Walk As A New Creation (b)

As we begin our passage and we're still thinking about Paul's exhortation to put on and put off, kind of help us think the importance of this concept and ask, how did you choose which clothes you were going to wear this morning? So I'll walk through and explain to you how I choose. Every Sunday morning, I've got a shirt that looks like this. I got three of them. There's a red one, a green one, and a blue one. And I think, which one did I wear last week? Let's choose a different one. I try to keep it very simple on Sunday morning, because I don't like to make any more decisions that particular day. My daughters actually have picked up on this, and if I happen to grab one of these during the week, they go, why are you wearing your preaching shirt? Well, you know, I think it needs to see the town every now and then. So I try to be, well, it's not surprising to many of you, I'm fairly casual, but I don't like to put a lot of thought into the closet. But there are occasions where I put a lot of thought into what I'm going to wear. So for instance, many of you offer to come and watch our children. So Mrs. Goat and I can go on a date. The person I'm with and the purpose of that evening, I give a lot more thought to what I'm going to wear. And then I give up and I just ask her, what do you want me to wear? But the point being, there's an attentiveness. How I present myself on that particular evening is very important. Paul is appealing to the same idea of putting off and putting on, that our purpose and the person we're with is so important. We need to be aware of what we're putting off and putting on. We need to be aware of how we present ourselves. As you heard Heather read our text from last week, just to give us some context. Verse 22, put off your old self. Verse 24, put on the new self. That is language that we'd use for putting off this cloak and putting on a new cloak. Putting off these clothes and putting on those clothes. And the whole idea here is that Paul isn't pointing out that God really is concerned with the clothes we wear here. God is concerned with our character. God is concerned that we are putting off the old man and the deception and the sinfulness, and we put on the righteousness and holiness that are true in Christ, who is the truth. This is talking about a whole life change. This is the good news of God's gospel. He doesn't just forgive us. He doesn't just take us out of the slavery. He gives us a new life to live. It's just put off and put on that we're gonna continue to just talk about this new creation we are, putting off the old, putting on the new, because Paul continues to elaborate what that means. You see, whenever you become a Christian, you just don't add something to who you used to be. Right, you're not just the same person, same expectations, and now you show up on church on Sunday and read your Bible every day. It's not that simple. There's a greater expectation changed. It's not mere subtraction. I'll just quit these bad habits and then I'll be okay. No, we are running with our actions, our words, our thoughts, our desires, head first into hell. A real, complete change has to take place. And by God's grace, he calls us out of that end and then he gives us the grace. be changed. Not so we earn His love. Not so we earn His favor. Not so we earn salvation. No, so that we can enjoy Him. So that we can walk in His wisdom. And so again this morning, if you want to know what it means to become a Christian, go back to chapter 2. We were dead, but God made us alive. when we believed in Jesus Christ, who died on the cross to forgive us of our sins, who rose again to give us new life, and now we're just talking about walking worthy of that calling. As we begin, and if you heard Heather, especially when it comes to verse 25, and if you keep reading, there's a lot of commands here. Christ has high expectations for those he purchased with his blood. How we now live matters. And I wanna do a little study here very quickly. We're gonna kind of back out of this text, and I wanna see how this relates to the Old Testament, specifically the Ten Commandments. You can find that in Exodus 20. Page 61, if you're using a pew Bible. And the first half of the Ten Commandments are really focused on God, no other God, no images, do not take his name in vain. The latter half actually have to do with how we relate to one another. And I wanna, to point back, so I actually want you to look at Ephesians, I'll read the Ten Commandments. Honor your father and mother. Look at chapter six, verse two. That's actually quoted there. That the old commandment is repeated in the new covenant. Do not murder. This is the tricky one. I believe this is, we can see do not murder in verse 26, our passage today. Do not be angry, but yet without sin. Or verse 31, let all bitterness, wrath, and anger, and clamor, and slander be put away from you. Do not commit adultery. That's chapter 5, verses 3 to 5. But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you. As is proper among saints, let there be filthiness. No filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ. Do not steal. That's our passage again this morning, verse 28. Let the thief no longer steal. Do not bear false witness. Again, our passage this morning. Do not put away falsehood. Tell the truth. And then you shall not covet. You heard that in chapter five, verse