Becoming Fit for Body Building (Ephesians 4:25-32)
Introduction
Here is the point of today’s sermon: we can either fit ourselves for building up the body of Christ or for tearing it down.
Every athlete must become fit to win the race. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:25, “Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.” Athletes will go to immense lengths to win a trophy or in Paul’s day a crown that would fade and tarnish. Did you know that elite athletes can eat anywhere between 6,000 and 10,000 calories daily? Some body builders drink up to two gallons of water every day. They can sometimes sleep up to 10 hours a day, plus naps, in order to maintain peak performance. If you were to look at the kind of diet given to an NFL player, you would be amazed and the specification, the amount, and the discipline it takes to stick with it. All of this requires an immense amount of discipline, all so that they can fit themselves to play a role within their team.
Every day we are either fitting ourselves for building up the body of Christ through rigorous self-discipline and personal holiness, or we are fitting ourselves for tearing down the body of Christ through habituating patterns of sin. If we want to see the church succeed—to grow into the “measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”—then we need to be fit for building that body. Disciplined godliness in particular and exact obedience is what fits us to build that body.
All throughout chapter 4, Paul has been talking about building the body. After he has laid down the principles and practices of church unity and growth into maturity, he shifts in verse 17 to speak about our personal holiness. But he has not left his topic: he is still concerned with the growing of the body into its head—with body building. And he has laid down the general principles of doing that: Put off your former manner of life, renew your minds, and put on a new manner of life. Now, beginning in v25, Paul proceeds to give specifics. He helps us to know what he means by giving us examples of what that looks like in practice.
Yet before we go on, we must pause to make an applicational observation: Holiness unfolds in the specifics of life. It is good to know the general principles of putting off, renewing the mind, and putting on, but what good does that knowledge do us if it remains general? So often our failure in growing in holiness is because we do not pay enough attention to each situation in. We live carelessly, undisciplined, not giving thought to what we do, assuming that what we hear from YouTube is the best way to go, or simply reacting as you stumble through life. We might have a general understanding of the dynamics of the Christian life, but that is insufficient. General understanding alone cannot produce specific, exact obedience.
Additionally, remember that Ephesians was written not only to the Ephesians but also through the Ephesians to the entire church. Thus, Paul is likely not talking to the Ephesians the same way he is talking to the Corinthians—he is not prescribing specific exhortations for specific, live problems in the Ephesian church. Rather, he is prescribing a universal course of action for all churches everywhere which is designed to promote the unity and maturity of the body through the holiness of each and every member.
Ephesians is written to a church, not to individuals. While this text does deal with individual holiness, it does so for the sake of the whole body. Private, practical holiness is not merely a private, personal affair. Holiness unfolds in the specifics of church relationships. So, when Paul admonishes us against lying, he is admonishing us against lying especially to church members. So also with anger. Theft. Corrupting talk. Etc. All these commands are in the plural. Personal holiness is not a private affair. Personal holiness affects and is affected by the holiness of the whole church. Thus personal holiness is not private holiness. Your personal holiness is the business of every other member.
Paul is not being random. Paul is never random. Ephesians to this point has been meticulous. Why would he suddenly shoot from the hip here? Paul strategically chooses each and every example here for the purpose of bolstering his argument that the church is to be unified. There are specific practices and values and virtues that a church must have to be unified in maturity—and there are sins which stand in the way of those things. Thus Paul lays out meticulously these set of practices in order to promote the health of the church.
Now, when we dealt with these commands several months ago we dealt with these as five separate commands, and they are. But my understanding has deepened since then and now I see that there is a structure here. I won’t go over in detail, but suffice it to not two things. The first two go together, and they deal with the fundamental practices that build up the church. The second two go together and deal with caring for the needs of the church. The last element in the list (note the “and”) is not grieving the Holy Spirit and is the aim in all of them. Then verses 31-32 are a summary statement for all of chapter 4 (note similarity to 4:1-3). Now, for the sake of simplicity, let’s look at this in terms of six practices that fit us to build Christ’s body.
I. Be Careful to Speak What Is True
First, we must speak the truth. “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.” Do you remember 4:15? “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.” Truth telling is the foundation of church growth. If we do not speak and live truthfully, how can we ever grow? Which means that we must put off falsehood and put on truth.
This is a quote from Zechariah 8:16. Israel is in exile and remains unchanged in their heart. God has promised change and blessing to them, but they still await it with eager longing an expectation. In the midst of this, God exhorts them to build the temple, while speaking the truth to one another, teaching the fundamental truth that building the temple without corresponding obedience is worthless. What does God desire from his people? Is it a building of gold, marble, and stone? Or is it the hearts of his people?
