Who Taught You to Say That? (Ephesians 4:21-25)

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. Go ahead and turn in your Bibles with me now to Ephesians chapter 4. Go ahead and meet me at Ephesians chapter 4, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4 and we'll be reading this morning verses 20 through 25. Ephesians chapter 4 verses 20 through 25.

But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus. that you put off concerning your former conduct the old man, which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, that you may put on the new man, which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, putting away lying, let each of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Thus ends this portion of the reading of God's Word. God's Word, brothers and sisters, is holy, it is perfect, it is true. Every word of it has been breathed out by God. Well, let me Let me ask you to close your eyes and imagine, for some of you, this is imagining or remembering way back. For some of you, it's not so far back.

Do you remember when you were a small child? Do you remember when you were just a little tyke? Do you remember when your mom and dad taught you all sorts of things? Well, let me ask, do you remember when your parents taught you how to lie? For most of us, our parents never taught us how to lie. It's one of those remarkable things when you have kids and they lie to you for the first time and you go, what in the world would that come from? Well, you know where it came from. You know it came from that sinful heart that they have at birth, but you look at that cute little child whom you've loved and you realize what's really been going on in that brain.

Well, this morning God is telling us in this series that we'll be going through about putting off the old man, putting on the new man, the first thing today in verse 25 is putting off falsehood, putting off falsehood and putting on truth. Put off falsehood and put on truth. But that starts with remembering Christ. remembering Christ. Look again with me at verses 20 through 21. But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus.

We need to be really careful. I'm going to warn you, we need to be very careful as we approach the second half of the book of Ephesians. As we get into the second half of the book of Ephesians, if we take our eyes off Christ and we just focus on morals, we will become Pharisees. If we take our eyes off Christ and we focus on ourselves and our ability to do this, we will quickly become self-righteous, and indeed we won't actually put off the old man at all. But it is, what does the text tell us here?

But you have not so learned Christ. Salvation, brothers and sisters, is being in Christ. It is clothing ourselves with Christ. It is loving Jesus Christ. It is wanting to be conformed to Jesus' likeness. Remember, it is Jesus who said of Himself that, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Nobody comes to the Father but through Me.

So if we want to put on truth, we must fix our eyes on Jesus. This is not an abstract, this is a person. This is the God-man himself who we fix our eyes on. So first, as we put off the falsehood, we need to fix our eyes on Jesus. Fix our eyes on Jesus. But it's more than just fixing our eyes on Jesus. We really do need to do things, though. These are commands, these are, as grammarians will say, imperatives. This is the law of Christ.

Second Point

The law of Christ is putting off that old man and putting on the new man. So, that's your second point, is put on the new man. Put off the old man and put on the new man. Look with me at verses 22 through 24. that you put off concerning your former contact, the old man, which grows corrupt according to the deceitful loss, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, that you may put on the new man, which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness."

We need to cry out to God that He would indeed renew our minds. We need to cry out to God as we fix our eyes upon Jesus, as we remember how we learned Christ, as we remember how we heard of Christ. We need to ask Him for a new life, a new inner man. Indeed, this is what Jesus was getting at when He said, a man cannot enter heaven unless he be born again, unless God gives you that new heart.

And that is that new heart that we continue to put on. So put off that old man. Put off those old sins. Put off those old ways of life. And put on the new man. But what does that look like? Well, we explored those two concepts a lot last week, but we need to get nitty gritty with it today. What does it look like to put off the old man and to put on the new man? Well, verse 25 starts, with truth. Put off all falsehood. Put off lying. Look with me at verse 25. Therefore, putting away lying, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.

Let me just ask you a really simple question. Are you a follower of Jesus Christ? Or this might, what I'm going to ask next is going to be a hard question, but I ask it with love. Are you following Jesus Christ or does the pattern of your life look like you're following Satan? I say that with all theological confidence and biblical reality to press upon you, it is Satan who is the father of lies. It is Satan who is the father of lies, so let me ask you in your life, Are you following Jesus Christ? It is Jesus Christ who is the one who is the truth.

I don't want to get too gloomy on you, but Revelation chapter 22 is clear. If you have your Bible, it's worth turning there for a second. Revelation chapter 22. Revelation 22, 14 and 15. I don't want you to just take this as my word. This is God's very word here. Revelation 22, 14.

Blessed are all those who do His commandments, that they might have the right to the tree of life. and may enter through the gates into the city. Right? That is the desire as Christians. We want to enter into the city of God. We want to eat from the tree of life. We want to live with God forever. But look at what verse 15 says. But outside, that's outside the city, outside of God's blessing are dogs, and sorcerers, and sexually immoral, and murderers, and idolaters, and lastly, what does it say there? And whoever loves and practices a lie. Who are you following? Who are you walking after? Are you walking in the old man?

