Presentation 12

1. Studies in Ephesians Presentation 12

2. The Structure of the Book Be what you are in Christ See what you are in Christ Chap 4-6 Chap 1-3 Doctrine Truth Application

3. Grieving and Pleasing the Spirit Chap 4v30-5v4

4. Grieving the Holy Spirit “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God”. v30 Why does Paul put this verse here? He has been busy exhorting Christians to live a holy life, that is consistent with their new status and which reflects their new nature. Now, suddenly he says, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit." This verse jumps out like a flower in a vegetable garden. Paul does nothing by accident. It is therefore important to ask, what is his purpose in introducing this instruction here?

5. Grieving the Holy Spirit “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God”. v30 Being a Christian is a personal relationship with God, who indwells us by his Spirit and so sinful behaviour is not simply breaking an impersonal set of rules but harming a personal relationship. Suppose you smash up your truck and later appear in court. Because the law is impersonal, when judgement is given, the judge won't be too upset that you have damaged your truck. But if the judge is your father who has taught you to be a careful driver and he sees you have disregarded his instructions, and that you don’t care about the damage you have done, he has reason to be upset.

6. Grieving the Holy Spirit “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God”. v30 Because our relationship with God is personal we can hurt him. For this reason the writer to the book of Proverbs casts both morality and ethics not into a legal framework but into a family one. Proverbs 1:8ff 2:1; 3:1, 11, 21; 4:1, 20; 5:1; 6:1; 10:1 “A foolish son brings grief to his father and bitterness to the one who bore him”. Proverbs 17.25

7. Grieving the Holy Spirit “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God”. v30 The Christian’s sin hurts God more than that of the unbeliever because it is a sin against grace, against love against a personal relationship? The Holy Spirit is symbolised in scripture as a dove, reminding us of his gentleness and tenderness and purity. What kind of environment are we creating for the indwelling Spirit? Paul takes the Corinthian church to task for their failure here. cf1Cor 6.19-20 “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body”.

8. How do we grieve the Holy Spirit? Because he is the Spirit of truth, he is upset by words and thoughts that are untrue. Illustration: the minister’s card... Since he is a "holy" Spirit, he is grieved by unholiness. All the sinful behaviour outlined in v25-29 hurts him. Even impure thoughts, or thoughts of anger, jealousy, and envy will grieve him. The Spirit is grieved when we fail to respond to his influence. He creates desires for holiness in our hearts, prompts us to pray, to read the Bible. If we say ‘NO’, we grieve him. • Is it true • Is it necessary • Is it kind

9. How do we grieve the Holy Spirit? The Christian life is described as walking in the Spirit, [Rom. 8.4-9]. We begin to walk in a new direction, obeying what we know to be the will of God. If however, we decide to rebel against God, we are no longer in step with the Spirit and are no longer being true to our new selves. When we allow our lives to be controlled by the remnants of our sinful nature the Spirit is grieved. Cf also Gal 5.16, 25 The Spirit is grieved when we fail to recognise his presence within us and honour him as we ought. The worst insult is to be ignored and treated as if he is not there.In Rom.8.26 Paul speaks of the Spirit’s inexpressible groanings. What are they? They include the Spirit’s dismay at all that is unchristlike within us.

10. Result of grieving the Spirit In 1.13 we saw that the Holy Spirit has a sealing function assuring the believer that he belongs to God. When we grieve the Spirit we can lose both the joy and the assurance of our salvation. We find it difficult to say; 'the Spirit bears witness with my spirit that I am a child of God’. The evidence of our sealing becomes faint and may disappear altogether, producing the kind of anxiety experienced by David after his sin with Bathsheba. Cf Psalm 51. 11-12 “Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me”. I’m not speaking about the loss of salvation but a loss of its assurance and joy.

