by John Piper – Listen

Ephesians 4:32-5:2

And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you, and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

Review

If love for one another is going to flourish and grow in our church, we must be rooted more deeply in love. That was the point of last week’s message. In other words becoming a loving person means living with the roots of your life sunk deep in the love of Christ for you. Being loved by Christ is the ground of becoming loving. And the root that you send into that ground is the faith that you are loved.

There’s a phrase in 1 John 4:16 that describes this root:

We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us.

We have come to know, and have believed the love which God has for us. The love that God has for us is the ground of our becoming loving people. And the root that we send down into that ground, to be nourished by it, is faith—”we have believed the love that God has for us.” Believing the depth of God’s love for me is the key to my growing into a loving person.

And the key to believing the love that God has for us is seeing it revealed in the word of Scripture. A few people were allowed to see Jesus in the flesh and touch him and watch him teach and heal and suffer and die and rise. We might feel jealous that our faith in the love of Christ can’t be based on that kind of first hand sight and touch. But that was not God’s plan. When Jesus prayed for his disciples in John 17:20, he said, “[Father], I do not ask in behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word.” It was the plan of God that we come to faith, not by seeing the love of Christ in the flesh, but by seeing the love of Christ in the word of those who knew him.

Focusing on the Depth of Christ’s Love for Us

Because of all that, here’s the plan for the next four weeks. I hope this will help you prepare yourself in prayer and meditation for what’s coming. And I hope it will help you know when God is moving you to invite others to attend with you. My aim in this series is that our love for one another and for those outside would grow and deepen. But this will happen only as we are rooted—that is, as we believe—more and more deeply in the love of Christ for us. And that belief comes by seeing the depth of Christ’s love for us revealed in his Word. So for four weeks climaxing on Easter Sunday I want to direct our attention to the depth of Christ’s love for us.

As I have pondered the love of Christ for us, and the different ways that the Bible presents it to us, I have seen four ways that the depth of Christ’s love is revealed. We will spend a week on each of these.

1. First, we know the depth of someone’s love for us by what it costs him: if he sacrifices his life for us, it assures us of deeper love than if he only sacrifices a few bruises. So we will see the depth of Christ’s love by the greatness of what it cost him.
2. Second, we know the depth of someone’s love for us by how little we deserve it. If we have treated him well all our life, and have done all that he expects of us, then when he loves us, it will not prove as much love as it would if he loved us when we had offended him, and shunned him, and disdained him. The more undeserving we are, the more amazing and deep is his love for us. So we will see the depth of Christ’s love in relation to how undeserving are the objects of his love (Romans 5:5–8).
3. Third, we know the depth of someone’s love for us by the greatness of the benefits we receive in being loved. If we are helped to pass an exam, we will feel loved in one way. If we are helped to get a job, we will feel loved another way. If we are helped to escape from an oppressive captivity and given freedom for the rest of our life, we will feel loved another way. And if we are rescued from eternal torment and given a place in the presence of God with fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore, we will know a depth of love that surpasses all others (1 John 3:1–3). So we will see the depth of Christ’s love by the greatness of the benefits we receive in being loved by him.
4. Fourth, we know the depth of someone’s love for us by the freedom with which they love us. If a person does good things for us because someone is making him, when he doesn’t really want to, then we don’t think the love is very deep. Love is deep in proportion to its liberty. So if an insurance company pays you $40,000 because you lose your spouse, you don’t usually marvel at how much this company loves you. There were legal constraints. But if your Sunday School class makes all your meals for a month after your spouse dies, and someone calls you every day, and visits you every week, then you call it love, because they don’t have to do this. It is free and willing. So we will see the depth of Christ’s love for us in his freedom: “No one takes my life from me; I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:18).

That’s what I see in the New Testament. There are specific texts that stress each of those four ways of seeing the depth of Christ’s love for us. We’ll take one a week. And if you pray earnestly, and the Fasting Forty seek the Lord, then perhaps God will answer the prayer of Ephesians 3:17–18, that we would be rooted and grounded in Christ’s love and have power to comprehend the height and depth and length and breadth of his love—and so become like him in his love.

The Depth of Christ’s Love Revealed in Its Costliness

Today I want us to see the depth of Christ’s love revealed in its costliness. Let’s look at Ephesians 5:1–2,

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you, and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

Be sure to see four plain and wonderful things here.

1. First, be sure you see that Paul is showing us the depth of Christ’s love for you. Verse 2: “Christ loved you, and gave himself.” The giving of himself is the demonstration of his love.
2. Second, notice that the cost of his love was himself—his life. It was not just money or time or energy or inconvenience or even suffering; it was the full extent of sacrifice. He gave himself.
3. Third, notice that this love and this self-giving was for you. “Christ loved you, and gave himself. Paul is talking about believers (Ephesians 2:8). He gave himself for you.
4. Finally, notice that God the Father was pleased with this act of self-sacrificing love. Verse 2: “Christ also loved you, and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.” When God bowed down over the love that his Son poured out for us on the cross, it was a fragrant aroma to him. God loves the Son’s love of us.

An Illustration of Costly Love

Sometimes we are so familiar with spectacular it doesn’t move us as it should. We have to look at something lesser, be amazed, and then look back to really feel the wonder of the original. Chuck Colson told the story of a group of American prisoners of war during the Second World War, who were made to do hard labor in a prison camp. Each had a shovel and would dig all day, then come in and give an account of his tool in the evening. One evening 20 prisoners were lined up by the guard and the shovels were counted. The guard counted nineteen shovels and turned in rage on the 20 prisoners demanding to know which one did not bring his shovel back. No one responded. The guard took out his gun and said that he would shoot five men if the guilty prisoner did not step forward. After a moment of tense silence, a 19-year-old soldier—the age of my Ben—stepped forward with his head bowed down. The guard grabbed him, took him to the side and shot him in the head, and turned to warn the others that they better be more careful than he was. When he left, the men counted the shovels and there were 20. The guard had miscounted. And the boy had given his life for his friends.

