Ephesians 4 (Part 5) :25-32 - Living the New Life

Welcome to Through the Bible with Pastor Paul from Life Bible Ministry. Journey from Genesis to Revelation as Pastor Paul guides you through every verse, leading you to a deeper understanding of the scriptures that will strengthen your faith and transform your life. Now, let's get started with today's teaching as we open God's Word together.

Beginning in verse 25, follow along as I read. It says, "'Therefore having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one of another. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil. 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. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness

and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another. tender -hearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. Stop there. Let's pray. Holy Spirit, we come before You always when we are ready to open our hearts to the Word because we know that You are the one who enlightens us so that we can actually hear. You are the one who enables us to have those spiritual ears to hear. A heart to receive.

You are the one who applies the Word to our lives and you fill us with understanding and insight. We're asking you to do that here today. Because as we dig into your Word, we want to grow. We pray that you would help us to do it. We ask it in the name of Jesus Christ who is Savior. Amen. In the previous verses that we covered here on Sunday morning, in fact last week you'll remember that Paul was talking about the old you, meaning the person that you used to be before you came to Christ. He called it the old self.

It's referred different ways in different even translations, but it's just the old nature, the old you, the old self. And he said that we are to put it off, put it off, stop living that way and now begin to live with the new you, the new self, which is being created in the image of God, to put on the new self. And we talked all about that. last week. And now he begins in these final verses of chapter 4 to give us practical insights about what that means. Because you can say all day long, put on the new self, put on the new self, but if you're not given some specific understanding of what he's dealing with, what he's talking about, you might kind of be at a loss. So he begins by just talking about very

practical exhortations that demonstrate this new life. That we've been given in Christ and he begins by saying Therefore having put away past tense falsehood in other words that was part of your old life now He says let each one of you speak the truth With his neighbor, and he's always talking about specifically those who are in the body of Christ and in fact That's why he says for we are members of one another in other words the falsehood that used to be demonstrated in our previous life, he says we are to put it off. And the word falsehood really includes every form of dishonesty that might kind of come from us, everything from making promises that are ultimately not kept to betraying a confidence or false flattery or any other number

of ways that we might stretch the truth or exaggerate or something like that. Basically what he's saying is a believer's word needs to be trustworthy. When we say something, we need to mean it. Our yes needs to mean yes, and our no should mean no. And the reason again that Paul gives for this kind of truthfulness is we are members one of another. And what he means by that is we are the body of Christ. And you can't have a body that is being deceitful to other members of the body and have that body function. Let me give you an example. You know, I mean, the Bible is full of examples of our relationship as the body of Christ by using a physical body. We consider it a pretty serious matter when someone's physical

body is doing things that it shouldn't do, such as the nervous system is sending signals to the brain that are wrong. We consider that a fairly serious issue. We would consider that a dysfunctional body, and we would say this person needs some kind of medical help or something like that. It's obviously a serious matter when someone's eyesight is so bad that they can no longer perceive a threat when it becomes very real in their lives.

They can't see danger approaching and so that danger becomes very imminent. and serious in their lives. Why? The body isn't functioning like it should. It wasn't functioning. It's not functioning like it was intended to function. Now think about that as it relates to you and I. If I'm telling you something that isn't true, that's like a nervous system telling the rest of the body something's going on when in fact it is not. And that body is not going to function.

properly. We as the body of Christ will not function properly apart from truth. We need to speak truth one to another, and that is what Paul is telling us to do. And I think that there's another aspect to this exhortation to speak truth that we need to think about as well, and that is how it relates to people outside of the body. I think we need to be very careful. to be that person who passes along information that's unsubstantiated. We're not really sure if it's true, but I'm just going to pass this along because it's really sensational and you might need to know this. I'm not really sure it's true and we do that whether it's on e -mail or Facebook or Instagram or wherever you happen to be on social media. We throw things

out there because people love to pass things along regardless of whether it's true. If it's sensational, that's all I need and out it goes. Here's the problem, we're Christians. And we've been given the message of truth, which is the good news that Jesus died for the sins of the world. We can't afford to be labeled as someone who's unreliable related to speaking the truth to people's lives. And if you and I are caught saying something or passing along some information that isn't true, and we find out later, oh, gee, I guess that wasn't true. Sorry about that, guys.

