Ephesus Family Conference, 2

All right, let's look again at the Book of Ephesians. Let's go to chapter four Ephesians, chapter number four, and let's remember what this is all about. First, Christ's headship over his body. Second, unity in Christ's body. Third the glory that the body gives to its head. Remember the boog. Ephesians divided into two halves, chapters one through three chapters four through six. First half gives us a proper understanding of what Christ accomplished on our behalf to the Father's glory through the cross. The second half we focus on proper living in light of and as a direct result of, Christ's active and passive obedience. You remember active obedience. Christ's obedience to the law is keeping of the whole law, his actual righteousness that is imputed to us. And then, in his passive obiit he dies on the cross, he offers himself up as a substitute, a vicarious substitutionary atoning death on behalf of sinners. And it is this double imputation our sinfulness imputed to him his righteousness imputed to us, that justifies us, that makes us righteous, gives us right standing before God. So we are no longer under the federal headship of the first atom that makes us enemies of God. But we are now under the federal headship of the last atom that makes us sons and daughters of God. And this is our salvation. Remember the difference between what the gospel gospel requires and what the gospel produces. All the Gospel requires is repentance and faith. That's it. The Gospel does not require anything other than repentance and faith. Well, you ask, what about righteousness, holiness, obedience. That's what the Gospel produces. The Gospel produces obedience to God's commands, to the glory of God. And when we talk about indicatives and imperatives, remember indicatives indicate what something is. This is a microphone, right, It's an indicative speak into the microphone. It's an imperative. From a theological perspective, indicatives are what God has done and produced in and for us through Christ's work on the Christ on the Cross. What God has done and produced in us and for us through Christ's work on the Cross. Imperatives what God requires and enables us to do as a direct result of Christ's finished work. Okay, again, it's all about Christ's headship over his body. Unity in Christ's body and the glory that the body gives to its head. We're going to begin to turn the corner here a bit. Remember marriage is our focus, right. But as we turn the corner and begin to look at marriage, where we're still not going to go to chapter five a promise we're going to get there, Amen, But I believe that we run there far too quickly, you know, we just we run there far too quickly. Remember, we have to we have to dig our foundation, because we're building skyscrapers, right, We're not dwelling intense, We're building skyscrapers, and so we need this foundation. Ephesians, Chapter four, beginning at verse twenty five. Beginning at verse twenty five. This is a powerful section of scripture dealing with interpersonal relationships, all kinds of interpersonal relationships. But the pinnacle of our interpersonal relationships is marriage. Amen, It's the pinnacle of our interpersonal relationships. It's interesting some people would argue, well, no, I think the parent child relationship is the pinnacle of our interpersonal relationships. Absolutely not, absolutely not. That is a horrible mistake that we make, a horrible mistake that we make the pinnacle of your inner personal relationships is not the parent child relationship. We raise our children with a view toward preparing them to leave us. Amen, somebody, we raise our children with a view toward preparing them to leave us. We get married with a view toward not leaving. Huh. We raise our children with a view toward ushering them into a one flesh union with someone else. We get married with a view toward a one flesh union that excludes in forsakes all others. The pinnacle of interpersonal relationships is not the parent child relationship. Hear me on this. Young couples, hear me on this, Old couples. Hear me on this. One of the greatest mistakes married couples make is making their children the center of their universe. That's wrong. Everything for the children. It's all for the children. No, No, A thousand times no no. The pinnacle of interpersonal relationships is our marriage. I tell my children, man, I tell my children this is regularly. Y'all are not first mom and dad of first Young couples get pregnant, I correct them all the time. You know we're pregnant, we're starting a family. You actually know you're not. You started a family when you got married. A child just expands your family, it doesn't start your family. Huh again, this is we are in error. We are wrong, and this whole child centered culture that we've created is wrong. It's wrong. It's wrong. I said. One of the greatest pieces of advice somebody gave me was this, he said to me early on, early on, as a younger, young, young married man. I'm not a young married man anymore. I earned this right here, No, I earned this. I was in a mall. We were a mall together a while back, and you know, my gray was coming in, just started coming in good. And there's a guy in the center kiosk in the mall and we're all walking around together and he's like, hey, man, I take care of that. Great for you. And I said, bruh, you'd have to fight me. And he said, really, let me ask your wife. Like cool, ask my wife. So she comes over and he's like, well, you think about me taking care of that? Great for it. She said, you'd have to fight me, Like man, I earned this, okay, But when I was a younger man again, I'll never forget this piece of advice. It was a pastor who said