Don't Grieve the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30)

record in me. Here we go. All right, we're in. Okay, today, so we did uh in our Bible study last night, uh we did Acts chapter 7, which is a long chapter, and it's uh it's basically a a condensed history lesson of of the Old Testament. So, but one of the things that that uh Jared keed on last night was the was the phrase of grieving the Holy Spirit. And I remember the first time that I read that. I I I couldn't remember where it was in the New Testament. I mean, I know today, but but I didn't know then. And it was um uh and for me, I didn't really know what that meant.

It it seemed I don't know. It just seemed it's just like language we wouldn't use today. Like grieving the Holy Spirit. What does that mean to grieve the Holy Spirit? Am I supposed to feel sorry for the Holy Spirit? I mean, I didn't I could I couldn't really And then what does it mean if if I it just I didn't it never made any sense to me. And so so I got clarification and so I want to share that uh not today, but I've known it for a while, but I think it's a good thing for us to talk about. So the the grieving the Holy Spirit is really mentioned about four or five times in the Bible in prominently, but the one we're going to talk about today is is in Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 30.

And so this is Paul and his letter to the church at Ephesus. And these are really teaching letters. The the letter to the church at Ephesus is not a correction letter. It's not a Corinthians 2 or it's it's it's a it's a it's a cor it's a teaching letter. He's he's encouraging them. And so in this he he talks about grieving the Holy Spirit. And so let me read the text and he says, ' And do not grieve the starts with the word and. So he's he's he's in the middle of something. Uh and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

So what is all right, Dwayne, what does grieving the Holy Spirit means? So grieving the Holy Spirit means let's put it in, you know, in my maybe younger generation vernacular, it means doing the Holy Spirit dirty. It means it means not being godly. The Holy Spirit has come to live inside of you. This isn't a mis this isn't something that you kind of try and have to wrap your head around and how did I do this or what is this some mystical magical moment in my in my week last week where I grieved the whole no it has nothing to do with that at all and in fact this verse starts off with the word and and Paul is in the middle of explaining how we grieve the Holy Spirit and it's by using our mouth it's either in the speech we use or or who we're talking to and about how we're doing it.

Verse, this is verse 30. Verse 25 talks, says, "Put away falsehood. Speak truth to your neighbor." Verse 26 and 7 says, "Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. Let the verse 28, let the thief work honestly and have something to share." Verse 29, no corrupt talk, only what builds up and gives grace to those who hear it. And then we get to verse 30. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit. And so what Paul is saying, all of these things grieve the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit wants us to walk in righteousness. He wants us to walk in truth.

Does it mean we're going to be successful every day? No. And that's where the second part of this verse comes in, which is to me one of the most important pieces. And it says by the Holy Spirit, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. So what does that mean? A seal in the Old Testament did three things. Physical seal number one is it marked ownership. It mean meant you were owned. You were sealed. You were owned. We are owned. We were bought and paid for with a price. Christ did that on Calvary. So we're we are owned. We were sealed.

We were owned. That's the first thing it does. The second thing it does is it considers you as genuine. You are an heir to the throne. You are a genuine son or daughter of Christ. You are an heir. You are godly. And the third thing that a seal did was it guaranteed that whatever was inside was going to be okay and be protected until it reached its destination. Those were the three things a seal did. until it reached its destination. Until the day of redemption. You were sealed for the day of redemption. And when you look at the word, it's past tense.

So what does that mean? That means that it's done. You are sealed. It that that work has been completed and it's it's done. And it's not until you mess up again. It's not until I I I I I slipped up and I and I gossiped. It's not I cussed out my wife and I shouldn't have or my daughter or I I gave the guy driving next to me the bird because he cut me off. It doesn't say you were sealed until that moment. It says you were sealed until the day of redemption. And so Paul is saying that that uh that you have to be good or the Holy Spirit is going to go.

That's not what he's saying. What he's saying is the Holy Spirit's never going anywhere. So why on earth are you treating him this way? He's there to love you, to protect you, to guide you, to instruct you. But listen, you got to stop falsehood and speak and speak only truth to your neighbor. You It's okay to be angry. You just can't let it rule your entire day. Look, you stole in the past. We get it. Everybody has sinned. But now go do something good with your hands and share it. Stop talking dirty and nasty. No slander, no anger, no malice. Stop that stuff.

Be kind. Be tender-hearted. uh God forgave you, forgive others. And so that's how we treat the Holy Spirit because he's living inside of us. He's he's got I used to do this when I did some men's group is I said, I want you to picture that there's a go People had this naturally have this hard time because God is this invisible thing and we can't see him. We didn't get to wake up this morning and pat him on the back or the butt and say, "Hey, thanks Lord for waking me up today." Right? He's not there. And so we sometimes we have this hard time putting that association together.