Well, people begin to kind of wonder about the reliability of our ability to pass along information. Speak the truth. And if somebody tells you something or you hear something or something's passed along to you and you don't know if it's true, don't pass it along until you know. Because we are purveyors of the truth. We have been commissioned to take his truth to the world. We can't afford to be seen as anything less than truthful. So, the next area where Paul encourages us to demonstrate the new life of Christ is in verse 26 where he says, be angry and do not sin. Notice Paul doesn't say, never be angry. He simply says, be angry, fine, but don't sin. And the reason we know that anger isn't necessarily a sin is because Jesus

got angry on some occasions. We know that He was always without sin. So it's possible to be angry and not sin, but there's one very important thing you need to remember about that. You're not Jesus and neither am I. And the possibility for you and I to get angry and flesh out is really good. And so we need to be very, very careful.

about it, and that is why Paul counsels us in our anger not to sin. In fact, he goes on to give us this advice, don't let the sun go down on your anger. And that's a pretty interesting statement, but it simply means don't sit and nurse a grudge, or nurse that anger, or nurse that offense. Don't let too much time pass before you resolve that issue. Now, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. How do I resolve that issue? It's one thing to be angry. It's another thing for somebody to say, hey listen, don't sin in your anger. Well, what exactly does that mean? And how can I resolve that if there doesn't seem to be any resolution? Well, you got to take it to the Lord. You got to bring it to God and

talk to Him about it. You know, that's one thing I love about going through the Psalms, which we're doing now on Wednesday night. David took his issues and his anger to the Lord. And I know that he was genuinely angry about certain things and certain men and the way they treated him and others. And he brought it to the Lord and he vented there. You know, there's nothing in the Word of God that tells us to repress our emotions, you know. That's just not a smart thing to do because it's going to make you sick or crazy or both. And it's going to come back some other way. So we don't repress things. We have to, you know, bring those things and talk about them to God. Like I said, sometimes there is

no way to resolve an issue with somebody else. You just got to go, Lord, this last week I had a situation where I was at the gas pump and I was just filling up my pickup, which takes forever. Anyway, I'm standing there with my hand on the thing, so it'll go even a little bit faster. There's a couple of ladies in the next thing, aisle, whatever. getting into it with each other.

I'm sitting there thinking, really? One of them was mad because the other one wouldn't get her car out of the way so she could pull out and it was not a big deal. I remember after I got done pumping my gas and I got in the car, I was bothered and I was seething about it. I was like, how stupid that was. for these women to go at each other. It's like, all you need to do is to say, ma 'am, could you slide your car over a little bit so I can get out or something like that. But instead, this one is using foul language and it's just getting weird. I'm thinking to myself, how dumb is that? So I'm driving along all bothered, and they didn't even do it to me.

But I'm still bothered by this thing. I thought, good grief, how much more susceptible am I to nursing issues when they're personal? This one wasn't even personal and I just couldn't let it go. How dumb. But we do that, don't we? So Paul says, don't let the sun go down in your anger. In other words, when you get hurt, when you get offended, when somebody has really messed you over, bring it to God. Come to the throne of grace. You got to just start praying about it Lord. I know that holding this in is not good This is gonna mess me up for the rest of the day I know that I'm not gonna treat people I love with the kind of grace and forgiveness and tenderness that I need to because I'm sitting here seething over this thing So Lord I bring

this to you. I just I need to release this God. Give me the strength So no nursing grudges no harboring resentment. No keeping a record of wrongs Which we like to do Let me remind you of something about our anger given to us by James. In chapter one of James on the screen, verses 19 and 20, he says, know this, my beloved brothers.

