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Profound Mysteries – Ephesians 5:28-33

The first half of Ephesians is deep theology, while the second half goes into the application of this theology, the “walk” as Paul calls it – walking together in unity, humility and gentleness, taking off sin and putting on good works.

In the passage today, Paul has just walked through instructions for living out this theology in the context of marriage – and now he’s going to cycle back into discussion of theology by relating marriage back to our relationship with God.

He does this by introducing the new “mysteries” of the epistle. The first was the mystery of the church gathering together the gentiles as well as Israel into relationship with God.

Here we have two mysteries, directly related. First, the mystery of the communion between husband and wife, making two into one, and the resulting truth that husbands should be loving their wives as they love themselves. After setting the bar so high, at Christ’s sacrificial love for the church, Paul boils it down into maybe a more accessible target. Though it is plenty difficult in and of itself!

We can see it, though, in couples living out the vow of “in sickness and health,” as spouses care for and nurture their ill or dying partner. And Jesus does this for us as well, as Paul points out.

It is vital for a healthy marriage that we come together as one team, because we are one flesh. This outlook, this mystery, sets us up for success when we have conflict in our marriages. To do this, though, does require self-sacrifice – giving up our individual identity and desires in order to attain a new identity, and even new desires. Like so much in Christian life, we must be constantly “dying to live.”

And Paul points out that this is true of our relationship with Christ, and each other, as well – “we are members of his body,” just as “the two shall become one flesh.”

And this is the second half of the mystery, a great mystery, the single Paul calls it, that the marriage relationship, properly undertaken, is the most beautiful picture of God’s love for us that we are likely to see in the world. The very nature of sexual reproduction in some ways exists in order to point the way to Christ.

Both the submission and the love that Paul calls for are facets of the selfless self-giving we are called to when we seek to imitate Christ. It is hard, because of sin, because vulnerability is hard, because conflict is real. But every conflict is an opportunity for a strengthened, more beautiful picture of Christ and the church.

If that concept is attractive but elusive, the first step is meeting God through the Christ who transforms us.

– Sermon Notes, Bart Hodgson, Seed Church, Lynnwood WA, February 7, 2021

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Be Filled with the Spirit – Ephesians 5:17-21

In the passages preceding, Paul has been walking through ways in which we are to “imitate God as dearly loved children.” He has addressed speech, sexuality and deception versus truth so far. Each one has examined both the action and their consequences closely.

Today he addresses two more items. First, drunkenness. The verb is present imperative, implying that this was an ongoing issue – and the result is “debauchery” or “dissipation,” an indulgence in pleasure that ignores the end results. It’s not that alcohol is innately bad – Jesus served up some tasty wine – but we should not be giving it control over us. And it may not be alcohol that does this for us – entrainment, leisure, money, power selfishness. Any of these can lead to bad fruit.

The next part of this command is to be “filled with the Spirit” as an alternative to drunkenness. On the one hand this means that, to begin with, we need to make sure we are connected to the Holy Spirit through the justification offered through the way created by Jesus Christ. But it also means to be open and yielding to the prompting and direction of the Holy Spirit.

The verb again indicates that this is an ongoing command – another tense of “filled” was used by Jesus during the wedding at Cana, to command the filling of jars with wine. So this is not a one time thing but an ongoing, constant filling.

There are then five results from this filing of the Holy Spirit: addressing each other with songs, singing, making melody, giving thanks and submitting to one another. One of the purposes of “psalms, hymns and spiritual songs” is to address each other, as both encouragement and exhortation. Another is to take it to God in our hearts.

Lots of people see singing as a take-or-leave hobby or preference. But God seems to see it as a far more vital piece of our relationship with Him. From the hosts of Israel to Paul and Silas in prison to the people of God into eternity in Revelation, we are created to sing to God.

Next, and related, being filled with the spirit results in giving thanks, even for difficult things.

Then Paul ends this section taking about the result of submitting to one another – a transition to the next section where he will walk through applications in different relationships.