Can you imagine the emotions that must have filled their hearts as they knelt down over his body? In the five or ten seconds of silence, the boy had weighed his whole future in the balance—a future wife, an education, a new truck, children, a career, fishing with his dad—and he chose death so that others might live. Jesus said in John 15:13, “”Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” To love is to choose suffering for the sake of another.

An Infinitely More Costly Love

Jesus has loved you this way. Only, O so much more! Consider the life he laid down. One of the reasons that story hits us so hard is because the boy was 19 years old. If he had been 89 years old and the others 19, we might say it was a beautiful act of love, but with a full life behind him it would not feel like the same kind of sacrifice as when your whole life stretches in front of you. So consider the life that Jesus sacrificed for you.

1. Jesus Was Young

First of all, he was young too. He was about 33 years old. His ministry was three years old. He was cut off, as we say, before his prime.

2. He Was the Oldest Son of a Widowed Mother

Second, he was the oldest son of a widowed mother. One of the last acts of his life was to see that she be taken care of.

When Jesus saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then He said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” (John 19:26–27)

The life he was giving up for you was young and, from a human standpoint, it was a life needed by his mother.

3. He Was Sinless and Perfect, the Most Worthy of Living

Third, he was the most kind and caring and wise and courageous man who ever lived. Peter testified, “He committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth” (1 Peter 2:22). Even his enemies knew they could find no fault in him (Matthew 22:16) “I find no guilt in him,” Pilate said (John 19:6). So the life he gave for us was no ordinary life of human value—which would be great enough. It was a sinless life. A life of perfectly balanced joy and sorrow, tenderness and toughness, justice and mercy, grief and anger, speech and silence, prayer and action. This life, of all the lives that have ever lived, was the most valuable life. The most worthy of living, the least worthy of dying. This is the life he gave for you—that you might live.

4. He Was the Son of God

Fourth, he was the Son of God. Which means he was God as well as man. United to his human nature was a divine nature, in the mysterious unity of one person. The dignity and worth of this life was not just relatively superior to other human lives. This life was of infinite value—not the way other humans are of value, but the way God is of infinite value, namely, as the basis of all human value. Humans have value to the degree that we reflect the image of God. But that means that if the image has so much value because of the original, how much more value must belong to the original? With this life Jesus went to the cross for you. This is how much it cost to cover our sins against the holiness of God. And he paid it willingly so we could live.

5. He Was Supremely Loved by His Father

Fifth, as the Son of God Jesus was supremely loved by his Father in heaven. “This is My loved Son,” the Father said, “with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!” (Matthew 17:5). Suppose that 19-year-old prisoner of war was the son of the President of the United States—and he knew that there were powers available to him to escape not only the death he died but also the prison camp—and suppose that you find out that his father, the President, not only had a massive love for the boy, but also approved of his dying for you, and wanted to meet those of you for whom he died, and give you some of the boy’s inheritance. Would not the worth of that life be so unspeakably precious as to make you feel absolutely overwhelmed with love?

Consider Also What the Sacrifice Involved

And consider now not only the life that Jesus sacrificed for us, but consider also what the sacrifice involved. To get to the point where he could die, Jesus had to plan for it. He left the glory of heaven and took on human nature so that he could hunger and get weary and in the end suffer and die. The incarnation was the preparation of nerve endings for the nails of the cross. Jesus needed a broad human back for a place to be scourged. He needed a brow and skull as a place for the thorns. He needed cheeks for Judas’ kiss and soldiers’ spit. He needed hands and feet for spikes. He needed a side as a place for the sword to pierce. And he needed a brain and a spinal cord, with no vinegar and no gall, so that he could feel the entire excruciating death—for you.

The 19-year-old boy was a wonderful picture of love. But compared to Jesus he was only a picture. His death was quick and relatively painless. Jesus’ death was one of the worst kinds of torture devised for human pain. So when Ephesians 5:2 says, “Christ loved you and gave himself up for us,” don’t breeze over the words: “gave himself up.” His love is great in proportion to the costliness of his sacrifice. And his sacrifice was horrendous.

How Personally Should We Take This Love?

We should ask in closing, how personally should we take this demonstration of love? Should you feel personally loved this way this morning and later on today and tomorrow morning? Or should it remain a kind of general, great, historic wonder that you look at from a distance with admiration—like the depths of the Grand Canyon? The answer is given by the testimony of the same writer, Paul, in Galatians 2:20b,

The life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.

This is what the apostle and the Lord himself are calling you to this morning. To see the depths of the love of Christ for you. To believe the love that he has for you. And to send the roots of your life down, down, down into this bottomless love. And say with Paul,

The life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me [me, personally], and gave himself for me.

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Used by permission: John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

by John Piper – Listen

Ephesians 4:31-5:2

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

This text is so rich that we could take almost any of its phrases and dwell on it for hours. But I have decided to gather our thoughts around the simple commandment in verse 32, “Be kind to one another.”

Five Aspects of Christian Kindness

As I have pondered these verses it seems to me that they tell us five things about Christian kindness:

1. the extent of Christian kindness,
2. the depth of Christian kindness,
3. the pattern of Christian kindness,
4. the instrument of Christian kindness, and
5. the source of Christian kindness.

Let’s look at these one at a time. And as we do let’s pray that the Spirit of God would honor his Word by causing us to be changed by it.

1. The Extent of Christian Kindness

How much kindness should we show? This is addressed in verse 31. Christian kindness is so extensive that it replaces, “All bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander . . . with all malice.” The word “all” is used twice: at the beginning, “all bitterness,” and at the end, “all malice.” These are part of the old corrupt self that must be put off. And kindness is the opposite new self that must be put on. Paul is still giving specific illustrations of the principle in verses 22–24.

