Joyce Meyer - Ephesians 4 Bible Study [FULL] (08/21/2019)
In this message from Ephesians 4, the preacher stresses that true Christian growth starts with knowing God's immense love, grace, and our identity in Christ from Ephesians 1-3 as the foundation—before focusing on behavior—because understanding unconditional love motivates genuine obedience and maturity, leading to a life worthy of our calling as ambassadors for Christ.
The Foundation: Knowing Who You Are in Christ
I really want people to study the Bible, not just read it, but study it. And the first three chapters of Ephesians are all about how much God loves us, the grace of God, His mercy, His forgiveness, our inheritance in Christ, who we are in Christ. And that has to be the foundation of our walk with God.
Before we ever get around to teaching people how to behave right, we must teach them who they are in Christ. And so I try in my teaching to keep a good balance of that. I teach a lot on behavior, do this, don't do this. But I always work in who we are in Christ because if you try to teach people how to behave without them knowing how much God loves them and that His love for them is not based on their behavior.
If that's all we teach people, which a lot of religious organizations are very guilty of that, and it just frustrates people no end. If we teach people right, then they can have a great deal of success and growth in their relationship with God.
How many of you want to really grow up, mature, and be the person that God wants you to be? Well, good. You're in the right place this morning. Now, I was pretty astounded this morning when I counted them, but just in Ephesians chapter 4, he deals with 16 different behaviors. 16.
Obedience Flows from Love, Not Fear
Now, we may get all 16, we may only get 12, but thank God for tonight. And he doesn't let up in chapter 5 or chapter 6. So, if you really want to grow, this is the place to be this morning, tonight, tomorrow morning. But remember, God loves you. I'm going to keep throwing that in there so everybody can just stay comfortable.
John 14:15. Very simple little scripture, but so powerful. If you really love me, you will obey my commands. I love it. If you really love me, Jesus said. This is Jesus talking. If you really love me, you will obey my commands.
And I think it's even proper to say, to whatever degree we are obeying God, it's to that degree that we love Him. Now, I believe that our love for Him can grow. And as it grows, we will find new levels of obedience in our life.
And how many of you figured out that many times, if you're going to obey God, it's going to require some kind of a sacrifice on your part to be able to do that. But here again, God's not trying to take anything away from you. You've got to give up something to get something.
You Can't Have It All – Sacrifice for Growth
You can't have what you want and keep everything you've got. Let me say it again. You can't have what you want and also keep everything you've got. You can clap. That's okay. I thought it was good enough for a clap.
Now, this scripture does not say, if you obey me, I will love you. That's not what it says. What it says is, if you love me, you will obey me. We have to go back to chapters 1, 2, and 3. God loves us. He chose us.
While we were still yet in sin and so far away from God that it was absolutely pathetic, He came and got in the middle of our mess and He offered us a relationship with Him. We did not deserve it. We can never deserve it. God is good.
And the fact that He is so good should make us also want to be so good for Him. Amen? God's goodness should provoke me to want to be good for Him.
Walking Worthy as Ambassadors for Christ
Now, why is this so important? Well, in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 1, Paul said, I therefore the prisoner for the Lord? And we've already noticed that he keeps saying that over and over. I am a prisoner for the Lord.
And I guess if he's saying it that often, we should take notice that Paul was willing to suffer in order to bring us the messages that we hear today. Anytime you want to do something good, now listen to me, anytime you want to do something good for somebody else, it's going to cost you a little something.
You think it doesn't cost me anything to do this? It absolutely, certainly does. This is my life. This is what I do. But you know what? You know what God gives me back? Man, I got peace. I've got joy. I feel like my... I feel fulfilled.
The Cost and Reward of Obedience
You know what? I could die tonight and say, Man, I have had a great ride. I have had an awesome life. I can stand here right now and tell you that I don't... I don't look back and regret anything. I mean, there's some choices I made I wish I wouldn't have made. But I feel like I'm doing what God wants me to do.
