The New Life

Tom Shrader continues an expository series through Ephesians 4, focusing on the call to lay aside the old self and put on the new, beginning with the renewal of the mind rather than merely changing outward behavior. Drawing on verses 25 and 29, he examines the contrast between falsehood and truth-telling, and between unwholesome talk and speech that is positive, constructive, perceptive, and effective. He closes with a practical challenge for believers to become laser listeners who build others up according to their genuine needs, reflecting the new life Christ has given them.

“Jesus didn't die to make you a better person, He died to make you a new creation.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Ephesians

Recorded: 2010 at East Valley Bible Church

Duration: 44 min

Themes: speech, honesty, new life, encouragement, truth telling, listening, behavior change, identity in christ, struggling with gossip, new believer, dealing with dishonesty, young adult, mentor, navigating conflict, parent, struggling with old habits

Scripture: Ephesians 4:1, Ephesians 4:4-6, Ephesians 4:17-32, Ephesians 4:21-24, Ephesians 4:25, Ephesians 4:29, Ephesians 4:30, Ephesians 6:12, 1 Peter 1, Proverbs 6:16, Ecclesiastes, John 8:12, John 8:31-32, John 8:44, 2 Corinthians 13, Colossians 2:3

Theological Themes: sanctification, becoming holy, renewing the mind, pneumatology, old self new self, spiritual transformation, biblical ethics, image of christ

Full Transcript

Introduction and Context

Open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 4. If you don't have a Bible, raise your hand and we will get you a copy. When you receive it, go about two-thirds of the way to the back of the book. You will see the publisher starts to renumber pages — that is when you get to the New Testament. From there it is about page 153, Ephesians chapter 4.

We are studying verses 17 through 32 of chapter 4. We are going to spend some time here, much like we did when we dealt with the first ten verses of chapter 2. We are going to spend at least three weeks in this section — last week, this week, and at least one or two more after that.

The Therefore of Chapter 4

Let me remind you of the context. Chapter 4 begins at verse 1 with the word "therefore." What Paul is doing in the first three chapters is laying out these extraordinary doctrinal truths. He begins by saying we have every blessing that is available to us, that God has moved us and changed us — we were dead and now we are alive. When he gets to chapter 4, here is in essence what he says: you are saved, now live like it.

Here is what he says: "Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you, beg you, to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called." You have been called — it is a salvific call, the call to relationship with Christ. You have been saved. Now live like it. Behave like it. Be who you really are.

We are grinding this point home: Jesus did not die to make you a better person. He died to make you a new person. So what Paul is saying is, because all of those truths in the first three chapters are true — because you were dead and now you are alive, because Christ died so you can have eternal life, because you are now a new creature — now you begin to behave that way. You should probably regularly, and certainly while we are studying this book, go back through those first three chapters, because those are the rich doctrines of our faith.

Unity and the Purpose of the Church

Paul speaks corporately in verses 4, 5, and 6, that we are one. This does not mean that we are all identical — it does not mean uniformity, it means unity. We are diverse in terms of personality, ethnic background, and giftedness, and all that goes with it. But there is a oneness: a oneness of Spirit, a oneness of body, a oneness of Lord, oneness of God, oneness of faith, oneness of baptism.

He gives us a brief discussion on the church and says, here is why you are here: to equip the saints for the service of building up the body of Christ. That is why the church exists. We bring honor and glory to God, and we build one another up by equipping, sharpening, and preparing one another to serve Christ.

The Contrast Beginning at Verse 17

When Paul gets to verse 17, he begins a contrast again. He says, "So I say to you and affirm with the Lord" — meaning it is not just Paul speaking, but God speaking as well — "that you should walk no longer as the Gentiles walk." That is the same word we see back in verse 1. The Gentiles walk in the futility of mind. There is a progression here, but it begins with the thought process and the desires of their heart. They are darkened in understanding. They are hard — the word there literally means petrified, as hard as marble. They are callous, and they are carried away with all sorts of sin and sensuality.

