On the sin of lying.

"Is it My Ambition to Keep From Grieving the Holy Spirit?" part A

Subtitled: "Shining the Light of Truth on Little Dark Lies"

Ephesians 4:25-32 a, Zechariah 8:16-17

Pastor Kerry Kinchen, Bridgeway Bible Church

Turn to Ephesians 4:25-32. Ephesians 4:25-32 is where we are heading today in our verse by verse learning experience from this great epistle. Find that passage, and then turn to the Old Testament--to Zechariah 8. Bookmark Zechariah 8, and be ready to turn to it later on. As you are going there, I want to take the time to mention to you that there is a story concerning one of the founding fathers of our nation. The story was made famous by the Parson, Mason Locke Weems in the early Colony of Virginia. The story concerns George Washington when he was a little boy. The story is that when George Washington was confronted with chopping down a cherry tree, young George answered,

"I shall not tell a lie, I cut down your cherry tree."

or, as is reported,

"I cannot tell a lie, I did it with my little hatchet."

Modern skeptics want to think the account is a fable. But, there is no compelling reason, though, to doubt the story's authenticity. Parsons of the church in the early colonial times were not typically known for lying to the public with stories about their friends. It would be even more untenable for a church leader to lie in giving an illustration that deals with lying and telling the truth. Incidentally, when the story was first made public by Parson Weems in his book, "The Life of Washington" the Washington family did not refute it. The point is that the story is meant to describes Mr. Washington as someone who had such a high standard of virtue, that he not only would say, I shall not tell a lie, but goes on to express that he did not tell the lie.

For us Christians, we all understand, according to factual revelation, that our Lord and Savior is truly the highest standard of all virtue. So, when we consider Jesus as a little boy, we recognize that there was no sin in him at all. My wife and I were musing a few weeks ago about the young boy Jesus, and in respect to the way children--even those who are the most well behaved--can tend to get into trouble in their adolescent years. Many of us parents who have more than one child, realize that there are times when something bad happens as a result of an act of mischief, or because of irresponsibility, or by accident. From experience, we also know that it is hard to find out who was at fault later on after the results of the action have been discovered. In other words, the child at fault, does not typically step forward and say with a gleaming smile, "I shall not tell a lie." The thought of the children of Mary and Joseph being confronted by this type of situation had my wife and I laughing, as we imagined Mary saying to her kids, "Now, someone here is telling a lie, and we know it is not your big brother, now do we?" You know, this kind of thinking may bring a smile, but this is the kind of thing we need to contemplate in deep seriousness, as we come into a section in Ephesians 4 that is a continuation of Paul's flow of thought concerning not walking as the Gentiles in the futility of their lost minds. As we do this, it is important that we remember that the Gentile mind is Paul's language for the realm of sinful confusion and falsehood of unsaved humanity. We think of a classic example of walking in the futility of the Gentile mind where Jesus said to the man who ultimately condemned Him to death,

"... for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth, hears My voice." John 18:37

Manifesting the dark emptiness of a mind sold into bondage to sin, Pontius Pilate answered Jesus with the now famous question,

"What is truth?" John 18:38

Pilate was asking according to the futility of the Gentile mind. But, we are the children of God. We are not of the futility of the Gentile mind. We are to walk according to renewed minds that are discipled according to the truth. We are to walk according to the eternal mind of Christ. The truth, we walk in, is what we know as the teachings concerning Christ, but the truth is also concerning the teaching concerning Christ Himself. In other words, Paul says that we are to walk according to the way we have learned Christ Himself in Ephesians 4:20. Certainly Christ Himself is a lot to learn, but God has given us enough revelation to learn Christ the way He wants us to learn Him. Christ's compact description of Himself that He gave to Thomas, who was His student, speaks trillions of gigabytes of information, if we were to unpack each word. Christ says,

"I am the way, and the truth, and the life;" John 14:6

Christ is all of those things, and we recognize it because this is how we have learned Christ. But on a certain level, that one thing that Christ says that He is, tells us that when we learned Christ, we learned "the truth," because Christ is the truth. We learn Christ, who is the truth, both through His word of truth, and by His Spirit of truth. On the other hand, the world lives a lie, and in their deception, they are always concerned with living according to the flesh, for the flesh, in satisfying the flesh.

