Ephesians, 4:30-5:2
Bob Eckel · Jun 14, 2009
Ephesians (2009), No. 24
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926136362200

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

We're going to start today by going back because I think to adequately deal with the verses before us today, I feel the need to kind of go back to Ephesians 4 verse 17 and bring it forward so that we're all kind of starting on the same page. I want to thank the other men for all their teaching efforts during the interim. We were in a bit of indecision about what's going to follow the book of Ephesians. The book of Revelation will take another quarter to be completed and we have this kind of quarter void of time. And so Vern has sent around some suggestions of things we might deal with and Jeremy, Brad, you and Randy and I need to kind of discuss things. I think, you know, there are a number of things that were suggested could be very, very applicable. What we're thinking about doing, and again, no decision has been made, is using various topics that have been brought up during our study of the Book of Ephesians and focusing down in them as topical studies. An example might be Israel versus the church, or something like the old nature versus the new nature, or things like this that we may drill down on and provide more of a topical study in more detail.

Follow with me, Ephesians 4.17. This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness.

And look at verse 20. I wish I were here when this was taught. I feel this is a tremendously critical verse. What was their problem? That ye have not so learned Christ. Boy, I mean, there's the defect. This walk in lasciviousness and greediness and blindness of their heart. The reason was they didn't learn Christ.

If so be it, that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus, that ye put off concerning the former manner of life, the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that ye put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore, putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor, for he remembers one of another.

Be ye angry, and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon 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 needs. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your own mouth, but that which is good to the use of Edify, that it may minister grace into the hearers.

So what we've seen here in these verses, and that brings us to today's verse 430, this contrast between the sinful nature of the old man and the Christ nature of the new man, this contrast that is part of each and every one of our lives each day after another. Okay, so today's text we're going to get down to 5-2.

And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you are also sealed under 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 kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children, and walk in love as Christ also hath loved us and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor. All right, let's proceed.

Verse 30 in chapter 4, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. What's it mean to grieve the Holy Spirit? I'm going to give you four choices here. This is blue-letter Bible choices. There is a correct answer, at least a best answer. The choices are to make the spirit sorrowful, to affect with sadness and cause grief, to throw into sorrow, to offend, or to make one uneasy and cause him a scruple.

So these are definitions that could apply to someone other than the Holy Spirit. But in context, this is a Holy Spirit we're grieving. So these are definitions for the Greek verb grieve. And those could be English definitions, obviously, as well as Greek. Thoughts. Grieving the Holy Spirit. Does he go in the corner and cry? Certainly not. But you can have sadness about going in the corner and crying. setting yourself aside. It seems to me the first three are all somewhat applicable. Alright.

So the Holy Spirit gets sorrowful. It speaks to his personality, doesn't it? I mean, the personality of the Holy Spirit is something that is constantly under attack. Let's make him a force. Let's make him impersonal. Let's make him a, you know, but he's just as personal as the other two members of the Trinity. He's just as much an individual personality. Therefore, just as much can you pull over. sadness, sorrow. I mean, we realize that when we're not walking in the Spirit, we're actually causing God sorrow, grief, sadness. He mourns to see us not living the life He wants us to live.

I like this. Other thoughts from this side of the classroom. The left field bleachers over here. Although maybe these are all box seats. I don't know. Forgive the baseball analogies. I do it all the time. No comments over here on the left field, right? I'm usually in the left field, but... We're going to put you in the dugout pretty soon.

My perception of breathing the Holy Spirit is that it lessens his effectiveness in the way that it's supposed to be expressed in our lives. Lessens his effectiveness. And sorrow our offense could do that. All right. Other thoughts? When we sin. Well, when we sin, we grieve the Holy Spirit. All right. And so what does the grieving mean then in terms of these potential choices? And by the way, I'm going to give you an answer. You can argue with it. Yeah, Jeremy. Was that a yawn or a hand? It was a hand. Oh, OK. OK, well, if you want to just fall asleep back there, just go ahead and do that.

