Ephesians 4:22-32 Living the New Life

Tom is recording Sunday school lessons and making them available through a link. The link is being used by people around the country. The speaker recommended resources for studying the Gospel of John. The main topic of discussion is unity within the church. The speaker emphasizes the importance of the church functioning properly and living out their beliefs. The passage being discussed talks about putting away lying, speaking the truth, controlling anger, not stealing, using positive language, and being kind and forgiving. The speaker shares personal anecdotes about relationships with those who have different beliefs. The overall message is that the church should strive for unity and reflect the character of Christ. All right, good to see you this morning. I wanted to call attention to the fact that Tom is recording all of our Sunday school lessons and making them available through his link that he sent to us, and it's going far and wide. My sister-in-law down in Livingston, Louisiana, listens to all of them, and she loves it. At the time, I had a call from a former member of our church when he was in college named Patrick Fremmer. Some of you all may remember Patrick. He pastored for years down on the Florida coast, and now he's working with churches down there to help the churches. But he called me and said, I'm fixing to preach through the Gospel of John. You know any good sources? So I said, well, I preached through the Gospel of John last year, so I'm going to send you a link. You can hear all of our lessons if you want to listen to them. And then, of course, I had to recommend our New American Commentary, which we produced while I was at LifeWay. We have a two-volume commentary on John, so I mentioned that to him. I mentioned John MacArthur. Now, John and I are good friends and differ on some things, but he is a wonderful in his commentaries doing word studies. And so I love reading John MacArthur's commentaries for that reason, because he really digs into the words, and so I recommended that to him and several others. But I thought, Tom, you'd be glad to know now that that link is being used by some other folks around the country, and we thank you for doing it. I'm never really aware that that's your own, but I assume you are because we have the tape, so thank you. Yes, this has been a long way for Brother Jack. He called me Wednesday. Now we had agreed. We had already talked. I didn't finish the fourth chapter, and, in fact, I didn't get very far into the end of that chapter, and so the notes that I gave you last week are still good. You can use those, but I'm doing something. We were going to go, and he was going to let me finish the fourth chapter. He was going to give me ten minutes. I said, well, I can do it, but he called. He said, well, trustee meeting and all the stuff. Jack has been at seminary for 55 years. They can hardly turn the lights on without him helping them. I mean, this is a big deal. He said, I've got so much on me. He said, could you possibly teach this week? I said, would I? Could I? Yes. I haven't given the fourth chapter all it deserves. The last portion of the fourth chapter is one of the most important parts of the book. In fact, in reading what folks have said about Ephesians, many people believe that Ephesians may well be the greatest epistle that is written. I'd like to assign you something. When you're reading the epistles of Paul, and there are 13 of them in the New Testament, just be careful to look and see how many times he talks about unity. You know, Jesus in John 17, five different times, prayed for unity for his disciples. Finally, he said, and all those that are going to be saved, they prayed for us too. Well, Paul is the same way in all of his epistles. He doesn't make a big deal out of it. He just kind of filters it through. I know that Brother John has some things to say about it this morning. Nothing pleases the Lord more than for his people to be together. As I've mentioned to you many times, we're not supposed to be clones or clowns, either one. But we're not supposed to, oh, you got that finally, okay. So we're not supposed to, everybody agree on everything. If you had three people in a room, especially three Baptists in a room, you'd have four different opinions. I mean, you know, we don't all agree on everything, that's okay. God never intended for us to. And the only thing we all can agree on is what God said. And we'll have differences along the way, and that's all right. Efficiency is significant because we cannot be effective in communicating the gospel if we are always fussed and fighting. And so it's a very important issue, and I don't think we can mention it too much. But Ephesians, anyway, is a great storehouse of spiritual truth. It reveals the great riches and the inheritance and the fullness that is ours in Jesus Christ and in the church. In chapter four, he's beginning to tell us how we can experience the joy of the possessions we have. The church is described as Christ's body. It's not an organization. It's an organism. Christ is seen as the head of the body, and the Holy Spirit is the lifeblood of the body. The body functions through the use of spiritual gifts and faithful ministry. When the church functions properly, the reality of Christ is seen in an attractive and compelling way. But when the church does not function properly, the world's view of Christ is distorted, the