to me the greatest thing that you can do for your children is love their mother. Think about that greatest thing you can do for your children. Loved their mother. Greatest thing you can do for your children, love their father. Don't you dare prioritize your children over your marriage. If you do, you'll lose your marriage. I've met many people, many people who divorce is always tragic, but there's just something especially tragic about people twenty twenty five, thirty years in who call it quits. Like, man, you've been married that long. That's like losing an appendage, you know, like cutting your arm off. I mean, what are you thinking? What are you doing? And the story I ask, I do, I just I ask, talk to me about this, tell me what happened. And the story is almost always the same. Our kids grew up, our kids left, we looked at each other and realized that we had nothing h m hm. Because our whole life was built around our children. And when our children were gone, we realized that we had built nothing between the two of us. Do you hear me? The pinnacle of interpersonal relationships not the parent child. It's not, you know, an amazing real. Here's an amazing reality. And I talk to people often about this, you know when it comes to adoption, because people will often ask about adoption, and you know you have these your children, and you loving you loving your children who are adopted, and you know they try in some tactful way to get around to basically asking you know, how do you how do you how do you feel you love towards an adopted child like you would toward a biological child. And I answered that a couple of ways. First by saying, you're a Darwinian evolutionist, because you do you believe that parental love is some biological function. It's not. It's not parents don't love their children because of biology. Okay, that's number one and number two. Because you're having a hard time wrapping your head around that, let me explain something to you. Who's my next of ken. Who's my closest living relative. It's my wife, someone who's not related to me by blood. You want to understand how you can love a child who comes into your family by adoption. It's really simple. How do you love a spouse who's not related to you by blood? How does that person become your closest living relative? To supernatural reality? Gift Almighty God, himself. And so when we start talking about all this to say that when we start talking about interpersonal relationships, relationships between people, and the way that we maintain those relationships, the way that we support those relationships, the way that we again, the greatest of these, the most significant of these, is the marriage relationship. So let's look at that, beginning in verse twenty five. Beginning in verse twenty five, Paulled does something very interesting here. He begins to go through various aspects of the law. He starts with the ninth commandment and telling the truth, And in verse twenty five he says, therefore, having put away falsehood, by the way, that would be an indicative, not an imperative. He says, therefore, having put away falsehood, or therefore, since you've put away falsehood. He doesn't say, therefore put away falsehood. He says, therefore, since you've put away falsehood, Because you've put away falsehood, why have you put away falsehood? Because you're in Christ. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor. Four we are members of one another. By the way, what is that It's an indicative? So the imperative is speak the truth. But this is an imperative sandwich. You gotta want to slice of bread on top, an indicative having put away falsehood, another slice bread on the bottom. We are members of each other. Right. One indicative tells you why you can the other one tells you why you want to Why can't you speak the truth? Well, because you're in Christ and you put away falsehood. Amen. We just the paragraph before is the put off put on? You're not like the gentiles. YadA, YadA, yadh. Okay, you learn Christ. So you've put away falsehood, our virtue of who you are and belonging to Christ. You've put away falsehood, so you are able to speak the truth. By the way, why ought you to do this? Because we are members of one another. We belong to one another. Remember unity in Christ's body. Amen. So if I believe that we are members of the same body, that we belong to one another, and that we belong to Christ, me lying to you is actually weakening the body. It's harming the body. Do you see this? Okay? Another one we go from the ninth commandment to the sixth commandment. Sixth commandment is what don't murder? Verse twenty six to twenty eight. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. By the way, you're like, wait, other hease are a murder? These says anger. Yes, where does murder come from? Comes from? Anger begins in the heart. Jesus makes this very clear in the Sermon on the Mountain. Right, you've heard that you should not commit murder. Don't even get angry with you, brother, don't say you fool, because this is where murder comes from. This is where murder starts. Okay, So here we're dealing with sixth commandment. Notice that he doesn't say don't be angry, be angry, but do not sin. Anger is not inherently sinful. Anger is a God given emotion. Amen, God gets angry. Ask Pharaoh just saying y'all okay, sodom gomorrah Matthew five twenty two. Is where we find this idea that anger is part of murder. Righteous anger? What is righteous anger? Three things. Number One, it's a God given emotion. Number two, it's directed toward sin and sinfulness. And thirdly, it's designed to vindicate God, not man. It's designed to vindicate God not man. Do not avenge yourselves, Paul tells us in Romans