Put Away Falsehood, Speak the Truth in Love
First B Jackson
2026-05-10

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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Assurance and we'll go from there. Glad you're here. I'm glad to be here. Happy Mother's Day. Glad y'all made it.

How about as the deer panteth for the water? Is that next? That is next. Good. Y'all can have a seat.

Nick's gonna come up and do the announcements.

Hey. Good morning, everybody. Happy Mother's Day. Let's give a round of applause for our mothers out here. Yeah.

Thank you for all you do and all you've lavished your love on us. That's it extends beyond just your kids. So I feel it here too. So much going on. Jeff, would you hit the next slide for me?

Alright. Oh, there we go. We've got first BBQ coming up. Normally, between services, we have food down the hallway like we did today. But coming up May 17, we'll have a bunch of stuff out here, some snacks, some food.

It's usually a lot of food, so come prepared and invite your friends and neighbors. We'd love to have you. It's a great time. Bring your sunglasses. My Sister's Closet is on May 30 in the Fellowship Hall.

It's a clothing exchange for women, and they do shoes, they do clothes, jewelry, all kinds of accessories will be there. And Casey can use volunteers. Her phone number is there and also on the church website as well. And if you wanna bring some items in, would you wait until the week before to bring those items in? And that would be great.

Speaking of which, lost and found is still very much lost. Would you would you found it and take it away from us? Otherwise, I have threatened to wear your clothes. So I put on a few pounds, so I gotta hopefully, you guys are a little bigger than I am. Vacation Bible School is coming up June 22 through the twenty fifth, and we're looking for volunteers of all stripes.

If you just wanna decorate cookies, if you just wanna help clean up, if you or if you wanna be there for everything, would you be there for everything? And we're gonna start doing some music stuff too. So if you have some music talents, would you come help us out with that? And you can sign up there or talk to me, and I'll get you signed up. The church cleanup, we're looking for Saturday, May 23, or maybe a little to get you connected in some way, shape, or form.

Okay. And we're gonna turn it back over to our musicians. Yeah.

Actually, that's you guys. Also also this morning, we have report from Yvonne. You always bring it. Yvonne and Russ and she just wanted to say thank you to the church for praying. She and Russ had that accident at the end of the year last year over in Idaho Falls and, you know, kind of broke her sternum with the seat belt.

But because they were doing the examination on her because of the wreck, they found out that she had a small lump breast cancer was just beginning. They caught it at stage one. She brought it before the whole church to be praying and they have done everything that you do with early stage cancer. And they have given her she says one more pill to take which is in addition to the pile she takes anyway. But she should be fine and she wants to give thanks to God and to the church for praying for.

So that is there and during the announcements in the first service, we had Stacy Woods come forward to be baptized and she gave a little testimony ahead of time how God had called her out of addiction and OCD and different kinds of stuff and into the kingdom of glorious light and she is experiencing the fullness of God's love for her and then she was baptized. I felt like we could could just quit going home right then, but there's more in the message, you know, but that's still coming. Would you stand with us and we're gonna sing, you are my all in all. There is a rest. Okay?

Like that. At the beginning of the first two phrases and Judy will play it and we won't sing it. Okay? There we go. Good luck.

Amen. And we'll go right in through worthy, you are worthy. Number one zero six if you have. You, Judy. Would y'all y'all can have a seat and I'm gonna invite the ushers to come forward.

Here they come. And I'll be praying out loud and I'd ask you to pray too during this operatory time where we worship God through giving to him whether it is financial resource or our time and our meditations of our heart, the words of our mouth. Lord God almighty, we pray that you would be using us in your way. Whatever that is, Lord. We wanna be doing your will.

Now, we know that we're imperfect vessels. We know that we are leaky vessels. We come to be filled lord but we want to spill over. We want to spill over. We want to to change the metaphor, reflect your glory.