Now, during the age of the church, the temple is the people, and the twist is that the temple is built by speaking the truth in love. The speaking of truth itself builds the temple which is the church. That shouldn’t be a surprising concept to us. Ephesians 2:20-22 speaks of the same thing. READ. We are a structure, growing into a temple in the Lord, and we are being built together into a dwelling place for God. Which is to say, we are the temple.
If the temple of God is built through speaking the truth, then we must put off all falsehood. Lies have no place in the church. Lies proceed from their father, the Devil who is a liar and who lied from the beginning. Even in our ministry to one another, we are protecting each other from deception. 4:14, “no longer children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.” Lies tear down the church.
I once knew a woman who was accustomed to lying in the church. She built her whole life around it. She was nothing that she said. She was eventually disciplined from the church, but it was an amazing testament to the reality that lies destroy the church. Lies are a wrecking ball of destruction careening through our relationships. They are the cancerous cells infecting each member of the body, bringing about its death. They are the acid that dissolves the body.
So we are to put them off and instead speak what is true. Why? Because we are members one of another. If I am joined to the God of truth, and you are joined to the God of truth, then we are joined to one another in the common bond of what is true, and we should speak in such a way that shows that is reality.
Transition: But speaking the truth because we are members of one another is not the only practice. In fact, if we are members of one another, then we must have a deep care for one another’s holiness. Which means that we must…
II. Be Disturbed at Sin in the Church
We must be disturbed by our own sin and the sin that remains in the church. “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.” Now, how did I get there from those words. A couple brief observations.
First, Ephesians 4:31 says that we must put all “all anger.” Same word. So, whatever Paul means in verse 31, he means something different in verse 26. There is a sense in which we should be angry (v26) and there is a way in which we must put all anger away (v31).
Second, and more importantly, the words “be angry and do not sin” are a verbatim quote from the Greek version of Psalm 4:4. Turn there. Read. Explain. Notice how David is encouraging a kind of vexation of conscience which would cause them to lie awake at night and ponder the state of their hearts.
Paul employs that logic here. But the twist is that here Paul is not talking to unbelievers but believers. And therefore, while David encouraged the unbelieving man to remain vexed in his spirit and lie awake in his bed to ponder his own sin in a bothered conscience, Paul is encouraging the opposite. Be angered—vexed, agitated—by sin, and then quickly resolve it.
We must be bothered by sin in the church. Paul said Galatians 4:19, “I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you!” He says in 2 Corinthians 11:28 that he feels the “daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches! Who is weak and I am not weak? Who is made to fall and I am not indignant?” Paul loved the church to the degree where sin in the church angered him. Even at the opening of Galatians, he speaks sternly to them: “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel” (Gal 1:6). You don’t speak that way to people you don’t love. Paul loved the church, and so sin in the church disturbed him. It made him angry.
Now, there’s a danger in here: our righteous anger at sin can easily turn into sinful anger. As Matthew Henry said, “If we would be angry and not sin, we must be angry at nothing but sin.” If we are to seek to restore a sinning brother, we need to do so “in a spirit of gentleness” (Gal 6:1).
That drove him to make swift peace, to seek the rectification of sin in the church. This entirely explains the soap opera of Paul’s relationship to the Corinthians. Letter after letter after visit after visit after conflict after conflict. Now, we must not be too literal on “not allowing the sun to go down on your anger.” Otherwise, what do they do in Finnish Lapland where half the year the sun never sets. While it certainly can mean resolving sin the same day, it certainly doesn’t have to. The point is seek resolution to sin swiftly. If we don’t, we very well might be inviting the devil to make his home among us.
And here’s the point: we must have a tender heart toward one another, to the degree that we would be disturbed by each other’s sin, and that should lead us to swiftly make peace. This will help us to put off the old man and put on the new.
Transition: Yet, this is not all that is required. Within that maturing culture of active concern for the holiness of one another, we also must care for one another’s needs. And the first kind of need we must care for are physical needs.
III. Care for the Physical Needs of Members
Third, we must care for one another’s physical needs. To that end, Paul commends honest hard work: “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.” Generosity with physical resources cares for the physical needs of church members. Therefore, we must put off theft and put on honest work.
Thus, we are not to steal. Paul probably has in mind theft from other church members, but it also applies broadly. Theft prioritizes me. It places self at the center of possessions. And that self-centered orientation is blind to the needs of others. By contrast, generosity places others at the center of possessions. Possessions, money, resources, etc. are ours to generously give to others. Yes, they allow us to provide for our own needs and our family’s needs, and yes they allow us to enjoy God’s good creation. But they are primarily given so that we can love others with them. Thus, we are to work hard, doing honest labor, that we might gain something to truly belongs to us in order to give it to people who have need. In other words, theft takes what is not owned and keeps it for itself. Generosity works in order to gain its own possessions in order to give those possessions to those who don’t have enough.