But it takes a sacrifice to do it. And I remember all the years when I wasn't doing what God wanted me to do. And I was unhappy and blaming everybody else and blaming Dave and blaming circumstances and blaming, blaming, blaming.
And it wasn't everybody else. It was me. It was me. And until we take responsibility for where we're at and where you're at may not be your fault. But if you stay there, it is your fault. Amen.
I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord appeal to and beg you to walk and lead a life worthy of the divine calling to which you have been called with behavior that is a credit to the summons to God's service.
Our Lives Preach Louder Than Words
Now, 2 Corinthians 5:20 says that we are ambassadors for Christ. That we are His direct representatives in the earth. And listen to this, that God is making His appeal to the world through us.
I don't know about you, but that, that's kind of awe-inspiring that God is going to get to other people through us, through me, through you. You say, well, Joyce, I'm not a preacher. Oh, yeah, you are. Really, you are.
You may not do it like this, but you are. Your life is preaching at work. Your life is preaching in your neighborhood. Your life is preaching in how you relate to people every place that you go. Your life is a sermon.
And Christians are Christ followers. That's what we are. When Jesus said, follow me, He spoke the two greatest words for leadership that we will ever hear. All a leader really needs to do is be an example for other people to follow.
Producing Real Fruit, Not Just Leaves
Paul said, follow my example. Wow. I wonder what people would think if I stood up here and said, listen, if you just follow my example, you're going to be doing everything right. Well, you'd probably think I was full of myself and maybe I would be. I don't know.
But Paul said that. Follow my example. Well, you know what? I think, honestly, we all should be able to say that. We all should be able to say, if you follow my example, you're going to be doing what God wants you to do.
You know, one of the songs that we sang earlier and I noticed people kind of had a good response, let my deeds outweigh my words. And I think that's so important. You know, talk is cheap.
And what we say can affect people, but if we say one thing and do the opposite, it actually has a very negative effect on people. And that's one of the reasons why religious religion and religious people in many instances have really turned people off because they can act like they're too good to even speak to anybody else that's not like them.
Attitudes That Honor Our Calling
And just the very fact that they do that is a message that doesn't minister Christ's character to them. So it's very important. I think it's, I think there's a lot of things that are important that we don't think are important anymore.
I think it's important that we take care of ourselves and do the best we can. I think it's important that we look our best when we go out and we, well, I better be careful, I'll get myself in trouble.
You know, I know I come from another generation, but, and I guess whatever you're born into, you just don't get over it. But, you know, I just, you know, we, everybody's casual today. Well, maybe that's well and good, I don't know, but our morals have gotten kind of casual too.
And so, we need to make sure that it doesn't drift over into everything in our lives. I think instead of being casual, we need to be careful. The Bible says, be careful about how you behave and be careful about your thoughts and be careful what you do with your time and be careful the words that you speak.
Living with Humility, Gentleness, and Patience
You say, boy, this is sounding like a full-time job, this Christian stuff. Well, it is. You can't, you can't just serve God with 10% of your time and ever do it right. You got to get in, get out, or get run over. Amen?
And that's a good word for today. Get in, get out, or get run over, but stop sitting on the fence being lukewarm. We're going to follow God, it's time to follow Him with our whole heart.
Matthew 21, 18 and 19. In the early dawn, the next morning, He was coming back to the city and He was hungry. This is Jesus. Jesus was hungry. And as He saw one single leafy fig tree above the roadside, He went to it, but He found nothing on it but leaves.
Seeing that in the fig tree, the fruit appears at the same time as the leaves. He said to it, never again shall fruit grow on you, and the fig tree withered up at once and died.
Now, you know, I used to say I felt sorry for this fig tree because I didn't understand why Jesus cursed it just because it didn't have what He wanted it to have. But the thing about the fig tree is it had leaves, and when a fig tree gets leaves, it's supposed to have fruit.
From Selfish to Servant-Hearted Living
And I think a lot of Christians have leaves and no fruit. Amen. We go to church, we've got a bumper sticker, we hang a cross around our neck, we know a little bit of Christianese language. Come on.
We've got our headphones, we, you know, we take our Bible to work. But fruit, love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, meekness. Those are the things that the world needs to see.
