Awesome. Well, welcome again to uh Church of the Grove. We're so glad that you're here with us this morning. If I haven't had the chance to meet you, my name is Nathan. I'm one of the pastors here, and uh we're just thrilled that you're spending part of your Sunday morning with us. And uh you joined us on a great Sunday as we are continuing our series called Rules of Engagement, where we're dealing with uh just uh relationships and just how to interact with one another. It's been a great series so far. We got a few more weeks to go, but um man, great first service, and it's just great to be in the room again together for this service. Um, and so I'm just praying that the Lord uh works and moves in our lives as we meet with Him. And so uh confession, uh a few weeks ago, um I had had one of those days uh where you kind of wake up late, um, you don't really feel the best, maybe, uh, you've got a headache, you go to work, you kind of have a long day, it's not necessarily how you wanted the day to unfold, and you come home and like there's already this kind of short-tempered kind of mentality where you're just kind of on the breaking point. And I came home, Caitlin was with the kids all day long, and um there was an issue with one of our kids, and um she was frustrated, and as a result, I became frustrated, and Caitlin said something to me, and it wasn't what she said, it was just how she said it that just I felt attacked. And and as a result, I I did what every great like pastor and leader and Christian would do. Like I responded with just the most hurtful thing I could possibly think of in that moment. Um, something that um I'm ashamed to even say out loud, but you know, I knew, I knew before those words even came on my lips, I knew that it was going to hurt the person that I cared about the most, but yet I said them anyway. And exactly what I said when I said them, I immediately regretted them, they immediately hurt. She left the room, she was upset, and uh there was an apology that came quickly thereafter. Um but there's this idea that even though I love Jesus and I still have this practice of hurting people, I hurt people with my words and with my actions, and I wish that I could tell you this was just a one-time event and that it was something that happened very uh rarely. But sadly, when I feel threatened or tired or disrespected or misunderstood, I oftentimes can respond in a way that doesn't necessarily please the world. My mouth is often the first place that my old self shows up. And Jesus said this in Luke chapter 6, verse 45, the end of that verse, he says, For his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. And what it shows us is that what comes out of our mouth, what not just our mouth, but with our actions, what comes out, what's the fruit of our lives, ultimately determines what is the inward reality of our lives. And so if I'm someone that can spew hate or I can say hurtful or mean things to other people, that's pointing to a deeper root issue in my life. It's something that's deeply rooted, that's wickedness that's in my heart that's coming out. And I'm sure that no one else in the room struggles with this. I'm sure that you guys all have it figured out. But if we could just for a moment take off the mask and we could pretend to be honest, I know that's really hard in church to be honest, but if we could be honest in church for a moment, I think that this is something that we all struggle with. We all have had things said to us, we have all done things to others that have hurt the people that we care the most about. We can't necessarily control how people relate to us, but we can control the unhealthy patterns of our lives and the negative ways that we respond. We can respond with defensiveness, or we can make a simple comment and we can make it into a courtroom drama. We can respond with sarcasm when someone says something to us, we have a sharp kind of comment to come back at them, and we just disguise it as just kidding, as if it's not reality behind the comment that was made. We can shut down for some of us and we can leave, we can be physically in the room, but emotionally we are not present because we have shut down from everyone else. For others, it's yelling. It's getting louder and louder, and the louder you become, the more right you become in your head. We can become passive where we can count camouflage our conflict, and we can have anger, but it's disguised with a smile. We can rehearse arguments in our head to try to prove our point over the other person's point. We can bring up the past like an archaeologist digging up old bones to prove that we are right and the other person is wrong. The ancient proverb, I think, is correct. Proverbs 18, 21, that says, Death and life are in the power of the tongue. Spiritual maturity, sadly, in our world, in our culture today, in the American church, spiritual maturity has been pushed towards how much information you have retained. So it's all about the Bible studies you've attended, it's all about the verses that you have memorized, it's all about the information, but not necessarily the transformation. And as a result, we've got a lot of people in our churches today that got a lot of information in their minds, but they're failing to actually live the information out. James tells us that if we do not, if we hear, but we do not