right use an anger to vindicate you. It's sinful, sinful anger. Again, three things. One, it's delayed. Delayed anger is sinful anger. Something happened and there was an appropriate time for righteous indignation, but for whatever reason, you suppressed it, and then later on, at another time, after that moment was over, you decided to let it go. That's a problem, Amen, that's a problem. Secondly, misplaced anger. Misplaced anger. That's sinful. So you're at work and an unrighteous thing happens, and you are angry at this unrighteous thing that has happened, but you don't act appropriately against that sinful thing there in the moment. Instead you suppress it and hold on to it. Then you get home and your spouse says something to you and you let them have that anger that you held onto from. That's misplaced anger. That's sinful. That's sinful. Thirdly, manipulative anger. Manipulative anger is sinful. This happens a lot in marriage relationships as well. She has a lot of parenting relationships. Also, something happens and you get just like viscerally angry, and you go off and the veins are popping out of your neck. And I want you to remember, essentially, your actions are saying, look at me, I'm angry. I want you to know how angry I am. You may knock somebody around because you want them to know how angry you are, and what is your desire and your motivation. Next time you think about this, I want you to remember this. In other words, I am not concerned that you avoid this unrighteousness for the glory of God and the cause of Christ. As much as I'm concerned that you fear my anger. That's called idolatry you follow. I am not concerned with your righteousness. I'm just concerned with you being fearful enough of me to not do this. When we're operating like that within the context of our marriage, we're exhibiting sinful anger. Okay, James one nineteen and twenty, Know this, my beloved brothers. Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. It doesn't. It doesn't. There Sometimes, when you know, we we call it tagging in. Right between me and my wife call it tagging in and if the agreement that we have is if one of us is angry, then we get the other one to deal with that kid. And sometimes it will happen. I'm you know, I don't know where my wife will come and she'd be like, you know what, you need to go talk to your son? I got I got seven of them. Can you be a little more specific than you know? There was one day when she said, listen, I need you to go talk to and she told me which one it is, because I want him to live fair enough. But the point is this, the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. What do we want in our children? What do we want in our marriage relationship? Do we want anger and fear of that anger to drive response or do we want righteousness? Mm hmm Okay. Then we go to the eighth commander, theft. 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. Notice notice the assumption here of community and body life right. What is theft? It is me benefiting illegitimately from someone else's labor, right, that that's theft. What would repentance of that look like? Repentance of that wouldn't just look like me not stealing. It would actually look like retribution, a restitution. Right, I took something, I'm sorry? Are you? Repentance? Changing attitude that leads to a changing behavior, turning and walking in the other direction. You took something? What does repentance look like giving something? Amen, someone benefiting from your labor that's a 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. Not only restitution there, but a change in your disposition toward other people, towards members of the body. I'm not a person who benefits illegitimately from other people's labor. I'm a person who looks for opportunities for other people to benefit from my labor. So here we have a people this picture of what repentance looks like in interpersonal relationships. Speech, and again, we could deal with all of these individually. I'm trying to get to the last one so we can really apply that one. But you get the idea here. Speech, and this one would actually go back to the sixth commandment, but letting no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as it's good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. This is one of those verses of scripture, one of the most misquoted, misused, misapplied versus the scripture in the Bible. I've heard people say things about grieving the Holy Spirit, anything from you know, having your cell phone to go off in church, to having a baby who's crying in church, or you know whatever, you know, grieving that's grieving the Holy Spirit, grieving the Holy Spirit. No, that's that's that's not what this That's not what this means at all. What does this mean? Remember what I said about using the first half of the Book of Ephesians to interpret the second half of the Book of Ephesians. Let's look at this more closely. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths. Literally, the word used to here for corrupting talk is like acidic, corrosive talk. Words that are like acid, words that corrode, that break down that tear down. Don't let that come out of your mouth. You know, it's interesting. As kids we learned. You know, sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Yeah, that's not true. That that's not true. Your bones will heal long before the wounds that words can cause. Aymen, words can destroy, and in fact, we usually destroyed with words before we destroy an other words in other ways. Right, you have to dehumanize before you can kill, and we use our words to dehumanize. And so literally, don't let corrupting, corrosive words, words that destroy come out of your mind. But only such as is good for building up. We have we heard anything about building in this epistle? We did, didn't we? I distinctly remember some stuff about building earlier on in this epistle, particularly chapter two, and in chapter four we'll get to that as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear and do not grieve the Holy Spirit right after. So those corrosive words that those are, that's grieving the only spirit? Why is it grieving the Holy Spirit? Well, I'm glad you asked. Chapter two, verses nineteen to twenty two. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ, Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In Him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit God. The Holy Spirit is building people into a temple for God. God the Holy Spirit is taking individuals and putting those individuals into relationship with one another, in order to build the body of Christ, to build a temple to bring glory to God. Chapter four Versus ten to twelve. He who descended as the one who also ascended far above the heavens, that he might fill all things. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers to equip the saints for the world of ministry. So corrupting talk, corrosive talk, acidic talk. It's like acid that tears down. Instead use words that build up. Don't tear down. Remember remembers of one another. Don't tear down, but instead build up. If you tear down rather than build up, you grieve the Holy Spirit. What's the Holy Spirit doing. He's building us together into a body, into a temple. What's grieving to the Holy Spirit. Well, it's interesting if, for example, my spouse remember the body of Christ being built up as a member of the Body of Christ by the Spirit of God himself. If this interpersonal relationship that we have with one another is a relationship that is one that is building us up as members of the Body of Christ together, and I am using my words to corrode and to destroy her. I am actually tearing down with the Holy Spirit is building up, and that grieves him. Didn't have anything to do with your cell phone going off in church, And I mean, this is an amazing reality. And again talking about things that I've heard or been taught that just stayed with me. I'll give you one, let me give you another. Another one is this and it just it stays with me. And I've reminded myself of this. You get into arguments and fights with one another, and I remember, early on learning. I remember the first big blow up that Bridget and I had, and I don't remember what it was about, but I remember that it was a significant disagreement. It was a big blow up. We said some things that we immediately regretted, and both of us went to separate corners of our little, tiny apartment and we both were separately thinking the same thing. And this is not long into our marriage, maybe a few months into our marriage, and we were both separately Later on realized we're both separately thinking this is it. We didn't make it any further than this, because the idea of reconciliation after something that significant was foreign to us. See Bridget and I. Last two generations, both sides of our family. There have been twenty five marriages and twenty two divorces. Last three generations, both sides of our family. That's me, her, all siblings, all cousins, that generation, our parents right, that generation. Last two generations, both sides of our families put together twenty five marriages twenty two divorces. That means there's three marriages that stayed together and didn't divorce. One of them was ours, So there's only two besides ours that didn't end the divorce. One of those ended in a premature death. There's one marriage besides ours that stayed together and didn't divorce. By the way they raised one child. That child was the product of an adultress affair. So that's our legacy, that's our bat. So here we are. We had this big, knockdown, drag out argument and the only thing that we know about marriage is that it ends no concept of reconciliation. So we're both in different parts of the apartment just thinking, man, this is it. We didn't even make it. We didn't even make it a year we got through that, and then I got this piece of advice that just it. Just the next time you think about winning an argument with your wife, think about your right arm defeating your left. What yeah, why would your right arm want to defeat your left arm? The Bible says that the two of you are now one flesh. Tell yourself this, son, she's not just mine, she's me. She's not just mine, she's me. And I did that was the mentality. We're in an argument. And what do you do when you're in an argument? You win? Right, you win? And I just didn't get it. I mean, we were in argument. Okay, fine, we're in argument. We know what we're going forward now, you know, Boom, I make my points up and no, no, no, No, all of a sudden, she's upset, she's emotional. He's like, why are you what? Why we were just having an argument and what our feelings are hurt? And then why it was an argument? Why I was trying to win? Right, you were trying to win. She was trying to communicate my communicate what She's not just mine, she's me. We are members of one another. And so words that are corrosive and acidic and break down and tear down someone who's in a one flesh union with me are words that break down me. To follow, Marriages generally don't end because of an argument or a disagreement. Marriages generally end because of corrosive, acidic words that have built up for years or that have torn down for years and years and years. That doesn't happen in a moment. It doesn't happen in a moment, and unfortunately it doesn't go away. It's there. Well, this leads me into the last piece of this