I forget the passage, but there's another passage where Paul talks about, I do not frustrate the grace of God. Yeah, that's in 1 Thessalonians, I think. But I think it's a similar idea. There he's talking about the grace of God, here he's talking about grieving the Holy Spirit. I think, for me, frustrate is a good word. when we are not submitting to the... Where's frustrate? It's not on there.

I can see it now, Doan's Greek Lexicon. We've got a lively group here today, this is good. Alright, the correct answer is... How many people vote for one? How many people vote for two? We have three votes for two. How many vote for three? Looks like maybe that's six or seven for three. How many vote for four? And how many didn't vote? The majority. The correct answer is. to offend. And Thayer really drills down a bit and defines the use in this particular verse as offending the Holy Spirit. If you think about that a little bit, again I'm not going to die for this answer, I just thought we'd play a game here this morning.

I mean, the Spirit is perfect truth and righteousness, correct? And He, you know, more than guides us, He doesn't guide us, He guides and glorifies the new nature. And we're going to come to that as we go through this passage. So when we choose a life that's full of self, full of sin, full of old man stuff, full of sin nature stuff, that's offensive. But you know, the thing is, he can handle it.

I mean, it's just our fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ through the power of the Spirit that gets in the way here and that's an offense to who we are in Christ, an offense to what he's there to do within each one of us. I think You can again go to any one of these or go to frustrate. I don't see the Spirit as getting frustrated. I don't see him necessarily being sorrowful.

We're saying that God has declared us positioned and conditioned in the Lord Jesus Christ. When we choose to sin, when we fall into the ways of the old nature, we in fact offend the truth of God who is. I'm okay with that. Everybody okay with that? Reasonable? Doug? You okay with that? Okay. Alright. Now, relate to the sins that reflect the old man described immediately before.

And I think, Brad, you taught last week, and so you kind of went through some of these things last week in terms of wrath and anger and some of these things. So I think grieving the Holy Spirit, we can reflect back and see many of the things that were covered, that were part of the old life, that things were called to leave behind and raising us up into a new way of life, which is empowered by the Spirit in the nature of the new man. by whom you were sealed under the day of redemption. The sealing of the Holy Spirit is an earnest, a proof, an assurance of the final redemption.

So critically important. So I've got a question to ask you here. Do you agree or not agree? If we grieve the Holy Spirit away, the seal will be gone. Some people claim this. That would also make me think that those people also don't understand their position. Because when you're positioned in Christ, you're not going to lose that. That position never changes. Neither do they understand the power of God.

Correct. Right. So this is Bible 101, isn't it? I mean if that seal can be lost, and by the way there's a commentary that I used yesterday in preparation for today that actually took this position. that if we continue to grieve the Spirit, that seal of redemption is lost. Now what could be potential loss is that assurance we have if we're weak in our faith. And that probably happens to a lot of believers who are not solidly into and have passed the course of Bible 101, right? But boy, if this were true, our faith is on rocky ground.

Let's look at just a little bit of scripture to support this. Back in chapter 1 of the Book of Ephesians it says, In him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, notice that, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also having believed you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. It's just of promise. who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession to praise of his glory. Wow. I mean, you can't go there and not come away with a convincing argument that that seal is permanent. Yeah, Jeremy. I think, can we talk about Lafayne real quick? Sure, please. Back to the original question.

I'll agree that offend is probably the best way to describe it. I don't think it's so much an emotional response of the Holy Spirit. It's not, you know, oh, it's three weeks past Labor Day and that person is going, right, I'm totally offended by that. That's a human emotion, a human reaction. The Spirit is not, oh, I can't believe he did that. It's not an emotional response. I think it's the fact that we're acting contrary to who we are in Christ. And if we look at it from a contrary to our position, and that's since we're offending what the Spirit is trying to do. And the first part of the verse is a huge contrast.

You are sealed. This is a fact, an unchangeable fact. You're sealed until the day of redemption by the Holy Spirit, and when we act contrary to that, that is where the offense is. Well, again, as I tried to point out, but you said it much better than I did, the offense is to the truth of who the Holy Spirit is.