He's talking to believers. Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. Why? For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Okay? So our anger and the things that we seethe over and get upset about, You're not going to bring about the righteousness of God through that anger. So, let's take it to the Lord. These are things that, that kind of anger, that's the old life. Next, Paul says in verse 28, let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor. Notice he says even doing honest work. There's all kinds of honest work out there to do. But you'll notice that Paul's comment about not stealing is directly connected with the exhortation to do work or to do honest

work. I think to myself, wow, if that doesn't apply to the United States of America today, I don't know what does. We are living in a culture today in a society where people are everyday stealing from the government by accepting assistance. on false terms when they could be working. And it's a staggering issue in our country. And I wouldn't want to be the president and have to deal with it. But here's the deal. As believers, we're to have no part of it. As believers, I mean, it's one thing if there's a genuine need, but as believers, we are not to steal when we are capable of doing honest work. And I want you to notice, too, that Paul gives us an interesting thought related to why we work. Look at the end

of verse 28. He says, so that you may have something to share with those who are in need. That gives a new spin on why we work, doesn't it? We tend to think about, I'm going to work so I can earn money and buy things for me and my family and we can put food on the table and clothes on our back and all the things that we do with our money.

Paul makes reference to working hard. so that you might give to other people. Isn't that interesting? So the purpose for getting is giving. Hmm. Let me show you a very interesting proverb. From chapter 19 of the Proverbs it says, whoever is generous to the poor actually lends to the Lord. And by the way, God has a very good record -keeping system. he will repay. That gives a different sort of an understanding too on the whole idea of giving and why we get. Next, Paul goes in verse 29 on to say, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear. How many of you were raised with your mother telling you, if

you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all? We learned that from Bambi, for heaven's sake. That was something Thumper taught us. Some of you guys aren't even old enough to remember that. Well, this is the biblical version of that same thing. That's essentially what Paul is saying. Only speak words. Again, this is the new life.

The old life used to backbite and say hurtful things. But the new life that is in Christ, let it only be the expression of words that build people up. Can you imagine what the body of Christ would be like if we were to obey this command? If we only said things to one another that were helpful? We'd be incredible. Everybody would want to come to this church. And then they'd ruin it probably by bringing, well, you know.

Think about as it relates to marriage. What if married couples made the determination in their heart and mind that they will never speak a word to one another that is hurtful ever again? I'd be out of a job as it relates to marriage counseling. which would delight me no end, I don't mind telling you. But I've also been married for 40 years, and I know what it's like to mess up in that area, and to say things that are not something that edifies, but in fact tears down. We need to be quick to ask for forgiveness in those cases, but I think we also need to make the determination.

I'm just, I'm not going to say anything that hurts. I'm not going to say, because you know why we do that? We do it to get back, don't we? So when somebody's hurt us, or done something, or said something to us that's a little bit painful or whatever, we just kind of just, brrrah, we just lash out with our words. You know, we've been hurt, so we hurt back. And we do double damage because we've been hurt, now we're hurt back, now we're both hurting, now where are we?

We're a mess. And the very mouth that God gave us to praise Him, is now being used to do damage. Look what James says in the third chapter of his letter, verses 9 and 10. He says, With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, by the way, who were made in His likeness. But he says out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. And we wholeheartedly agree. It should not be. Well, that's okay pastor. I never say anything mean to anybody, at least not to their face. I always do it behind their back, so it's not a problem. No, that's a problem too. We don't say anything, you know, we shouldn't say anything hurtful about anyone ever because this is the

new life. This is the character of Christ that is residing in us by faith through the Holy Spirit. This is Him. This is what He's doing. This is His work. We need to yield to that work, resist the old life, yield to the new work that's going on in us. Because that Christ in you, he will never say something hurtful about somebody else.