practice, if we do not do be doers of the word, then we're deceiving ourselves. But the sad reality is that's how most of us, I think, live our lives. We know some of the things that the scriptures tell us. We sit in church services like this, and we hear someone preach or teach, and they're telling us these are the things, these are the commands that God has called us to live by, and yet we fail to live by them. We hear, but we don't actually do. And this is seen so clearly in the way that we respond to one another, especially in our speech and the habits of communication that we have with one another. And so this is what I want us to talk about this morning in a really practical message, but super challenging. A changed heart produces changed speech because what's in you eventually becomes out of you. A changed heart produces changed speech because what's in you eventually comes out of you. And so, Holy Spirit, would you come now? Lord, would you speak to us? We don't need a message from a man, we need a message from you. And so, Lord, would you break down um the walls of our hearts and our minds to be able to just hear from you this morning? Lord, that you would just even supernaturally in this moment, Lord, as we talk about a subject that is um difficult for us to live out, um, Lord, would you even bring to mind um people, relationships, issues, struggles, sins of our lives, Lord, that just would become very clear to us so that we can bring those things to you for healing. And so, Holy Spirit, would you come now? Um, work in our hearts like only you can. And it's in your name we pray. Amen. So, if uh you are just joining us, like I said, we're in the middle of this series called Rules of Engagement, and we're talking about the relational components that we have with one another. And so we talked about how our identity, everything has to be rooted in our identity in Christ. That's first and foremost. Second week, we talked about humility, how the healthy relationships are gonna be based in, founded in humility. And then last week we talked about how we need to engage in relationships for our growth, not just for our comfort. And today we're talking about this idea of truth and grace, that we need to have a rule of engaging with one another in truth and in grace. And so I'm gonna read uh the passage all together, and then we'll kind of come back and break it down. But we're gonna be in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 17. It will be on the screen behind me if you don't have a Bible this morning. Um, but before I jump in, just want to say this caveat. I'll say this in the first service, too. This is just kind of a thought that hit me this week. Like, the words I'm about to read are the words of God. Like, this isn't just some man-made letter, but this is inspired by the Holy Spirit through the person of Paul to write these words to us so we would read them today. This is God speaking to us. And this is what he says. Verse 17. Therefore I say this and testify in the Lord, you should no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thoughts. They are darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, and because of the hardness of their hearts. They became callous and gave themselves over to promiscuity for the practice of every kind of impurity, with the desire for more and more. But that is not how you came to know Christ. Assuming you heard about him and were taught by him as the truth is in Jesus, take off your former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires, to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, the one created according to God's likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth. Verse twenty-five. Therefore, putting away lying, speaking the truth, each one to his neighbor, because we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin. Don't let the sun go down on your anger, and don't give the devil an opportunity. Let the thief no longer steal. Instead, he is to do honest work with his own hands, so that he has something to share with anyone in need. No foul language should come from your mouth, but only what is good for building up someone in need, so that it gives grace to those who hear. And don't grieve the God's Holy Spirit. You were sealed by him for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, anger, wrath, shouting, and slander be removed from you, along with all malice, and be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ. And so this is God's word for us this morning. And I want us to see, kind of break this down together, what Paul is telling us here as he's speaking to this church in Ephesus, and he's telling us what the new life should look like in Christ. Now remember, Paul is speaking to a group of people that have already been changed by Jesus. They've turned and put their faith and their trust in Jesus, and as a result, there's a transformation that has taken place. Everything that Paul's going to tell us to do in this passage is not given to us so that we can earn God's acceptance or approval, but rather we use this new operating system because we have been accepted and approved by God. So we've got to understand that. Everything is rooted in our identity in Christ. It is not about trying to behave a certain way to earn, but rather we now behave a certain way because of what God has done within