Alright. Alright, brethren. Let's turn in our Bibles to Ephesians
chapter 5. Ephesians chapter 5. Before I read the text, I want
to just remind you that the Lord Jesus Christ, the head of the
church, is the one who gave the Apostle Paul the words to write
in this epistle, just as he did in all the words that Paul wrote. It's Christ our head giving him
the words to write. And what he used Paul to remind
us of is what he's done for you and I, who that he's chosen,
who he's redeemed, who he's called by his grace. He sent the gospel
to us, and through the word, He quickened us to life. He gave
us faith. He gave us repentance. He brought
us to believe on Him. And He fitly joined us together
in His body. The church. Fitly joined. Christ puts every member right
where it belongs in the body. And He does that. And He ministers
grace to each of us. To each of us individually. And
He uses each of us to minister to each other. And the way we
minister to each other, chiefly, above everything else, is by
supporting the Gospel. That's what He's doing. This
is wise, wise, wise, wise. And He makes us see our need
of Christ more and more through the Gospel. And He makes us see our need
of each other more and more through the Gospel. So that as He grows
us in grace, grows us to see Him more, He grows us to love
each other more, He grows us more knit together, more united,
more compacted. And the purpose of doing this
is because our chief purpose in this world, our sole purpose
in this world, I'll go that far, our sole purpose in this world
as the church of God is to send forth his gospel into this world
because this is how he's going to call out his people. This
is how he's calling out his people. Having told us that, and having
instructed us in that, Paul said in Ephesians 4, look at there
in verse 17, he said, This I say therefore, this I say therefore,
and I testify in the Lord, he's saying this is the word of your
head, this is the word of the Lord Jesus, that you henceforth,
from here forward, walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity
of their minds. And then he uses Paul to start
telling us things to put off and things to put on. Put off
the old man, put on the new. When you read down through Ephesians
4 and Ephesians 5, you'll see something negative, something
positive. Something to put off, something
to put on. And when he tells us these things, I want you to
be sure to understand this. This is not to attain righteousness. It's not to attain righteousness.
The Lord Jesus Christ is our righteousness. And the only way
to attain the righteousness of God is through faith in Christ. That's to cease from your works
and rest in Christ. He's the righteousness of God.
This is not to attain to a state of sanctification. Christ is
our sanctification, He's our sanctifier. He's separated us
by being formed in us, by redeeming us. And He keeps us separated. This is not to draw attention
to ourselves. It's not to exalt ourselves.
It's not so you can run around and, you know, like the world
teaches and everybody's going to look at me and look at me
and I'm just going to let my little light shine. The way you
let your light shine before men is to make yourself invisible
so that all they see is Christ. All they see is Christ, not us.
And it's not to be used, these things are not to be used as
rules to run around trying to convict one another and run around
trying to condemn one another and to bite and devour one another. That's not what these things
are for. The purpose of these exhortations are so that as we
set forth the gospel in this world, it's so that the Word
of God is not blaspheming. It's so that we cannot be condemned. As Paul told Titus, he says that
he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed having no evil
thing to say of you. It's so that we may adorn the
doctrine of our Savior in all things. That we might be credible
witnesses as we set forth the gospel to lost sinners. You know,
if you're a renowned rebel against God and you try to talk to somebody
about the grace of God, they're going to laugh at you. They'll
laugh at us for that. This is so that instead of their
eyes and their ears being on us, instead of them being offended
by us, and by offended I mean instead of us loading their gun
for them with something we've done that's wrong, that the scripture
says wrong, so they can turn around and shoot us and say something negative against us.
It's so that instead of that, if they're offended, they're
offended by the gospel, not us. Now, the gospel is offensive,
and it's going to be offensive, but we want it to be offensive,
that to be the reason they're offended, not because of us.
Not because of us. Now, the purpose in all these
things is so Christ might have the preeminence. You understand? You see what I'm saying? It's
so that they hear the gospel and they're not paying attention
to us. Alright, Ephesians 5, verse 1. He says, Be ye therefore
followers of God as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also
hath loved us and hath given himself for us, and offering
a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor. But fornication and all
uncleanness or covetousness, let it not be once named among
you. as becometh saints. Now here's
our text, verse 4. Neither filthiness, nor foolish
talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient, but rather giving
of thanks. Now here we got another set of
instructions to us concerning our language, concerning our
tongue. Why is that so important? He
keeps speaking of that over and over and over. Why is that so
important? Well, you remember the Lord said,
Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. So what's in
the heart is going to come out of the mouth. Now, back up in
Ephesians 4.15, He said, Speak the truth in love, that we may
grow up into Him into Christ who's the head in all things.
