Do Not Grieve the Holy Spirit of God (Part 1 of 2)

Do you hope that one day you'll get to Heaven, or do you know that you will spend eternity with God? Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg takes a close look at the person and work of the Holy Spirit and explains how you can be certain of your salvation. Ephesians and chapter 4, and from verse 25 to the end. Ephesians 4.25, Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil.

Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such is as good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Amen. Well, let's pray together. And let's speak, Lord, in the stillness while we wait on thee, hushed, our hearts to listen in expectancy. For Jesus' sake. Amen.

Amen. Well, we look this morning at verses 25–28, under the overarching heading from verse 27—at least as it is translated in the NIV, Do Not Give the Devil a Foothold. And now, as we come to these closing verses, 29 through to 32, we want to look at this from the perspective of not grieving the Holy Spirit, which comes right there in much the same way as the directive concerning the devil comes in the heart of that opening section.

Don't let this corrupt talk come from your mouth. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let's just start with the Holy Spirit, if we may, and then come back up to 29 and then back down to the concluding verses. We could acknowledge this evening, I think, that we routinely make mention of the person and the work of the Holy Spirit, recognizing all that God the Holy Spirit does in making us alive with Christ, in filling us, in enabling us, in guiding us, in teaching us, and so on.

And I think that recollection and emphasis on our part is both understandable and wonderfully helpful and right. I sometimes think that as I listen to myself and then as I hear others speak as well, that we may not give just as much attention to the fact that we're dealing with a person when we talk about the Holy Spirit. It's not uncommon to slip into the mistake of referring to the Holy Spirit not as a person but as it or it or this, and in point of fact, nothing could be more wrong. It's clear from the Bible, and particularly clear, I think, from this verse, that the Holy Spirit is someone who can be grieved. That's why Paul gives the directive in this way.

And it is a staggering thought when we put it in these terms. It is possible for us to make the Holy Spirit sad. It is possible for us to make the Holy Spirit sad.

If that were not the case, then the directive would make no sense at all. Make sure, he says, that you do not grieve the Holy Spirit, with whom you have been sealed for the day of redemption. That reference to the sealing goes back to chapter 1 and to verse 13. In him—that is, in Christ—you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was given to us as a sign and a seal of the fact that we are no longer what we once were but we are now made new in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is an important emphasis and one that we do well to dwell on—namely, the fact that not only—and again, mentioning chapter 1—not only have we had redemption and through his blood, verse 7, and the forgiveness of our trespasses, but also, God has poured out the blessing of the indwelling Holy Spirit on and in our lives. In fact, if anyone does not have the Spirit of God, says Paul when he writes to the church at Rome, then he doesn't belong to God at all. The indication of the presence of God in a life is the indwelling Spirit. And so, it is important for us to simply acknowledge the fact that we are not then referring merely to a power or to a force but to a person. The cults—for example, the Jehovah's Witnesses in particular—do not have a trinity, as you will know, and they give the name Holy Spirit to this misunderstood and denied force, as they put it.

When we read our Bibles, we find that that is completely wrong. So he is a person, and also he is God. You will notice that in Do Not Grieve the Holy Spirit of God, that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are co-equal, and they are co-eternal.

And also, the adjective is important. He is the Holy Spirit. He's the Holy Spirit. And consequently, because he is holy, he is grieved by impurity. It is therefore inevitable that he will be grieved by your sin and by mine. He is the Spirit of truth, and therefore he will inevitably be saddened by falsehood.

That's why, as we saw this morning, Paul has said, Having put away all falsehood, make sure that you speak in truth to one another. Because not only does it have an effect on you and on your brother and sister, but it actually impacts the living God. That the Holy Spirit is grieved when this takes place. When we get to chapter 5, we're going to see that when we are filled with the Holy Spirit—in fact, if your Bible is open there, your eyes can scan it in verse 18. Don't get drunk with wine. That's debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.

And what is the impact? Well, then, we will be addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart and giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father and living in a mutuality of submission to one another that is quite remarkable in a world that is full of broken relationships. When we're filled with the Holy Spirit, then, what is to flow from our lips is that which is stirred and our hearts namely praise to our God. Therefore, it is inevitable that he will be grieved when what flows from our lips is actually corrupting talk. He is also the spirit of unity, and therefore, he will be inevitably saddened by our disunity. Now, Paul addressing it in this way has probably, in his mind, the prophecy of Isaiah. You needn't turn to it, but I'll tell you where it is.

You can find it later. In Isaiah chapter 63, the people are said to have grieved the Holy Spirit. They rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit.

God had given them clear direction, they went against his direction, and as a result of that, the Holy Spirit was grieved. And so Paul, recognizing what has happened with the people of God, as it were, in the past, is essentially saying to the Ephesians now, You are the new people of God, you are a new creation, God lives in you by the Holy Spirit, and make sure that you do not do what those folks did way back there, 600 BC. The last thing I want to say by way of introduction is—and it is an important thing, and it is this—that Paul's exhortation and his appeal here is based on the security of our position.