us. He has accepted us and transformed us. So the first thing we see in the first couple of verses here, verses 17 through 19, is that the old life numbs you before it destroys you. It says in verse 17, again, therefore I say this and testify in the Lord, you should no longer walk as the Gentiles do. These are the unbelievers, the people that are separated from God. Because they're walking, how? In the futility of their thoughts. They are darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, and because of the hardness of their hearts. They became callous and gave themselves over to promiscuity for the practice of every kind of impurity with the desire for more and more. So he's speaking to the city of Ephesus. The city of Ephesus was a very pagan city. It was not your Bible-belt, quiet little town, but a major coastal city. It had tremendous amounts of wealth. It was cosmopolitan. It was sexually permissive. The temple of Artemis was here, and it blended sex and spirituality together. And people were fueled by their fleshly desires. There was this constant need for them to gain honor and shame others and protect power and to crush their opponents. They didn't have a respect or an honoring of one another, and they had great appetites without any restraints. And so Paul is speaking to a world and a culture that quite honestly doesn't sound much different from the world that we live in today. He's speaking to a pagan kind of nation and city, and he's telling them, hey, you're not to be, if you're a follower of Jesus, you are not to be like the Gentiles. You are not to be like those that have made their lives all about how they can get ahead and how they can be successful, but rather you're to be different. He uses a few interesting words here. He uses the phrase hardness of their hearts. It's this numbness of repeatedly saying no to the things of God. You're no longer to walk in that way. He says, futility of the mind, which is a mind that is turned away from God, unable to arrive at the right conclusions. He talks about a callousness. It's this picture of scar tissue, this losing the ability to feel moral pain. And he's saying, hey guys, you no longer walk like that. You've been called to be different. And now what he's setting up for us, though, is a very important understanding for us to have. He's saying to us that if we make it a repeated process and pattern in our lives of saying no to what God's commands are and walking away from what he has told us to do and rebelling and going our own direction, it's setting up a hardness of heart. There's a callousness that begins to develop in our lives. And so he's saying, hey guys, you don't walk like that anymore. You're not walking in that manner because that manner leads to destruction, but instead you're to walk in the new way, the new way of life. He continues that in verse 22. But that is not how you came to know Christ. Assuming you heard about him and were taught by him as the truth is in Jesus, to take off your former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires, to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and to put on the new self, the one created according to God's likeness and righteousness and purity of the truth. So the gospel, the message of Jesus, the gospel calls for replacement, not just renovation. What he's saying here is to take off the former way of life. This is an ancient word picture that they would have immediately picked up on. It's this picture, the Greek verb here is to literally take off clothing. In other words, what Paul is saying here is this isn't something you accessorize, this is something that you remove. We oftentimes will treat sin as a bad habit that we try to manage. But Paul is saying, no, it's like a garment that you strip off. You aren't trying to remove just a few bad behaviors from your life. You're removing the old self. The grammar here is a very decisive action. It's a definitive break with the past, not a slow attempt to become slightly better over time, but rather become the person that Christ has called you to become. What Christ has done in you must now shape who you are. So we aren't renovating the old self, but we're completely replacing it. And he tells us that the way that we replace this is by the renewing of our minds. He says, Paul is saying God hasn't just given us a list of rules to obey, but he's giving us a new operating system. He's giving us something that's internal before it's external. Before we can live this out externally, there has to be an internal change for us to believe what is indeed true. This is not a one-time action, it's an ongoing decision. And that's what makes us realign our hearts and our minds to focus on what is true. And this is why it's so, so important for us to be people that are constantly renewing our minds so we know what is true. Because you will be so easily fooled into believing things that are contrary to God's word if we're not renewing our minds consistently. And when we do this, what will it look like? Well, it will look like you taking off what you were wearing and putting on the new self, which is going to be revealed in your words, in your reactions, in your tones, in the way you respond to those that are around you. Because remember, out of an overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. And so what Paul is saying