Christ Church Washington D.C.

As the kingdom of God begins to advance in a given area, it is important to remember that troubles come with it. The wise man said, without an ox, the stalls are clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of an ox. Proverbs 14.4. It’s a great text if you have young kids like me when it comes to their bedrooms. Some opt for clean stalls and no crops.
Can’t go that way. Others opt for abundant production, but neglect to muck the stalls, so they eventually abandon their station to the refuse. This exhortation is two-parted. First, expect dirty stalls, and second, remember to muck them. First, you must rid yourselves of the notion that you will hit the mark every time. Herbert Schlossberg said,
And if that’s true of the Bible, how much more so the life story you are writing. You are oxen. You are made to work this earth, which is the field of your Lord. You are oxen, and you have all assembled together in this stall. You are oxen, and you have even assembled together with your little oxen.
Things are going to get messy. When that sin comes out, you are not allowed to be shocked. When someone wrongs you, you are not allowed to be precious about the stall. That’s just how this works. But, in the second place, you are allowed to muck the stall, and you must muck the stall.
This forgiveness is transactional. It is given and received. And it must be your policy to ensure that this transaction continues so long as oxen do what oxen do. When you have wronged another, simply own the wrong and ask for forgiveness. When you have been wronged and another seeks your forgiveness, you must give it, remembering that once you give it, it’s gone.
Our sermon text this morning is from the book of Ephesians, chapter 4, verse 25 through verse 32. These are the words of God.
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor
and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ’s sake, hath forgiven you. Our God and Father, we thank you for your word to us. We thank you for your presence here in our midst, in our land. We thank you for your Holy Spirit. And we ask that you would give us understanding of your word and give us application of your word. Convict us, encourage us,
strengthen our faith, and enlarge our heart. For we fix our eyes upon you now, and we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen. May be seated. Well, as I mentioned earlier, it really is a delight to be back here with you. I think I have the privilege of being the first minister to get to be here twice, which has already caused my pastoral sensibilities to tingle.
Because I was here the first week, and there was standing room only. We’re pretty much at standing room only again. I see that the Lord continues to bless this congregation. But there was exciting times. Der Spiegel was in the back, along with all of the other news organizations. I see that we still have protesters, which is good.
That means my main focus today is going to be on actual applications about what’s going on in the life of this congregation. Because the newness is probably not yet fully worn off, but it will soon. And the warp and wolf of life together will occur. And so you have been working your way through the book of Ephesians. And we’ve come to this back half of the book of Ephesians.
Half of the book of Ephesians concerns directives, commands, law, instruction for the Christian life. And it is a reminder to us that one of the gifts the gospel brings us is the gift of freedom in form or form in freedom. Apart from Christ, the world can’t figure out form and freedom.
They think, I’m really free. You’re also deformed, which is not true freedom, right? This isn’t the way that it’s supposed to go.
Christ and Christ alone brings forth the new man. And as He does, what takes shape is a free man, a man who is liberated to be formed into the likeness of God. So again, the first three chapters of the book of Ephesians are a reminder about that sovereign grace, amazing grace, forgiveness in Christ.
No, you are Christians.
Here comes the directives of your Father. And even in Scripture, the directives of your Father, the commands of the book of the covenant themselves have been sprinkled by the blood of Christ. We hear about that in Hebrews 9, 19. In the days of Moses, not only were the people sprinkled by the blood, but the book itself was sprinkled by the blood. You have entered into a house. Here is a table before us. This cup has sprinkled you. This cup has sprinkled the book.
It sprinkles everything. So as you hear very clear directives about what your life needs to look like, remember that they come to you sprinkled in the blood of the Lamb. Now with that before us, let’s consider a summary of the text. Having put on the new man, we must put away lying. And one reason for speaking the truth to each other is that we are limbs of the same body. Verse 25, the text says you are members of the same body, and that’s why you’re not supposed to lie to each other.
It doesn’t take long to figure out that it’s not good when your right foot lies to your left foot about which direction it’s going. Some of you have that problem. Some of you have the clumsy problem. The stairs are treacherous on the way in. You are the body of Christ. You’re to work in a certain way, and thus you are to speak the truth to each other.