11. Result of grieving the Spirit Secondly, when we grieve the Spirit, everything loses its freshness. Christian service becomes a fruitless drudgery. We accomplish nothing because we do not have the Spirit’s assistance. David recognised that the withdrawal of the Spirit’s presence resulted in fruitless service. cf. Ps 51v11-13.“Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me .Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will turn back to you”. In Jn 15 Jesus said “without me you can do nothing”. He was saying that without the indwelling, empowering Holy Spirit there would be no enduring spiritual fruit.

12. Result of grieving the Spirit Thirdly, when we grieve away the Spirit we push away the one who helps us develop as Christians. Have you ever been in company and been made to feel that your presence makes others uncomfortable? You leave! Similarly, grieving the Spirit isolates him and all the positive influence he has on your life. The Spirit wants to comfort and encourage, to help us pray, to lead us into the truth of God and to empower us for service. But when we deliberately give houseroom to sin it is like tying the hands of God’s Spirit. We allow him no freedom of movement to do for us and in us all that he desires.

13. Result of grieving the Spirit Fourthly, since grieving the Spirit places us outside of the sphere of his influence, his withdrawal often means we are assaulted by terrible temptations. The Christian life is described as conflict in Gal.5.17, with the flesh striving against the Spirit . But if the Spirit withdraws how will the power on the flesh be restrained? It has a free reign and Satan will take advantage of that. We are poorly equipped to deal with his assaults and temptations. In such circumstances, vile, foul, ugly thoughts and desires can permeate our minds and hearts.

14. Grieving the Spirit How do we recover? If we are to make progress in our Christian lives and grow in faith then we need to see our sinful behaviour not just as transgressing God's law but in grieving the one who indwells our hearts. What ought the Christian do when he becomes aware of having grieved the Spirit? We need to follow the Psalmist’s pattern in Psalm 51. Confess and forsake the sin, which has grieved him away. We may need to confess our indifference to the Spirit whom we have hurt and seek not only God’s forgiveness but his restoration and a fresh infilling of God’s Spirit.

15. Pleasing the Spirit: Tearing out The danger of asbestos in buildings is well documented. Local authorities going to tremendous lengths discover and remove this dangerous material from old buildings. Similarly Paul identifies dangerous materials to be stripped out of the Christian life. They are listed for us in 4.31- 5.4. The first is bitterness v31 i.e. a persistent sourness of spirit, which never sees any good in anything or anyone: "All seems yellow to the jaundiced eye". Bitterness delights to nurse grievances, dehumanising the individual in the process a person. ‘Tear it out’, says Paul, ‘and dump it!’

16. Pleasing the Spirit: Tearing out The next item for the rubbish heap is ‘anger and wrath’. Anger is the most dangerous of human emotions because there is a very fine line between legitimate anger and that which scripture condemns. 'Clamour' is also a disposable item. It means bawling, shouting and violence, not disagreement in a conversational tone, but voices raised in uncontrolled speech. Next, “human lust” is mentioned in v3-4. Paul uses two Greek words, "pornea", from which the word ‘pornography’ comes and "akatharsia", translated 'impurity' and together these words cover every kind of sexual sin.

17. Pleasing the Spirit: Tearing out To this list Paul adds ‘greed/covetousness’ because sexual sins are a particularly degrading form of this sin since they involve coveting someone else’s body for selfish gratification. Not only are we to avoid the practice of these sins but we are also to avoid making them the subjects of conversation and thought. In God’s eyes there is no difference between the perverse gratification found in smutty sex magazines and the act of sexual fornication. Paul spells out the standards of Christian sexuality in the light of the background of deviant sexual practices in the Temple of Diana, where sexual orgies were thought a legitimate activity.

18. Pleasing the Spirit: Tearing out ‘Vulgarity’ in v4 is a reference to ‘obscene speech, foolish talk and coarse joking’. All three refer to a dirty mind expressing itself in dirty conversation. In the work environment Christians are often exposed to vulgar speech. How do we respond? With embarrassed laughter because we don't want to be labelled a prude? No but we explain with grace, why we find such talk offensive. We deal with the harmful asbestos of sin in our lives by employing what Thomas Chalmers described as "the expulsive power of a new affection" cf. dead leaves are pushed off the branch of a tree by the emergence of new ones...