This mutual submission is difficult to navigate in many relationships. But if we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we will be far better equipped to accomplish that navigation. If we are truly filled with the Holy Spirit, the specifics will work themselves out, as the spirit works through us.

So the command, at the end of the day, is to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Everything else flows from that.

– Sermon Notes, Bart Hodgson, Seed Church, Lynnwood WA, January 24, 2021

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Light vs. Deception -Ephesians 5:6-16

In the previous part of the chapter, Paul encouraged the Ephesians to imitate God as children imitate their parents. Our relationship with God should be like that of a family, not a transactional one. He called our two areas where we are to imitate him in particular, in our sexuality and our words – both creative forces that can do great harm if misused.

In the section we’re discussing today, he addresses deception. Deception is a subtle and dangerous thing. If you know you are being deceived, then you really aren’t being deceived at all. It is when you don’t know that you are being deceived – that’s when your are at risk. We can be deceived by others or by ourselves, and once we have been deceived our is difficult to pull ourselves out of it, because we do not want to admit that we were wrong, or that we are gullible.

The Ephesians were dealing with a specific form of deception by a group of gnostics, teaching lies about who Christ is, His relationship with His creation, who we are and how we find a relationship with God. Paul calls these people “sons of disobedience” who were bringing on God’s wrath through their lies about Him.

Paul wants his readers to have nothing to do with those people, because in contrast, they are “children of light” – this echoes the first chapter of John. “In him was life, and the life was the light of men… to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”

He calls us to walk as those children of light – live out the declaration that God has made about us. This is the fifth time in this letter that Paul has used this term to urge Christians to a holy life. And it is this walk that sets us up to combat deception.

One example that is particularly prevalent among us today is fear and anxiety – at the end of the day, these are deceptions, because we know the sovereign God of the universe, and know that he holds all things in His hand.

We have God’s word to guide us – it will not necessarily give us the direct answer in specific circumstances, but by immersing ourselves in the word of God, we better understand His character and better form our desires into His desires.

We are called to use this to first discern what is pleasing to the Lord, and then avoid those things that displease Him. And more than that, to expose them.

In fact, Paul connects the exposure of evil behavior to the salvation offered by Christ. It is the recognition of where we are being deceived that we have the opportunity to change course.

Paul also warns the Ephesians to be wise in how they use their time, “because the days are evil.” This is worth applying to our times, as well, even if the specific evils of the days may be different.

Let us walk in that wisdom and walk in that light this week.

– Sermon Notes, Bart Hodgson, Seed Church, Lynnwood WA, January 17, 2021

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Imitating the Father – Ephesians 6:1-5

In verses 1 & 2, Paul gives a positive encouragement. In the next two verses, he gives direct instructions of what not to do. He then wraps in verse 5 with the explanation of why.

This follows on chapter 4, where Paul describes our life with Christ and each other as a “walk,” in which we bear each other up and support each other with our different gifts, but not walk in the ways of the world – taking off the old ways and putting on the new life we have been given. Instead of lies, we speak truth. Instead of anger forgiveness. Instead of stealing, hard work and generosity. Instead of bitterness and malice, encouragement. God works in us for our sanctification, but we have our part as well.

That’s the context in which Paul gives instruction to imitate God, “as dearly loved children. ” How does it motivate us to behave, in the midst of the awesome, immense love of God. We don’t need to earn His love, but rather return it in our imitative behavior.

That means, per verse 2, we are to “walk in love” in the same way God loves us. That means, like God, we are not here to excuse sin but to give ourselves up to overcome it. The sacrifices we make are like the sacrifices of the Old Testament, “a pleasing aroma” to God. But we must keep in mind what the prophets had to say about sacrifice – meaningless without the heart of love behind them. Our sacrifices, imitating Christ’s, are to unify that heart and action.

Next, within that context, he moves on to the negative prohibition section. But as you go through this, don’t forget that context, the context of the Father’s great love for us.

Paul’s warnings are like the warning labels on medication or cosmetics: “use as directed.” Both sex and speech are great gifts, fundamentally creative acts that, in their own way, are both imitative of God’s creative power – and both have great power to destroy if used improperly. Paul reiterates the Old Testament’s prohibitions on sexual immorality, behavior outside God’s design.