church is weakened, and Christ is dishonored. Let me put it another way. The Bible is probably the most purchased and least read book in the world. Most lost people are not sitting around reading the Bible. But the Bible they can see, which is you and me, the church, they'll see that. And we need to be sure that we're behaving, living, putting into practice what we say we believe, and otherwise the church does not know really what Christ is like, what God is like. There are a lot of things that have to be overcome. For instance, think of how many people did not have a good relationship with their fathers. I hear them all the time, my father was this and that. It would be very difficult for them to call God their father if the only image they had of their father was their earthly father. So how is God going to be known? Through us. They'll know what a heavenly father is like because they see his reflection in us. So the last portion, I'm going to drop back to the 22nd verse, and let me just read these this morning and then we'll talk a little bit about them. Let's go back to 20. Well, no, let's start with 20 is in the middle of a thought, let's don't do that, we'll do this. It is off your former way of life, the old self, which is corrupted by deceitful desires, to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, the one created according to God's likeness, in righteousness and purity of the truth, therefore putting away lying. Now, by the way, remember he's talking to the church. This is not an evangelistic appeal. This is a description of us. Why would he have to talk about lying among us, of all things, would we do that? Therefore putting away lying, speak the truth, each one to his neighbors, because we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin. Don't let the sun go down on your anger, and don't give the devil an opportunity. 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. No foul language should come from your mouth, but only what is good for building up those who hear. And don't grieve God's Holy Spirit. You were sealed by him for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, anger, wrath, shouting, and slander be removed from you, along with all malice, and be kind, compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God has also forgiven you in Christ. Powerful words that at first have to be taken back. He's talking about the church. If a church is not united, it will display all of the characteristics of an unbeliever. I remember I told you this before, but I've never forgotten it. I preached in Mahea here five or six years ago, and it was some kind of a rally for the association. I don't remember the reason I was there. The pastor met me at the door when I got there, and I'd already been greeted by a woman when I came in. We were there a little bit early. And he said, that woman screamed and hollered at me in business meeting last Wednesday night. And I thought, my, what a witness for Christ that is, screaming and hollering at each other. Do you know that in Southern Baptist Convention, surely you've heard of the conservative resurgence. Do you know who led the liberals? Primarily Cecil Sherman. Do you know that Cecil Sherman and I have been friends since we were 14 years old? Since I was. He was a little older than I. He was preaching when my brother George was saved in a revival. We disagreed on just about everything. When I came to ULIS, he was at Broadway Baptist Church, and he called me and said, I'd like to take you to lunch. I said, okay. He said, down to the Fort Worth Club. And Cecil, as we discussed, a couple of hours there, he began to talk about there are two ways to be saved, one of the Old Testament and one of the New Testament. There are two gods, the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. He went on stuff like that, and after a while I said, Cecil, I don't believe that you believe any of that. And he just kind of grinned, just grinned. We disagreed on everything, known each other all of our lives. We swapped handwritten letters that he died. Did I have any reason to do that? Not good reasons. We didn't agree on the gospel or God or Christ or anything. But we don't have to be brutal in our convictions. We can get along. So often I hear people say, well, that's just the way I am. Well, that's a shame. Just quit it. Don't be the way you am. God's living in you now, so he wants you to live like him, not like you. So imagine that he'd be talking about lying and slander and malice to the church. I've told you many times, I've probably preached well over a thousand different churches in the last 60 years, 70 years. It's rare to find a happy church, and they're never fussing about anything significant. Well, I don't like that. Well, so what? The church doesn't exist to please us. It's not about us, so get over yourself. When you get older, what kind of thing is all about us? When you get older, we have a tendency to get grumpy and gripey and complaining. Quit it. Church is not here to please us. Pastor is not here to make us feel good. Staff is not here to take care of all of our wants and needs. They're here at God's assignments to teach us how to be all God wants us to be. I always felt as a pastor, when I was at Lifeway, it was not my job to get everybody to do what I wanted them to do. My job was to help them become all God wanted them to be. That's what a pastor is supposed to do. That's what a president