Amen.
Thank you, James.
I hope you all enjoyed that song.
You'll have a chance to sing it yourselves after the sermon.
So, we look forward to that.
I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July.
Maybe you got as crazy as we did.
The cops ended up at my house at the house at the house at the house at the house at
the house at the house at the house at the house at the house at the house at the house
We did.
The cops ended up at my house last night.
Just kidding, they were next door, actually.
I think our neighbors, they waited until all the rain stopped at about 1230 to shoot off
all their fireworks.
And so, there was a sleeping preacher who was woken up.
So, I hope that your night went better than mine did last night.
I'm excited to open God's Word with you.
If you will look at Ephesians chapter 4, we'll be considering verses 25 through 32 this morning.
Ephesians 4, 25 through 32.
As you turn there, let me tell you, this is our last week in chapter 4 of Ephesians.
You may recall that Will spent the past two weeks talking about verses 17 through 32,
and the summary was this.
There was the old way, there is the new way, and we have all of these gospel kingdom-minded
motivations.
Paul says, because of how the gospel has changed your life, you now put on the new self, and
you now respond.
You take up the calling in which you have been called.
As we conclude this section, Will and I thought it would be helpful to spend a week talking
particularly about verse 30, as it talks about grieving the Holy Spirit.
I was the one lucky enough to get the verse on grieving the Holy Spirit.
I really am excited, though, and look forward to sharing God's Word with you as we will focus
on verse 30.
The Holy Spirit's not something that we talk about very often.
We don't talk about it very often.
One, because there aren't many verses on the Holy Spirit, and two, the ones that are there
are often difficult passages like this one.
So I want to talk about our passage, but I also want to speak big picture about the Holy
Spirit this morning as well.
So look with me at Ephesians chapter 4.
We'll go back and start in verse 25 and go through verse 32.
Look at God's Word with me.
Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for
we are members 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.
Will you pray with me?
Father, you tell us that the flowers fade, but your Word stands forever.
And so, Father, we claim that promise this morning, that as we consider your Word this
morning, that it might not fade, that it might carry with great power into our hearts and
our lives.
And Father, as we even consider the Holy Spirit, would you offer us your Holy Spirit this morning?
That your Holy Spirit would be a teacher, that your Holy Spirit would be a guide to us as
we consider this book, the book of Ephesians, the promises of Paul.
So be with us now, Father.
Guide us and keep us during this time.
Pray these things in your heavenly Son's name.
Amen.
One of my professors in seminary was memorable for saying lots of things.
There were lots of things that Jack Collins was known for saying.
The class where he was most famous for saying famous things was Covenant Theology.
It was the introductory course that all first-year students at Covenant Seminary take.
And it was the class where the professors, it was four of them, they taught it together.
And they took these entering students who were on top of the spiritual world.
They thought they had it all figured out.
And they put their theological world totally out of balance.
They took everything that you thought you knew, and they pointed out your presuppositions.
They pointed out your weaknesses.
And they ultimately pointed out all the things that you didn't know.
They were there to knock you down a notch.
One of the things that Jack Collins was famous for saying was,
Don't hear what I'm not saying.
I think it originated from his impatience.
I think it came out of some of his disgust from students who would take giant leaps from
one thing he said about a particular passage and draw all kinds of other conclusions.
Don't hear what I'm not saying was the warning from Jack Collins all the time.
It was a reminder to us to stay focused, to remember what we knew to be true about the
subject at hand.
Don't start drawing all kinds of crazy conclusions.
Don't hear what I'm not saying.
Dr. Collins knew from working with young seminarians that it was the habit of our eager hearts and
minds to want to believe things that weren't actually in the text, that weren't actually there.
And if I may, I believe that Paul would probably be saying the same thing to us this morning
as we consider verse 32 about the Holy Spirit.
Don't hear what I'm not saying would be the warning of Paul.
He says,
Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption, but
stop.
Do not hear what I'm not saying.
As we consider the passage this morning, we understand that there's a lot that the Bible
teaches about the Holy Spirit, and we must be careful to not hear what the passage isn't
saying.
