Sermon Tone Analysis

Ephesians 4:25-32

Watch My Back

 

Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbour, for we are members one of another.

Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.

Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labour, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.[1]

As a young man, I joined the United States Marine Corps.

I now realise that I, as was true for many young men, was manipulated in part by unscrupulous politicians who manufactured the Gulf of Tonkin incident in order to justify invasion of a sovereign nation.

No doubt, I was influenced in my decision by the fact that two of my uncles had served as Marines during the Second World War.

Neither spoke much of their duties in the Pacific Theatre of war, but the rest of the family recognised that they had experienced something unique.

Ultimately, I suppose that the primary reason I wanted to be in the Corps was its history and the pride of knowing that I was part of an elite force.

Ultimately, I left the Marines involuntarily due to a broken back, disqualifying me from many of the activities Marines engage in.

I suppose I should be grateful for that.

In 1965, when I joined the Corps, the Marines were justifiably proud of the fact that they had never left any of their own behind during combat.

During the politically engineered retreat from the Chosin Reservoir during that forgotten war, the Korean Conflict, encircled Marines battled three Chinese armies, destroying two of them in the process and decimating the third.

Led by Colonel Chesty Puller, the Marines brought out all their people, including their dead.

I determined quite early that if it was necessary that I must fight, I wanted to be part of a dependable team.

I wanted to know that I could depend upon the Marines situated either to my right or to my left to fulfil their responsibilities.

I wanted to know that I would not be left to fight the battle on my own.

Christians are engaged in a great conflict, and we must watch out for one another.

Ours is not a conflict which employs the weapons of this fallen world.

We are engaged in a battle for the souls of men, in which we deliver men from death and into life.

This particular conflict is so great that no Christian is excluded from the struggle.

Unfortunately, in the battles we fight, we cannot always depend upon those enlisted with us.

Some of our fellow combatants are AWOL.

Some cower in their foxholes, fearful of venturing out.

Some pretend they are not involved and thus leave us vulnerable to assault from our blind side.

Thankfully, there are some saints who watch their own sector of the front and thus secure our flank.

The call of this message is for each of us to assume responsibility for one another.

You, fellow saint, watch my back.

We Belong to One Another — The passage begins with therefore [dio;].

Of course, this compels us to look back to what has preceded, and when we do look back, we will discover the passage which we explored last Sunday.

Previously, the Apostle has drawn a contrast between heathens and Christians.

Those living in the world, the unsaved, are identified as heathens.

As such, they are incapable of living beyond a given position because their understanding is darkened.

They are ignorant of righteousness and their hearts are petrified.

Thus, they are callused and have surrendered themselves to sensuality (they operate by their feelings).

In contradistinction, Christians are a new people, called by God to put off the old self and to put on the new self as a conscious act each day.

I must emphasise that Christians are called to choose to put on this new self continually and without exception.

As a new people, we bear responsibility to one another.

You will recall that Paul dealt with the mind as the root of evil for outsiders.

He was not terribly concerned with the actions of outsiders, but he pointed to the darkened mind as the source of trouble.

The outsider is ignorant of the will of God, alienated from God, and he has callused himself against righteousness.

It is not so much that outsiders choose to do evil, but rather that they cannot choose good consistently.

As we saw, because we are created as new people in Christ, we bear certain responsibilities toward God.

Among those features which must be counted as dead and as having no further place in our life are the deceitful desires of the past.

In fact, we are called to /be renewed in the spirit of/ []our minds, even as we put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

I want to recall what I said about this renewal of the mind in the previous sermon.

As Christians, we are to be renewed in the spirit of []our minds.

…This verb, which is translated into English by the phrase be renewed is a present infinitive.

This indicates that in addition to a decisive rejection of the old self and the assumption of the new self, there must be a continuous, inward renewal of our outlook as a Christian.

Consider this.

If heathen degradation was due to the futility of our minds, then Christian righteousness depends on the constant renewing of our minds.

It is necessary that we work at being Christian, not *in order to be* Christians, but *because* we are Christians.

Each of us is responsible to seek to express the likeness of God through lives marked by true righteousness and holiness.

At this point, some perceptive individuals among us will begin to wonder if there is a standard by which we can gauge our movement toward living in true righteousness and holiness.

That is precisely the standard which the Apostle is presenting within the few sentences in our text.

Before I actually address those specific issues, I must call your attention to the implicit truth of the apostolic teaching which is that we are a distinct people.

By this, I mean that we are no longer isolated and living solo lives.

Hell, in one sense, is nothing less than the ultimate condition resulting from rebellion against God.

Fallen man is in rebellion against God.

He no longer wishes intimacy with God.

In fact, fallen man considers such intimacy as a torment.

To worship God is an agony.

To consider God’s will, much less to attempt to do the will of God, is anguish.

From the beginning of rebellion, fallen man has attempted to replace God on the throne of his life.

He sneers at the very thought of a submissive attitude toward God, much less submission toward another person.

Thus, the sinner, having seated “self” on the throne and at the centre of life, wants all creation to obey him and to serve his interests.

If you think these words extreme or harsh, consider the ubiquitous doctrine which characterises contemporary society—the exaltation of “self.”

“Self-esteem” is so important that how a student “feels” about himself is of greater significance than whether that student can read or write.

Whether or not we actually state this fact in so many words, the principle nevertheless appears to be firmly established in contemporary minds.

Churches are deeply concerned that people feel good about themselves.

The vast majority of pastors are trained to invest hours making their people feel good about themselves.

The average seminary graduate receives more training in counselling then training in expository preaching or systematic theology.

I fear that those who present themselves as teachers of the Word are better-versed in contemporary psychology then they are in the Word of God.

Messages are designed to make listeners feel good about themselves instead of causing us to reflect upon our struggles to do what is good.

Ultimately, God gives fallen man what he unconsciously seeks—autonomy!

Hell is exclusion from the presence of God and from all the remainder of humanity!

The Bible speaks of that awful place as a place of outer darkness [see *Matthew 8:12*].

There will be no camaraderie or conviviality in hell.

There will be no warmth, no intimacy, no friendships in hell.

This is the ultimate expression of man’s autonomy [see *Jude 6, 12*].

Paul will shortly inform us that we were at one time darkness, but having been saved, now we are light in the Lord [*Ephesians 5:8*].

Darkness once marked us is in the past and we are transformed.

Thus, Peter says we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that [we] may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called [us] out of darkness into His marvellous light.

Focus on the next words which Peter writes.

Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people [*1 Peter 2:9, 10*].

We must no longer live separate from one another, but we must realise that we are to unite as the community of Faith.

We are the people of God.

As His people, we must not only accept community, but we must work to build up community.

The individual who says, “I will just worship by myself,” is at best ignorant of the Word of God and at worst self-deluded.

It is impossible to worship by one’s self on a continual basis.

Our new status as a people of God compels us to seek community.

We have witnessed this teaching before.

In the First Corinthian letter, Paul speaks of us as the Body of Christ.

As the Body of Christ, we are gifted so we can invest our gifts in one another.

The individual who says he is a Christian, and can yet absent himself from the people of God, is prostituting the gift of God—if he is indeed a Christian.