That was the point we made last week. Because we are followers of Christ, we make a difference in how we live. William Barclay writes this: "Here is Paul's appeal to the converts to leave the old way of life and to turn to the new way of life. In this passage, Paul picks out what he considers the essential characteristics of the heathen." So Paul is saying, here is the person who does not know Christ — the heathen, the pagan. The word carries a lot of baggage, but it describes someone who is an unbeliever, someone who rejects the claims of Christ. In the New American Standard, their defining characteristic is the futility of mind — also called the emptiness of things.

Reviewing Last Week and Its Response

Here is what we covered last week. We talked about people who have the ability to make the payment on a loan but choose not to. Real simple — they have a house, they can make the payment, and they decide not to. We brought in all sorts of things that come to bear on that: economic realities, legal realities. But the question was, does Scripture speak to that?

This generated more response than any message I have ever preached, which does not surprise me — that is why I decided to do it. The lion's share of the response has been genuinely encouraging. One of the things I hoped would happen by talking about this openly is that we would encourage one another, especially the young families. They were represented by the man you saw in the video. There is a great deal of pressure the world puts on you, but we can encourage one another through it.

What was really meaningful to me was how many people connected the message not just to a discussion on borrowing and lending, but to a broader question: what are the other areas of strategic default in our lives? What are the other areas where God says, "I want to speak into this issue" — where the world speaks into it, the legal community speaks into it, all sorts of advice is available — and yet for us, those become areas of real obedience, with real tension in the midst of that?

Obedience Is Never Easy

Obedience is never an issue until God, in His Word, asks us to do something we do not want to do. I never had this conversation with my kids — I never once said, "You will eat all your ice cream." Not one time did I have to have that discussion with them.

Letting God Be God

Obedience isn't an issue until we sense God telling us to do something that we don't want to do. I spent some time just thinking this week — that's a muscle that needs to be exercised. I dovetailed that thinking with some reading I was doing. One of Larry's all-time favorites was a man by the name of Major Ian Thomas, and I was reading some of Ian Thomas while thinking about what we talked about last week.

I wrote some questions down and some thoughts, and I want to share them with you. My intention here is simply to have you, along with me, think about your own life and review it. Here is one of the questions I asked: What does it mean to let God be God in your life? That came up a lot last week — this matter of just letting God be God. But what does that actually mean? It's a bumper sticker. I get it. But what does it mean?

Daily Dependence and Real Needs

What is your daily bread that you need? We pointed this out before: if God gave us our bread weekly, I'm afraid He'd only hear from us once a week. If He gave us our bread monthly, He'd hear from us once a month. If He gave us a lifetime's supply right now, I don't think He'd hear from us until eternity. So what are those daily, real needs — not wants — for which I need to trust God to provide?

How are you allowing God to teach you? We'll start where Paul starts: how are you allowing God to teach you in your mind, in your emotions, and to direct your will, and ultimately to dictate your behavior? We see that progression here as Paul talks about the futility of the mind and where that leads, but also as a new creature with a new mind being renewed, which then dictates different behavior.

Where We Push Back Against God

Here is another question worth sitting with: What does God tell us from His Word that we tend to see as unreasonable? That's always a good one — where God says, "I want you to do this," and we respond, "But that doesn't seem practical," or, "That's not the advice I'm getting from the world," or, "That's not the advice I'm getting from some of my friends." What are the things God is telling you in His Word that seem to you unreasonable?

We used to talk about this in relation to many areas of Scripture. What is it that God is teaching that you don't like? What is He teaching that you rub against? We encountered that a lot when we first started dealing with the doctrines of grace — people would say, "I don't like that." Well, it's really irrelevant whether you like it or not. That's probably something I should study even harder, and I should study it not until I like it but until I love it.

What is God's point of view on life in general, and on your life specifically? And what are some areas of your life where you feel discouraged — I would add, cynical? What are those areas? All of this really corresponds with what we were teaching last week, alongside my own thinking and what I was reading in Major Ian Thomas.

Ian Thomas on Self-Dependence

Ian Thomas writes this: "This is why the Bible says, 'Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.' Whatever does not derive from your attitude of total dependence upon God, whatever does not release God's activity through your life is sin. It's sin because it stems from an attitude of independence — you are open to any and all of Satan's deceptions in his long history of usurping God's authority. It means thinking godlessly — in other words, thinking lightlessly — with a mind that's dark. You take a step, you make a decision, you conceive your plans, you assume responsibility, all without relating the situation to God and to His light and to that which is in you."

