Ephesians 4:1

I grew up in a creed-reciting church, and this summer, as we've gone through the Nicene Creed, it's been interesting for me. Hearing everybody recite it for the first time brought back some good old days and bad old days feelings from when I was a kid. Today, I have the privilege of teaching on the portion where we talk about Jesus being ascended into heaven. To start that out, we're going to begin in the book of Acts, because that's where it actually happens.

We will be in Acts chapter 1, starting in verse 4. It says, "While he was there with them, he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for the Father's promise, which he said you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit in a few days."

So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, are you restoring the kingdom to Israel at this time?" He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or periods that the Father has set in his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, as we dig into your word today, we pray, Lord, that you would be glorified as we study. I pray that you would help me to order my thoughts and to rightly divide your word as we speak it out. Holy Spirit, I pray that you would reach into all of our hearts today and bring to mind the things that we need to think about. Lord God, convict us where we need conviction, comfort us where we need comfort, and inspire us to walk closer with you through all of this. In Jesus' name, we pray these things. Amen.

So, they are there with Jesus, and Jesus says, "You've heard me speak about John who baptized with water, and you'll be baptized with the Holy Spirit in a few days." When they come together, they ask him, "Lord, are you restoring the kingdom of Israel at this time?" The disciples, the Apostles, have this fixation on what's happening currently right around them, particularly politically.

Are we going to finally get rid of the Romans? Are we going to be done dealing with this scourge? Jesus says to them, "It's not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set in His own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

At this point, when they hear "you will receive power," they are likely excited because this is what they are looking for. They want a way to get rid of the Romans; they don't want the boot on their necks. They want that particular political menace out of their lives. However, Jesus follows it up with the mission: "You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

Jesus' mission was not about the Romans. He tells them that this is not their business; this is the Father's business. The power they are going to receive is to be witnesses in all the places around them. So, yes, they will receive power, but not for the reason they think.

After He had said this, in verse 9, He was taken up as they were watching, and a cloud took Him out of sight. While He was going, they were gazing into heaven, and suddenly two men in white clothes stood by them. They said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into heaven? The same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will come in the same way that you have seen Him go into heaven."

Basically, they are telling the disciples not to fixate on watching Him go because He is going to come back. They have a responsibility to the mission that He gave them. Jesus' physical body leaving the earth is like the starting gun for the church, which is the body of Christ here on earth currently. The message from the men in white is clear: He is coming back. The implication is that it is time to move into the mission to be witnesses from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.

We have an issue. Jesus gave us a mission, provided us with instructions, and sent us a helper in the Holy Spirit. So why then do we have such a hard time doing what Jesus has called us to do? This brings us to point one in your outline, if you're taking notes: our calling bridges two worlds—divine perfection with Jesus in heaven and the opposite here on earth. Colossians chapter 3, verse 2, calls us to set our minds on things above, not on things of earth. However, our bodies are still here on earth, so how do we operate in this reality?

This tension between these two extremes has been on my mind as I planned for my sermon. I was shaving one morning, deep in thought, with the water running. I realized that while we are called to have our minds with Christ, we still need to operate on Earth. Suddenly, I noticed something was off; the overflow in my sink was clearly not working. The surface tension of the water was rising above the sink. I turned off the faucet and thought, "That's funny."

I was busy contemplating deep thoughts about Jesus, and in the meantime, I was on the verge of flooding my bathroom. I thought that was the extent of it, a humorous illustration related to my reflections on Jesus. However, the next morning, I woke up, prayed for about 19 seconds, and checked my phone. I found an email from the water department that said, "You may have a leak."

Ever since I became a homeowner, my greatest fear has been water. We have had three slab leaks, and it has become the bane of my existence. When I hear water running at night, I get super twitchy. Usually, it turns out that someone is doing laundry, and I can go back to bed. But this time, it completely threw me off.

As I was preparing to teach, everything felt holy and wonderful, yet I was freaking out, running around the house trying to figure out where the water was coming from. It turned out that one of my irrigation timers had malfunctioned and had been running all night long. After wasting fourteen hundred and thirty gallons of water, I received the notification.

This experience of bridging two worlds hit me hard. I was left with the same question: how do I operate between these two extremes? The answer I found was in Ephesians chapter 4. If you would turn with me to Ephesians chapter 4 really quick, Paul starts it out in verse 1. It's about this far through your Bible, towards the back. If you're looking, I can give you a page number.

Paul says, "Therefore, I, the prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility, gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace."