three. I find this interesting because God's expectations in the Old Testament aren't that different than the New Testament. If anything, the New Testament tells us more of what's expected of us. when it comes to change and character formation. We see here that there's not two covenants. That there's one covenant, one plan of God. If there's anything, it's a promise and a fulfillment. This is why I want you to go back to Exodus 20. Look at the first words of the Ten Commandments. But God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. The Ten Commandments start with a declaration, you have been redeemed and delivered. What God said in the Old Testament was never, if you obey these, you'll be my people. No, he's saying, I've saved you. You are my people. This is what I expected of you now in the new land that I'm gonna take you to. Same thing we see in Ephesians. In Christ, we're redeemed. In Christ, we're delivered. In Christ, we're made alive. Now walk worthy of that calling. This is what I expect of you, not in a new land, but as a new people of the church. I want you to see, it's a gracious call to know Christ. It's a gracious call to receive his law. To be given God's law is an act of grace. To know who He is, what He's like, to know what He expects of us. That is an act of grace to guide and direct us. And so as we begin, and again, these things are weighty. The commands are weighty. I want us to just go back and meditate upon some of the declarations from Psalm 119, so that our hearts are ready to receive the light that shows how sinful we are, so that we can see how to repent, so we know how to live. Let's make this our prayer. Oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth. Through your precepts, I get understanding. Therefore, I hate every false way. Therefore, I love your commandments. Above gold, But find gold. Therefore, I consider all your precepts to be right. I hate every false way. As we look to this, we need to be ready to hate that treason that's in our hearts we sang about earlier. And love the word of God that comes down to us to show us the way. Will you pray with me? Father, as we look to your word, shine your light bright. First, let your law do what it does so clearly. Let it point out our sin and our need to confess it, to repent and seek forgiveness by the blood of Christ. Lord, if someone here does not know you, may they hear and see how they have not lived up to your holiness and may they be drawn to you through Christ. Grant them faith today. Lord, for those of us who are coming to seek to be more faithful, Let your light shine upon us. Show us the hidden sins. Show us the sins we want to be willfully ignorant of. Show us the sins we're protecting. Shine your light so we can enjoy you. So we can love your law and love you who have given it. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. So the outline is pretty easy. Don't lie. Do not sin in anger. Do not steal. A lot of no's. Sounds so negative. If you actually look at it, I didn't really represent it all that well, did I? The Ten Commandments are marked with no's, but this commandment, these commandments, they actually have a positive to them. It's not just no falsehood, but tell the truth. It's not just no longer steal, work, and give. That's the amazing thing about the New Covenant law, the law of Christ, is that it doesn't just tell you what not to do, which is so helpful. It's nice to know where boundaries are, right? Boundaries are good. I can't do that. That's out of bounds. That gives me a safety to know what I can do, but then it tells you here's what you should do. As we look at this, we see What Paul is calling us away from is selfishness at the heart of it. Someone who lies doesn't respect the person they're talking to enough to tell them the truth. Usually a lie has a selfish ambition, and we'll get into that. Anger with sin is usually a selfishness. stealing, obviously a selfishness. I believe what we see here is a pattern that when we come to Christ, we want to know more of Him and then we think more of others. The key takeaways as we just kind of look at the text in itself, sin is incredibly dangerous. Sin causes all kinds of problems and being renewed means we step away from that old self and we seek to have self-control. All right, let's look at our first command. Christ be a truth teller That's a more accurate way of declaring what Paul is saying here In Christ because of who you are because what he's done for you now that you are in him we are to act this way we are to be this kind of person a truth teller and this is the first time we've seen this in in our Ephesians 4 text and Speak the truth in love. Christ is the truth. You can go to Colossians where he almost repeats this verbatim. It's interesting here, Paul almost assumes we have a natural tendency towards lying. You can go to Titus and he actually just calls all of them liars. All those cretins, they're liars. Their own poet says that about them. We all have a tendency to want to stretch the truth, to bend it, to manipulate it, and it's usually for our own gain. We rarely lie for somebody else. Now here's the thing, nobody wants to be known as a liar. Because a liar is someone who's untrustworthy. We go back, you're called to walk worthy of the calling. If you're a liar, there's something, it lacks worth. You're not trustworthy. Now let's go back and