puzzle, and this is the idea of forgiveness. Most significant skill that you can have in marriage. It's forgive me, forgive me. There. I've talked about a number of lies that we tell ourselves, a number of dangerous lies that we tell ourselves. One of the most dangerous lies that we tell ourselves is that if you really love me, then you wouldn't do that. That's just that's a lie. That's just dumb, y'all. This is dumb, right, Let's keep doing the same thing over and over and over again. If you really loved me, you wouldn't If you were really sorry, then you wouldn't listen to me. Listen to me, Listen to me. When we are married again, I am a sinner. My wife is a sinner. We get married, we're not only next of kin, closest living relative to one another, but it means that we are the most likely recipient of the most consistent sin of the other party. So whatever sin besets my wife, whatever sin that she is struggling with, and it's likely to commit multiple times. Because I'm the closest person to her, I'm the one against whom it's most likely to recur. So here's the irony of that lie we tell ourselves, If you really love me, you wouldn't keep on doing No, it's because you really love me that you keep on doing that against me, because I'm the one you love, which means I'm the closest one to you, which means that as you continue to fight this fight, I'm the one who sees it. Here's why, man, this is y'all don't even understand how important this is. Because there are a lot of people who are ready to walk out on their marriage because they lie to themselves and believe that multiple experiences of the same sin actually mean the opposite of what it really means. If I struggle with thoughtlessness, right, if I struggle with selfishness, I mean, if that's just something that I struggle with, you know, and I'm growing in grace, and most of our sin is dealt with over the long haul. Amen, there's some things that we just get delivered from. And I'm convinced that God does that, you know, by his grace, for his glory, for particular reasons in people's lives. I've seen that, you know, people who just boom, that's gone because whatever it is that God has for them to do, that couldn't be a part of it. But for most people, and for most of our seven nine nine percent of our sins, it is the normal progressive sanctification process over a lifetime. Glorification is yet to come. In heaven in glory, right, And so we are progressively being conformed to the image of Christ, and those sins are progressively being mortified. So if I really struggle with thoughtlessness, if I really struggle with selfishness, if I really struggle with anger, if I really struggle whatever that thing is that I'm being progressively sanctified of over time, then my spouse is going to see that more than anyone else does. They're going to be the recipient of it more than anyone else is. Is this making sense to you? I see this a lot, folks, How we lie to ourselves that not only is this a lie, but this is dumb. It's dumb. This doesn't pass the thirty five second rule, you know, the thirty five second rule. Stuff that just people would not believe if they would just pause, close their eyes and think about it for thirty five seconds. But we don't. And that's one of them, okay. And so one of the things that we need that we not need, that we must learn as married people, it's forgiveness. Forgiveness without all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice. Be kind, to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgive you. This is the body giving glory to Christ by extending forgiveness the way Christ did. Number two, to those whom Christ hasts forgiven. Refusing to forgive these three things. Number one, Refusing to forgive is sinful disobedience. Refusing to forgive is sinful disobedience. This is not a suggestion. Forgiveness is a command. It's a command. So if I refuse to do it, I am being sinfully disobedient. Secondly, it is hypocritical arrogance. Refusing to forgive is a hypocritical errant. Why because you're forgiven? You hypocrite, You hypocrite, You have been forgiven. God has forgiven you. You know what you just said. When you say I don't know if I can forgive that, Here's what you just said. You know what, God, the Holy One of Israel, the creator of the universe, the one against whom ultimately we all sin, the one that when you sin against him you deserve death and hell and the grave. That one, the perfect One, God himself, may be able to forgive you for that, But my standard is higher, you hypocrite. How dare you, how dare you? It gets even worse, y'all, it gets even worse because not only are you saying that my standard is higher than the standard of God for forgiveness, but here's what you're saying. The blood of Jesus may satisfy God, but I require more than the death of Christ to forgive you for that? Are you hearing me? Which means that ultimately it's dishonoring to the body. Because here this person stands perfect and complete in Christ, forgiven and Christ. And you say, I don't care what God says about you. That's not who you are. I won't forgive. I can't forgive forgiveness one on one. A couple of things about this. Forgiveness means canceling the debt. Forgiveness means canceling the debt. Listen to this from John Calvin. First, what is forgiveness but a gift of mere liberality. A creditor is not said to forgive when he declares by granting a discharge that the money has been paid to him, but when without any payment through voluntary kindness, he expunges the debt. Forgiveness is expunging the debt. If you come up here and you knock down my computer and break it, and I say, I forgive you, But then I give you a bill for my new one. I didn't forgive you. I didn't