Lord, onto the lost and dying world around us. So, God, I pray that your resplendent glory would shine off of our faces, that the living water that you have for us would flow through us to others and that we would be generous and gracious. Lord, we ask that you would bless the gift and the giver and that you would do whatever you want done through this body. The few, the fervent that are here right now, lord, listening to your word because we want to do your will. In Jesus name, I pray, lord, that you'd be doing it through us.

Amen. Man, thank you very much. What an instrument. My goodness. Thank you.

Here we are up to Ephesians four twenty five and we're going through five two. The people who originally put the chapters together on this one, I think they were asleep. They weren't paying attention to what Paul was trying to say. They just cut it up like chicken gets cut Mexico. Have you all ever been to stand in Mexico?

We lived there for seven years. Here you order a breast, a thigh, whatever. They cut it with a spatula, bam, like that. You get what you get, you don't throw a fit. That's what it is.

This is the section that I'm gonna try to cover today. It's couple paragraphs. I covered two paragraphs last week. And when we start, we'll start with a therefore and then I'll go back and cover those two paragraphs that I covered last week. Okay?

That's the what we're gonna do. But before I get started, I do wanna say this. When I was in seminary, I had been a service oriented missionary for seven years in Mexico, Been a year in Costa Rica and we I loved what I was doing. When I got to seminary, I did not plan on preaching. I put off the preaching classes till the last two semesters.

I did not think I would ever have to do this or excuse me for saying did not want to do this. But I got a chance because at some point my probably third or fourth year there, I got elected in a very Presbyterian sense. I did not really have a choice in the matter. I was elected to be the president of the Married Students Association which meant among other things that I would gather, we would gather all the married students at the seminary, even the undergrads that were married were part of it. Any of the professors who are married were a part of it and so, we would have gatherings and then on Wednesdays, once a month, I had to preach in seminary which I did not wanna do front of my professors who are teaching me New Testament theology and Greek and it's just a terrible place to preach quite honestly.

I didn't wanna do it but I did and so when I got the chance, this is one of the passages that I selected to preach and the reason is because it's really easy to understand and it's hard to do, okay? So, I didn't have the professors afterwards going, well, the Greek on this says, no, no, no, no, no, They were saying, yeah, it's really easy to understand. What's hard is we're people and we have our flesh and we have our past and we have everything else we're dragging around with us and so it makes it difficult to put into practice. So, that's what today is about. Now, last week, the therefore this week on verse 25 is back to the last two paragraphs and I say this is instruction.

It is instruction that is because of the first three chapters of Ephesians. All of the truth that you are in Christ because of all the blessings and because of the truth is you are seated already with him or walk just as everybody else does, the Gentiles do. Actually, Gentile there is hidden. It's everybody. It's everybody.

It's anybody that's not of Jewish background is heathens and this is Gentiles or others. You don't just walk like everybody else does in the futility of their minds. You all know what that was like because that's what you did before. They are darkened in their understanding and he says that as it's no real fault of their own. He says, they're darkened in their understanding and they're alienated from the life of God because why?

Because of their ignorance. To not know something is one of the best reasons to not do something, right? To not know it. To you we do what we know until we know better and then we do better. That's kind of the way this goes.

I also wanna say that Paul says in a different place in scripture, he says, God forgave me and brought me along in spite of my ignorance. So, he's not saying us and them, never the 20 shall meet. He's saying, it is to be expected that they don't know. They're darkening their understanding. They're alienated from the life of God because of ignorance that's in them and that is due to the hardness of heart.

We as human beings resist. They have become callous and they have given themselves up to sensuality and greedy to practice every kind of impurity because if life doesn't matter, why not? Does that make sense to you? Try not to say that anymore. Does that make sense to you, Parr?

But that's not the way that you learn Christ. Assuming that is that you have actually heard about Christ, the real Christ, and that you were taught in him correctly as the truth is actually in Christ. He is the way, the truth, the life. And he says right here to be putting off your old self and that's like a garment. It it reads like this in Ephesians.