Now, the believer who really speaks the truth in love by the
grace of God, the believer who really speaks the truth in love
by the grace of God does so because God's given him a new heart,
a new heart that he didn't have before. That's why he speaks
it. In verse 25, Ephesians 4, 25,
putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor.
If we speak lies, you know what we are? We're liars in our heart. That's where it's coming from,
the old nature, the sin nature. And when I say lies, I mean concerning
the truth of the Word, first and foremost. The Lord said to
the law and to the testimony, to this Word right here, if they
speak not according to this Word, there's only one reason. It's
because there's no light in them. That's the reason. There's no
light in them. It's coming from the heart. But if we speak the
truth of God, by grace, by His power in truth, it's because
He's given us a new heart. Now you see that He goes down
to verse 29. Let no corrupt communication
proceed out of your mouth, that which is good to the use of edifying,
that it might minister grace to the hearers. If a man's speech
is corrupt and corrupting, he's a corrupt man. There's no other
way to... If that's the tenor of his speech,
he's corrupt. The Lord said, a good man out
of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things. And so now in our text again,
in verse 4, he says, neither filthiness, nor foolish talking,
nor jesting, which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks.
Now which heart do we have? Is it a heart filthy, foolish,
jesting, or is it a heart abounding in thanksgiving to God? It's
just that simple. Whichever one has the dominion
over us, that's how we're going to speak. That which is becoming
the character of the child of God, that which is convenient,
is to Never use our hearts and our tongues to speak anything
obscene or foolish or jesting, but to give thanks to God, to
always be giving thanks to God. Now, first, let's understand
the meaning of these words. Filthiness involves obscene,
indecent language. That's what it is. Now, someone
said this. I thought this was a good statement.
We do verbally what we speak. We do, verbally, whatever it
is we say. Now, we live in Sodom, USA, and
you can hear it on the TV, you can hear it in the music, you
can hear it all around us. And it's easy for a believer
to understand what Lot felt when he lived in Sodom, and it says
he was vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked. Alright,
then there's foolish talking. This is something that you see
these things become more and more and more predominant all around us. This
is just chatter. It's just foolish, useless, unprofitable,
senseless, idle talk. You know, it's just talk, talk,
talk, talk, talk. The Word of the Gospel has nothing
in it that's idle. There's nothing in the Word of
God that's just there for filler. Nothing. Everything about the
Word of God is profitable. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
the Word of God. He was made flesh and He walked
among this earth. And you cannot find anything
in the Scriptures that our Lord said that's not profitable. Can you just imagine our Lord
just standing around and just chatting, just to fill in time?
He didn't do that. When He said something, it was
profitable. It was needful. It was to edify. It was for a purpose. This is
what Scripture says, The tongue of the wise useth knowledge aright. But the mouth of the fool poureth
out foolishness. You know when you're around somebody
that just chatters all the time, and they just talk all the time,
and it's like just nervous talk, can't stand silence, they gotta
be talking all the time. You just tune them out. You don't
listen. But if there's a person that
doesn't speak very much, but when they speak, it's something
profitable, you hang on every word they say. You hang on every
word they say. That's what he's teaching us.
When our kids were little, we used to say, they were starting
to learn to talk, we'd say, now use your words. Use your words. And that's what our Redeemer's
teaching you and me who believe right here. He's teaching us
how to use our words. How to use our words. And you
think, well, I know how to talk. I'm 30, 40 years old. Well, here's the next thing,
jesting. jesting, this might not be something
we understand because it's a word we don't use much, but it means
to be witty, to be humorous, to be sarcastic at the expense
of others, to embarrass, to make them look weak, or put them in
a bad light. Now, it may not be malicious,
or it may be malicious, either way, but if it runs the risk
of being hurtful, and it runs the risk of hurting somebody, It's better
not to be said because here's the problem with this, with this
jesting. If you think about this, here's
the problem with it. At the heart of it is conceit. At the heart of it is pride.
At the heart of it is trying to exalt yourself and make yourself
look wiser at the expense of another. And so he says these
things are not convenient. That means they're not becoming
to the character of a saint. Nor are they the will of God. Now our text is the will of our
Redeemer. This is our Redeemer speaking.
So we want to do what he says. Now here's something that's far
greater than that. A believer's happy. We got great
reason to be joyful and the scripture doesn't ever teach us to go around
sullen and so serious that nobody wants to be around you. It teaches
you to be pleasant. Use pleasantries and you can
be humorous and all those things. He is just talking about don't
be obscene, don't be foolish and idle and don't do anything
to hurt anybody at their expense. Here is something far better.