here, and we're going to get dive into more practical messages in a second, but what Paul is saying here is that the new self has a new mouth. It gives us four ways that the spirit replaces the old patterns, the old self, with new ones. And that's what I want us to look at this morning. So those verses right there that we just read, that's kind of Paul laying the theological foundation for the practical application that he's about to give us. This is now how we walk out this truth. So we've removed the old self, we're putting on the new self, and this is what the new self looks like. There's four replacements that reshape our relationships. The first one is this we move from lies to truth. Verse 25, therefore, putting away lying, speaking the truth, each one to his own neighbor, because we are members of one another. So Paul starts with truth. In a city like Ephesus, truth was not a virtue. It was countercultural in a lot of ways. Ephesus was a place where people lived in image and in advantage. They had this wealthy, status-driven society where your reputation was your currency. And so you would oftentimes shift blame and protect honor to make yourself look better than you really were. You would know how to spin a story in a certain way. And your words were really tools to help you get ahead in the culture that you were a part of. Everything was built around you protecting your identity. Lying was the norm because honestly, it doesn't feel much different from the culture that we live in today, right? In the world that we live in today, oftentimes people will not think twice about lying or at least not living in truth, because it's a way for them to get ahead or for people to think better of themselves, of them. And oftentimes it's not a bold-faced lie, although it is at times. Oftentimes it's more respectable in nature. Where we have selective or half-truths. We don't tell the complete truth, we just tell a slightly varied version of it. Maybe it's strategic silence where you know that there's something that needs to be said, but you don't say it. Maybe it's exaggeration where you can say things in a way that makes it sound better or not as bad as it might have been. We can play the victim, we can frame things in such a way to make things look better than they really are. Lying is a form of manipulation in order to protect ourselves. But it always damages the greater community. Paul is saying here that we don't want to manipulate people or the outcomes or people's perception of us. We are to be the people that live in the truth. This is what we're called to do. He is saying that we are speaking the truth because we are members of one another. The church is not just a crowd of people that gather on a Sunday morning. The church is the body of Christ. And it cannot be healthy if the bodies are lying to one another. We cannot be feeding lies to one another. Lies don't just hurt the relationship, but they poison the whole community. Truth isn't just for our personal integrity, it's for our whole family's health. I have a dear friend of mine that will oftentimes say this. He didn't want me to quote him, but he said, uh level of intimacy is only as deep as our level of integrity. The reason that we can be close with one another is because we walk in the truth, but if we walk in lies, then the intimacy has been broken, right? We can't be as close as maybe we want to be because there's something that is breaking that intimacy with one another. And I think that this is one of the major issues in our lives today, where we've we've just settled on lies. We've allowed lies to play out. We haven't operated in the truth, and as a result, the closeness and the relationships that we have with one another have been broken down. Because we're swimming in a culture that is all about curating images, right? There's all these false versions of ourselves that we can push out on social media in order to gain more respect and honor from others. It's a form of like brand management on our part, where lying can just be a way for us to kind of get ahead or make ourselves seem better than we really are. But that's not what we're called to do. We're called to walk in the truth. We can be very careful to share the narrative in such a way to make us look right and justified. We have been trained in our world and our culture today to never show weakness. And so, therefore, put paint the best picture of yourself that you possibly can to make people feel. And think that you're stronger than you actually are. But Paul is telling us, God is telling us this morning that we need to be people of truth. He's calling us into something deeper than just facts. It's about a new community where we don't protect our image, but we protect the unity. Lies protect my image, but truth protects the good of the community. And this isn't just true in the church. This is true in all of your relationships. This is true in your marriage. This is true with your relationship with your kids. Lies will always protect you, but harm you in the end, really. But truth is something that protects the greater good, the greater of the people around us. And this again is why we have to be so rooted in our identity in Christ. Because if you understand first and foremost who you are in Christ, that you have been adopted, that you are loved, that you are a son or a daughter