It reads a lot like this in Colossians three. He says, take off that old life like a garment and put on this new life which you have in Christ. The binary function last week, either you're in your sin or you're in Christ. You're either in the kingdom of darkness or the kingdom of marvelous light. Yes, that's true.

But walking it out, the practice is something that's more of a gradiation thing. It's non binary. So, he says, take off that old life and that belongs to your former manner of life. It's corrupt through deceitful desires but be renewed in the spirit of your minds and put on this new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. And in a way, I see several folks here who've been baptized that I got to baptize.

And I think that it's awesome this morning for Stacy Woods as she was baptized. I said, buried with Christ and what? Raised to walk in newness of life. And so this is an image of that. And then as they were singing, are you washed in the blood?

I was changing clothes downstairs. I'm taking off the old and putting on the new before scooting back up here. I think that this is great to consider. So the old self belongs to the former manner of life. That's not who you are anymore.

Corrupted, deceitful, and greedy but by the renewing of your minds, the spirit of your minds, walk in newness of life. The new self is created after the likeness of God. It's in truth. There's true righteousness and holiness and since baptism is so on my mind today, I think of John and Jesus in the Jordan and he says, John, I want you to baptize me And John's like, I'm not worthy to untie your shoes. You don't have any sin.

What am I washing away? Come on. And he says, John, I'm trying to be an example. He didn't say that part. I'm adding that to Jesus.

He says, John, in order that we might fulfill all righteousness, go ahead. And John didn't argue with him. He did. And so Jesus has given us an example that true righteousness and holiness, he walked it out in his ministry and in his life. Voluntarily sacrificially gave that perfect record.

So here we go. Therefore, since we're putting off and putting on, therefore, the pattern is gonna be this. There's a negative command, don't do this, Then there's a positive command, but do this instead. And then there's a rationale or underlying motivation. And Paul does this four or five times here.

Boom boom boom in quick succession. And again I say, because it's negative command, positive command and the rationale, you don't have to go to the Greek on this. It's really, really easy. It's repetitive. All four of them have these three and then there's one overarching one at the end that is similar.

So here we go. Therefore, having put away falsehood. In some translations that it will say, put away falsehood as a command. I think this one is probably closer to the sentiment but it's still having put away falsehood because that belong to your former life. Let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor because we are members one of another.

So, here it is, the negative, the positive, and then the rationale. Put away falsehood and speak the truth in love. He says that other places before this and another place after this, but speak the truth in love. Why? Because we are members of one another.

Putting away falsehood is because it is a part of your old life. Speaking the truth, I think some of us are really really good at being loving and we feel like because we are loving, we don't need to tell the truth to that person because it would be hurtful if we told them the truth. I think there are more of us who would gladly tell the truth but not with so much love. Are you with me on that? So, because we are members of one another, this is primarily speaking to the body of Christ, the whole capital c church.

He's saying, don't lie to one another but be speaking the truth and love. I have blind spots by definition that I cannot see but you might be able to see them. Bob, you've got blind spots that you can't see, but I might be able to see them. If we have compact compact with one another and I say, Bob, hey, man. This is what I see.

You're doing great in all these areas. This is truthful. But this one right here, you're missing. He can either say, no, I'm not. Or he can say, you know what?

I didn't see that. Thank you. I appreciate it. And they can give him this right to do the same thing to me. Put away falsehoods, speak the truth and love.

For we're members of one another. We both will be better for having that agreement and we all would be better if we would have that agreement. It goes straight from the speaking portion, speaking the truth, not lying, speaking the truth because we're members of one another. And then it says, be angry and do not sin. Don't let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil.

Now this is the same kind of negative command, positive command, and rationale. All in one two verses but one sentiment there. In your anger, do not sin. That is a quote from Psalm four four. So, this is not just New Testament.

This is something that God is letting you know in the Old Testament and in the New. Every single one of us experiences anger. If you don't ever get anger, something angry, something's wrong with you, right? In your anger, which is not something that you're in immediate control of, You will get angry and sometimes you'll get angry righteously. Jesus got angry righteously.