Anger and Kindness

But the question rises whether all wrath and anger should be replaced by kindness. Bitterness, yes. Outbreaks of clamoring belligerence, yes. Rumor-mongering and evil speaking behind backs, yes. Malice, yes. All these, no exceptions, all these must go. But what about wrath and anger?

We spent the whole evening together two weeks ago trying to sort this out. Verse 26 says, “Be angry but do not sin.” And James 1:19 says, “Be slow to anger.” And Mark 3:5 says that Jesus looked on the Pharisees with anger. Does the kindness of Jesus always extend to the Pharisees? Is it kind to say to them, as Jesus does in Matthew 23:27, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like whitewashed tombs”? Is it kindness when he says in Matthew 23:15, “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you cross sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves”? Was it kindness when Jesus made a whip of cords and drove out the money changers from the temple and turned over their tables (John 2:15, Matthew 21:12)?

If you walked up to Jesus after he had done these things and said, “Jesus, that was unkind of you to say that to the Pharisees,” what would he have said? There are two possible things he could have said. He could have said, “Sometimes a heart of love and a passion for the truth don’t express themselves in the form of kindness.” Or he could have said, “There is a sort of kindness that can be hard as nails and tough as leather.” Which do you think he would have said: “Kindness is big enough to include whipping and woes”? Or: “Kindness is one form of righteousness, but not always the best one”?

As I have looked over all the uses of the word “kindness” in the New Testament, I think we would honor the the special tenderness of the word more by saying that Jesus was not being kind to the Pharisees. He was being severe with them. And Romans 11:22 separates the kindness of God and the severity of God. So kindness is not an absolute virtue. It is not always the most loving thing to do. It may involve a compromise with evil so serious that in the long run it hurts more people than it helps.

The Imprecise Extent of Christian Kindness

So when Paul says in Ephesians 4:26 that we should be angry but not sin, and then says in verses 31–32, get rid of anger and be kind, what I take him to mean is this very thing: All inner bitterness and malice must go. Their eruptions in slander and brawling must go. But when it comes to emotional indignation and you perceive that the teaching of Christ is disobeyed and the glory of God is diminished and the good of the church is in jeopardy, then, under the sway of the Holy Spirit, you must choose: shall I give vent to my anger in severity because the cause of truth and holiness is at stake, or shall I mortify my anger with kindness because there is too much of self in it?

Both are possible in the path of righteousness. And so the extent of Christian kindness is not precise. It may be wider or narrower than we think. This is a call for deep self-examination in the light of Holy Scripture and the deceptiveness of our own heart.

2. The Depth of Christian Kindness

The point here is that Christian kindness is not merely an external change of manners; it is an internal change of heart. Verse 32 says, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted. . .” Christian kindness is tenderhearted. If the heart is hard on the inside and the manners are meek and polite and helpful on the outside, it is not Christian kindness.

The idea behind “tenderhearted” is that our insides are easily touched. When your skin is tender, it doesn’t take a very hard touch to make it feel pain. When your heart is tender, it is easily affected. It feels easily and quickly.

When you stop and think about it, it is remarkable that this is commanded by the apostle. You can’t just decide to be tenderhearted and turn it on like a faucet. It is a deep character quality. Where does it come from? How can we obey this command to make our kindness to each other deep and heart-felt, not superficial and cool? We will see as we move on.

3. The Pattern of Christian Kindness

Two patterns of Christian kindness are given for us in the text. First is the forgiveness of God. Second is the love of Christ.

The first we see in verse 32: “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” So when kindness calls for forgiveness, the pattern is the forgiveness of God in Christ.

The second pattern is seen in 5:2, “Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.” So when love expresses itself in kindness, the pattern is the love of Christ giving himself up for us.

Four Qualities of God’s Forgiveness

What do these two patterns of kindness teach us about being kind to each other? Let’s take them one at a time. What does the pattern of God’s forgiveness teach us about our own? Four things come to mind:

1. God’s forgiveness takes sin seriously and so should ours. Forgiveness is not flippancy toward sin. It sees it and names it—and then covers it. God forgives what he hates. When I called a man recently to apologize for something I had said and seek his forgiveness, he didn’t say, “It makes no difference.” Or: “I didn’t hear it.” He said earnestly and warmly, “Forgiven, and forgotten.” And I got the deep impression he really meant it.
2. God’s forgiveness reckons with a real settling of accounts and so should ours. Every sin that has ever been committed will be justly punished—either in hell or on the cross. God never sweeps one little lie under the rug. Someone always pays. So when kindness calls us to forgive a wrong that has been done against us, we are sustained by the truth of God’s holiness. That wrong is going to be dealt with: either the person who committed it against us will trust Christ in the end, in which case the wrong they committed is punished in the wrath that was poured on Christ when the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:4–6); or the person who committed the wrong against us is not going to trust Christ in the end, in which case the wrong that they committed will be punished in the sufferings of hell. And in neither case should we fear to forgive as though there were no settling of accounts in the universe.
3. God’s forgiveness was costly and so is ours. It cost God his Son. And it will cost us the sweet taste of revenge and the pleasure of savoring a grudge and the pride of superiority.
4. God’s forgiveness is real and ours should be too. There is no sham in it. When he forgives, we are really restored. Nothing is held over our heads for later blackmail. It is gone: “As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12). And so we fall short of our divine pattern if we forgive a wrong but secretly plan to keep it in the back of our minds for a later touché. When we forgive, let us really forgive one another, as God in Christ forgave us.

Three Qualities of Christ’s Love

That is the pattern of God’s forgiveness and four things we can learn from it in pursuing the path of kindness. The second pattern for our kindness is the love of Christ in 5:2, “Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.” What does the pattern of Christ’s love teach us about our own? Out of all the things we could say let me just mention three.