That's the offense. But remember, we're adopted sons. We confess our sins, just forgive our sins, etc. There's no question about the fact that the offense isn't emotional. God is emotional to the extent that our sin grieves him in the way we would sense that I would grieve you if I said something offensive to you. It's a different kind of offense. It's an offense of the truth of who God is. and the power of the spirit in our life, you know, in terms of his role. Yeah, Doug?

Could we say that we're out of fellowship? Sure. Yeah, out of fellowship is kind of the grieve and out of fellowship, you know, in a sense. We're sealed, but we're out of fellowship. Good. Okay. We okay to move on here? All right, let's turn to verse 31, and it says here, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor, and I've translated out of the New King James here to use slander rather than what evil speaking I think is what the New King James says, be put away from you along with all malice. We'll ignore that.

It's high, not low. Okay, so this verse reflects a principle that Christ's life noted earlier in the chapter. We kind of read, you know, learning Christ is what this is. And so this bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor all reflect the antithesis of the Christ's life. Ephesians 4, 3, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace.

So other than being rooted in the sin nature I mean, in other words, all these things are rooted in the sin nature. Let's kind of look at these individually. Bitterness. What do you think of when you think of bitterness? I'm giving you the answers here. You should have phased these in. I had to kind of modify this a little bit. This is again not like Doan's New Testament lexicon here.

The Greek definition of bitterness is intense hatred manifested by wickedness. But I kind of thought lasting resentment really is a kind of a bitter definition of bitterness. Somebody's bitter, that's kind of an ongoing attitude, isn't it? I mean... Like the man that shot the museum He's been bitter all his life. Bitter, bitter, bitter. So although bitterness could be a hatred and bitterness could be manifested by wickedness, I think a lasting resentment about something is kind of what drives the bitter spirit. I think usually bitterness hurts the bitter person extremely more than anyone else.

There's no question about that. That's the common... I mean, you're punishing yourself. because it's not punishing the other person. Now this shooter ended up punishing someone totally unrelated and innocent, but you don't often see that. That's a very rare thing. Normally it's mainly yourself, you know, and you're killing yourself physically and spiritually and mentally, you know, you're obsessed.

Well, this individual met all three criteria, didn't he, for bitterness? Intense hatred, lasting resentment, and he manifested this bitterness by wickedness. Now, there's no room for bitterness for the believer, is there? I mean, but my oldest, our oldest daughter is bitter. And cutting through that has been nigh impossible. And there's just no room for that. And it's not something you can do, it's God's work. It is, and it's tough knowing how to respond to that. Who is the receiver of that bitterness? Who's the receiver? Yeah, who's the receiver? If we are bitter, who is the receiver?

Besides ourselves. Well, we have to get rid of somebody. Yeah, it's everybody. Anyone she comes in contact with is part of that bitterness. But bitterness could be directed towards an individual and not necessarily a party. You think about bitterness as an act of the will where someone's hanging on to something, not letting go. And usually that's what leads to the healing. And typically it reflects disappointment or some sense of entitlement that was not fulfilled. I mean, again, I like the idea of lasting resentment because it builds up an attitude that is tough to cancel except at the cross, right? That's very true. What's that, Jeff? If you're saying bitterness about something, the truth of the matter is The method in which that gets resolved is, in the long run, the truth will come out.

And they will realize, well I've been wrong about this. That's the power of the spirit in the life of a believer. This is not an attitude of a believer. This is an attitude of that sinful nature that is surfacing here. But it's still, the thing you're bitter about is you're going to experience, the time will come when circumstances will dictate to you You were wrong.

Well, we pray that's true, Jack. I find that true so often, it's not funny. I think Jack made a key point there, and that is that we're wrong in our bitterness. The offense may have been real. Sure. The sin against us, ultimately against the Lord, may have been real, but that the bitterness that we hold, that's our sin. Really, it really is.

And I remember reading Corrie Ten Boom's biography years and years ago, and at one point, and this was, you know, 30 years after the war, someone came to her and said, you know, you're holding this grudge, you're very bitter about this. No, I'm not bitter. And she goes, I've got proof. And she ran into her bedroom and she started to bring back some documents and it just stopped her cold because she realized this person was absolutely something that she needed to just let go. Had it happened, sure, but did she need to carry the bitterness? Well, the bitterness is just an example of self being the focus, right?