I think that more often for us, it's not necessarily righteous. We get angry over whatever but that's normal. It is a feeling. It is an emotion and then, he says, in your anger because you're going to get angry, don't be sinning. Now, that is choice.

Whether to act on your anger and do something that is sinful and wrong. So, he's saying, don't sin in your anger but also don't let the sun go down on your anger. That is actually the positive command. So, it's negative command. Don't sin but don't let your son go down in your anger.

Emotions that come up, take a beat, take a breath, have a prayer, consider what you do. In our day and age, one of the things that everybody knows, media all knows it, to engage someone, fear is effective and anger is effective. And both sides use it all the time on every argument. And so in your anger because there are going to be things that stoke your anger. Don't let that drive you to do something that is sinful and wrong.

Instead, don't let the sun go down on your anger. If you are constantly feeding your anger, You're sitting there just waiting for the opportunity to sin. Now, the the text says, in your anger, you're going to have it. Don't sin. Don't let the sun go down on your anger.

Don't move to Alaska. So, you got a longer day, okay? It says, give no opportunity to the devil. I could testify from my own life. I could give you examples from the lives of people that I know well who have put input, input, input, input that just makes them angry and they're walking around and they're in a steaming stupor all the time upset about something.

And then when confronted with just a little something, it gives them an opportunity to pop off at somebody else. We don't wanna do that because giving the devil an opportunity. He has come to divide and the whole book of Ephesians is about what? Unity. He's come to divide.

So, in that we are members of one another, you are going to be angry at times with somebody even within the church. Don't let it get the best of you and go after them. Don't let the sun go down on your anger. Allow for that to be something. God says it very clearly in Romans nine.

Vengeance is mine and I will repay. Jesus or God is the ultimate judge. He knows what people need. He knows true justice and some of y'all are so justice oriented. You just want for the bad guy to get what's coming to him right away, right now.

This is saying, let God be God, give him some space to work, and let your anger come down. Because if you walk around angry all the time, you're giving an opportunity to the devil to sneak in. So this one, it seems really rapid fire and it seems like, do these have anything to do with one another? Is he just picking them at random? He keeps on going.

Next week, he's got another list. But if you get the beginning of Ephesians, how you have been transformed in Christ and now are the way that he is sharing the goodness of God with the rest of the cosmos, they do make some sense. Speaking the truth, angered not sinning. The next one is let the thief no longer steal. So what you were identified with in your past, you're a thief.

That's the way you're wired. You just pilfered from people or you didn't work while you're at work or you cheated the system in whatever way. Let the thief no longer steal. So don't steal is the negative command. And then, but rather let him labor.

Let him be doing honest work with his own hands, earning his keep basically. Do honest work with your own hands and then the rationale might surprise you. It doesn't say that you can have more so you can build big barns. It says so that you may have something to share with anyone in need. Just that in itself is saying, we're not individual little islands.

We're members of one another. And so the ones who've been taking advantage and stealing, quit it. Be working with your own hands and then you'll be able to provide for the one who's really in need. So there it is. Immediately, let no corrupt and talk come out of your mouth.

Let no corrupt and talk come out of your mouth. It's easier said than done. Do not talk corruptingly. I was gonna list all the ways that the Bible says and I might do it next week. The corrupt speech according to the Bible, slander.

When you tear someone else down, that is corrupt speech. And it's pretty easy to do. Next week, he will talk about course jesting where you're joking with somebody but there's some truth in what you're saying. Right? It's like tearing somebody down.

Gossip. Gossip is one of the biblical ones where you're behind somebody's back and say, can you believe so and so wore that to this thing over there? My goodness. It just shows that she don't care anything about the people in the first place. No, no, no, no.

Gossip is one. Cheese me. Cheese me. I'm the gossiping is one that tears down. Slander, all of them come from a place of malice where usually it's trying to bring somebody down so we can feel better about ourselves.