1. The love of Christ for us is undeserved, and so we shouldn’t insist that people earn our love and our kindness either. Jesus said in Luke 6:35, “Love your enemies, and do good . . . and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish.” None of us has ever qualified to be loved by Jesus Christ. Freely we have received it; freely we should give it (Matthew 10:8).
2. The love of Christ for us is holy and ours should be holy. The aim of the love of Christ is the holiness of his church: “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her . . . and present her to himself in glory . . . that she might be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:25–27). And therefore we should put away all notions of love that are driven by mere sentiment and emotion. Love aims at the holiness of a man and a woman, not at their approval or their worldly happiness. Christian kindness is not a strategy to avoid conflict. It’s patterned on the love of Christ and aims to promote holiness.
3. The love of Christ for us was sacrificial and self-denying, and ours should be too. This is basically the same thing we said earlier, namely, that the love of God was costly. But it is good to say it again. Because every one of us knows that the hardest thing about Christian kindness is to show it when it hurts. I have never forgotten the kindness shown to me by Frau Dora Goppelt in 1974 during the weeks following the unexpected death of her husband, my Doktorvater in Germany. It is a miracle of grace when the pain of loss is so great that you don’t know if you can last another day, and yet you reach out in kindness to a foreign student and reassure him that three years of labor will not be lost with the death of his mentor.

A miracle of grace! That brings us to the fourth thing that this text teaches us about Christian kindness. We have seen the extent of Christian kindness in replacing all bitterness and malice and slander. We have seen the depth of Christian kindness in tenderness of heart. We have seen the pattern of Christian kindness in the forgiveness of God and the love of Christ. Now we look at:

4. The Instrument of Christian Kindness

What do I mean by the “instrument” of Christian kindness? I mean to ask, What is it that we must employ or exert in order to become kind and tenderhearted?

A Passive Verb

The answer is hinted at in the form of the verb in verse 31. Literally it says, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be taken away from you.” The verb is passive. This is a hint that the instrument of our kindness is not simply ourselves. If left to ourselves, we will no more be able to get the bitterness and malice out of our heart than we can lift ourselves by our own bootstraps. It doesn’t lie within us.

They must BE TAKEN from us. “Let all bitterness . . . BE taken away from you.” Someone else is at work here besides us. It is the same thing we saw in verse 23: “BE renewed in the spirit of your mind.” (Another passive verb!) There must be a renewing power or person. There must be a power that takes bitterness and malice from my heart and makes me tenderhearted and kind.

The Holy Spirit and Faith

And we know what that power is (who that person is!) because Galatians 5:22 says very plainly, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness . . . ” If the Spirit of God does not come into our lives to do a supernatural work, we may be able to spruce up the outward manners of kindness, but the poison within will remain. Of that Paul says, “Let it BE taken away.” This is a cry for the work of the Spirit to conquer the old self and clothe us with the new.

But the question is not fully answered. We must still ask, What is the instrument with which I appropriate the power of the Holy Spirit? And the answer is faith. The Spirit flows in the channels of faith. Paul cries out in Galatians 3:2–3, “Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?”

And our answer should be a resounding, NO! I am not trying to overcome my bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander and malice in the power of the flesh! I am looking to the Holy Spirit to bear his fruit in my life. How am I looking? What am I doing? I am doing what I did to receive him in the first place: I am believing. I am trusting.

Which leaves one last question: What must I believe, in order to see the Holy Spirit conquer the bitterness and anger and malice of my heart and make me tenderhearted and kind? That is the fifth thing that our text teaches us about Christian kindness.

5. The Source of Christian Kindness

The text tells us what we must believe if the Spirit of God is to conquer unkindness in our hearts. Three things:

1. We must believe that Christ died in our place. Verse 2: “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” That is simply an awful sentence—that the slaughter of his Son smelled good to God!!! There are in this sentence realities so great and so awful and so wonderful and so devastating that when we believe them, they are the power of God unto sanctification and a great uprooting of unkindness.
2. We must believe that God has forgiven all our sins. Verse 32: ” . . . forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.” In order to be kind, you must be forgiven. In order to be kind, you must believe that you are forgiven for all the sins you have ever committed and will ever commit. To know and believe that every slap in God’s face has been forgiven freely in Jesus Christ breaks a Christian’s heart and makes it lowly and tender and kind.
3. Finally, we must believe that we are loved by God. Verse 1: “Be imitators of God, as loved children.” As LOVED children! Child of God, you are loved by God! Believe this with all your heart, and you will behold a miracle in your own life—the fruit of the Spirit, the gift of God!

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us believe these things, and be kind to one another! Amen.

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Used by permission: John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

by John Piper – Listen

Ephesians 4:29-30

Let no rotten word come out of your mouth, but if something is good for the upbuilding of a need, (let that come out of your mouth) in order that it might give grace to those who hear.

I remember one time as a child that my mother actually washed my mouth out with soap. She took me to the bathroom sink, rubbed the bar of soap around in my mouth, and then rinsed it out and made me go to my room. Do you know what I had said? I think I had said, “Shut up!” to my sister.

The Battle for Purity of Mouth Starts in the Heart

Now why should my mother wash my mouth out with soap for saying, “Shut up!” to my sister? She did it because she believed Jesus when he said, “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man” (Matthew 15:11).

I had made myself dirty by saying, “Shut up,” to my sister, and my mother had a white-hot zeal for my purity. So she used an unforgettable object lesson. I think she did right and I have risen up to call her blessed even this past week on her birthday.

“But really!” someone will say, “What’s the big deal with saying, ‘Shut up,’ to your sister? It’s not swearing. It’s not taking the name of the Lord in vain. It’s not a dirty word. Why get so worked up? What’s really so bad about it?”

The answer is that when I said, “Shut up!” to my sister, it was mean. There was no affection and no good will and no kindness in it. It was ugly. There was no moral beauty, no holiness, no love. To use Paul’s phrase in Ephesians 4:29, it was a “rotten word.” It came from a garbage pile of pride and one-upmanship and anger and resentment—all very normal between siblings, and all very sinful. Beware lest you grow accustomed to sin because it is so normal!

