Ephesians 4:29-5:2

Time For a Change... continued.

We are continuing on from the last session. Paul gives us 5 examples of taking off our old self and putting on the new. We looked last time at 1 : Put off falsehood and speak truthfully (v.25), 2: Put off anger (vv. 26-27) and 3 : Put off stealing and work for a living (v.28) , now we look at the final two.

4 : Put off unwholesome talk and instead speak what will build up others. Speech is a powerful tool, it can be used for good or for evil. Speech is like the ‘bit’ that goes into a horses mouth, something small that can be used to turn a big animal easily this way or that. Speech is like the rudder on a the biggest of cargo ships or the smallest of sparks that starts the forest fire. A single person, using speech, could get a nation to start a war.

5 : Put off bitterness, rage, anger and malice and instead show love. I don’t think there is much to be said about this that it doesn’t say itself, however when we combine the last two, we can see Paul bringing together the acts of spiritual patience and bearing with one another in love.

Who amongst us has had a moment (or maybe many moments) in our life where something someone has said or done instantly makes the smoke come out of our ears? The red rag of rage comes over us and we say something hurtful in anger. What could we do to prevent this? We could maybe remind ourselves of the old ‘count to 10 before speaking rule’. Maybe we could take a deep breath and try and measure our response. But Paul is asking for more than that here. We go into more detail in a moment but he’s saying we are to put off our former selves. We are to get rid of it all altogether, to remove the desire to want to say the hurtful, angry words in the first place, to not have them cross our minds at all.

Follow God’s Example.

William Barclay calls this ‘the highest standard in world’, Alexander MacLaren calls it 'the sum of all duty’. To Martin Lloyd Jones it was ‘Pauls supreme argument... the highest level of all in doctrine and practice... the ultimate ideal’.

When we look at the passage in which the command to follow God’s example occurs, we see at once that it is not just an attribute of God that we are being told to follow. What Paul has in mind here is imitation of God’s love. Without a doubt, this is what ties in Ephesians 5:1 to the end of Chapter 4 and also links to the following verse. (Ephesians 5:1-2 are part of the preceding paragraph, even though it is the start of a new chapter).

What kind of love is this? The passage answers this question in at least three ways, God’s love is a Forgiving Love, a Giving Love and a Living Love.

Forgiving Love.

Since God the Father forgave us through the work of Christ, we are able to forgive one another. This is right at the centre of love’s nature.

The link between God’s forgiveness of us and our forgiveness of others is important, it’s only through knowing that we are forgiven that we are set free to forgive others lovingly. People are in desperate need of forgiveness. In his book on confession John Stott quotes the head of a large mental hospital in England as having said, “I could dismiss half my patients tomorrow if they could be assured of forgiveness.”

That is what we have in Jesus Christ - forgiveness - and because we find forgiveness there, we can, in turn be forgiving. This part is important, God’s forgiveness is far more than simply overlooking our sin. It’s not the case that God thinks to himself some “Well, boys will be boys” (or girls will be girls) or perhaps “We’ll overlook it this time but don’t let it happen again”. God takes sin with such seriousness that he deals with it fully at the cross, and it is on that basis - the death of Jesus - that we know we are truly forgiven.

Think about it, if we know, and I mean deep down really know, that we are all sinners and fully deserving of God’s wrath - and that we are forgiven only because God’s full wrath was taken by Jesus Christ on the cross, we should forgive others as God forgives all who turn to Christ. Think of it the other way, If one was to think of themselves as a pretty good person who doesn’t really need to be forgiven, they would naturally find it hard to love and forgive others.

Read Romans 3:10-18.

That is the way God sees us. If we were to see ourselves through Gods’ eyes, knowing about our rebellion against his love and his moral standards and yet finding ourselves forgiven then we will inevitably love and forgive others. For nobody can act as badly toward us as we have acted toward God, and yet he has forgiven us. When we see ourselves as forgiven sinners, we are set free to love others in the imitation of God, and therefore, forgive them

Giving Love.

The second thing the verse teaches about the love of God, which we are to follow in his example of, is giving love. Again, God is a model of such love, and the point at which it is most clearly demonstrated is on the cross.

Read John 3:16, 1 John 4:10, Romans 5:8, Galatians 2:20, John 15:13 and Philippians 2:5-8

Jesus did not give things to save us at the cross, he gave himself. He did not give up only the things which were outwardly seen, for example his glory, the service of the angels and the his position at the right hand of God the Father. The point is Jesus GAVE HIMSELF, indeed his very life, for those he loves.

Living Love.

The third example the passage teaches us about the love of God which we are instructed to do, is to be living love: forgiving, giving but also living. This is mentioned in verse 2 where Paul says “and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God”.

There are two things that a living love suggests. Firstly that it is a practical or active love. If we were to ask the questions “What does it mean to ‘live a life of love’? The answer would be the very thing that Paul has just been writing about:

1: Put off falsehood and speak truthfully.
2: Put off anger.
3: Put off stealing and work for a living.
4: Put off unwholesome talk and instead speak to build others up. 5: Put off bitterness rage and malice and instead show love.

The second thing ‘living love’ suggests is that it is made alive by the very life of God and is therefore an eternal love, as God is eternal. Earthly love is often faltering, weak, variable and seasonal. The love of God, never falters and never fails.

Can we imitate God in such an eternal love as that? If we rely on ourselves, of course not. But if we look to God, the answer is yes. The very man who wrote Ephesians 4:1 also said “I can do everything through him who gives me strength” - Philippians 4:13

However, we must spend time with God if that is to happen. If God’s example is the one we are to follow, if we are to repeat his actions, echo his speech, duplicate his behaviour. How can we do that if we don’t spend time with Him? We cannot, as we wouldn’t know what his behaviour is. So as we close this study series, that’s the final message. With an encouragement to spend time with God, in prayer, Bible study and in worship. I suspect that Paul would also add a reminder to us to do these things with each other as a unified church - as the Body of Christ.

Questions.

There are no set questions for this session, rather spend the time as a group discussing what we have thought about over the last two sessions.

Consider the five ways Paul tells us to puff off and in contrast how he calls us to put on. Spend some time talking through the threefold way we have thought about Gods love, forgiving, giving and living love.

Maybe read and consider Romans 8:35-39 - and discuss the passage in view of everything we have looked at over the last two sessions.