In Paul's flow of thought, his initial reference to the futility of the Gentile mind is in respect to the affinity of the unsaved to live in unsatiated sexual sin in satisfying the flesh. Paul is going on to more packages of truth for us to open, but, the initial point, though, that Paul is making in 4:19-24, coming into our passage under study this morning, is that any sexual practice that is outside of God's intended design, as is described in scripture, is sin. It is clear that Paul has been getting straight to the point of what we children of God need to do. He has laid important groundwork for the fact that we are saved by God's sovereign hand into the body of Christ. It is the safe haven of our position of eternal spiritual salvation. Christ Jesus is the Son of God--we are sons of God in Him. Our old man was already thrown off in initial salvation, (as we find worded so well in the parallel epistle, in Colossians 2 and 3), and so now in our daily practice of our position in salvation, we throw off the dark sinful remnant, so to speak, of what we were once like. To walk the Christlike life according to the light of truth, we must constantly throw off the old man, as Paul calls it, in respect to all of the dark lies of the carnal, sensual, lascivious desires of the sinful lifestyle of our past lostness. What is happening, by the Spirit, through the word here, is that you and I are being urged to practice our salvation. It is all according to the knowledge of the truth that God has given us in His word that grows us into the mature stature of His Son. God's only begotten Son in flesh, yet eternal in person, is the embodiment of the most mature spiritual man there is. He is perfect. He is truth. And so this is what Paul has been teaching by inspiration of God's Spirit as we walk right into our passage under study this morning. Paul is still urging us to walk the Christian walk as those in the body, from the body, for the body. Let us read our Ephesians text now;

"25 Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, because we are members of one another. 26 Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and do not give the devil an opportunity. 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. 29 Let no unwholesome [corrupt, rotten] word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification [building up] according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. 30 Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Ephesians 4:25-32

This is our text. I ask you to please prepare your hearts for the sacred preaching of God's word, in this sermon titled,

"Is it My Ambition to Keep From Grieving the Holy Spirit?" part A
Subtitled: "Shining the Light of Truth on Little Dark Lies" [prayer]

Starting out this morning, we need to be intensely thinking about Paul's flow of thought, where we recognize that Paul has just given the urging to lay aside the old man of our former way of life of sin, back in verse 22. The expression that Paul uses of laying aside, is like taking off stinky, sweaty, grimy clothes and casting them off. It is like casting them over to the side somewhere. It is more than out of sight out of mind. It is away from both sight and mind. We are to throw away the darkness of the old man that seemingly can be so easy to wear at times when we get comfortable with mediocre Christianity. How many of you know that mediocre Christianity stinks like rotten flesh? Mediocre Christianity is the stench of rotten flesh. Sometimes you will hear it called carnal Christianity. The problem is that in living in mediocre Christianity, we are demonstrating that we don't want to change our sin-darkened dirty clothes. We are comfortable with living in rottenness. This happens when we decide to put up with the stink and filth of sin in our lives. We start living according to the flesh, rather than the Spirit. We start to purposefully sin by seeking to sin. You and I absolutely can not be prideful and self deceptive about this. The sinful Christian isn't always the other guy that is being scrutinized. We must be careful because our propensity to wear the old man is so innately present, that you and I could possibly become the brunt of that scrutiny in a split second. Listen, in God breathed wisdom, we must always be keenly aware of how easy it is to fall into temptation and sin to our own detriment, and to the detriment of those around us. Sin is always dark and dirty, (no matter how small the sin is) and sin (no matter how small) always damages something. It could be your spiritual sensitivity, your relationships, your prayer life, but sin always hurts something. Sin hurts the body. But there is something about the hurt of sin that is even much bigger than that. Paul says that when you sin, you actually grieve the Holy Spirit. So, here is our urging: we need to be constantly, continuously, and relentlessly laying aside the old man, far away from us by throwing him to any place else but where we are as children of God in Christ, and the time that we do it, is right now. It is always an immediate action, and it is an action that we always must do. Further, the only reason why we do this is because we do it by the Spirit, according to truth. Follow me, because this is important, because coming into our passage under study this morning, Paul already started using the same laying aside expression. We must look at the expression closely so that we can learn various ways to keep from grieving the Holy Spirit of God. Just before Paul uses the expression again, he says "therefore." Paul says therefore, because he is about to magnify upon what he has already said. The point is that because we are one body, and because Christ is all in all, and because we have learned Christ in a certain manner, and because we lay aside our old sinful ways, and put on our new self as the new saved man which is governed by the mind of Christ through His word, by His Spirit, we are also laying aside the dark lies of the philosophies and sinful influences of the futile Gentile mind. So Paul says to "lay aside" again, saying,