And so I would say I want you to strap a GoPro camera to your chest. And then I want you to imagine that that's a live stream and it's going to your grandmother. Is your language going to change? Are your actions going to change? And the reason why I do that is not because your grandmother's a deity, and I'm not trying to replace God, but I'm trying to say is if you put that association together, God sees everything. Grandma doesn't, but you would for sure change your language if you knew you had a GoPro and grandma had on some headphones and she was listening to your speech all day long.

Well, that's the Holy Spirit and he lives inside of us and he hears and watches and sees everything that we do. And so when Paul talks about don't grieve the Holy Spirit, this is what he's talking about. It's not mystical and magical. It's our actions. It's what we use with our with our mouths. All right, that was a little longer than most. Thoughts, comments, questions. Um, I'll say something quick because I haven't I don't know acts very much and good morning everyone. But as you're saying, don't grieve the Holy Spirit. How you started is like, are we supposed to feel bad and grieve for him?

But no, it's the other way around is don't cause the Holy Spirit grief because we've been blessed with this. We've been blessed with this gift. Why cause him God, the Holy Spirit with grief by corrupt language, corrupt acts by not as you said. So it's completely the other way around. Correct. Flip the script. That's the way to interpret it. It's Amen. Thank you, Dave. Thank you. Thank you. I I missed that point. And that is a super huge valid point. When it says don't grieve the Holy Spirit, it it's don't hurt him. Yeah. Don't cause him to grief.

Don't cause him to grief because he grieavves when he sees us doing this. It It hurts him. It's painful. He doesn't want that. He loves us. Yeah. Anybody else? Thank you, Davis. Excellent. No problem. Thank you. Anyone else? Yeah, I like that a lot. Um I like verse 29 a lot. Don't let any unh wholesome talk come out of your mouth, but only what is helpful for building others up, which is much easier said than done. I always engage in that in the past and uh but it's nice now to have that conviction feeling from the Holy Spirit whenever I do engage in it.

Um and then also this goes perfectly along with the verse a day from the Bible app which is one second sorry that's okay. The tongue has the power of life and death and those who love it will eat its fruit. Yep. Amen. Yeah. And it's so true. And and and Mark, so you know, we we get these euphemisms in our culture and and you know, uh misery loves company and and where does that come from, right? So rather than build somebody up, let me be miserable with them, you know, and that that it's the opposite of what Christ behavior is. Anybody else? Real quick, 30 seconds.

Yeah. This is where um I I think it's so important the the the prayer group in the morning and everything that you share with us, what God gives you to share with us because it gives us that strength because we start our morning probably maybe uh making the Holy Spirit mad and then all of a sudden now we get a word through the Holy Spirit that gives us the strength to stay on point, to stay focused and to know who we are. Amen. All right. Thanks, Jimmy. Appreciate it. All right. Well, let's uh let's no one else let's bow our heads. Let's pray out.

And remember, if you're here for the first time, uh we're not here tomorrow. Uh we're here on on Monday again, Monday through Thursday. And everyone, please share the channel, share the website, share the YouTube channel. Let's let's try and get as as many people as we can to come in here and and start their day with Christ. So, all right, let's bow our heads. Father, thank you so much for today. Thank you. Uh just for the reminder in Ephesians that Paul gives to us that that I know Jimmy used the word we make the Holy Spirit bad, but it's not m he's not he's not and I know that's not what Jimmy meant.

He's not I know Lord I know you're not angry with us. I would maybe even replace it with the word disappointed or he's hurt and and we hurt him because he he just as a parent loves a child and doesn't want the child to do something that's going to hurt them. And we can see that we we we we feel hurt for that. And and that's how the Holy Spirit feels for us. And so, so how do we correct that? How do we change that? Well, we we we walk righteously. We we we we do everything in our power to walk that, Father. But we know that we can't do that in our own that that we have to rely on you for that.

We have to surrender to that. Uh not just rely, we have to we have to give up oursel. We have to die to oursel every morning, Lord, that we can live uh for you. And so, Father, I pray that that we would tie these together. That we would we would every day uh continue to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. That that this this uh this process that would just continue that we would continue to develop in gold. That we would we would just continue to start chipping away this the stone that's around our heart that it would become full and complete and and soft.

Father, I just pray for that. Pray for each one of us for that. I pray for those that are on this call uh that they are starting their day with you. Lord, watch over us this weekend. Guide us. Uh we know your Holy Spirit came to teach us and guide us in all things. We just have to listen. We just have to communicate. We just have to talk. And we have to remember that Holy Spirit, you're with us every every second of the day. Father, we love you for who you are and what you do in our lives. Um Father, give us the strength and courage to just continue to put you first.

We love you. We praise you. And in your son, Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. All right. See some of you Sunday. See everyone back on Monday. You guys have a great day. Bye guys. Have a great day. Have a good weekend.

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly edited for readability.