Robert Jeffress - Five Fashion Tips From The Apostle Paul
Hi, I'm Robert Jeffress, and welcome again to "Pathway to Victory". When it comes to fashion, most of us have a favorite style or look. But did you know that the apostle Paul had some fashion advice for Christians? He wasn't talking about literal clothing, but about the way we act. Today, we'll explore five behaviors that believers should lay aside in order to put on new behaviors that represent our new self. My message is titled, "Five Fashion Tips from the Apostle Paul," on today's edition of Pathway to Victory.
My friend Bob Beal tells a story of the day he decided to go to work at a circus just for the day, just for the fun of it. And while he was on break, he went over to where they kept the elephants. And he said to the elephant trainer, "How is it you're able to stake down these giant animals with a little flimsy chain around their ankle and a stake in the ground"? And he said, "Well, it's really easy when you remember two things about elephants. Number one, they're not very smart. But number two, they have great memories. And when these elephants are little babies, only 400 pounds, we tie them down with this stake and they may try 10,000 times to break free and they can't do it. And that's when their memory takes over. When they get to be large and they could remove the stake with one yank, and they remember their past failures, they don't even try to break free. They've given up to defeat".
And I thought, you know, that's a great picture of what happens to so many Christians. We remember how our life was before we came to Christ. All the times we tried to break free of sin and addictions in our life, and we did so unsuccessfully. And even though now we have the power of the Holy Spirit in us as believers in Christ, we don't even try to live in victory. We live as victims of our past. What a sorry way to have to live. Paul writes about that in Romans 6, verses 6 and 7. He says, "Know this, that our old self," that is the part of us opposed to God, "Was crucified with Christ, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin: for he who has died is freed from sin".
When you're a Christian, you become a Christian, you die to your old way of living. You've become a new person in Christ. You say, "Well, so what? What does that mean to me"? Glad you ask. That brings us to Ephesians 4:22. That reality that sin has no more power over us than we choose to allow it to have, that reality ought to leave to a change of life. And that's where we are in our study of Ephesians. We're talking about the walk of a Christian. And Paul says in Ephesians 4:22: "In reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lust of the deceit".
Remember that phrase, "Lay aside," literally means to take off a garment. Remember old Lazarus when Jesus raised him from the dead, he came stumbling out of that tomb and he came into the bright light. He had clothes on, grave clothes, that had started to stink after 4 days. He could have chosen to keep his clothes, his grave clothes, for sentimental reasons, but he didn't. He had new clothes that befit his new status as a raised individual. And what Paul is saying is: now that we have been raised to a newness of life, we need to get rid of that stinking clothing, that behavior that was a part of our old self. And in this particular section of Ephesians, I call it "Paul's five fashion tips". He's going to tell us five garments that we need to remove and burn forever, five behaviors to remove and replace with new behavior.
Now, folks, this isn't deep theology, but this is practical living. This is where we are. If you want to enjoy life as God intended you to enjoy it, take this seriously. First of all, we need to take off false speech and put on truth. Taking off false speech and putting on truth. Look at verse 25: "Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another". I was reading this week about a pastor who came upon a group of boys in the church parking lot, causing quite a commotion. He said, "What's going on here"? And one of them said, "Well, mister, we found a puppy and we all want the puppy. And so we're having a contest: whoever can tell the biggest lie gets the puppy".
And the pastor was indignant. He said, "I can't believe you are having a lying contest. That's terrible. I never told a lie when I was your age". And the boys looked at each other, started to fidget, and one of them looked up and said, "Okay, mister, you win the puppy". Let's be honest. It's just us chickens here today. Let's be honest. We all lie. All of us lie. In their landmark book, "The day America told the truth," James Patterson and Peter Kim revealed the studies of what happened when they surveyed 2000 Americans about their morality.
And in the chapter, "American liars," this is what caught my attention. They said: just about everyone lies: 91% of us lie regularly. The majority of us find it harder to get through a week without lying. One in five can't make it through a single day. And we're talking about conscious premeditated lies. Now, maybe you're like that self-righteous pastor. You say, "Well, that's not me. Pastor, I don't lie". Well, think for just a moment. There are different ways to lie. You don't have to just tell a right-out whopper to be guilty of lying. Paul is saying, "Lay aside falsehoods". That word is pseudos. And it contains an idea of several different variations of lying we all engage in.
For example, exaggeration is a form of lying, twisting the truth, expanding the truth. Sixty percent of resumes, it is said, have some kind of exaggeration on them, inflating our experience or educational degrees. Exaggeration, that's lying. Another kind of lying is flattery, telling somebody what they want to hear in order to serve our own agenda. I read somewhere, I don't know where, the difference between gossip and slander. Gossip is saying something behind somebody's back you would never say to their face. Flattery is saying something to somebody's face you would never say behind their back.