"25 Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, because we are members of one another."

The falsehood that Paul is talking about is all the lies and deception of the futile Gentile mind. Unsaved Gentiles walk according to it, verse 17; being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart, verse 18. Because they are callous, they have given themselves over to lasciviousness for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness, verse 19. Follow what I am saying, because that is what Paul says coming into verses 20 through 24, and all of those verses are what comes right before our passage, which is verse 25. So, I am going to read verses 20 through 24 coming into our passage, and as I do, I want you to be looking for three terms that directly relate to our passage. They are truth; deceit, and laying aside;

"20 But you did not learn Christ in this way, 21 if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, 22 that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old man, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, 23 and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth."

And then our passage;

"25 Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, because we are members of one another."

In putting to action the new man we have put on for the task of exercising those things that are pleasing to God, which are those things that do not grieve the Holy Spirit, we find two important principles expressed in this command:

1) One is that we are to be about the righteous business of repenting of any temptation to lie, and then replace it with speaking the truth.

and

2) Two is to be about specifically laying aside the lies of this sinful world according to the futile Gentile mind, which are lies that influence us to think, and speak wrongly, and then what we are to do is make it our life's ambition to speak the truths of Christ to one another as ministers for the moment.

So, there are two principles: Repenting of the temptation to lie to people, and also, repent from lies that are teachings of this world. Both are great principles. Both are principles for shining the Light of Truth on little dark lies, which are big dark lies. It is God's will that you and I should be about the righteous business of repenting of any temptation to lie, and in obedience, replace the temptation to lie, with speaking the truth. So, we realize that it is a great principle. But it is also a great principle to be laying aside the philosophies, patterns, theories, deceptions, and lies of the futile Gentile mind, and then in place of them, speak the eternal, non-futile truths of Christ. Again, both principles are true, good, and great principles. But the question that should be asked is:

"Why am I presenting two separate, but closely related meanings from this text as principles from the same text, if the context seems to strongly imply a main one?"

In other words, we do not want to come to the text with a pretext, and then out of context, proof text something that isn't here. Let me tell you the two principles again:

1) We are to repent of lying. We are to be truthful instead.

2) We are to do away with the lies of the lost world, and speak Christian doctrine.

So, what is the answer to the question of why both principles apply to what Paul is saying? Well, to get at the big picture of where I am coming from on this, we must understand that there is something else about the text that needs to be noticed. Namely, according to New Testament scholars, what we find out is that Paul has received revelation from the Lord in giving this instruction, and the revelation has as its backbone Zechariah 8:16-17. What Paul is doing, is quoting Zechariah 8:16-17, in commanding to speak truth, each one with his neighbor. OK, knowing this, then, when we go to Zechariah 8, we find that Jehovah is talking to what is called "the remnant" of Israel (cf. Zechariah 8:6). Please turn over to Zechariah 8 now. There, Jehovah is talking to His remnant, and He calls them His "people" (cf. Zechariah 8:6). In Zechariah, Jehovah commands His remnant people to do some things with each other. Further, it is there that God commands for His remnant people to not do some things with one another. We notice this as we read what Jehovah says, starting in verse 16