But what I thank God for more than that my mother was intensely moral is that she was intensely Christian. She knew that soap in the mouth couldn’t touch the dirt in my heart. If she had thought it could, she wouldn’t have cried.

So she taught me the truth of Ephesians 4:22–24: “You must put off your old self-assertive, mean, uncaring self, son, because it is corrupt with deceitful desires. And put on the new meek and kind self created by God in his own likeness in righteousness and holiness. In other words, son, you need to be deeply renewed in the spirit of your mind.”

In the end the battle for purity in the mouth is fought in the heart, because “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” If you don’t like what comes out of your mouth, listen carefully this morning, because the apostle Paul is at pains in this text to clean up your mouth from the inside out.

Rotten, Evil, Unwholesome, Corrupt Words

Let’s look at verse 29. I said a moment ago that Paul used the phrase “rotten word.” The RSV translates it, “Let no evil talk come out of your mouths.” The NIV and NASB use the word “unwholesome.” And the KJV says, “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth.” What is this idea behind the words, “evil,” “unwholesome,” and “corrupt”?

The Greek word (sapros) is used in only one other context in the New Testament, namely, the places in Matthew and Luke where Jesus says, “It is not the good tree that bears bad fruit “(Luke 6:43; Matthew 7:17f.; Matthew 12:33). The term for “bad” fruit here is the same word for evil or unwholesome or corrupt in Ephesians 4:29—”Let no evil talk come out of your mouth!” The image in Paul’s mind is probably one of rottenness and decay, something that is spoiled.

This kind of rotten language must be taken off like the old garment. It is part of the old self of verse 22 that needs to be stripped away when a person becomes a Christian. The garment of a rotten mouth must be taken off and thrown into the fire, just like the Ephesians had burned their old books on magic in Acts 19:19.

Four Kinds of Language That May Be in Mind

Now what sort of talk does Paul have in mind when he says, “Let no rotten talk come out of your mouth”? Let me suggest at least four kinds of language that I think Paul would include as “rotten” or “decayed” or “spoiled.”

1. Taking the Name of the Lord in Vain

First would be language that takes the name of the Lord in vain. It is a great contradiction of who we are as Christians if we say, “God!” or “My God!” or “God Almighty!” or “Christ!” or “Jesus!” just because we are mad or surprised or amazed. No one with a good marriage would stomp on his wedding ring to express anger. It stands for something precious and pure. And so does the name of God and Jesus Christ.

2. Trivializing Terrible Realities

The second kind of language that Paul would call rotten would be language that trivializes terrible realities—like hell and damnation and holiness. What’s wrong with saying, “What the hell!” or “Hell, no!” or “Go to hell!” or “Damn it!” or “Damn right!” or “Holy cow!” or “Holy mackerel!”?

Among other things these expressions trivialize things of terrible seriousness. It’s simply a contradiction to believe in the horrible reality of hell and use the word like a punctuation mark for emphasis when talking about sports or politics. The same is true of damnation. And if the divine command, “Be holy as I am holy,” carries for you the same weight it carried for Moses and Jesus and the apostles, you will simply find that “Holy cow” or holy anything will stick in your throat because it treats something infinitely precious as a trifle.

3. Referencing Sex and the Body in Vulgar Ways

The third kind of language I think Paul would include in his command not to let any rotten talk come out of your mouth is vulgar references to sex and the human body. With this kind of language people take good things that God has made, and use them like mud to smear on whatever they get upset about. The whole assumption behind the use of vulgar four-letter words is that they communicate scorn or disdain or hate. How does this happen?

How, for example, does the act of sexual relations, created by God as good to be fulfilled in marriage—how does it get translated into a four letter word and carry the meaning of hate and scorn? The answer is easy: first you get God out of your mind. That’s fundamental to all vulgarity. Then you get the sanctity of his creation out of your mind. And then, in your mind, you replace the tenderness of married love with the force of rape, and you’ve got yourself a four letter word which does verbally the same thing that rape does physically: it expresses selfish, uncaring abusiveness. (Which, incidentally, is why I would say to Christian women, don’t spend two minutes with a man who uses this kind of language: rape and rotten language come from exactly the same root.)

4. Speaking in Mean-Spirited Ways

The final kind of language I think Paul would call rotten is mean-spirited language—like, “Shut up!” The words themselves are untarnished. But the usage is vicious and loveless.

Four Implications of Such Language

Those are the four kinds of language I think Paul would include in “rotten talk.” Now let’s step back and ask what Paul might mean by calling language evil or corrupt or unwholesome or rotten. If we think of spoiled or rotten fruit, like Jesus did, four implications come to mind.

1. It Does Not Nourish

First, rotten fruit does not nourish. Neither does rotten language. It does not strengthen or improve or help. It is not useful for food. It is good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.

2. It Will Probably Make You Sick

Second, rotten fruit will probably make you sick if you do try to eat it. And rotten language can make people sick, too. In other words, it not only fails to give positive nourishment; it can cause negative harm. Words can wound a person very deeply. Words can be like the virus that transmits the disease of meanness or vulgarity from parent to child or roommate to roommate or colleague to colleague. Rotten language makes people sick if they are forced to eat it.

3. It Smells Bad and Makes the Atmosphere Unpleasant

Third, rotten fruit smells bad and makes the atmosphere unpleasant. I recall a couple of men in graduate school in Germany who seemed to carry the aroma of vulgarity about them. All they ever seemed to laugh at was sexual innuendo. The pitiful thing about it was that the nearer they got to the gutter, the more they laughed. With their mouths they created an atmosphere like a stinking locker room. It was unpleasant for everybody but themselves. And it made noble and high and worthy thoughts all but impossible. It’s hard to savor beauty from a garbage dump. Can you stand in an “adult” bookstore and look through the window (if there were a window) and be moved by the beauty of a setting sun?