He won't ever do that. You and I will do that. But when we do, make no mistake about it, it's the flesh talking. It's the old, stinking, corrupted flesh that is talking. verse 30 Paul goes on here's the next thing and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption and most people look at this verse and they see it as the key to this entire passage because grieving the Holy Spirit I mean the all the things that we've mentioned previously lying unrighteous anger stealing corrupt talking they all grieve the Holy Spirit So Paul is kind of using this as a catch -all. In case there's something that I haven't mentioned, let me just say this. Don't grieve the Holy Spirit, okay?

With whom you've been sealed for the day of redemption. All of those things are grieving to the Spirit. And it's really kind of incredible to think about the fact that what I do or what I say can actually grieve the Holy Spirit. Isn't that amazing? We tend to think about possibly hurting other people, and we can understand that because we've seen that happen. We've seen the look in their eyes when we say something or whatever, but we don't usually connect with the idea of what I did hurt God. I mean, hurt Him, caused Him sorrow. We don't usually think about that. If we did, I think we would do less things that potentially could do that. Now, conviction is obviously part of that process. Every time we're convicted of

something that we've done or said, that's the Holy Spirit speaking to us through that conviction to say, that wasn't good. That was a bad thing. You know what that's like. You say something to somebody in a fit of anger or whatever, and immediately you're just convicted by the Spirit and you're like, oh, I wish I could take that back, but you can't. And you know that there's nothing left now but to go back and apologize and try to make it right or whatever the situation may call for but Conviction is one thing but I'm talking about something even more significant and I mean I want to ask you has the Holy Spirit ever Communicated to you the depth of his sorrow over some of something you've done or said I

Asked that question Because it's only happened to me once That I know of I mean that I can really recall and it was a time in my life when you know I won't get into all that but I was engaged in some activity I was very young very very young as a believer and I was still hanging on to areas of sin in my life that I had engaged in as a Unbeliever I had not let go of those areas yet And I was driving along in my car very cognizant of the fact that I had been dealing with things that wasn't good or whatever And I wasn't feeling anything particularly as I was driving along, but suddenly the Holy Spirit just communicated to me. It was kind of like Him saying, I want to show you what you've done to me. And I felt

this sorrow. I felt this sadness. I felt this disappointment that washed over me like a wave of the ocean that I could not contain. didn't just cry, and I'm not a crier, I didn't just cry, I sobbed uncontrollably for several minutes as the Lord just communicated to me the depth of His sorrow over my stupidity. And it was one of the most life -changing things I've ever experienced in my entire life. And I'm here to tell you that that particular sin that He showed me His sorrow over, I have never gone back and committed again.

It was it was one of those incredible life -changing sorts of things, but it made me realize something very significant and that is I am not disconnected from my God My life is not disconnected from his I Mean good grief. He's the head I'm part of the body if something happens to you as a part of the body is your head unaware of it Does your head not feel? and understand the depth of pain that that member of the body is involved in, of course. Jesus is not cut off and aloof from what's going on with the life of His body as well. And when the Holy Spirit communicates the grief that we have caused Him related to our own sin, it is a powerful, powerful thing.

We can grieve the Holy Spirit, as crazy as it sounds. And by the way, This is an aside, okay? But this statement that Paul makes here in Ephesians about grieving the Holy Spirit is proof positive that the Holy Spirit is a person. And I'm giving you that as proof, not that you need it, but I'm sharing it with you in the case that you might ever take on a conversation with someone who's trying to convince you that the Holy Spirit is not a person, but is rather a force, like gravity or wind. Because there are many people who believe that and if anybody ever challenges you with that I would encourage you to take them to Ephesians chapter 4 and have them read that verse out loud About grieving the Holy Spirit

and then follow it up by asking them when the one is the last time they grieved gravity or the wind and if they struggle with that one take them to Acts chapter 5 Which talks about ananias and sephirah where where Peter confronts ananias with lying to the Holy Spirit and Then ask them this when's the last time you lied to gravity?

