Ephesians 4:25 - 5:5

Teacher: Rusty Kennedy
​Series: Ephesians

Rusty's Notes

• You were made different to be different
• Putting off the old self for the new
• Paul comes to expressing the specifics of how to live life out of the new creation.
• It is written to the Church, but we immediately go to the thought of our spouse with these encouragements.

LIVING THE NEW LIFE
EPHESIANS 4:25-32
25 Therefore, putting away lying, speak the truth, each one to his neighbor, because we are members of one another.

• Zechariah 8:16
• "I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."
• When Truth is spoken among those who are "members of one another" amazing things happen.
• The individual members of Christ's body experience rapid spiritual growth, which results in the corporate body living in a way that epitomizes truth.
• Lying stymies growth and destroys the common life in the body.

26 Be angry and do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger,

• Psalm 4:4
• Wuest – “There is a ‘wrath of God’ (Matt. 3:7, Rom. 12:19); who would not love good unless He hated evil, the two being so inseparable, that either He must do both or neither.”
• ‎The words, “be ye angry,” - this abiding, settled attitude of righteous indignation against sin and sinful things, is commanded, together with the appropriate actions when conditions make them necessary.
• ‎In the words, “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath,” the word “wrath” -  anger that is mingled with irritation, exasperation, and embitterment.
• Such anger is forbidden.
• "Don't let the sun go down on your anger." - For me, this is a season, depending the origination of your anger.
• One of my first chaplain visits, 11 years ago, was to a young Fishers couple that just lost their 4 month old baby.
•    - Who wouldn't be angry?
•    - But eventually you have to walk away from the anger.
• I have lost good friends for sharing this truth with them.

27 and don’t give the devil an opportunity.

• Forbids the continuance of an action already going on.
• Failing to control anger grants the devil an opportunity to get a foothold in your life.
• Then he can use it as a base of operation to launch more spiritual attacks against you.
• Many Christians are suffering today because of anger that was not resolved yesterday—and anger is just one of a complex range of human emotions.
• If Satan can seize our emotions, he can destroy our ability to function by crippling us emotionally or leading us into all manner of destructive and addictive behavior.
• ‎Here’s a specific example of family relationships and spiritual warfare:
• 1) Communication
• 2) Money
• 3) Sex
• Paul wrote to husbands and wives in 1 Corinthians 7:5, “Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”
• Paul is saying that when a husband and wife don’t have a fulfilling sexual relationship, the devil sees that lack as an opportunity to come in and bring about moral destruction in the family.
• So this thing of spiritual warfare gets right down to the nitty-gritty aspects of everyday life.

28 Let the thief no longer steal. Instead, he is to do honest work with his own hands, so that he has something to share with anyone in need.

• George Muller - "It is no right and Scriptural motive, to be engaged in a trade, or business, or profession, merely in order to earn the means for the obtaining of the necessaries of life for ourselves and family, but we should work because it is the Lord’s will concerning us."
• Paul believed that those who refused to work should not eat (2 Thessalonians 3:10) for such behavior resulted from a lack of discipline... or even pride.
• We not only work to provide for our family but we also work to provide for those who have needs.
• How many of you have a budget line “for others”?

29 No foul language should come from your mouth, but only what is good for building up someone in need, so that it gives grace to those who hear.

• Rotten talk = unwholesome, corrupt, depraved, vicious, foul, rotten or impure.
• Build up = encourage... Why do we find this difficult?
• A simple press on the "like" button makes a world of difference.
• What if you actually left a comment? (Trish Zastrow)
• What if you called them?
• What if you wrote a handwritten letter?
• What if you said it to their face while looking in their eyes?‎
• Tozer – “To preach the truth, the prophet must be under the constant sway of the Holy Spirit. He must be driven to God for wisdom. Otherwise, he will not pierce the conscience of each listener as if the message had been directed to him or her alone. Further, it is necessary that the man of God know the people’s hearts better than they themselves do!”

30 And don’t grieve God’s Holy Spirit. You were sealed by him for the day of redemption.

• The Spirit is here seen as capable of feeling, and so as personal.‎
• ‎Because He is loving and kind and friendly, the Holy Spirit may be grieved.… He can be grieved because He is loving, and there must be love present before there can be grief.
• Epiphany at breakfast one day when a friend who knew their identity couldn't walk with the Spirit. Knew it but couldn't live it... and was suffering.
• ‎Tozer - "I remind you that there are churches so completely out of the hands of God that if the Holy Spirit withdrew from them, they wouldn’t find it out for many months."
• One of the greatest assurances of the eternal security of the believer is the fact that the Father has sealed every believer with the Holy Spirit

31 Let all bitterness, anger and wrath, shouting and slander be removed from you, along with all malice.

• No one enjoys being around bitter people.
• Directly proportional to the number of friends you have?

32 And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ.

• “The idea is that they had to abandon one mental condition and make their way, beginning there and then, into its opposite.”
• Forgiven - Past, present & future.
• If unity is to exist within the church, we must learn to forgive each other as God has forgiven us.

 
EPHESIANS 5:1-5
1 Therefore, be imitators of God, as dearly loved children,

• Our word “mimic” comes from this Greek word, "mimetes". (followers)
• ‎“Walk in love” is “be constantly ordering your behavior within the sphere of love.”
• Deeds, that result from trying to imitate God in our own strength are of no benefit.
• Jesus did not imitate the Father, but lived by the Father's life... thus being a reflection of God.

2 and walk in love, as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God.

• No saint can "walk in love", nor can he live by the life of Another, unless the Person of the Holy Spirit empowers him to do so.

3 But sexual immorality and any impurity or greed should not even be heard of among you, as is proper for saints.

• porneia (πορνεια) (fornication)
• The word porneia (πορνεια) was used of illicit sexual intercourse in general.
• ‎The moral life of the Graeco-Roman world had sunk so low that, while protests against the prevailing corruption were never entirely wanting, fornication had long come to be regarded as a matter of moral indifference, and was indulged in without shame or scruple, not only by the mass, but by philosophers and men of distinction who in other respects led exemplary lives.”

4 Obscene and foolish talking or crude joking are not suitable, but rather giving thanks.

• Foolish talking - course jesting - for the sake of attention and wit, a person quickly turns an innocent statement into that which is suggetive, obscene or indecent.
• We need to exchange our indecent talk with giving thanks.

5 For know and recognize this: Every sexually immoral or impure or greedy person, who is an idolater, does not have an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.[1]‎

• Their lifestyle of habitual sin confirms they are unredeemed.
• It is how we can tell the difference between believers and non-believers.
• Light vs darkness
• Walking by the Spirit vs walking by the flesh

[1] Christian Standard Bible (Eph 4:25–5:5). (2020). Holman Bible Publishers.