4. It Probably Comes from a Diseased Tree

The fourth implication that comes to mind when we think of rotten fruit and rotten language is that it probably comes from a diseased tree. If the fruit is rotten as soon as it appears on the branch (as soon as the words come out of the mouth), then the tree is bad.

Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment men will render account for every careless word they utter; for by your words you will be justified and by your words you will be condemned” (Matthew 12:34–37).

So if a person takes the name of God in vain, or trivializes the realities of hell and holiness, or turns sexuality into vulgarity, or makes words into weapons of one-upmanship and meanness, then we can say for sure, “There is a rottenness inside the tree as well as outside.” If the fruit is bad, the root is bad.

A Whole New Way of Thinking About Language

If we see this, we won’t be as surprised with what comes next in the text. It is not what you might expect. We might expect Paul to admonish us to clean up our language. We might expect him to talk about words that are not vulgar or rotten or corrupt, but are pure and wholesome and creative and clear. But Paul doesn’t do what we expect.

Instead of proposing clean language, he proposes a whole new way of thinking about language. Instead of saying, “You don’t need dirty language to communicate your intention,” he says, “The root issue is whether your intention is love.” In other words the issue for Paul is not really language at all; the issue is love. The issue is not whether our mouth can avoid gross language; the issue is whether our mouth is a means of grace. You see he shifts from the external fruit to the internal root. He shifts from what we say to why we say it. That’s the issue.

Let’s read verse 29.

Let no rotten talk come out of your mouth, but only what is good for edifying, as fits the occasion [literally: good for edifying of need—meeting a particular need is in view] that it may impart grace to those who hear.

Do you see the shift? He doesn’t say, “Let no rotten talk come out of your mouth, but instead let fresh clean talk come out of your mouth.” He says, “Let no rotten talk come out of your mouth, but ask this: Is my mouth a means of grace? Am I meeting a need with the words that are coming out of my mouth? Am I building up faith into the people who hear?”

The Far-Reaching, All-Encompassing Christian Faith

This is a revolutionary way to think about your mouth, just like verse 28 (last week) was a revolutionary way of thinking about your secular work. Do you see the parallel?

In verse 28 Paul said, “Let the thief no longer steal, but let him labor doing good with his hands,” and then he shifts from the what to the why, “so that he may be able to give to those in need.” In other words, it is not Christian just to stop stealing. It is not Christian just to work honestly in order to have things. It is Christian to work to have in order to give—to meet needs. All our work is to be a display of grace.

This is exactly what Paul does here in verse 29. He says, “Let no rotten talk come out of your mouth, but only what is good,” and then he shifts from the what to the why, “for edification to meet a need that it may impart grace to those who hear.” It is not Christian just to stop swearing. It is not Christian just to put good language in the mouth instead. It is Christian to ask the deeper, internal question: am I speaking now to edify? Is your mouth a means of grace?

All our secular work is to be a display of grace; and all our speech is to be a display of grace. Do you see how all-encompassing and how far reaching our Christian faith must be? These are amazing verses about the grace of God in our lives.

If my mother had only washed out my mouth with soap, and never prayed and labored to wash out my unloving heart with the gospel of the grace of God, I might today have an antiseptic mouth, but I probably wouldn’t be a Christian.

A Christian is a person whose rotten root within has been made new by grace through faith in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The grace of God has taken the hate and anger and resentment that spill over in mean and vulgar and irreverent language, and has covered them with the blood of Christ and killed them along with the old unbelieving self.

Sealed for the Day of Redemption

And do you know what the grace of God has left behind in the place of the old hate and anger and resentment? It has left hope. This is the meaning of verse 30. It says, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”

What does this mean? It means that a Christian is a person in whom the Holy Spirit of God dwells, and that this Spirit of God seals the believer for the day of redemption. In other words, the Spirit God puts the stamp of his own image (4:24) on the life of the believer and guarantees that he will persevere to the day of redemption. The seal of the Spirit is the assurance of a secured hope.

The hope of all believers, guaranteed by the seal of the Spirit, is that at the end of history we will come to a day of redemption instead of a day of damnation. What, then, is this day of redemption?

It is the day when the long battle with sin will be over. It is the day when the deepest longings of our heart will be satisfied with the sight of the glory of the grace of God in the face of Jesus. No more groaning with imperfection; no more waiting; no more frustrated longings. Our redemption will be complete.

The Relationship of 4:30 to Our Language

So what is the point of Ephesians 4:30 in relation to rotten language and gracious language?

The point is this: Paul says that the Spirit has been given to seal us and secure us for an infinitely wonderful future. In other words, the Spirit’s sealing work aims to give you hope! So how do you grieve this Spirit? By not hoping in the day of redemption! By not hoping in the power of the Spirit to secure you and help keep you. If the Holy Spirit has been sent to give you hope in God, and instead of hoping in God you fret over your problems and become angry and bitter and resentful, then you grieve the Holy Spirit of God. You strive against the very purpose for which he was sent.

And the language that comes out of a heart that doesn’t hope in God will not impart grace to those who hear. How can you make your mouth a means of grace for others when you don’t hope in the grace of God for yourself? It is out of hopeless hearts of discouragement and frustration and anger and bitterness and resentment that all rotten and hurtful language comes.

But if you as a believer stop and think for a moment that Christ has died for your sin, that God has promised to work all things together for your good, that he has given you his own Holy Spirit for the specific purpose of sealing you for the day of redemption, then surely a deep and confident hope will be the root of your life. And up through that root will flow the sap of grace, and out onto the branches of your life will come the fruit of a whole new way of talking.

The question for your mouth will not merely be the moral question: Am I avoiding dirty words? But the Christian question: Am I building the faith of others by what I say? Is my mouth a means of grace? Am I frightened and anxious and angry about my life, or am I filled and overflowing with hope that the Spirit of God will keep me safe for the day of redemption?