There it is. I, a prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received. Your calling bridges two worlds. We live here, but we're called to have our hearts and minds focused on Jesus. This creates tension. We live in a place that ranges from indifferent to the things of God to outright hostile to the things that we hold dear as Christians. Even in the midst of this, Jesus is calling others and us closer to Him.

So, we're called into this weird dance where we have to live like God's will is being done in a world where it mostly isn't. Paul is pretty clear: we're called to practice heavenly character in all of our earthly circumstances. In verse two, he says, "with all humility, gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love." We're going to look at those individually.

Humility. I was looking for a good biblical definition of humility, and what I came up with was that we need to know who we are. We're not God; we're not good, and it's not about us. Our thoughts, our plans, our desires are not the standard. We don't choose what it is that we think we should do; that's God's choice. We're created by God to do what He has for us to do.

We're not good. I don't know if this is a shock to you, but it's not a shock to me. We are marked, influenced, and susceptible to sin. As such, we cannot even accurately know what is definitively right in most circumstances. We need an unflawed standard; we need something to hold on to.

I have, on many occasions, woken up in the morning, started my day, and gotten to the point where it suddenly becomes clear to me, "Oh yeah, I wear glasses." I will start my day and I'm doing pretty well. I make it through the shower, and things are going well. Then, if I go to shave, all of a sudden, it's like I can't see my face, or I go to read something and realize, "Oh, oh yeah, I..."

I need glasses. I will wake up sometimes and forget that I need them, but it becomes increasingly obvious as I try to do anything that requires precision or perfection. Once I try for perfection, it's clear that I need a way to view the world that doesn't rely on my own vision. I need, for all intents and purposes, spiritual glasses. Our need for God and His Word is similar. We can do pretty well just kind of bumbling along from a generous outside perspective, but once we try to do better—once we try to do what God has called us to do—it becomes very clear that we need help. We find that help in the Word of God.

The third part of humility is that it's not about us. We are sent out by Jesus to make Him known to others. We're called to build up the body of Christ. We're called to make disciples, not palaces, and sometimes we can get mixed up in that area.

So, that was the definition of humility. With all humility and gentleness, we must remember that people are fragile. We are fragile characters; we are physically fragile, emotionally fragile, and spiritually fragile. We recognize our physical fragility fairly quickly when things happen. For example, we worry about falling or tripping. Our pinky toe reminds us of its existence when we walk too close to the couch.

We design our lives in many ways to protect ourselves physically, but we need to do the same for our emotional and spiritual health. The problem is that sometimes we strike out in spiritual fervor, thinking, "I am full of the truth; I know exactly what needs to happen here." Then, all of a sudden, we start wielding the Word of God not like a scalpel, but like a sword. Instead of lancing boils, we end up lopping off arms, feeling justified because it is the truth.

We are called to speak the truth in love. Gentleness is what Jesus taught us; it's what we should show others and even what we should show ourselves. I have run into people who are so unbelievably unkind to themselves. They say things to themselves that are harsh and unforgiving.

Themselves and about themselves, no one would ever say to them or about them. Yet sometimes we feel justified in that because we think, "I'm just talking to myself." However, we are talking to a child of God who was worthy of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. He loves you so much. How dare we be that harsh to ourselves?

If that's you today, I pray you are utterly convicted and that you hear the voice of Jesus saying, "Be nice to my kid. Be gentle to yourselves." After gentleness, we must approach life with all humility and gentleness, with patience. Patience is sometimes almost a dirty word in church because there's always the trope about not praying for patience, as God will bring you opportunities to be patient. The truth is that we will have opportunities to be patient regardless of what happens; it always comes up.

There is a need for patience. When Peter was talking to Jesus, he asked, "Okay, if I have to be patient and forgive my brother, do I have to forgive him a good number, like seven times?" I'm sure he thought that was an adequate number for a good child of God to forgive someone. Jesus replied, "No, no, seventy times seven." I did the math; that's 490 times. I can't keep track that high. I don't have the brain space, and I'll lose the paper I'm keeping track on. I'm never going to get to the point where I say, "That's 490 for you, buddy."

We are called to be patient. Part of patience is forgiving. It's a challenge, but we are called to do it, and we are called to bear with one another in love. A lot of times, we can read this as "putting up with each other." We might think, "I have to bear with that moron." That's not the spirit of what he is writing here. He is not saying we just have to put up with this person.

