What Are You Talking About?

All right. Good morning, Blue Oaks. I’m so happy to be back here. I was here a few months ago. If you’re new here, I’m not pastor Matt. If you’ve been coming a while, I’m still not Pastor Matt, but he asked me to fill in when he is out of town. And so it’s my honor and privilege to be back with you this morning.

I live in Danville. I’ve had a speaking ministry for over 20 years and I love telling people about Jesus. So that’s what we’re going to do this morning. We’re going to look at Ephesians four together. I have three kids, ages 16, 18 and 21, but there was a time when they were potty talk years old. You know what I’m talking about.

Does anyone here have children ages potty talk, years old? I see you, sister. Anyone else see you in the back? Yep, I see you. Okay, you know what I’m talking about. And if you’ve never had children, you’ve been one. So you remember the days when potty talk was so fun, especially if you were a boy? I don’t mean to be sexist, but it’s true.

The boys, especially sometimes years old, carries on for a long time. And so my son look at they’re laughing. They’re like, yeah, I just did that in the car. So my son is the oldest. So of course he influenced his younger siblings, his little sisters in the potty talk arena. So there came a time where we had to start to establish some family rules around potty talk, because it was an epidemic.

And so we would say, no potty talk at the table, but we had to escalate that, okay, only potty talk in the bathroom. You you know, you don’t want to totally oppress your children. They have so many rules and so little in their control. As young kids. You want to give them some yeses. So it was like, okay, potty talk it up, but do it in the bathroom.

So I brought a picture of our bathroom just to give you a visual. This is the kid’s bathroom. And so we thought it was going well. But then some things would come home from school and church. And so if you zoom in on those photos over the toilet, you’ll see that my son was asked to draw a sign.

He was in Sunday school. In church, they said, draw a sign, something that you’ve seen before. So he chose you cannot be in this pool if you have had active diarrhea in the last 14 days. He did what they said.

And then when he was in preschool, it was pouring out there as well. Actually, this was kindergarten. Kindergarten activity where you’re doing the letter P, so why don’t you draw for me some things that start with the letter P.

Way to represent our family. And you can see I was changing a diaper. I had to make an excuse. I was embarrassed, like, oh, I’m so sorry. Like, that’s not normal. But it was.

Because you see, what we surround ourselves with, what we pour into ourselves will come out of us. So if we’re around the potty talk, doing the potty talk, being influenced by the brother, the potty talk, the potty talk, it’s going to come out. And so that’s a principle that we’re going to talk about today, what we pour into us will come out of us.

What we pour into us will come out of us. So let’s go to Ephesians four. If you are going in your Bible, open it now or open your app, or you can follow along up on the screen, we’re going to dig into Ephesians four. Specifically, we’re going to look at the end of Ephesians four. So let me give you a little background of Ephesians, because we’re going to jump all the way to chapter four.

It was written by Paul from prison in 1860 or 62. It is his first stint in prison, and it’s one of the four letters known as the prison prison epistles. It’s a letter to the Ephesians, the Christians that were in Ephesus. It was a letter to the family of God, to brothers and sisters of Ephesus that were surrounded by a lot of Greek and Roman gods and idolatry in that city.

Ephesians one three through three is Orthodoxy, which just means the correct opinion or right belief, the doctrine. So Ephesians one three is laying out who God is, who Jesus is, who we are in Christ. And then Ephesians four through six is the author Praxis, the practice of it because of Ephesians one through three. This is what it’s going to look like to live that out in four through six.

That’s the author proxy. Kind of one through three is your walk up song and then four through six like you’re up to bat. Now this is how you do it for the baseball people in here. I’m going to give you a little overview of chapters one through three, so you can see what I’m talking about, the right belief, the right doctrine.

And as I was going through trying to pick and choose just a few things to give you the idea, it was really hard because there’s so much good stuff in it. So this is just a taste of what’s in Ephesians chapter one. God has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. He chose us in him before the creation of the world.

He gave us redemption through the blood, the forgiveness of sins. He has lavished his grace on us. He has sealed us with the Holy Spirit. That’s just chapter one. Chapter two. We were dead in our transgressions, but we’ve been made alive in Christ because of his great love for us. We’ve been saved by grace through faith, not of our works, not from ourselves, but the gift of God.

