life. Every time you notice someone else’s sin you evaluate your own life and heart and look for any blindspots or hidden sins or sinful patterns or patterns that may lead to sin in your own life, and you seek to confess those things to the Lord and repent. And then after having done all that let’s say you now decide to go and address that brother or sister in Christ about their sin, but before you do they come to you and confess their sin and ask for prayer and help in fighting their sin. How beautiful would that be? No doubt, there are times where we will have to address sin immediately for the good of all involved, but as important as addressing sin is, something just as important, and ultimately even more beautiful, is being a part of a covenant community of people who are so walking in humility that they always address and confess their own sin before addressing the sin of another. If we all truly did this there would be no sin to address in anyone else. And what a glorious thing that would be…
Now, let’s be honest though, this is not how things tend to be. When it comes to speaking the truth about ourselves, or others, the main thing that comes to mind is defensiveness. Instead of looking at others in sin and searching our hearts to see how or where that sin may be in our own lives, we all too often think, “At least I’m not as bad as they are.” We use other people’s sin as an excuse for self-righteousness instead of self-reflection. And our self-righteousness is what stirs up all the problems. And one of the great problems that come as a result of our sin and self-righteousness is anger, and that’s where Paul goes next.
In verses 26 and 27 Paul says, “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.” On the one hand this is an understanding that speaking the truth will lead to anger. In that sense, Paul, and, God, for that matter, are realists. People are messy, and they know it. Being truthful with ourselves and others about ourselves and others will lead to anger. And again, this has a lot to do with self-righteousness.
But on the other hand, this is a command to be angry and not to sin. Though Paul understands that we will be prone to sinful anger, here he’s commanding us to have righteous anger. In fact, this isn’t just Paul commanding us to be angry, here he’s quoting Psalm 4. In Psalm 4:3-5 the Psalmist says, “But know that the LORD has set apart the godly for himself; the LORD hears when I call to him. Be angry, and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent. . . . Offer right sacrifices, and put your trust in the LORD.” In other words, hate and fight sin, pursue holiness, and rest in God’s good sovereignty, come what may. Give yourself as a living sacrifice to God, being willing to suffer insult, hardship, or harm on the pathway of faithfulness to God. Don’t let the actions of others or yourself lead you into sin, but be righteous in all you do, especially your anger. Be angry and do not sin. Remember, Jesus is better than anything this world can give you or take away from you, and come what may, Christ will never leave you nor forsake you. So do not enter into sin, but hate sin.
As we saw last week, we must hate sin. We must be angry at such things. But we must be angry at sin, and yet do so without sin. John Calvin is helpful here, describing what sinful anger is. He says, “There are three faults by which we offend God in being angry. The first is, when our anger arises from slight causes, and often from no cause whatever, or at least from private injuries or offenses. The second is, when we go beyond the proper bounds, and are hurried into intemperate excesses. The third is, when our anger, which ought to have been directed against ourselves or against sins, is turned against our brethren.” In all of these the problem is our pride.
Anger is a natural emotional response to a perceived injustice or wrong. In other words, anger acts as a defense to an offense. What makes anger righteous or sinful depends on why we were offended. Is the perceived injustice or wrong called for, or is it just an insult to our pride or the like? Are we defending our pride, our sin, or whatever? Or are we defending God and His ways, and getting angry at what makes God angry? Now these two things can overlap a bit, as God hates all sin, and therefore hates it when people sin against us, thus attacking our pride or reputation or the like. But before we seek to defend ourselves in the name of righteous anger we must first consider the full scope of the truth of the matter, since, after all, we are to speak the truth with one another in love. So we must truly evaluate ourselves and see if the criticism or whatever sin that is being flung at us has any truth to it. And I can’t help but think of that great Charles Spurgeon quote here. He said, “If any man thinks ill of you, do not be angry with him, for you are worse than he thinks you to be.”
Humility is the key to dealing with anger rightly. And as C. S. Lewis has pointed out, humility isn’t thinking less of ourselves, but thinking of ourselves less. And the only real way to do that is to think of God more. Humility is a reflex to pursuing or being in the presence of something and Someone great. It’s thinking more of Christ, and therefore having a proper view of self. And this will enable us to be angry at the right things and at the right times, and to resist sinful anger.
But here we see part of dealing with anger rightly is not just being angry without sin, but not letting the sun go down on our anger. This is another issue that I think we tend to think wrongly about. We tend to think that we need to address what made us angry before the sun goes down. And that can be good and true. But not letting the sun go down on our anger can also mean that we just need to let it go. If we are losing daylight and we haven’t done anything about what has made us angry then it is likely that we can’t or we won’t do anything to help the situation in our anger, at least anything productive or righteous, and therefore we should humble ourselves and give it over to the Lord, before we give the devil a foothold. If we don’t give our anger to the Lord the devil will happily take it, and he will increase it and stir it up to sin and bitterness.