be clear about something. You can go back to the last week's passage, the deceitful desires of verse 22, right? The old self is marked by self-deceit. You go back to Ephesians 2. We follow the prince of the power of the air, the father of lies. The old self is marked with a pattern of being deceived and self-deception. It's when Christ comes, who is the truth, that we can see the lies for what they are, and then we can see the truth and we can embrace it. This is what's terrifying about living as the old self. Self-deception is a web that captures you and it's terrifying how easy it is to get there. Now, I want to be very careful here. Please don't be thinking those poor people who are prone to self-deception. We are all people who either are in the old self or have had the old self. That the old self is deceptive and I believe we are all prone to this. Paul is telling us not to be like this because I believe he's saying we all are like this in many ways. Let's be aware. So let's talk about how we might lie. How might we bear falsehood? First thing, we lie about ourselves. If you don't believe me, go look at how we present ourselves on social media. Social media bragging is amazing. Very few people are bold enough to say, I'm struggling today, or things are difficult. It's usually, look how great my life is. Or the Christmas card, right? The Christmas letter where we give an update for everything. We always talk about how great everything's doing, here are the achievements, here's the accomplishments. You don't ever get, this has been difficult. This is the struggle this child has. This is the struggle this child has. This is the struggle my marriage has. When we present ourselves, it's always in the best light. Now here's the thing, we want others to think well of us. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but it's a matter of when we present ourselves better than we are. So I ask, when you're asked, how are you doing, what do you say? Now one of the best answers to this is actually better than I deserve, I love that. One, it's honest, and two, you just avoided talking about your feelings, so I think that's brilliant. But when somebody asks that, I don't want us to say flood everybody with all your trouble, but if you're not talking to someone about the real difficulties, you're keeping yourself trapped in them. If you're not going to be willing to go to somebody about the confessing of sin, you're denying others the opportunity to be used by God. You're denying yourself the help you need. We can't just always pretend things are well, because let's just be honest, things are not always well. We live in a difficult world. We're difficult people. Another way that we can, Be false. We can lie. And I want to speak to you, especially if you're young or a high school or college student. Cheating. It's a real problem in academics. Be aware that cheating is trying to present yourself in a way that's a lie. Cheaters never win. You don't actually win when you cheat. You're breaking the rules. Play with the rules. Present yourself as you are. So we lie about ourselves to others. I also wanna say we lie to ourselves. Here is the basic pattern of lie that I wanna be very clear is dangerous. We typically think we deserve better. That's the lie we're constantly tempting ourselves with. I hope as you get older, you learn to hinder this and to break it, but I deserve better. When it comes to your work. To my shame, you can say this about your spouse. I realize it's foolish for me to think that, but it's a temptation. You can say this about your church, and let me be very clear, you should say this about your church. We should be striving for a high expectation of what Christ has called us to. And we're not there yet. That temptation, that ultimate lie, I deserve better because when you say I deserve better, this is what you're saying. God If you're a Christian, you believe all good things come down from the Father of lights, every good and perfect gift. When you say, I deserve better, you're saying, God, you could be doing better with the gift giving. That's why lying to yourself is so dangerous and sinful. It takes you out of the gratitude. We lie about others. This is the classic playground manipulation, and I fear we don't actually grow out of this well. You know, when we have an insecurity, one of the best ways to divert is to talk poorly of others. Like, we're all aware of how that happens. We need to be aware that that's a sinful temptation to divert our attention away from our problems so that we talk about other people's problems. This is why we need to be very clear. We're to speak the truth in love, not just to one another, but about one another. We also lie about God. This is why our words are so important. If someone knows you as a Christian, they should be looking to hear truth. They should be hearing somebody who speaks the truth in love. They should be hearing somebody who keeps a promise. This is actually what I believe is going on in the Ten Commandments, where you don't do the Lord's name in vain. Anytime you made an oath, they knew Yahweh was your God, and you were misrepresenting Him. If you broke your oath, you took His name in vain. I especially want us to think about the testimony we are giving to our children here. It's heartbreaking as I have talked to members of this church who are actually fearful that the way