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Skip Heitzig: What Paul is describing here by this putting off and putting on, he's describing repentance. He's describing it like getting your garments soiled as you go through the day and they get so dirty that when you come home at night you need to shower and change your clothes. There are some occupations that you have to do that. You come home after working with septic tanks all day long, you want to take those clothes off and get them washed and take a shower, then put on a new set of garments.

Now, it would be a shame if you tried to put new clothes on top of the old stinky ones as some Christians try to do with their life. They maintain the old lifestyle from the world but just try to add a few Christian virtues to it. That's like putting good clothes on smelly, septic tank, stenchy clothes.

Put off the old man. The old man isn't your dad; it's the old you, who you are in Adam, your old manner of life. Put off concerning your former conduct the old man which grows corrupt according to deceitful lusts. You see, this is a beautiful description of repentance and really this is salvation. Salvation is more than acceptance. Salvation includes repentance. Repentance and acceptance go together.

It's more than, "Have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ?" A lot of people when they hear that terminology, it kind of makes them think like they're in the driver's seat. "Well, here I am, this autonomous human being, and let me think about God. Okay, yes, I will accept him." Well, it doesn't work that way. You don't accept him. He accepts you.

He's greater than you so if you really want to be technical you don't accept Christ, he accepts you. Now you receive him, yes, but when you receive him, it's more than just acceptance; it's repentance and acceptance. It's turning from something and turning to something else. It's leaving behind something and getting into something else.

You put off the old man, the old way of living, and put on the new man. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Put on the new man, the new you, the second birth, which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness.

I belonged to a church denomination growing up that believed that holiness was possible if you take the Christian out of the world. So in the church system I was brought up in, my church system had a long history of building monasteries and convents and spiritual hideaways from the desert fathers in the early days all the way up to medieval times.

The thought is if you can isolate a person and get them away from the world where they can contemplate God and think about scripture and pray and worship in community, that it's going to be a whole lot easier and they'll live holy lives. And they soon discovered that that's not a solution because you can take the Christian out of the world, but it's much harder to take the world out of the Christian.

And that's why Jesus prayed in John 17, "Father, I pray not that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one." It is possible to be kept in the world with the filth of the culture all around us and to walk in such a way that honors the Lord. And that's where we are effective: to be salt and to be light, to be injected in the culture, not separated from it.

So we put off the old man, we put on the new man in the culture, in the filth, in the pigpen. We put off the activities that we used to be into, put on the new man so they see the difference, they smell, "Mmm, you're wearing clean clothes. I'm not. How do I get those? That's attractive." But if you're hidden away in a monastery somewhere, they have to travel hundreds of miles to smell your new clothes. You're doing them no good, no favors.

So put off and put on. Get the world, take the world out, let the Lord take the world out of the believer. Put on the new man which is created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. 2 Corinthians 5:17, "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation." Put that on, live that out, walk that through. Created in Christ Jesus or created according to God in true righteousness and holiness.

So off with the graveclothes and on with the graceclothes. That's the new man, the new you. So that's the flow so far of chapter four. Walk. You know your wealth, here's your walk. Walk worthy. Let your walk weigh as much as what you're called. You're called a Christian, okay, walk in unity, walk in diversity or variety of gifts, build each other up. Walk in purity, not like the world, but like a new creation.

Verse 25, "Therefore," now he gets very practical with this walk thing, "therefore putting away lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath."

So I just want to unpack that. Put away lying, tell the truth if you've got a problem. "Oh, I just tell little white lies." Just be a man or a woman of integrity and speak truth, for we are members of one another.

In 1 Corinthians 13 we're told love is not easily provoked, and here he says, "Be angry and do not sin." So 1 Corinthians 13 again, love is not easily provoked, it's not easily irritated, it's even-tempered is the idea. But now Paul gives a commandment, "Be angry." There are certain times when anger is called for and do not sin. Don't let the anger that you have lead to sin: sinful thoughts, sinful actions, sinful reactions. Be angry and do not sin.