forgive you because I charged you. I'm making you pay. Forgiveness is making you pay, all right. There's some myths about forgiveness. Myth number one the guilty party has to ask for forgiveness before you can forgive. This is a dangerous myth, folks, and it is a pure myth. Luke's seventeen three to four. Pay attention to yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day and turns seven times saying I repent, you must forgive him. Seems pretty clear, right, You forgive him, but he has to repent before you forgive him. Not exactly, Not exactly, because the same person who said that is the person who said, Father forgive them, for they know not what they are doing. Not Father forgive them because they ask Father forgive them. Not only do they they not ask, they don't even know what they're doing. If this was true, then you couldn't forgive a dead person and some of you have dead people that you need to forgive. There are some of you who are holding onto unforgiveness to a parent who's already died, or a grandparent who's already died, and it's amazing because it's not doing anything to them. Holding on the unforgiveness against other people is like you drinking poison hoping they die. What are you doing to that person? Nothing? But you're destroying yourself spiritually and physically destroying yourself by holding on too unforgiveness. Do they have to ask you? No, No, they don't. In order to be reconciled, they must repent. Reconciliation is a two way street forgiveness, one lane highway, one lane highway. Joseph forgave his brothers before they even knew who he was. Huh, I'm Joseph, your brother, the one you sold his slavery. I'll forgive you. Not. I'm Joseph, your brother. Here, my man who's gonna cut your heads off unless you repent right now. If you repent right now, I'll for you. No, you forgave them. Matthew nine two. Behold, some people brought to him a paralytic lying on a bed, and when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, take heart, my son, your sins are forgiven Mark eleven twenty five. Whenever you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone, so that your father also, who is in heaven, may forgive you your trespass. If their repentance is required, then Jesus just missed the step. Jesus misses no steps. You're standing there with your gift. You got something against somebody else? He doesn't say, go and asked him to repent, so that you can. No, you just forgive them right there on the spot. Forgive them. Discharge the debt again, Jesus says, Father, forgive them. They know not what they are doing. The logical consequences of this Colossians two twelve to fifteen. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him. Having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands, this he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and the authorities and put them to open shame. By triumphing over them in Him. Folks can ask you a question, do you remember all of your sins? Are you aware of all of your sins? No? Now? In fact, as you mature in Christ, an amazing thing happens. As you mature incris. You become more aware of sin, sin that you may have committed before, but you didn't even think of it as sin. It's kind of like, you know, we just we were just talking about football earlier. You know. It's kind of like, yeah, I'll use the soccer example. Kind of like you know, you're walking watching a soccer match, and when you got you know, little kids playing soccer, it looks the same, big old clump of people around the ball right moving together and it comes clumping the pile around the ball right Later on they kind of spread out, started doing things a little differently. It changes. And then you watch the World Cup and there is this amazing precision. It's not a watch like watch watching a ballet or something. It's amazing. The higher level you get to, the more small things matter. You go from facing that direction to no for this past you kick with this this part of your foot right as you mature in Christ, that happens. What does all this have to do with any day? Well, that means that there are things that I'm doing today that are sinful. I won't even understand until down the road. What's my point? My point is, I'm going to die with unconfessed sin if I believe that forgiveness is only to be granted to sin when it's confessed. That means I'm going to die and go to hell because there are things that I didn't know that we're sinple. That's ridiculous, That is not That is not how God operates, and it's not how we're going to operate. We forgive again, reconciliation two way street, forgiveness one lane highway. You can forgive a dead person. In fact, you must. Myth too, forgiveness requires forgetting. Forgiveness requires forgetting. No, No, Forgiveness does not require forgetting. In fact, human beings were not created with the ability to forget. When a human being forgets something, they're malfunctioning. Amen. We were not created to forget. God cast our sins into the seal forgetfulness. Amen, hollowly praise the Lord. But you can't do that. But that's a good thing too. By the way otherwise. I mean, how many things would you have done over and over and over again were it not for the pain that you remember? Amen. Here's the other thing. If you could forget, worship would not be the same. Amazing grace, How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me? What does that mean to a person who could literally forget that they were a sinner? What is the grace of God to a person who can't remember? Said? Do you follow? This is another one of those ridiculous things that we believe that's holding us back. And we think that we haven't forget, forgiven because we remember. No, No, we forgive in