of Lifeway is supposed to do. Help the employees succeed by creating a culture where they can exercise their best gifts and please God. That's what church is to be about. Well, so much of Paul is about that. And here he's saying to them, look, put off that stuff. Put off the old self that's been corrupted by sinfulness of all mankind. New believers cannot live like those who are unbelievers. Take off the old man. Put on the new person. Be renewed with the spirit of your minds. Satan always attacks your mind. Some of y'all may remember Tim LaHaye. Tim and his partner left behind, sirs, yeah, Jenkins, right. By the way, he wrote a book, he wrote a book, Jenkins did, that he said he'd always wanted to write. It's a remarkable book. I'll try to get the title for you. Tim LaHaye, I've known Tim when he was pastor in California for a long, long years ago, decades ago. But he wrote a book that was very helpful back 30, 40 years ago called The Battle for the Mind. The Battle for the Mind. Satan always attacks the mind. So he wants our minds to be renewed. Titus 3, 5 speaks of the renewal of the old spirit, of the renewal of the Holy Spirit in our life. And then verse 24 talks about the new self. Our new life is not new in the sense of time, but it's new in the sense of quality. It's a better life. It's not new in that it was not as old as it used to be, no. It means we have a whole different kind of life. And so we're a new kind of person. In Adam, we inherited the tendency to sin. When we were born again, we inherited not Adam's nature, but Christ's nature. And so we are to display the life and attractiveness of Jesus Christ and not the vestiges of the old man. And so it's going to always be a battle. Remember Paul's discussions in Romans about the battle that went on and waged within him. To what I would want to do, I don't do. What I don't want to do, I do. I'm a wretched man. Who can deliver me from the body of this death? There is a battle that goes on within all of us. And we know that the new man is when we receive Jesus Christ and His Spirit comes to live within us and the power to change our lives comes from Him. We can't do it. Nobody could keep the Ten Commandments, not without God's help. We just cannot do that. So here he is saying, look, our lives should change because we should live differently than we used to live. And not only do we live differently, we say yes to God's command instead of ignoring Him. Verse 25 says, Therefore putting away lying, speak the truth, each one to his neighbor because we are members of one another. We put away lies because we are members of one another. How could we, who found our own forgiveness and redemption in Jesus Christ, ever use our position in Jesus Christ to lie about somebody, especially another believer? We're part of God's redeemed family and what we say affects the whole body. The tongue is the most likely to sin, by the way. The first sin dealt with in the New Testament church was the tongue. In chapter 5, remember Ananias and Sapphira? They saw people giving all their goods and giving them to the disciples so that everybody could have what they needed, and they thought that would be a good thing for them, only they didn't tell the truth. They said they gave everything they had for selling a piece of property when the truth was they didn't. To show you how God feels about lying, particularly in the church, one of them just dropped dead. The judgment was so severe. Ananias and Sapphira, that first sin is the sin of the tongue. Some of you grew up with parents like I did. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me. Right or wrong? Words can be deeply hurtful. One of the nice things about telling the truth is you never have to remember what you said. Words can be harmful and painful. You never have to apologize for something you didn't say. I've gotten shot at enough in my life to know that most of it is because I've said things I shouldn't have said. You're sometimes in a conflict. By the way, this is strictly preacher talk, but we're not all responsible for what we say. We're responsible for what people hear us say. When you're in a controversy like we were, and I know I've told you this before, one day after I was speaking in Virginia to the editors of the state papers of the Southern Valleys Convention, a good friend, Craig Bird, who had been not only a good friend as a reporter, but he and his wife had been assigned for years in Kenya. Carol Ann and I had been in Kenya a number of times, and he and his wife were over there, and we got to know them. He was a good friend. After I spoke to those editors, it was at a time where Russell Dillday was campaigning to defeat Charles Stanley. My feeling was that as president of any entity, it was inappropriate for you to actively and aggressively try to affect the election of a Southern Valleys president. Craig Bird, after I had talked to them, and I had apparently brought the subject up, he said, what would you do if Dillday succeeds in defeating Stanley? And I said, well, we might escrow our funds if it would help us come to the table and settle this controversy. And so Craig wrote the article, and then he called me. And he said, he read it to me. He said, are you okay with that? And I said, well, that's what I said. What I didn't understand was it would never be put in context when it was repeated. I understood what I was saying because I knew the context of it. I wouldn't