We are a dwelling of God’s Spirit. Chapter three The Mystery of the gospel has been revealed. It is not just for the Jews, it’s for the Gentiles. It’s for everybody. Everybody is welcome into the family of God. Something that they weren’t sure about prior to Jesus revealing this mystery in Jesus. Through faith in him, we may approach God with confidence and freedom.

Jesus is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine. So as we pour in that right belief about God in Ephesians one through three, we pour that into ourselves. We’re up to bat with Ephesians four through six. Now that you know that you are loved, you are wrecked by grace. You are chosen. You’re redeemed. You are forgiven.

Here’s how it’s going to play out. This is what it’s going to look like. Essentially, here’s the family rules. Here are some of the rules. As a follower of Christ that are going to play out in your life because you know that you are loved, chosen, forgiven, a child of God. So let’s look first at Ephesians four one through two.

As a prisoner for the Lord, then I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle, patient, bearing with one another in love. Live a life for the other. Translations say walk worthy in your daily conduct. Live as who you are. Live as a child of God. That Ephesians four one through two is kind of the umbrella of the family rules that are coming.

We have these family rules, but we’re going to live them out with humility and gentleness and patience and grace. It’s the umbrella for how we walk worthy. And so some of the pushback when I say family rules or do’s and don’ts of Christianity is whoa, whoa, whoa whoa. This is not is a relationship with God. It’s grace. We’re saved by faith.

There’s no do’s and don’ts of Christianity. There’s no rules. However, there are family rules and they’re not a bad thing, right? Just as in your family, you have rules to follow. Why? So that you don’t hurt one another so that you can be the best version of who you are in your family. And there’s some pushback because, well, we don’t want to be legalistic.

How many of you have had experience growing up in a legalistic home or legalistic church? Anyone? Some of us. Yeah. So we want to push back on that legalism, because what happens with legalism is rules, rules, rules, rules taken out of context, rules completely over relationship rules. Law keeping is how you earn your acceptance with God. In fact, just about every other religion is based on.

Are you good enough? Do you follow the family rules enough? Do you fall short of the family rules? Do your good? Does your good outweigh your bad? The difference with Christianity is Jesus says no, I’ve come to bridge that gap. You’re not going to be good enough. You’re not always going to follow the family rules. You’re not always going to walk worthy.

And I’ve got you covered by the blood of Christ. You’re forgiven and you’re in relationship with God. So yes, sometimes we’re going to blow it and we’re going to hurt people with our sin. And that is the reality that there is sin. Now, the opposite of the legalism is there’s actually a name for it. I’m going to try and pronounce to pronounce it antinomianism.

Can you say that? Antinomianism. See, I don’t like that word. So I made up a new one, because I don’t want you to try and pronounce that. If you’re trying to explain this at some point. So the opposite of legalism. I’m going to call la la la love ism. And you have to do the la la la with it because it’s just like bella la, just love no rules.

Everybody is great. And do you and find your truth. You hear that a lot in today’s culture, that’s not a new thing. But I think we are hearing that more and more, and it’s that there’s no judgment. Judgment is the worst word in the universe. There is no sin. You do what feels right for you. That’s kind of the opposite of the legalism.

And that’s where I think we find ourselves culturally and even invading the church. Because yes, the most important commandment when when Jesus sums it up, is love your neighbor as yourself. Love God first, and then love your neighbor as yourself. So yes, love. And we want to be patient, bearing with one another in love. But love does not mean lalala.

No rules, no sin. Do whatever you want because that does hurt people. That’s not true love. Live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle. Be patient, bearing with one another in love. So these are some family rules that are laid out in Ephesians four. And we’re going to look at just four of them.

He tells us. Paul tells us what to put off and what to put on because it affects relationships and it hurts people.

So here we go. Ephesians four verses 29 through 32. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger and brawling and slander along with every form of malice.

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another just as Christ forgave you. So the breakdown of the four rules we’re going to go over this morning. No unwholesome talk. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, brawling, slander and malice. Become kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as Christ forgave you.