Sayings like these, that we grieve the Spirit, that we affect the Holy Spirit, can lead us
to hear things that are not in the text.
So I want us just to slow down a little bit, and I want us to start there.
Let's start there by talking about what this passage doesn't say.
So if you want to start taking notes, start there.
Here's what the passage doesn't say.
What this passage doesn't say about the Holy Spirit.
The first is this.
The passage does not say that grieving and blaspheming are the same.
If you're like me, you hear this passage, you read about the grieving of the Holy Spirit,
and your mind immediately goes to Jesus' words about blaspheming the Spirit.
And you start to get confused, and you think, oh no, I don't want to…
Paul's saying don't blaspheme the Spirit.
That's what he's saying.
I don't want to get caught up in this, what did Jesus call it?
Blaspheming was the unforgivable sin, right?
Look with me at Mark chapter 3.
These are Jesus' words.
He says this,
In Mark chapter 3, Jesus is speaking about a much different act towards the Holy Spirit
than the grieving that Paul is talking about here.
We're not going to consider Mark chapter 3 entirely this morning.
I'm not going to do it justice.
But you need to know that what Jesus was referring to here was a flagrant, willful, decisive judgment
that the Spirit's testimony came from Satan.
That the Spirit's testimony was untrue.
Jesus is explaining that all those who have this persistent, unrepentant denial of the Holy Spirit
will not experience forgiveness.
The word that Jesus uses for blaspheming is entirely different.
It has a different context.
It was spoken by a different person.
It comes from a different biblical author,
and therefore it has a much different meaning than what Paul is talking about here in chapter 4.
It's also worth noting that many Christians fear from Mark chapter 3 that they themselves might blaspheme the Spirit.
This concern, this consideration actually shows a sensitivity to the Spirit,
and it's evidence that you're not blaspheming the Spirit.
So if that's in the back of your mind somewhere, please know that.
Please know that if you're sensitive to blaspheming the Spirit,
you're not actually blaspheming the Spirit.
You have good judgment.
You're considering your own heart.
Paul's word choice, though, his word choice in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 30
is one that means to be made sad, to be made sorrowful,
to affect with grief or to make one uneasy.
This definition, along with Paul's whole context, makes these very different ideas.
Grieving is not blaspheming.
As we grieve the Spirit, which Paul knows that we will,
he anticipates it by talking about it,
we are doing something very different than what Jesus spoke about in Mark chapter 3.
Paul is not saying that grieving is blaspheming.
The second thing that Paul is not saying is that we can affect our relationship with the Father.
He's not saying that we can affect our relationship with the Father.
We're going to talk a little bit more in a moment about our actions,
both of our head and our hearts that grieve the Spirit,
but we must first remove from our minds any idea that we can change or affect the standing that we have with the Father.
Paul is not saying that we can affect our relationship with the Father.
This is true for a number of reasons.
The first is that the entire book of Ephesians so far doesn't support that idea.
The entire book of Ephesians so far is founded upon, rooted in,
the fact that we have received God's grace through Christ,
and that we are eternally sealed by that.
As Paul talks about us grieving the Spirit,
it's not in contradiction to what he's talked about already about grace.
Paul knows that we are sealed by the Father.
We are forever sons and daughters,
and there's nothing that we can do to change that relationship.
There's also a biblical precedent for grieving the Holy Spirit.
Paul had in mind Isaiah 63.
It was in clear view when he wrote this passage,
and in Isaiah 63, the people of God are described the exact same way,
as grieving the Holy Spirit.
They've grieved the Holy Spirit through their disobedience.
It was this common pattern of God's people to return to their sin again and again, right?
And the Scripture tells us that God was saddened,
that He was sorrowful,
that He grieved when the people of God returned to their sin.
We can't miss the clear indication and the significance of the fact that our sins do affect the Father,
but they do not affect our relationship with the Father.
This description of rebelling against God in Isaiah is couched, however,
you need to understand, between two declarations of God's love.
It's couched by two declarations of God's love.
Look with me at Isaiah 63, beginning in verse 7.