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Used by permission: John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

by John Piper – Listen

Ephesians 4:22-27

Put off your old nature which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Therefore, putting away falsehood, let every one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.

The emotional life of God and his children is very complex. The inner workings of God’s heart and the hearts of his saints are not simple.

The Complex Emotional Life of God

For example, Exodus 34:6 says that God is “slow to anger” and Psalm 103:9 says that God “will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever.” Yet Psalm 7:11 says that “God is a righteous judge and a God who has indignation (or anger) every day.” In other words, every day God’s anger is rising slowly toward some, decreasing toward others, and sustained in fury toward others. In his infinite complexity God experiences the absence, the rise, the presence, and the fall of anger simultaneously.

And yet he is a “God of peace” (1 Thessalonians 5:23; Hebrews 13:20). The hurricane of his wrath against faithless men will never beat itself out on the beaches of eternity (Revelation 14:10; Matthew 18:35f.). And yet God is not the slave of his anger like a man who seethes with bitterness every day—because he is a God of peace. The hurricane of his wrath is somehow swallowed up in the great calm of the divine mind—like the firing of cosmic pistons while the engine idles smoothly and quietly, or like the churning of massive generators far inside the dam sustained by a great reservoir of deep, calm water. We can only grope for flashes and images of the rising, falling, perpetual, propitiated wrath of God. His heart is infinitely complex (Psalm 90:11).

Complexity in the Hearts of God’s Children

It’s not surprising, then, that the hearts of God’s children should be complex, and that God’s instructions to us about anger should require great spiritual sensitivity. Surely this is part of the reason why Paul speaks of a renewed mind and a new creature in Ephesians 4:22–24 before he teaches us about anger in verse 26. Let’s look for a moment at these foundational verses before we talk about anger.

The Contrasts Between the Old and New Natures

Verses 22–24: “Put off your old nature which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts (or: “is ruined through desires of deceit”), and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” Notice the contrasts. There is an old nature and a new nature (or old man and new man). One is to be put off; the other is to be put on. One is corrupted; the other is created. The corruption of the old accords with desires of deceit. The creation of the new accords with God in the righteousness of truth.

Note especially the word “created.” We do not produce our new nature as Christians. We were dead in trespasses and sins (according to 2:1) and were made alive by God’s sovereign grace (2:5). We were created anew (born anew!). Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Our new nature is God’s creation, God’s workmanship. It is a supernatural work of grace.

God’s Work and Our Task

But, we ask, if my new life in Christ is God’s creation and workmanship, then what is my task? Ephesians 4:23–24 gives the answer. We are to put on this new nature. When God creates in us a new heart, he does not cancel out our consciousness. We are conscious hour by hour of choices—will we follow the way of deceit or will we follow the way of truth? The new creation is not the negation of choice; it’s the transformation of the heart that makes choices. The moral choices which you face as a new creature in Christ are just as real and crucial as the choices you faced before you were born again (i.e., created in Christ Jesus). The difference is that your character, your nature, your heart, your will have been radically changed. The source of choice, the root of your choosing is now. There is a new nature within.

So when Paul says, “Put it on,” he means, “Act it out.” If you have been created anew after the likeness of God, clothe yourselves with godly garments. Your clothing is what men see. So when Paul says, “Clothe yourselves with your new nature,” he means, “Make it visible in your attitudes and behavior.” If the hidden spring has been purified, let the visible streams of your life run clean.

The Christian Life Is the Experience of a Miracle

But of course, if the spring has been purified, the streams will run clean. If the tree is good, it will bear good fruit. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth will speak. Christian morality is the experience of an inner miracle. But the experience in moment by moment living includes conscious choices to go the way of truth not deceit. These choices are the fruit that signify a good tree; they are the words that reveal the abundance of the heart; they are the clean streams that provide the purified spring; they are the obedience that confirms your calling and election.

If we fail to understand Ephesians 4:22–24, we will surely go astray in what follows about anger. The practical, nitty-gritty, day to day living of the Christian life is the experience of a miracle. If it were not, then all our moral choices and all our pursuit of holiness would be done in our own strength; it would signify our own merit and it would redound to our own glory. And the whole purpose of God to be glorified in his creatures would fall. So there are immense things at stake in the ordinary issues of truth-telling, and anger, and stealing which Paul deals with now in verses 25–28. We will restrict ourselves to the problem of anger.

The Problem of Anger

Verses 26–27: “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.” Keep in mind that the general admonition is put off the old nature and put on the new. Now the specific example of that is getting rid of bad anger and only having good anger. In other words, when you are born again, you are given a new nature, you become a new creature; and Paul says here that your newness will show itself in the way you experience anger.

Two Assertions About Anger

Verse 26 makes at least two assertions about anger: 1) There is a time to get angry; 2) the time to stay angry is short. Or: there are good grounds for getting angry, but no grounds for holding grudges. “Do not let the sun go down on your anger,” means, “Let the day of your anger be the day of your reconciliation” (Estius). And if reconciliation is impossible, even so, do not stroke your wound, or cherish revenge, or hold a grudge. For Satan seeks a gap called grudge, and if he finds it, he will enter and ruin life with all manner of bitterness.

Let’s take these two points one at a time:

1. There is a time to get angry, and
2. the time to stay angry is short.

1. There Is a Time to Get Angry

First, there is a time to get angry. “Be angry but do not sin.” Not all anger is wrong for man. But some anger is clearly wrong. Verse 31 says, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger . . . be put away from you.” What’s the difference between good anger and bad anger?

Two Characteristics of Good Anger

I would suggest two things that characterize good anger:

1. it is based on God, and
2. it is mingled with grief.