It's horrible. Negative talk. Do not talk corruptingly. I'll come back to that one next week probably. So let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths but only such as is good for building up as it fits the occasion.

Here it is Mother's Day. How many of your mothers said this? If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Right? Or it is better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

If we will take thee this verse seriously and really get a hold on what we say and refuse to say negative stuff, corrupting stuff But only that which is good for building up as it fits the occasion. So in the moment, oh my goodness. A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver. And I can say sometimes, I I hope that I'm offering encouragement and I hope that I'm constantly encouraging and I have on my heart and in my mouth things about things that are building up. But I'll admit that I get around and let my guard down and I'm just going especially about politics, especially about insurance for crying out loud makes me so mad.

But let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths but only such as is good for building up as it fits the occasion and the rationale behind that. Don't talk corruptingly but speak to build others up. Is this, that it may give grace to those who hear. It's not because they deserve it. It's grace.

It's unmerited favor. You can be a carrier of unmerited favor and even the unmerited favor of God can travel through you by what you say. I'll say, I heard from Scott Eichen this week. Scott Eichen's over in Gillette. He's been preaching.

Excuse me. Bit of a cold. Scott Eichen is over in Gillette. He's been preaching there for a long time. Somebody wrote a book about him a while back and the title of the book was The Relentless Encourager and I found that to be true of Scott since the day that I met him.

He's always relentlessly been an encourager. I've never heard him say anything to tear down ever. He just constantly, he texted me earlier in the week and said, hey, man. I was thinking about you. I'm just so glad blah blah blah blah.

I could read it. It's wonderful and it made me feel like, okay, another Sunday. I can get up there. You know what I'm saying? It gives you the the strength to go on, the grace to go on.

Let no corrupt and talk come out of your mouths. A relentless encourager is always welcome. And if you sit back and go, I don't know if that's true. Maybe it's because a relentless encourager has interrupted your corrupting talk. Because that hits me.

That it may give grace to those who hear. So that is the deal. Don't say negative, corrupting stuff, tearing other people down. Speak to build each others up. We are members of one another.

If we are constantly tearing people down, we are dog eat dog fighting against one another and tearing our own witness down. It's in order to give grace to those who hear. So I can't read this verse without thinking of this section of James. James goes on and on about how the tongue is a small part of the body, but it boast of great things. See how great a forest is set a flame by such a small fire.

The tongue is that fire. It's the very world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our bodies parts as that which defiles the whole body. It sets on fire the course of our life just and is set on fire by hell. For every species of birds and beasts and reptiles and creatures of sea is tamed, and we use them to our advantage.

It has been tamed by the human race, but no one among mankind has ever successfully been able to tame the tongue. Human behavior modification ultimately doesn't work. Now the gospel does work. And so Paul is saying because the gospel is true, you can get a handle on this thing. James is saying, no one among mankind has ever been able to tame the tongue.

It's a restless evil and full of deadly poison. Can you think of anybody who just spreads poison and it tears down the one of the commentators listed Hitler's speeches just incited a whole country to go after him and divide the crowd and start a world war because of inflammatory speech. No one among mankind can tame tongue. It's restless evil full of deadly poison. With it, we would bless our lord and father and with it, we curse people who have been made in the likeness of God.

From the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brothers and my sisters, these things should not be this way. Don't be double minded. Go with what God has for you. That's James' instruction.

Death and life are in the power of the tongue. Would you choose life? That's what I'm going to do is build up rather than tear down and I want to say, if we go back for just a second, every time that anybody comes in for marriage counseling, I had a professor in seminary who was in these married chapels that I had to teach and preach in. He was there and he says that 90 plus percent of the time. He said 94% of the time in his experience.

When he asked a couple coming through the door, what is it that you think I might be able to help you with here today in a marriage counseling session? He says, 94% of time they say it's communication. We're not communicating. We're talking past one another. We're just not communicating.