It says this,
I will recount the steadfast love of the Lord,
the praises of the Lord according to all that the Lord has granted us,
and the great goodness to the house of Israel,
according to the abundance of His steadfast love.
For He said,
Surely they are My people,
children who will not deal falsely.
And He became their Savior.
In all their affliction, He was afflicted,
and the angel of His presence saved them in His love,
and in His pity, He redeemed them.
He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.
God's love is offered again and again and again.
His spirit grieves, but then listen to what comes next.
In verse 11,
Then He remembered the days of old, of Moses and His people.
Where is He who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of His flock?
Where is He who put in the midst of them His Holy Spirit,
who caused His glorious arm to go at the right hand of Moses,
who divided the waters before them to make for Himself an everlasting name?
The proclamation is there.
The message is clear.
God's love never stops pursuing you.
Even in His grief,
there's nothing that will change your relationship with the Father.
Just as God does not want us to walk in sin,
He also does not want us to ever forget His love and His redemption.
Many can perceive these accounts from the Old Testament,
even Ephesians chapter 4,
read them on their own,
and consider God as having this overriding sentiment
of looking over your shoulder with shame.
He looks over your shoulder, shaking His head.
He can't believe what you've done.
No.
The Father stands in front of you,
and He smiles,
and He says,
You are my son,
and you are my daughter.
I grieve your sin,
but it does not change your standing with me.
The reality of God's grievance
cannot be separated from the truth of His unconditional love.
The prophet Isaiah did not lose sight of it.
The apostle Paul did not lose sight of it.
We cannot lose sight of the unchanging love that God has for us.
Don't hear Paul saying that we can affect our relationship with the Father.
The third thing that we don't need to hear,
that we can't hear in this passage,
is that human emotion is equivalent to divine emotion.
That human emotion is equivalent to divine emotion.
What I mean when I say that is this.
We must be able to separate our own understanding of an emotion as expressed
between sinful human beings
and how it's expressed from a holy and perfect God.
Something similar to this would be our understanding from the Bible of God's jealousy,
of His wrath,
of His anger.
It's difficult for us to imagine a holy expression of those emotions
when we so often only understand an expression of those emotions
as it's affected by the fall, right?
For many of us,
our experience of our wrongdoing,
when we've sinned,
when we disobeyed,
with our heavenly parents,
it was reflected in a removal of affection.
Maybe there was shame.
Maybe there was abuse when you got out of line.
Maybe your identity became your sin in that moment.
Or perhaps,
although you had very loving,
very well-intentioned parents,
you still struggled all through your childhood,
and even today,
to separate your behavior
from the verdict of what Jesus says about you.
In our sinful state,
and in our broken world,
we often create a version of God
that's flawed and incorrect.
Blaise Pascal said that
God created man in His own image,
and man returned the favor.
We must not create a version of God
whose expression of emotions
directly mirrors ours
as ours are flawed and imperfect.
The grievance of God
doesn't always look like the grievance of man.
The grievance of God is perfect,
it's holy,
it's pure.
Its motives are without flaw,
and its intentions are always good,
and right.
And so Paul does not want us
to hear him saying
that human emotions
are directly reflected
in divine emotions.
If these are the things,
then, that Paul doesn't want us
to hear him saying,
what do we hear him saying?
What is actually true?
How do we then respond?
You want to know,
okay, Chad, I got it.
How do I not grieve the Spirit?
How do I respond
to the Spirit appropriately?
Here's what you do.
The first,
Paul wants you to understand
that your actions
do impact God's Spirit.
That's the truth.
Your actions
do impact God's Spirit.
The actions of your heart,
of your mind,
of your hands
do indeed
impact God's Spirit.
But this is challenging
for us, right?
It's challenging for us
because it's hard
for us to imagine
that something
that we would do
would affect
God's heart, right?
It feels almost
contradictory for us
to think about
the Holy Spirit,
the Holy Spirit
who seals us
in redemption,
Paul tells us,
who binds us together
in love,
who gives us
a new birth,
who we dwell
in intimacy with,
that that same Spirit
we could cause
to grieve,
that we could cause
that same Spirit
to be sad.
