Principles of New Life

Ephesians chapter 4 verses 25 to 32, this is a very practical section. This is one of Those sections that you really don't need me for. You can just allow the Spirit of God to convict you as you read it and it says much in and of itself. But I'll do my best to guide a little bit of your thinking to help you to see the impact in its fullness.

Ephesians 4 and verse 25 and for our visitors, we might say that we're continuing in a study of Ephesians week by week, month by month, moving through the book and having a tremendous time. Verse 25 says:

Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not, let not the sun go down on your wrath: Neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God by whom ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."

Obviously you can sense that this is a tremendously practical passage. Let me back up to some of the things we said last Sunday morning and see if I can't help to draw you from that text to this one.

If you remember last time we looked at the Sermon on the Mount.  We looked at Matthew 5 to 7, and we said that Jesus is saying there that people who are a part of His Kingdom will be different than the rest of the world. They will think differently, they will talk differently, they will act differently. they will have different motives, they will worship differently. In other words, true children of the Kingdom are very easily distinguished from the world. At least in the patter of distinction that is outlined in the Sermon on the Mount. There is to be a difference. We're not to be like the world.

When God recreates a person in Jesus Christ there's something new, there's something different. That new creation is indeed a new creation. We saw that the Lord was talking in Matthew 5 to 7 to a group of people who believed that they were the citizens of the Kingdom. They believed that. They believed that they were the ones who were in on God's economy. That they were the recipients of God's blessing. They were .professors, however, and not possessors. They had covered up their sinful heart with a religious cloak. They had masked with a pseudo spirituality the real carnality that was characteristic of their nature. They were religious, they were not regenerated.

And so our Lord says, "Except your righteousness exceed that kind of righteousness, you won't even be a part of My Kingdom."  And we saw that our Lord was calling for a standard of righteousness as the very moniker of a Christian, as the very definition of a Christian. Not the false, phony, superficial religious covering of those of His day. And so our Lord was saying ‑ It's not the ones who say, Lord, Lord, it's not the ones who claim to be in the Kingdom but it's the ones who prove it by their living.  By the fact that they are distinct and they are different and they are unique. And we told you that if you are not living that way, if your life is not distinctly different from the world, there is a real possibility that you are not a Christian at all no matter what you claim, no matter what you imagine, no matter how religious you are. Unless there is a distinction in your living, there is a good possibility that there is no distinction in your nature either.

Now Paul is reinforcing basically the same truth in Ephesians.  Paul is saying in chapters 1 to 3 ‑ Look, this is who you are, 4 to 6 ‑ this is how you act. And you can never separate the two. There is always the standard in terms of position and then there always is the activity in terms of behavior and they go together. You cannot say ‑ Well, I am a Christian because once I received Christ. That's non‑Pauline, that's non‑Petrine, that's non‑Johannine, that's non‑Sermon on the Mount thinking. Peter. John, Paul, Christ, are all saying the same thing. If you are a believer, this is how it is manifest. Peter says it in II Peter chapter 1, he says you have received the new nature. You have received a nature that is beyond corruption. you have received great and precious promises, you have been made a partaker of the divine nature. Now the only way that will ever be verified, the only way that calling and election can ever be made sure, is when you add to that virtue. And when you add virtue to that you begin to see the reality of that. And he talks about virtue and he talks about kindness, and he talks about love, and all of those characteristics of a new creature.

In other words, what Peter is saying is this ‑ You will have the knowledge of your salvation, the assurance of your salvation, not by remembering a past event but by seeing a present virtue.  That's basic.

John says the same thing in I John, you can know that you're a Christian by the thing that's going on in your life now. And this is true. You know, even people who are Christians, when they get living in a sinful situation for any length of time, one of the first things they lose is a sense of security. And they begin to doubt whether they're really saved. Because that comes from the witness of a life and a confirmation of the Holy Spirit within us.

So if you're not living a different life there's a real possibility you're not a different person. New creatures act like new creatures. But watch this, even thought this is an absolute, and ‑even though God says this is how it is, there is still the cooperating element of my will. And even though the Lord is saying ‑ Ii you are a believer, this is how you will live, that doesn't mean it's against my will. That's the beauty of the paradox of the Christian life. If somebody says to me, ‑Who lives the Christian life, you or the Lord? I have to say ‑Well, it's the Lord, not I but Christ liveth in me, and yet on the other hand it's me. Because unless I beat my body to bring it into subjection, unless I respond to the commands, unless I say yes and yield to the Spirit of God moment by moment, that's not going to happen. So it's God's sovereignty 100% and yet it's my response to that in terms of my own will.  And there's that same paradox. And that's exactly what Paul is saying here. If you are a new creature, chapters 1 to 3, you will live like it, chapters 4 to 6. But you became a new creature on the sovereignty of God and your own will, chapters 1 to 3. And you will live it out based on God's sovereignty, you are a new creature and on your will you respond to that. So both are there.