"16 'These are the things which you should do: speak the truth to one another; judge with truth and judgment for peace in your gates. 17 Also let none of you devise evil in your heart against another, and do not love perjury; for all these are what I hate,' declares Jehovah." Zechariah 8:16-17

In this respect, then, we recognize the first principle. We recognize that God does not just merely instruct us to watch out for doing those things that are unseemly. We recognize that God is not just giving wise advice for careful conduct. What we see is that God makes a strong declaration, where He is saying that He hates it when His remnant people are not truthful with one another. This is a stark revelation, because we do not want to do anything that God hates. Now keep in mind that this is connected to what Paul is saying, and it also reflects what God says over and over again in other parts of His word. In Proverbs 6:16-17, we read, among a list of things, that,

"... the Lord hates, ... a lying tongue, ... a false witness who breathes out lies, and a man who sows discord among brothers." Proverbs 6:16-17

In Proverbs 12:22, we have a really sharp probe to help us identify the main tap root of this point;

"Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who deal faithfully are His delight." Proverbs 12:22

The point with this Proverb is that lying lips are the opposite of the truthful lips of God. They are the opposite of Christ's Lips. All through the Bible, the fact that God hates lying and deception, is made so clear. Even when we read of the righteous people of God lying to save lives, such as the time that the Hebrew midwives lied to protect the newborn Israelites in Exodus 1:19, or when Rahab lied to protect the Israelite men in Joshua 2, we are reading of people who feared God, and so they are commended by God for one area, and one area alone. They are commended by God for their devotion to the Lord. But--and this is so important--nowhere in the Bible does it say that God approved of their lying. To do so, would be for God to contradict Himself, and God does not contradict Himself, nor lie about what He thinks about lying:

"God is not a man that He should lie," Numbers 23:19

"God Who cannot lie" Titus 1:2

"It is impossible for God to lie" Hebrews 6:18

"... the Lord hates, ... a lying tongue, ..." Proverbs 6:16-17

"Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord," Proverbs 12:22

The big point that you and I must understand, is that God hates lies, because He is the truth, and there is no lie in Him. God does not lie to His enemies, and He expects Holy Spirit led people not to lie. What he expects us to do, is shine His Light of Truth on little dark lies, which are really big dark lies. So when we look at Zechariah's words, that Paul is quoting, we see that God hates it when His own people lie and do not make correct judgments for peace and edification. God hates it when one of His people, in selfish anger, or malicious cattiness, devises evil against other members of the body of Christ by getting back at them, or not forgiving them, or in taking advantage of them. Further, God does not like it when one of His people makes a false oath, or false witness against someone in perjury. Clearly, these things are grievous to the Holy Spirit. And this is the serious charge we need to be deeply considering concerning our own selves this morning:

Is it my ambition to keep from grieving the Holy Spirit?

In recognizing this, you absolutely must understand that God cares about the details. In other words, nothing is too small in God's economy of things. When it comes to His remnant people, (His children in the body of His great Son--who is Christ) we must understand that God really is involved concerning what you do to the point that He actually goes through grief. Yes, God experiences supernatural grief whenever you or I treat the church in any kind of unbiblical manner of disunity. This is a very difficult thing for Christians, who think they are intellectual, to come to grips with, which just means that they are not as intellectual as they think they are. Make no mistake about it, when you, (who have the Holy Spirit within you), are being deceptive, you really are grieving God. Grief always comes to the Holy Spirit if one who is in the body of Christ (who is under the New Covenant of grace) should put on the character of the old man and do the things that God hates, by actually speaking lies, or being deceitful in one's actions. On the other hand, "delight," which is the opposite of grief, always comes to God when we deal faithfully, and we operate in the light of the truth:

"22 Lying lips are an abomination to Jehovah, but those who deal faithfully are His [What?--Yes, His] delight." Proverbs 12:22

"...what is pleasing to the Lord." Ephesians 5:10

When we ask ourselves the piercing question that puts our inner soul under the microscope of whether it is our ambition to keep from grieving the Holy Spirit--and you know what I'm talking about--I'm talking about when you care enough about your actions to learn from this passage, and recognize that you actually can grieve the Holy Spirit--then this is an area we need to prayerfully examine with great care. What I mean is that we are to be about the righteous business of making it our unwavering ambition to be repenting from temptations to lie, when those temptations come, and then replace deception with speaking the truth. Folks, we must be careful, because we are not immune from being deceitful. When David said in his alarm at humanity's disposition toward deceit, in Psalm 116:11, that, "All men are liars," David was speaking of the wickedness of the dark dirty clothing of the futility of the Gentile mind. He is talking about the old you, but he is also talking about the old you that is on you when you don't throw it off, and put on the new man who has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth, Ephesians 4:24. But, here is the thing that we need to recognize, and that is that when David says that all men are liars, he means that all men are liars, but he is not saying that all men lie every time they open their mouths. David certainly wasn't lying when he made the statement that all men are liars, or else we can not believe the statement, now can we? Listen, what David means is that the heart is so wicked that no person can be trusted to tell the truth all the time. To be deceitful in one's heart just one time in one's life, makes the person a liar for the rest of his life. Actually, we are all born with deceit in our dark hearts according to inheriting original sin from Adam. This is why we read in Jeremiah,

"9 The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it? 10 I, Jehovah, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds." Jeremiah 17:9-10

The point is that we did not learn Christ, who is the truth, in this way of deceit of the old man. The world according to the image of fallen Adam, who is in the image of Satan, who is the prince of liars, is always this way, so this is simply the way of the world. But, for us, we learned Christ as those who are in the one new man of the body of Christ who is in the one new man in the image of God. Now, in thinking about this, we need to recognize that there are two primary reasons why Christians would put on the old man, and lie:

a) is to get out of something.

and

b) is to get something.

Let me explain. For example, I will talk to a spouse shortly after talking to the other spouse. The other spouse has come to me and has shared with me that the marriage is a real rocky road experience. In fact, things are so bad, that something has to change, or both people may go on to sin the grievous sin of divorce. When I meet people, I will give the usual cliche' greetings of our society, and our Texas culture. The shortened version in good Texan English, is "howdy." The longer version is "how do you do." I typically use the generic version, which is "How are you doing?" So I will meet the other spouse, and I will ask, "How are you doing?" What is interesting is that I usually get the protocol cliche answer; "I'm doing good." Then I will ask, the person, "How is your marriage?" Now, remember, I am sharing with you my experiences where I just recently talked to the other troubled spouse, and so I already know how the marriage is. But, nevertheless, I will often get the same cliche' again, "Its good." OK, what has just occurred is that I was lied to. You say, "Wait a minute. Perception is perceived reality, so maybe the spouse perceives that the marriage is doing good from their own perspective." Don't worry, because that is what I thought too. But, in the cases I am talking about, I know this is a lie because a little investigational conversation finally revealed that the person doesn't really think that their marriage is doing good after all. Now, the question is why did the Christian lie? They lied to get out of something. Let's also add pride to that. They lied to get out of having to admit what is humbling, which just so happens to be a huge problem that they absolutely need to work on. Secondly, they lied to get positive affirmation from me concerning their facade that all is good. They lied to get me away from finding out the truth. Pride is still there, but they lied to keep from being accountable to anyone but their own selfish, prideful self. They lied to halt any suspicion that something is wrong, and what they did was diminish their Christian walk even more than was already happening, and further, what have they done? They have grieved the Holy Spirit. Now, please listen to me, this is just one example of the type of temptation that will have good Christians hide under the foul stinking clothing of the old man, and in so doing, they will oftentimes try to rationalize in their minds that they are not really wearing the filthy clothing after all. Even if they do humble themselves and admit they are being deceptive, they will usually try to say that it was something called a "little white lie." But that just means that the root problem has not yet been dealt with. The root problem is a failure to shine the white Light of God's Truth on little dark lies, and call them what they are, and then make it their high ambition to keep from grieving the Holy Spirit.