Do you have proper fruits that back up your claim of being a Christian? Do you examine the fruit of other people to see if they're the real deal? Or are you merely impressed by what they say?
Nothing leads to deception quicker than being impressed by what somebody says and not paying any attention to the real fruit or lack of fruit in their life.
Verse 2 talks about attitudes that are proper for the Christian. Ephesians 4.2, living as becomes you with complete lowliness of mind, humility, meekness, unselfishness, gentleness, mildness, with patience, bearing with one another and making allowances because you love one another.
Patience: The Key to Maturity and Peace
Well, to be honest, that could keep most of us busy for the rest of our lives and we're only in verse 2. Now, I could quickly go through here and tell you what have been some of the weaknesses in my life. I was pretty selfish for a long time. Selfish Christian, selfish preacher. What about me?
And then the Lord finally said to me, you can't be selfish and be happy. Can I tell you today, you can't be selfish and be happy. If your life's all about you, you're not going to be happy. Thank you for the 10 people that like that.
Gentleness, that was a real difficult thing for me to come by because I had a real harsh, hard father. And because of being sexually abused, I had a hardness on my heart. And so things just came out of me in a hard... Plus, I've got a real aggressive nature and a deep voice and so all that combined, I had a hard time sounding sweet.
I mean, it was just challenging. And patience, of course, is still something that I'm... But hey, thank God I'm not where I used to be. I'm not where I need to be, but I'm so glad I'm not where I used to be. Amen?
Dealing with Anger Without Sinning
And some things I'm real patient with, I mean, I really, I can wait on God now. I've even learned to be fairly patient with myself. But I tell you what, man, if I don't feel good and somebody's not moving as fast as I want them to, it's like, whoo.
We had something funny happen last week. Well, you know, it's kind of sad, but it's funny. I was on, we were in another city and I was on my way to speak at a college there and we had to cross the railroad tracks and there was the, the thing blocking off the railroad tracks was down and all the lights were flashing, but there was no train, no train, no train, no train, no train, no train.
And I mean, we had this huge long line of traffic while we finally understood this thing must be stuck because people are turning around in droves going back the other way. So, we had to turn around and take a different route.
Well, now I'm thinking we're going to be late. Well, there's nothing that I hate worse than being late for one of my own things. I just can't stand to get to these meetings late. I feel responsible and I want to be here to make sure that everything is happening the way that it should be happening.
So, I can get a little bit testy if it looks like I'm... How many of you have little buttons that can be pushed that, you know... So, Dave is very good about stopping to let people in because he's like, nice.
So, here I'm like... And this guy's trying to pull out of a side street and I could... Dave's slowing down. And I said, this is not the time to be nice. And he's been teasing me about that ever since. He said, this is great. You're on your way to preach and this is not the time to be nice.
So, let me just say if you still got a ways to go, I get it. I'm with you. I totally understand. Humility is so important. I guess humility is probably the cardinal virtue.
Building Unity and Using Our Gifts
Is there anything that we really need to pray for? Make a special point of study. Andrew Murray says, you're never going to walk in humility if you don't pray for it and study it and really work with the Holy Spirit to have it developed in your life.
And humility is... It's the opposite of pride and pride is the root of all sin. That was this sin that Lucifer committed. I will, I will, I will, I will. And so, we need to learn more about humility and keep that in our hearts at all times.
And, you know, there's a four-part series that we could do on humility but we don't have time to do that today. And so, let me just say this. A humble person never thinks that they're better than other people. They just don't think like that.
And they remember that they have weaknesses too. That but for the grace of God there go I. And we're very good at whatever we're good at. We judge other people who are not good at what we're good at but we forget and that's covered in chapter 4 too that everything that we are good at is a gift from God.
It's not something we just have ourselves. It's something that has been given to us and this is why thankfulness is so important. Thank you God that I have the ability to do this but I know that it's your grace.
Help me not to be impatient and haughty with people who can't do what I can do. And I love it when people humble themselves to do something that they really wouldn't have to do. That's showing that they don't think they're the end all of everything and there's so many things that we can do that will let other people know.
