The Platinum Rule
- David Fairchild
- Aug 1, 2010
- Series: Ephesians
The Platinum Rule
Ephesians 4:25-32
David Fairchild
August 1, 2010
Ephesians 4:25-32 - [25] “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. [26] Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, [27] and give no opportunity to the devil. [28] Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. [29] Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. [30] And 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, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”
Verse 25 – “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.”
Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor…
Last week we took some time to work through verses 17-24 and discovered how our thought life affects our walk. This is why we need the good news, the truth of who Christ is and what He’s done for us. We need to preach the gospel to ourselves constantly because we’re being assailed daily by false gospels that are at work trying to erode our identity in Christ. Our old identity is a lie to be put off and our new identity is the truth to be put on.
This is incredibly important because without believing the truth of who we are in Christ, it’s hard to speak this truth to one another. We’ll tend to go back to the old life and the lies that told us we have to earn our righteousness before God will accept us.
Instead, Paul tells us in verse 24 that we’re new creatures, “created in the image of God in true righteousness and holiness.”
Having put away the lies of our identity, we can now speak truth to our neighbors. “Our neighbor” is a Jewish way of saying “our covenant family”. We’re to get rid of the lies so that we can speak truth to one another.
…for we are members of one another.
Paul uses the image of a body again to remind us that we belong to one another and just as a body is handicapped without all its parts, so is the church without every member.
We can now take the plank out of our own eye and remove the speck from one another as we believe who we are in Christ and are able to help each member of the body become strengthened and built up.
Ann Rice, the author of Interview with a Vampire and several other books in The Vampire Chronicles series, famously professed faith several years ago after reading NT Wright’s treatment of the resurrection called Resurrection and the Son of God. Now after a few years with the Catholic Church she is quitting Christianity. She recently wrote in her blog:
“For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian... It's simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.”
After her post there were hundreds of comments, almost all positive, commending her for leaving the church just like they did. The posters represent a variety of traditions; Baptist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal and Catholic. Yet their comments all have the same basic complaint - the church is a hostile and bitter place filled with people that are angry and maliciously impatient with anyone that is different than they are.
Most of them are not leaving Christ to become an atheist, instead they are choosing to opt out of any kind of organized church. They would rather live their faith without having to deal with the heartache of gossip, slander and hypocrisy.
In fact, Rice posted a similar sentiment on Thursday:
“My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn't understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me," Rice wrote. "But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been or might become.”
As we learned last week, change is hard. It can feel impossible when we’re called to change together. However, God chose that we would change in community because our community is the place where we see how much we need to change.
It’s in relationships that we can tell how deep the gospel has gone into our hearts. I think I’m the most tender, gentle, patient and generous person until I have to live life with people that intrude upon my goals and agenda or inconvenience me.
Paul is showing us that purity is the result of unity and unity is the result of purity. We can’t have one without the other. We won’t be pure until we’re committed to unity and helping one another put on their new self and we won’t have lasting unity until we’re committed to living lives of purity. The two can’t be separated.
This is why the world is crying for unity but can never seem to find it. It can’t have unity until it is willing to be changed by God’s grace and become more and more like Christ. If we remain selfish, self-absorbed, greedy, hostile, unloving, impatient and gossip about one another, we will only have disunity.
So Paul is calling us to a life of unity and purity. A life committed to one another and committed to helping one another change. He wants us to be a holy people. A people set apart for His plans and purpose, empowered by His Spirit.
There are attitudes and actions that we have to take off and put on together. Let’s look at them.
Verses 26-27 – “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, [27] and give no opportunity to the devil.”
So often we’re angry about the wrong things. We get into arguments and are more concerned with how the person confronted our sins than we are about the sins they confronted.
The passage doesn’t teach us not to be angry. Christ was angry and yet was without sin. We should be angry at sin, we should be angry at death, we should be angry at the lies that come from our own hearts and from the world. When Adam should have been justifiably angry in the Garden as the Serpent questioned God, he was passive and apathetic and stood by and allowed him to speak lies to his bride.
What this is speaking of is our anger that lingers into a grudge. We’re not to sin in our anger and we’re not to allow our anger to remain. God wants us to close the door of opportunity to the devil by dealing with our anger in a way that is holy.