This is a time for you to do a spiritual reality check of your life. This is a time right now that God is inviting you to be honest with yourself and ask, have I been walking in the truth or have I been full of tall tales and white lies or just outright deception? This is a reality check. Are you walking in the light as He is in the light? Are you walking in the truth as Jesus Christ is the truth? There's great blessing that we have in Jesus Christ, that He invites us to partake of His life.

Now you're going to have every motivation in the world to lie. You're going to have all sorts of motivations in this life to lie. There are Just go talk to almost any politician or a whole bunch of lawyers and you'll find a whole lot of people who find it very pragmatic to just twist the truth a little bit. Just say what people want to hear just a little bit because there's a goal, something you want at the end.

That's not the Christian way. That is not how we have learned Christ. But indeed that temptation, that pragmatic temptation is in front of people all the time. Right? If you're an employee who makes his wages or her wages based on commission, you might be tempted to fudge the numbers just a little bit. Why? Because there's a possible promotion or more pay at the end. There's all sorts of pragmatic ends by which people will try to justify their deceptions. Or we don't even need to move into our own lives. We could just look at the Bible and see how people lied just for their own self gain.

Do you remember the early church? Do you remember Ananias and Sapphira? What did they do? They sold their plot of land. It would be like selling an 80-acre out here. And they took the proceeds. And what did they do? They brought it to the church. It was their money. They had every right to it. But what did they do? They came into the church, and they wanted to make it seem like they were holier than everyone else. And so they said, oh, yeah, here's all the proceeds from the farm. And in a moment, The Lord struck them dead, first the husband and then the wife. Do you see God's severity against this immoral lying? They didn't even want material gain, they just wanted the reputation of holiness. For some of us, For some of us, for a long time, we have put on a facade of holiness. For some Christians, they have put on a facade of, oh, I am so righteous, I don't have sin, I need to talk to people about.

We don't need counseling in our marriage. Everything is just fine. And there's a front. But that front itself, brothers and sisters, is a lie. Do we put on a public face while all the while privately at home? We know that there's something deeply wrong.

There's other motivations for lying. Some people just lie just because they want to do evil. Brothers and sisters, there are people in this world who want to sow division in the church, in our country, in our communities, in your family. They want to sow lies just so they can see your family fall apart. They want to sow lies just because they want to see our country fall apart.

You need not look any further than the news coverage or all the fact-checking, we'll put that in air quotes, that goes on online. Some people just want to see destruction and things fall apart, but at the end of the day, they just get pleasure out of other people's suffering.

I wonder about this. You could really take this a long way. Just think about, this drives me nuts, okay? It just drives me nuts. Have you ever thought about what type of cruel person creates viruses for your computer? Especially when they'll put up a website that seems like a reputable website, and it's just there to infect your computer. Not because they actually want anything on your computer, they just wanna see your computer crash and die. Some people just want to see the world burn for their own pleasure.

We must put off that old man. That old man is filled with this desire for self and will lie for that desire. But there are barriers. There are barriers that you will face as you walk towards being a truth teller, as you put on truth, as you desire to walk like Christ. There will be barriers to being a truth teller. One, it can be awfully scary. There is fear in telling the truth.

Did you know that? Have you ever looked at a child? Who knows there's a consequence either way. They did something wrong and so they're gonna lie about it to try to get out of the consequence. But they know if they tell the truth what might also happen, they might get disciplined for lying. It takes courage to put off this old man.

There's that barrier of fear. There's a barrier of fear that you might lose reputation in your family. or in your community, there might be a barrier for you in being a truth teller that you have lied and buried that lie under another lie and have buried that lie under another set of deception and you have just dug yourself so low that when you finally open up the light into all the skeletons in your closet, your family members realize, do I even know who you are?

It's scary. I do not want this morning just to tell you, oh Christians, here you go, be good truth tellers. This isn't kindergarten. Kindergarteners in the car, yes, you tell the truth, but it is hard to be a truth teller. It is hard to have the courage. This is something that the Holy Spirit, we must ask for him to give us the courage to be radical truth tellers. It is hard.

And it's hard because you might lose friends if you actually told them the truth about things. If you actually fessed up and you told the truth, there might be repercussions for that. Let me tell you, there is going to be something within you that will try to justify that that end is not worth it. But let me ask you, do you desire holiness, or do you desire your friends? Do you desire God's face to shine upon you, or do you desire your reputation? Do you desire God's glory and God's praises, or do you desire your comfort? It is going to be hard to be a radical truth teller, to put off that old man, because repentance is hard.