It's based on the security of our position. It's based on the fact that he says, You have been sealed with the Holy Spirit. It is because you have been sealed with the Holy Spirit and have been sealed—notice in the phrase here in 30, I should see—we have been sealed for the day of redemption. And Paul makes much of this all the time. For example, in Romans chapter 8, and those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified—the certainty and security of the completed work of Christ. Being confident of this, he writes to the Philippians, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. So his appeal to them in this way is not on the basis of any insecurity but rather on the security that is theirs. And the same thing, actually, later in Philippians, where he says to them, We're not like the folks around us here whose end is destruction, their God is their belly, their glory and their shame. Their minds are filled with earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

What is he doing? He will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. So he is making it perfectly clear that the security of the believer is not in our health. The security of the believer is not in our wealth.

The security of the believer is not in our giftedness. The security of the believer is in Christ alone. The Holy Spirit reminds us through the Word.

He says, You have been sealed with me. I have been placed in you as a guarantee of all that is still yours to come. And the magnificent thing about the sealing of the Spirit, when you think about it—and because I often pose this question to you rhetorically, and it was in my mind again as I was reading my notes before this evening—I was thinking again about what it is that gives one such an assurance of salvation.

What is it that gives one such a conviction about the authenticity and the reliability and the sufficiency of the Bible? Why is it that we come together in this way and listen as we turn to the Scriptures again and again? Well, it is an indication of the fact that you have been sealed with the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit assures you of these things. As you hear the Word of God, the Spirit of God is saying to you, This is true. He's saying to you, This must be applied. He's saying to you, See to it, and so on.

It's a magnificent and a wonderful thing. And it is not only that to which we look back but also to which we look forward. When he talks about our redemption in chapter 1, around verse 6 and 7, he's referring to what we sing about when we sing, Oh, perfect redemption, the purchase of God to every believer, the promise of God, the vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus apart and receives. That's what he's referring to at the beginning of the verses in chapter 1. What he's referring to here is the end of our redemption. We presently know what it is to have been removed from one kingdom into anew. We presently know what it is to have been sealed with the Holy Spirit. We presently know what it is to be forgiven. But we also know that there is a new day coming. We also know that he has saved us not only from something, but he has saved us for something. He has taken us not only out of a realm, but he has taken us into a new realm and to prepare for us a realm that is beyond our ability to comprehend. Eye has not seen nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man. The things that God has prepared for them who love him then finish the verse, but his Spirit has revealed it to them.

So our friends and our neighbors say, What are you talking about? You're going to be with Jesus. What do you mean, your sins are forgiven?

Where do you get all this stuff from? Well, we get it in the Bible. You say, Well, I read the Bible and never saw any of it. No, you didn't, because the Spirit of God has not opened your eyes.

You should cry out to him that he might open your eyes and show you who you are and show you who Christ is and show you why you even exist. This is the great glory in it. And that is the context. Isaac Watt wrote a hymn that begins, Come ye that love the LORD and let your joys be known. It's a golden oldie, and it has the refrain, We're marching through Immanuel's ground To fairer worlds on high. And we don't sing any of these hymns anymore, I fear. And here's the stanza that struck me when I referenced it. There we shall see his face and never, never sin. There, from the rivers of his grace, drink endless pleasures in. And here, before we rise to that immortal state, The thought of such amazing bliss Should constant joy create. It's a good hymn, Come ye that love the LORD. So, sealed, remission of our sins, forgiveness of our trespasses, redeemed and about to be redeemed. And in between, we need the Spirit of God at work within our hearts in order to make sure that we are following hard after the Lord Jesus Christ.

Our prayer and our perspective in these things is based upon our position in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, actually, it was a random thought, but I was thinking as I was studying this again earlier in the week about when you used to go to the doctor, he told you to stick out your tongue. I don't know if doctors do that anymore. But it was the only time I was allowed to stick out my tongue when I was small. Well, if I go to the doctor, can I stick out my tongue? Yes, in fact, it would be demanded of you. But in other words, let me have a look at what's going on inside you.

I think I'll get something just by such a simple scan. And here, in these verses, we're kind of sticking out our tongues, and we give an indication of what's going on inside us. That's why the clarity of instruction regarding falsehood and anger and stealing is now followed up by his return to the matter of speech again.

Back he comes. And we understand why, don't we? At least many of us do. Because our tongues get us into so much difficulty. James reminds us of what a restless evil the tongue is, how easily we find, he says, that blessing and cursing comes out of the same source.

