(Much of the content of this message and that of part one is attributed to the great work on Ephesians by Dr. Ray Stedman. The final document however, is the result of contemplation, cogitation and prayerful reflection upon these Scriptures through the illumination of the Holy Spirit. I thank the late brother Stedman for the thoughts his messages have stirred, and I thank Father who through the Holy Spirit has given birth to these things in my own heart.)
Paul exhorts us to throw off the old and put on the new. It is impossible to throw off the old unless there is a new to put on. Remember last time how I demonstrated to you that it takes both the putting off and the putting on. That is why the lost person will struggle with this. They will cripple themselves if all they do is put off. They must also have something to put on, and that is the Christ life. Oh, let me ask you this morning. Do you know Jesus Christ in a personal way? Is His life in you so that it may be put on? If not, today you have the opportunity to come to Him with your vices, and your confusions and all the things that make you miserable and unhappy and bring them to Him so that you may find rest for your soul.
For you who do know Him as Savior, your question may be regarding the motive behind all of this putting off and putting on. Is it because this stuff is bad for you? Is it because it is bad for others? That is just a part of it. The real reason behind all this is that it is part of the old life. It is something that is no more for us. It is dead, decaying flesh that we are trying to preserve. It does not even belong to us anymore. 2000 years ago, when Jesus hung on cruel Roman tree, the Scripture tells us, he was "made sin" for us. He became a liar, he became a thief, He became a murderer, a drunkard. He did not commit these sins himself, but he assumed them. He took them upon Himself. He was made, sin. He did none of these things but took our place. That was the purpose of the cross. And when he was made what we are, God put him to death, because that is all the old life deserves. That is the reason we give these things up. Family we have to see living a life of holiness in a different light.
As we wrap up this section from Ephesians 4, I must share with you probably some of the most significant truths yet in this Epistle. I have been seeking the Lord in my heart with regard to what He desires to do in our midst, and the apparent lack of spiritual movement here over the last few weeks. The result of that has been some real soul searching. I will share those things disclosed to me as we proceed through the balance of Ephesians 4.
We pick up on vs. 28 as we observe the 3rd principal of putting off and putting on. This principal, as with the other two, deals with our relationship as Christians to our fellow man. In this instance we must:
III. Put Off Stealing, and Put on Charity.
1. Paul says that those who have been stealing must steal
no more. So we may say today that this surely has nothing
to do with anybody here. After all, we are not thieves.
That may be true when we slip back into the mode of self
comparison, or comparison with others. This, as we have
already seen is foolishness. We do not know how to judge
ourselves. Our own standard is insufficient. According to
our own standards we can justify just about anything. And
so we would cry out for justice against the employee who
embezzles his employer out of $10,000, not realizing that
embezzling him out of a box of paper clips is, in God's
eyes, equally sinful. You see, that is what happens when
we measure ourselves against our own standards. This is a
call from Paul on behalf of the Savior to examine every
action against the light of His righteousness and to put
off everything that casts even the faintest shadow. This
is one part of this admonition, but there is another
sense in which he exhorts, and that is taken from the
statement, "but must work". This suggests that
there were those who had become so accustomed to living
off the charity of others that they got into the habit
and so quit looking for work. This is a very subtle trap,
and Paul's goes as far as saying that this is tantamount
to theft. When you use devious or subtle means to extract
from some caring individual that which you have the means
of earning yourself, it is stealing. It is stealing from
the one who has given, and the one who legitimately would
have received that help had it been available. Remember,
there is nothing that we do to one part body that does
not affect the whole body. Paul says that in putting on
the new man, this must cease. This is the putting off,
and the putting on is just as important. Put off
stealing, and put on charity.
Not only must we work to take care of ourselves, but we must work to take care of the needy in our midst. This is true charity. There are some people in the church that say, "We refuse to accept charity." Folks, that statement comes out of an attitude of pride, and pride is sin. Throughout the Scriptures there are encouragements to the body to share needs and burdens so that the body may participate in the blessing of ministering to that need. And things change. Today I might have plenty. God has blessed me with good health and a regular salary, so I can help when I am called upon. But that may not always be so. Sometime down the road, the person I may have helped today will be able to help me when I have a need. That is the way the body is supposed to function. Give up stealing and conniving and cheating, and put on charity. What a great idea.
The fourth principal here regarding putting of and
putting on is:
IV. Put Off Profanity, Put On Encouragement.
Paul says that we must put off any unwholesome
talk. Literally, in Greek, it is, "let no rotten
words come out of your mouths." That covers the
whole range of evil talk, from obscenity and filth to
idle rumors and gossiping. Rotten words, words that are
corrupt, that smell, that have become decayed. Today we
are facing a rising tide of pornography and lewdness in
both literature and speech. The tendency of the world
today is to fling off all bands, all restrictions, as
though these were creating slavery. Some are so blinded,
so deceived, as to think the freedom to say ugly, filthy,
rotten things is a sign, a manifestation of true freedom.
But in the light of the Scriptures (the truth as it is in
Jesus), you see how foolish, how wrong this is. It is not
a manifestation of freedom at all. It is a manifestation
of utter slavery, of being bound, of being held in the
grip of something that destroys and deceives.
Paul will come back to this subject later on and we will take it up more fully then, but in chapter 5, verse 4, he defines this a little more fully.
"Let there be no filthiness, nor silly talk, nor levity, which are not fitting, but instead let there be thanksgiving. Be sure of this, that no immoral or impure man, or one who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God."