Bearing with one another, in this context, means living out the previous three characteristics all at once: being humble, being gentle, and being patient. That is what it means to bear with somebody. It is not merely putting up with someone; it is bearing burdens, carrying one another, lifting each other up, and trying to maintain unity. In verse 3, he goes on after being humble, gentle, and patient, to talk about bearing with one another in love.

With one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. He starts by saying, "Make every effort." Every effort! We don't get to the point where we're done with it. It's not a little or even a lot of effort; it's every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit.

This is not our unity. This is not a unity that we choose. This is not like choosing a political unity, an ethnic unity, or any other reason that we find to unify with people, like sports teams or something like that—even if they're Raiders fans. It's different. We are called to have the unity of the Holy Spirit. The unity of the Holy Spirit is called to supersede any and all other reasons that we have to be unified with somebody else.

I am called, as a family that homeschooled our kids, to be in unity with people who send their kids to public school. We are called to be in unity with our brothers and sisters in Christ who may do things like baptize infants or who may start their service on a regular basis by reciting a creed. All of these things—we are called to unity. This unity is called to supersede anything else because it is the unity of Christ, paid for by Him.

This is exactly what it means to be living as citizens of heaven while residing on earth: the unity of the body. The world wants to divide us by zip codes, tax brackets, voting records, and all kinds of things, but heaven unites us by the blood of Christ. We are called to live this unity so genuinely that the world sees something they cannot explain—people who love across every human boundary because they share a divine bond.

Here’s a point for your outlines if you are taking notes today: When earthly categories matter more than our unity with believers, we let the world squeeze heaven out of our hearts. When earthly categories matter more than our unity with other believers, we let the world squeeze heaven out of our hearts. We are called to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

I was looking at the bond of peace, and it made me think of spray adhesive. Spray adhesive works this way: you have two surfaces, and you're trying to stick them together. You take the two surfaces individually, spray them with the adhesive, and a chemical reaction starts. It begins sticky, and then it gets to the point where it almost feels like it's not sticky anymore.

Then you go to the other piece, spray that, and it starts out sticky as well. It also feels like it's not sticky, and when you take those two pieces together, they are bonded for good or evil, for better or worse, in sickness and in health. They are stuck, and they are not coming apart easily. This is like the bond of peace.

Here we have this bond where I am over here, and the Holy Spirit works in my life. A spiritually chemical thing happens where He is working in me. Then you are over there, and the Holy Spirit is working in your life, and a similar spiritually chemical thing occurs. God brings us together in the church, and suddenly we are bonded, whether we like it or not, whether we enjoy each other or not. We are bonded through the Holy Spirit, through the bond of peace.

The problem is that we are terrible surfaces to bond. We tend to fracture; we tend to fall apart. We don't bond well, so we have to work very hard at not pulling against each other. We must strive not to pull against the bond and tear it apart because that damages me, it damages you, and it damages the rest of the body. We are one body. When we have things that we are fighting against with each other and start tearing apart, that affects all of us.

Part of this also involves how we help others maintain their bond. We need to be careful that we are not encouraging other believers to pull away from those they are bonded to. This sometimes becomes a temptation. We engage in gossip, or when someone has done something to someone we love that we don't like, we start encouraging them to cut ties or just not engage. Suddenly, we are encouraging the breaking of those bonds. We need to be very careful about that.

Once we've mastered every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace, we follow up in verse 4, where Paul says, "There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope at your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all." In case you missed the idea of unity, Paul here is going to drive it home with repetition: there is one, one, one, one, one. We are called to be one because we are called to be part of one body—the body of Christ.

In verse 7, Paul states, "Now the grace that was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift." It says, "When he ascended on high, he took captives and he gave gifts to people." What does "he ascended" mean except that he also descended to the lower parts of the earth? The one who descended was also the one who ascended far above all the heavens to fill all things. Because Jesus ascended into heaven, he is qualified to give gifts and assign roles.

Now, this is sometimes something that we can get twitchy about in the church, but God assigns roles; Jesus assigns roles to us. We see here, Paul lays it out in verse 11: "He gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, to build up the body of Christ." Some are called into these roles whether they like it or not, and not all people are called to these roles, whether they like it or not.

These roles have a single function: to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. The roles of pastors, teachers, prophets, and evangelists are all lifted up. The goal of the role is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. This is a sequential thought in the Greek; it starts with equipping the saints for the work of the ministry to build up the body of Christ.

The point of this is that as all of us who are children of God operate in our roles, we will build up the body of Christ. As I operate in my role and you operate in your role, as we all work together as saints, part of the body of Christ, we will build up the body of Christ.