of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, that you have been forgiven of all of your sins, past, present, and future, then you can live in the truth. Because the safety net is there, right? The Father is holding you in your hand, in his hands, and so as a result, you can walk in the truth. You don't have to portray a lie. So we need to be rooted in that. We need to be people walking in the truth, not walking in the old self, which is lies. He continues in verse 26. He says, Be angry and do not sin. Don't let the sun go down on your anger, and don't give the devil an opportunity. So we have to move from unresolved anger to self-control and repair. To self-control and repair. Paul moves from the truth to anger because anger is one of the quickest ways the old self oftentimes shows up in our relationships. In hanging out and being around men, I especially see this: that anger is something that can quickly come out of us. And Paul's not saying don't be angry. He doesn't say that. In fact, he says, be angry. He's being honest with us here. He's saying that there are things that are broken in this world that we should be angry about. There is injustice and abuse and lies and neglect and sin. And even Jesus himself was someone that got angry. So the issue is not that we would never feel anger, but it's that we would handle anger properly. See, anger is a valid emotion, but it's a very dangerous driver in our lives. And it can consume us. Like any emotion, anger is a signal light. It often shows and points to something deeper things going on into our souls, but it can never be a steering wheel for our lives. It's like the illustration goes where if anger was fire, fire is a good thing when in the context of building a fire in the fireplace of your home. But you take that fire and you put it in the middle of your living room, and it is a terrible, terrible thing. The whole thing falls apart. The real danger is not anger, but it's the unresolved anger. And that's why Paul is saying, hey, don't let the sun go down on your anger. And I don't think that it's this literal message of like, hey, you cannot go to sleep without anger, you know, being in your lives. I think that's a pretty good practice to have. But rather, it's really this idea of not letting anger set up residency in your heart. Unresolved anger always mutates into something that is far worse: resentment, bitterness, contempt, where you can become hard-hearted to the things that the Lord has for you. Unresolved anger is spiritual real estate leased to the enemy. And this is so dangerous. Because unresolved anger in your life gives the enemy, Satan himself, a foothold and an opportunity in your life. You are quite literally giving him permission to work in your life. And this is sad because of who we are in Christ, because of our identity in him, because the Holy Spirit now resides within all believers, we have complete and total authority. The enemy has no power over me. However, I can willingly give the enemy power over me. And this is one of the ways that we do that. This is why James 1, 19 says, My dear brothers and sisters, understand this. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger. For human anger doesn't accomplish God's righteousness. So how do we resolve anger? Will we name it before it names us? We slow down, we move towards repair very quickly. We talk to the person, not about the person. Just want to say that one again? We talk to the person, not about the person. We refuse to operate in the old self. We don't practice yelling and sarcasm and silent treatment and passive aggressiveness and bringing up the past. But rather we walk in a humility, in an attitude of reconciliation and repair. He goes on to say that we move from tearing down to building up. Look what it says in verse 29. No foul language should come from your mouth, but only what is good for building up someone in need, so that it gives grace to those who hear. So now Paul's getting very specific about our words again. And again, I know I've mentioned this verse several times, but out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. And so the old self uses words to damage. The new self uses words to develop. And what he's saying here is this foul language, some would say your translations might say something a little different, like unwholesome talk come from your mouth. But this foul language or unwholesome talk is more than just saying cuss words. This is cutting sarcasm. It's the off-color joke. It's the harsh labels that we maybe speak to other people saying, you never do this or you always do that. It's public shaming, it's venting when we feel justified that leaves damage behind us. It can be prayer requests that are that are rooted in gossip, right? That's just fueling and feeding gossip in disguise. When we speak these ways, it's the old self that is coming to the surface. And Paul's calling us to a new way. It's a new way of living. There's three filters here, three questions that you can ask yourself when it comes to mature speech. First is this will this strengthen them or shrink them? Is this something that's going to strengthen the person I'm talking about or talking to, or is it going to shrink them down? Is this for their need or my release? Is this about me or is it about them? Will my words heal and build or bruise and break? The old self, our