I mean, it's totally about you and not about the Lord Jesus Christ, number one, or about anybody else, number two. It's just your perception. And by the way, remember, in Washington or in our own living rooms, perception is 100% true from the eyes of those who are being perceived. It's the perception of the individual that's most important. Yes?

There's a verse about, don't let a root of bitterness... root of bitterness. Yeah, where's that verse, Root of Bitterness, anybody recall where that verse is? Hebrews. Hebrews, okay. Somebody wants to look that up, that's fine. Let's go ahead. Wrath. Maybe Brad dealt with this last week. Brad, forgive me, I didn't get to your lesson last week.

Wrath, passion, anger, often reflecting indignation. Again, old man stuff, not part of the Christ line for sure. Anger, you know, wrath and anger seem the same, but I tried to figure this out if they are the same, and they're a bit different. I guess wrath has passion connected to it, and maybe anger is simply more impulsive, more temper related. It's a little bit different, but do you pick up any differences between wrath and anger? Clamor is really outcry. I mean, in a sense, it's anger plus wrath, making it publicly known.

And slander, obviously, we all know about that. And injurious speech to another's name. And the King James is incorrect the way it works is malice is just another one on the list if you look at the New American Standard. This is ill will and this really reaches the level of desiring to injure. So this is purposeful. Whereas many of these other things may be a little bit more subtle in terms of their manifestation. In Hebrews 12, 15, looking diligently, lest any man fail in the grace of God, lest any grit of bitterness springing up trouble you and therefore by many be defiled.

Read that one more time please. Looking diligently, well this is, I've got to read the context. Yeah, but why don't you read a verse. Yeah, read a verse or two into that. Okay, looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness bringing up trouble, trouble you, and therefore by many be defiled. And what was the context? I was talking for a while, let me read the verse, follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see God or the Lord. In verse 16, that would be verse 15, it talks about the root of bitterness and then he says, verse 16, lest there be any fornicator or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sowed his birthright. Okay. Alright, so there's the verse on the root of bitterness.

I think when we fail the grace of God, is living a life that eliminates his activity within us and trusting him. So we fail God by not trusting in all that he's done. Isn't that true? And that's where we offend the Holy Spirit again, the Spirit of Truth. Good, thanks. Alright, so these kind of build on one another, don't they?

I mean, kind of bitterness, you get resented and then you kind of get passionate about your bitterness and then ultimately you have flares of temper and you cry out. I mean, they don't have to, they're all sins of the flesh, but nevertheless, this is not the Christ life, for sure. It's amazing to me, and even going forward into Ephesians 5, how much repetition there is about this old sinful nature and the new life in Christ. You know, why would the Spirit spend so much time here?

And we're going to come to how to kind of put this behind us in terms of the way we respond to this challenge that the Scripture continues to present to us. Verse 32, And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God has forgiven you. So being kind to one another is kind of a Christ-like attribute.

In Romans 2.4, I like this verse for this, or do you despise the riches of his goodness? Same term, kindness, okay? Forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God, again, his kindness, leads you to repentance. Kind of interesting. Thinking of God's goodness is that kindness we're to be giving one another. I mean, I think of God's goodness, goodness, how kind do I have to be? How you doing at it, by the way? Being kind to one another. Isn't that a fruit of the Spirit? Absolutely. Absolutely. And the Spirit, in fact, is the only way this gets accomplished. It's not on our own power or strength that this ends up happening.

Tender-hearted, compassionate, Define compassion. What's compassion? To suffer with. Okay. And how's that manifested? I think when we come alongside and someone's grief or hardship. Okay. And what's a good preface to compassion in the life of a believer? Love the woman more. I'm sorry? Love the woman more. Well, right.

