The Christian life is a call to think God’s thoughts after
Him.
The Christian life is the imitation of the life of Christ in
all aspects of life.
That is where the thoughts of our passage are leading us today. We have already covered a lot of ground on the nature of practical Christian living in this 4th Chapter. We have thought about the importance of humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love (4:2), eager to maintain the unity of the Holy Spirit (4:3-6).
We have thought about the importance of appreciating the foundational gifts for ministry (4:7-11) which export themselves into an “every member ministry” in the church (4:12-16).
We have seen that the church is composed of a body of people that has a fundamentally different attitude and lifestyle to the world. Christ in us makes all the difference (4:17-24).
From here we have seen how Paul considers specific areas in which our lives become renewed and reformed: habits of lying, anger, stealing, badmouthing are replaced by loving truth-telling, by a controlled anger, by a positive work ethic, and by constructive speech (4:25-29).
Extreme care is taken not to grieve the Holy Spirit (4:30).
This is what we have
covered so far, and there is more to come.
We need to be trained in righteousness, and we must not assume that
these things will come to us without constant reminder and practise and help
from God. Sadly we frequently see a huge disconnect
between what professing Christians say and believe and what they do. True
Christians however are not slaves to sin. Christians possess the power of the
Holy Spirit to put off old habits and
to put on the
life that God desires us to live.
With this in mind then,
and the Holy Spirit being present and
our Helper, we consider the next few
verses in 4:31-5:2. We shall find
the same writing pattern as before. Paul encourages us to replace old ways of
living (negative behaviour) with new ways of living – informed by the truth as
it is in Jesus (4:21). Jesus makes the difference! Grace in the soul follows a person’s conversion. This is not a call to pull yourself up by your
own bootstraps. This is a call to obey God who gives grace to all who call upon Him.
OUTLINE
(i)
4:31
Put off (away)
(ii)
4:32
Put on
(iii)
5:1-2 Be imitators of God
1.
4:31 Put off
“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and slander be put away from you along with all malice.” Let us look at 5 more things that we need to put off
· Bitterness: (Gr.pikria) - a sour spirit / sour speech – “an embittered and resentful spirit which refuses to be reconciled.”[1]
· Wrath (Gr. thymos) – passionate rage and anger (Gr. orge)- a more settled and sullen hostility
· Clamour (Gr. kraugē)- getting excited, shouting / screaming
· Slander (Gr. blasphemia) – speaking evil of others
· Malice (Gr. kakia) wishing evil and /or plotting evil against people
The first is bitterness.
This attitude comes through negative life experiences, which we
internalise, allowing them to fester in our souls over some time. The terrible
thing is that we think that we are entitled to hold on to our bitterness, little
realising that this actually makes us ugly people. And at the heart of this
problem is a failure to take hurtful matters
to God and to leave the hurts with Him (e.g. Matt. 11:28-30 “Come to me
all you who labour and are heavy laden ,
and I will give you rest “).
Worse still, some blame God for allowing them to fall into certain trials or
hardships. Bitterness has deep roots and gives birth to all sorts of further
ugly emotions, some of which we see here:
wrath, anger, clamouring- i.e. shouting and screaming and slandering and
wishing evil upon others. You see this
string of emotions described in Hebrews
12:15ff where it is related to Cain,
who ultimately killed his brother Abel.
We see this spirit of bitterness also in the parable of the
prodigal son in Luke 15. On the one
hand we have the father of the prodigal son. He seems to have every human
reason to be embittered
by the actions of his younger son. But not so! He welcomes his wayward boy back
with open arms. This is not the case with his older brother. He is bitter and
angry against father and younger brother (15:28).
The sad thing there was that his accusations against his father weren’t
true. He had lost nothing. Everything in
the estate was now his. But he was a
bitter man and that made him an ugly and a discontented man.
2.
4:32: Put on
“Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” Again, let us begin by looking at the words:
· Kind (Gr. chrestos lit. to be good and gracious) – note how close it is to Christos- the Name of Christ. This word is also used in Luke 6:35, “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil…”
· Tender-hearted (Gr. eusplachnos; lit. well out of the heart/affections – to be compassionate, coming from the heart.
· Forgiving one another – (Gk. charizomenoi); lit. acting in grace towards one another- as God in Christ has acted in grace towards us.