He says, but rather use your heart and your tongue to give
thanks. To give thanks. Look down at verse 19. Speak
to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing
and making melody in your heart to the giving thanks always for
all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, we saw one great use of
our tongue, speak the truth, speak the truth in love, the
gospel. Here's another great use of the
tongue, be always thanking God. Those are two great uses of our
tongue and our heart, and that's what we're using, both of them.
Now, think about this, if every time We go to say some useless
thing and speak just to fill up space and idle chat or whatever. If we stopped and thought about
just something that we have to be thankful for to God and turned
to thank God instead of just speaking, our words would probably
be a lot more profitable when we do speak. And we have so much
to thank God for that if we started doing this, our words would be
a lot less. Now look at this. First of all,
Colossians 1. Look there with me. We can thank
God for His unspeakable gift. Number one, for His unspeakable
gift. Christ Jesus, His darling Son. Number one. And we could spend
the whole time right here, right here. But God, our Father, through
His Son, has made us fit for heaven. Look here in Colossians
1.12. Giving thanks, unto the Father,
which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in light." Meet means to be made fit, to be made
fit. It means everything God requires
of a regenerated believer, that he's called to faith in Christ.
Everything that's required of him God has done it in His Son
so that right now He's as fit for heaven as Christ is seated
there right now with God. There's not anything that needs
to be done for Him to go into glory. He's as fit to go there
right now as Christ is because Christ is our fitness. Christ
is our fitness. Look at verse 13. We've been
delivered, brethren. We've been translated. Who hath
delivered us? Our Father, through our Lord
Jesus, has delivered us from the power of darkness and has
translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son. That's done. That's done. Look here. We have
redemption and forgiveness. Verse 14. In whom? In Christ. We have redemption through His
blood, even the forgiveness of sin. That's past, present, and
future. That's a done thing, brethren.
We're redeemed. We have forgiveness of sin. That's
something to thank God for. Look here. Colossians 2, 6. Colossians
2, 6. As ye have therefore received
Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him, rooted and built up
in Him, and established in the faith as you have been taught,
abounding therein with thanksgiving. With thanksgiving. Look at Colossians
3. since we've got the privilege of being sons of God, since we
have been called into His body for the purpose of setting forth
the gospel. Now listen to this, Colossians
3.17, Whatsoever you do in word or deed, that includes everything. Whatsoever you do in word or
deed, do all in the name of our Lord Jesus, given thanks to God
and the Father by Him. Can I talk obscenely in the name
of the Lord Jesus? Can I just idly talk froth and
nothingness in the name of the Lord Jesus? Can I run down somebody
and lift up myself in pride and arrogance over them? In the name
of the Lord Jesus, it's impossible. It's impossible. But I give thanks
in His name. I give thanks in His name and
I have a lot to thank Him for. Turn to Psalm 92. Psalm 92. This is a song for the Sabbath
day. Who's our Sabbath? Who's our
rest? Who is it we're rejoicing in,
thanking God for and through? Look at Psalm 92, 1. Psalm 92,
1. It is a good thing to give thanks
unto the Lord and to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High, to
show forth thy lovingkindness in the morning and thy faithfulness
every night. That means from morning to night. It's a good thing to be thanking
God. It's a good thing to be showing
forth, praising His loving kindness and His faithfulness. Where is
His loving kindness and His faithfulness? It's in Christ. He said who should
be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus? shall tribulation, shall any
trouble we face in this world, shall death, shall any of our
enemies. He said nothing shall be able to separate us from the
love of God in Christ Jesus. And it's His faithfulness that
makes it so. It's His faithfulness to keep
us that makes it so. Verse 4, he says, Thou, Lord,
hast made me glad through Thy work, through Thy work. I'll triumph in the works of
Thy hand. Oh Lord, how great are thy works
and thy thoughts are very deep. A brutish man knoweth not, neither
does a fool understand this. You know who the brutish man
and the fool is? He's the one running around telling you how
much he knows and how much he knows about everything and just
yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, yak all the time. And that was
us, brethren. But God in grace came to us And
He bridled our tongue by grace and made us come down to the
feet of Christ that He might instruct us as a little child.