But, you know, experientially, what's the ultimate and compassionate attitude? I'm sure it's the Christ life, but I mean... Well, when you've been through trials yourself... Margaret's got it. And you can really be compassionate because you've walked in those shoes. Yeah. And I can't tell you how many times people have crossed my path and just lost, you know, a spouse or something. And, you know, having been there and done that, you get their attention a little bit more. That wouldn't have been my choice.

Praise God that he's used that to his glory, I trust. Wayne. And that's coming from knowing who we are in Christ. Because then we can understand where this other person come in and understanding the old man and how it resides there. We can, we can certainly be, I mean certainly should be forgiving because we can understand knowing that where they're coming from. That's how we can come alongside. It kind of eliminates a lot of this psychology and all this kind of stuff to try and confide in that person. And it's important to keep in mind that you know Christ wept. over the loss of Lazarus, correct?

And yet he's eternal. And Christ knew his position. So that's the challenge to us as believers. We always grasp on to our heavenly citizenship. And these trials and tribulations that bring compassion one for another really are seeded in the truth of who we are in Christ and eternally placed, sealed by the redemption of the Holy Spirit.

Wonderful, okay. Forgiving one another. Present, passive, participle. What do you make of that here? What does this tense indicate here? Forgiving one another. Present meaning now. Participle is a way to express a thought, the act of it happening. What about passive? What's passive here? Are we passive? Or is the person who's being forgiven passive? I guess that's both. Come on, Brad. Onward. So think out loud here a little bit. Why could it be both? And by the way, I'm not quite sure. So let's just discuss this for a second. I found this kind of interesting. Forgiving one another.

It's described as a present passive participle. Usually passive is something that's done to you, right? If you're reading this from your perspective. But the one being forgiven seems passive here because he or she is the one who's in fact offended you. They're receiving. They're receiving by no act of their own, correct? Right. this clearly could relate to that one being forgiven, but why might it even pertain to you?

You're forgiving and that's a passive act. Yeah. Because our forgiveness is only because we are forgiven. Beautiful. Loving. I really like that. Now, how the Greek scholars would interpret that, I'm not sure. Even as Christ has forgiven you, that's in the verse. And you know, in Christ, how could you behave alternatively? I'll tell you, carrying grudges as believers, there's just no room for that. No room at all. It's kind of like bitterness. No room for that either.

Yeah, Bill? It's interesting when you look at this passage. One of the key verses in it is, Paul explains the reason why for this behavior, the contrast between what we used to be and what we are. And he talks about it in verse 25, for we are, it's an explanation the word for, we are remembering one of another. Thanks for taking us back there, that's great.

When you stop to think of how we treat one another, the grieving of the Holy Spirit, sometimes we promote bitterness. We promote by the way we ignore people, by the way we treat people, by the way we ignore I think we actually grieve the Holy Spirit when we don't love one another as Christ loved us. One another, members of one another. And so when I look at our practice of our position, working out of it mentally, putting on who we are and recognizing that Christ did for all of us what he did for each one of us he did equally. It's really an incredible offense to God when we realize what He's done for all of us, not just some of us.

And I think that a lot of times we're guilty as a member of a body or a group by the way we treat one another and actually we're doing it not even knowing it. I see this all the time. I do it. I'll ignore somebody or I won't gravitate toward them. When there are members, one of another, we would never treat our body like that. Nor would Christ treat his body like that. So I think when we read this context, it's very crucial that the activity that was going on in the Ephesians, even though they knew a lot, their practice was really sad.

Well, Bill, I'll take you back to what I emphasized at the very beginning. They had not so learned Christ. There's the defect. Jeremy, one point and then I'll get to you. The church that I was a member of, prior to coming here, was a church in which this section of scripture was being taught. And the teacher, who by the way requires some prayer at this point because he's dying of cancer, but a fine guy, really.

I mean, he wasn't purposely trying to lead us astray, but he didn't see this at all. He had no, no clue what the Christ's life is. He thought it was our responsibility to put these things off and be working at them. That was one of the last Sunday school classes Sharon and I ever attended.