In regards to how we are to be angry, Calvin said, “With respect to others, we ought to be angry, not at their persons, but at their faults; nor ought we to be excited to anger by private offenses, but by zeal for the glory of the Lord.” In other words, true righteous anger is primarily angry at sin, not at the sinner. In humility we ought to identify with the sinner, but hate the sin, and thus seek to help them out of it. But if we can’t or we won’t do this for whatever reason, we simply need to trust the Lord with it. At times that may mean giving it over to the proper authorities over us and that situation so that they can handle it; and other times it may mean just letting it go and trusting that in God’s sovereignty it will be handled in one way or another. We don’t want to let go because our hearts cry out for justice, but as Spurgeon also said, “Patience believer, eternity will right the wrongs of time.” God will not let any sin go unpunished. They will not fully and finally get away with it. The sinner will answer for it, or Christ already has. Either way justice is served, or at least it will be. We can rest in God’s good sovereignty. We don’t have to fix everything. Christ will do that. Trust Him. Don’t let the enemy get a foothold in your life, give every aspect of your life to Christ.
Our world today has become so therapeutic, where we think we have to constantly talk about our feelings or what’s bothering us, but that’s not always the case. Though talking things over and seeking to work things out, especially before the end of day, can be helpful and good, it can also be incredibly freeing just to let something go. Sometimes the right thing is to just forgive and move forward. The primary reason we need to deal with our anger before the sun goes down is that if we don’t deal with it we will be prone to bitterness. But we don’t have to talk it to death to deal with it. We can choose wrath, we can choose grace, or we can choose simply to rest in God’s sovereignty. But we must not sit and soak and sour in our anger, for that is the pathway to bitterness, and the gateway for the enemy to come into your life.
The convicting and yet encouraging words of James 4:6-10 come to mind here. He says, “‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.”
Jesus said in Matthew 5:22 that anger can be the root of murder. That is, untethered anger, anger that is not dealt with in one way or another can lead to bitterness and rage, such that it leads to even murder, especially once the devil gets a foothold. And no doubt, that’s in part what Paul has in mind here, as it seems he clearly has in mind God’s Moral Law. He’s already referred to the 9th Commandment, telling us not to lie, and the command to be angry but not to sin is certainly tied to the 6th Commandment, not to murder… So again, it seems that Paul has God’s Moral Law in mind, which is why he goes where he does next in verse 28.
In verse 28 Paul touches on the 8th Commandment, to not steal. 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.” The command to not steal is straightforward enough that it needs no explanation, but notice how Paul says the thief isn’t simply to not steal, but to labor doing honest work that is profitable enough for him to be able to share with the needy. Honest work is any lawful endeavor that can be done to provide for one’s needs and the needs of their family. But here Paul expects that work to be profitable enough to not only provide for the worker and his household’s basic needs, but also to have enough to give to the needy. What Paul is really commanding here is repentance and life transformation. The thief, who in his pride and laziness, did not work hard, but stole, and fed his own desires, must now die to self, working hard at honest work, so much so that he is able and willing to give to the needy. He must be a new creation in Christ.
Paul hits upon the 8th Commandment here, not just because he clearly has God’s Law in mind, but because he’s laying out a principle that ties to being a people who speak the truth in love. While our words are extremely important… And they are extremely important; which is why Paul says next, in verse 29, “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.” So we must say the right things in the right way at the right time in order to build up and give grace, not to tear down and unleash wrath… And by the way, giving grace here doesn’t always mean overlooking sin, but often means addressing and helping someone out of their sin. This is all a part of speaking the truth in love, and it’s all right and good, but what Paul is saying with the example of the thief is that our words can only go so far and do so much.
We must not only speak the truth, we must live it. A thief can tell you that he’s a changed man. He can tell you all the right things, but unless his actions reflect a true change, a transformation, it’s all a bunch of corrupt and empty talk. Now you may not be a thief, but consider where your life does not match your mouth, or it could be the other way around. Both are a problem.