Grace for Your Place – No More Comparing
Like my husband he sits in every one of these meetings and Dave laughs at my jokes although he's heard them a thousand times before. He knows what I'm going to say half the time before I say it and he I don't know if he is or not but the man looks really interested I mean he honestly looks interested and I think that that says a lot about character see what we're looking for today is character in an age of image today everything is about image how many people are on my Facebook how many people responded to my tweet boy now we've got Periscope and Snapchat and I mean it just keeps going on and on and on You know, I got lost at the selfies. I can't... I mean, I cannot stand around and take pictures of myself all day. It just doesn't work for me. It just doesn't. Besides that, I end up looking like I've got a real... I mean, I've tried a few times and it just does not turn out right. Amen? Amen?
I love to see people who have a servant's heart and who... Now listen to me what I'm going to say. And who do things that will make other people feel better. Let's do things to make other people feel better.
You know, there's a lot of speakers that don't show up during the worship. I'm always in our worship. Always in our worship. I will not sit in the back room during worship. I'm here to worship God. The worship helps prepare me for the preaching.
And a lot of places where I go to teach, they'll say to me, well, what time do you want to go out? I say, right now. I want to be there. I want to be in the worship. See, if we're only showing up somewhere just to do our part... I'm not here just to come out on the platform and be the big star. I'm here to participate with everybody else in worshiping God.
And learning and growing. Amen? And that's important. Dave's always here, right from the beginning. Once in a while, when he goes out on Friday night and signs books, people keep him a little bit longer. But he's always, always, always in here.
Don't Let Anger Give the Devil a Foothold
You know, one of the most important things that we see about Jesus is found in John 13. He washed his disciples' feet. It says, he took off his garment and he put on a servant's towel. And when he was finished, he laid aside the towel and put back on his garment.
And there's such a message there. We may have a cloak of authority and we may have a cloak of importance or whatever it is. But we need to be willing to lay that aside sometimes and put on a servant's towel. And then when we're done doing the menial thing God wants us to do, you can put it back on and walk in the thing that you're called to do. Thank you. Somebody likes this. All right, patience. Wow. We're only in verse 2. I'm in trouble.
Being patient with the timing of God is so important in our lives. The Bible says, the patient in spirit is better than the proud. And listen, James 1, 4. Man, we've heard this and heard it, but this is a mouthful. Let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work. So that you may be people perfectly and fully developed with no defects, lacking in nothing.
This scripture is saying that if a person can ever become fully patient, there will be a mature person lacking in nothing. You know what that means? If I'm completely patient, I'm happy no matter what's going on in my life. Wouldn't that be cool?
↓↓↓ Part 2 ↓↓↓
Do everything you can to get the strife out of your homes. Kids don't get along. Kids don't get along with their parents. Parents don't get along with each other. You know, the Bible says in James that where there is strife, there will be rebellion and every evil work.
So guess what, mom and dad? If you're in strife all the time with each other, you can expect to have rebellious kids. I mean, your kids don't need to think that you're perfect, but they don't need to see you fighting and arguing all the time. Kids need the stability of believing that their parents love each other and that things can be worked out.
Working for Peace on Purpose
Psalm 133, where there's unity, there is anointing and blessing. I love Psalm 133. There, where there's unity, the anointing abides and there's blessing on that house. So then I guess I have to assume where there is no unity, there is no anointing and there is no blessing. Hmm.
You say, well, it's not my fault. I'm just living in the house with somebody that's hard to get along with. If they would change, don't make me go there. I don't have time to go there today.
Matthew 5, 9. Blessed, enjoying enviable happiness, spiritually prosperous, with life, joy, and satisfaction in God's favor and salvation. Regardless of their outward conditions. Come on, he's saying, look, you can be happy no matter what your outward conditions are. If you'll be a maker and a maintainer of peace.
You work for peace. Peace is not going to fall on us like ripe fruit falling off a tree. If you want to get along with people, you're going to have to do it on purpose. I got one brother out here that's in agreement with me. You're fun to preach to.