But anyway, so Jeremy, your point, please. even as God and Christ forgave you. Paul can say that, and end of argument, Christ has forgiven you. We don't have any right or any basis as believers to do anything other than forgive one another, because everything we do in our life is based on what Christ did, and that ends it. And that forgiveness is not a feeling. It's seeded in truth of who we are in Christ.

And Bill, thanks for the lead-in. In fact, you set it up. Can I say one more thing? Oh, yeah. I don't want to throw a monkey wrench in everyone's thinking. Monkey wrench, if I know how to use one of those. In that verse, be kind one to another, tender hearted, the word forgiving is not in the original text. Yeah, that's right. It's the word gracing. Gracing. Yeah. Good. It's not forgiving. It's a different word. When you look up the word forgiving, Christ forgave us the word forgive on the cross. Forgive them father for they know not what they do. It's not the word forgiving here.

It's the word grace. And it's a reflexive pronoun when it says yourselves. It says here, gracing yourselves as individuals as God treated you to treat others. By recognizing what God did for you is the way you will treat. And that's what he's really saying here. He's not saying forgiving one another because we're already forgiven in our position. Now act like it. Live like, treat one another by gracing them with the same grace that God graced us with.

And so it's not the word forgiving, so I don't want to put a monkey wrench in here. Well, no, I appreciate that. I missed that. You know, the references I have turned to the word forgiveness elsewhere in the text. So I probably missed something there. So thank you for bringing that up.

The point I wanted to leave the group with on this verse is remember at the foot of the cross everybody is equal here. No one is deserving and everyone by faith receives. So it's a great way to be looking at ourselves as we look at others in terms of the forgiveness that's so mandatory for the Christ life to be manifested in our lives. When God looks upon the believer, he sees the son. And we need to see one another as brothers and sisters, right? Part of the same family.

Yeah, Doug. Back at Luke. Luke 6, 37? Yeah, move it that way. Go ahead. You got that. I was going to go before that. Be either merciful as your father, or as your mother. He's got 37. You're going to use that now. I won't. Oh no, no. Just please read it. Please.

That was one of the verses I referred to when I said... Judge not, and ye shall not be judged. Condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned. Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven. Yeah. If you think of forgiveness, I mean, that's both an act of mercy and grace, is it not? I mean, in a sense, being forgiven by God is not giving us what we deserve, but grace is giving us, you know, even beyond that, right? You know, so mercy is just due. Grace goes beyond mercy in terms of what God provides for us.

All right, turning to Ephesians 5 now, and I thought the first two verses fit best with this lesson. We'll let Randy pick it up at verse 3 next week. Therefore, be imitators of God as dear children. Therefore, always, you know, J. Vernon, therefore means what's it there for, and therefore takes you back, you know, Ephesians 4.32, the verse we just read, and takes you forward into 5.2, and we'll look at that in a second.

What's this imitators-followers stuff? Walk where Jesus walked? following his footsteps in the sand, we put our footsteps in. What would Jesus do? My question to the class, how are you doing here? Imitators or followers, let's take a look at this. 1 Thessalonians 5, chapter 1, 5 through 7, I think is a nice text here. Let's look at this very, very carefully. For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance, as you know what kind of men we were among you for your sake. And you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction with joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became examples to all in Macedonia and Achaia who believe." So, what do we take of that text in terms of examples or imitators or followers?

Is this kind of a head act of saying, gee, you know, this is what you need to do, so go do it? When Paul says, be an imitator of me in my walk, what's he saying? He's saying I'm doing good stuff here? I want you to do all this good stuff? No, he definitely qualifies it with, as I imitate God, as I walk.

Yeah, and I think here we're seeing a number of examples within the text that I've bolded. This is a gospel that came not only in word but in power and in the Holy Spirit and what kind of men we were, those who were new creations in Christ Jesus. I mean, you know, you could expand on this. This could be the next three months a lesson in its own right, right? We could deal with this text for three months and look at how all these manifestations of God's working in the believer reflects a new nature. So anyway, this imitators isn't do as Jesus would do. This is the walk by faith in the new man by the power of the Spirit. So what's the purpose of the Spirit?

