Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev20130512.htm

THE PRISON EPISTLES: NURTURE FOR OPPRESSED BELIEVERS
I. Ephesians: Nurture In Living Focused On God's Eternal Purpose For Christians
C. Nurture In Applying The Believer's Positional Truth To Life And Ministry
3. Nurture In Relating Righteously Toward Fellow Believers
(Ephesians 4:17-32)
  1. Introduction
    1. When Paul wrote the "Prison Epistles" of Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians and Philemon, the fact that he was in prison troubled believers, Philippians 1:12-13; Colossians 2:1-2; 4:7-8 and Philemon 22; Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, p. 1672, "Introduction to the Letter of Paul to the Ephesians."
    2. To nurture his readers, Paul urged them to apply their positional truths in Christ to how they related to one another, and Ephesians 4:17-32 called them to relate righteously toward one another (as follows):
  2. <+@>Nurture In Relating Righteously Toward Fellow Believers, Ephesians 4:17-32.
    1. Paul called his readers not to live as the lost world that was vain in its thinking and darkened in its understanding in its alienation from the life of God (Ephesians 4:17-18), for the world's hardness and spiritual darkness produces calloused hearts that lead to sensuality, greed and impurity, Ephesians 4:19.
    2. However, Paul's Christian readers had not learned such a lifestyle from Christ (Ephesians 4:20-21), but rather that they were to boycott ("put off") the old sin nature of the unsaved way of life with its corruption and deceitful lusts and be renewed in the spirit of their minds by living in the new nature that was created after God's likeness in true righteousness and separation from sin, Ephesians 4:22-24 KJV, ESV.
    3. Paul then addressed specific realms of the Christian life to contrast living by the sinful nature versus living by the new nature in godliness, Ephesians 4:25-32 ESV:
      1. First, instead of lying, Paul taught that believers should speak the truth with one another as members of one another in the body of Christ where there was to be no deceitful speech, Ephesians 4:25.
      2. Second, Paul taught that instead of letting our righteous anger at sin in another be fueled by Satan into seeing that anger rule us so that we sin, though we are to be angry at sin, we must not feed it, but release it by trusting God to address the wrongdoer and his wrong, Ephesians 4:26-27; Romans 12:19.
      3. Third, instead of stealing from another, Paul taught that the believer was to work with his hands to do the good, namely, to earn his own material goods, so that he could not only meet his own material needs, but have extra goods and income to give to other believers in need, Ephesians 4:28.
      4. Fourth, instead of letting "corrupting talk" come out of their mouths, Paul taught believers to speak what was good to edify, that they might minister grace to their hearers, Eph. 4:29. This particular issue was apparently a serious problem at Ephesus, so Paul expanded more fully on it in Ephesians 4:30-32:
        1. When believers speak in unedifying ways toward one another, they grieve the Holy Spirit of God Who has put believers into a positional unity in the body of Christ, Ephesians 4:30a with 4:3.
        2. Paul thus called his readers to stop grieving (present imperative [lupeite] with subjunctive negative adverb [me]; U. B. S. Grk. N. T., 1966, p. 673) the Holy Spirit by Whom all believers are sealed unto the day of redemption, the rapture, through such unedifying speech, Eph. 4:30a,b with 1:13-14.
        3. Believers are thus to let all "resentment" [pikria, The. Dict. of the N. T., v. VI, p. 125], "passionate rage" [thumos, Ibid., v. III, p. 167; Ibid., v. V, p. 419] , "deliberate (premeditated) anger" [orge, Ibid., p. 419-420], "loud shouting anger of excited persons" [krauge, Arndt & Gingrich, A Grk.-Eng. Lex. of the N. T., 1967, p. 450] and "slander" [blasphemia, Ibid., p. 142] be put away from themselves along with all "ill-will, malice" [kakia , Ibid., p. 397], Ephesians 4:31 ESV.
        4. In place of these vices expressed in unedifying speech, believers were to be "mild, kind" [chrestos, Ibid., T. D. N. T., v. IX, p. 487-488] toward one another, "compassionate" [ eusplagchnos, Ibid., Arndt & Gingrich, p. 326-327], "forgiving, pardoning" [charizomai, Ibid., p. 884-885] one another as God in Christ had forgiven them, Ephesians 4:32 ESV.
Lesson: In relating to other believers in the body, God calls us to boycott our sin nature and, in the new nature under the Holy Spirit's power, not to lie, but to tell the truth, not to fuel our righteous anger, but to release it unto God, not to steal but to earn our living and not to hurt with our words, but to edify.

Application: May we thus relate righteously toward one another in the body of Christ.