I'll just give you a few hints. You don't always have to have the last word. If you're married, stop giving your husband driving directions. It's a fight waiting to happen. Matter of fact, the least bit of advice you can give your husband, the better off you are. Because he doesn't want it. And he's probably not going to take it. Maybe once in a while, occasionally, but not real often.
God told me a long time ago, you're a teacher, but you're not Dave's teacher. Because I just got a big teacher in me. I'm telling you what, you got a problem, I got an answer. I can fix it for you. At least I think I can.
You could occasionally say, I was wrong. Boy, does that stop a lot of arguments. Or here's a good one. Well, I think I'm right, but you know, I could be wrong. Even that's good. So do your best to maintain peace. Be willing to apologize, even if you have to do it first.
Grace Given for Every Place and Gift
Verses 7 through 14 talk about all the different gifts that we have. And I like to say how God gives each of us grace for our place. In other words, if you're raising a special needs child, you will have the grace to be in the place where you're at. And you'll have the grace to be there peacefully and still enjoy your life.
We look at people and say, I just don't know how you do what you do. Well, you know what? They don't either. Because God's gotten on board with them and is helping them do something that is beyond what anybody could normally do.
When we put our trust in God, He makes us able to do things that are absolutely amazing. I want to get back to Ephesians, and we're going to read a little bit of this. Ephesians 4, 7. Yet grace, God's unmerited favor, was given to each of us individually, not indiscriminately, but in different ways in proportion to the measure of Christ's rich and bounteous gift.
So each of us have a different... We all have grace, and you might even say we all have the same amount of grace, but we have it in different ways for different things. And it's so important for you to realize that whatever you need to do in life, if you trust God, He will give you the grace to do it.
And you can do it with a smile on your face and continue to have peace in your life. The last thing you want to say is, there's no way I can do this. There's no way I can do this. I just can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this.
Don't get yourself in a dither and start telling God everything you can't do and won't do and can't stand. Just say, God, if this is where you've got me, We need to learn how to have unity within diversity. I love that statement. I'm never gonna get along with everybody if I expect all of them to be like me.
And I'm not gonna get along with people if I'm trying to be what they are. So when we learn that we all have different gifts and that God gives us grace for our place, that means that I don't have to compare my life. I don't have to compare myself with you and try to be what you are.
That sets me free to totally be me. Do any of you ever get tired of competing and comparing with other people? Listen, as Christians, we even compare our prayer lives with other Christians. I mean, if I'm praying 15 minutes a day and I'm real happy and Sister Super Christian takes me to breakfast and tells me how she prays four hours every day, now all of a sudden I'm unhappy with myself.
You know what? If you're trying to read the Bible through every year, you probably tell people. But if you're reading one verse a day, you probably don't ever mention it. Well, maybe we need to just keep quiet about what we're doing and doing it unto the Lord. And trust that our reward will come from Him. And trust that our reward will come from Him.
Using Gifts to Build Up the Church
Now, verse 8, therefore it is said, when He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, He led a train of vanquished foes, and He bestowed gifts on men. Now, maybe you don't understand that. Let me read you what H.A. Ironside said in his commentary on Ephesians.
Our blessed Lord, in His triumph over death, led captive Him who had the power of death up until that time, which is the devil. That He might deliver those who through the fear of death were all their lifetimes subject to bondage. In other words, our mighty enemy, Satan, is now a conquered foe.
When Christ ascended on high, He dealt with the enemy. For this purpose was the Son of God manifest to destroy the works of the wicked one. He has been led captive at the chariot wheels of Christ, and our Lord has now ascended as man and taken His place on the throne of the majesty in heavens.
And there, from His exalted seed and glory, He gives these gifts to His church for its blessing and its edification. Wow! And there's so many different gifts. There's the apostle, the prophet, the evangelist, the pastor, and the teacher.
And if we read further in Ephesians, it says that these gifts are given for the building up and the edifying of the church, that they might go out and do the work of the ministry. I'm not here today just for you to watch me work. I am here today to build you up so you can go out and do the work. Amen?