say, escrow doesn't mean you're going to withhold funds. You're just going to hold them back until something changes, and then you'll give them. But that never got in the end of the articles. So I was accused of trying to hijack the convention and blackmail the convention. But truthfully, I just spoke in a statement in a way that when it was quoted would not be in context. And I have learned almost everything they quote you in is always out of context. But you have to be careful what you say and what people hear you say. And you can be talking in a group and someone overhear you. If they only heard one sentence, they wouldn't understand what the group was talking about. So the tongue is a tremendous asset and detriment to all of us. And Paul here in this passage is quoting Zechariah 8, 16, and 17, which says, These are the things you must do, speak truth to one another, make true and sound decisions within your city gates, do not plot evil in your hearts against your neighbor, and do not love perjury, for I hate all of this, this is the Lord's declaration. That's what Paul is referencing when he makes this statement in this passage. Verses 26 and 27, he says, Beware of anger. He says, Be angry and do not sin. That's kind of a strange sounding thing when you first get at it. But the point is, it's okay to be angry, but you just need to be angry about the right thing at the right time in the right place. Anger in itself is not a spiritual gift. But there's nothing wrong with being angry. There are times when we ought to be angry. I'm angry at the abortion industry. I'm angry at the terrible war that's taking place in Israel right now. I'm angry about a lot of things, and God's angry about some things. So it's all right to be angry, but you better be sure it's righteous anger. There are times when anger can not only be very sensitive, but we ought to be angry against depravity and injustice and abortion and rage and physical abuse of children and adults and all the evils around us. But anger can come from God, but if you become angry, be sure your cause is right. Don't let anger burst into evil or prolonged attitude. Even righteous anger ought to dissolve into fervent prayer for the people you're angry about and praying for them for God to move in their lives. Anger can smolder and turn into malice or into wrath. Aristotle said, anyone can become angry, but to be angry with the right person to the right degree at the right time for the right purpose in the right way, this is not easy. So beware of anger. For instance, we're all past dealing with small children, but I always was told by my dad, never discipline your children when you're angry. Just think about that. When you're mad, you're not thinking right. You don't need to be a disciplinarian when you're angry. The Bible has a lot to say about anger. Psalm 37, 8, referring from anger, and give up your rage, do not be agitated, it can only bring harm. Proverbs 22, 24, and 25, don't make friends with an angry person and don't be a companion of a hot-tempered one, or you'll learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare. Ecclesiastes 7, 9, don't let your spirit rush to be angry, for anger abides in the heart of fools. James 1, 19, and 20, my dear brothers and sisters, understand this, everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger, for human anger does not accomplish God's righteousness. And look at the way he illustrates this in this passage, lying, verse 25, wrath, verse 26, stealing, verse 28, foul language, verse 29, grieving the Holy Spirit, verse 30, bitterness, anger, wrath, shouting, and slander, and all malice in verse 33. All those words are used to describe the companions to anger. You have to be so careful that you don't let anger inflict itself and become an attitude in your life. Hebrews 12, 15 says, make sure that no one falls short of the grace of God, and that no root of bitterness springs up, causing a trouble and defiling many. That word, trouble, is a Greek word that describes the growth of a poisonous plant. It comes to refer to one who corrupts faith and character in the church, trouble, and that's what bitterness is. Bitterness is a result of anger. So be very careful, just read that list, and remember, he's writing this within a church fellowship. None of those things ever ought to characterize the church. So he's warning us to be very careful. Verse 29, no foul language should come from your mouth, but only what is good to building up someone in need so that it gives grace to those who hear. Now foul language is an extremely graphic word in the Greek language. It refers to something that is corrupt, rotten, or putrid. It describes the decaying of a body or vegetable matter. It describes something that would make you sick. It is corrupt language from a corrupt heart. It is unbecoming of anyone and unthinkable for believers. He ought not to even have to say this. So the admonition here is bridle your tongue. If your heart is right, your conduct and conversation will be right. But anger, there ought to be no place for anger. As I said, there's a lot of conflict in churches, rarely is the conflict theological. So whether the carpet ought to be red or blue, or whether you ought to have hat racks in your vestibule, it's never anything theologically significant, it's over little things, preferences. So bridle your tongue, and I think we all need that. I've lived a long time. I'm just a