Morling Tuesday Chapel Ephesians: Instructions for Christian Living,anger and forgiveness

Topic: Instructions for Christian Living, anger and forgiveness

Speaker: Edwina Murphy

Scripture: Ephesians 4:17-32

Oscar Wilde: brilliant playwright author. Fell to disgrace and imprisoned for gross indecency with men. Wrote a 50,000 word letter about himself whilst in prison: the gods has given me most everything… but I allowed myself to be lured… perversity became to be as the sphere of passion... desire in the end become a madness. Taking pleasure where I pleased… I was no longer the lord of myself, no longer the captain of my soul. I ended in horrible disgrace.

V17: You must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. Christ is a real living risen person who transforms us in our lives.

V19: They have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity. If we seek pleasure, we end up with nothing.

V22: Putting off the old self: Just like when we have deteriorating disrupted clothes, we shouldn’t even bother washing them! Just throw them!

V23-24: Be made new in the mind: put off the old self, and be transformed, renewing of the mind, and put on a new self. God is giving us his righteousness to put on, clothed with Christ.

V25: How we speak. First it tells us what not to do: Put off falsehood. What to do: Speak truthfully (in love of course, as we see in other parts of the Bible). Because we are members of one family.

V26-27: In your anger, do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. We know of righteous anger, eg. angry about treatment of refugees, etc. Be angry, but don’t sin. Don’t let the sun go down while you still feel angry, or it gives the devil a foothold!! We are trying to be transformed into the image of Christ, but anger will disrupt that process. Edwina reminds us that one of the way to reduce anger is by getting enough sleep!! If you did not get enough sleep, everything is irritating. The whole world is already silly, foolish, and aggravating, but when you’re tired, you find it more irritating.

V28: If you have been stealing, must steal no longer, but work using their own hands, so they can help those who are in need. When Edwina was 6, she went to the store and saw a roll of sticky tape and it was 29cents. She got the sticky tape, didn’t pay for it and left the store. When they got home, her mother sees a roll of sticky tape in her bedroom, and asked her where it came from, so she replied it’s from the store. Her mother loaded everyone in the car, and made her confess the store manager. Although the store manager laughed it off, Edwina already felt quite troubled by it in her mind before they returned to the store. Ever since then, Edwina was careful that if someone hasn’t charged her for something in the shop that they charge her! And not only should one stop stealing but one must work with their own hands. It doesn’t say “to meet your own needs”, but “so you can share with those who are in need”. Use the money for the community. These are things we can do in putting off the old life.

V29: Build others up according to their needs, so it will benefit them. Everything we do should be for the building up of the community.

V30: Do not grief the Holy Spirit: do not hurt one another and destroy the community. Don’t hurt God by destroying His community. Before saying something in anger/make fun of another person, we need to stop and think. The Holy Spirit is our guarantee/marker of our final redemption, so that one day all of these will no longer be a work in progress, but we will make it.

V31-32: Get rid of all bitterness, rage, etc. Anger is a really serious problem. You have to stop. Instead, we have to be kind and compassionate, forgiving one another, just as in Christ, God forgave you. Forgiveness opposite of anger. Just as in Christ: this is the model.

Corrie Ten Boom was a Dutch Christian who, along with her father and other family members, helped many Jews escape the Nazi Holocaust during World War II. She was thrown into the concentration camp by the Nazis for her actions. She survived but her father and sister died in the camp. She was evangelising one day when one of the Nazi guards in her concentration camp came up asking for forgiveness. Corrie struggled greatly in this and finally lifted her hand, felt a jolt of lightening go into her hand and down to the Nazi man, and she was able to forgive the man by the power of God.

However, with God, we cannot rely on past experience. Many years later Corrie had Christian friends who betrayed her, and she couldn’t forgive again. Then she sought help from God. It was initially very hard: she had two weeks of sleepless nights. Then it got gradually better. Edwina gave the analogy of when one rings the bell in the city: When you let go of the rope, it continues to ring for a while before it stops. That was what it was like when Corrie eventually forgave her Christian friends, and eventually she had peace. We need to trust God over our thoughts first, and don’t be surprised if it continues to “ring” for a while initially.

Edwina had a friend said to her: You treat them according to your Christian principles, but I live in the real world. This friend allowed the root of bitterness grow in her heart. Edwina’s tip: Don’t kill the rats by drinking the rat poison yourself. When God tells us to forgive, we may think it’s wrong but trust it anyways.