that their children have witnessed members of this church talk about them or talk about others has hindered their children from coming to Christ. There's a real harsh warning about keeping a little one from Christ with our words and actions. They're watching. They're listening. That's our greatest witness. How are our children going to grow up after hearing the way we talk to and about one another? Do they see the gospel? We must testify true about God. Now notice what he says. He's not just put away falsehood. Let each one of you speak the truth with the neighbor. Now neighbor here is the same word that Jesus uses when he talks about the good neighbor. Neighbor just means who's closest to you. So look at the person right next to you. All right, that's your neighbor. Who's close to you? The one who's next to you. Those who are closest to you are your neighbors. Whoever's near you is your neighbor. And here he's speaking, I think, very specifically about the closeness of the church. For we are members one of another. That's the covenant language we've just heard him talk about in the previous part of chapter four. One body, head, the head, many members all working together so the whole body grows up into Christ. And it's so essential that we as members speak truth so that this is a place where truth reigns. If we lie to one another, that's like you stomping on your own foot. You're only hurting yourself. because we're all one body connected? Let me say this about truth and speaking truth to one another because we're members of one another. The church needs to be a safe place. It's a place where we expect to be told the truth. It's a place where we expect we can tell the truth. Now, safe places is something that the world's talking about, and what they mean by that is, I need to be able to go somewhere and they're going to tell me, they're gonna affirm me no matter how I think or feel that I'm right. That's not how the church is a safe place. The church is a safe place where we're going to be able to come and we're gonna be able to confess sin. We're gonna be able to say, I know I'm wrong. And there's gonna be a quick declaration of forgiveness. That's what makes a church a safe place. It's not that we're ignoring sin. It's not that we're ignoring problems. It's not that we're trying to make people feel just good about themselves. No, it's that we're able to come and we're able to say, we're all coming together just as sinners. Liars. With deceitful desires and we're gonna come together and we can share our burdens. We can confess sin. We can declare forgiveness. We can be built up in that way. This is why the declaration of our covenant is so important. We will speak the truth in love, be slow to take offense, and be eager to seek swift and lasting reconciliation. As we think about this picture of the church that Paul's been building up, we need to be able to confront one another, to be confronted by one another, to share our burdens and our trials. We're all coming. Realizing we're unworthy of the calling, but Christ has called us. Little children, I want to exhort you for a moment. Little children, make sure you do not fall into the pattern of lying. That pattern is a hard one to break. Make sure that when your parents ask you questions, you answer them with absolute truth. Keep your parents' trust. They are your best ally. Let them know they can always trust you. Parents, make sure your children know they can trust you. Our second commandment, as if hearing that we're all a bunch of liars and we need to confess this and come together wasn't enough, be angry and do not sin. Now I'm going to have to apologize I have found this particular declaration so enticing, most of my sermon prep time was spent on this. So the thieving and the giving didn't get quite enough attention this week. So we're gonna be going long here because I found this just to be so pressing. And the internal processing of what it means to be angry and it seems to be that that's right, but yet without sin. So here we go, and I also want to make sure we understand, if I was asked to explain what it means to sin and anger, oh, I could write an amazing treatise. That's easy. I want to be very clear, this is kind of, I hope, sanctified prayerful speculation as to what it means to be angry without sin. So I hope we can learn together as we're trying to strive for what this actually looks like. Also, I once said from this very pulpit that I don't believe righteous anger is possible. I'm second-guessing that declaration. I'm second-guessing that what I once said, that righteous anger is not possible. I said it because whenever I've heard someone appeal to righteous anger, I've always thought it sounded very self-righteous. So I've always just not, I don't think I've seen it. I also want to be very careful that I don't believe righteous anger normally comes when we're thinking about somebody else's sin. Righteous anger most likely happens when we're thinking about our own sin. So what Paul says here, be angry and do not sin. Anger is an emotion. Anger is typically a response. You know, we usually think of somebody who's angry, who's got a temper, they get red in the face. You know, some people, they do verbalize anger. Sinful anger is oftentimes verbalized. Other people, they don't actually verbalize it. They internalize it, and they withdraw. I believe the right Christian