If we want to go down that road of self-examination and strip away some of the layers, here are a couple of questions Ian Thomas raises: In what ways might there be some self-dependence behind your current plans or decisions? Or, what are the current attitudes or actions of self-dependence in your life from which you need to repent?

In this section of his book, Ian Thomas is essentially talking about the fact that what distinguishes you and me from an animal is three things: we can love God, we are dependent upon God, and we can be obedient to God. Bringing all of that together, the question becomes: what are those things in my life that God says and I push back against? He says, "Don't do it," and I push back. He says, "Do this," and I say, "I guess not."

The Lifelong Battle of Putting Off and Putting On

When I begin to process those things, I understand that this is the whole struggle. This is the very essence of where we are in this section of Scripture. It is the battle of putting off the old and putting on the new, and it is a lifelong process. There is never a point at which you cross that finish line until you pass from here into eternity.

Now look back at verse 17, because that really sets up this whole idea. Paul says they don't live like a Gentile, and the core of it is in the futility of their mind. That word *futility* is also translated as empty, useless, fruitless. The world's thought process, apart from Christ, is empty and futile.

Redeemed from Futility

In 1 Peter chapter 1, Peter writes this: "Knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver and gold" — but you were redeemed. So often when we hear that word *redeemed*, we think of being redeemed from sin, which is absolutely true: bought back, loosened, propitiation, the wrath of God satisfied. We talk about all those things regularly. But here it carries a slightly different emphasis — redeemed from the futile.

Life Without Christ

That is what life is without Christ. It is what Solomon writes about in Ecclesiastes, all through that book: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, says the preacher." The idea is emptiness. Solomon uses the phrase "under the sun" to describe life apart from Christ — and it is empty.

So maybe you came in here today, you just went through communion and you didn't take communion. Maybe you are not sure why you came, or maybe you could articulate it and say, "I don't know, something's going on in my life. Not sure what it is, just something's happening. I'm feeling an emptiness right now." Well, without Christ, it is not a right now — it is forever.

Solomon is the man that God allowed to have everything you say it would take to make you happy. If it is sex, he had a thousand women — 700 wives, 300 concubines. If it is building, he built massive projects. If it is civic-mindedness, he was involved in all sorts of that. He was a patron of the arts, had the finest wines, and had more money than anyone.

I go through that illustration all the time — a story about someone who wins $150 million in the lottery and is not happy. I think I would be. I think I could handle that, though I could be wrong. The reason people cannot handle it is that the illusion, when you have no money but do not have Christ, is that if you had money you would be happy. What you really need is Christ.

So maybe you came in today thinking, "I'm not sure, something's wrong, I don't know what it is." Well, we can tell you what it is — not because we are so smart, but because we know a God who created you and then told us that life apart from Him is empty.

Solomon's Conclusion

Solomon wrote his memoirs. At the end, after all of it, here are his parting words: "In conclusion, when all has been heard — fear God and keep his commandments, because this applies to every person, there is no exception." In our context that means: understand your sin, hold God in reverential awe, and come to His Son Jesus Christ in repentance and faith. Life apart from Christ is empty, futile, fruitless, and useless.

With Christ, Jesus said, "I have come that you might have life and you might have it abundantly." That is where real meaning is found. Jesus says, "This is life, that you might know the one true God and His Son Jesus Christ." We think meaning has to do with all this stuff, and He says none of it is going to matter.

As a follower of Christ — and I confess this is not every day because there is a struggle — the colors are brighter and the sunsets are more beautiful, because you see creation for what it is: a reflection of the Creator. The moments of exhilaration are beyond anything you could have dreamed before, because you know God in a personal way. Is it like that always? No, I wish it were, but it is not.

The Spiritual Battle

Why is it not always like that? Paul gives you the answer, because we are constantly in the battle of putting off the old and putting on the new. He writes in chapter 6, verse 12: "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces that are of darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places." You are in a spiritual battle. You have an enemy — Satan who wants to destroy you, and his demons. You have a world system that is against you. You have your own flesh that is drawn into it. That battle is real.

