Embrace Your Sin to Heal it (Ephesians скачать в хорошем качестве

Embrace Your Sin to Heal it (Ephesians

John D. Rockefeller built the great Standard Oil empire. He was rich and successful, and not surprisingly, demanded high performance from his company executives. One day, one of these executives made a two million dollar mistake—a small little error that cost the company two million dollars. News of this man’s error spread rapidly throughout the executive offices, and they all were scared of Rockefeller’s reaction, and so every executive made himself scarce. They didn’t want to be the one who received the brunt of Rockefeller’s wrath. But one executive had an appointment already scheduled. He couldn’t cancel it. He couldn’t back out. So when the time came, he squared his shoulders, tightened his belt, took a deep breath, and walked into Rockefeller’s office. As he approached the oil monarch’s desk, Rockefeller looked up from the piece of paper he was writing on. “I guess you’ve heard about the two million dollar mistake our friend made,” he said abruptly. “Yes,” said the executive, expecting Rockefeller to explode. “Well, I’ve been sitting here listing all of our friend’s good qualities on this sheet of paper, and I’ve discovered that in the past, he has made this company many more times the amount of money he lost today in his mistake. His good points far outweigh this one human error. So I think we ought to forgive him, don’t you?”[1] (#_ftn1) And that is what happened, the man who made the mistake was forgiven two million dollars. Now that’s a true story. But let’s go a bit further. Let us imagine that this man who made the mistake went home that day, and discovered while going through his paperwork that a neighbor friend of his had forgotten to pay him one thousand dollars. So he calls the friend and demands the thousand dollars immediately. Well, the neighbor had just had some medical problems, and lost his job, and didn’t have the money. This enraged the executive, so he decided to sue the man for the money, and that is what he did. Now let’s say that Rockefeller heard what his executive had done. What do you think Rockefeller would do? We can be certain that he would call this executive into his office, and say something to him along the lines of, “You wicked man! I forgave you the two million dollar mistake that you made, and yet you would not forgive a man one thousand dollars who wasn’t able to pay it back to you. For that, I will now force you to pay back to me the two million dollars which you owe me.” Does this story sound familiar to you? It should. It comes straight out of Matthew 18 and Jesus’ instruction regarding forgiveness. And Jesus says there that if we do not forgive others when they sin against us, we will not be forgiven when we sin against God. In the past couple of weeks, we have been looking at the final section of Ephesians 4, and we have seen four sins which are particularly deadly in the life of the Christian. We looked at lying, anger, stealing and corrupt speech. All of these hinder our love, our fellowship, and our relationships. But Paul is not done. He has one more issue to deal with in Ephesians 4:31-32. And it is a wonderful item to end this list with. In Ephesians 4:29-30, Paul wrote against the sin of speaking evil. Ephesians 4:31 is still about the sin of speaking evil, but Paul transitions to a different topic. So Ephesians 4:31 a hinge verse. Though Paul is still warning against the sins of the tongue, he has specific types of evil speaking in mind, namely, malice and bitterness toward others. He is going to show that instead of speaking with bitterness, it is better to forgive others. As with the previous four sins, this fifth prohibition against sin follows the same pattern. There is first a negative command to not sin. This is found in Ephesians 4:31, where we are told to not speak with bitterness and malice. Then there is a positive command in Ephesians 4:32a, which is to be forgiving instead. Then Paul provides the motivation in Ephesians 4:32b, which is that we should forgive because we have been forgiven by God in Jesus Christ. Let us begin with the negative command in Ephesians 4:31. Negative Command: Don’t be Bitter (Ephesians 4:31) Ephesians 4:31. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. Paul lists several aspects of bitterness here. First, he lists bitterness itself. Bitterness is spite that keeps a record of wrongs and develops a general attitude of resentment. Bitterness is revealed in jealous anger, and sarcastic, biting remarks about other people. Do you have lists of wrong things people have done to you or said to you? If so, you are bitter and need to confess this before God. Then he mentions wrath. The word here is thumon. It’s a stirring of the emotions which ultimately results in a verbal explosion. Wrath is sort of the inward feeling of wanting revenge on someone. Anger is similar, but tends to be more active and out...