Now, we do need to specify something: there is a priority for church members here. When it comes to these sorts of service opportunities, we need to remember Paul’s words in Galatians 6:10: “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, especially those of the household of faith.” We want to do good to everyone—unbeliever, believer, member of our church or another church—but there is priority for those who are members, those who are Christians. This proves our faith: James 2:15-16: “If a brother or sister is without clothing or in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ and yet you do not give them what is necessary for the body, what use is that?” What family member do you have that you wouldn’t buy clothing for if they needed it? In the same way, how can we say we are part of the family of God and not care about their physical needs?
Generosity knits the hearts of the people of God together in love. I remember a time at a former church where a family was in need. They had a beam fall out of their ceiling and smash some furniture and a bunch of other damage. It cost them their entire savings to fix. She was at home. He worked in a factory. They didn’t have much. They lived down the street from us, so we walked down to their house and handed them a check for whatever we could give them. It wasn’t much, but it made an impact. To this day, whenever I see him, he enthusiastically says hi and tells me all about his life.
And we could extend this principle to all other areas of need as well! House projects, company in the hospital, childcare, providing food, and many other things.
Transition: Often what will happen when we do meet these physical needs is that it will open up the door to care for their spiritual needs as well. Every physical need is also a spiritual battle. And therefore we must also…
IV. Care for the Spiritual Needs of Members
We must care for one another’s spiritual needs. “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion [the need], that it may give grace to those who hear.” How can we truly say we care for someone if we do not care for their soul?
Notice how this revolves around the talk of the church. Our talk can either corrupt or it can build. Corrupt talk is corrosive talk—any talk which deflates, destroys, or defames the church. That’s not just saying bad words, but it also includes things like gossip, slander, harshness, imprecision, false doctrine, oversimplification, assumptions, words spoken impatiently, and the like. How we talk to each other demonstrates our care for each other.
There is no place for venomous, fanged words in the church. That’s because we are dedicated to building one another up. Remember 4:12? The ministry of the saints is for the “building up of the body of Christ,” and part of that edifying work is the speaking of life-giving words. How easy it is to destroy with our words! James 3:1-12 (Read). “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths.” As Jesus said in a different context, “It shall not be so among you.”
We are only—feel the force of that word—only to speak what is good for building up. How are you doing? Think about what you said this morning. What you said this past week? What you’ve said since June when we started. Has what you said only been such as is good for building up?
Not every edifying word will look the same! Edifying words are tailor made for the occasion. It’s interesting to think about: might there be a situation where an encouraging word might do more damage than good? For example, many times I have heard parents try to encourage their children out of a temper tantrum: “I understand. We’re all like that on the inside. Don’t worry, nobody’s perfect. You can do this, you just have to breathe.” That does not suit the occasion! It does more harm than good because it does not do what words must do in that moment: Correction. “Son, you are in sin right now. God commands you to honor your mother and father and promises you blessing if you do. But you are in rebellion right now, and God commands me that I must correct you with discipline.” Correcting words are sometimes edifying words!
Or consider the opposite. A young man once came to me with severe doubts about his salvation, because he was relying upon his feelings rather than upon Christ. Yet he was in deep emotional distress. He may need correction in his understanding of his acceptance with God, but what would it do to his soul if I was to press the correction? “How could you ever think like that? Don’t you know that’s a false gospel? You should be ashamed of yourself for thinking in those terms about Jesus.” That would destroy him. What does he need? Instruction and encouragement, not correction: “Brother, I completely understand how you feel. I once struggled with the same thing. And I needed to learn that my acceptance with God is wholly based upon his freely given grace and not upon how I feel. I could encourage you to consider the same truths.”
Our words must fit the occasion—literally, they must be according to the need. Every spiritual struggle is a spiritual need, and we care for one another when we speak in such a way as to give grace to the hearers. And what an amazing privilege that we can give grace to others through what we say! We can be the vehicle of God’s grace in someone else’s life!
Transition: So, we must engage in building one another up into maturity, and we must seek to meet each other’s needs within our church body. But none of these things is an end in itself. All these are pointed at a greater goal of not grieving the Spirit of God who has made us into a body.
V. Do Not Grieve the Holy Spirit
Fifth, we must not grieve the Holy Spirit who has made us into one body. “And do not grieve the Spirit of God by whom we were sealed for the day of redemption.”