Universe 13 says, "Until we reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God's Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ's faithfulness." This brings up point three in our outline: the goal is maturity, the path is unity, and the standard is Jesus.

The goal we have as Christians is to grow in maturity until we reach unity in the faith. Maturity means growing, not stagnating or backsliding. We all like a nice upward trend; it looks appealing. When we look at our retirement, we want to see it going up into the right. We think, "Oh, look at that, that's lovely." Similarly, when we assess our performance in various areas, we enjoy seeing that upward trajectory. It would be wonderful if we could look at our spiritual walk and see it going up into the right as well.

However, for many of us, our spiritual journey resembles an EKG, fluctuating all over the place. Some days there are significant moves, while other days seem stagnant, as if nothing is changing at all. On those days that feel hopeless, we need to remember that we are saved by the grace of Jesus, not by our performance. When things are awful, we are not saved by our performance. Even when we feel empowered, as if we could part the Red Sea and lead the Israelites across, it does not mean that God loves us any more or less. His love is constant.

We need to be careful because we are saved by the grace of Jesus, not by our own performance. We strive out of love, not to earn love. In many human relationships, we often feel the need to earn love and respect from others. However, we do not have to earn love and respect from Jesus; He gives it to us freely. He saves us by His grace.

It can be a tough line to navigate, but it's an important distinction. Our path is unity. The way we grow closer is through unity—unity with each other and unity in the knowledge of Jesus. The standard is Jesus; the measuring stick by which we assess ourselves is Christ's fullness.

Over here is the fullness of Christ. We find ourselves somewhere in this line. Don't expect to fly up the scale. Don't expect that you're going to be like, "Hey, I started here, and now I am just right on the cusp of the fullness of Christ." Paul himself, as he's writing the Bible and as the Holy Spirit is operating through him, writes, "I am the chiefest of sinners." I don't think Paul was doing worse things, but I think Paul had a more and more clear picture of who he was.

I find that the closer I get to Jesus, the more I realize how far I am from Him, because His standard is so beautiful and mine is sometimes so not. So how do we do this? How do we get closer to that standard? We spend time with Him. It's like any relationship: spend time, spend time in His presence, spend time in worship, spend time in His Word. All of those things, as we live in obedience to the call that He has placed on us, will help us grow closer to Him.

However, unity with Christ requires breaking ties with anything opposed to Jesus. If I'm going to walk in unity with Christ, I have got to break ties that are opposed to Him. Some of those things just fade away. It's kind of like when you first get married; your single friends just start disappearing because they're looking to not be single, and you're already not single. Your goals and aims are kind of different. Then, once you have kids, the kind of people who don't have kids may think, "That's a pain; I don't want to hang with those people anymore." So, you find yourself hanging with people who have kids because you have common goals. Different goals require different paths.

Other things need to be intentionally severed. Some things don't just drop off; other things have to be cut off. We have to look at that and say, "That does not honor God; that needs to be removed." You cannot walk the same path with somebody who is going to a different place. If they are not going where you're going, you cannot walk the same path. If you try, you will just get tired, and eventually, you're going to get torn apart.

Some of us here today are dealing with that. Some of you are in a place where you know God is telling you that has to stop. Go ahead and stop it today. If we've pursued an...

An alternate path, for any length of time, will be painful. It will be painful to leave that path, and we may need to apologize for misleading others into thinking what we were doing was right when we knew it was wrong. However, we still need to pick the path that Jesus lays out for us.

So, what is the effect when we do this as we walk closer with Him? Paul tells us in verse 14 that there is stability and wisdom. We will no longer be little children tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning, with cleverness in the techniques of deceit. The picture of immaturity is being kicked around back and forth by every new thing that comes up. If you find yourself being sucked away by this new thing or that new thing, or this new doctrine, or if you watch a Netflix documentary and suddenly feel you can't eat meat or have to wear two left shoes, these are signs of immaturity. We should be rock-solid in the path of Christ.

Now, does that mean we are rock-solid in the path of Christ? No, but we should be. We should be getting closer to that. The picture of immaturity is being perpetually rocked by false doctrine, false teachers, and being easily deceived.

Verse 15 says, "But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into Him who is the head, Christ." Speaking the truth in love is integral to becoming more Christlike. As we speak the truth in love, it forces us into interactions that we might like to avoid sometimes with a convenient lie.

We have a friend who is in her pre-Christian stage, as I say, in faith, where she's still trying to figure out how to put Jesus into all of these other things that she currently believes. It is very easy in those situations to think, "Oh, well, she'll figure it out." But speaking the truth in love means saying, "You know, I like you. I value our friendship, but that's not right. Jesus is not going to fit in the box with transcendental meditation. Jesus is not going to fit in the box that you're trying to place Him in."