Each of us must be careful to watch our tongues and keep from lying to get out of something, or to get something. It happens in businesses all the time. Christian employers will lie to employees, and Christian employees will lie to their employers. I have seen Christians who will easily lie to people in a business dealing. They are being deceptive with someone that they are doing business with. The reason?--so that they can get something from them, which is usually the sale, or they lied to get out of something, which is usually something they have to pay for, or be responsible for in the long run. It is so easy to put the old man on when we want to get something, or we want to get out of something. Even the disciple Peter did this with the Messiah. Remember Peter? He's the one that just told Jesus,

"Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You." Matthew 26:35

But, it was only a few hours later that Peter lied and said He didn't know who Jesus was. He lied, over, and over again; three different times. And then beaten, bloodied, humiliated Jesus, (who knew it was going to happen) fixed His gaze on Peter from a distance. Jesus knew Peter was going to lie. He told Peter that He was going to lie. But the fundamental question is why did Peter lie? Certainly, the deep thinker would explain that Peter was ordained to lie according to God's sovereign determination, but why did Peter lie in respect to his own personal responsibility for his actions? He lied to get out of being persecuted. He lied to get out of being beaten, and rejected, like Christ was being beaten and rejected before Peter's very eyes. He was scared. He lied to get safety, and acceptance from the crowd. He lied to save his skin. In one instance Peter's ambition is to keep from grieving His friend--His Messiah--His King. In the next instance, Peter, in self absorption, does not even care if his actions are grieving the Holy Spirit. Remember our question this morning:

"Is it my ambition to keep from grieving the Holy Spirit?"

It better be, and if it isn't, then allow God's Spirit to convict you this morning, and then make an adjustment in your Christian walk.

This is the first applicable principle from our text under study; we as the body of Christ, are to be about the righteous business of repenting of any temptation to lie, and then replace it with speaking the truth. The next principle is that we are to be about specifically laying aside the lies of the dark, futile Gentile mind, and speak the rays of the truths of Christ to one another as ministers for the moment. Paul says,

"25 Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, because we are members of one another."

There is something really profound here that we can not miss. We must notice that Paul did not say, as God said in Zechariah, that we must speak truth to each other because all the things that are opposite from the truth are what Jehovah hates. Do you notice this? Paul does not say to speak truth to one another because God thinks lying is an abomination as we see in Proverbs 12:22. Paul says to lay aside falsehood and speak truth with his neighbor, and the reason he gives here, is "because we are members of one another." You see, unless you have been making yourself recognize the importance of the body of Christ teachings that Paul has been hammering out from verse one, chapter one, and that we are all connected to each other in intentional placement in Christ, as the body of Christ, which is His church, and unless you recognize that this is what Paul keeps saying in respect to Christ being all in all, and God being all in all, and the Holy Spirit being the seal of us all, in us all, and unless you recognize that Christ is truth, and we learn Christ to grow in to maturity, which is His stature, and unless you recognize that He gave gifts to us to equip us to build each other up to attain to that stature, then this, "because" statement, will not make the sense to you that God wants it to! Yes, you are delivered out of the domain of darkness, but you are delivered into something else, which is the light of the gospel manifested in, and among, that divine product called the body of Christ. Everything that has to do with Christ, including the body of Christ, is truth, and Christ is the truth. It is the way He thinks. In the body of Christ, we are being equipped to think the same way--with the mind of Christ. So, what is going on here is that the truth that we speak to one another, is the continuation of the point that Paul has been making all along about our business of equipping one another. This is why preaching and teaching are so important with God. It is the speaking of truth that builds up the body of Christ. This is why Christianity is experiential, but it is only truly experienced according to the truth, and so for Christianity to be experienced truthfully it is also doctrinal. You can not have a real Christian experience, without the government of the truth--without doctrine. You can not be mature in Christ without the truth being given to you to recognize how immature you are in the first place, or what the futile Gentile mind is, and what the stature of Christ is.