And he says, Now my brothers and sisters, that should not be. So Paul says, Make sure that there's no corrupting talk that's coming out of your mouths. The word there for corrupt is the word in Greek sapros, which means rotten. Rotten. It's the word that would be used of a rotten apple or a rotten piece of fruit, which, if you found it in a barrel, you would tend to say, I think this should simply be removed.

For surely to leave it in there, it may impact some of the rest of the fruit around it. And of course, that is in part the point. Paul is essentially saying, if we can summarize it, it's imperative that you say no to destructive talking and you say yes to corruptive talking. Because after all, the concern of the believer is for the building up of the body of Christ, for the maintaining of the unity, for the expression of purity, and so on. So, when in a congregation we begin to tolerate corrupting talk, then what we discover is that instead of it actually building people up, it actually tears things down.

And it is insufficient, as we said this morning, looking at the issue of stealing. It's insufficient simply to say that there is no corrupting talk coming out of my mouth. That's the negative side. But the positive side is that there's supposed to be good upbuilding talk that comes, and that it is to be fitting to the occasion as fits the occasion. It's kind of proverbial, isn't it? The Proverbs have a lot about the importance and the timeliness of words. A word in season, says Solomon, how good it is.

In season, as fits the occasion. It's an interesting little phrase, that. Because some of us are pretty good at saying the right thing at the wrong time.

Or in the wrong way. Well, the only reason I'm saying this is because it's true. The fact that it's true doesn't demand that it is said. Well, you said—the Bible says—that you're supposed to make sure that you speak in truth.

Yes, you are. As fits the occasion. Will this be the right occasion to say this?

Is this the time to say this in front of somebody? As fits the occasion. Is it kind? Is it true?

Is it necessary? As fits the occasion. Elsewhere, we're told that our words are supposed to be full of grace and seasoned with salt.

Some of us have got that completely upside down. Our words are full of salt and seasoned with a little grace. I've told you before that one of the lasting phrases out of my father's mouth for me, as he heard me preach as a younger man, was this, Son, it's not what you say that gets you in trouble.

It's how you say it. Here I am all these years later. Still his words ring in my ear, still confronted by it. I'm encouraged by the fact that Isaiah, who was the great prophet of God when he encountered God, said, I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. I think each of us has something we might learn in this.

From there to verse 31 and 32, if we can try and take them together, we can summarize his exhortation or his appeal in a simple phrase. Kindness should replace bitterness. Kindness should replace bitterness. He starts with bitterness, and then he comes to kindness. He starts with the negative, and then he comes to the positive. In verse 31, we have, as John Stott refers to it, six unpleasant attitudes and actions. And they are unpleasant, aren't they? You come to this, and you remind yourself again that the call for this new behavior is consistent with the fact that we've been made new people. So make sure, he says, that all bitterness—he likes that word, all.

It's so challenging. Not some bitterness or a little bit of bitterness, but all the bitterness, and all the wrath, and all the anger, and all the clamor, and all the slander, and all the malice—the whole shooting match. This is a zero-tolerance program. If the church is going to live together in unity, in purity, in effectiveness, if it's going to reach the world, it will not be able to tolerate this stuff within it, because when the world comes in, they will say, But this is exactly what we get in our office.

This is the same stupid slander that exists everywhere else. If this Jesus thing really transforms people, why in the world are you as you are? That's the challenge of it, you see. Bitterness. Aristotle referred to it as an embittered and resentful spirit which refuses to be reconciled. The writer to the Hebrews warns his readers about a root of bitterness which, if not dealt with, will trouble not only the individual who is the source of the bitterness but all of the others who are affected by it. You're listening to Truth for Life. That is Alistair Begg with the message. He's titled Do Not Grieve the Holy Spirit of God.

We'll hear more tomorrow. And by the way, tomorrow is the last day of our study in the book of Ephesians. If you missed any of the messages or would like to re-listen to some, you'll find the complete 11-volume study on our website at truthforlife.org slash Ephesians. We're currently in volume 7, but you can stream or download or share any of the sermons in this series for free. If you'd prefer to own the complete study in Ephesians, you can get all 83 sermons on a convenient USB drive for just $5, and shipping is free in the United States.

You'll find the USB online at truthforlife.org slash store. It is our regular prayer at Truth for Life that God will work through Alistair's daily teaching to bring unbelievers to saving faith and to strengthen believers as we seek to live godly lives in an increasingly challenging world. That's one of the reasons why we offer so many free or at-cost resources. We're able to provide all this biblical teaching for free because of the generosity of our Truth Partners, listeners just like you who consistently pray for and commit to giving each month to Truth for Life. If you've been listening to Truth for Life for a while but you haven't yet joined this amazing team, why not make today the day?

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I'm Bob Lapine. We recognize the Holy Spirit is at work during big spiritual breakthrough moments. Tomorrow we'll find out how he's also enabling us in the midst of the routine moments of our daily lives. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.