To understand what Paul is saying here, we must notice two connections. First, Paul is drawing on what he said in 1:13-14. Read. We have been sealed by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the authenticating, protecting seal upon our souls which safeguards us through these earthly sojourning until we reach heaven. And he is, “the guarantee of our inheritance”—the foretaste, the down payment, the earnest money of the new heavens and the new earth. And he remains with us (literally) “until the redemption of the possession”—until God fully redeems us by raising us from the dead. Thus, the Holy Spirit is the mark of true redemption—he is the substance of our salvation. But, as we have noted throughout, the Spirit is what forms us into a body. And in that body we have opportunity to dramatize our redemption through how we treat one another. And therefore, when we sin against the body, when we harbor known sin, when we speak falsehood to each other, when we steal and when we speak corrupting words in the church, we grieve the Spirit of God. That is why Paul points to the Spirit as he who has “sealed us for the day of redemption.” The best way to make the Spirit happy is to love the church which he created.
Second, Paul is again quoting from the OT, specifically from Isaiah 63:10. Now, this is a deep well, but suffice it to say this: God acts savingly in his messiah. He saves them, redeems them, lifted them up, and carried them into the promised land. But, Is 63:10, “They rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit, therefore he turned to be their enemy and himself fought against them.” When God saves, the proper response is submission and obedience. But when his people rebel, it not only makes him grieved, but it also leads him to become angry with his people and judge them.
This is operating in the background of Paul’s thought. When he says we must not grieve the Spirit of God, he understands that sin not only makes the Spirit saddened, but also that it leads him to withdraw his blessing and judge his people. Now, it is true that we can no longer fall under the condemnation of God. Yet, we can also lose much earthly blessing and still enter heaven but only as through fire. As 1 Peter 4:17 says, “For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God.” There is stricter judgment for those who would teach. The Father “judges impartially according to each one’s deeds” (1 Peter 1:17). Do you have higher standards for your kids or someone else’s? God is the same! He expects a lot from his children!
I remember a pastor who would often say, “There’s sin in the camp!” There would be some case of unrepentant sin, some bitterness or conflict, and it would cast a blanket of malaise over the whole church. You surely know what that’s like. When we engage in these sinful patterns, when we speak falsehood and make peace with sin and steal and speak corruptly, it destroys the fellowship of the saints. And God cares about that! The loss of fellowship is a form of the judgment of God. May it never be that we would become such a church! May we always recoil from grieving the Spirit of God.
Transition: Having seen these things, we now have a picture of what personal holiness for corporate edification looks like. But Paul helps us by offering a summary of what he has said throughout. Namely, we must…
VI. Become a Gracious People
Sixth, we must become a gracious people. “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”
Notice the opposite of graciousness:
· Bitterness – the sour, dour attitude set against brothers and sisters
· Wrath – sudden outbursts and displays of anger
· Anger – Inner seething and boiling of anger
· Clamor – the back and forth shouting of arguments
· Slander – what we say to others when we are angry at a person
· Malice – the desire for evil and bad things to happen to people
Put them away. But instead, put on:
· Kindness – benevolent or generous in attitude or disposition
· Tenderheartedness – literally means having tender bowls. When you feel for someone, you can feel it in your gut. It means compassion—not simply affirming whatever someone feels or thinks, but a kind of fellow feeling that is able to sympathize, enter into the experience of someone, and feel what they feel. The mark of a healthy church is our ability to be moved by the joys and pains of others.
· Forgiveness. The sine qua non of church life. We forgive here. When we are wronged, we do not hold grudges.
Conclusion
Every day we are fitting ourselves to either build up the body or to tear it down. We fit ourselves for doing the church good through our disciplined, rigorous pursuit of personal holiness. As we grow into personal holiness, we become useful for the building up of the body.
Richard Baxter was a puritan pastor who lived during the 1600s and is most famous for his work as the vicar of Kidderminster. When he arrived in the town, it was “an ignorant, rude and revelling people.” But through his patient ministry there he saw incredible change. By the end of his ministry, church services were full, families would talk in the streets about the things of God, and many pastors were engaged in the work of faithful shepherding. They were building up the body. How? Baxter gives us a glimpse behind what I think was the root cause: a thriving, personal holiness. Speaking to other pastors in words that are in many ways applicable to all, he said,
“If we let our love decline, we are not like to raise up theirs. If we abate our holy care and fear, it will appear in our preaching: if the matter show it not, the manner will. If we feed on unwholesome food, either errors or fruitless controversies, our hearts are like to fare the worse for it. Whereas, if we abound in faith, and love, and zeal, how would it overflow to the refreshing of our congregations, and how would it appear in the increase of the same graces In them! O brethren, watch therefore over your own hearts: keep out lusts and passions, and worldly inclinations; keep up the life of faith, and love, and zeal: be much at home, and be much with God. If it be not your daily business to study your own hearts, and to subdue corruption, and to walk with God—if you make not this a work to which you constantly attend, all will go wrong, and you will starve your hearers…. Above all, be much in secret prayer and meditation. Thence you must fetch the heavenly fire that must kindle your sacrifices: remember, you cannot decline and neglect your duty, to your own hurt alone; many will be losers by it as well as you.” (Reformed Pastor, 61-62).