year behind Brother Jack, so we're both relics, dinosaurs. I've sure said a lot of things I wish I hadn't said. I go back and read some of the sermons I preached when I was in my twenties. I thought, how on earth did the people ever take this? What pitiful sermon that was. The two most dramatic conversions in my ministry, there was a young man in San Antonio, Texas, whose wife was a believer, and he came to church every Sunday, and a special friend, and we prayed for him, he just wouldn't be saved. Well, I prepared a sermon on Acts 5.32. We are his witnesses of these things, disciples. I'll have to be honest with you, I thought it would be the first sermon in the first volume of the Draper Memorial Library. I thought, this is really good stuff. I couldn't wait to preach that. Man, it was so exciting, I just was brimming with enthusiasm. And I'll have to be honest with you, that it was at least the second worst sermon I ever preached. I mean, when I got through, if we hadn't had invitation printed in the bulletin, I would have asked somebody to pray, and I would have slipped out the side door. I was so embarrassed, what a terrible sermon. But you know what? On the first stanza of the invitation, Murray Barr stepped out, gave his heart to the Lord, after a terrible sermon. The other one was very similar, Kansas City, we were at a mission church, and my minister of music and I had been able to lead a man's wife to the Lord, and he came every Sunday, but just wouldn't be saved. He was a taper, a taping bed man in construction. Good friend. And I was preaching through the Ten Commandments. Now, oh, if you want to see the poorest sermons ever preached on the Ten Commandments, it would be those. I was preaching that morning on, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Now, what kind of evangelistic appeal is that? But you know, when the invitation was given, Jerry just slipped out the side and down to the front and gave his heart to Jesus. God always honors his word, and he doesn't always honor ours. We need to be careful what we say, but no, my position has always been, if you want to argue with what I preach, don't argue with me, argue with God. He's the one who wrote it. You know, I don't want to be responsible. If I can say this is what God said, I feel a whole lot more comfortable. So we get a little out of bounds when we start saying things we shouldn't say, because there's a tragic possibility there. Verse 30 says, Don't grieve the Holy Spirit. That is one of the most meaningful and moving texts in the Bible. It confirms that the Holy Spirit is not it, that the Holy Spirit is a person who can be hurt and grieved. He is not a force, a law, or a motion. He is a person. Whoever violates the will of God and the holiness of our hearts grieves the Holy Spirit. How can we choose to do that? How can we deliberately choose to grieve the Holy Spirit? The Webster's Dictionary says that the word grieve means to gain of mind to, to afflict, to wound the feelings, to make sorrowful, to excite regret in, to offend, to displease, to provide. How in the world could we do that to the Holy Spirit? But there it is, verse 30, talking to the church, Don't grieve the Holy Spirit. Notice what he doesn't say. He didn't say, Don't anger the Holy Spirit. He urges us not to grieve the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit hurts when we permit these forbidden things to enter our lives. He delights to dwell in a pure temple. The Holy Spirit is grieved when our temple in which he lives is broken by conflict and for schisms in the church and anything that is against the character and nature of God. It's possible for us to grieve the Holy Spirit. That's why the greatest sin is called the unpardonable sin. And the reason it is unpardonable, according to the New Testament, is that a person reaches a place where he says, God, go to hell. I'll have nothing to do with you. I don't want you in my life. That's what he's talking about. You do that, you've committed the unpardonable sin. I have met a few people in my life that I believe had committed the unpardonable sin. They're not mean people. They're very nice people sometimes. Carol Ann and I visited a couple in Kansas City that had been visiting our church. When we shared the gospel with them, his response was, well, I used to want to be saved, but I don't have any desire to be saved anymore. I said, God just doesn't deal with me anymore. I thought, here's a nice man, but he's committed the unpardonable sin. The sin unto death is another one. Nice people can commit the sin unto death. That means that you do something so outrageous, and it's against the Holy Spirit, who is God, by the way. So God, Christ, the Holy Spirit. It's such an outrageous thing that you do that God will say, well, one of two things will happen. He'll either kill you, or you'll live with the consequences of what you said and did for the rest of your life. You may not agree, and I've said this before, and you never commented on it, so I won't assume you will, I believe David committed the unpardonable sin. The man who was a man after God's own heart, but his whole life after his sin with Bathsheba and his neglect of his duty as a king and his murder of Uriah the Hittite, after that, his entire family fell apart. It was the most dysfunctional family in the world. Even his son, whom he greatly loved, rebelled against him and tried to take the throne away from him. And by