There most certainly is unrighteous anger. Some people are just hot-headed and pop a cork at anything. You’re ready to blow any moment. You might think it’s because your Irish or Italian or Latino. The fact is we’re unrighteously angry because we’re sinners.
James teaches us that the “anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” (James 1:20)
This is dealing with righteous anger and whether or not we let that anger seethe and become a poison to us. Even good anger can turn bitter if we let it remain too long. In fact, doing so opens the door for the enemy to come and divide.
Verse 28 – “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.”
Instead of being greedy and stealing from one another, we’re to do honest work with the hands that were used to steal so that we can share with one another.
We’re to be marked by generosity as a people. And this generosity is for anyone in need. One way we can keep stealing is by being generous only to people that meet our standards of those deserving of our generosity. Ever notice how little you actually share when you have this attitude? We use moral standards as a way of maintaining our greed. Yet our own hands used to steal. We didn’t give what God deserved, so we stole from Him. Yet now we’re on our high horse and want to judge others.
The reason we can be generous is because we used to be thieves and were forgiven as a free gift of grace. Can you imagine if God said, “I’m only going to give my Son to those that deserve Him.” Where would we be?
You might say, “Yeah, but I keep getting taken advantage of!” Do you realize that’s all we can do with Jesus? We can’t pay Him back. In fact, all we can do with Jesus is take advantage of Him. Can you imagine if Jesus said, “I’m only going to die for those who won’t take advantage of me.” Well, He wouldn’t have died for me. I can’t and never will be able to pay Him back. I can only thank Him for His generosity and live with gratitude as I’m generous to others.
Verse 29 – “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”
We are to be ministers with our mouths. Instead of words that decay and destroy, we’re to speak words that build up and encourage.
We are to give grace to those who hear. Can you imagine what our community would look like if we stopped speaking words that tear each other down and only spoke words that were filled with grace and encouragement?
Verse 30 – “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”
Grieving the Holy Spirit is why many of us feel distant from the experience of God. We live lives of sin in our selfishness, speech and attitudes towards one another and wonder why God feels distant from us.
It’s because we’re walking by the flesh and not by the Spirit. We’re not walking consistent with what we profess to believe about the gospel and our identity.
But the Holy Spirit is holy! He wants us to be lead by His prompting and truth and not by our flesh (the old self). Yet He doesn’t leave us. When I grieve my wife, she doesn’t take off her ring and divorce me, she withdraws her presence either emotionally or physically. The Holy Spirit doesn’t rejoice in sin, but in holiness. He comes close as we respond to His initiative.
Verse 31 – “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.”
Notice in each of these there is something we should put on in place of what we should put away.
We should speak truth in place of the lies.
We should share instead of steal.
We should be kind instead of bitter.
We should be tender instead of filled with wrath.
We should forgive instead of being angry.
We should build one another up with grace instead of tear one another down with clamor, slander and malice (gossiping each others virtues).
What this shows us is that purity and holiness doesn’t come purely by subtraction. We aren’t living by the Spirit in holiness by simply removing sinful actions and attitudes. We are to replace them with something better.
This is much harder isn’t it? It’s easier to be holy by taking things away. If my hands cause me to steal, I can remove myself from the temptation. But if you ask me to share, I have to not only put away my greed but now I have to be generous with what I have.
If my speech causes me to sin, I can stop speaking. But if you ask me to build one another up by giving grace with my words, I have to deal with my sinful speech and replace it with kind words.
If my heart becomes angry, embittered and wrathful towards others, I can remove myself from community. But if you ask me to be tenderhearted, kind and forgiving, I have to deal with my heart and it has to change.
This is why God is not simply interested in taking sinful things away from you but replacing them with godly characteristics. He wants us to be like Him in our actions, speech and attitudes toward one another.
He isn’t looking for blank slates that don’t do anything wrong, but a people who’s hearts have changed and now want to do what’s right.
This is why verse 32 seems so hard for us.
Verse 32 – “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”
The Golden Rule vs. the Platinum Rule.
We’re called to be kind, tenderhearted and forgive one another. We’re to replace our sinful actions, speech and attitudes with that which pleases God.
How is this possible when it seems so hard? We feel so powerless over sin.
Preaching the Gospel to one another by preaching the platinum rule.
The Golden Rule is to do to others as you would have them do to you. The Platinum rule is to do to others as Christ did for you. What does this look like? It looks like forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.
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