You’re supposed to get angry and good. The command is, be angry and sin not. Verse 26. That’s a peculiar instruction. You would think the word would tell you that you shouldn’t get angry, but it actually says, well, you’re supposed to be angry, but you’re supposed to be the right kind of angry. The sun should not go down on this anger, which means that you shouldn’t boil in your anger, but rather you should boil up some solution with your anger.
You’re not supposed to boil in your anger. Solutions, problem solving, dominion, reconciliation, growth, all of that is supposed to be boiled up with your anger. If you boil in your anger, you set up a base of operations for the devil, verse 27, and you really shouldn’t do that. Don’t give any place to the devil. When you boil, you give him a base of operations.
He should work, and he should look to fill the pockets that he used to pick, verse 28. The new man must close off the acid spigot, holding back those corrupt words he used to speak, which devoured his hearers. Instead, his speech should bang and clang like the contractor’s hammer, verse 28.
Verse 29, his words are now supposed to minister grace. They are supposed to build people up. Christians should not grieve the Holy Spirit, which would amount to picking at the seal that secures their salvation. Verse 30. You should say that’s a terrifying verse. Don’t grieve the Holy Spirit. Why would you pick at the seal that has sealed you unto the day of redemption? Don’t do that kind of thing.
Take it all together essentially means don’t be a fuss bucket. And given all of the things that are packed into that particular list, you should avoid being a bubbling cauldron of a fuss bucket too. Verse 31. Instead, there should be genuine affection among the saints and forgiveness one toward another as God has forgiven us in Christ Jesus. That’s verse 32. So here’s the picture of the new man.
Over the last week, maybe a week or two. But now he’s given this list of instruction and the picture is a new man top to bottom. Of course, I’m taking that text. If you look at the passage we just considered, verse 24 was not in my text, but that’s where we were told to put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. And then he goes immediately into this list of instruction. The newness is through and through.
The old man that Christ has already crucified and working out the new life that Christ has resurrected. This is essential that you get this part. And then we’re going to look at some of the facets of this new man. You were putting off the old man, but it’s the old man that is already dead in Christ. Dead in Christ and you put him off. Anyone who’s been baptized in Christ Jesus has been baptized into his death. That flesh, when you hear, don’t grieve the Holy Spirit and you think, well, I think I’ve done that before.
When you think, turn off the acid spigot and you say, I just did it. I did it like last night. I got tired and I did it. And you think, is that you or is that the old man? It’s the old man. Is it still you? Well, yeah, it’s still you, but it’s the old man. It’s your flesh and that has been crucified once and for all in Christ. Done, finished, justified. And now you’re supposed to put all of that off. And this new man that you’re supposed to put on, you’re going to hear what you’re supposed to be doing with your hands, giving what you’re supposed to be doing with your words, building up all of that stuff.
Is the new man that Christ has already raised from the dead. You are dead in Christ, you are risen in Christ. Do you have any work to do? Yes, you have to put that new man on, but you’re putting a new man on that has already been raised to life in the Lord Jesus Christ. So with that structure, I want to consider some facets of this new man. What’s it all about? A new man from top to bottom, a new man from base to apex. The first concerns his words. The new man has a new voice.
A new voice. He has a new language. We’re instructed in the text, don’t let your speech be corrosive and build up others with your speech. But the first thing to note when it comes to this new language is that it doesn’t pertain to the words themselves but how you use them. It doesn’t pertain to the words themselves. It’s not a matter of new nouns and new verbs. And it’s not the matter of a new dictionary. But it does involve the way that you arrange those new words. Now, we should all thank the Lord.
For the grandmothers who took a bar of dial soap to our back molars. When we said bad things. I won’t have any of those bad words in my house. You understand. There’s a special place in the Hall of Faith for those grandmothers. No doubt. But the danger is to think that all of the bad words are chained up in a dungeon somewhere. And those are the ones we shouldn’t use. And then there’s some sanctified hall with all of the good words. And those are the okay words to use.