And it is time for people to stop warming the pews. Come on, some of you have sat on the pews so long, your little bottom's totally flat. And here's what happens. Let me tell you what happens. If you sit on the pew and listen to somebody else, and you get full of the Word, and you don't then do something with it, here's what's going to happen.
You're going to start getting unhappy, and you're going to blame the person on the platform. I had a girl come and tell me one time, she said, you know what, I have to confess to you that I wasn't getting anything out of your teachings anymore, and I started praying for you because I thought you had sin in your life. I thought you'd lost your anointing, and you needed like a fresh edge.
And she said, God told me it's not her, you're not getting anything out of what she's saying because you're already so full, you have no place to put anything else. And if you don't get out and start giving some of it away, you're never going to get anything from anybody again.
Of course, you're going to get tired and sitting and listening to the same thing over and over and over, if you're not doing anything with it. It's like overeating and getting no exercise. You just keep getting bigger and bigger and lazier. Yeah, uh-oh, we'll go on. You better be glad I'm about out of time, but thank God for tonight. Amen.
But I'm not out of time yet. I still got 10 minutes. Hang on. And then there's the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And my gosh, do we need to hear more teaching on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The word of knowledge, the word of wisdom, healing, discerning of spirits, prophecy, tongues. Yes, tongues. Interpretation of tongues.
Oh, Joyce, don't tell me you're one of those. Hey, listen. If there's anything in that Bible that I can have, I'm going to go after it. And I don't care whose doctrine it fits into or doesn't fit into. If it's Bible, I want it. Amen. Amen.
I am hungry for more of God, and I need all the supernatural help I can get. And this is where sometimes we need to be willing to make some decisions for myself, for ourselves. And say, I'm going all the way with God, and if that means you don't want to fellowship with me anymore, then I guess God will give me a bunch of new friends.
Because I'm not going to limp through life being pitiful and pathetic when the power of God is available to me on a daily basis. Amen? Woo-hoo! Verse 15. Let our lives lovingly express truth in all things. Speaking truly, dealing truly, living truly, enfolded in love, let us grow up. Amen.
In every way and in all things, into him who is the head, even Christ the Messiah, the anointed one. Verse 16. Grow up. I'm in Philippians. I don't know how I got there. Verse 17 says, So then I say and solemnly testify in the name of the Lord, as being in his presence, that you must no longer live as the heathen.
Do in their perverseness, in their folly, in their vanity, and emptiness of their souls, and the futility of their mind. All through here, Paul's saying, you can't keep acting like the world. That's the way you used to be. But God got in the middle of that mess and delivered you from that mess.
You're not what you used to be. You are now a new creature in Christ. All things become brand new. And we have a God to help us. And, you know, listen, don't get out in the world and just blend in. Stand out.
And let's get over caring so much about what everybody thinks of us. Because you know what? When the end comes, and it's getting closer and closer. When the end comes, we're only going to answer to one, and that's God. Only one.
And all the people that we let control our lives, and all the people that we compromised in order to have their friendship, they're not going to be around caring one thing about what's going to happen to us. Start making decisions today that are going to make you proud to stand in the presence of God.
And we don't stand in His presence because of our behavior. It's all because of Christ. But all the way back to the beginning, Jesus said, If you love me. If you love me. He loves us. He's already said He loves us. He loves us unconditionally.
No matter how much I obey God, He's never going to love me any more than He does at this moment right now. And that's the same thing for you. But I can love Him more. You can love Him more.
Putting Off the Old, Putting On the New
The first and the greatest commandment. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. Come on, one more time. The greatest commandment. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. Yeah, it takes all. All.
You know what? If you've been a fence-sitter, I want to give you an opportunity today to make a decision. Perhaps even a public decision by standing up in a moment and saying, I need to stop compromising. It's time for me to go all the way with God. And I'm going to pray for you. And I believe it's going to be a major turning point in your life.
Over and over and over, Paul says, verse 17, don't behave like the heathen. Verse 22 through 24. I love these scriptures. Strip yourselves of your former nature. Be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind. And put on the new nature created in God's image.