response to an injustice, which is what brings anger about, is to draw near with prayer. So let's just walk through this. be angry, and do not sin. Paul has actually quoted here from Psalm 4. I encourage you to meditate on Psalm 4 later today. Paul's language here, it's actually a command, be angry and do not sin. I think this is more of a wisdom declaration of what he's saying. Have restraint, be wise, be cautious, Let your temper be tempered. In Psalm 4, what the psalmist is declaring, something horrible has happened, and he's actually counseling himself, be angry and do not sin. James also says, be slow to anger. Jesus was actually clearly angry. Remember, he goes to the temple. He physically moves things in anger. throwing out the thieves. We shouldn't try to soften what's going on there. He has a righteous anger because he is a zeal for worship. I believe Paul is saying here, your emotions need disciplined. Right? So as we think of the big picture, the easy thing to do is to have your thoughts disciplined by God. Okay? You are to think God's thoughts after Him. Because God has given us His Word, because God has spoken, we are to be changed in our mind the way we think. And I want to say that's the easy part. All right? To think differently. To have His Word change the way we reason. The other part of that is to have your desires changed. To have your love and affection shifted from things of this world and sin, to have your love and affections changed to things of God. That's a lot harder than having your mind changed, isn't it? That the head changes so much quicker than the heart. Here, I believe Paul is actually also saying, let your emotions be changed. Our emotions can't rule us. Just because you feel something doesn't make us right. The emotions need discipline. Anger is a real thing. It's a real emotion because we live in a world with real problems. We can just think about the blatant racism on August 12th or the perversity of Nasser on TV right now. The MS, the doctor. There is a right angry response. Paul is saying you cannot let your anger control you, you have to have discipline over it. Now as we look at the passage before we get into what the anger is and how to resolve it, be angry and do not sin, do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. I first found it curious the devil's mentioned in this verse because the devil's the father of lies. I would've thought that'd be mentioned in the previous verse. But here he says don't let the devil have a foothold. Why? What is the context? We need to be careful not to individualize these commands. He is speaking to each member, but I believe each one of these has a community-orientedness to it. The first one, speak the truth. We're members of one another. Do not steal works you can give to one another. I believe this is probably thinking about what it means to be in a church. Have you ever been around somebody who's angry? Is it comfortable? Is it easy to speak the truth with somebody who's going to respond with anger? If you're there with somebody with anger, it's like walking on eggshells. It's like walking, you're so cautious, you're so afraid. You put your guard up, you don't put your guard down to confess sin. There's a fear involved with somebody who's angry. I think this is maybe where we see the devil as a foothold. It's hard to live out the faith whenever there's anger running amok among the people of God. That's how the devil gets a foothold and causes divisions and fear. Okay, let's go back to this most basic declaration. I want to parse it out. Be angry and do not sin. This is from David Powelson. I can't claim this for my own, but I think it's just so helpful to clarify what this is. This is how I want to define anger. Anger is merely saying I feel like something's wrong. That's it. Anger is merely the sense something is wrong. Sinful anger that he's warning us against says that thing is more important than you. Sinful anger is when we take that thing that we think is wrong and we treat it as if it's more important than the people we're with or it's more important than God. Think about it because there is a sense in which anger feels right. And then there's our tendency to overreact and treat it as something worse and we get ourselves into further trouble. Let me just give an example that might be too real or might be too silly. Pretend you're going out to eat. You're at a restaurant. You order a steak. I want it medium. That steak comes back well done. Right? Something's not right. You have the sense it's not going to be the delicious food you wanted to consume. And the way you could be angry and sin is by yelling at the waitress. who, by the way, didn't cook the steak. It's taking out my sense that this isn't right, and treating her poorly because it matters more than her. My appetite, what I wanted to eat, matters more than you. That's what happens when we sin in anger. Okay, it's not right the steak is overcooked, but when we treat that as if it's more important than the person, we've gone beyond any kind of righteousness. Now, I really wish there was a restaurant where the waitress had the freedom to respond in kind to the responsive people. Right? So to entertain myself, I kind of thought, what would that look like? You know, what if the waitress explained, well, you know, I didn't get to cut the meat before I brought it to you. That's not in the