You know it wouldn’t take us but two seconds to go into the sanctified hall and find a way to arrange all those good words in something that is corrosive. So it’s not a matter of nouns and verbs. It’s a matter of how you use them. And this point is essential because as sons of Adam, the man who said, it was the woman you gave me, we tend to blame the words rather than what we did or did not do with them.
It’s not going to be about avoiding certain vocabulary words. For example, Christ rules the nations. The nations rule Christ. Two sentences that contain all the same words, but the arrangement, of course, makes all the difference. And that corrupt, corrosive heart behind the wrong phrase makes all the difference.
And replace that communication with substantive speech. Now the problem is that hollow words come from hollow men. Acidic words come from acidic men. Empty men minister emptiness. But when Christ the word, Christ the truth, abides in a man, that man now has something to say.
Christ is the word. You, in fact, are a word. God spoke you into existence. You are a word made flesh. Christ is the word made flesh. Light itself, God said, let there be light. All of creation is word. God said, let there be fish. God said, let there be fowl of the air. All of these are words. You are word. And then God loaded your gun.
And the only way to do that is through the word who has now taken up residence inside of you. So your words are to be verbal saws and hammers. Construction equipment. Now the problem is we don’t like the sound of construction. This is mankind’s biggest problem. And it’s evident in the way that people dealt with our Lord. Consider Jesus and the woman at the well. Jesus shows up.
What’s he going to do? He’s going to say true things. You would love walking with Christ wherever he went. Because wherever he went, you knew things were going to get rowdy. This is not going to be a boring time. And you should have the same spirit of Christ here. There will be nothing boring about this church. Because it’s going to be a place where true things are said. And so Jesus is there with the woman at the well. And of course he says, hey, go get your husband.
He’s like, that’s right. You have many husbands. Jesus, did you have to say that? Did you have to say that at the airport with the lady when you’re traveling? Why did you have to say so many true things? Can’t we just have our Starbucks and move on? And Jesus is like, no. I mean, protests are laid out front. We can say true things. We’re not going to say acidic things, but true things. Jesus says this to her. And what does she do?
Let’s talk theology. Let’s talk about the correct place of worship. Let’s talk about anything other than my many husbands. We don’t like that. You have to learn to speak true words, which means you have to receive true words from Christ. When Christ deals with you, He deals with you.
He deals with each one of us in the things that we need to fix. And what we like to do is like, let’s talk about supralapsarianism together. Let’s make sure that whatever communal life gets stirred up here, let’s talk about predestination and free will and paedo-communion. And let’s talk about Christian nationalism. Let’s discuss that, right? Now, okay. Now I’m meddling in people’s affairs. I write about Christian nationalism.
All those things are great. I’m just saying, understand that people go that way like the woman at the well did. Because you’re not actually dealing with the truth. You want to deal with it straight up. Let that word come and deal with all those little cracks and crevices that are still dirty in your life. And what that will do is cause you to be that kind of force in the world. You’re going to start saying true things to people in genuine love. Now, courage is required. And courage is fun at the beginning. It’s fun, right?
You know, for the first three months, being at the D.C. Church will be fun. And eventually, like a good warrior, you don’t get a thrill out of culture war. You just know it’s your duty. You set your flint face to go to Jerusalem like Christ. Yes, you know, as the Lord blesses this congregation with a minister, that minister is going to need to be causing a ruckus regularly. And it’s not because we get some kind of dopamine hit when we’re on Twitter.
It’s not because we want our life to count. You were word made flesh. The flesh is going. It’s gone very, very soon. You have words. Use them while you can. You will not speak from the grave. Your time will be done. And it will be like, what did you do with the tongue that I gave you? What did you do with the dictionary? Were your words full of truth? Were they spicy?
Did they land? Did they change people? That’s the kind of thing that you’re after. But courage is going to be required, and humility is required. There are many people that simply like to hear themselves talk. And given our cultural moment, right, there’s a lot of strong right, left, and praise the Lord for the strong right. Praise the Lord for based kind of things. That’s great. Let’s do that. But then you realize a lot of it, like, is it landing? That’s the question.