Paul confirms for us
that this is indeed
true,
that our actions
do matter.
But let's consider it
in the analogy
of a parent
and a child.
Think of your own
children.
Think about when
your children sin
or when they disobey.
When they depart
from the way
in which you have
called them to walk in,
how do your hearts respond?
Your hearts are grieved,
right?
You're saddened.
When my daughter
sinfully acts
out towards her brother,
towards her mother,
towards her friends,
I'm saddened
that her heart
has led her
to these actions.
But does that sin
change the way
that I feel
about my daughter?
Absolutely not.
Do I love her less
because she has sinned?
Absolutely not.
But am I grieved
over the fact
that she's a sinner,
that she still sins?
Yes, I am.
These things are not
in contradiction
with each other.
They can actually
live together,
that God can grieve
our sin,
but still never
stop loving us.
This is the correct view
of the divine emotion
that we should consider
from Ephesians.
Just as we never
stop loving our children
in their sin,
even more so,
the Father never,
ever stops loving us,
even as He has grieved
over our sin.
Can you imagine
a father who didn't care
if we sinned?
Can you imagine
if He was so checked out
from our relationship
that our sins
didn't matter to Him?
Actually,
His grievance,
His saddening
over our sin
is an expression
of His love, right?
It's because He cares.
He wants us to walk
as followers of Him.
That's what Paul's
reminding us of.
Our hands and our hearts
produce sin
in such a way
that God is affected
with sadness.
it's affected
because His children,
His children
are not walking
in the way
in which He has called them.
But what's also encouraging
southward
is that the opposite
is true.
That when we do walk
in obedience,
the Spirit is encouraged.
When we walk
in obedience,
the Spirit is encouraged
and lifted up.
God's kingdom
moves forward
as we honor
and obey the Spirit.
So the opposite
is also true.
Just as we can grieve
the Spirit with our sin,
we can lift the Spirit up
in our obedience.
This begs the question then,
what does it look like
to obey?
Specifically from this passage then,
what does it look like
to obey?
There's lots of speculation
about whether Paul
intended for this
to be a standalone statement,
whether Paul intended
for this to be tied
with the rest of the verses.
I'm actually going to go
both ways.
I'm going to say yes.
All right?
So Paul had some things
to say that particularly
applied to this passage,
and it was these things.
That God desires
our obedience
as we are sensitive
to truthfulness
and integrity.
That God desires
obedience to the Spirit
as we respond
to each other
appropriately
in our anger.
God cares about us
doing honest work.
God cares about us
being sensitive
to wholesome talk
coming from our mouths.
God is sensitive
to our hearts
being ruled
by love
and gentleness.
He's sensitive
that all malice,
all slander,
all wrath,
all bitterness
be put away.
So the verses
that are surrounding
this passage
all apply.
Those are ways
to lift up
and encourage the Spirit.
But if we look
at the bigger picture
of Paul's message
in Ephesians,
what has he been telling us
about over and over again?
Unity.
That one of the greatest ways
that you honor the Spirit,
that you lift up the Spirit,
is in your unity.
Paul's warning
is that as we
walk in the way
of our old self,
as we indulge
in our sin,
particularly those
of deception,
theft,
but especially those
that disrupt our unity,
when we do those things,
we are grieving
the Spirit.
One commentator explains
that everything
that is incompatible
with the purity
and the unity
of the church
is incompatible
with the Spirit's
own nature.
Incompatible
with the Spirit's
own nature.
And so because of that,
it's going to naturally
sadden the Spirit
when we don't have unity.
Sins which disrupt
the communal life,
which disrupt
our connection
as the body of Christ,
are in opposition
to the work
of the Spirit.
Because when we are unified,
God's kingdom
can move forward.
When we are unified
as the church,
God's kingdom
moves forward.
The final thing
that we will consider
about the Spirit,
what Paul does tell us
about the Spirit
is this,
and don't miss this.