Strip yourselves of that behavior that you used to behave like. And put on the new man. Put on Christ. And let's get out in the world and represent him. Let's get out in the dark world and be light in a dark place. Amen?
↓↓↓ Part 3 ↓↓↓
Ephesians chapter 4, verses 26 and 27. When you're angry, do not sin. Please notice it doesn't say never get angry. It's not the feeling of anger that's sin. It's what we do with that feeling after we feel it.
If somebody comes and is rude to you, the first thing you're probably going to feel is anger. Well, before Christ, or actually I was already saved, but before I knew the importance of really obeying God, if I felt like being angry and shutting somebody out of my life and telling them off, that's exactly what I did.
But people who are going to go all the way with God, listen to me, you don't have the privilege of doing what you feel like doing. That's not an option for us. The world can do that. They can do what they want, think, and feel. But we don't get to do that.
We have the fruit of self-control, and we can say no to ourselves and yes to God. And in the beginning, it's a lot harder than it is later on when you've had some practice. The longer you walk with God, the easier it is to not fight with Him because you find out that He's going to get His way in the long run anyway.
And it just saves you a lot of time to do it His way first. When you're angry, don't sin. Don't ever let your wrath, your exasperation, your fury, or your indignation last until the sun goes down. So He's saying, don't go to bed mad.
I wonder if I asked how many of you went to bed mad last night. What kind of a response I'd get? Well, I know you're looking really innocent out there. Looking around as if anybody's putting their hand up, and it's certainly not you.
You know what? The way you go to bed is the way you're going to get up. And you don't want to keep that cycle going in your life. Leave no such room or foothold for the devil. Give no opportunity to him. Anger opens a door for the devil in our lives. Amen.
How many of you want your life to be really radically blessed? Okay, then you have to stop staying mad. Well, let's try it again. How many of you want your life to be radically blessed? Well, then you have to stop staying mad.
I'm not going to tell you to never get angry, because we all have times where we get angry. But you don't have to stay that way. With God's help and a good, firm decision, and the power of the Holy Ghost, you can be peaceful all the time in your life.
What good is it going to do you to stay mad at people that are out enjoying their life and don't even care that you're upset? Your anger is not going to change them. But your anger will change you.
And let me tell you something. If the truth were known, there's probably more people in this room tonight that are mad at somebody than those that are not. And some of you have had it in you so long, you don't even know it's there anymore. But it's still eating away at you.
And so I want to suggest to you that you leave it here tonight and not take it home with you. Now, I'm not going to teach on this a long time tonight because I teach on this a lot and I've got a lot of stuff to cover.
So let's go on to verse 28 and 29. Let the thief steal no more, but rather let him be industrious, making an honest living with his own hands, so that he may be able to give to those in need.
Now, I thought that was pretty interesting. He's saying, look, if he used to be somebody who was stealing stuff, and really this, you know, whether you were a thief or not, the same principle works. Don't steal anymore, he says, but go get a job so you can give to other people.
Isn't it interesting that he doesn't say get a job so you can take care of yourself and stop stealing? He says get a job so you can give to other people. I think that's really kind of a thought to ponder. It's like, am I really just working so I can give to other people?
Well, you know what? If we believe the Word, if we give to other people, God will take care of us. You're up on the front row tonight. Now I can really talk to you. This guy's just been a cheerleader all weekend, see? So now they've brought him up to the front so he can really cheer.
Let me tell you something. If you've got an attitude about giving that is anything other than I'm excited about it and I love to do it, then you need to really study the Bible because it's from Genesis to Revelation. And there's no way that we can get away from what God says about giving.
And if we love him, we're going to want to give. But this to me is a very interesting scripture. Go get a job so you can give to other people. Now that doesn't mean that we don't use a lot of the money that we make to take care of ourselves, but the motivation here has to be, I'm going to give. I'm going to work and I'm going to work hard so I can give.
Well, a lot of people today don't even want to work, period, let alone work to give to other people.