Next, he warns against impurity – something that feels more difficult to avoid these days of graphic TV and an internet that seems entirely obsessed with sex.

And then speech – James writes strongly about the untamable “strong poison” of the tongue. When considering how to use our words, again we should be imitating God. Are our words the words that Christ would use?

Then he comes to the biggest reason for all of us. This sin cuts us off from God. His kingdom cannot contain impurity or immorality. Our response to those things is, we are shown elsewhere in the scripture, directional: “flee from sexual immorality.”

So our part is to reorient our direction when it points away from God, as ever, to confess and repent and return to the arms of the Father to whom we are dearly loved children.

– Sermon Notes, Bart Hodgson, Seed Church, Lynnwood WA, January 10, 2021.

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The Messenger of Love in the Wilderness

We’ve walked through Christ as Hope, Peace and Joy, through the lens of the prophecies foretelling His birth. Today, we look to “the greatest of these,” – the Messiah as Love, the presence of the God who is Himself love, incarnate.

In Matthew 3, we meet John the Baptist in the context of the prophecy in Isaiah of a “voice crying in the wilderness” – a mirror of the story of God bringing the Israelites out of the wilderness and into the promised land. John’s story from the beginning was the same as it is for us – repentance and forgiveness of sins.

There are three key prophecies about this messenger that we will cover in the Old Testament. Isaiah 40 is cited specifically by Matthew.

A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

Isaiah 40:3-5

This return of the presence of God is necessary because the presence of God departed, moving on from the connect point that was the temple as described by Ezekiel in the era of exile. Even though the temple is eventually rebuilt, God’s presence never returns as described in the historical books.

So in Malachi we see another prophecy about a messenger and the return of God to the temple:

Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.

But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the LORD.

Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD as in the days of old and as in former years.

Malachi 3:1-4

We see this in Matthew as well, this difficult teaching and the warning of refining fire from John the Baptist to the Pharisees and Saducees:

Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Matthew 3:10-12

But Malachi has more to say about the messenger who will come before the Messiah:

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.

Malachi 4:5-6

Elijah was a key figure in Jewish history, and was taken up into heaven by a chariot of fire, leading naturally into this notion that he would return. A seat is still set for Elijah at every Passover meal. He and Moses both saw the face of God, and Elijah was seen as the one who restores the Law, as counterpart to Moses who gave the Law. And of course Moses and Elijah are the two who again see God in the person of Jesus Christ during the Transfiguration.

Jesus clearly points to John the Baptist as this return of Elijah – like Elijah, living in the wilderness, like Elijah wracked at times with doubt, like Elijah preaching repentance to those who do not want to hear it.

Immediately after the Transfiguration, Jesus said, “I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they pleased. So also the Son of Man will certainly suffer at their hands.”

God fulfilled these prophecies in ways no one could have expected. Elijah returns as a crazy guy in the desert. The glory returns affixed to one man, voices speaking at Baptism and Transfiguration. And the Lord returns to the temple – first as an infant, dedicated by his earthly parents. Then as a child, speaking with the teachers. Finally, as a “king, riding on a donkey,” before the once for all sacrifice that would reconnect all of lost humanity with the presence of the God who is Love.

What is our response to this? Do we sit around in complacency, or do we center our lives around the presence of God in the person of Christ as John the Baptist did? Do we respond to the message of repentance that John held out? Do we serve as messengers as John did? Do we hold out the difficult truths like he did? Do we prepare the way for Christ like he did?

– Sermon Notes, Bart Hodgson, Seed Church, Lynnwood WA, December 20, 2020

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Lasting Joy from Bethlehem – Micah 5:2-5

At Christmastime we speak and sing a lot about joy. CS Lewis writes about joy this way:

It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

Our passage today is from Micah, a contemporary of Isaiah who was sent to the kings of Judah, while Micah was sent to the common people.

The book of Micah is broken into three sections. Chapters 1-3 are called “The Book of Doom.” Chapters 4-5 are “The Book of Vision,” and chapter 6-7 is “The Book of Judgement and Pardon.”