words would be used as weapons, but in the new self, our words are used as tools that are building other people up because that's exactly what grace does. And again, I'm going to say it again. I'm just going to keep beating this drum here. This is why it's so important for us to be rooted in our identity in Christ. Because if we're rooted in our identity in Christ, I don't have to tear other people down to make myself feel better. And listen, this is something that I struggle with, all right? I mean, like, just quite honestly, like just putting it all out on the table, like, like, like I get frustrated. Like I get jealous. Um, I see other churches in our community and around the world, and I know we're all on the same team, and I know we're all playing by the same handbook and we're all trying to reach people for the glory of God. Like, I get that. But their church is bigger than mine. Like they're they seem more successful than I do. And I can very easily say things like, well, yeah, but like they're not preaching the truth. Or they're not doing this. Or not, and what is that? It's showing an insecurity in my life. I'm not secure in my identity and who God's called me to be. And rather, I'm trying to tear somebody else down to make me feel better. This happens in all of our relationships. This happens is in marriages. This happens with our kids. We feel better when we can tear other people down. That's why we have to be rooted in our identity so that we can live out the new self and not fall victim to the old self, the old ways. Verse 31. He says, Let all bitterness, anger, and wrath, shouting and slander be removed from you, along with all malice, and be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ. So we move from bitterness to forgiveness. We briefly hit on bitterness just a moment ago, but Paul is circling around to this idea again, and he's not asking us to manage built bitterness, but he's calling us to remove it from our lives. Much like we would take off the old clothes and put on the new clothes of forgiveness. This is uh the replacement for bitterness, isn't that you would just be a little bit nicer, but it's that you're new. And the new way of living is kindness and compassion and forgiveness. And this is supernatural in nature. This is supernatural to have the power and the strength of the Holy Spirit with you to be able to forgive those that have wronged you. But we don't ever forgive people because they deserve it. We don't forgive only because they've taken ownership of their actions. We don't forgive only because they've apologized correctly. And we certainly don't apologize and act like it wasn't a big deal. We forgive, it says, because you are forgiven. We forgive because God also forgave you in Christ. And this is this is a huge message for the modern American believer church, people in church to hear. This is something that we oftentimes fail to practice. We feel like we have to hold on to something. I was talking to a guy after the service, last service, and he was like, hey, I feel like if I forgive somebody, then I'm gonna let them off the hook. That I'm going to I'm going to enable their behavior going forward. And I said, Well, that's not your place. Because remember, this is what it says in Matthew chapter 6, verse 14. It won't be on the screen. But Jesus said these words, for if you forgive others their offenses, your heavenly father will forgive you as well. Verse 15, but if you don't forgive others, your father will not forgive your offenses. That's not Nathan's words, that's not Paul's words. Those are those are literally in red in my Bible. They are Jesus' words. Christian forgiveness is not pretending that sin didn't happen, it's refusing to make someone pay a debt you've decided to release because Jesus has paid your debt. Forgiveness is giving up my right to getting even and entrusting justice to God. See, bitterness is the old self. Forgiveness is the new self. And we are told over and over in this passage to remove the old self and put on the new self. We do these things because we have been made new. We are no longer victim to the old way of life because of Jesus. Because of Jesus, we are new creations and we operate with that new operating system. We don't do this perfectly. We mess up over and over again, but our heart's desire is to please and obey our Father's words. And this isn't just Paul giving us some good advice. This isn't just, you know, here's ten ways to help improve your relationships. It definitely is some of that. It's not just Paul, though, giving a TED talk on emotionally healthy relationships. What Paul says in verse 30 is striking. He says, and don't grieve God's Holy Spirit. You were sealed by him for the day of redemption. And so what he's saying here is when we don't operate out of the new self, when we are still operating from the old self, when we've got unresolved anger and we're seeking to tear down others instead of building them up, when we're allowing bitterness to take root in our hearts, then we are opening the door to not only the enemy working in our lives, but we are also grieving the Holy Spirit. The word grieve means to cause sorrow, to cause pain, to make someone sad at a very deep level, but it's more than just an emotional word, it's a relational word. You can't grieve someone who doesn't love you. You only grieve someone