Humility requires, one, I don’t, I’m okay with what people think about me. It doesn’t really matter what people think about me. But humility is genuinely interested in the other person and making sure that it lands. Okay? So you can make a lot of noise by slamming a hammer into this wall to my left, but you haven’t actually done any, no grace has been ministered to the hearers. There has not been any construction. And you can hear that kind of leftist goo, like, as soon as I say that in this climate, somebody’s like, well, what do you mean?
Well, sometimes, when soft and gentleness is required, and sometimes they’re supposed to be jagged pills. But you have to know, am I in a jagged pill situation? Do I need to serve this person a jagged pill? Or do I need that tender word that’s going to just break a bone, right? A soft word breaks a bone, Proverbs says. And it just shocks people when they find out this other part of your faith that they didn’t know.
The instruction is to pay attention. Is anyone getting what you’re saying? In your conversations, in your home, are your children understanding the words that you’re teaching them? They need to actually be applied. So saying things in the abstract because you like to hear yourself talk isn’t the way to go. It’s not going to profit anyone.
It’s not a matter of bad words and good words. It’s a matter of how you construct them. And it’s a matter of you actually speaking words that are potent, that are like saws and hammers, that are going to cut, that are going to build, that are going to instruct people and minister grace. The second aspect of the new man concerns his hands. If the problem with the old man’s mouth is that his words are like acid, the problem with his hands are his leachy fingers. Do not steal sticky fingers, leachy fingers.
Rather, work. Use your hands to work, use your hands to build, and then use your hands to give to the needy. That’s the instruction. The wise Agur from the book of Proverbs says, The horse-leach hath two daughters. Give, give. There are three things that are never satisfied. Yea, four things say not, it is enough. The grave and the barren woman, the earth that is not filled with water, and the fire that sayeth not, it is enough.
Proverbs 30, 15 and 16. That’s the case of the old man. His lychee fingers never say enough. And the same truth is highlighted by this aspect, by the hands that was highlighted by the mouth. Namely, the old man is hollowed out. He’s the shell of a man. So, he produces corruption. He’s a corrupt man, and he speaks corruption.
It’s fascinating that we hear in Revelation 20 that Satan is thrown into a bottomless pit. We’re post-mill, so I’ll just throw out there that that’s already happened, and you can work it out in the D.C. church in a small group of sorts. Praise the Lord. He’s in the bottomless pit. More to be said about that in other sermons. But we often hear it, but then we forget how strange the text is. When do you go thwack? In a bottomless pit.
Never. What is it? What is a pit without a bottom? Doesn’t a pit by definition have to have a bottom? A pit without a bottom would be a… It would be a vacuum. It would be a corruption. It would be the abyss. It would be the outer darkness. It’s being hollowed out. It’s having no substance. And this is the kind of thing that marks the consuming, the theft of the old man.
But the new man in Christ has truth to speak. Jesus is the word and he has something to give. Jesus is the true bread that has come down from heaven to nourish your souls. Jesus is this sweet wine which gladdens the heart of man. You have substance now and you are supposed to be one who gives. Now I would like to take this particular point and apply it to this growing church in a particular way.
Endless consumption versus having something to give. What’s great about a new church is that it’s only been three months and so people are probably not complaining at least about this church too much yet. That comes soon. So this is the kind of truth that’s like before the battle God is giving you the truth. So what’s going to happen given enough time is the church is going to do what the church does which means there’s going to be crackle among the relationships. There’s going to be difficulties, that kind of thing.
And so I want to give you something now for that. It’s very easy to lament the problems in the church. And I’m not only talking about this one now, I’m just talking about the kind of things that we say about the church in America. It’s very easy to lament the problems in the church, but it’s another thing entirely to fix them. May God bless you, particularly you men, head of households. Fix it.
Fix it. Fix it. Fix it. Whatever it is. Now, take a look outside. You’re on Capitol Hill. You’re in D.C. Fix it. It’s, yes. It’s a long-term project. It’s going to, I mean, it’s going to take huge faith. But you have to start with your own house, okay? So you fix the problem. You give. So the man is not supposed to steal anything.