In the Book of Doom, Micah, like Isaiah preaches about the coming war and Babylonian captivity and preaching against the false prophets who insist that peace will continue.

In The Book of Visions, it echoes Isaiah 2 in foretelling the reign of the Lord – this is where the prophecy about Bethlehem comes. And finally, the Book of Judgement and Pardon is a promise of God’s steadfast love in the midst of judgement. It is where we find the most famous verse in Micah, Micah 6:8 – “He has shown you, oh man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you–to do justly, live mercy and walk humbly with your God.” This admonishment comes in response to those who want the easy way out of ritual and sacrifice in response to God’s judgement.

But back to Micah 5:2-5. He calls out the town of Bethlehem as small and unimportant, but nonetheless the origin of the coming messiah, which Matthew confirms during the story of the Magi who come seeking a prophesied king. But Bethlehem plays a vital role throughout the Old Testament in ways that point ahead to the story of Christmas.

We first come to the area of Bethlehem in Genesis when Jacob’s wife Rachel is buried in that area. In Jeremiah, the prophet speaks of “Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more,” calling ahead to the Slaughter of the Innocents that would come following that story of the Magi. But that chapter also holds the promise of the New Covenant:

I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

We also see Bethlehem in the Book of Ruth – when Ruth and Naomi are redeemed from poverty by Boaz, the “Kinsman Redeemer” in a clear type of Christ.

And Ruth in Bethlehem leads to the birth of David in Bethlehem, Israel’s greatest king, making it the Corsica of Israel. This leads to a number of stories, including when David and his men are holed up near his childhood home and out of water. David’s men scheme to battle their way into Philistine-controlled Bethlehem to get him a drink of water. Upon receiving it, David pours it out as a drink offering – again, a symbol of the coming Christ.

As the hometown of David, Bethlehem is also referenced in other prophecies – Isaiah speaks of the “shoot [that] will come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch will bear fruit from his roots.”

Bethlehem can be translated either “House of Bread” or “House of Flesh”, calling to mind the words of Jesus in John 6: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

This is where our joy is, our lasting joy that Lewis speaks of, the joy prophesied by Micah, Isaiah and Jeremiah, the Savior “whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.”

-Sermon Notes, Bart Hodgson, Seed Church, Lynnwood WA, December 13, 2020

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Mighty God, Prince of Peace – Isaiah 9:1-7

Last week we discussed Christ as our hope. Today we are looking at Christ as our peace. We looked at the “virgin will be with child” prophecy in Isaiah, both its original fulfillment in the destruction of Samaria and Aram by Assyria promised to Ahaz, but also its ultimate fulfillment in the birth of Christ.

In the next Chapter, God warns the people of Judah that they will not be spared the wrath of Assyria. They need to not put their hope in the earthly kingdom, but put their hope in Him. “Do not call conspiracy what they call conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear.” He condemns them for seeking necromancers and mediums.

Then in Isaiah 9, we again hear whispers of the coming messiah. He specifically calls out the area of Zebulon and Naphtali – the first parts of Israel that would have been invaded by Aram. These regions – “Galilee of the gentiles” – are called out as having been in anguish, but God calls them out of their gloom, because a light will dawn.

Matthew calls out this light as the ministry of Jesus, which was centered on the region of Galilee, the area where he did more miracles than anywhere else.

Isaiah promises that this light would bring peace, “as in the day of Midian.” This is a callback to the story of Gideon and his defeat of the Midianites. As in the time of Isaiah, Israel had turned to idols, and as in the time of Isaiah, God used invaders to bring about judgement. But He used Gideon to overthrow those invaders, the Midianites. Gideon, unlike Ahaz, does ask for a sign, and when he gets one (and then another) he recruits an army – from the region of Zebulon & Naphtali. After his whittles down his army to a tiny size, he attacks and routs the Midianites and brings about a peace that Isaiah compares to what is coming, what will make the boots and garb of war fit only for the fire.