And then he had the class look up and he said, look this verse up from Luke and look this verse up from Jeremiah. And the verse from Luke says, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. And then the verse from Jeremiah seventeen twenty six, I think it is, says, our hearts are desperately wicked and deceitful above all else and who can understand them? So, if that's the way our hearts are and that's what's coming out of our mouth, we don't even understand why we say what we say sometimes But the other person heard it and it's already done the damage. It's already done it.

If we can catch that and repent of it, if we can catch it and not allow the corrupting stuff to come out of our mouth. But only do that which is profitable for building up, speaking the truth and love that it may give grace to those who hear. Here we go. 30 to 32 and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. That's the negative command.

Don't grieve the spirit. The spirit according to Jesus in John 15, the job of the comforter of the Holy Spirit is to convict us of our sin and to convince us of God's righteousness and to illumine his word for our profit. Okay? For our good. So don't grieve the Holy Spirit.

The still small voice of God that is speaking to us, urging us in the way that we should go. Don't grieve that. When you hear it, be obedient to it. That's how you're sealed for the day of redemption and it says, as a positive command, which it might not look like it but it is. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice.

How many of you would like to positively be rid of bitterness? That'd be a positive thing in our life if we could rid ourselves of bitterness. How many of you would like to be set free from your own little kingdom wrath? Yeah. I don't want to be angry.

I don't I finally deleted all that stuff on my phone that was just scrolled, scrolling that made me mad. I feel a whole lot better for it, you know? And anger. You're going to be angry. Stuff's going to come upon you at times and you're going to be angry about it but don't sin.

And clamor, we just feel like you gotta, no, calm down. And slander. Let that be put away from you along with all malice. If you don't know what malice is, malice is when you wish ill upon someone. It's the opposite of grace in many ways.

So, grace is unmerited favor and malice may be undeserved ill. Okay? You might think it's deserved. I don't know. But malice is when you wish ill upon someone else.

And you can be a justice oriented person and you say, they're not doing right. They deserve to be punished. Okay. That's still malice. And God is saying, let go of that.

Give me some space to work. Vengeance is mine. I will repay. You don't have to worry about that. You are an unrighteous judge.

I'm the only righteous judge. That's what God says. So, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice and be kind to one another. Tender hearted. Forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you.

So, this one's hard to put on my little summary slide but here it is. Don't grieve the Holy Spirit of God. God is actively at work and he is showing us the steps that he has in front of us that he wants for us to do for his glory and for your good and don't be grieving that. When you hear the Lord speak through his spirit and you say, yes, lord and you walk in it, you have a deeper relationship and God blesses through you. If you are keyed up and you've got bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander in you, you're not likely to be walking in the steps that God has for you.

So, positively, put all those other things away and trust God to take care of it. He will repay. You don't have to. When he says, be kind to one another. Be gentle and kind, favorably disposed towards one another and this is just as God and Christ forgave you.

So, this is primarily within the church but it goes beyond that too. Be kind to one another. Tender hearted, forgiving one another. Now, I said that I had to preach this when I was in seminary and I chose something that I knew was really easy to understand but really hard to do because I didn't want for doctor Larkin who literally wrote the handbook on Ephesians like to be sitting out there like this. These commandments are based on that rationale below just as God in Christ forgave you.

Now he says in Colossians three, he says, be forgiven one another just as God forgave you. In Ephesians, he takes one more little clause in there. Two word prepositional phrase, in Christ. How did, how is it that God in Christ forgave me? Jesus walked out a perfect life, had no sin debt of his own, chose voluntarily and sacrificially to give that perfect record to anyone by his death, by his blood.

He chose to give that to anyone who would put their faith in him. And Romans five eight tells us how he did it. So just as God in Christ forgave you is the way you're supposed to be forgiven one another. How did he do it? It says, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

So, he didn't wait for us to get better. He didn't wait for us to come to him and beg. He already was actively leaning towards doing everything he could do to forgive and that's the way that we should be for anyone who has offended us. Anyone especially within the church, anybody who has hurt us, we should be leaning towards them in forgiveness, eager to maintain unity in the bond of the spirit, tender hearted, forgiving one another. Just as God in Christ forgave you and then over in the chapter five, five one says this, therefore, because of all that.