So let’s look at number one. No unwholesome talk, only what is helpful, no unwholesome talk. Other translation says no foul language. So what is that? Corrupting, foul, abusive? Anything that causes decay. No foul language or unwholesome talk should come from your mouth, but only what is good for helping someone in need that it may benefit the listener. Racial slurs.

Gossip. Profanity. Abusive language. Biting sarcasm. Chasm. Toxic negativity. PutdoWns. How do we speak to our children? How do we speak to our spouses? How do we speak to referees?

Does that hit home? It should. Look, how do we speak to our employees, our bosses, our neighbors, customer service people, people we disagree with in person? Or how about online? And some of you I know you’re thinking, can I still say the F-word?

So it’s not so much the words themselves, but the impact on other people. So you might think, well, that doesn’t hurt anybody, but does it offend people? Could it be considered unwholesome talk?

It’s easy to find excuses, but if it’s a debate, why not let it go and say, Lord, no unwholesome talk. I want to follow the family rules. I don’t want to hurt people in my family and outside of the family. I want to be an example of what it looks like to walk worthy of Christ. And for some of us, it’s harder.

Maybe our environment, our work environment. Maybe you’re actually a sailor. I don’t know why. The whole like a cuss, like a sailor where they get to own that. But maybe you are an environment. Well, this everybody does it well. How much more for you to set the example to be the light on the football field as a coach, as a player in the locker room with the ladies night out, when the words fly out and the gossip is happening to set be set apart.

As a child of God, I want to walk different because I know Ephesians one through three. That’s my walk ups, our song. So how am I going to live that out with the words that I use?

Proverbs 1821 says, the tongue has power of life and death. How will you use it? How will you use that tongue to build others up according to their needs?

There’s so many things that influence what comes out of us, and so many things we can pour in. And one of the things that was important to us as a family with the family rules, was no explicit lyrics. So we didn’t let our kids listen to explicit lyrics. And it was tough because there was a lot of pushback, because if you look at the top hundred songs on Spotify or Apple Music, maybe like half of a song is clean and they like music and they’re like, no, I just like, this is it doesn’t affect me.

I’m not listening to the words. I put Ephesians 429 up in the bathroom. The bathroom, no unwholesome talk. And my son in particular in middle school, I brought a picture so you could see how cute and innocent he looks, and you would never think behind the scenes he’s pushing back to listen to this music that really was not good, and thinking it doesn’t influence me at all.

You. But that was something that we tried to do in our house, to try and keep the unwholesome talk from flowing.

So no unwholesome talk. And then number two, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you are sealed for the day of redemption. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Well, how do we do that? Really? We can look at the verse before no unwholesome talk in the verses that are coming next. Anger. Bitterness. Wrath.

Why? Because rules are arbitrary. No. Why do we have family rules? We don’t want to hurt each other. And when we break, God’s family rules were hurting each other and ourselves. And that grieves God. Think of a time when your child totally rebelled and broke a rule, and you’re devastated. Is it because that was my rule, or is it because of the consequences of the sin that come with that?

Or where it leads to? As a parent? You can relate to this. There’s grief when family rules are broken, not the potty talk rules. Obviously that’s a little bit light, but some of the other things like we’re going to go into next. So no unwholesome talk, unwholesome talked, don’t grieve the Holy Spirit of God. And then number three, get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, brawling, slander, malice.

You probably know what they are. I’m going to break them down a little bit though. Bitterness, anger at being treated unfairly, resentment, anger, strong feelings of annoyance, displeasure. Hostility. Wrath. Great anger where you want to get to punish someone.

Brawling or shouting. Fight. Quarrel in a rough or noisy way. Slander. False and damaging statements about someone. Malice. Desire to do evil. Desire to injure. Now this isn’t to say you can never be angry because previously in Ephesians he says, don’t sin in your anger. Don’t let the sun go down. There’s like a limit. Because what happens if we don’t deal with our anger?

It builds up and it lives leads to the bitterness, resentment, and perhaps brawling. In fact, I have a story about this. When I was in fourth grade, I went to the water slides. I believe it was magnetic water slides. Anyone remember the magnetic water slide slides? Oh yeah, that was big. I grew up in this area, went through with my friend Andrew.

We were just talking about this story. We’re in line and my parents are here. I don’t know if you know the story, so hang tight.