And how is that peace going to come about? A child, born. A son, given. The government will be on his shoulders. He will be referred to as Wonderful Counselor – an advisor who is a wonder, a marvel. And as “Mighty God” which is startling in the context of a monotheistic Jewish prophet. All that can be taken from this is that this child to be born is Himself, the creator God. If you were unclear, he follows up with “Father of Eternity” or eternal, everlasting father. Finally, the prince of peace – the peace with God’s and each other given to to us through the reconciliation given to us through the work of Christ.

The greatness and abundance of the kingdom He will bring about, the fulfillment of the promise to David, will never end, achieved by “the zeal of the Lord of hosts.”

This peace promised to Israel is promised to us as well. Charles Spurgeon described this peace:

Look upward, and you will perceive no seat of fiery wrath to shoot devouring flame. Look downward, and you discover no hell, for there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. Look back, and sin is blotted out. Look around, and all things work together for good to them that love God. Look beyond, and glory shineth through the veil of the future, like the sun through a morning’s mist. Look outward, and the stones of the field, and the beasts of the field, are at peace with us. Look inward, and the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keeps our hearts and minds by Christ Jesus.

You can know this peace if you seek after the son who was given, the Mighty God and prince of peace.

– Sermon Notes, Bart Hodgson, Seed Church, Lynnwood WA, November 6, 2020

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The Alma Will Conceive – Isaiah 7

On the road to Emmaus, Jesus explained to two disciples, “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets… what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”

Those passages begin with Genesis 3, in which “the seed of the woman” would destroy the serpent but be injured in the process. Another of those key passages is Isaiah, foretelling the virgin birth – but obviously, today’s Jews do not believe that. Why not?

In fact there are many prophecies that the Jews do not think refer to Christ, and many others that they see Christ as having left unfulfilled.

Isaiah’s prophecy in chapter 7 came in a specific moment, when the kings of Aram and Israel threatened to conquer Judah and set up their own puppet king, outside the line of David. Isaiah warns Ahaz, king of Judah, but tells him not to worry because the invasion will fail. Not only that, but soon both those kingdoms will be destroyed by Assyria. He tells Ahaz to ask for a sign, but Ahaz refuses – so God gives him one anyway.

That sign is that a particular alma or young woman – Isaiah’s wife, specifically – will bear a son, and while he is still young, the prophecy will be fulfilled. This then is fulfilled in chapter 8, when his wife bears a son who he gives a ridiculously long name.

This is the passage referred to in Matthew 1:23, in which the Greek word used is specifically about chaste/unmarried women. The Hebrew word, though, is generally used to mean any young woman, often but not exclusively a virgin per se. Many Jewish and other scholars see this as a mistranslation.

But prophecy is never as straightforward as it seems. Moses was promised the promised land, but not told about the 40 years in the desert. David was promised his family would hold the throne forever, but not told about the Babylonian Captivity or the hundreds of year gap between his kingly line and the birth of Christ, let alone the nature of Christ’s fulfillment of that prophecy.

The prophecies of the Old Testament are often fulfilled by what is called a “dual fulfillment” – a concrete, political fulfillment in the Old Testament, and a universal, spiritual fulfillment in the New.

And it is the latter that matters, because the deeper promise of the prophecy is not the part about the virgin, but the part about “Immanuel”. God with us, in the person of Christ, incarnate and so with us in the

Ultimately, Matthew got it right – the man who called him out of his life as a tax collector, into new life as a servant of God, the man who he desperately wanted to be seen and accepted by his Jewish brothers and sisters – he was born of a virgin, and himself was Immanuel.

– Sermon Notes, Bart Hodgson, Seed Church, Lynnwood WA, November 29, 2020

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Sanctifying Encouragement – Ephesians 4:29-32

The theme of this last part of the chapter is simply “Words are powerful.” Much like in the book of James, which compares words to a fire that consumes, Paul here warns against “corrupting talk.”

Some versions say “unwholesome” “evil speech” or “hateful speech.” The term in Greek is “sapros” which means to be rotten like old foods or rotted like old wood. In the gospels, Jesus uses it to describe bad fruit versus good fruit.