Now when I was a kid, I'll be honest, I had an anger problem. I don't exactly know why. I'm sure a good counselor could tell me what was going on. I was the youngest of my brothers, I felt like they picked on me, I got all the hand-me-down clothes, whatever it was. We all had issues and I got angry and I would lash out and I would hit things and I would break things.

I once put my foot through my bedroom door I was so angry. That wasn't a great house, kind of a cheap door and easy to put your foot through. And that kind of was my excuse. I put my foot through it and said, "That door isn't built very well." But my dad didn't see it quite the same way and I got punished for it.

But he wanted me to remember that I was an angry kid and so he placed this little white cardboard over the hole with tape for months. So every time I'd walk in the door and turn my head left, which is where my bedroom door was, I could see the fruit of my anger every day. "I'm the angry kid. I'm the angry kid. I'm the angry kid." So I was angry and I sinned. Paul says, "Be angry and do not sin."

So what does he mean by that? There is what is called a righteous indignation. I'm sure you've heard that term before. Martin Luther referred to this as an anger of love, an anger of love. There's so many examples to show you that, I think you can think of enough on your own, enough to point to Jesus who in the temple turned over the tables, took a whip and whipped people out. And it was not a sinful anger because it was an anger on behalf of someone else.

When you're angry on behalf of someone else and you're standing up for what's right for someone else, that's a good indication that it's a righteous anger. If you're just angry because they treated you this way, "How dare you say that to me?" that's a selfish anger. But when you're angry on behalf of somebody else who's been walked on and hurt, that's different.

So Jesus said, "You've made my father's house a den of thieves. You've dishonored my father." And so that was an anger of love, a righteous indignation. Be angry and do not sin and I love this last little appendix to the verse, "Do not let the sun go down on your wrath." That is good marriage counsel right there. If you have a conflict as a married couple, and you will, if you live and breathe air and have any honest bone in your body, try to resolve the conflict before you go to bed.

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Skip Heitzig: A marriage is the union of two sinners. Because it's the union of two sinners, a marriage should also be the union of two forgivers. And if you have two sinners who know they're both sinners, but they're two forgivers, it's good because you give each other slack and you talk it through and you say you're sorry and you pray together and you resolve the conflict. Don't let the sun go down. Make sure that before you put your head on the pillow, you've resolved the conflict.

So that's good in marriage, that's good marriage counsel, it's good counsel period in friendship, in every respect. "Nor," verse 27, "give place to the devil." Don't give him a foothold. Don't let him by your anger, by your sinful anger, give him a foothold. And if you are an angry person and you don't resolve anger, you're just giving, you're opening the door for Satan to ruin more and more and more of your relationships in your life. Don't give him the real estate. Don't allow him in. Forgive.

"Let him who stole steal no longer." So evidently this was a problem in the ancient world, the ancient pagan world. And now they're believers and maybe some of them were thieves before and they were just sort of used to shoplifting. But rather let him labor, let him work hard, working with his hands what is good that he may have something to give him who has need.

I was reading this statistic, it's a couple years old, but in 2022 in America, businesses lost collectively, retail businesses, $120 billion due to shoplifting. People would go into a store, get stuff they want, walk out. And a lot of these stores have policies, don't chase after them, let them go, let them take up to a certain amount. It's stupid. Serves them right for losing that much money. But more and more thieves will take advantage of it and they did to the tune of $120 billion.

So if that's what you were into before you were a believer, stop it. Graveclothes, take them off, you smell. Put on the graceclothes, work hard, get a job. No, that's not unloving to say get a job. Actually get one, they're out there. Let them work, labor with his hands that he may have something to give him who has need, not just for yourself but to give away, to be generous.

He's getting very practical about the walk here. So don't be angry, don't be angry in a sinful manner, don't steal stuff. And then further he talks about what we say. Verse 29, "Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth." You might have been doing good up to this verse. Some of you are squirming right about now. "Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification to build one another up, that it may impart grace to the hearers."

Language is interesting. I like language, I'm fascinated with how language develops and flows and changes. And one of the things I have been interested in over the years is Bible translations, the need for Bible translations. Every few years there's a new one and people go, "Why?" It's because language is fluid, language moves, it modifies, it changes meaning.