Now, be imitators of God. The word there for imitators in Greek is mimiti. Mimiti. And that is where we get the English word mimic to one who imitates or emulates. It is the positive imitation that arises by admiring a pattern that's been set.

What do we say? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Right? If we see something good about somebody and we just think, I wanna be like that. It's used seven times in the New Testament.

Once here and six more times, I'll share those with you. A mentor mentee is a proper example but a followers of Christ that's emulating a god approved example. Able to We're We're able He's saying, and we all do whether we want to or not. We emulate our idea of God. If you got somebody who's constantly spewing poison, they probably have an angry God.

But he's gentle and he's kind and he's merciful and when he gets a chance, he tells us that he is long suffering and patient with us. So we should be that way. So here we go. Does anybody remember this machine? Now I know Gen X, I remember this machine very well and I remember it like this.

Do you all remember a mimeograph? Some of you all were teachers and some of you know the mimeograph machine which is Greek, mimeo and graph, written copy. So you put in a page and it was a crank it through the alcohol solution. It was like three different types of alcohol. And the reason those people are sniffing is probably because it made you high.

But when you're going through the mimeographs, you're just making a copy after a copy after a copy of an original. And by the time a lot of us got these copies of hooked on phonics, it was already a copy of a copy. And every time that you go one degree separation, it gets a little worse. But I'm gonna use the rest of the examples in the New Testament. Paul is writing to the Corinthians because there's crazy bad sin that's happening among them and so, he gets to the fourth chapter and he's already scolded him pretty hard and he says, listen, I don't write these things to shame you.

What I'm doing is speaking the truth and love. I'm admonishing you just like you are my own children. For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, teachers, yet you would not have many fathers. I'm saying it because no matter what the divisions are among you, some of you say you're of Apollos, some of you say you're of Peter, some of you say you're Paul, some of you say, oh, I'm of Christ. The division there, you need to unify and you unify around Jesus.

In Christ Jesus, I became your father through the gospel. I'm the one who shared it with you. Therefore, I'm urging you, be imitators of me. I don't have an agenda left. I'm just trying to be like Jesus.

For this reason, I've sent you Timothy. He's my beloved and faithful child in the Lord. I trust that he will remind you of my ways which are in Christ just as I teach everywhere in the church and later in the letter, he says, be imitators of me just as I am an imitator of Christ. In the Thessalonians, he's not really shaming them about sin because that's not what the problem is. They have a few theological questions and eschatological questions he's trying to answer and he says, look, and I know that y'all became imitators of us and of the Lord having received the word during great affliction with the joy of the Holy Spirit.

I know that y'all started acting like us and like Jesus because of the gospel. I know that. Later on in Thessalonians, he says, for y'all, brothers and sisters, y'all became imitators as a church. You became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you also endured the same sufferings at the hands of your own countrymen even as they did from the Jews And let me say this, anytime that you undertake to do a great work for the Lord, as in planting a church or being a part of a church or being a part of serving a community, anytime you do that, you will stand out from the community around you and you might receive some backlash for it.

It's normal. Anytime that you undertake to do something. He said, y'all became imitators of the churches that were already persecuted by being the church. Last one is from Hebrews six. Hebrews six is sort of a command to to persevere or about perseverance of the saints.

So, beloved, we're convinced of better things. You're not going to fall back. We're convinced of better things regarding you. Things that accompany salvation even though we are speaking in this way. For God is not unjust so as to forget your work.

He knows you're working for him and the love which you've shown toward his name by having served and by still serving all of the saints. We desire that each one of you demonstrate the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope all the way till the end. Blessed assurance so that you will not be sluggish but you will be what? Imitators of those who through faith and endurance inherit the promises. And then he goes on for several chapters and he gives the hall of faith in chapter 11.