My brothers and sisters, lies will consume you, and lies hurt everyone involved. Lies and deception hurt everyone involved. For the person who's lying, for the person who is lying, they often have this sense of anxiety. They often have this fear that, oh no, what's going to happen? Am I going to be found out? And they live under the shadow of the darkness of that fear that one day their family might find out, their spouse might find out, their children, their community, their church, their friends might find out that dark secret. They often have found themselves lying and lying and lying.

It only started as one thing and ends up with a whole trail of lies behind it. It hurts the liar. It separates, more importantly, it separates that person from the blessings and the livelihood of God. I personally know a man, I am telling you now, I personally know a man who lied. And it was something small, but that something small, a bad habit that he just hid from his wife. that bad habit, that habit of just hiding it from his wife grew into a habit of hiding bigger things from his wife, hiding even more and more. And as he hid more and more from his family, as he hid more and more from his wife, he found himself not just estranged from his family, but he found himself separated further and further from the church and from his love for God. Brothers and sisters, if you are the one who is lying, it is damaging to your soul. I am pleading with you now. God is commanding you here today to put off that old man. Put off all lying. Put off falsehood.

Because it doesn't just hurt you as well. But it will sow seeds of bitterness. It'll sow seeds of anger. It'll sow hurt and harm and even hatred in the hearts of those people you've lied to. You might think it's just something small. It's a small seed of a lie. But brothers and sisters, it will grow up like a weed and choke out the joy in your relationships, put off those lies, put off that old man and put on something far grander.

Put on the truth. Put on the truth. Look with me again at verse 25. Therefore, putting away all lying, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor. Put on the truth. put on the truth. This is easy to say, but you step one toe into the reality of our world, you step one toe into the philosophy of our times, and you quickly delve into where Pilate, even with his own mouth, asked Jesus, what is truth? Give me a break.

We know what the truth is. 1 John tells you that you know the truth, for you have the anointing of God upon you. Especially when someone comes to you and they have a lie, especially against scriptures, brothers and sisters, we need to be like the Bereans and able to go to the scriptures and say, uh-uh, no way, you're not gonna tell me Jesus was just some angel. Uh-uh, no way, you're not gonna tell me I can live in the flesh and gratify any desire I have and then come to the Lord and act like nothing's wrong. No, no, we know the truth.

We have the truth. Jesus Christ Himself is the truth. Jesus has given us the truth in His Word. God has poured out Your Spirit upon Him. Now, you're going to need wisdom. You're going to need wisdom, but we know what righteousness looks like, for we have a righteous God. We know what truth looks like because Jesus pointed to Himself and said, I am the truth.

Don't let this world suck you into its postmodern philosophy. Don't let this world try to muck up morality by saying, oh, there's so many shades of gray. Yes, we need wisdom to understand how to apply truth, but we do have standards. We know what truth is.

But what Paul says here, let each of you speak truth with his neighbor, is a direct quote of what God said through the prophet Zechariah. This is what we read earlier in Zechariah chapter 8. Zechariah chapter 8 is the one that said, let each of you speak truth with his neighbor. Again, you might say, who's my neighbor?

That's what the young scribe came and asked Jesus when Jesus gave him what the law was. And Jesus says, well, you tell me what's the summary of the law. And what did he say? Well, I should love the Lord my God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength, and I should love my neighbor as myself. And Jesus said, you're not far from the kingdom of heaven. But what does the text tell us after that? It says, wanting to justify himself, he asked of Jesus, who's my neighbor? And the story that Jesus gives after that is the story of the Good Samaritan.

It's not the people we like. We don't just get to tell the truth with people we love. We don't just get to tell the truth with people who we're comfortable with, but it's with everyone we must tell the truth. This is what the Shorter Catechism, question 77, is getting at when it asks, what is required in the ninth commandment? Remember, the ninth commandment is that one that says, you shall not bear false testimony against your neighbor. And the requirement in the ninth commandment is that we must maintain and promote the truth between man and man, especially in witness bearing.

Let me ask you, is your life marked by radical truth-telling. If someone was to give you a eulogy, would they say, that man, that woman, that girl told the truth no matter what? That person was an honest man. That woman was an honest woman. I know that if I needed to hear the truth, I could go to them and hear the truth, even if it hurt. They would say it with love and they would say it in kindness, but they were a truth teller. Is that what you're leaving as a legacy behind you? Are you putting off that old man of falsehood and have you put on the new man of truth?