rules. Like, I just brought it to you. I didn't cook it. You know, just explaining. She never does that. Thanks. Sorry. We'll fix it. What if she took the forking knife and cut it open and said, yeah, took a bite. Yeah, that isn't right. Or if she picked the thing up with her bare hand and said, I'm going to go smack the chef across the face and tell him how unhappy you are. Can you imagine how awkward you feel at that moment? If you've treated her so poorly and she's going to say, well, I'll go take it on the chef and he'll come out and talk to you. We respond with a ridiculousness. Speaking harshly because the steak's not right, or just sulking and chewing in misery? If we're honest, we're too likely to mistreat people. Not the waitress or the stranger, but the people we're closest to, or the people we actually mistreat the most. As we think about it, what makes you angry? What is it that regularly puts your antennas up? Something's not right. If you're a member here, I challenge you, what is it that constantly puts your antenna up? And are they things that you think God would be upset about? Is our anger aligned with what God thinks, and is it in right of measure? As I wrestled with this, Jonah came to mind. Remember at the end of Jonah, God provides this wonderful shade plant for him? And as he's looking at the Ninevites who are gonna die and go to hell because Jonah's tried to avoid preaching the gospel to them, what is Jonah angry about? A bug came and ate his shade tree. He's not angry at himself for being unfaithful. He's not angry that these people are going to die and go to hell. He's angry that he's been inconvenienced. I fear that is a warning for us too often. So how to be angry without sin? First, we should be seeking to discipline our anger. When we have that sense, it seems wrong. Here's two questions to ask. They have to go together. Am I angry because of true injustice or am I angry because I'm being inconvenienced? I believe that's a very hopeful way to keep yourself from being angry in sin. Do not let inconvenience be what controls you. Truly aligned, am I angry about something God has spoken about? Secondly, Is my anger out of measure? Again, I think overreacting is one of the ways we so easily sin in anger. And this is where it's really helpful to have other believers. If we're more angry about something than everybody else, it's probably a good sign we've overreacted. It's helpful to have others speak to the situation, is to say, I think you're overreacting. It's a good word to hear that you can settle your anger a bit. Fourth, is my anger seeking to punish a certain person, the offender? Or am I praying to God who is the vindicator? Right, so anger comes when we feel like something's right, and I believe Romans 12 is just one of the most comforting passages when we constantly feel like something's not right because something is usually not right. Here, Romans 12, 17 to 21. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink, for by doing so you'll heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Do you see what's required there to not try to punish the person? It's actually believing God is the ultimate judge and the perfect vindicator and that you can trust Him to be the one who brings the vengeance. We don't have to avenge ourselves. I think one of the hardest things to do is to not make it very clear to the person who's hurt us how clear they've hurt us. This is where trusting God to bring about peace and reconciliation is helpful. All right, first, you need to discipline your anger. Second, look at the offense with the gospel. This is so important that when we are sinned against, or if we see this is wrong, we first wanna say, I also am a sinner who needs grace. If we posture ourselves as if there's nothing wrong with us, and we're just out here to point out everybody else's problems, we're going to make more problems. We need to posture ourselves to forgive. We need to pray for wisdom. I mentioned Nasser earlier. This guy's infuriating me more and more. If you look into the case, it's amazing what he has done and the damage he's done. And then he has the audacity to tell the judge, judge, the damage that's being done to me, hearing testimonies of what I've done to these girls is too much for me. Can you stop? Are you kidding me? And then one of the victims, Rachel Denhollander. She testifies about what he's done, and at the 23 mark of that testimony, go watch it, she preaches the gospel to him. And says, you can be forgiven. That's amazing. She can only identify with his sin as a pure victim. But yet she knows that she's sinned against God in such a way that she deserves wrath, and so she knows that her God is one who is gracious. forgive even the sins of him. It's a beautiful example of how to be angry without sin, by applying the gospel to the person who sinned. Third, and we'll think about this more next week, do not let anger settle into bitterness. I believe this is what Paul is getting at when he says, do not let the sun go down in your anger. Do not let it settle in. And I'm not sure this is actually literal, because I have a hard time thinking that everything I've been angry about is settled within a 24-hour period in my own heart, because my heart's so twisted and corrupted. I believe it's an idiom to say as quickly as you can. There's other wisdom literature that actually uses this phrase. I