We were introduced to it last week — the battle between the old and the new. Let me read verses 21 through 24 from one of the paraphrases: "Since you have heard all about Him and have learned the truth that is in Jesus, throw off the old evil nature in your former way of life, which is rotten through and through and full of lust and deception. Instead there must be a spiritual renewal of thoughts and attitudes. You must display a new nature because you are a new person created in God's likeness." And here is how God sees you, right there at the end of verse 24 — He sees you as righteous, holy, and in truth.

Paul writes in Colossians 2:3 that "in Jesus are hidden all treasures of wisdom and of knowledge." Jesus says in John 8, "If any man follows Me, he will not walk in the darkness, he will have the light." And a little further in John 8, verses 31 and 32: "If you continue in My word, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free." That is what Paul is painting for us — that is the backdrop.

Lay Aside the Old, Put On the New

Paul states it plainly. In verse 22 he gives us the phrase "lay aside the old," and in verse 24 he says "put on the new self." Lay it aside, put it away, jettison it, divest yourself from it. He set this up in verse 21: "You have heard and you have been taught." You knew this. Now lay aside that old life by the renewing of your mind.

The problem is that we keep going back to the old. I have three pairs of tennis shoes, and I made a deal recently where I got two pairs for the price of one — one black, one blue, both comfortable. But every time I go to the gym, I go back to those old stinky ones, every time. They feel so good on my feet. That is exactly like the old life. It feels so comfortable so often, because it is what we did naturally.

Now we are supernatural. We have a new Spirit in us, and that simply means the battle is on. Jesus did not die to make you a better person — He died to make you a new creation. "If anyone is in Christ, he is new." For years I said, "I'll do my best." But it was not until I understood the gospel that everything changed.

The Battle Begins in the Mind

My best wasn't much better than my worst. In fact, theologically, there is no best. All I can do is worst. So religion says, do your best. Even some perverted forms of Christianity will say, do your best and let Jesus do the rest — I don't know what that means. Here's what this means for us: we can't do anything apart from Him.

You are in a battle beyond all battles. The battle between the old and the new. The battle of who you used to be and who you really are now. It's a battle that begins in your mind, and unfortunately, I think we focus too much on the actions. We're trying to clean up behavior — and I get it, because behavior becomes a measurement of where I am — but the starting point is in the mind. That's why He said, don't be like the Gentiles. Where do you start? Not with what they do, but with the futility of their thought processes, their mindset. Even when He's talking to us about putting on the new, how does He say it? Verse 23: "be renewed in the spirit of your mind."

Examining the Evidence of Salvation

In its simplest form, John MacArthur writes this — and it can lead to a lot of judgment of each other, but at least it's a great point of self-reflection: the only reliable evidence of a person's being saved is not a past experience of receiving Christ, but a present life that reflects Christ. That's a really important distinction. Someone will come to me and say, "I'm not sure I'm a follower of Christ." A lot of people at that point would ask, "Did you ever pray to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior? Did you ever ask Jesus into your heart?" I never start there. I start with this question: what makes you say that?

Usually there's some activity, something they're engaged in. Sometimes it's legitimate, sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's the idea that they keep turning an issue over to God but it seems to come back — and we have to deal with expectations. If you think you have some issue in your life and you're just done with it and it's gone, that's probably an unrealistic expectation. But it is helpful. That's what Paul says at the end of 2 Corinthians: examine yourself to see if you're really in the faith. It's legitimate to review and examine and test your own life. The easiest way to do it is to look at the experiences, look at the activities.

But what I need to change is not just the activities — though there's value in that. What I need to get at is the core of the desire. The affection of my heart is for the lust of the flesh, and the affection of my heart needs to be for God. Whenever I'm in that struggle and the old self wins, I have let something capture my heart other than Christ. For that moment, I love — and then you fill in the blank — I love that more than God. When you say it out loud, it really is convicting. Go back to what we talked about last week: God, I love this house more than I love You. God, I love that experience more than I love You. God, I love that drink more than I love You, that Coke more than I love You, that girl, that guy, whatever it is, more than I love You. There is the battle, and it's fought in the desire of the heart.