19. Pleasing the Spirit: Building in Paul’s solution to the abuse of sex, is not abstinence. He says in v4, [in the context of sexuality], "let there be thanksgiving." The contrast is strikingly beautiful. He is saying human sexuality has a proper place. It is God's good gift. To joke about God's precious gift is to cheapen and degrade it. This is precisely what much so-called comedy on T.V. is doing in the West. It cheapens something that is very wonderful. By thanking God for his gift and treating it with respect we preserve its worth.

20. Pleasing the Spirit: Building in Dr. Michael Fourcault, Prof. of History of Thought Systems at the College de France in a magazine article spoke of; "Christianity’s most intolerably burdensome legacy, sex as sin." Certainly, some in the history of the church have tried to teach that the body is evil and all sex is sinful and advocated beating ones body and worse. This view owes more to Greek dualism than to the teaching of scripture. The reason why Christians should avoid vulgarity is not because we have a warped view of sex but because we have a high view of God's grace gift. God created us with good and wholesome sexual appetites. Society has cheapened sex by overexposure such as that found on page 3 of some tabloid newspapers.

21. Pleasing the Spirit: Building in Verse 32 reads, "be kind to one another“ literally, “become kind". The words suggest process. We are to increasingly fill our lives with the positive qualities listed, in order to displace sinful behaviour. In Matt 12.43-45 we have Jesus’ illustration which warns of the failure to fill our lives with the good and wholesome fruit of the spirit! It is foolish to pull weeds out of the garden and then not fill the ground with plants, for the weeds will soon take over again. Bitterness is not displaced by kindness in a flash - it takes time. Kindness involves being useful to or helpful to others. It involves looking out for something to praise in others.

22. Pleasing the Spirit: Building in Is being emotional and weeping over the suffering of others the ‘tenderness/compassion’ we are to develop? Not if we fail to relieve distress or depersonalise others in the process. Some time ago a student, about to enter university received a letter which began: “Dear 2312/98/A, We would like to take this opportunity of extending to you a warm and personal welcome to your first year of study." How counter-productive! Similarly, when Christians treat others as cases to be helped or mere souls to be saved or as statistics to bolster a church newsletter then we fail to display tenderness.

23. Pleasing the Spirit: Building in ‘Forgiveness’ is next mentioned. Paul doesn't say, “if you have been wronged don’t pretend it didn't happen”. Christianity is nothing if not realistic. He teaches us to acknowledge the wrong others have done us and respond by forgiving, which involves forgetting [Heb.10.17]. Only the Christian is able to do this. How often people wear a masked smile on the outside but inside there is still bitterness and a seething resentment. What makes generous Christian forgiveness possible? Oh quite simply, he has tasted God's forgiveness. Only because God has been gracious and generous towards him can he treat others that way too.

24. Pleasing the Spirit: Building in All of these positive qualities are found in God and so, not surprisingly, Paul says in 5.1, "be imitators of God". Is Paul joking? No! A Christian is not just someone who believes certain things, and has experience of God's forgiveness nor is he simply someone who has been adopted into God’s family but cf 2Pet.1.4 ‘he participates in the divine nature’. As such he is expected to display his heavenly Father’s character. Paul says, “Show that you belong by displaying the family likeness”. There's something about little children which makes them want to be like their parents. This is to be the Christian’s aspiration.

25. Pleasing the Spirit: Building in The final quality to be mentioned is love, "live a life of love". The kind of love is spelt out. "agape". It is nothing less than Jesus’ self-giving love. It does not ask, “what can I get from this relationship”, it asks, “what can I give to enrich it?” We are the beneficiaries of that kind of love and it is therefore fitting that we should build it into our lives and so show ourselves to be our Father’s children.