So what often happens is people show up and they want a lot of things from a church. And it’s tricky because you are supposed to get things. You need the word, the sacrament, you need worship, those kinds of things. But we often think, well, it’s not giving me what I want. And then we skim off. One of the things that I’ve noticed at Christ Church, I’ve only been there four years, so I can’t take credit for anything. But I got there and it was amazing how there was,
generous benevolence. There’s gratitude. You have been yoked to each other covenantally. So as you’re coming into membership, and even for those who aren’t in membership, if you are a Christian, if you’ve been baptized in the triune name, you are my brother, you are my sister. Done. Settled. And it’s time to give. It’s time to pour it out. It’s time to be on full send of what I can do to bless other people in very practical ways
to be blessed. You’re a giver. What happens is if the church starts to get hollowed out and the leachy fingers of the old man start to work, it just collapses. It’s a Korah’s rebellion situation. The ground just drops out and they’re gone. They’re gone. And what does Moses do? Even with the case of Miriam. Miriam, there’s going to be rebellion. He says, have mercy, Lord. Have mercy on these people. Get away from Korah because it’s about to collapse.
He’s there to give. He’s there to sacrifice. He’s there to intercede. So take this point on board now. I can already see being back three months that people are hustling. It’s wonderful to see like a congregation where you have people that are really given. They’re really laying it out. There’s people setting up chairs. There’s people bringing food. There’s people preparing the elements of the Lord’s Supper. There’s people dealing with bulletins, sound systems, just all the things that come.
That kind of activity is a part of what the new man is. It says, I don’t have those lychee fingers. I truly have something to give. Now, you understand the way it works, it’s Christ himself. And so if you look around and say, I don’t have anything to give, that’s an excuse. It’s just an excuse. You say, I’m single, I live in D.C., and I don’t have any money.
That might be true. But you have something to give. You always will. And so you have to look for it. You have to see those opportunities and say, okay, I want to sacrifice. Christ is the exemplar. He has shown us the way. No one ever worked like he worked. He looked down at this tangled mess of a world, bent every which way, a debauched painting that was good according to its first design. And what does Christ say? I’ll fix it.
What’s it going to take? Oh, just your whole life as a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. You’ll do nothing but kindnesses for every person you meet and they will despise you and reject you. They will cast you outside of the camp. You will also have no place to lay your head. Even foxes will have holes, but you won’t have any of that. Then you will take the sins of the whole world on your shoulders and bear that weight that wasn’t yours to bear to the cruel and painful death of the cross.
And Christ says, I’ve got it. Consider it done. And then, not only is he an example to you about how you are to live your life, but he lives within you. That Christ, who has done all of that, lives within you. You husbands, anytime you sign up for marriage, you’re just signing up to be the guy who’s supposed to die. That’s what marriage is all about.
That is the new man you’re putting on that has already been raised from the dead. I can think of one other application here, which is who you’re supposed to give to. The text says you’re supposed to give to the needy. Now, as I consider Washington, D.C., Washington, D.C. is a type A kind of place.
You’ll dress in very nice clothes and you’ll go to those charity balls and people really can give it out. But the temptation that’s going to come when you have type A types of people, you have driven people, is you’re going to have climbers. You’re going to find people who are willing to do whatever it takes in order to climb. And sometimes being generous in the right way, with the right cameras on, to the right people,
is a great way to climb. Which is to say, that kind of giving means absolutely nothing. It means nothing. It doesn’t require faith the way giving to the needy does. Real giving to the needy. So what you want to do is to ensure that you give to people that cannot do you good in return. Make sure you’re really doing that.
Make your offering. Send your tithes and offerings. Build up the church and see if I will not open you the window of heaven and pour you out a blessing that there won’t be room enough to receive it. That’s the promise. And a whole different option.
Cooperation is happening in your generosity and your sacrificing and your giving when you give like that and when you give to someone that you know can scratch your back later. That you know will give you a leg up later. Well that’s a different thing. I’m not saying you shouldn’t do deals. Be shrewd. Do all of that. I’m just saying the kind of giving of the new man. The thing you’re going to put on is this generosity that clearly is not only concerned about this world. It’s not materialistic secularist machinery here.