Proverbs 29:5 warns against flattery: "A man who flatters his neighbor is spreading a net for his own steps". A third way of lying is through silence, by saying nothing when you know the truth. If you hear gossip about another person and you have information that disproves what is being said about them, yet you say nothing, that is a type of falsehood. A friend of mine has said to stand by and do nothing in the face of evil is to do something: to approve of evil. To say nothing in the face of lies, is to say something: to approve of lies. Why aren't we to engage in falsehoods? Again, verse 25. Paul gives two reasons. One is implicit, one is explicit. The implicit reason is found in the word "Falsehoods," pseudos. The word literally means "The lie," lay aside the lie.
Now, here's a pop Bible quiz. Who in the Bible is called the chief liar of all time? The liar in chief? Satan. John 8:44: Jesus said, "Satan is a liar and he is the father of all lies". Whenever we as Christians lie, we're behaving more like a child of satan than a child of God. That's the implicit reason. But there's an explicit reason. He says in verse 25, we are not to lie because we are members of one another. What in the world does that mean? Remember, when we become a Christian, we become a part of the body of Christ. We're joined to Jesus, the head, but we are connected to one another as well. And for the body of Christ to operate effectively, truth needs to be told, one to another.
Just think about your human body for a moment. Just say one day, your liver, which is functioning just fine, decides it's not getting enough attention. So it sends a message to the brain that it's desperately sick and needs some help. What happens if the liver doesn't tell the brain, the truth about its condition? Or maybe the kidney on the other hand is really diseased, but it's trying to cover over its problem that it's having. And so it gives false information to the brain. You're gonna have chaos in the body. The help of the body depends upon truth being told. And so it is in the body of Christ. Secondly, Paul says, in addition to laying aside falsehood, we need to take off uncontrolled anger and put on patience.
Ephesians 4:26 says: "Be angry, and yet do not sin: do not let the sun go down on your anger". Is anger wrong? Well, it depends. It depends on what you do with anger. Being angry, in and of itself, is not a sin. Paul said, "Be angry, and don't sin". Never in the New Testament does Paul say, "Be lustful, but don't sin," or "Be drunk, yet don't sin," or "Be a thief, but don't sin". But the Bible says, "Be angry, and yet do not sin". You see, the reason we get angry, did you know the reason we get angry? It's because we're made in the image of a God who gets angry. Over 700 times in scripture, the Bible talks about the anger of God.
What is anger? It is a physical and emotional reaction to perceived injustice. Whenever we sense that somebody's rights are being violated or our own rights are being violated, we get angry because we're made in the image of a God who gets angry. But God knows how to handle his anger. We need to learn how to handle anger. And to help us understand, in this section of scripture there are actually three Greek words that are all translated "Anger". There's the word "Thumos," which means an explosive anger like mount Vesuvius. That's the word used in verse 31: "Let all anger be put away". Then there is "Parorgismos," which refers to a seething anger, that refers to bitterness. That's the word that is used at the end of verse 26.
And then there is the word "Orge," and that's the word used at the beginning of verse 26. "Be angry," orge. Orge can be a righteous anger if it's done the right way. It is unrighteous if it's dealt with in the wrong way, like an explosion, thumos, or a seething bitterness, parorgismos. The key is when you feel angry, deal with it, and deal with it quickly. "Be angry, but don't sin: don't let the sun go down on your anger and don't give the devil an opportunity". Make sure you resolve your anger in 24 hours. "If you go to sleep angry, you have the devil as a bed partner," somebody said. And by the way, this is important for married couples: don't go to bed mad. I like the way Phyllis Diller... Remember Phyllis Diller, the comedian? She said, "Don't go to bed mad. Stay up and fight".
Well, the first half of that is good. Don't go to bed angry, but stay up and resolve it. Don't give the devil an opportunity. There is a third item of clothing we're to take off. Verse 28, we need to take off theft and put on diligence. Verse 28: "He who steals must steal no longer: but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need". When Paul wrote these words, one third of the world were slaves. And so it was common for slaves, even Christian slaves, to feel like they were being mistreated. And to compensate, they would steal from their master. Paul said, "No, you are not to steal any longer".
Now, again, this may be one thing you would say, "Well, pastor, I'm guilty of a lot of things, but I'm not a thief". Well, think about it. Is that really true? Have you ever padded an expense report at work? Have you ever under-reported income to the government? I'm thinking about, an anonymous letter the IRS received one time. It said, "Dear sirs, I've been unable to sleep at night, feeling bad about the money I owe you. Please find $500 enclosed. If I still can't sleep, I'll send you the rest". Think about another form of stealing: plagiarism. People who steal other people's words and work, whether it's in a school paper or in a sermon and preach it word for word, somebody else's material, that is stealing. There's all kind of ways to be guilty of stealing.
