Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The sermon text is from Ephesians 4:17-5:2.
Paul’s words the last few weeks have taught us what it means to live as the body of Christ, the Church. Too often, even as Christians, we excuse bad behavior and hate-filled words. It’s easy to gossip about someone when they aren’t there, then pretend what we said wasn’t bad it was the truth. We even treat it like it’s our personal therapy, because it makes us feel better to let the bitterness out or just to tell someone what we know. No matter how we spin it to make it OK, what we’re doing is gossiping or venting to make ourselves look or feel better at someone else’s expense. In our text, Paul says: “You did not come to know Christ that way… Put off the old self… Put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”
Churches have enough challenges being about the work God gives us to do without personality conflicts or turf wars distracting us. Husbands and wives, parents and children have enough struggles without crushing and cutting each other with caustic comments. In Church or family or personal or business relationships, a burden of bitterness will cause us either, to withdraw, become offended and close up within ourselves, or lash out giving pain for pain as we extract our pound of flesh.
God has a different vision for church, family – for all our Christian relationships: “Speak the truth in love, [so that] we will in all things grow up into Him who is the Head, that is, Christ.” God would have us, not to be consumed by hate, but, as our text says: “Be kind and compassionate, forgiving one another, just as in Christ God forgave you.”
Proverbs 17 says, “Starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam; so drop the matter before a dispute breaks out.” I walked the dam a couple weeks ago and the water was roaring out. Can you imagine the devastation if Carlyle dam burst – how it would destroy everything in the waters path. That’s what happens when we use our tongues like lashing swords, cutting husband, wife, parent, or neighbor. We do damage that may never be undone! James 3 says, “The tongue is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men.”
There’s a better way that Paul shows us this morning: “Put off falsehood and speak truthfully, for we are all members of one body… Don’t let the sun go down on your anger… Don’t steal from one another… Don’t let unwholesome talk come out of your mouths… Build one another up according to their needs… Get rid of all bitterness…anger… and slander.”
Nothing does more damage to our relationships as brothers and sisters in Christ or husbands and wives or friends and neighbors than our careless, spiteful words. Paul says, “Put off the old self”, because hateful, slanderous words and gossip come straight from hell. They’re the sinful seeds sown by the devil. The Small Catechism teaches, “We should fear and love God so that we do not tell lies about our neighbor, betray him, slander him or hurt his reputation, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain everything in the kindest way.”
Wasted words and grudges and cheap shots hurt us. They callous our hearts until we can’t see anything good in our neighbor, only our foolish hate. Jesus said, “If you do not forgive, you will not be forgiven.” He said, “When someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to them the other one also.” He said, “Pray for your enemies.” Secular studies have shown that those who learn to forgive, not feud, live longer, happier lives. More importantly, God’s Word says those who harbor discord and dissension “will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
So what do we do with anger? Paul says, “Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry. Don’t give the devil a foothold.” When we get mad or have arguments, it’s like staining your shirt. Is it easier to get a stain out of a shirt right away or to wait a few days? You don’t let stains set in your clothes, because after awhile they get impossible to remove. That’s true for us also. If you have a problem with someone, go to them. Try to be reconciled. That doesn’t mean go to them trying to prove why you’re right. It doesn’t mean go to them trying to explain to them why you were mad or what made you gossip. It means saying, “I was wrong. Forgive me.” If the other person refuses to be reconciled, continue trying and pray God will heal the broken relationship.
Not surprisingly, Paul uses God as the model. “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” and later “Live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us.”
When you stop and think about it, we’re all sinners. If there’s one thing the Holy Spirit teaches us when He creates faith, it’s that I need forgiveness, not partially, somewhat or even mostly, but full and complete forgiveness. When Jesus was crucified he bore the abuse and hate-filled shouts of the priests and soldiers. They lined the path to Calvary spitting venom and cursing Christ to die, but the gossip and slander and hate that you aim at your neighbor strikes your Lord Jesus also. The venom you spew in anger at others falls upon Christ as He carried the cross to die. The grudges and abuse you harbor toward others were present in the crushing blows that bruised and battered our Lord. Is it really worth it? Is it worth it to hold on to anger and hate? Aren’t we doing what Hebrews 6 warns us about: “To our shame crucifying the Son of God all over again”?
2 Corinthians 5 says, “Christ died for all.” That includes us and the people around us. Christ Jesus knew your hearts, yet chose to die to save you. Throughout Jesus earthly life, He endured scorn and contempt and hatred and jealousy and gossip, yet never one single time did Jesus return evil for evil as He lived a perfect life in your place. Hate pounded Jesus into a bloody pulp, yet in Christ, God’s love triumphed over our hate. He even prayed for his killers – for you and me: “Father, forgive them.”
In our verses Paul recognizes the fountain and source of our new lives in Christ: “Forgive one another, as God in Christ forgave you” – “Love as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us.” God loves you and forgives you in Christ before you even ask or think about it. We killed Christ with all our sins of thought, word, and deed, and yet He wasn’t a helpless victim. He chose to take your place, to live, die and rise again to heal you and me from the hate that would sink us into hell. He chose to die, offering not words of anger, but a prayer for forgiveness.
Our bitterness and orneriness is a bursting dam that destroys everything in its path, but God’s love is a flowing fountain of free forgiveness that brings life and love and forgiveness to the barren, broken wasteland of our lives. God’s love in Christ sweeps into the path of destruction and death to change our hearts, remaking us in the beauty that God has for us in Jesus. God touches us with a flood also, but the flooding waters of God don’t destroy, they make us new-born children of our Savior and King in Holy Baptism. This forgiving flood of Baptism we return to every day through repentance, yet here in God’s watery-Word we find a Savior greater than every fault.
The Holy Spirit brings us to repentance, as each day by the Spirit’s power we gather around the forgiving flood of Baptism, remembering and receiving the life that flows from Christ’s cross. Here we gather with people that look a lot like us, sinners. God only saves sinners, no one else. They don’t deserve anything and neither do we. They haven’t earned anything and neither have we. Like us, God should send them straight to hell. Yet, amazingly, graciously, through faith in Christ, we and they will live forever. Our Savior’s love is bigger than everything that divides us from God the Father. And Paul wants us to know today, our Savior’s love is bigger than anything that divides us from each other. Amen.
And now may the peace of God which surpasses human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.