who's close enough to care. And so Paul is saying, we grieve the Holy Spirit. He's reminding us that the Spirit is not a force, not a vibe, not an it, but the Holy Spirit is God, present with God's people, and he is personally invested in what kind of people we're becoming. And it grieves the Holy Spirit when you and I continue to walk in our old selves. It grieves him when our words and actions tear down the community around us. It grieves him when we don't walk in the truth. It grieves him when our speech isn't associated with grace. It grieves him to see the brokenness that's among our relationships. And this message in this series is not just about how you can have healthier conversations and relationships, that's part of it. But it really comes down to this: it's honoring the Holy Spirit in ways, with the ways we treat people he loves and the church he's building. It's about us honoring God with our lives and doing the things that He's called us to do. Like I said at the beginning of this message, this is not Nathan's words, this is not good advice, but this is a command from God Himself. And we've got a lot of people that are very content with hearing the message, but they fail to actually live it out. They've been deceived into thinking there's spiritual maturity there, but yet they've failed to actually live that out because they've still been walking in the old ways and not striving to be part of the new self and putting on the new self and the new way of life. And so this morning, I don't know as we've talked through this passage, I don't know what maybe the Holy Spirit is bringing to your mind. Is there a relationship that is broken? Are there areas where you're putting on the new self? Are there areas where you're not putting on the new self? Maybe you just can identify a pattern that you have where you are interrupting or defensive or sarcastic or you've got a harsh tone, or you're somebody that practices the silent treatment or exaggeration or keeping score or the truth that's without love. And this morning, the Holy Spirit is speaking to us, and he wants us to be people that put on the new self, that practice honest, practice honesty with clarity, where we don't try to have self-image management, where we practice same day repair, where we don't let the sun go down on our anger, where we give words that give grace, where we practice forgiveness as a decision before it's ever a feeling, where we're quick to listen and slow to speak and slow to anger. And just imagine, just imagine with me for a moment if we lived out of this way, if we put took off the old self and put on the new self, imagine what that would do in your marriages. Imagine what that would do with your friendships and relationships. Imagine what that would do to your parenting and your church family when truth replaced image protection and repair replaced resentment and grace replaced harshness and forgiveness replaced bitterness. This is what we're called to. Because ultimately a changed heart produces a changed speech because what's in you eventually comes out of you. And so, Holy Spirit, we thank you for, we just thank you for the word of God. We thank you so much, Lord, that you're someone that still speaks to us today. And Lord, I know that I am the first one to freely admit that I oftentimes will re revert to the old self. I I lose sight of my identity in you, and I will try to perform my way, to look apart. I will try to push other people down so I can feel more special and valued myself. Lord, but this morning it's just a renewal of taking off the old self and putting on the new self. It's not a one-time decision, it's a constant practice that we have to make in our lives. And so, Holy Spirit, right now, Lord, I pray that you would just convict our hearts where we have fallen short. Not in a um, not in condemnation, but Lord, for our betterment. Lord, that we would know the areas of our lives where we've settled for the old self and we've failed to walk in the new way of life, Lord. Would you just make that very clear to us right now? Maybe there's people here this morning that have been walking in lies and not in the truth. Others that have been tearing people down with their words or speech or actions. Maybe there's just unforgiveness that you've harbored in your life. And you just, it's so hard for you to give up that unforgiveness that you're holding on to. And it's just become a root of bitterness in your life. And this morning the Holy Spirit is just gently and ever so firmly saying, Turn that over to me. And so in a minute, we're gonna respond to the Lord and just as sing this song, just really as a prayer to make us more like Jesus. But this is a moment for us to respond to ever how the Lord is speaking to us today. Maybe you're here this morning and you don't have a relationship with Jesus. You're still walking in the old self and you need a transformation to take place. We'd love to talk to you about that. And so this morning is just an opportunity for us to respond to the Lord and what the Holy Spirit is speaking to us. We have people up front that would love to pray for you and with you. You can sit at your chair, you can move around the room, whatever you need to do, to just be obedient to what the Lord is calling you to do. And so, Lord Jesus, Holy Spirit, would you come now? And in your name we pray. Amen.