Ron Dunn Podcast - Grieve Not The Spirit

Episode Date: January 18, 2023

Ron Dunn continues from Ephesians with a message on grieving the Holy Spirit

Now I want us to open our Bibles to Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4, and I'm going to begin reading with verse 25 and read through verse 32. Ephesians chapter 4, verses 25 through 32. We'll begin reading in verse 25 and read through verse 32 in verse 30 is the key verse of this passage wherefore putting away lying speak every man truth with his neighbor for we are members one of another be angry and sin not let not the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use

of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not, or literally stop grieving, the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice, and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. The magnitude of a crime is determined not only by the crime itself, but also by the dignity of the person against which that crime is committed. Now, every day in our country, there are a great many crimes. People are murdered every day, but you don't hear about it. But I never will forget, back in 63, was it,

when President Kennedy was assassinated, everything seemed to stop. Flags flew at half-mast, television stations and radio stations preempted their regular programming, and the whole world turned aside because one man had been murdered. Now, you cannot evaluate the magnitude of that murder

just by the murder itself. The person who was murdered has a great deal with determining just how horrible a crime that was. Now, it's one thing for me to come up after the service and punch Ward Walker in the nose, but it would be another thing for me to come up and to punch an elderly lady in the nose. That would be much worse. You see, so often we put sin all into the same category, and we treat it very lightly and flippantly. But the magnitude of an offense is determined not only by the offense itself,

but also by the dignity of the person against which that offense is committed. And many of us in this place tonight are guilty of a crime against the Holy Spirit. Paul says to these Ephesian Christians, stop grieving the Holy Spirit of God, and the dignity of that person determines the magnitude of that sin. It is one thing for me to do something that would grieve you, or to hurt you, to pain you, to cause you to sorrow. It is one thing for me to do something that would grieve you, or to hurt you, to pain you, to cause you to sorrow. It is another thing for me to do something that would grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Now, this is a tremendous responsibility that is placed upon the Christian. Have you ever considered the fact that you have the power, you have the ability to grieve the Holy Spirit

of God, the same Spirit of God that brooded over the face of the waters at creation, the same Holy Spirit of God that brought about the birth of Jesus Christ in the body of Mary, the same Holy Spirit of God that quickened the lifeless body of Jesus and caused him to be raised from the dead. That same Holy Spirit of God, the breath of God, the very nature of God, that when at conversion

takes up residence in my own life, I have the ability, I have the power to grieve that Spirit of God. I can cause him pain and I have the power to grieve that Spirit of God. I can cause him pain, and I can put him to sorrow. I never read that passage in the Gospels where Jesus is weeping over Jerusalem, but that I don't think how horrible those people must have been to cause the Master to weep. I can imagine, or rather I cannot imagine,

how Simon Peter must have felt after he had denied his Lord. When he walked out and he saw Jesus and their eyes met and not a word passed between them, but the scriptures say that Jesus looked upon him and the pained look in the eyes of the Savior was so severe that it caused Peter to go out and weep bitterly. We wouldn't think, we wouldn't think of doing anything that would cause Jesus Christ to weep, to cause him to be sorrowful and to hurt him and to put him to pain. But the truth of the matter

is many of us every day of our lives, some of us right now at this present moment are causing pain and grief to come to the Holy Spirit of God. Now, as one person has said, grieve is a love word. You cannot grieve a person who hates you. You can anger them. You can irritate them, but you can't grieve them. You can only grieve someone who loves you. And love makes anybody vulnerable. And this is one of the most amazing things about God. When he loved us, he made himself vulnerable because I can hurt somebody that loves me. And somebody whom I love can hurt me. Now, if I don't love that person, they can irritate me, they can make me angry, they can make me fighting mad, but they can't grieve and

sadden my heart. But when I love someone and give my love to that person, it makes me vulnerable. I'm exposed to pain and sorrow and hurt. And when God loves us, he exposes himself to pain and sorrow and hurt. And this is what Paul is saying to these Ephesian Christians. Stop grieving. You see, they were already doing it. Stop grieving the Holy Spirit of God. Now, when you grieve the Spirit of God, this means that you have done something that is opposite to his nature. You have done something that is a hindrance to what he wants to do in your life. You remember not long ago I spoke on Wednesday night about quenching the Holy Spirit. I think these are the two most common sins that you and I as believers commit against the Holy Spirit. One is quenching the Spirit, and the other is grieving the Spirit. Now, we quench

the Holy Spirit when we say no to him, when he tries to lead us to witness to someone, or when he tries to lead us to do something for someone else, when he tries to lead us into a path of service, and we resist him, and we say no to the Spirit, I will not obey, I will not do what you want me to do, we quench him then. We smother him. We're not allowing him to use us in his service. We quench the Spirit by saying no to the Spirit, and we grieve the Spirit when we say yes to sin. When we say yes to sin. When we quench the Spirit, we are prohibiting the Spirit from using us in his service. And we are forbidding him to exhibit his power in our life. When we grieve the Spirit, this is more of a private thing.