the way, there is a reason for that that you don't often hear about. Absalom came back to Jerusalem in order to make amends with his father, and David refused to see him. He would not even see Absalom. So he didn't have the guts to face his own son and ended up with his son being killed in battle and the rest of his life a sword dwelt in the house of David. We need to be very, very careful in things that God tells us clearly to do and how we treat them and how we respond to them, because the Holy Spirit is grieved when we do not obey the Word of God and when we do not do what God tells us to do. And sins like these things, lying, stealing, all these things, talking to the church, we may grieve the Holy Spirit. Now there is a tremendous position here for us in verse 30b. You were sealed by him, by the Holy Spirit, for the day of redemption. God is the one who has anointed us and sealed us. 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 says, God has also sealed us and given us the Spirit as a down payment in our hearts. Ephesians 1:13 says, The ones sealed are those who have trusted in Christ, and the seal is the Holy Spirit himself. We've been sealed with the Spirit. The phrase here indicates that the Spirit is the instrument of the sealing. He not only indwells us, but he is the one who seals us, marks us as owned by God. The concept of sealing would have great significance for the meaning to whom Paul was writing. In Hebrew worship and ritual, it was the custom of the priest to whom the service pertained to select the lamb from the flock and to inspect it with the most minute scrutiny. This was done to discover if it was without any physical defect, and then to seal it, he would stamp the seal of the temple on that lamb, certifying that it was fit for sacrifice and for food. Once sealed, the lamb became the property of the temple, marked and secured for the purposes of the Lord. Our text tells us that we are sealed with the Holy Spirit upon believing. The ones sealed are believers. The best translation of that is, upon believing, or having believed, or when you believed. This clearly reveals that the sealing takes place instantaneously at the point of conversion. It is a participle and indicates that the sealing was accomplished at the point of their belief. The base of believing is the gospel of Christ. When that is believed, Christ is received, and the Holy Spirit comes into the believer. God seals the believer by the Holy Spirit, and by the way, the Word of God does not say the Spirit is given to spiritual Christians. It is possible for believers to become carnal. That's clear in the New Testament. Nevertheless, we are sealed by the Holy Spirit of God. Paul told the Corinthians in the 3rd chapter of 1 Corinthians, Brothers, I was not able to speak to you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as babies in Christ. He is talking to Christians. In other words, we are not now talking just about what one does, we are talking about the truth that we were sealed, marked as owned by God, when we were saved. But you know you have been purchased with a price, Paul said later, and you belong to God. You have been sealed, and God is not going to unseal you, and nobody else can break God's seal. The Roman government thought they could keep the tomb of Jesus sealed, so they sealed it with the seal of the Roman Empire. Only problem was, they didn't have the power to protect the Roman Empire from what God wanted to do. When God seals something, nobody can unseal it. When man seals something, God can always unseal it. But we are sealed, and we never become unsealed. Never in the Bible are we exhorted to be sealed with the Spirit. We have managed to be filled with the Spirit, but not one time are we commanded to be sealed with the Spirit, because the sealing is a mark of ownership. We belong to God. To be sealed means that the transaction has been completed. It makes the transaction legally valid. Bills of sale are agreed upon and sealed before witnesses, and this would have been very meaningful to the Ephesians, for Ephesus was a maritime city. It was an extensive trade that took place in the building business. And timber was carried into Ephesus to be purchased. The method of purchase was this. The merchant, after he selected his timber, stamped it with his own seal, which was an acknowledgment and sign of ownership. He often did not carry it off. At that time, it was left in the harbor, but it was chosen. It was bought. It was stamped. And in due time, the merchant would send an agent to come and claim it and bought it, and it was for the master's use. A seal was a permanent thing. The Holy Spirit impresses or seals the image of Christ on the soul of the believer. We are marked and owned by him. When we are sealed, it signifies that we have been purchased. The transaction is completed. Ownership has been transferred. We have been marked and owned by him. Paul clearly said in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, `Don`t you know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own. You were bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body.' It`s a maritime economic transfer that takes place. And Jesus completed that transfer when he died on the cross. When the Holy Spirit sealed us, indicating the transaction is completed, it is official. First thing about it is it`s permanent. In Daniel 6, verse 18, when the king threw Daniel into the lion`s