The negatives in 4:31
are to be exchanged by
these habits. A changed heart
must issue in changed behaviour. Here lies the proof of our salvation. And even if we do mess up (and there is no
one that doesn’t at times) then the
default behaviour instilled by
the new birth will issue in
repentance and renewal.
We need to be kind. We need to be to be like Jesus and like
our heavenly Father who is kind to those who actually should not deserve
kindness. See how kind God is. His sun shines on the just and the unjust. The
unjust breathe His air and enjoy His creation. They enjoy His many laws by
which He keeps the world stable. In some ways they even enjoy the effects of His
gospel (making kind, compassionate and forgiving people), by which He
constantly pours out grace into our societies and into this world. God is kind. We must be kind.
We need to cultivate a
tender-hearted, compassionate spirit. The parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk. 10:25-37) is a story about true compassion on the part of a
Samaritan and lack of compassion on the part of a priest and a Levite. The
Samaritan exhibits the compassion of Jesus. Jesus was
compassionate and we see it in His frequent dealings with the crowds that came
to Him – harassed, like sheep without a shepherd.
We need to
cultivate forgiveness. In order to extend forgiveness we
need to understand what God has done in forgiving our sins. When God forgives He does so completely: “As far as the east is from the west, so far
does he remove our transgressions” from us (Ps. 103:12). A word of clarification: God does not ignore sin. He cannot do that.
His holy nature will not allow that. So how does He do it? He punishes every
sin either in hell or on the cross. So,
if you repent from your sin and believe in the Lord Jesus and trust in His
finished work on the cross, then you may
be assured that your sin is taken care of in the cross. If you
will cling to your sin, then you will bear the consequences of these in eternal hell.
Those who know that
their sins are forgiven bear a debt of gratitude. So they pray, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive
them that trespass against us.” What are we saying when we tell our
heavenly Father, “we forgive them that
trespass against us”? Three things:
·
I
will not bring the matter up to you.
·
I will not bring the matter up to another.
·
I
will not bring the matter up to myself.
It is when you realize that you are the recipient of a
forgiveness that you did not deserve, that you are then suddenly freed from the
power of a hard heart and bitterness. You
realise that God has been better to you
than you deserve! The story of the woman in Luke 7:36ff illustrates the point. She had been a sinner – an immoral woman. But Jesus
has dealt with her soul. She had been forgiven her many sins. She wants to show her gratitude, and in response she comes to a house where He is
at supper and she begins to pour expensive perfume over his feet. The Pharisees and religious teachers judge
her. Jesus commends her, and tells them that this woman loves much because
she has been forgiven much. They saw
themselves as righteous, not in need of God’s forgiveness, and therefore they
showed no love for Jesus.
So the secret of not living in the spirit of bitterness,
wrath, anger, clamour, slander and malice is in running to Jesus, whose life in
us enables us to live in
kindness, tenderness
and forgiveness.
3.
Eph. 5:1,2 Imitate
God … and walk in love
“Therefore be imitators
of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave
Himself up for us, a fragrant offering
and sacrifice to God.”
The commandment to imitate God is rooted in a very simple and
profound fact: Walk in love because that
is what the Lord Jesus did for you on the cross. He loved you by giving up His life for you as
a sacrifice for you. He gave His life for yours, so that you do not need to
bear the righteous wrath of a holy and just God.
This is a call to you and
I to live a radically God centred life: Imitate God (5:1); learn Christ (4:20); Not
grieving the Holy Spirit (4:30)
!
Notice the grace foundations of Paul’s teaching concerning the
Christian life. We are to be kind, compassionate
and forgiving to others because that
is what God is to us. You and I don’t
deserve forgiveness , but God gives it
to us in the Name of Jesus — while we
were yet sinners (Rom. 5)
O the love of God, and the deep, deep love of Jesus, His Son! It’s an amazing thing. May the Holy Spirit help us to understand that. It is the instant cure to all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and slander and malice. It is the cure to a toxic society. And when that understanding is shared among a large group of people in our congregation, and many congregations in our country and in the world then we have a healthier world where people bear with one another in all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love (4:2).
These are much superior goals than
pursuing climate change policies as a primary goal for curing the ills of this world, don’t you think? Because when the
heart is changed in this way, all other things including managing our fragile environment will change.
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