Now that's a very simple...we could go into deeper detail but that's sufficient for the moment. And so you find in the Bible, now watch this, that frequently there will be statements ‑ this is how a Christian lives ‑ and then sometimes the same principle will be put in a command ‑ this is how you are to live. This is what God will do in your life if you're a believer. But this is what you must do.

You see, you are not a robot, you are involved in a paradoxical way in the explosion of divine energy in your life that makes you what you are to be. And so sometimes it's a statement and sometimes it's a command.

And here the Apostle Paul sets it forth in terms of commands.  He says since you are a new creation and since new creations are different, here's how you are to be different. Here's how you are to be distinct. Here's how your life is to be set apart from the other life. And, beloved, it goes without saying that the church better be different or we don't have anything to say. Right?

Now keep in mind that in verses 17 to 24 the Apostle Paul gave a general statement. And his general statement is simply this ‑ Christians are to be different. You're to be different. You don't walk as the Gentiles or the heathen walk, verse 17. You don't walk in the blindness and the darkness and the hardness of heart, and the insensitivity and the lasciviousness and the uncleanness, and the greediness, you're different, you're different. You didn't so learn Christ. You put off, verse 22, the old man.  Verse 23, you put on the new man. That's general. You're putting on a new lifestyle. You're putting on a new walk, a new pattern of living.

So he gave that generality, based on who you are chapters 1 to 3. Chapters 4 to 6 tell you how to live. You put off the old, you put on the new. Well, somebody might say ‑ Well, what do you mean, John, specifically? Well, he gets very specific in verse 25. And from now on the very end of the chapter, it's a matter...the end of the book, rather, it's a matter of very specific things. This is where you need to activate your will.  This is where you need to say yes. This is where you need to flip the switch that turns it on. The general statement verses 17 to 24 ‑ and now the specifics right beginning in verse 25.

And the first thing he does is this, he makes specific the general fact of changing from an old lifestyle to a new one. And he gives you five categories in which the change takes place. Five areas of illustration.

Number one, you exchange lying for speaking truth. You exchange lying for speaking truth, verse 25. "Wherefore," in other words, since it is generally true that the old is gone and the new is come, wherefore ‑ specifically, "put away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor for we are members one of another."

Now remember this, in Revelation chapter 21 and verse 8, we read this: "But the fearful and unbelieving and the abominable, and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." Now one thing for sure, liars go to hell. That's what it says.

Conversely it is true ‑ people going to heaven are not...what?.. liars.  That is not characteristic of a believer.  Oh, there .liars. That is not characteristic of a believer. Oh, there may be those times when we sin and we fail but there's no way that you can look at your life and see a constant flow of lies and get any biblical basis for believing you're a Christian.  Because hell is for liars. And by the way, in John 8:44 it says; "Ye are of your father, the devil, and the devil is the father of all...what?...lies.? So if you are a liar by character, if your life is a constant lying situation, if you can't deal rightly with the truth, you give indication of having the devil as your source and hell as your destiny and no matter what you claim and no matter how religious you get and no matter how you go to church, you're not going to be a part of God's Kingdom. Because liars don't go to heaven. People who go to heaven aren't liars.

So he says your will has to get involved, put away lying.  Speak every man truth with his neighbor. And by the way, that's a quote from Zechariah 8:18, gives us a little insight into how Paul dealt with the Old Testament, he quotes the Old Testament.

One of the chief characteristics of our human lifestyle today is lying. Do you realize that we have an entire world system based on lying? Can you imagine what would ever happen if for one day, everybody in the world told the truth? We'd have World War III. Ii the truth ever came out about anything, if everybody all of a sudden decided to operate on truth, our entire system would collapse. We're to put away lying, we're to be different in that sense. The world ‑ they're not different.  Lying is everything to them. The whole thing is lawyers lie, doctors lie, teachers lie, preachers lie, some preachers lie.  Salesmen lie, secretaries lie, bosses lie, advertisers lie, politicians lie, government lies, everybody lies, and it's what keeps the thing going. No body has to tell the truth.  It doesn't work that way. That's not how the game is played.  It's all built on lies. And if everybody had to tell the truth the whole system would come down in a big collapse. You do what's expedient and lying is expedient. It's incredible.