We join Him; He reaches out to us, but we have to move to Him. He is not going to inhabit those other things. It forces interactions that help us to become more like Jesus.

We speak the truth in love; it doesn't leave room for any more convenient lies. Now, that doesn't mean that we have to be harsh monsters. We speak the truth in love.

In verse 16, Paul continues, "From Him, the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for the building itself up in love by the proper working of each individual part." Jesus builds up His body by helping each individual part. The body of Christ is comprised of all of us. For the body of Christ to be stronger, it's each of us operating in what God has called us to do. It's each of us stepping into that and saying, "Okay, I'm going to operate in unity. I'm going to walk in love. I'm going to maintain every effort to keep the bond of peace."

This is the problem sometimes with titles; they tend to divide us. As soon as people find out—like you can ask pastors—everything about the conversation changes. All the adjectives they were going to use suddenly disappear. The conversation gets stilted.

In my first real job, I worked on the trucking docks. I have heard all of the language and have participated in just about all of it at one point in my life. I don't as much anymore, but it's not shocking to me to hear how the world speaks. Sometimes it hurts; sometimes it's like, "Oh man, you don't realize what it is you're saying." But when they find out, "Oh, he's a pastor," we can't even have normal conversations anymore. Then there's the "Sir," and it's like, "Don't serve me. Please don't ever serve me again." That's the most painful thing I've ever heard.

We are each individual parts in the body. We all have a function; we all have a part. The body is strengthened as we are all strengthened. There's not one part that is unimportant. Therefore, Paul says in verse 17, "I say this and testify in the Lord: you should no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thoughts. They are darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of their ignorance."

That is in them, and because of the hardness of their hearts, they became callous and gave themselves over to promiscuity for the practices of every kind of impurity with a desire for more and more. Well, that's a lovely description, isn't it? Paul says not to walk the way the world walks. Their way is futility; they don't have the same goal or aspirations. Their way is futility because they do not have a relationship with Jesus or the indwelling Holy Spirit. Their minds are ignorant to the things of God, and their hearts are hard.

Now, we have a tendency to see that and think, "Well, yep, that's the world; we're done with them." But what is it that they need? If their hearts are hard and their minds are futile, they need a renewing of their hearts and minds through a relationship with Jesus. How does God generally do that? It's through us.

Sometimes, we look at the world and decide we won't have anything to do with it. However, God left us here for a reason. There is a reason that when we get saved, we don't just disappear like we're on Star Trek or something, beamed up. He left us here because He has work for us to do. This does not mean that just because they are there, they don't have a relationship with Jesus or the Holy Spirit, and that their minds are ignorant of the things of God. It does not mean that they are all degenerates, although some are. It does not mean that they are all hateful, although some are.

Because they chose not to enter the kingdom of God through the door, which is Jesus Christ, they are excluded from the life of God. It is our job, through the prompting of the Holy Spirit and through the unity and bond of peace as the body of Christ, to minister to those people and show them a different way. Because they are excluded from the life of God, they embrace promiscuity, impurity, and an unquenchable desire for more and more.

The hallmark of a life without God is impurity, promiscuity, and an unquenchable desire for more. It's a good thing that those behaviors don't occur inside the church, right? Ouch! All too often, the church looks too much like the world. If the church is no different from the world, why would the world embrace what the church is doing? Why would they believe any of our claims about Christ if we walk the way that they walk?

Paul highlights this and says that is not how you came to know Christ. Assuming you've heard about Him and were taught by Him, the truth is in Jesus.

Point four in your outline, if you're taking notes: when we walk like the world, we are walking in opposition to Christ. We cannot walk like the world and successfully walk with Jesus. Paul questions whether, if we're walking with the world and walking like the world, we have even heard about Jesus or been taught by Him. He points out that the truth is in Jesus. If we walk in opposition to Him, even when we are talking like Him, we are embracing falsehood.

Paul goes on to say in verse 22 to take off your former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires. We are to be renewed in the spirit of our minds and put on the new self, the one created according to God's likeness in righteousness, purity, and truth. Taking off the former self is like changing a uniform. I am going to take off my uniform of the world and put on my uniform of heaven so that when I look down, I remember whose team I'm playing for.