So we’re in line at the water slides and there’s this kid in front of us. And again, I’m like 10 or 10 years old or something, 11 years old. And he’s being really sarcastic to me and my friend. And he folds over a dollar bill to make it say something inappropriate. Don’t try and figure out what it is.

But he showed it to us and he said, someday you’ll understand. And I was like, no. And so I told my friend, I said, if he says, and another thing, I’m going to punch him. And he says, oh, she’s telling her big sister. And so and he made some other comments. So there a build up. I mean, it was justified.

My anger was justified. There was just build up. And so I said that if he he says one more thing, I’m going to punch him. And so he turned around. I just punched him in the back. Me do I look like a violent, angry person? I don’t, I was I was kind of a bully when I was in elementary school because things were being poured into me that built up some anger and bitterness and resentment that I didn’t really understand or know how to process.

And I didn’t know Ephesians 13I wasn’t a believer. I wasn’t filling myself with God’s truth and his love and his grace and forgiveness. Because if I had that in me, I could have dealt with the situation in a lot different way. Yes, you’re going to be wronged. Someone’s going to make you angry. Those refs, they’re going to make bad calls.

People are going to say things that you strongly disagree with. But if you have the Holy Spirit of God in you and you are filled with your wake up song, you can respond and behave differently. No unwholesome talk. Don’t grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Get rid of bitterness, anger, wrath. I think I had six out of seven of those in that story.

I don’t think there was slander because I don’t think I said any false and damaging things about him. You know, I probably did afterwards. So maybe check, check, check it. All of those things grieve the Holy Spirit of God and bring dissension in the body of Christ. And as we mature in our faith, we’re going to grow in those areas.

Number four, be kind and compassionate. Forgive. And as I was studying through the book of Ephesians, it really dawned on me that connection there, right there together forgiveness, bitterness, anger, wrath, resentment, malice. A lot of that comes from unforgiveness. Being kind and compassionate. Forgive because you’ve been forgiven. Christ is forgiven you. You’ve been forgiven by people. We need to give that same forgiveness out.

And this is hard because a lot of people are unlikable and they don’t deserve forgiveness. But we’re called to forgive doesn’t mean you have to be their best friend, doesn’t mean that the relationship may be broken or you have those boundaries. Some people have done some really terrible things, and you might have to forgive over and over. Because if you start thinking about what they did to you or what has happened to you, it’s really easy to take it back and build up that bitterness and resentment and anger and malice.

But as we continue to to surrender to our Ephesians one through three, Lord, we can release that to him and be forgiving as he forgave us.

No unwholesome talk. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, brawling, slander, and malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as Christ forgave you. And remember that umbrella for the family rules. Ephesians four one through two as a prisoner for the Lord. Then I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.

Be completely humble and gentle. Be patient, bearing with one another in love. So what does that mean for us? What’s the challenge here? What’s the application number one, check our hearts and our playlists. What are we pouring in to our hearts? Luke 645 says, A good man brings good out of the good things stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored in his heart.

For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. Check your heart. So interesting to me when I see. When you see, like on the news, a story of racism and someone does some horrible racist act or says something racist and they get caught on film, and then everyone tracks that person down and makes a big scene of it.

And what happens when that person comes out and they get caught? What do they say? I’m not racist. That’s not really who I am. That’s not me. And I want to say, but that’s what came out of your heart. It went from your heart to your mouth. That doesn’t mean you’re canceled forever, but you have some work to do.

What we store up and pour up in our heart is going to come out of our mouths, and we like to think this doesn’t affect me. And we can become so desensitized to things without even knowing. So let me ask you this question what are you pouring in that makes you want to be humble and gentle and patient and bearing with one another in love, compassionate, kind, and forgiving?

Because what we pour in is very likely to come out. What are you pouring in that makes you want to punch someone in the face? What’s stirring up anger and hostility in your heart? Who or what are you listening to and is it affecting you? How much news do you watch and read? And does that help you to be more kind and compassionate and forgiving?

Who are you surrounding yourself with? Who are you pouring into your life? It’s funny, I’ve I’ve done a lot of speaking to young people, and we talk about show me your friends and I’ll show you your future. This. That’s not a kid thing. That’s an adult thing as well. Now, I’m not saying only hang out with people that are Christians and that are actively seeking the Lord.