It Is Based on God

James 1:19–20 says, “Let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of men does not work the righteousness of God.” In other words, we should be slow to anger because the anger which rises quickly is very likely to be mere human anger which will not accomplish God’s righteousness. But if we are slow to anger, if we rule our spirit and consider the matter carefully, then our anger, if it comes, may be the very anger of God. That is, our anger may be owing to the fact that God’s character is dishonored not ours, and God’s aims are resisted not just ours. In short, good anger is based on God not just ourselves. Its target is sin against God, not just assaults on us.

It Is Mingled with Grief

The second thing that characterizes good anger is that it is mingled with grief. The one instance where Jesus is said to get angry is Mark 3:5. Jesus was in the synagogue on the Sabbath about to heal a man’s withered hand. The Pharisees were adamantly opposed. It says, “Jesus looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart.”

Last week I was reading a book whose teaching is so wrong, so harmful to the church, and so injurious to God’s glory that I got so angry I wanted to tear it in half. I think condition number one for good anger was satisfied—it was for God’s sake. But that’s not enough. I had to pray that God would give me the kind of grief for the author that Jesus felt for the Pharisees. “He looked around on them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart.”

Here is where we fail so often. Our grief over the sinner gets burned up in the zeal of our anger against the sin. A person does something wrong and we get angry, but there is no grief over the person’s hardness. We express our indignation for his sin, but we show no longing for his softening or reconciliation. This is natural, but it is not good. As long as there is hope for change, good anger should not only be directed against sin but also be mingled with grief for the sinner.

2. The Time to Stay Angry Is Short

So there is a time to get angry—that’s the first thing verse 26 teaches: “Be angry but do not sin.” But the time to stay angry is short—this is the second thing the verse teaches: “Do not let the sun go down on your wrath.” This does not mean that Eskimos at the North Pole may hold a grudge for six months while the sun is up and natives at the equator may only hold one for twelve hours. It means that anger, for all its possible legitimacy, is a dangerous emotion and should not be nurtured into a grudge. Anger is the moral equivalent of biological adrenaline. It is good and healthy to experience periodic secretions of adrenaline in reaction to dangerous situations. But a steady flow would damage the heart. So with anger. It has damaged many hearts because it was not put away, but nurtured again and again into a life-destroying grudge.

Six Goals of Satan in Getting You to Hold Grudges

According to verse 27 this is what Satan is watching for—the gap called grudge. If there is any way that Satan can assist you to hold a grudge, he will do it. For there are six goals of Satan which are greatly advanced when professing Christians hold grudges.

1. To Make Us Put Ourselves in the Place of God

Ever since Genesis 3 Satan’s goal has been to make us put ourselves in the place of God. “When you eat of the fruit of the tree your eyes will be opened and you will be like God.” Nothing helps in holding a grudge like thinking too highly of ourselves. The more exalted we are in our own eyes, the more justified we will feel in holding a grudge against the person who offended us. If Satan can succeed in making a grudge feel natural or justified, he will have gone a long way toward his goal of making us put ourselves in the place of God.

2. To Make Us Act as If We Are Judge, Not God

Satan aims to make us act as if we were judge and not God. Romans 12:19 says, “Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but give place to wrath, for it is written: Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. No, if your enemy is hungry feed him.” If we hold a grudge, we act as though God were not a just judge. We act as though we are the moral guardians of the world and if we don’t hold this wrong against this person, it’s going to slip away into oblivion and a great injustice will go unrequited. But this is sheer unbelief. Vengeance belongs to God. He will repay. It is his business not ours. So again holding a grudge puts us in the place of God—just where Satan wants us.

3. To Make the Cross of Christ Look Weak and Foolish

Satan aims to make the cross of Christ look weak and foolish. Notice Ephesians 4:32–5:2. “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children. And walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.” The power that frees us from holding grudges is that in the cross of Christ God satisfied his grudge against us and dropped it. So Paul says, forgive as God in Christ forgave you. When we hold a grudge, we cancel out the cross. We act as though God did a foolish thing on the cross, since he dropped his infinite grudge against us, but we are going to hold on to our little grudge against so and so. And thus Satan brings the cross of Christ into contempt.

4. To Cultivate Disunity in the Body of Christ

Satan aims to cultivate disunity in the body of Christ so that the grand evidence for Christ’s divine reality is shattered. Proverbs 15:18 says, “A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention.” Short tempers and long grudges breed strife and disunity in the church. But in John 17:23 Jesus said that unity in the church is a great evidence to the world of his reality. So if Satan can preserve and deepen grudges among God’s people, he will have achieved a great goal—the hiding of Christ’s reality from the world.

5. To Crush Broken Christians into Depression

Satan aims to crush broken Christians until they are depressed into uselessness. Paul tells about an instance of church discipline at Corinth in which the offending party repented. Paul counsels in 2 Corinthians 2:7, “So you should turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I beg you reaffirm your love for him.” The burdens of life are so great at times that someone’s grudge against us can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. You can destroy a person by holding a grudge against them—the very work of Satan from the time of Cain and Abel.

6. To Help You Destroy Yourself

Finally, by holding a grudge Satan will help you destroy yourself. Satan always throws away his tools in the end. He promises the moon and delivers misery. When the unforgiving servant was thrown into jail, Jesus said to his disciples, “So also my heavenly Father will do to you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

Forgive from Your Heart—Put On the New Nature

Which brings us back to where we started—”from your heart,” from your new nature, the purified spring, the good tree. The only way to get victory over anger is to put off the old nature corrupted by desires of deceit—Satan’s deceit, and to put on the new nature, by acting according to the truth:

1. the truth that none of us is so exalted that we can justify holding a grudge,
2. the truth that vengeance belongs to God, he will settle all accounts;
3. the truth that the cross of Christ is the wisdom and power of God, not foolishness;
4. the truth that the unity of the church is precious beyond words;
5. and the truth that it is possible by holding a grudge to commit spiritual murder and suicide simultaneously.

The Son of God came into the world to destroy the works of the devil. Let’s resist the devil this Christmas with all the power of God by putting on the new nature Christ came to create.

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Used by permission: John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org