When we respond
in obedience,
when we honor
the Spirit in obedience,
we do so
as saved
and redeemed people.
When we respond
to the Spirit,
we do so as saved
and redeemed people.
The second clause
of this verse
cannot be separated
from the first clause.
That as we grieve
the Spirit in our disobedience,
the second clause
reminds us of what?
That we were sealed
for the day of redemption.
Paul's creating
two big markers in time,
and he's saying
when you were sealed,
when you were saved,
when you came to
a saving knowledge
of Christ,
the payment for your sin
was forever paid,
and you are now
sealed for heaven.
But then he says
there's also coming
a day of redemption
where your bodies
will receive final redemption
and consummation.
So Paul's establishing
a marker in time
when you were saved,
and then he's establishing
a marker in time
when full consummation,
redemption will happen.
And he says
you live in between
those two markers.
That as you grieve
the Spirit,
you live in between
those two markers,
but don't forget
those two markers.
Don't forget
that as you obey,
you do so as people
who were saved
and people who
were being redeemed.
As we're challenged
not to grieve
the Spirit,
we are reminded
that we live
as people
who are already saved,
beloved,
and who are promised
full redemption.
Southwood,
we cannot miss
the importance
of the gospel
as we consider
how sin
impacts God's Spirit.
To better understand
this message
of God's love,
I want you to hear
from a friend of mine.
He's not actually
a friend.
I wish he was my friend,
and you'll find out
in a minute.
His name is
Brennan Manning.
He's written
a whole host of books.
I would recommend
every book
that he's written.
The video that you're
going to see
was a sermon
that he gave,
and it's not in HD.
The sound quality
is not great,
but that's part of
what I love about it.
It's an unpolished message
about the gospel of grace,
and he says it far better
than I ever will,
so I'd like for you
to hear it from him.
Y'all watch with me.
If you'd like to benefit
most from the worship
this morning,
I would suggest
that from this moment
until you put your head
in the pillow tonight,
you know that the focus
of your inner life
rests on one truth,
the staggering,
mind-blowing truth
that God loves you
just as you are
and not as you should be
because nobody in this building
is as they should be.
That God loves you,
not the person next to you,
not that God loves
Billy Graham,
Mother Teresa,
not that God loves
the church,
the world,
not that God loves
in some vague way
the whole human race,
but the truth
that God loves you
in such a way
that he'd rather die
than be without you.
Isn't it difficult
to believe you're worth
the death of anyone?
Least of all,
the all-holy God.
This moment,
do you truly believe
that God loves you
unconditionally
as you are
and not as you should be?
Do you?
You know,
I've never asked a Christian
in 20 years,
do you believe God loves you?
He's not replied,
oh yeah, yeah.
I've known that quite a while.
In fact,
I've known that since childhood.
And watch the way they live.
Lives of anxiety,
fear,
shame,
guilt,
low self-esteem,
remorse,
self-condemnation,
and self-hatred.
Oh,
they believe that God
loves you in some vague,
distant, abstract way,
but they'd be hard-pressed
to say that right now
the essence
of their Christian life
is a love affair,
and not just a simple
love affair,
but what G.K.
justin' called
a furious
love affair
going on
between Christ themselves
at this very moment.
Do you honestly believe
that with all the wrong turns
you made in your past,
the mistakes,
the detours,
the moments of sin,
selfishness,
dishonesty,
and degraded love,
that God has used them all
to bring them
where you are right now,
and the word says
you are standing
on holy ground?
This moment,
do you honestly believe
that God loves you
beyond worthiness
and unworthiness,
beyond fidelity
and infidelity,
that he loves you
in the morning sun
and the evening rain
without caution,
regret,
boundary,
limit,
breaking point,
no matter what's gone down,
he can't stop loving you.
If you don't fully trust that,
you're living a life
of illusion,
superstition,
cowardice,
you're projecting
onto Jesus
your own hateful feelings
toward yourself,
assuming he feels about you
the way you feel about you,
and thus you're worshipping
a God of human manufacturing,
a God who does not exist.