Or to the wind it's not possible because those things are forces But you can lie to the Holy Spirit and you can grieve the Holy Spirit because he is a person But this reminder that I've kind of injected here about the personhood of the Holy Spirit should not distract us from the exhortation that Paul is giving in these verses related to we who are sealed by the Holy Spirit, not living in such a way so as to grieve him with our fleshly words and actions, which we can very well and easily do. Verse 31, he says, Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you. along with malice. So he mentions these five things. Bitterness. Bitterness is a terrible thing. Bitterness is disappointment.

It could be disappointment with someone. Bitterness can even come from disappointment with God. And it turns to anger, and that anger over time smolders into bitterness. And you can be talking to somebody who's bitter and not even realize it. But bitterness can captivate you. And you can become a slave to it. Do you guys remember when Philip brought the Gospel into Samaria? And people were getting saved left and right, so Peter and John went up to Samaria to see what the deal was up there, and it says that... people had been getting saved, but the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon, which is the baptism of the Spirit. They had not yet received the baptism of the Spirit. So they started laying hands on people, and they started receiving

the Holy Spirit with the baptism of the Spirit. These people were already saved, but so Peter and John are laying hands on these people, and there's obviously a manifestation of the Spirit taking place because this man named Simon the sorcerer Came up to Peter and offered him money He said get he because he had been kind of a magician type person who impressed people He tried to offer him money says here here Give me that ability so when I lay my hands on people they receive the Holy Spirit You remember what Peter said to him? He said may your money perish with you for thinking that you can purchase or buy the power and the gift of the Holy Spirit and then he went on to say this for I see you

are full of bitterness and captive to sin And by the way, that was a word of knowledge. In other words, the Holy Spirit dropped it in Peter's heart to know and understand what this man's true condition was. He was literally a slave to bitterness. Bitterness is horrible. Let me show you what the book of Hebrews has to say on the subject of bitterness. It says, see to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God and that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble because if it does, let me tell you something, it's going to defile a lot of people. It's going to affect a lot of people.

Bitterness is horrible. Don't let it continue in your life. If you recognize bitterness, bring it to the cross and ask God to help you deal with it because I'm telling you, it's only going to hurt you. It's going to hurt you and it's going to hurt your relationships. Yeah. He next talks about wrath, which is angry outbursts is what that refers to. The NIV actually uses the word rage. That's part of the old life, okay?

That raging anger that just rises up white hot and hurts so many people. It's not part of the new life that is ours in Christ. He talks about anger. This is the Greek word orgae and it refers to just a constant settled anger that continues and cannot be abated. Clamor is the next word that Paul uses here in the ESV. It actually means brawling. It's somebody who gets into fistfights regularly because he's just mad, he's angry and people are always bugging him and getting in his way and he's ready to fight at the drop of a pin. And Paul says, that's part of the old life. It's part of the flesh, right? It's not part of the work that Jesus is doing inside of you. Next is slander. And slander, as you know,

is angry words that have the intent of dragging someone's reputation through the mud. In fact, what it means is, I'm telling you, and I might not be doing this to the person's face, probably not, as a matter of fact. Most people don't have the courage to do that. So what they'll do is they'll go behind their back, talk about somebody in a slanderous way so as to damage their reputation.

It's part of the old life. We don't do that. Hey, if you can't go to the person that you're angry with and deal with it directly face -to face in the power and grace and strength of the Lord, then you got a bigger problem than what that person did to you. Take it to them. And take it to the Lord, but do not talk to others.

Don't do it. That's slanderous. And it's part of the old flesh life. It's the rotten, stinking, corrupted flesh. And then finally he uses the word malice, which is the intention of anger to do harm. To think it through, to work it out, to intend. to do it. Paul says put all these things away, all these different expressions of anger, and then he ends finally with a positive exhortation in verse 32. He says be kind to one another, tender -hearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. So three commands.