And this hinders not the Spirit's public ministry. It doesn't mean that the Spirit of God cannot use us in his service, but it means that he cannot produce his fruit in our private lives. It means that there's no joy, there's no peace, there's no growth in faith, there's no growth in Christlikeness, because we have grieved, we have saddened the Holy Spirit of God. And as a result, you lose the joy of your salvation. Have you ever been in a home where someone has grieved, we have saddened the Holy Spirit of God. And as a result, you lose the joy of your salvation. Have you ever been in a home where someone is grieved? I go into a great many homes where death has come and taken away a loved one, and grief and sorrow and hurt hangs over that home like a dark cloud. There's no joking there. There's no laughter. Oh, once in a while there'll be an

effort on the part of someone to smile or to make a feeble attempt to laugh, but there's no laughter. Oh, once in a while there'll be an effort on the part of someone to smile or to make a feeble attempt to laugh, but there's no real laughter. I hate to be in a home where a member of that family has been grieved. I hate to be in that home. I remember when I was a child on occasions where one of my parents was grieved, perhaps the death of my grandmother or the death of my grandfather when I was just a little child, unable to understand much of what was going on. But there was grief in that home, and nobody had to tell me that something was wrong. Nobody had to tell me when I walked into that house from school that something bad had happened

because there was gloom and grief and despair there. Nothing had happened to me. But yet one member of that family had been grieved, and I shared in that grief, and I felt it. Now the Spirit of God dwells in me, and my body is his home. It's his dwelling place. When he is grieved, it expresses itself in my own attitude, my own disposition. I cannot experience the joy of the Lord, and I cannot feel the joy of my salvation as long as the Holy Spirit of God has been grieved, for when he is saddened, then this affects the way I live. This is why when David sinned and when he was praying for forgiveness of his sins and for restoration in Psalm 51, he said,

Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. For you see, grieving the Spirit and losing the joy of your salvation are Siamese twins. They always go together. And if you're not happy in the Lord tonight, if you have lost the joy of your salvation, you need to look at your own life. It is probably because you have done something to grieve the Holy Spirit, because you see, it is the Spirit who produces this joy in our lives in the first place. But not only do we lose the joy of our salvation when we grieve the Spirit of God, I believe we also lose the assurance of our salvation. I want you to notice that 30th verse.

Paul says, And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption. One of the ministries of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer is to give him assurance of his salvation. It is the Spirit of God that seals us unto the day of redemption. He is the seal, the pledge of assurance. How do I know I'm saved? How do I really know I'm saved? I know I'm saved, the Bible says, by the witness of the Holy Spirit. First John chapter 5 verse 10, he that believeth on him hath walked. The witness within himself. First John chapter 3 and verse 24 says, we know that we are in him because of the spirit which he hath given us. It is the spirit

of God dwelling in me that produces assurance in my life. Romans chapter 8 says that the Holy Spirit of God witnesses with our spirit that we are the children of God. It says the same thing in Galatians chapter 4. All right, the assurance of my salvation comes, is produced by the Holy Spirit within me. When that spirit is grieved, he is not able then to produce his ministry in my life. Therefore, I doubt my salvation. The minute you begin to doubt your salvation, you ought to look to see if perhaps you have not grieved the Holy Spirit of God. I talk to a number of people every week that have this same problem. Sometimes it's an intellectual problem,

but most of the time it is a spiritual problem. I know in my own experience, when I, as a teenager, would get away from God, would lose my fellowship with God and backslide into the world, one of the first reactions to that was I would lose the assurance of my salvation.

I just wouldn't know. I just wouldn't know. It's so important that the Christian is careful not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Well, how do you grieve the Spirit of God? What are those things that I can do that cause the Holy Spirit to be grieved? I think we have these things in verses 25 through 32. You'll notice the first word of that verse 30 is a little conjunction and. Now that means that he's connecting this command up with everything else that's gone in this passage. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God. That verse is not to be isolated. It is not to be cut off from its context.