But again, that is not enough. If that is all you can
say, that you do not do these things, you are still not
living the complete, full, Christian experience. Put on!
Put on Christ..."such as fits the occasion, that it
may impart grace to those who hear." That is always
the true sign of Christianity. It is a concern for your
influence on others. Say something positive, say
something fitting in that situation, say something
helpful. It all comes down to your influence upon others.
Jesus says in Luke 11 that if we are not gathering we are
scattering. If we are not influencing for the good, we
are turning people away. There is not middle ground. We
must put on Christ and His attractive influence upon the
world. What are you doing to others by what you say? That
is the question. Are your words causing them to stumble,
or are your words building up and encouraging people?
Now I must touch once more on one final exhortation or
instruction from Paul, which really concerns all of these
things. He speaks of not grieving the Holy Spirit. In
following all of these instructions, we will be obeying
God, and will keep the Holy Spirit from grieving. But
there is another sense in which we may grieve the Holy
Spirit, and that is in the sense of quenching the Spirit.
1 Thes. 5:19-22 Do not put out the Spirit's fire; [20]
do not treat prophecies with contempt. [21] Test
everything. Hold on to the good. [22] Avoid every kind of
evil.
We can prepare ourselves for a life of holiness and
service to God. We may volitionally make the choice that
we are going to make some changes. We can do all of this
and still remain exactly the same as long as we are not
allowing the Holy Spirit to have free reign in our lives.
And if that is our desire, we cannot quench that Spirit.
It would be like being all dressed up and ready with
nowhere to go. As is we are ready to sail, but there is
no wind. So we get behind the sail and we try and make
our own wind. We begin to blow as hard as we can, and
obviously the only thing that happens is that we get out
of breath. So, there are three observations that come out
of this. I believe we must be awakened to this before we
will see revival come in our lives and to our church.
1. All that we desire must come through the inner working of the Holy Spirit. That means that we must consciously seek the Spirit's fullness. Not in a mundane kind of way that rests in the fact that the Spirit came in when we were saved and there is now nothing left for us to do. Why then would Paul have said, "Be being filled with the Holy Spirit." Why then are there several accounts in Acts where the same ones who had been Baptized in the Holy Spirit at Pentecost experienced another such filling at a later time? Why does Jesus remind His followers in Luke 11:13 that the Father, like any father who seeks to give his children good gifts, will give to those who ask of Him the Holy Spirit. There is something about this that I believe we have missed, either because of erroneous theology or just out of plain fear. We must seek the Spirit's fullness in our lives. Nothing of Kingdom significance will happen without Him.
2. The Holy Spirit will not respond in fullness as
long as we hide iniquity in our hearts. See Isaiah
59. We may not be able to do anything about that iniquity
without the fullness of His presence, but if we are not
prepared to agree with Him about the iniquity, we will
never experience the fullness which is necessary to put
it off. This is why it is so important to ask Father to
search our hearts. Why would the Psalmist have asked God
to search him if he was fully able to recognize his
faults on his own? He knew that he would be soft on
himself. He knew that he would make excuses. So He asked
God to do the examining. We must ask Father to focus the
spotlight of His Word and His Spirit into our hearts to
reveal to us the iniquity that is hidden there. The Holy
Spirit will not come in fullness otherwise.
There is a third observation.
3. The revival God wishes to bring, must be on His own
terms. God revealed to me this last week that we are
limiting revival because we want to limit, or quench the
Spirit's fire. And when I say we, the finger of God fell
on me first. We are afraid of wild fire, so we quench the
spark. We say, "God, do what you will, I belong to
you." We say "Anything you say Lord" and
then we add to that the words of Peter when Christ
revealed that He was to die, "but Lord". There
is no more contradictory statement in scripture. We can
either say "Lord", or "but". We
cannot say both. When we refer to Him as our Lord we
assign to Him every part of our will. We sing the hymn,
"take my will and make it thine, it shall be no
longer mine" And then we say "but there is a
limit God".
We want revival, but don't do anything to embarrass me
God" That is not going to work.
If there is any part of us that is resistant - if there is any notion that a certain manifestation of the Spirit is beyond us, or not acceptable to us, I believe we will have to repent of that before God will do His work here. "But", you may say, "what if the flesh gets in. What if things begin to happen that may be harmful to the body here?" I appreciate the concern for the body, but family, can we not trust the same God with whom we trusted our lives and our salvation? Can we not trust Him to do as He chooses in our church as well? This came to me as I looked over the words of that great Hymn of surrender that most of us know at least one verse of off by heart.
All to Jesus I
surrender, All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him, In
His presence daily live.
I surrender all, I
surrender all.
All to Thee my blessed Savior, I surrender all.
All to Jesus I
surrender, Humbly at His feet I bow,
Worldly pleasures all forsaken,
Take me Jesus take me now.
All to Jesus I
surrender, Make me Savior wholly Thine;
Let me feel the Holy Spirit, Truly
know that Thou art mine.
That second line says, "I will ever love and trust Him." We must trust Him with all of our being to do His will and His work in our midst. Oh, family, our prayer must ever be, "take me Jesus, take me now! Wherever you lead I'll go. Have your will and your way in my life. No ifs buts or maybes about it." When this is honestly the prayer of our hearts I believe we will truly come to know the replacement principal of which Paul speaks of in this passage. I believe we will begin to walk in another realm spiritually. We know what he means when Paul says, "It is Christ in you the hope of glorious living"