No, no, we actually believe God’s promises. Better to give and to receive, and we give, and then the Lord gives back. 2 Corinthians, he who gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater will give it to you. He says, sow your seed, care for those people, and watch what I’m going to do in response you receive a blessing. Okay, this is the second aspect. So, acidic words to constructive language. Lychee fingers to generous hands that are looking to give.
The third is concerning your chest organ, your heart. The text warns about standard emotional chaos. Things like anger, clamor, malice, bitterness. All of the gunk that destroys your life, that slime into which people stumble and they seem to never get out.
Gives you that stabilizing force for your emotions. Given all of the tumult of the people of God in the Old Testament, it is striking that Christ was there with them the entire time. Absolute chaos. Where is the stabilizing force? Christ. He is the rock from which they drank. He was the pillar of cloud by day, the pillar of fire by night. He was the angel of the Lord that went before them. You’re going to find all sorts of
chaos in your life, in your world, raising children, financial difficulties, struggles, slander, accusation. Friends who are close to you will turn their back on you and will try to cut you down. You’re going to find all of that in life. Congratulations, young people. I’m warning you about things that you’re going to face. Notice at that point all of your parents are like, yes. You’re like, this place is rough. Yeah, it is. You will face all of that. You’re going to be up against the
Red Sea. You’re going to be facing the bellowing blasphemies of Goliath. You’re going to be facing the Philistine onslaught. This is the way the world always works. There’ll be difficulties from out. There’ll be difficulties from within. What are you supposed to do? In the middle of it all, you’re supposed to have emotional stability. One of the ladies out in Moscow is one of the greatest lines talking to ladies. She says, look, when all the emotional stuff happens, what she
say, sometimes you just have to look at your emotions, tell them to shut up and salute Jesus. It’s like, yes. And all the husbands are like, yes, let’s go. Men have the same things. We know the wife is the weaker vessel we hear about in the New Testament, and this means she’s also more sensitive. She’s more sensitive, and God uses that in great ways too. Men are in the plow, and the kid’s drowning, and mom’s the one who recognizes it, and that’s a good thing. But you can be moved emotionally.
You have to have emotional stability. You cannot give in to the clamor or the malice or the bitterness. So Christ is the one who’s going to give that to you, and I think this congregation is going to need it in a peculiar way. That seems to be evident. You do have the newspaper articles written up. You do have an association with the crazy people out in Idaho, my church, Christ Church, where I’m a minister.
You’re going to have all the protesters’ stuff. You’re going to have plenty of eyes upon you. God has put you on a very important field to play a very important game at a very important time. And if you have an emotional fit, then you’re going to lose. And so you need that stability. Now, stability is not hard-heartedness. That’s another danger. Think, well, given the chaos of the left particularly, I’m just going to harden my heart. I don’t care. You know, whatever. No, it’s not that. That’s not what it is.
An enlargement of your hearts. Say, God, give me a big heart, genuine affection for other saints, genuine kindness and care for them. And the reality is, all of the chaos at the national level, all of the newspaper and all of the protesters, that kind of stuff really is the minor leagues when it comes to the temptations that are coming upon your emotional stability. What you’re really going to find is the same kind of stuff that saints have found from the beginning.
And that is, it’s going to be relational conflict that comes. You’re going to want this church to do something. Someone else is going to want this church to do another thing. And there’ll be a third party who probably can come to you and represents other people in the church that aren’t yet identified with his plan for the way that we should go. This is just what happens.
emotional clamor, put it away. It’s gone. Trust the Lord. Don’t pull each other’s arms. So clamor starts when you start pulling each other’s arms. So someone gets really zealous about missions or really zealous about ministry to the poor in a given area. And then your sanctification is graded upon how much you’re invested in their operation. Well, I don’t think this church cares about missions. I don’t think it cares about the poor. I don’t think it cares about doctrine, whatever.
Your burden is your burden. His burden is his burden. Let him be. Let him be. You’re free in Christ. Do what you want to do. If you want to start something, start it. If people show up, great. The Lord blesses it. If people don’t show up, then the Lord’s not blessing it. But don’t start blaming other people. Just do it. The Lord blesses it. He blesses it. But no pulling. Don’t pull the arms. Don’t give in to the clamor and all of the tumult. What’s going to stabilize you here?