Be kind. I think we all know what kindness is. Tender -hearted refers to compassionate. not hard -hearted, and then forgiving. And that last command comes with an example. Be forgiving as you've been forgiven, as God in Christ forgave you. In other words, as freely as you've been forgiven, forgive others. I'm going to preface.

the next thing I have to say to you by telling you ahead of time that what you're about to hear is my opinion. And so you might want to just turn off your ears for a moment because my opinions aren't worth a lot. But here goes nothing. I believe that unforgiveness, and when I talk about unforgiveness, I mean the unwillingness to forgive is what is behind much of what our society labels as mental and emotional illness. Now, That is my personal opinion, but I do believe that the unwillingness to forgive has a crippling effect on the person who is unwilling to forgive. And as believers, there are few things, few, very few, that are more deadly and more grieving to the Lord than our unwillingness to forgive. And

you know, frankly, I get a lot of questions about this by email or whatever. People wanting to know about... They understand that the Bible commands us to forgive, but what they want to know is they want to know when. They want to know when they should forgive. And so I get all these questions from time to time, and it's not uncommon at all. So explain to me here, Pastor Paul, when should I forgive my brother? Do I need to wait until... He asks me for forgiveness.

I don't think I need to forgive him until he repents, right? My answer to their question is a question back to them, and that is, well, when do you want to be free? Because you see, unforgiveness is what binds you, not them. It's what puts you. Behind bars and so the question is so when exactly do you want to be free? You know most of you guys know that Jesus told a parable about this It's about a master who had a servant who owed him an incredible amount of money what probably today would be millions and millions of dollars and the master decided to call in the loan and the servant came and fell on his knees before the master and begged for more time to pay it back and he said please give me be patient with

me and I'll pay this all back And the master was so moved with pity toward this individual that he ended up just forgiving the entire debt altogether, just canceled the whole thing. Now we're told in the parable that after that took place, this servant went out and found a fellow servant who owed him what amounted to a few dollars, grabbed him by the throat, and demanded immediate repayment. Well, the second servant said the same as the first, please be patient with me.

and I'll pay back everything I owe you, but instead of responding graciously, this first servant threw the second servant into debtor's prison until he might repay the entire debt. Now, you guys also know the rest of the story. Word got back to the master about what the servant he had forgiven had done. He called that servant in. and was very angry toward him and said, Should you not have shown mercy on your fellow servant the way I showed mercy upon you? And we're told that in anger, the master threw that servant into the jail until he could repay all of the debt. And I've thought a lot about that story over the years. And I believe that that jail is a very real place. Because Jesus was talking

about unforgiveness, and He was talking about refusing to extend forgiveness when we ourselves have been forgiven so powerfully, so completely, and then turning around when someone offends us and refusing to extend the same. Now obviously that's greatly grieving to the Holy Spirit, but what does it do to you? You put yourself into a self -imposed jail. Make no mistake about it.

You are in prison when you refuse to forgive. And you will not get out until you come to terms with that at the foot of the cross. And recognize with the amazing forgiveness God gave you, you are to forgive others. Let me show you this really, really cool quote I found, because you know I love quotes. It goes like this. The moment a man wrongs me, I must forgive him. Only then will my soul be free. If I hold the wrong against him, I sin and jeopardize my own forgiveness with God. Whether the man repents and asks for my forgiveness or not makes no difference. I have forgiven him. Now he must deal with God over the wrong he has done, but that's between him and God. Whether he reconciles with God or

not is irrelevant to this one truth. I must forgive the man." I love that quote. I think it's very well spoken. Because it simply puts the responsibility it takes it out of the realm of what has he done and just it's my heart with God and my own walk with God my relationship with God and just how healthy do I want that relationship to be and how free Do I want to be in my own life and how healthy spiritually emotionally even physically do I want to be hey you can sit and eat all the organic food that you can possibly consume all your life and be sick because of unforgiveness, bitterness, and anger. We talk so much about living a healthy lifestyle, and we completely ignore the spiritual, emotional aspect of our