It used to be years ago if you said, "That's sick," it meant it's horrible, it's bad, it's awful, it's deformed, it's there's something wrong with it. But today a young person says, "Man, that's sick," it means it's really cool and awesome. And before that it was "bad." You say, "Man, that's bad," meant it's actually good. It became the very opposite of it. So communication changes, hence you have demand for new Bible translations to fit the change of language, and language of the dictionary is changing.

But back to this, let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth. I do find it interesting but also sad that a lot of us will say things now that were not tolerated just a few years back. You say, "What do you mean a few years back? How far back?" Well, for some of you, it's going to sound like ancient history. But there was a movie in 1946. It was before I was born, but in the scheme of history, that's a few years.

In 1946 a very famous movie came out with Jimmy Stewart called It's a Wonderful Life. Remember that movie? It's a Christmas classic, right? When the script was produced, the producers turned it down and made them rewrite it until they had to take certain words that were in the script deemed offensive to the general audience: "lousy." You couldn't say that word. "Jerk," "dang." Unacceptable for a movie.

Have you seen a movie lately? We've far surpassed, I wouldn't say surpassed, we've surpassed that direction, that standard. "Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers." So he's writing to believers. Don't be like them, don't live that way. And this is what it looks like: don't steal stuff, don't say bad stuff. Look, we're children of the King. Children of the King should have the language of the court. Edify, bless, uplift.

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit. All the things he just mentioned would grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. Refusing to change your old way of living grieves the Holy Spirit. That's the meaning of the text here.

Refusing to change your old way of living, your old manner of speaking, your old manner of dealing with people, refusing to change grieves the Holy Spirit. Now, a word about this. This is a very important verse because what this verse points out is that the Holy Spirit is not a force, an impartial force or an energy, but a person. See, if the Holy Spirit were just a force like the Tao's hum, that's a force, right? Or a cosmic force or energy, that's what a lot of people think the Holy Spirit is.

No, the Holy Spirit is a person, a divine person. You can't grieve a force, you cannot grieve an energy field. You can only grieve a person. So when Jesus promised the Holy Spirit, he said, "He will testify of me. He will lead you into all truth. He will take these things and bring them to you."

And so it's important that as believers you believe in the triune nature of the living God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They are not different modes, they are three distinct entities in one God, three distinct persons in one triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed to the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor... Now look at the word. What is the word? Clamor. What is that? Well, I'm going to let you guess as I read what it is.

I am more deadly than the screaming shell of a cannon. I win without killing. I tear down homes, break hearts, and wreck lives. I travel on the wings of the wind. No innocence is strong enough to intimidate me, no purity pure enough to daunt me. I have no regard for truth, no respect for justice, no mercy for the defenseless. My victims are as numerous as the sands of the sea and often as innocent. I never forget and I seldom forgive. My name is gossip. Clamor is the New King James word for gossip.

In the book of Psalms, Psalm 141, the psalmist said, "Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth, over my lips. Put a guard over my mouth, keep watch over my lips." So clamor, gossip. "Hey, have you heard?" or, "Brother, let's pray for so-and-so." Couching your prayer in clamor. Using God to gossip. Clamor.

Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you. Take off the graveclothes, put on the graceclothes. What are the graceclothes here? Verse 32, great way to end: "And be kind to one another." One of the greatest verses in scripture. A friend of mine said this was the first verse I taught my children: "Be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you."

Have you ever seen a pigeon walk? Do you know what they do with their head when they walk? Yeah, I like watching that. No, they don't do this, they do this, right? You know why they do that? I read an article in the Detroit Free Press that said it's because a pigeon cannot focus while it's walking.

So it takes a step, moves its head back, focuses, another step, moves it forward, back, forward, back. It's focusing, refocusing, refocusing each time. It pauses between steps. And that's what Wednesday nights do for me and I hope do for us, is we are pausing between steps to refocus on what's important, using the truth to realign us so that we're not walking according to the flesh but walking according to the Spirit, not walking like the world but walking worthy in humility and in purity, etc., etc.

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