There is one God
of the Christian vision,
the God revealed
by and in Jesus Christ,
who this moment
walks directly to your seat,
looks you straight
in the eye,
and says,
I have a word for you.
I know your whole life story.
I know every skeleton
in your closet.
I know every moment
of sin,
shame,
dishonesty,
and degraded love
that has darkened
your past.
Right now,
I know your shallow faith,
your feeble prayer life,
your inconsistent discipleship.
Nothing is hidden
from my eyes,
and my word is this.
I dare you to trust
that I love you
as you are,
and not as you should be,
because you're never
going to be
as you should be.
Isn't that powerful?
this powerful truth?
At this moment,
do you truly believe
that God loves you
unconditionally?
At this moment,
do you believe
that God loves you
despite all your failure,
all your doubt,
all your wrongdoing,
all your lying,
your cheating,
your stealing,
your lust,
your degraded love,
your impure motives?
Do you believe
that God loves you
so much
that He can't
stop
pursuing you?
Do you believe
that Jesus
looks at you
and says,
I love you
as you are,
not as you should be,
because you're never
going to be
as you should be?
Brothers and sisters,
our text is telling us
that we live
in this place
where God loves us
just as we are,
not as we should be,
because until that day
of final redemption,
we're never going to be
as we should be.
We're going to continue
to live
as sinful beings
in a broken world,
but God loves you
as you are,
not as you should be.
There are lots of things
that my daughter
can do wrong.
There are plenty of sins
which her heart
is capable of.
She can lie,
she can cause me pain,
she can hurt others
with her words,
she can disrespect,
she can quickly grow
impatient and disobedient.
Each of these things
saddens and grieves me
as her father,
but you know
what grieves me the most?
What hurts my heart
the most
is when she forgets
how much I love her.
My heart is most broken
when my daughter
is led to believe
that her sin
will alter
how I feel about her
or that her sin
says something different
about who she is
besides being
my beloved child.
My heart is most broken
when she does not believe
that she is eternally loved.
This Southwood
is the thing
which I think grieves
the Holy Spirit
the most.
When we refuse
to believe
or we forget
that we are forgiven,
that we are sealed,
that we are covered
in Christ's blood
so that the all-holy God
will never leave us
nor forsake us.
Have you imagined
the gospel
to be so big,
to be so real
in your life
that God the Father
and Jesus Christ
would walk
into this room
right now
that he would sit down
beside you
and he would say,
do you know
how proud I am of you?
That he would walk up
to you and say,
you know what breaks
my heart
is when you refuse
to accept
that every sin
of your past life
is not only forgiven
but it's so forgiven
that I can't even
remember what it was.
Do you know
that I've loved you
from all eternity
and that no matter
what happens
I can't stop
loving you?
Do you believe
that Jesus would tell you
that if he walked
in this room
right now?
Beloved,
this is why
God loves
and adores you
because of his son,
because of what
Jesus did for you.
Your sins
have been eternally
forgiven.
When the Father
looks at you,
he doesn't look at you
with shameful contempt.
He looks at you
and he smiles.
This God,
his Holy Spirit
who we love
and serve
with our lives
is the same God
who gave us
his son
who paid the debt
for our sins
so that God's promises
would be fully
redeemed again.
Redeemed,
forgiven,
and loved.
This is who you are
before God the Father
and God does not want you
to ever forget it.
You are his
forever.
Let's pray.
Father,
could this
glorious news
be true
that no matter
how wicked
the works
of our hands,
no matter
how sinful
our hearts,
that you would
offer us
love,
forgiveness,
and redemption.
Father,
thank you.
Thank you for
the Spirit
who not only
grieves
in our disobedience,
but the Spirit
who lovingly
comes into
our hearts
and lives.
Father,
hopefully right now
in this moment
and reminds us
of this truth,
reminds us
of the good news
of the gospel.
Would you work that
in the hearts
of these,
your people?
Would you remind us
of this,
not only today
but throughout this week
as we enter
into a broken
and sinful world
and face the reality
of our sinful hearts
again?
Father,
remind us
of this good news
and we thank you
for it.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.
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