AUG 9, 2009  SERMON ARCHIVE

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our heavenly Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, AMEN.

The text for our meditation today is the Epistle Lesson for this 12th Sunday After Pentecost, from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians 4:30-5:2. There we read these words:

(Eph 4:30-5:2 NASB) And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 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; 2 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.

Thus far the text.

I don’t know how many of you have ever read the classic novel, "God, In My Unbelief," but if you have, you know that the character John Forsyth is one of those personages all of us have met who can cause trouble even in a Dale Carnegie course. In the novel, "God, In MY Unbelief", the church of which Forsyth is a member is full of friction, anger, and quarreling, most of it because of him.

After one particularly stormy meeting, the pastor of the church goes for a walk and suddenly finds himself on the street in front of John Forsyth's house. He says in the novel:

Something cried out in me because I had not been able to mend what was broken. In that cry I knew what I had never known before. I had often been praying for him, but I knew in the flesh of that moment that even in my prayer I had been separated from him. I had been looking at his sin and judging it and asking that he might be forgiven. I had not been standing beside him-my sinfulness beside his sinfulness-asking that we both might be forgiven.

Dear friends, there is a poison out there in that world today, in that life you find yourselves a part of, a poison that can overtake and destroy your life, no matter who you are. It is a deadly poison and it is called malice.

Paul warned the Ephesians in today's Epistle to put it out of their lives: "Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander" (Eph. 4:31). You know what those feelings are. In fact, you could add spite, revenge, and hostility to his list. And you know how easy it is to come by these feelings. You simply need to be cut down by someone else. Or be confronted by an ungrateful child. Or let someone cut in line ahead of you or honk at you in traffic.......or......You know what I mean.

There are a million opportunities every day to be offended, hurt, or attacked. Then you lash out at others. In a rage or fit of temper you say those things that should not be said. James described what anger does to the tongue: "The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell" (James 3:6). So the anger goes on and breeds more anger in others. Its poison creeps into another system.

Even worse, the feelings turn inward and become what Paul calls bitterness. I remember a fine Christian woman in a former parish. She had been the most dedicated and committed member. Her love of the Lord seemed boundless and her willingness to help others tireless. As she got older, she withdrew more and more from others. She centered on some real or imagined hurt that her daughter had done. Her bitterness choked out all good things and all positive relationships. As an old woman, she was left only with the bitterness she had cultivated and nourished through a lifetime.

There is deep down within each of you a door that can be opened by even a slight hurt or an imagined offense. Behind that door lies a power that none of you is able to restrain. It can be opened by the nagging frustration of a child who cannot be quieted. Suddenly, the door is open, and the child is viciously abused. It is said that 8 out of 10 murders are committed by people who know each other-often by spouses who bear years of hurt and pain.

In most of you it is probably not so dramatic, but it could be worse. It may be that your whole life becomes influenced by that malice. There gets to be an icy or cutting edge to your comments. There is a deliberate spitefulness in your treatment of others. There is a vindictiveness that may wait for years for its opportunity.

Often, you may find yourselves incapable of doing the good you know that you should do-especially at the time you should do it.

Paul says that so clearly in the Epistle: "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you" (Eph. 4:32).

When you have been hurt, you need to do good.

When someone has done you evil, you need to be kind.

When someone lashes out at you because of their hurt, you need to be compassionate and understanding.

That is what Paul meant.

But dear friends. When those situations do arise in your life where you are hurt, or angered, instead of the goodness and kindness with which you would like to respond, do the feelings of malice and hostility work their poison.

How then can you ever do the good?

You have tried to suppress those feelings of anger, to smile, and to put it out of your minds. You have tried with all of your will power to repress those feelings when they surge up, but your efforts are fruitless. Days, weeks, months, or even years later you still remember the wrong, and it still causes you the same feelings of anger or bitterness.

You know. Someone once said, "Scar tissue has no nerve endings. "

Admit it. The hurts and wounds that cause you anger seem never to heal over. Did you know that there is a difference between "remembering" and "recalling." Remembering happens when the event is still with you. Although it is long past, it is still very much a part of your life.

An event that is recalled is like scar tissue. It marks the place where you know something happened, but it is gone. If all of your efforts cannot help you, then how is the good to be done?

First of all, you must stand face to face with God. Like that pastor on the street in front of his enemy's house, you must stand before God, next to your enemies, under His wrath. You must see what just cause He has to destroy His rebellious ~ people. See what anger and wrath He rightly could exercise because of your evil, your ingratitude, your indifference, even your hatred of Him. Each of you must come to the knowledge that your life as you have led it justly stands under God's wrath and judgment. And just what does God do when He is incensed at His creatures and what they do to each other and His world? You can see it in the words of the prophet Hosea.

After God recounted the failings of Israel and vented His anger, He determined to punish them: "Swords will flash in their cities, will destroy the bars of their gates and put an end to their plans" (Hosea 11:6). That is what we would expect of Him because that is what we would do.

But He goes on: "How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused. I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim. For I am God, and not man" (vv. 8-9).

That is the God whom you know in Jesus Christ. Paul bids you to be imitators of Him in the Epistle.

Paul says: He loved you in Christ and sent His Son who "gave himself up for you as a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God" (Eph. 5:2).

This is the God who takes your sin and puts it behind His back or buries it in the depth of the seas, as the psalmist says. This is the one of whom Peter speaks: "When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree" (I Peter 2:23-24).

To be truly free of malice, believe that God did this for you.

Know for certain that Jesus Christ created peace between you and God in that forgiveness He earned for you on Calvary.

Know that He is inviting you to let go of your hurt and pain-and all the just reasons you think you have for it.

Know that through the faith in Christ you have been given by the Holy Spirit, you can triumph over what was previously impossible.

Know deep in your heart that for you personally, Christ Is Risen.