We grieve the Holy Spirit of God by doing those things that Paul has mentioned in verses 25 and 32. Now, we're going to go through these very briefly, and you'll notice that there is both a negative and a positive. For every don't, there is a do. You grieve the Holy Spirit by doing some things that are wrong and you grieve the holy spirit by not doing the positive notice he says in verse 25 wherefore putting away lying that's the negative but there's a positive speak every man truth with his neighbor

you grieve the spirit of god not only by lying but also when you're not speaking the truth with every neighbor notice in verse 29 let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth. That's the negative. But here's the positive, that which is good to the use of edifying. I grieve the Spirit of God when I don't use my tongue to speak good things about people and to speak words that build people up. If I remain silent, if I am not a witness, I still grieve the Holy Spirit. Notice in verse 31, that's the negative. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. Verse 32 is the positive.

And be you kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. So you see, there is a negative and there is a positive. For every don't, there is a do. And you grieve the Spirit by both of those things. Now there's one other characteristic of these things that I want to mention before we look at them briefly. It's this. You'll notice that without exception, every single thing he mentions has to do with our relationship to other people. This is another one of those things that I worry about sometimes that the Lord keeps drawing me to and keeps having me to preach to you and I get to wondering if

maybe we're not overdoing it because everywhere I look it seems that in the Bible this same characteristic emerges rises to the surface I can't get away from the fact that the Bible has so much to say about my relationship to other people. And here again, every single one of these things has to do with my relationship to you and has to do with your relationship to me. All right, notice verse 25, wherefore putting away lying. Now remember, he's speaking to Christians. Christians lie one to another in gossip, in criticism, by exaggerating, by withholding part of the truth. Lying.

Put away lying one to another. Verse 26, be ye angry and sin not. It is possible for a Christian to lose his, not lose his temper, but to be angry and not sin. There are some things we ought to be angry at. Jesus was angry at some things. Jesus was angry at sin. He was angry at unrighteousness, but it didn't cause him not sin. There are some things we ought to be angry at. Jesus was angry at some things. Jesus was angry at sin. He was angry at unrighteousness, but it didn't cause him to sin. But you grieve the Spirit of God when you sin through anger. Now, we'll see more about this

as we get farther on down into the passage. Verse 28, let him that stole steal no more. Well, now, let's just wait a minute. I thought he was writing to Christians. You mean to tell me that there are members of this church at Ephesus that steal? Yes. And there are members of MacArthur Boulevard Baptist Church that steal, that take things that do not belong to us. Let him that stole steal no more.

Verse 29, let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth. Filthy language. Slang, they call it. God calls it corrupt communication. You grieve the Holy Spirit of God by using some of the language that you use. Children use it. Teenagers use it. Mostly because they hear it from their parents.

Corrupt communication. You can't witness to a fellow that you've just spoken to with corrupt communication. There's just no possible way you can do it. James says a fountain cannot bring forth sweet water and bitter at the same time. And he says with the same tongue that you bless God with, you also curse man. He said, brethren, these things ought not so to be. I wonder what kind of language you use.

What kind of language do you use at school when you're by yourself, when you're talking with some other friends? What kind of language do you use? It grieves the Spirit of God, this corrupt communication. Now look in verse 31. Let all bitterness... Now this 31st verse deals completely with my disposition, my attitude towards my fellow Christian. And there is a graduation here, and this is what

I want you to notice this. It starts out with bitterness. It increases to wrath. That increases to anger. That increases to clamor. That increases to evil speaking. And all of this is done with malice. So we need to understand first of all what malice is. Malice is the foundation upon which everything else in verse 31 is built.

Malice is a spiteful disposition. Malice is a spiteful disposition. Malice is a spiteful disposition. Malice is that disposition that gets a kick out of seeing something bad happen to somebody you don't particularly care for. Now, if you don't care for the pastor, that means you get a kick out of seeing me flub the dub up here preaching. If that means that you wish you had been elected president of the class or had been elected president of this organization or that organization, you have a spiteful disposition about it, that means that you enjoy seeing the person who was elected fail and you'll do anything you can to get them to fail, and you certainly won't help. What a foundation to build a

life upon, but that's the very foundation that some of us build our lives upon, is this kind of disposition where we are at enmity with somebody, and so we have a spiteful disposition. We'll not say anything good about them, and if we have the opportunity, we'll say something bad about them, and we'll enjoy it very much, whether secretly or publicly. That's beside the point. We'll enjoy it very much when things go wrong in their life and in their service. So that's the foundation. Now let's back up to see the first one in verse 31. He says, let all bitterness. Now, bitterness has to do with your frame of mind. It means your mental attitude, and the word literally means resentment that broods.