believe it's an idiom. As soon as you can, be done with it, put it off. Don't let anger fester because it leads to bitterness. As I was studying, I came across this quote that was penetrating. It's by a man named Butcher. Of the seven deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun. to lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last twosome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you're giving back. In many ways, it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton of the feast is you. When we let ourselves dive into our own anger, we're devouring ourself. This is why we look to God and we say, God, you're the avenger. I'm going to sin in anger if I try to bring justice, but you, oh God, I'm going to trust to bring righteous judgment in your time. You, O God, I'm not going to hold these sins against those who have sinned against me, because especially if they're brothers and sisters, Christ died for those sins. How can I hold them when you have not? We need to turn to God and not in on ourselves. And if you want to model this, turn to Psalm 4 that Paul's actually quoting. Our final command, in Christ work to give. 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. I believe here is just a fantastic verse that, for the bigger topic, stewardship. Here it's recognizing God has given everything that we have, and that's why we don't take what he's given to somebody else. the renewed mind recognizing that that person was given that thing, that job, that earthly possession, that house, that whatever that is, God gave it to them in His wisdom. I'm not going to steal it. I'm not going to covet after it. And He's speaking here of actual possessions. So there's a rewiring that takes place. It's not, what can I take while I'm alive? It's what has God given. And then it's not even that, it's so much more. Do honest work. Work. Labor. So that you might have something to give. Another renewed mind truth here. What I have is not actually my own to use for my own selfish ends. God's given it so that I might use it to bless others. We realize everything that is, is from God. That's good. And He has a plan for it. And honestly, when we're not using according to God's plan, is it as if we're stealing from God? When we take what he's given us and instead of using it for his purpose, we try to use it for our own selfishness? Isn't that like stealing from God? When he's given a purpose to many good gifts? One of the challenging things Paul gives is that to be a cheerful giver. To see that all that I have is from God and now I can bless others. And I do think most of us, we have this inclination. I want to work hard to provide for my children. Right, there's a natural inclination. There's a natural instinct to say I want to make sure I'm working hard so that I can give to my children so that they're well off. There's a family instinct. What Paul, I believe, is getting to here is that we need to also remember there's a larger family. We have a lot of brothers and sisters. And if one of them's in need, we're called to be the hand of God, we're to be Christ to them by our giving. As I think about stewardship, if you have a home, be hospitable. If you have a car, be available to give a ride. Your time and your energy serve one another. Your words build one another up. Encourage your wallet. Give to those who are in need. As we conclude and we consider these three commands, we're not saved according to how obedient we are. We're saved so that we can start putting ourselves in the right place to start posturing ourselves, to start proactively pursuing being more obedient so that we can enjoy God and worship Him more faithfully. Putting off that old self that's full of lies, putting on the new self that's full of truth, that builds each other up to the truth. So as we conclude, a few questions for consideration. When and to whom am I most tempted to lie? So it might be at work. You wanna make sure people think you're the best employee, the smartest employee, so you might bend the truth to a boss. Might be at church. It might be we wanna present ourselves as better than we are. We avoid talking about the problems. When and to whom am I most tempted? There's an idol to seek out there. Secondly, what brings out anger in me the easiest and the hottest? What gets me real hot, real quick in anger? That's where we probably are trying to have control. This is where we need to realize we need to apply God's grace and seek God's grace. And the third question for our last commandment, where are we investing? It can't be merely in ourselves and our comfort and our pursuits. You realize there's a greater kingdom that God is calling us to be a good steward of. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that your grace calls us to this truth. that Christ is truth, and He's not only modeled these things, He's died because we have disobeyed them, and His grace is sufficient so that we can start proactively pursuing these traits, these marks of your children. Lord, may we be known as truth-tellers. May we be known as those who apply the right anger to the right problems, yet without sin. It will be known for our generosity, and charity, and giving to one another. May the world see it, and see a different kind of people who've been saved by a wonderful, glorious God of grace. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.