Okay? He's saying imitate those godly examples that go before you. And in Ephesians, it tops out. There's no better statement of what you are to copy than just be imitators of God. Now, the time that I preach this in the seminary, Paschal had just turned four years old.

It's a week before Easter that year. I think maybe a couple weeks before Easter. She had just turned four years old and to them, I said this, now a little girl turned four years old yesterday. She's 20 now. And she's home.

Got home this week. We had a ridiculously late birthday party for after I got home from Greek four last night. She's growing up and sometimes I think she acts just like her mama. And sometimes I'm afraid she acts just like me. And since she's been in a little preschool class over at this little church, I'm quite sure that she acts a lot like miss Meg.

I recognize in her the attributes of the ones that she is, whether it's conscious or unconscious, she is imitating them. She's imitating the examples around her. She's around her parents more than anybody else. She's around that teacher several times a week and I could hear her when she put on the miss Meg voice and she would lean over forward like this and I've used the first memory verse was first Thessalonians five eleven that says, encourage one another and build each other up. I could still hear that.

She was imitating miss Meg. Now, if I said, act like mommy, she could do it and if she tries to teach one of her dolls a lesson, it comes out like miss Meg. If she's imitating me, she's standing like this because this is the way all the guys in my family stand like this. Why we put our thumbs forward? I don't know.

This is why my dad, my granddad, and all of them before me have stood. So this is where I stand. I don't know why. Because I'm imitating the people who came before me. This is saying, be imitators of God.

How? As beloved children or even better put dearly beloved children. There are some of you in the room who don't want to act like your parents, right? Don't want to act like your mom. Don't want to act like your dad.

But a dearly beloved child almost can't help but act like their parents, right? Be imitators of God as dearly beloved children and walk in love or better put grammatically speaking, be walking in love. It's a constant all the time sort of thing and if you are walking in love, you will not lie. If you are walking in love, you will not grieve the Holy Spirit. If you are walking in love, you will not be tempted to do those things of the former life where the theft or whatever else you did before but you'll be seeking to use your words to give grace.

Be walking in love. How? Just as Christ also loved you. That's individual. It's actually plural.

So, it's individually, yes, but it's all of y'all. So, be walking in love just as Christ also is loving you and he gave himself up for us. So, remember, everything in Ephesians about the unity of the body of Christ and how he's called us outed out of every other affiliation into this and we need to learn how to get along with each other. And he gave himself up for us an offering and it was a sacrifice to God. It was a fragrant aroma and even now saying that, I can kind of see, yes, that's a fragrant aroma and I want to smell like that to God.

I want for him to see the cross of Christ and I want for him to see what I'm laying on the altar and that to be pleasing in his sight but there is a division and it's the division of those who have trusted in Christ and see that as a sweet smelling aroma. The only thing that's ever been sacrificially acceptable to God is that sacrifice of Christ and the world sees that as just a stench of death. Why would anybody do that? Right? So, there is a division but it shouldn't be a division within the church.

Walking in love just as Christ loved you and gave himself up for us. An offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. I think that's the last of the slides. Judy and Emily, if y'all come forward and we will sing where he leads me, I will follow. This song is sort of a supreme example of trust in the spirit of God and not grieving the spirit of God is trusting him to show us where he wants us, to be and to do what it is that he wants us to be and what it is that he wants us to do.

Would you stand with us? We'll close with where he leads. I said at the last of the first service and I hadn't really thought to say this before but I'm praying for you because here, you know, a lot of a lot of folks don't come here. A lot of folks don't see the Bible illustrated very often. They don't see it taught very often.

They don't read it for themselves. Your life may be the closest thing to the Bible that anybody sees. So I ask that you take that negative command, positive command and the rationale underlying that you'd take those and live it out this week and allow people to see a clearer picture of who God is. Why? Because you are being an imitator of the God that you know and you spend time with.

In Jesus name, may it be so. Amen. You. Thank you.