Bible 101. Thank you. Cheryl, you're on top of the class here. John 16, 14, he will glorify me for he will take of what is mine and declare it unto you. I mean, of course, that text is much more robust than that. I mean the purpose, if you had to answer with one question, what's the purpose of the Holy Spirit, it's in fact to reveal the Christ nature in each and every one of us. And then of course the Spirit does so many other things, but it's all reflecting the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen?

Alright, notice this, as dear children, this is Technon, small children, and what do dear little children do? Well, they're supposed to anyway. They seek to do like their father. Right, Alan? Plenty of practice. The most practiced father in the room back there. I think it's kind of neat that it's dear children. These are small children, children that would tend to be looking up to dad or mom, in fact, and following their ways. It's kind of a nice way of expressing that.

Verse two, and walk in love as Christ, and remember the title of today's lesson is walking in love. That's the bottom line here. Walk in love as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma. How do you walk? And remember we've defined that in here before. What's the walk? It's how one conducts one's life or one's self. How do we walk in love? Well, this is the way we walk, it's Christ also has loved us and given himself for us.

So let's look at those three parts that are described in the verse. Offering would be best interpreted as a gift or a sacrifice. It's interesting, sacrifice is in the same verse, but it's a different word. And here, best translated is victim. So a gift could be a sacrifice, I mean an offering could be a sacrifice, but it could be simply a gift.

Look at the Old Testament. Plenty of gifts that were not a dead animal, right? Grains of the field, etc. So that is a broader term in terms of an offering, a gift or a sacrifice, but the sacrifice here is a blood-based victim. So the animal in the Old Testament, the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

And I thought sweet-smelling aroma was kind of nice. I've said here, a sweet odor spoken of the smell of sacrifices and obligations agrees with the notion that God smells and is pleased with the odor of sacrifices. And I picked out two verses for this. Right after the flood, God said, and the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth, nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.

And look at this, 2 Corinthians 2.15, we are a wonderful fragrance of Christ moving through this earth.

So, yeah, Jeremy, I don't know how this is relevant, but probably not. Like psychologists say, smell is one of the most powerful senses associated with memory. You smell something. It's going to bring back memories from 34 years ago more than any other sense. It's a sweet smelling savor and it just kind of reminds me that that's connected with his memory of this is what I promised and this is what I'm going to do.

I don't know whether God smells or not but it's kind of interesting to reflect on the fact that even after the flood he smelled a sweet aroma. Nancy. The second Corinthians verse is both wonderful and horrible at the same time. Like it or not, you're smelling wonderfully to God.

Yeah, you know, the same aroma, and I think we all can relate to this. Some people smell something cooking, a curry, for instance, and it's, oh, isn't that wonderful? Doesn't that smell good? And another person will smell it and say, ew, that makes me sick. And it's the fragrance of Christ to other believers is a sweet aroma and something wonderful to those who are perishing. Isn't this such a tragedy that that sweet aroma of Christ is horrible to them.

Nice point. Anybody want to add anything to that? Nancy said it all. I think God uses lots of analogies so we'll understand what he's written for us. So we'll get a clue, at least. And I think this aroma, this sweet aroma, So we'll get a clue, because we are very dependent on our sense of smell. That's a good point. You know when you don't smell the food, it doesn't taste as good too. So you can put that into a very earthly analogy.

2 Corinthians 2.15 is such an uplifting verse. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. Remember, it's his perception, not ours. We're not a matter of keeping track how we're doing here. We need to see ourselves as that sweet fragrance of Christ to the Lord.

How are you doing here, this walking in love? What does it look like? Yes. When you're walking in love, what does it look like? Other than an unsafe person. How do you compare a nice, generous, unsafe person who's kind, gentle, and so many of them are better than Christians. Just being real, that's all, I know. How do you define divine love, agape love, in this context?

What does it look like? When I see something like this that makes my spiritual nostril, you might say, the smell of it, What am I looking at? When I come to church or associate with other believers, what am I looking at? What do I see? Do I see somebody better than nice?