Therefore: The Application

What Paul does in verse 25 is introduce the word "therefore." He's going to take this instruction and apply it. He speaks of speaking the truth, righteous anger, and not grieving the Holy Spirit. I want to look today at just verse 25 and verse 29 — in my mind, I can link those together.

Here is the application: I lay aside falsehood and I speak truth. "Each of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another." That's interesting. Paul said the reason you lay aside the old and put on the new, and speak the truth, is because we're all part of the body. We're all in this together. So it's not just "don't do this" — it's not just "stop lying," which only moves your actions to neutral. Speak the truth. Be angry, but be angry about the right things. Stop stealing — that's not enough — start working. Don't give an opportunity for Satan to move in.

And in all these instances, verse 30, don't grieve the Holy Spirit of God. At the core of so much of this behavior is bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander — get all those things away from you, and all form of malice, get rid of it all. In your dealings with one another, be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving. And the motive is simply this: just as God has forgiven you.

The Tongue and Truth-Telling

He starts with speaking the truth. Proverbs chapter 6, verse 16 — God is speaking and He says, "These six, yea, seven things I hate." Of these seven, three of them deal with the tongue. "Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that run rapidly to evil, a false witness who utters lies, and one who spreads strife among brothers." God hates that last one, and it is so persistent in the body of Christ. Those who spread strife among each other do so primarily through the tongue, often under the guise of self-righteousness — and that one frosts me, but that's just me and I'll let it out. He says first of all: watch the tongue.

Think with me. They say the average man speaks about 15,000 to 18,000 words a day. The average woman, around 25,000. So let's split the difference and say 20,000 words — on average, we speak 20,000 words a day. If in those 20,000 words —

Speaking Truth to One Another

We sin through our speech, and that can happen in a whole number of ways — falsehoods, strife, cutting remarks, and so on. If we speak roughly 20,000 words a day and sin just once in those words, which seems likely, then sins of the tongue alone at the end of my life would number 25,000. It is amazing when you put it in that perspective. What is even more amazing is that if I am a follower of Christ, those sins are already forgiven. Christ died for those.

But He says, here is what I want you to do: lay aside the old, and speak no falsehoods. It matters in all the little things. One child-rearing expert writes this: teach your children constantly to tell the truth. If a thing happens at one window, and when they relate it they say it happened at another window, do not let it pass — instantly correct them. You do not know where a deviation from truth will end. We start by getting loose with the truth, he is saying. It is as simple as the white lies, the exaggerations, the overstatements.

Satan was a father of liars — he was, in fact, himself a liar from the beginning and the father of all lies, John 8, verse 44. Lay aside falsehood. It matters.

John MacArthur makes a helpful point about the tension that can arise here. He says it should be noted that telling the truth does not require telling everything we know, and it is not in conflict with keeping a confidence. There is a level of discretion involved. So when your wife or girlfriend — or in this case, former fiancée — asks, "Do I look fat in this dress?" the answer is, "Listen, it doesn't matter what dress you have on, you look beautiful." That is a good answer.

Now we like that kind of answer. But what God calls us to in verse 25 is to speak the truth to one another, because we are all part of one body.

Four Points from Verse 29

I want to couple verse 25 with verse 29, and I would like to spend our remaining time there. Let me read it from the New American Standard. Notice in the middle of verse 29 the word "but" — that signals a contrast once again. "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen."

The word "unwholesome" there is where we would typically go straight to profanity or coarse language, and that may be part of it. But the core meaning is closer to "useless." He is not endorsing profanity as acceptable, but his main point is this: do not let your speech simply be useless. The idea is of something rotting and fruitless, something that is not producing anything.

From this verse I want to give you four points about what God says our speech is to be. It is to be positive, constructive, perceptive, and effective. Now, that is a real challenge — and even as I say it, some of you who know me well know that of all the areas where I struggle, this is probably the one where I am most vulnerable. When you hear the words "positive speech," I am not sure I am the picture that comes to mind. Constructive — maybe. Perceptive — I doubt it. Effective — we will see.