What does that look like? What does that look like in real life? What does that look like, children, when you talk to your parents? What does it look like to tell your parents the truth no matter the cost? No matter if you know it's gonna get you in trouble. What's that gonna look like with your relationship with your employers? What would that look like if you were honest with your children about the struggles in your marriage as they enter into their newlywed days? What's it going to look like as you don't try to sugarcoat reality but have real heart-to-heart conversations with your grandchildren? What will it look like in your business dealings?

Will you try any means necessary to increase the bottom line, no matter if you're actually lying about how much a good is worth? What would it mean when you're in school and you're taking your tests? What would it mean as you're playing games with people and you can easily cheat?

This is such a pervasive foundation stone of who we must be as Christians. That's what God has called you to be as Christians, to be radical truth-tellers no matter the cost. Now we see this beautifully illustrated in the very life of Jesus. I'm going to speculate here for a second. But just think about Jesus Christ. As the book of Hebrews tells us, who is tempted in every way, just as we are.

I've wondered at times, was Jesus ever tempted to deny that He was the Messiah? Would it have been easier for Jesus, physically, just to go, uh-uh, you got the wrong guy? Would it have been easier for Jesus, as He was on that mount, and He was sweating drops of blood, to instead of saying, not my will, Lord, but Yours be done, to instead saying, yeah, I'm just not convinced of it, God, so I think you got the wrong guy? No, He would not deny the truth of who He was, and He would not deny the truth of the work that God had sent Him to do, even though it cost Him persecution for His entire ministry. People sought to kill Jesus, and yet He never backed away from that truth. And yet, what do we see in Peter? What do we see in Peter? Jesus even warns Peter, before the rooster crows this very morning, you will deny me three times. No, I'll never deny. No, I'll never do it. I'll never do it.

But after Jesus is arrested, what does Peter do? But he goes into the courtyard of the high priest and there three times. Truly, truly you are one of them, for your accent gives it away. No, no, no, no, I don't know that man. Truly, you are with him. Truly, we saw you. No, I don't know what you're talking about. Truly, you're from Galilee, and you must be following him. I swear to God I'm not one of his. And then what does the text say? The rooster crows.

And one of the most powerful verses in the Gospels, and the Lord looked at him. Not in Jesus, and the Lord looked at him. Brothers and sisters, the Lord is looking at you this very morning. The Lord's eyes are upon you this very morning, and He's asking you, The Lord is looking at you this morning and He's saying, I'm here now. God's Spirit is with us now as we are gathered together in His name.

And this morning, He is looking at your very soul and He is telling you, put off that old man. I have given you the Holy Spirit. You are being renewed in your mind and you can put off that old man. Brothers and sisters, if you are convicted of this today, do not let your heart grow calloused. But repent of that sin, put it behind you, deal with the consequences, and walk in holiness.

For together we are God's people. That is what it calls us to at the very end of this verse. Look with me again at verse 25, real quick. Therefore, putting away all lying, let each of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. We are members one of another. This is what Ephesians chapter 4 verse, I can't remember, it's 12 or 17, told us that we are members one of another.

We are God's body. We are the body of Christ and we are the temple of God. And as we seek to hold one another up, As you are living stones and you support the people who are upon you, if you have a crack through the middle of your stone, and that crack can be labeled liar, deal with it now. Because it hurts all of us. We stand strong together as a body. We're founded upon the twelve apostles, with the cornerstone being Jesus Christ.

So brothers and sisters, I encourage you, I implore you, God commands you this morning, that by the power of the Holy Spirit, put off all falsehood and put on truth, for we are members one of another. This is not impossible. Because with God all things are impossible and he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. You are not a slave to your old man but you can put on this new man for Jesus Christ is alive and his spirit is in you.

I encourage you. It's a great blessing. It is a great blessing. I speak from my own experience. I speak from my own life as one who is a pathological liar, as one who is a pragmatist, and my old man. And I thank the Lord. I'm going to give kudos to my wife here for this spur on in righteousness, that this is a sin that can be conquered. There's great joy in it. There's great blessing that God is holding out to you today. You learned Christ in truth. You learned Christ in righteousness. Clothe yourselves in truth.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. Oh Lord, we thank you so much for your spirit. We thank you for Jesus Christ. We thank you that you have begun a good work in us and you who began it. Lord, you will make it complete unto the end. Lord, we pray, Father, that you would bury these words in our hearts. We pray, Lord, that you would not have just taught our minds, but that you would reform our lives. Lord, we pray that we would walk in lives of holiness for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.

Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.