Christians are not perfect people, but we are repentant people, and bearing fruit in keeping with repentance (Luke 3:8) means seeking to live consistently under the Lordship of Christ. Seeking to put off the old self in sin and put on the new self in Christ again and again, and to live a transformed life. No doubt, a person who has lived as a thief has lost the trust of those around him, but if his actions, if his life is so transformed that he gives himself to working hard and being generous, slowly but surely his reputation will change. The best way to change people’s mind about you is not to simply talk the talk, but to walk the walk. Consistent faithfulness in the same direction over the long haul is what displays true change and reform. Though at times we can and we should defend our actions with our words, the greatest defense is ongoing faithfulness. Or as the old saying goes, “The proof is in the pudding.” This is why the primary qualifications for leadership in the church are character qualifications… Character traits that can only be displayed and observed over the long haul. Faithfulness in every area of life matters.
We are united to Christ. We are His covenant people whom He has sealed and empowered with His Spirit. We are new creations in Christ, and therefore we are to talk like it and to act like it. And anything less is sin. Which is why Paul says in verse 30, “do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” We are to seek to live up to who we are in Christ, which includes who we will fully and finally be in Christ on the last Day, the Day of redemption. As we recited earlier, we want God’s will to be done and His kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. And we want that to begin in us. We want who we will be in heaven to impact and begin to show up in who we are now. We want God’s will and His Kingdom to be done and displayed in and through us. And Paul closes our passage with a summary of what that looks like.
In verses 31 and 32 he says, “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.” Now it might be confusing at first to hear Paul say that anger is to be put away from us because he just commanded us to be angry and not sin, but here he’s really saying the same thing with a bit more detail. He’s saying that untethered anger should be put away from us. Anger that is tied to bitterness, wrath, clamor, slander, and malice must be put away.
Calvin said our anger should be focused on the sin, not the sinner, but when bitterness sets in we not only have a distaste for the sin but for the sinner as well. Our hate and fury has gone from being focused on the injustice and wrong, to the person who did it or allowed it, or others whom we associate guilt with, even to the extent of blaming God Himself for providentially allowing such an offense to happen to us. When something taste bitter it usually means it has a bad or sour type taste. And that’s what untethered anger does. It makes us sour and puts a bad taste in our mouths towards others, which often leads to wrath and clamor, or an intense expression of our anger shown through hateful words or actions. Wrath can be and often is appropriate, but because we are prone to sin it’s often inappropriate as well. And that’s what Paul’s getting at. When Paul says clamor he means vicious shouting. And slander is words that are used to tear down, disrespect, and defame instead of building up, honoring, and giving grace. So all of this is what happens when we engage in sinful anger, or let our righteous anger override our self-control. Or when we let the sun go down on our anger. And at the root of all of this is our pride.
We think our hate, our fury, our anger and all of the results of it are justified because of how we’ve been sinned against, or of the sinner’s lack of repentance or whatever. And though there may be some truth to that, we must never justify our sin because of the sin of another. We must never enter into sin because we have been sinned against. We must not allow our pride to lead us into unrighteousness. And remember, the way to humility is not to tear ourselves down, but to marvel at Christ. We are not to think less of ourselves, but to think of ourselves less, which means thinking of Christ more. Which is what Paul is getting at in verse 32.
As I said earlier, we are to be kind because God in Christ has been kind to us. We are to be tenderhearted because God in Christ has been tenderhearted to us. We are to be forgiving because God in Christ has forgiven us.We are not to treat other people this way simply because they deserve it. They may or may not deserve such treatment. But we certainly didn’t deserve the kindness of God, yet we have received it again and again in Christ. We certainly did not deserve the tenderheartedness of God, yet God has been that way to us time and time again in Christ. And we certainly do not deserve to be forgiven by God, yet God in Christ forgives us again and again. For, as God says of Himself in Exodus 34:6, the LORD is a God that is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. And if we doubt that we need only to look at the cross.
Conclusion
This brings us back to the therefore of the gospel. “In light of the gospel, therefore… In light of Jesus, therefore… Because of the person and work of Christ and how He has saved you, therefore…” We are to be kind because God in Christ has been kind to us. We are to be tenderhearted because God in Christ has been tenderhearted to us. We are to be forgiving because God in Christ has forgiven us. Our obedience to the Lord, our ability to do the next right thing regardless of how we are treated, if it is going to be done rightly, must always be done in view of who Jesus is, and His grace and love toward us. Our obedience to God will only truly come as a right response, a faithful response to His gracious blessings that He has lavished upon us in Christ. If we would trust and obey we must look to Christ, remember Christ, marvel at the love of God in Christ, and therefore seek to love Him by trusting Him and obeying Him. If we would be kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving, and not be wrathful, vengeful, angry people all the time, we must survey the wondrous cross again and again. We must look to Jesus and let our hearts melt. So may we do just that. May we pursue Christ and marvel at God’s great love for us in Christ, and seek to live in and live out that Truth in love.