We’re called to be a light in the world, and we need to love everybody. But what’s impacting you? What’s influencing you? Who are you going to for advice? Is any of it causing bitterness? Unwholesome talk. How about social media? Does that draw you more into kindness and compassion and forgiveness?

I know for me, if I watch too much news, it just makes me angry at everybody and everything. And I don’t like any politicians, and I don’t like any people who are political on any side of any spectrum of politics. So I probably don’t like any of you right now if know if I know all your politics. Just kidding.

But so for me, I’ve had to back off taking that in. It’s kind of hard because it’s like that balance of being totally ignorant or being so invested. That’s all you talk about. I feel I think erring on the side of ignorance is kind of beautiful right now. We are so inundated with information that it is paralyzing and causes so much anxiety and angry, angry ness.

Anger. So we need to check our hearts and our playlists. But here’s the key we ask the Holy Spirit to guide and convict us and lead us, because there’s no strict legalistic rules of like, okay, you got you can watch five minutes of CNN, maybe ten minutes of Fox, maybe four minutes of this, you can have an hour on Instagram and then you’re okay.

You can listen to ten True Crime podcast, but once you hit 11, you’re toast. You can listen to this rapper that has 12 potty mouth potty talks in there, but not, you know what I’m saying? This is where you have to talk to God and say, God, convict me. What do I need to cut out? What do I need to change?

What do I need to reduce? Is this okay for me? Am I desensitized? Is this influencing me as the Holy Spirit? To help you check your playlist and let you know where you need to grow and change in that area? Where do I need to humble myself? Who do I need to forgive and then obey? As God convicts you and tells you what to do, obey.

And it may not be the same as your neighbor, or your brother or your sister, but that’s the beauty of being in a relationship with the Lord. We have our family rules, and then we need the Holy Spirit sometimes to give us the application, because it’s not so specific. And I do want to acknowledge that sometimes we don’t have control what has been poured into us.

Sometimes we don’t have control of who were around all the time. Some of you might say, I have a job, that there’s images and situations that are important to me, that are really hard to process, and I have to wrestle through that as part of my job.

Ask God to help you and all the more for you to pour in what is good. Fill up on good things, God things. Fill up on God things, all of us, but all the more. If you have negative voices coming to you that you can’t control, fill up on the God thing. Psalm one 1911 says, I have hidden my word, and I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.

Start your day with worship music. Maybe instead of religion, the religion of politics. Read the book of Ephesians. Go check out one through for your walk up song. Read it over and over and over. This week. Take one chapter and read it like five times in a day. Get it in there. And then the other challenge would be build someone up.

Use your words to build someone up. Who can you encourage this week? I love. So the recap of the talent challenge is check our hearts and playlists. Ask the Holy Spirit to convict and help us fill up on the God things and build someone up. So we’re going to close the service by the band, the worship team. Okay, first of all, talk about filling up on the God.

Things like that is a whole walk up song. I came in when they were rehearsing this morning and I like Let’s Go. So good. Fill up on that. If that doesn’t make you want to go out and love people and share the gospel and use your words for good. So the bands are going to come out and play a song that is one of my actual walk up songs.

This is what I was listening to in the car on the way here, over and over. I listened to it frequently before I go speak. When I’m getting ready in the morning.

My son, who fought so hard on the explicit lyrics. Three days before he turned 18, he went up to a Christian camp for the weekend, three days before he turned 18 and the flood gates were going to open for him. And we’re like, you’re 18, you can go listen to whatever. Three days before the Lord, the Holy Spirit convicted him.

No explicit lyrics. So Holy Spirit of God that can move in our hearts and change. Two years after that, my son, who loved the Lord the whole time. So that’s not to say if you’re wrestling or you’re battling, doesn’t mean you’re not a Christian or you’re out of the family. So two years after that camp, he wrote this song that’s straight out of Psalm 19 that we’re going to worship to be his friend, composed the music and sang the vocals.

And his girlfriend, the that did the background vocals. It’s on iTunes, and I asked the band to play it and they were going to do it. So let’s fill up on Psalm 19 as we close.