People lie about the little things and the big things.  It's just an entire way of life. It is the outworking of a depraved nature. It lies because it is of its father, the devil, who is the father of lies. Who has developed a system of lies. The whole religious system, apart from the truth of Christianity is a pile of lies. Lies...lies...and more lies. Satan lies about life, he lies about death, he lies about God, he lies about Christ, he lies about the Spirit, he lies about the Bible, he lies about Heaven, he lies about hell, he lies about good, he lies about bad, everything, the whole thing is based on lies. And when he develops a religious system, he throws a little tiny truth in it so you think it might be okay. It's like the clock that doesn't work, it's right twice a day. And that's about it.

And the whole system we live in, in terms of economics is based on lies. Our government lies to us all the time. We only hear what they want us to hear. It's just the way it is in our world.

And you go in to buy something and you get a whole song and dance, you know it isn't true, but you stand there and you have no choice. And they sell you stuff on television, that if it ever fulfilled those expectations, it would be priceless.

And all of a sudden God comes into your life and the Bible says "God is true and every man a liar." Christ comes into your life and He says, "I am the way the truth and the life." The Holy Spirit takes up residence in your life, and He's called "the Spirit of truth who will lead you into all truth." And the Word of God is called 1he truth. John 17, "Thy word is truth."

And all of a sudden when you become a believer, you step out of a domain of lies into an element of truth. You know the true God, redeemed by the true Messiah, indwelt by the true Spirit, possessing the true Word and living it out in a true kind of life.

And when a believer opens his mouth, according to Ephesians chapter 4 verse 15, he should be speaking the truth. We believe in truth. And that means lying has to go.

I mean all kinds of lying. You say ‑ What do you mean by lying? Well, one kind of lying is telling what ain't so. That's just the plain old kind of lie. But there are a lot of others.  Shading the truth, exaggeration.

Oh, exaggeration is a real problem. I forget who it was...was telling me the other day that a guy used to go around and give his testimony. And he said everywhere he went he gave his testimony. He'd speak and give his fantastic testimony. He did it everywhere he went.

And so he was invited to speak somewhere, and the guy said to him ‑ Are you going to give your testimony? 

He said, ‑ No, I don't give my testimony anymore, I never give my testimony.

He says ‑ What do you mean?

He says ‑ Listen, he said, I gave my testimony for so many years and I kept adding to it, I forgot the truth.

Do you know about that? Lying, cheating in your school, looking on someone else's paper or getting some exam before you're supposed to have it, cheating in your business, cheating in your work, cheating in your taxes, failure to keep your promises even to God, that's lying, betrayal of a confidence, you said you wouldn't say it but you did. Flattering somebody, that's lying because you're telling them a bunch of stuff that isn't even true about them so they'll think you're wonderful and give you something. Excuses, you know...I tell you, an honorable man is a man that says ‑ Yes, I did that and I was wrong. Most people say ‑ Well, you don't understand. You see, ahhh...and then you get this long song and dance while you get a bunch of excuses about a certain thing.

I think there are a lot of forms of lying, I think sitting in silence when the truth should be spoken is lying. There's no place for this in the Christian life, it goes all the way back to Exodus 20; "Don't bear false witness." Tell the truth. Tell the truth. God's economy is based on truth, it's got to be.  And you see, I'm not talking about some sort of psychological honesty, I'm not talking about sensitivity training, you know.  Well the best thing for you is to tell the truth. And I remember I got into a group like that one time and I don't know how I ever got into it. I was sitting...and everybody was supposed to tell about the other person ‑ what they didn't like. Somebody said ‑I just want you to know that you make me sick. I...I hate you.  It's your ears and the way you talk, there's something about you I hate. And you know the whole idea was ‑ See, don't you feel better? Listen, listen, you don't need to deal with honesty on that situation, you need to go back and ask God to take care of the hate in your heart. You've got another problem, you're in the wrong verse. You've got to get to the next verse, verse 28.  You don't' have any reason for tha.....

We're not talking about some pseudo‑honesty that has psychological implications. God isn't dealing with that. That isn't the point. If you don't love somebody it isn't the kind of honesty that says ‑