den, he sealed the entrance to the lion`s den. And that seal meant that that sentence could never be changed, because a seal is a sign of permanence. It`s a sign that it would never, never change. And a permanent sign is the seal of the Holy Spirit in us. And notice Ephesians 1, 14, `Until the redemption of the purchased possession,' he mentions in 1, 14. That means our sealing is secure until the redemption is completed in God`s perfect heaven. And here in our verse 30, `We are sealed by him for the day of redemption.' Only God can break God`s seal. Any man that makes a seal, tries to seal something, God can break it. But any seal God makes, only God can break. And when we got saved, God sealed our hearts and we belonged to him. It would make a whole lot of difference in most of our lives if we lived with an awareness that we don`t own ourselves. We`re not pleased to do what we want to do. And as believers, we have the opportunity to please the God who owns us. That makes it a very serious thing. The sad thing to me about today is that we don`t have people who seem to think church membership is all that significant. It`s something that we just say is not important. But the seal means we are owned by God. He`s the one who guarantees the future. He is the one who has the Holy Spirit authority when we`re seated or sealed by the Holy Spirit, that God gives all the authority of himself to us. And we`re in a position of believers of authority and power. And in fact, the word seal itself means signet ring. And only the one most powerful person in the empire was allowed to wear the signet ring. And so it had to be one in a position of great prominence to be legitimately authorized to wear such a ring. We`ve been sealed. We bear the signet ring of God himself, thus we have authority and power. And if you look at Acts 1:8 and just reflect on it, that he gives us the authority to go into all the world and make disciples. It`s a seal meaning security. It protects us against tampering or harm until the day of redemption. The purpose of the sealing, though the ultimate purpose, is to bring glory to God. And Revelation 4:10-11 says, `They lay their crowns before the throne and say, `You`re worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.' So now that we`re sealed with the Holy Spirit, we admonish not to grieve the Holy Spirit. The rest of this chapter, he now is just describing a terrible pattern, bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, evil speaking, malice, all of these things, terrible conduct. And he`s saying that should never be a part of a believer`s life. And then he ends the chapter by saying, `And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God has forgiven you in Christ.' The word `kind' and these other words are in the present tense, and they mean keep on becoming kind, keep on becoming compassionate to one another, keep on forgiving one another, keep on because God has forgiven you in Christ. So, kindness, tenderhearted, forgiving as God has forgiven us, that`s what he is saying ought to be the pattern of our lives. And you might ask the question, `How can we do that?' Very simple, Hebrews 12:2, `Keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith.' Now, keeping our eyes on Jesus implies a direction. We`ve looked for easy answers, and there are none. Our problems seem endless and without solutions, but the answer is, `Let us be kind, compassionate, forgiving because God has treated all believers that way. Now let`s pass it on and move into God`s peace within the body of Christ.' He is the answer. We are to keep looking at Christ. It`s like Simon Peter, when he walked on water, he was doing good until the waves kind of splashed up on him and he got nervous and he looked around and he took his eyes off Jesus and he sank. It`s always that way. Always that way. Keep your eyes on Christ. If you all haven`t read, I`m sure most of you have, the book that changed my life as a teenager was `In His Steps.' That was a novel written in 1882. It`s the story of a church pastor and congregation began to ask the question, `What would Jesus do?' Of course, that phrase is still around. But really, that`s the helpful answer. When we`re really pressed, By the way, God never leads us through doubt. God does not lead the believer through doubt. There will always be a sense of rightness about something, the right thing to do. And so we need to ask that question, `What would Jesus do?' God might surprise you because he may tell you to do something you never entered your mind you`d do. But God said, `Do it.' And I wonder how many times we all have done something only because God told us to. Maybe it didn`t make any sense, but the Holy Spirit is in us, pay attention, keep your eyes on Christ, and we`ll be able to avoid the missteps that chapter 4 talks about. And we won`t grieve the Holy Spirit, good news, and God will bless us if we do. It`s a great chapter, it`s a great book, and it warns us of serious potential for conflict and disobedience, even among believers. So take it to heart. Father, thank you that you saved us, you sealed us, you bought us, you purchased us, you now dwell in us. How dare we not communicate with you in a way that is submissive to your will and purposes. God forbid we would ever grieve the Holy Spirit by disobeying you so severely that you would have to punish us. Lord, thank you that you dwell within us. We`re grateful, in Jesus` name, amen.