And what He taught us is, flesh and blood didn't reveal this
to you, but my Father which is in heaven. And so we don't go
around boasting, we don't go around, we go around talking
about His loving kindness, His faithfulness, His works. And
these are things we thank Him for. His thoughts are deep. His thoughts are deep. And those
thoughts, He said in Jeremiah, I know the thoughts that I think
toward you to give you an expected end. To give you an expected
end. Let's go on now, let's look over
here at Let's look at Psalm 97. Look
over at Psalm 97. We can thank God for preserving
us. We can thank Him for preserving us. He preserves us by giving
us light. Constantly giving us light. And
He does it because He's holy. Look here. What does all that
have in common? Look here at verse 10. Ye that
love the Lord hate evil. Ye that love the Lord hate evil.
He preserveth the souls of His saints. He delivereth them out
of the hand of the wicked. Light is sown for the righteous,
and gladness for the upright in heart. Rejoice in the Lord,
ye righteous, and give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness. When I'm walking along during
the day and I think about how holy God is, Why do I want to
give thanks at his remembrance? At the remembrance of his holiness?
Because brethren, it's because God is holy that he sent his
son. He will by no wise clear the
guilty. It's by his holiness for his
holiness sake that he sent his son. And because his son fulfilled
all righteousness for me and made me the righteousness of
God in him. Because God's holy, he will preserve
me. Because if he loses one for whom
Christ died, his justice is turned upside down and made a mockery
of. And God won't have that. Because He's holy, He will preserve
those that are righteous in His Son. And He's going to preserve
us by giving us light. He's not going to let us walk
into darkness. He's not going to let us fall away into falsehood
and untruth and something that's going to bring us to bring shame
on Him. You've heard preachers say this
before. I know faithful preachers say
this. He loses more if he loses us than we do. His name is at
stake. His holiness is at stake. He
won't have that. He's going to preserve us. That's
something to thank him for. Here's something to thank him
for. Because he's good. Because he's good. I'll just
give this to you from 1 Chronicles 16, 34. Give thanks unto the
Lord because He's good, for His mercy endureth forever. You just
think about how good God is to His people. There's nothing God
has ever done toward us but what is good. Everything He's ever
done toward us has been good. Everything. Even the things we
don't see as good, they're good. Even things we see in this world
and think, oh, that's so evil, and it may be evil. It's good
for His people. He's bringing good from it, and
He's doing that which is good for His people. And He says His
mercy endures forever. Do you need mercy? I need mercy. I need mercy. I need mercy all
the time. And He says His mercy endures
all the time. Thank God for His goodness. Thank God for His mercy. What about this? We can thank
God for one another. Isn't this so much better than
all the vain, obscene filthiness that you hear going on? Thank
God for your brethren. What a gift! Paul said in Ephesians,
I cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in
my prayers. For what thanks can we render
to God again for you? That's what he said of Thessalonians.
What thanks can we render to God again for you for all the
joy wherewith we joy for your sakes before our God? Do you
rejoice because of your brethren? John said if a man don't love
his brethren, he don't know God. You could know all the doctrine
in the world. If a man doesn't rejoice with his brethren, and
delight with his brethren, and joy in his brethren, want to
see them edified, want to see them grow in grace, want to see
them know the Lord more and more, want to see them turn from evil,
want to see them together and feeding upon the Lord Jesus,
he don't know God. how sweet, how good and how pleasant
it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. You know what it took
to bring us together in unity? It took God giving His Son and
His Son shedding His blood. That's what it took to make us
dwell together in unity. It's a whole lot more than just
a bunch of folks coming together in one room and sitting down
together. There's unity that this is speaking
about Man with the natural eye can't see. This is something
Christ has wrought by His blood. This is something that we have
together with the Spirit of God dwelling in us together. Then
here's something we can thank God for. Look at 2 Corinthians
2. As we set forth this word, as
we set forth this gospel in the earth, we may not see the prophet. We may not see what comes about.
We may not see what God's doing with it. It may appear to us
that, you know, there's not a lot happening. But here's what we
can be thankful for. Look at 2 Corinthians 2.14. Now,
thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ,
and maketh manifest the savour of His knowledge by us in every
place. For we, now he's speaking here
about the preaching of the Gospel. Paul's saying we who preach the
Gospel. You who support this Gospel.