I know people that are nice. I know people who are unsaved, who are kind. I know people who are unsaved, who are generous. I know people who are unsaved, who are forgiving. I know people, and so do you. Now, what am I looking for? When it comes to agape love, which is the highest form of love, in this context, what am I looking at? You know, Bill, I would also say too, but you don't have the same fellowship. Even if the believer, I mean, I don't know, we've traveled, and I know you have traveled too, but when you run into believers, even if you don't know them, it's really interesting how you have a fellowship that cuts through the niceness and all of that stuff, you do, you're able to, I don't know how to explain it, but you do have a fellowship that is not there with nice unbelievers.

I think Bill made a very, very important point here, because just to look at the human behavior may or may not be able for you to reach any conclusions about the source of that life. Because a lot of people are deceived by it. You're absolutely correct. They are, because you take them more than them. We could go to a Mormon place and have people who are Mormon, the nicest people ever. They are very nice people. And they just, because of that deception, that they don't even know, they've led others into their own deception.

I'm going to tie into Margaret a little bit in what she said, because there's a fellowship around the Lord Jesus Christ that exists that cuts through just nice works. And to know that would require a conversation. It would require more than just observing the work. I think we see good works and we applaud them, but are we applauding the power of the self? or the power of the spirit.

It's not our job to really judge the source of those works. We have to, I think, learn more about where they're coming from. It's not our job to be the judges here. We perceive, try to make conclusions, and move on. Because if we walk in Christ, we're not in a position to necessarily be measuring the fruits of somebody else's behavior. Other thoughts, Jeremy?

That is a yawn. So the question to the class is how are you doing here and what happens when you work on being more lovely? You fail. So it really is true. This is not something you purpose to. I'm going to love more people in a better way here kind of deal. It just doesn't make it. So the final question today, and we're going to provide some answers here.

So what do we need to do as believers in terms of this Christ life that walks in love? And Bill, this is I think helpful just positionally, but it reflects our condition. Rest. Begin with rest. You're fully accepted in the beloved. You must accept the fact that God no longer sees your sin. He no longer sees your sin nature. Believe. To rest you need to believe first, but I think the order here reflects the walk. Rest, believe, and what's the belief in?

What God has revealed and promised. But what about the walk? What has God revealed? that were new creations in Christ Jesus. And he's positioned us to carry out the walk by the power of our faith. I mean, the power of the Spirit working through our faith. And the third thing is keep looking down. I think citizenship is so relevant to God's love. I mean, we have to sense that security of who we are in Christ. Rest and believe that that power of him will work through us to bring across the new nature. and keep looking down, because that's where our home is. It's not looking down on other people.

It's looking down positionally in terms of having our condition increasingly become our position. Many verses fit here, but for me, to live is Christ. and die is gain. It's not working at it. It's a life. And Bill, I wish I had a simpler answer. I think in a sense, though, aren't we looking down on our believers, not in a bad sense? Well, I mean, from our position, we look down on them. We look not in a bad sense, but we're looking at them in Christ. Perfect. Well said. Thanks. That's a good way to put it. Everybody. Yes, Carol. One comment on, you know, looking at people who are displaying all these lovely attributes of love and concern and so on.

To me, the difference between the ones who are saved and the ones who aren't is the rest. Are they working or resting? And you will know the difference. Keep in mind that it's not what you do, it's who you are. And once you know who you are, then what you do is an evidence of who you are. It's learning Christ. And that's truly the bottom line of Christian life, learning Him. And responding to Him by faith. That He's in the business of transforming us into the image of His Son. And that's the walk of love.

And you know, we're all going to fall short. I mean, we have this old nature that pleases self. And when we fall short, the spirit convicts us and we ask for forgiveness or confess. I mean, you know, the believer is secure. Our fellowship with him gets broken by our own self-centeredness, but yet we're free to go to him and move on in Christ's way. And part of that rest is understanding that that's an ongoing thing.

It just doesn't happen like that. So we don't need to be dredging have done that. We need to rest in the fact that we're learning. Great. Alan, close us in prayer, would you please? Father, thank you for this time to give us where we can study your word. Thank you that it's your life, not ours. We live because of Christ and what he did for us.