lives. Before we close here today, can I just add one more thought about the issue of forgiveness? And I think this is an important one. And I'm just going to put it like this. Forgiveness is not the absence of wisdom. And let me explain what I mean by that. I want you to imagine for a moment, we take that parable that Jesus gave us that I've told you about just a moment ago, and let's imagine for a moment that after this servant was forgiven for his millions and millions of dollars of debt, that he returned a few months later to ask the master for another loan. Now we're not applying this in my story where the master isn't a picture of God and the servant isn't a picture of you. It's just he's a master

and he's a servant. Let's just talk people for a minute. If the man is a pretty good businessman, he's probably not going to just say, yeah, sure, come on in. Let's write up a contract after forgiving this guy millions and millions of dollars. Why? It's just not wise. It's just not wise. The reason I bring up that example is because I believe that there are times in our lives when we forgive people because we're commanded to forgive people, and it's a good idea to forgive people because we ourselves are free when we forgive people.

But then afterward, we recognize there's no change in the individual. There's no repentance, there's no anything. But that's not why we forgave them, but we see it. We understand that wisdom would tell us, This is probably not a good relationship to reconnect with. You know what I mean? Because there hasn't been any change and so on and so forth. So I don't see any real future here and so I'm going to forgive this person, but we're not going to move on with any kind of relationship because the toxicity level here is just off the charts. So I'm saying to this individual, verbally or not, we're done. Now, I'm not mad. And I'm not withholding forgiveness. In fact, I can even genuinely say I love this person. And by the

way, people ask me all the time, how do I know when I've really forgiven somebody? Well, I'll tell you something. When you can pray for that person and genuinely pray God's blessing over their life and mean it, God has done a work in your heart and you're walking in real genuine forgiveness. And that's the way we're supposed to treat our enemies, by the way. People that hurt us, we're supposed to pray for them, right?

And that doesn't mean God kill them. Okay, that's not the kind of prayer we're talking about we're talking about praying blessing into their life And that's hard to do you know at first when you when somebody's really hurt you badly And you know that you're called to forgive and pray for them for a while you're praying blessing through clenched teeth, and I get that But there comes a time over time as you continue to pour out your heart before the Lord, pray the blessing of God upon that individual that you know. Suddenly you realize one day, I'm delighted to do this.

God, I really want you to bless this person. You've arrived at the place of forgiveness. Praise God. Don't stop praying until you get there because you want to be free. But even though you can say to yourself, I love this person and I'm not mad. And I truly have forgiven. And I can pray for them genuinely for God's blessing upon their life. But, but, but, I realize moving on with this relationship just isn't productive. I want you to know that that's okay. And the reason I share this is because I think a lot of Christians struggle because wisdom tells them, this person is just going to keep hurting me and my family.

But the Word of God tells them they need to forgive, and they think they're one in the same. They think forgiveness equates with the idea of embracing this person back into their life wholeheartedly. And sometimes people whom we've forgiven will actually say that to us when we resist the attempt to reconnect. They'll say, well, I thought you forgave me. And what we do is we cave. Yeah, you're right. Come on. And we open the door of our lives. when wisdom would tell us, that's not a smart move. Listen, you can be obedient to God and forgive and still keep a distance just because it's wisdom. Wisdom and forgiveness, you know, work together in those sorts of situations.

So know that you can still forgive completely. You've been listening to Through the Bible with Pastor Paul from Life Bible Ministry. For the complete library of Pastor Paul's teaching and full transcripts, visit lifebibleministry .com. We hope today's teaching has encouraged and inspired you. We look forward to you joining us again as we continue our journey through the scriptures.

Ephesians 4 (Part 5) :25-32 - Living the New Life

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