spite of the fact that we remember. Amen, which means sometimes I forgiveness is renewed again and again and again. Remind you of it. Myth number three is a forgiveness is an offensive weapon, and we use it as an offensive weapon. No, No, that's okay. I forgive you, and I want you to remember too that I forgave you for this. I want you to give. No. No, oh, forgiveness is not an offensive weapon. Mid number four, Forgiveness will make everything better. No, No, folks understand this. Forgiveness means that I give up my right to punish you for what you did. That doesn't make everything better. Reconciliation is required for that, and even that is a process. We're required to forgive, and we can forgive. We forgive because we're forgiven. We are able to forgive because we are forgiven. Forgiveness doesn't make anything better. Might make everything better, that's not the point. That's not the point. Forgiveness is not a substitute for reconciliation. This doesn't mean again, This doesn't mean that you become a doorman. I'm not gonna forgive because if I forgive, then they're going to keep on getting no. No, no. By the way, how do we punish people by withholding attention, affection and respect? That's how we punish people by withholding attention, affection and respect. That parent who did something that you haven't forgiven, what do you do you withhold attention affection and respect? And so their birthday comes around and you're not going to call them, and you're not going to buy them a card, and you're not going to here's the irony. You spend more time thinking about what you're not going to do to respect them than they spend thinking about you not respecting them, And what are you doing? What are you doing by not making a phone call and not sending a card? What are you doing? But besides violating the fifth commandment, let's just put that out there. Honor your father and your mother now suggested, it's commandment, right, So not only are you doing that, but what are you teaching your children? You're teaching your children that honoring and respecting your parents is contingent upon them being worthy of it, which you're not, Which means you're teaching your children that they don't have to honor and respect you. Are you hearing me? And here's the other thing I'm withholding attention, affection, and respect in order to punish you for what you did? How much punishment is required? When are the scale is going to be balanced? Who gets to determine that? This is what destroys us? This is what destroys us? Again, it's command we forgive. Does this mean that we don't confront? No? Does this mean that we don't work through things? No, completely separate issue, though, folks, We forgive and work through, We forgive and confront. Okay, again, Unfortunately I have to say this because people are always you know, I am not suggesting for a moment that there aren't consequences for behavior. Amen. Somebody comes to me with, you know, a broken arm or a busted lip and all this kind of stuff. Forgiveness and the law two separate things. Amen. When we talk about forgiveness, we're talking about our punishment of the person. They might have to deal with the law, right, they might be disciplined by the church. But I'm talking about us being vindictive and extracting a price. See when this becomes our disposition in our marriage, especially when you couple it with the other because when I'm withholding attention, affection and respect, I have to let you know that I'm worthholding attention, affection and respect, And oftentimes I use my words in a corrosive way in order to make you feel disrespected, to make you feel a lack of attention makes you right. And now we got this vicious cycle going on. And then I'm finished, and you've been punished enough, and now we want everything to go back, But we can't go back because now you hurt me and your punishment of me, and I feel like you need to pay a price for the lack of attention, affection and respect that I've experienced for the last highever long, and now that again, this is for the other people that you know who do this to one another, right, and it's crazy. There are people sitting down in divorce court who can't tell you where it started. What's worse, there's others who can't. They know the exact moment when that button was pushed, when the determination was made, when the debt was accrued, and they're not going to be satisfied until that debt is paid, or so they think. As I said, this is true for all interpersonal relationships, but most specifically and most significantly in our marriage relationships. It's much more that can be said about all of these. We don't have time to do that, but I think we get the point, amen, I think we get the point. We start with these indicatives and who we are in Christ because of what Christ has done on our behalf to the Father's glory through the cross. And then we get here to this place where because of these indicatives, we have these imperatives, these imperatives that guide the way we relate to one another that are all rooted and grounded, even in forgiveness. Right, we be kind of one another. Tend the heart of forgiving one another. As God in Christ forgave you, we forgive because we're for forgiven. We can forgive because we're forgiven. Right indicative imperatives working together here, we see them at interpersonal relationships. In the last session, we'll see them specifically in the context of marriage and Ephesians file. I told you we would get to it, and we're going to get to it. But think about all that we have with us now. There's a storm surge that we brought with us to Ephesians chapter five, and I think we're going to see it more clearly now as a result. Amen, Right,