Our Speech Is to Be Positive and Constructive

First, our speech is to be positive. "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth." It is the opposite of worthless talk. It is the opposite of what we saw in Proverbs chapter 6. It is not fruitless — it is fruitful. It is not useless — it is useful. It is positive.

Second, our speech is to be constructive. Verse 29 continues: "but only such as is good for edification" — or as another translation puts it, "helpful for building others up." There is a certain kind of speech that wears you down. Nobody can withstand a constant barrage of negativism. I can tell when I meet with someone whether they have been on a steady diet of talk radio. You can hear it in the edginess of their speech, the culture-warrior posture. I can almost tell if someone has been listening to certain types of Christian radio with certain teachers. It is interesting — I will suddenly receive three emails about the same issue on the same day, and I know someone on the radio was teaching on it that morning.

At the end of the day, the goal of our speech is not to destroy but to build up. Paul writes this at the end of 2 Corinthians chapter 13: "This is why I am writing these things when absent, so that when I come I may not be harsh with you, for the Lord gave me this authority for building you up, not for tearing you down." There is constructive criticism, to be sure — it is not just a matter of flattering people. But think of those controlled demolitions where they implode a stadium. I love watching those in slow motion, watching the whole structure collapse. That is what the tongue can do. But if we were to reverse that footage and watch the building rise up — that is what God is calling us to do with one another. Spending time with someone is meant to be like putting air into a building, investing in one another, building each other up for mutual edification, building the body up.

Watchman Nee writes this, capturing the spirit of that kind of sacrifice: a person who regards everything as a burden cannot be a faithful servant of the Lord.

The Discipline of Living for Christ

Our character trait needs to be disciplined until we cease to find living for Christ irksome. This is not a chore. It requires tools — tools that God gives us in life through His Word. As we said about the Word of God, it is good for teaching, for correction, and for rebuke. God gives us a game plan, and in the course of life, we make readjustments.

I remember years ago they were saying that every time Jerome Bettis ran the ball twenty-five times, the Steelers won. Every time he touched the ball twenty-five times or more, the Steelers win. Now, I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but if I knew that was a fact, what would I do? Probably throw the ball, because I'm not very smart. But ideally, you'd give him the ball and have a guy counting until it got to twenty-five — except the game changes. That makes sense until you're down by two touchdowns.

God has given us this book for our life, and in the course of living life together and talking with one another, we are making adjustments through the Word of God. Knowledge can puff up, but love builds up. The implication here is not just dropping into somebody's life, dropping a little load of advice on them, and then moving out — it is living life together over time.

Speaking Truth in Love

He is saying: lay aside falsehood and speak the truth. It is to be spoken in a way that is positive and constructive. We have developed a culture — and I don't know that we're entirely there yet. At least on the campus, I would say we're there with the leadership team and probably with a lot of the pastoral staff, though I'm not sure we're totally there with all the staff, and I'm sure we're not fully there in the church.

What we are trying to create is a culture that has enough relationship to speak truth into it. So we were having a conversation with one of the guys the other day, and we said, "You are not as gifted as you think at this, but you are gifted here." That is what he is talking about when he talks about speaking the truth — to be able to say, based on enough relationship, "Here is what we see, here is what God is saying."

You are going to have endless opportunities — in a marriage, in a friendship, at work, in the church — to have speech that is positive, constructive, and that builds people up according to their needs. Another translation says "to the need of the moment." That is, to me, a great thought, and it gets lost a lot in communication.

The Art of Laser Listening

How am I going to know your need? The only way for me to really know it is for you to tell me. So part of constructive speech carries with it the idea of listening.

The phrase we have used over the years is to be a laser listener — to be completely dialed in. I have that one down on the service: as soon as it's over, somebody will come up and we'll start to talk, and immediately there's somebody behind them and someone over there. There's nothing wrong with that, but my attention span tends to drift. You've been in those conversations, haven't you — where all you're doing is waiting for the other person to take a breath so you can jump in, because you already know what you want to say.