I read about the founder of a large insurance company who had an up-and-coming employee destined to become the president of the company. But the founder found out one day that the employee was stealing paper clips. He was taking paper clips home and stocking his own office with it at home. And the founder fired him for it. Well, the man was absolutely furious, thinking it was such an overreaction to a simple thing. So for revenge, he went out and started a rival insurance company. That company filed for bankruptcy within 3 years because of falsified records. And when asked about what happened to his ex-employee, the founder of the original company said, "Honesty begins with paper clips". Don't steal, and anyway, taking something that's not yours.
What's the antidote to stealing? Well, he says it right here: "Let him labor. Let him labor, performing with his own hands what is good". We're living in a generation that wants something for nothing but we need to teach our children and grandchildren that it's hard work that leads to accumulation. They can't have something for nothing. Warren Wiersbe notes that Jewish rabbis had a saying: "If you don't teach your children a craft, you teach them to be a thief". We need to teach our children to do something and not only that, be generous. That's an anecdote to thievery. "So that he will have something to share with one who is in need".
If we hoard money and don't ever give it away, we're teaching ourselves or our children to become self-focused rather than others focused. We need to take off theft and put on diligence. Fourthly, Paul says we need to take off unwholesome speech and put on edifying speech. Look at verse 29: "Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it might give grace to those who hear". That word "Unwholesome" is a word in Greek that literally refers to the rotting of fruit, fruit that's rotting. Remember the old adage: one rotten apple spoils the whole apple barrel?
It's the same way with unwholesome speech. It has a way of infecting other people, causing other people to rot. And that's why we need to be sure that we don't have any unwholesome rotting words, coming from our mouth. Now, what is he talking about, specifically? What kind of speech is rotten speech that contaminates other people? Well, I think he's talking about crude speech, dirty off-color speech. He's going to deal with that later. And so we'll deal with it in another message. Crude speech. But I think he's also talking mainly about critical speech, and the word "Unwholesome" helps us understand that this is critical speech. He said we're to replace it with edifying speech, "Such a word as is good for edification".
Listen to me. That word "Edification" means to build up somebody. And what Paul is saying is don't let speech come from your mouth that tears down people, critical speech, but have speech that builds up another person. Now, let's be honest. All of us have times we need to correct somebody. It may be an employee, it may be a family member. We have people we have to correct. But Paul said, "Be very careful how you do it. Do it in such a way as to build up that person rather than to tear down that person". You know what's interesting to me about this? This is not a minor issue because in verse 30, Paul says, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption".
Why did he insert that there? Why didn't he save it for talking about theft or other sins? Why did he say that here? Because God is saying to us when we tear down another person, it grieves God. When we attack, tear down somebody who's been made by God himself in the image of God, it grieves the heart of God. And that's why we need to abstain from unwholesome critical speech. Finally, Paul says there's one last behavior that we need to take off and that is unresolved bitterness. We need to take off unresolved bitterness and put on forgiveness.
Look at verse 31: "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice". We reveal in our speech what is really inside of us. And when you accidentally bump into somebody, figuratively speaking, you offend them either intentionally or unintentionally, what comes forth from their mouth tells you what's in their heart. And Paul says, "If it's bitterness, wrath, clamour, slander," if somebody is always responding with words like that, you can guarantee what's in their heart: something, some offense, they have refused to forgive.
Unforgiveness, bitterness, manifests itself in how a person speaks. There are some of you listening to me right now, you've been hurt, and hurt by somebody deeply. Your words are going to show that. You know what I have found in more than 40 years of pastoring is? We can't control what happens to us. We can't control what other people do to us, but we can control how we respond to those offenses. We can either hang on to them until they metastasize into a tumor of bitterness, or we can choose to let go of that offense, not deny it, but let go of it. Let God deal with it, so we can be free to get on with our life. The antidote to bitterness is forgiveness. And that's what he says in verse 32.
You may wonder, "Well, why should I forgive somebody? Why shouldn't I seek vengeance instead"? Well, notice what he says in verse 32: "Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has forgiven you". Forgiveness is the obligation of those who have been forgiven. If you're constantly saying, "I will not forgive, I cannot forgive," it may be because you've never truly received God's forgiveness. For you see, when you understand the great debt from which God has forgiven you, you'll find it relatively easy to forgive other people. C.S. Lewis said it this way: "To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable in others, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in us".