Russell Wilson was the longtime quarterback, probably the best quarterback that Seattle has had for a long time. Then one year, he got traded and ended up going to the Denver Broncos, a long-term division rival. He took off his uniform for Seattle and put on his uniform for the Denver Broncos. I don't like to say that, but there was a problem. As he was making his play calls for the Denver Broncos, he was still using the play calls, the audibles, and the signals from when he played for the Seahawks.

What was happening was that he would call an audible, and his former teammates would recognize it. They would shout it out to the defense, and the defense would know that they were going to push through the A gap, shutting it down. The results were predictable; it did not go well.

He did not completely change his mind; he was not renewed into the Denver Broncos. Although that still seems like it breaks the analogy, because that's a huge downgrade. Sometimes we do things that are very similar; we operate in our former selves' playbook instead of completely embracing our new life in Christ, and the results are just as disastrous.

The way that I have parented has changed over time. When I had my first child, I knew a lot about parenting. You could ask me, and I would tell you all the stuff I knew about it. Now, I am on my fifth child, my last minor-aged child, and I will tell you I don't think I know anything about parenting. I keep running into places where the best answer is, "I don't know what exactly to do in this situation." I have general principles, but particulars are really hard.

The key to putting on the new self is not that we're going to understand everything right away. The key is to do it over and over again. We put the new self on minimally, daily. Sometimes I have to recheck my uniform 50,000 times throughout the day. Oh yeah, I'm not on that team. I'm not on the team that screams at people in traffic. I'm not on the team that savages some poor person working at Costco or Burger King or somewhere else. I'm on the team that loves people and speaks the truth in love. It requires for me to put on a new jersey and repent frequently.

So what does this look like when it's lived out? Verse 25 states, "Therefore, putting away lying, speak the truth, each one to his neighbor, because we are members of one another." Put away lying; speak the truth. Then we get to the question, "Well, who's my neighbor?" That was answered for us in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Who's my neighbor? Are you around him? Congratulations, that's your neighbor.

Then it follows up with, "Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. Do not give the devil an opportunity." He says, "Don't sin in your anger."

Anger is a natural human emotion, and the Bible does not say, "Don't be angry." In a world that is vehemently opposed to the cause of Christ, we will have good reasons to be angry. As sinners, we will also have many selfish reasons to be angry. In all of these circumstances, we are called not to sin in our anger.

A lot of times, when we are angry, we give ourselves permission to act in ways we know are wrong. There is no "fly-off-the-handle" exemption in the body of Christ. There is no "oops, I lost my temper" exemption. We are responsible for our actions and our reactions. We should not marinate in our anger. Anger embraced and encouraged becomes entrenched, and it poisons future interactions. Hebrews talks about this and calls it a root of bitterness.

The Bible also instructs us not to let the thief steal and not to allow any foul language to come out of our mouths. Yes, that includes swearing, but it is not limited to that. There are many ungodly things that have been said in Christian lingo. I was talking to someone recently who overheard a lady at Vacation Bible School. One of the people working there was speaking about her husband in kind and loving terms, glowing with affection. It was such a blessing to overhear someone speak out of the love of Christ.

Often, when you overhear people talking about their spouses, it is not in such a beautiful way. I told the person I was speaking with that it was amazing to hear that, as it doesn't happen as often as it should. She responded by saying that her husband is not a believer, and she wondered what would happen if she said something critical about him that got back to him. What would that do to his possibility of coming to Christ? I thought that was a beautiful perspective.

The Bible says, "Don't grieve the Holy Spirit; you were sealed by Him for the day of redemption." What grieves the Holy Spirit? It is His people working in opposition to His purpose.

As we close, the worship team is going to come up. The last verse reminds us to be kind and compassionate to one another.

One another, forgiving one another just as God also forgave you in Christ. What is the kindest and most compassionate thing that we can do? It is to forgive like Jesus, with no ulterior motives, holding no grudges, and not savoring our hearts. We have to put those things to death, but they're like zombies; we have to kill them over and over and over again because they are going to keep coming back. However, if we forgive like Jesus did, that is going to make the biggest difference.

In your outline, you don't need to write it down because it is the same as point three: the goal is maturity, the path is unity, and the standard is Jesus. If we can embrace that, the body of Christ is going to be unstoppable.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, what an amazing thing it is that you have called us your body. You have given us the opportunity, the calling, and the equipping to live out the mission that you have given to us. Lord, we don't always do it well. Sometimes I don't even do it well; sometimes I just flat-out do it poorly. But thank you that you love me regardless and that your mercies are new every morning. We can continue to put your jersey on and get out in the field. Lord, help us to draw others close to you and maintain that unity.