I was reading an article the other day. It was by the great reformed Baptist apologists, Dr. James White. He said something that really drives this point home. The writing was under a section called Pastoral Theology. The title of the article was "Dwell On These Things." It dealt specifically with the phrase "dwell on these things" that Paul used in Philippians 4:8, but Dr. White's comments are so applicable to what we are learning this morning from Ephesians 4. I'm going to read the section to you now. Pay attention, and pray that God will move you to get the seriousness of this message this morning. Here is what Dr. White had to say;

"Whatever is true. God values truth. He has revealed truth, and promised that the Spirit of truth would be with us. Can you imagine how important truth must be to God when He applies the term as a description of His Spirit? We are to think on truth, ponder it, focus our attention upon it, value it as the precious gift it is. How many walk about each day in utter darkness and deception, while we walk in the light of the truth? Should this not cause us to rejoice in it, to never take it for granted, to desire to know it better every day? Look at how the world hates the clarity of God's truth and does all it can to mock it, deride it, and obscure it. What the world hates we should love and honor and consider most precious. Yet is this the attitude we see in the church in general today? Do we see a concern for truth, a concern that we handle it aright, proclaim it clearly, without mixture or confusion, and pass it on as the precious heritage that it is? Think on the truth." Dr. James White

Truth is so valuable, and is such an integral part of our supernatural nature in Christ, that we should be convicted to seek to speak the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so that it shines upon the lives of others. This is what God is urging us to do as what is pleasing to the Holy Spirit. When you dwell on the truth, by dwelling in the truth, then you can always be assured that you are not grieving the Holy Spirit, and at the same time, you can be assured that you are recognizing what you really are: where you and I are truly members of one another.

It is with a great sense of seriousness that I urge you to consider the words that you speak. Consider the things you do. Consider it in a very reverent manner. Ask yourself,

"Is it my ambition to keep from grieving the Holy Spirit?"

Ask yourself, "do I find myself thinking I can get by with being deceitful according to the two common temptations to lie?" Or another way we can ask ourselves this question is whether you even think it is okay to entertain the thought of lying to get out of something. Are you practicing such deceitful tactics? Do you entertain the thought that it is somehow remotely okay to get something by being deceitful to get it. Are you practicing such a subtly, seductive, yet sinful, tactic for handling life, even though you are a Christian? Such thinking, and actions, is to walk in the futility of the Gentile mind that is at war with the Holy Spirit. Such thinking, for anyone who claims to be a Christian, clearly brings grief to the Holy Spirit.

There is an old saying that people use in the world; "A man is only as good as his word." It is an old adage that shows us that people in the world are smart enough to recognize that honesty measures a man in a certain sense. And so the world will seek to check itself based upon a humanistic code of honor; "A man is only as good as his word." But, listen, though it is a good proverb in many respects, you and I are far above that little standard my dear brothers and sisters. The fuller truth of the matter is that a Christian man or woman is only as good as Christ, because Christ imputes His righteousness in salvation; and this is why you and I are above the standard of some humanistic code of honor. Our heavenly calling is higher, because our ambition is to not lie because of honoring God, whether the world has codes of honor, or not. Our ambition is the full stature of our Leader. You are different. So be different at the office where you work. Be different at home, at school, when you are with your friends, and be different with the fellowship of the saints. Honesty requires humbleness. Nobody said it was going to be easy to be humble. In fact, no one is saying that it is always easy to be honest. But it doesn't matter how easy, or how hard it is; God requires that you be humble, and God requires that you be honest. What He is saying to us this morning is to honor Him, and to honor the body. It is just another way of talking about practicing the law of love, which is our great law for living that has been decreed from our great Sovereign, so do it.