You who bear witness of the Gospel. You who help spread the Gospel. This is what we can be thankful
of. We are unto God. It doesn't matter who else it's
unto. This is what matters. We are unto God. A sweet savor
of Christ. In them that are saved and in
them that perish. To the one we're the savor of
death unto death. This is to God. A savor of death
unto death and to the other a savor of life unto life and who is
sufficient for these things. We can thank God that His Word
never returns to Him void. We can thank God that when the
Gospel is preached, God's Word is accomplishing exactly what
He's determined to accomplish by it. Men are going to be further
damned by it or they're going to be saved by it. It's accomplishing
that two-fold work every time it goes forth. We put a lot of
emphasis on the Word of God because the Word of God is vitally important. Because you don't sit and hear
the truth of the gospel neutrally. You hear the truth of the gospel,
something's happening. I guarantee you, you might not
even know what's happening. I might not know what's happening.
Something's happening. It's a sweet savor unto God of
the Lord Jesus Christ in them that perish and in them that
are saved. There's no neutrality. And then, look here. We give
thanks to God for all men who are in authority. for everybody
that is in authority, from the president, to the governors,
to the mayors, to the city leaders, to the police officers, to the
teachers, to the bosses we have, everything. Listen to this. I
exhort, therefore, that first of all, supplications, prayers,
intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for
kings, and for all that are in authority that we may lead a
quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty for this
is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior. Why
are we thanking God for that? Why are we thanking God for the
president? Why are we thanking God for the
governor and the police officers and all these men that rule?
Because God's the one that put them there. God's the one that
put them there. Romans 13 says there is no power
but the power that is of God. If we resist the power, we're
resisting God. A child resists his father, he's
resisting more than his father, he's resisting God. A person
resists any kind of official, any kind of authority, we're
resisting more than that man or that office, we're resisting
God. He put them there. You say, well,
I don't like that person in that office. God put them there, to
accomplish His will through their ill behavior and ignorant judgment. He's bringing His judgment to
pass by. Isn't that a wise God? We can
thank Him for that. We don't have to complain about
it. We can thank God for it. Thank you, Lord, for putting
Him there. I'm glad. I don't know. It don't seem like
He could tie His shoes, but I guess you're going to do something
with Him. If He put Him there, Alright, look here. Thank God
that our Savior has all power and that He reigns. Look at Revelation
11, verse 6. These are things, brethren, that
are far better, far better to use our heart and our tongue.
Revelation 11, verse 16. The four and twenty elders which
sat before God on their seats fell upon their faces and worshipped
God, saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art
and was and art to come. That means He's eternal. Because
thou hast taken to thee thy great power and has reigned. You know
who the Lord God Almighty is? It's Jehovah Jesus. It's the
God-man. And He's taken to Him His great
power and He reigns. He rules everything. He rules
everything. From the sparrow falling to the
ground to your hair falling to the ground. From the greatest evil to the greatest
joy. He's ruling it all. Everything. Nothing comes to pass in this
world without His consent. Either God does it or somebody
that's more powerful than God does it. You take your pick.
Which one you want it to be? It's God that does it. He's in
control. There's nobody more powerful
than Him. I'm thankful, aren't you? Because He's a good God. He's a merciful God. He's a loving
God. He's a faithful God. And He's
doing everything in His world for those He's everlastingly
loved, for the glory of His Son. I'm thankful for that. Look here
now. Let me close with this back in
our text. Ephesians 5.20. And when He says, Give thanks
always, That means all the time. When He says for all things,
that means for everything. When He says unto God and the
Father, that's who we owe everything to. And He says, and we do it
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, we have not even
started to scratch the surface on this. We got temporal blessings,
we got food and raiment, we got mercies of life, sadness, we
got heartache, we got joy, we got comfort. Thank Him for all
that. All things includes tears and
it includes laughter. It includes it all. We thank
Him in every circumstance. Adversity or whether we're uncomfortable
or whether we're comfortable. Now, that's a much better use
of our tongue. So much better use, so much better
to have our hearts set on, to be thinking about, to be filling
our ears with, to be... It's just better. Now listen
to the psalmist. I'll praise the name of God with
a song, and I'll magnify Him with thanksgiving. This also
shall please the Lord better than an ox or a bullock that
hath horns and hooves. What's that mean? It means there's
no sacrifice we could make that's going to please God like thanking
Him. That's exactly what it means.
Men are going all over this world trying to do all these great
sacrifices. He said there's nothing that would please Him better
than thanking Him. Thank Him. By Him, therefore,
let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is, the fruit of our lips,
giving thanks to his name. Amen. Let's stand together, brethren.
Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for all these
great gifts you've given to your people. Lord, make us ever more
thankful. Make us truly want to obey your
exhortation to us for the good of your church, for the setting
forth of your gospel, that we might be faithful and true witnesses
unto you. For Christ's sake, for his name,
for his glory, for his preeminence, we ask these things. Amen.