Is trusting God to bring the growth. Paul says this, right? Some say I follow Paul. Some say I follow Apollos. He says, look, God brings the growth. So when you’re in some kind of, when the emotional chaos is starting to work, like you’ll feel it coming. So when you have the sensation, know that that’s okay. It’s just you have to govern it. Your emotions don’t get to govern you. You govern your emotions. You need to harness your anger and use it. Be angry and sin not.
Harness whatever is going on and use it. But say there’s some kind of conflict between husband and wife in the home and the emotions are starting to turn. Here’s the question, husbands. Has God promised to sanctify your bride? Yes, He has. Ephesians 5. Trust that in the moment. Trust it right there. And when you trust it, you’re going to find it stabilizes you. Your children are going to wobble sometimes. Something’s going to happen. Emotion, clamor, trouble.
Has God promised to sanctify them? Yes. Through the prophet Isaiah, God says, I will be God to you, God says to Abraham, and your offspring after you in their generations. You trust God’s promises and it has a stabilizing force. Emotions, when they tremor, trust the Lord. Okay, the fourth and final aspect of the new man is his new will.
At bottom, when Christ makes the new man, he gives him the new way and the essence of that new way is forgiveness. The text says to be forgiving one toward another. This shocks the world. This is the mucking the stalls. This is the thing that’s going to keep your congregation robust, full of the Spirit’s power as it moves forward and it will shock the world around you who does not understand.
They understand retribution. They understand, particularly in this political arena, we understand what it’s like to put an enemy’s name on a list and to take however long and use as many resources as possible to get him fired. And there’s a part of me that doesn’t think that’s all bad in the political arena. I’m all for those kind of things. What are you supposed to do as Christians? You forgive one another. Make sure there’s forgiveness all the way down.
How can you do this? How can you genuinely forgive someone another? It’s transactional. You need to keep it very simple. In your homes, ensure that I encourage people to move away from the language of I am sorry. It’s not like it’s inherently evil to speak that way or anything like that. It’s just that you’re expressing something about your inner emotions. You’re talking to the other person about how sorrowful you are. And if you wrong me that way, it’s very natural for me to think, well, how sorry are you?
You’re not supposed to give your brother or sister in Christ because of how sorry they are. You’re supposed to give them for the sake of Christ’s blood and sacrifice. And you’re supposed to forgive them because they asked you for it. So, forgiveness is transactional. If someone has wronged you, when they come to you and ask for forgiveness, you give it. You give it, and it’s gone. You don’t get to hold on to it anymore.
And if you’re in a situation where you say, I have something to forgive, but the person has not come to me, the person is not seeking my forgiveness, what am I supposed to do then? And you are not supposed to let it sit there and fester like a bitter wound. You are supposed to keep forgiveness baking in the oven. So it’s there. And when that brother or that sister or whoever it might be comes and asks for forgiveness, you stand ready in that moment.
I’m glad you showed up. Here’s the forgiveness. It’s ready to go. It’s ready to be handed to them. So this forgiveness, when you have wronged someone, go and say, I was wrong. Will you please forgive me? The other person says, I forgive you. Consider it done. And you move on. It doesn’t have to bog you down. It doesn’t have to cause you to spin your wheels. Offer the forgiveness and walk in that forgiveness. The world will say, why in the world do you act that way? The answer is,
because we have been forgiven in the blood of Christ. All of your sins, past, present, future, secret sins that no one knows about, every single one of them that could put you in the grave and that could put you under God’s condemnation, this Christ has taken upon Himself. He took it to the cross. He died for it. They are gone. And in the new covenant, God looks upon that sacrifice and says, I have forgiven the sin of my people.
Their sin no more. It is gone. May the Lord cause you to walk in that forgiveness. Our God and Father, we thank You for all that You have done for us and Your Son, Jesus Christ. We thank You for the new man who is being created in Your very likeness. We ask that we would put away the old man and all that belongs to the old man, that we would put on the new man in these various facets.
We ask for Your great blessing. We ask for Your applications. And as we worship You this morning, we lift up the prayer that You’ve taught us to pray, saying… Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come.