We can look at this concept of words being like rotted timbers and tie it to Paul’s discussion of his words “building up”, and tie that back to the way Paul describes the church as being built up into a holy temple for the Lord.

We as a people need encouragement. We need it because life is hard. We need it because every discouraging word and thought hits with many times the weight of the positive. We need it because we are lonely, sometimes because we really are alone and isolated and sometimes because we are surrounded by people but without real connection. We need it because we are all fighting sin every day.

In Hebrews 3:13, we’re told to encourage one another daily. As we try to walk worthy of the calling, much of that is our responsibility – the discipline of taking off the old and putting on the new. But at the same time, we know it is Christ in us who started the good work of sanctification and will complete it. It’s easy to see sanctification as these two things, but here Paul talks about another key component of sanctification – one another, living in community, living in encouragement. Part of our sanctification comes from one another as we use our powerful words to build each other up.

And when we use those words to do the opposite, Paul tells us it grieves Holy Spirit. This is a call back to Isaiah 63, one of the rare instances of the term Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. “Yet they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. So he turned and became their enemy and he himself fought against them.”

The Holy Spirit is not a force, but a person. He rejoices and he is grieved, specifically when one person he is in and is regenerating harms another with their words.

Instead, we must allow the Holy Spirit to “put away” the bitterness, wrath and slander that we tend toward, and to instead build within us kindness and compassion. But not only to those we love, those we are in community with, but those who have wronged us. Christians are those who have been forgiven, and have so learned to forgive others.

We are warned, in fact, that God will not forgive us unless we forgive others. So let us commit to building the kind of community that God has already made possible. A community based on trust, generosity, encouragement, and blessing to the glory of God.

This is the community Jesus died and rose again to create. If you want a piece of this community, all that is asked is that you repent and believe.

– Sermon Notes, Bart Hodgson, Seed Church, Lynnwood WA, November 22, 2020

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Lies, Anger, Laziness – Ephesians 4:25-28

Paul here is getting to the “application section” of this part, going into specifics of what we should be “taking off” in order to put on Christ. Specifically, don’t lie, don’t be angry, and don’t be lazy.

In each of these, he gives us a negative instruction, then the positive response, and then the reason for it.

The first is to “put away falsehood,” in language that calls back to Zechariah and God’s promise to return to Jerusalem.

This instruction can be confusing when we look at people all across the Old Testament who deceive people constantly and are often commended for it – Rahab, Jael, David, for a few examples. Ultimately, though, this is about motivation – there are rare occasions where a fear of the Lord will make a deception the right thing to do, but clearly deception, broadly speaking, is something God hates. Proverbs is full of clear instruction not to lie, and Revelation puts liars square in the group of people who will be condemned.

It is also about context – Paul is writing about relationships within the body of the church. As John Chrysostom writes,

Will the foot tell a lie, and not report the truth as it is? And what again? If the eye were to spy a serpent or a wild beast, will it lie to the foot? Will it not at once inform it, and the foot thus informed by it refrain from going on? And what again, when neither the foot nor the eye shall know how to distinguish, but all shall depend upon the smelling, as, for example, whether a drug be deadly or not; will the smelling lie to the mouth?

The next instruction is to not sin in our anger. This is a direct reference to Psalm 4, in which David preaches to his enemies. It also echoes James, who asserts “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” There are two different words here, one being anger, in which we must not sin, and “para-anger” or resentment, which we should not let last the day.

This one is a very present temptation, abs can feel overwhelming. We need the power of Christ to change us. Spurgeon said, “only in salvation from sin is there salvation from wrath.”

Next, do not steal, or more broadly, we must not be lazy. But more than that, at must work diligently – in order to be generous. That is the purpose of our diligence and hard work.

Paul in here also gives a parenthetical – all these (perhaps anger in particular) are things we do to avoid giving the devil a foothold, in our lives, in our relationships and in our church. Each of these could be seen as small, mundane instructions, but they are the armor and defense against the attacks against us.

– Sermon Notes, Bart Hodgson, Seed Church, Lynnwood WA, November 15, 2020