It's a brooding type of resentment. You may not say anything about it at first. You may not express it in actions or in words, but it's longstanding resentment. Longstanding resentment, brooding. Now, this always graduates into irritation. That's what the word wrath means, irritation. You become irritated with somebody. You resent them for something they have done or something they have not done or something you thought they did or something they didn't do you think they should have done, and you resent them,

and this is your frame of mind, this is your mental attitude towards this person. And it graduates into irritation every time you hear their names. Something boils inside. You don't even like to see them do anything. And when you have to be brought face-to-face with them, this irritation mounts. It's a frame of mind, bitterness. Now this graduates into anger. Anger is losing your temper. Anger is losing your temper. Anger is openly expressing the frame of mind. And it is impossible for you

to have a vicious disposition towards someone and to have this bitter, resentful frame of mind towards them without it eventually expressing itself in something you do or something you say. And that always graduates into clamor. Now that is the violent outbreak. This is the violent outbreak, and then that graduates into evil speaking. Evil speaking. Did you know that if every person here tonight were filled with the Holy Spirit and was right with God, there would be no evil speaking? That means some of us wouldn't have a thing to say. This word, evil speaking, literally means to speak down, to speak down.

A lot of times we will excuse ourselves from gossiping because we'll call it constructive criticism. I've always wondered how you can give constructive criticism to somebody that's not present. Well, we call it constructive criticism. Well, I have discovered what constructive criticism is. Constructive criticism is when you're talking somebody up. Destructive criticism, vicious gossip, is when you're talking somebody down. Now, you can talk about me behind my back all you want to as long as you talk me up.

But I wish you wouldn't talk me down behind my back. This is the way to evaluate what you say about other people. Are you talking them up or are you talking them down? In the eyes of this person to whom you're speaking, are you lifting this person or are you dragging them down? Now this word has another connotation. It always means done behind the person's back. It has a cowardly aspect to it.

All of us, one time or another, have been guilty of gossip. I think there's nothing that makes me so ashamed of the times that I've indulged in this sin as to realize that it is a cowardly sin. For it means that I do not have the guts to go to that person face to face and tell them what I think.

It's a cowardly sin. Now, this grieves the Spirit of God. Now, that is the negative, and that grieves the Spirit of God. Now, the positive is in verse 32, and be of kind one to another. Now, that'll destroy the bitter frame of mind. That'll help take away the wrath. That will help dissolve the malice. Be a kind one to another, tenderhearted. Now notice that next phrase, forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. You remember Jesus told a parable about a man who owed his master a great deal of money. Do you know how much he owed that man?

He owed that man a million dollars. When you figure it all up, put it into our money today, that's how much he owed his master. He owed him a million dollars. His master came to him one day and grabbed him by the throat and he says, you pay me what you owe me or I'm going to throw you into prison.

And the man fell on his knees and he said, I cannot pay you. I beg of you to have mercy on me. And so the master forgave him that enormous debt, a million dollars. Well, the servant was very happy and very relieved.

Wouldn't you be relieved tonight if all of a sudden every debt you owe were just obliterated? Wouldn't that make you feel good? I can see that servant as he walks out of his master's house, maybe his feet's not even touching the ground half the time. He feels so light, that burden of debt taken off him. And then he meets a fellow servant. That fellow servant owes him 10 cents. And he grabs him by the neck and he says, you pay me what you owe me. And his friend

falls on his knees and says, I cannot pay you what I owe you. Please have mercy. And he will not. And he casts him into debtor's prison. And his master hears about it and brings judgment upon him. Now, every one of us, every person sitting in this place tonight has owed God an enormous unpayable debt. I've crucified his own son and yet God graciously forgave me. And then how small, how marble-hearted, how hateful, how hellish my heart is when I go out and find someone that has injured me

or someone that I do not agree with or someone that has wronged me, and yet I will not forgive them. I will not let it pass. I will not let it go. And this bitter frame of mind and this foundation of viciousness and spitefulness, I keep building upon and building upon. He says, forgiving one another.

How? Even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. Grieve not the Spirit of God. Grieve not the Spirit of God. Grieve not the Spirit of God. Some of us are grieving the Holy Spirit tonight. That's why you're so unhappy.

The most miserable person tonight is that person that I've described in these verses. Contemporous, argumentative, can't be pleased, just so filled with himself. He's grieving the Spirit of God.

A member of the family is grieved, and he's lost the joy of his salvation. The Ron Dunn Podcast is available only for personal edification, not to be duplicated, uploaded to the web, or resold without prior written consent. It is managed and operated by Sherwood Baptist Church. If you would like to listen to additional Ron Dunn messages, visit sherwoodbaptist.net slash bookstore and search Ron Dunn. For more Ron Dunn materials, including sermon outlines, devotions, and scanned pages from a study Bible, please visit rondunn.com.