How am I going to build you up according to your need if I don't know what your need is? All I can do is perceive it, project myself into it, or guess. But the Scripture says, "Let no unwholesome word come out of your mouth, but only such as is good for edification according to the need of the moment."

A Story About Listening

I don't like jewelry. I don't like stuff around me. I don't like being under water. I don't know what it is — I've got issues. Showering is traumatic for me. But at one point somebody told me I needed to wear a watch, so I got one.

So I'm at the Good Egg one day downtown, and this guy says to me, "I just discovered my wife is having an affair." I said, "Wow, your wife's having an affair — that's got to be hard." He said, "That's only the beginning. My teenage daughter is pregnant." I said, "Oh my gosh." And then he said, "And I have two kids who are strung out on drugs." So I said, "Man — your wife is having an affair, your daughter is pregnant, and you have kids on drugs." Here is what he said to me: "You've got to take a pill or something."

I looked down and I had been fiddling with my watch the entire conversation. I found that watch the other day in a drawer — people give me watches constantly since I never wear one. I could start a pawn shop with all the watches I have. The point is, I had to listen. And listening is what makes it possible to speak according to the need of the moment.

The Goal: Encouraging One Another

The ultimate goal of our speech is that it is effective — that it builds one another up and puts courage into people. People should be changed by a conversation with you. "Let no unwholesome word come out of your mouth, but only that which is good for building up, according to the need of the person" — their legitimate need, not what you think it is — so that ultimately they will be encouraged.

So let's bring it home with the practical application: what kind of listener are you? That is how practical doctrine is. It applies to every relationship — husband and wife, parent and child. If you are in the process of dating, you have to sort through all of this as a laser listener.

The Tongue as an Instrument

Lay aside falsehood and speak the truth to one another — and we know to speak the truth in love. As a kind of umbrella principle, the idea is that the tongue is not an instrument used to spread division, cast aspersions on other people, undermine them, or slander them. Rather, your speech is to be positive, constructive, perceptive, and ultimately effective, as God uses you as an instrument.

Verse 25 makes clear that we are all members of one another — we are in this together. Our interpersonal contact, at the end of the day, should not be destructive but constructive. Not blowing smoke at somebody, but when someone spends a cup of coffee — whatever that time looks like — with you, they should walk away having been listened to, heard, and constructively built up, edified, and encouraged.

Laying aside the old and putting on the new is, speaking personally, a constant challenge. Especially as you look around at a world that may not be going the way you want it to go, and an environment that is not heading in the direction you want at all. But it is practical, it is real, and it is what God has for you.

What God Requires of the Heart

Be angry, but do not sin. Do not steal, but work. Ultimately, do not grieve the Spirit of God. And then He gets at the very heart of the matter: Is there some root of bitterness in there? These are the questions God is pressing us to examine.

We will continue in this section — spending three or four weeks here — and then when Paul moves out of this passage, when he reaches chapter five, verse 22, he begins to apply all of this directly. Wives and husbands. Children. Workers — employee and employer. The Word of God is incredibly practical. We take it out into our lives, and our prayer is that it would affect the way you live.

There should be a perceivable difference between those who say they are followers of Christ and those who say it does not matter. That difference should be visible — and one of the fastest ways it becomes visible is through the tongue.

Closing Prayer

God, I thank You for that truth. I confess to You that it is very practical for me. I struggle to maintain a mind that is positive and constructive, perceptive, and effective — and speech that reflects that is a huge challenge.

God, I pray that You would help us. Deliver us from the futility of our minds and out of the darkness and hard-heartedness into what is kind and gentle and loving. Restructure the desires of our hearts. Father, in this constant battle to put off the old and to put on the new, allow us to focus on the renewing of our minds, that we would want You — Jesus, Your Spirit — more than anything in the whole wide world.

Let it manifest itself in such a practical way. God, give us control of our tongues. As James says, the wild beast and every beast of the world has been tamed, but no one can tame the tongue. On our own, we cannot. Father, the tongue becomes a reflection of our heart — and that is our desire. God, change our hearts. Allow us to live, act, and behave in a way that reflects who we really are: a child of the King. Father, thank You for reconciling us to Yourself through Jesus. We pray to You in His name, amen.