Dressed for Success: It’s Personal – That’s Why!

(Ephesians 4:30)

Paul does an intriguing thing in Ephesians 4:30. He stops right in the

middle of this section where he has been talking about dressing for success
– giving little vignettes describing what old life conduct we should jettison,
what new conduct we should put on and why – he stops right in the middle
of that and says this, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom
you were sealed for the day of redemption.” Out of the blue -- he just
plops down that comment. Why? Why does he do that – and does it
connect with what comes before or what comes after? Let me give you the
answers and then we will unpack the verse. The reason for this comment is
that while he has been giving reasons for conduct changes all along – this
is the major one. This is the incentive of all incentives. This overrides all
else. And it connects both with what comes before and what comes after.
In a nutshell here is the motive for living a Christian life. The question is –
why live a Christian life? And the answer is – it’s personal, that’s why.

Motivation is a powerful force, is it not? Bob Kuechenberg, one of the all-

time great offensive linemen in the history of the Miami Dolphins football
team (1970-1985), once made a very practical choice about whether or not
to go to college. In a Newsweek magazine interview he said, "My father and
uncle were human cannonballs in carnivals. My father told me, ’Go to
college, or be a cannonball.’ Then one day my uncle came out of the
cannon, missed the net and hit the Ferris wheel. I decided to go to college."

Motivation! Question -- What motivates people to be good – to live by the

golden rule, let’s say. The answer for most people -- that’s how I am going
to get to God. In every religious faith of which I am aware – that is the
incentive. I have to be good to reach God. But the Christian faith turns that
idea of its head. Christianity teaches you can’t possibly get to God by being
good. You’ve taken on Mission Impossible when you do that. But the
good news is tho you can’t reach God, He has reached you. Jesus died for
you. Simply confess your sins and eternal life is yours. Holy living is not to
get salvation – it is a response to the fact that you already have salvation. It
is the result of a relationship – not the way to earn a relationship. So – if
we’re not working for our salvation, why not just drain this life dry of all it
has to offer and then move on to the next? Paul’s answer is Ephesians 4:30.

I. Personal Relationship
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30)
And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for
the day of redemption.” Here is the great differentiator of Christianity.
Keeping a code of ethics is a religion. Christianity is not a religion. It is
a relationship. All the ethical systems and religions will tell you not to lie,
they will tell you always to speak the truth, don’t lose your temper; they
will tell you not to steal, they will tell you not to use bad language or any
kind of corrupt communication, to be kind and good, helpful and
philanthropic. The content is the same. But with them, it is do that to reach
God; with Paul is it do that because God reached you. Good works for the
sake of morality are useless. It’s a dead end street.

Paul’s appeal is not “Do this because this is our code.” His appeal is much
higher – “Do this – so you do not grieve your Savior. Our incentive is not
some code of conduct, but a desire not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God.

What is dramatically illustrated here is the personality of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is not an “it” – a mere power or the force. He is a person
just as much as the Father and Son are persons. At various points in
Scripture, we are told that He regenerates (John 3:5), intercedes (Rom
8:26), bears witness with our spirit (Rom 8:17), teaches (John 14:26), can
be lied to (Acts 5:3) and has feelings (Rom 8:27), intellect (I Cor 2:11) and
will (I Cor 12:11). No wonder He can be grieved! He is a person.

The word “grieve” means “to hurt.” It is used, for example, in John 21:17
where Jesus confronts Peter after the resurrection. Three times Jesus asks
Peter, “Do you love me?” – a legitimate question given Peter’s curse-filled
denial of Jesus a few days earlier. But by the third time we are told, “Peter
was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and
he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”
Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.” Peter was hurt; he was crushed and
heartbroken that the Lord found it necessary to keep asking this question.
And Beloved, it is within our power to similarly grieve, hurt, crush the very
Holy Spirit of God. Do you see? You say, We can break the heart of God?
Oh, yes. In fact, the greater the heart – the more it can be hurt, right? We
can grieve the blessed Holy Spirit within and break His holy heart. Our
incentive to right living is not to say that we kept some code of conduct,
like the Ten Commandments; our incentive is to please rather than grieve
the blessed Holy Spirit within.

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The story is told of a Persian monarch who lived in the splendor, living and
comfort of the royal palace. Yet his concern for the common people
frequently drove him to dress as a poor man, leave the palace, and mingle
with the lowliest of his subjects. One day he visited a fireman, whose job
was to heat the water in the bathhouse. Dressed in tattered clothes, the shah
sat with the fireman on a pile of ashes, tending the fire. At lunchtime, the
fireman shared his humble meal of coarse bread and water with his guest.
Eventually, the shah left, but he returned again and again, his heart filled
with sympathy for the lonely man. The fireman opened his heart to his kind,
compassionate friend. Finally, the shah revealed his true identity to his
friend. He then asked the poor fireman to name a gift he could give him. To
his surprise, the man said nothing. Thinking he had not understood him,
the shah offered to make the fireman rich, elevate him to the nobility, or
make him ruler over a city. But he replied, “My lord, I understood you. But
leaving your palace to sit here with me, partake of my humble food, and
listen to the troubles of my heart—even you could give me no more
precious gift than that. You may have given rich gifts to others, but to me
you gave yourself. I only ask that you never withdraw your friendship
from me.” That, Beloved, is the motivation to Christian living. We would
not want to do anything to grieve the one who has given so much.

There are 27 personal pronouns in Psalm 23, but none greater than the very
first statement. “The Lord is my Shepherd.” But you must understand the
Hebrew mentality to really get this. The passage literally reads, “Yahweh is
my shepherd.” Yahweh – a word the Jewish people reverenced so much
they would not even say the word out loud. But here is David saying that
One – that exalted One -- Yahweh is my shepherd. My shepherd! This was
shocking intimacy to the Hebrew mind. The Lord – My shepherd? It’s
personal. That monosyllable “my” makes all the difference. We can say,
“That’s a beautiful baby.” Very different from saying, “That’s my baby.”
One thing to drive down a nice neighborhood and say that’s a nice house.
Another to see an open door, lights on, dinner ready and know it is Your
house. Our motivation to Christian living is that personal relationship with
the One that we would never want to grieve. A husband who is faithful to
his wife – is he motivated by what someone might say, or is he motivated
by the desire never to do anything that would hurt or grieve or pain her?
You know the answer. It’s personal. It’s the relationship.

II. Perfect Reminder

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A second motivation to godly living is that we have a perfect reminder.
We have a standard – a measure – and that measure is perfection. You say
where do you get that? Well – look again at our text, “And do not grieve
the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of
redemption.” The word order in the original is the giveaway here. It
literally reads, “And do not grieve the Spirit – the Holy One of God.” The
word holy is emphasized. He is reminding us that the one living inside of
us is holy. The only way not to grieve Him is to live a holy life – one that is
consistent with His being. Peter says it well in I Peter 1:15-16, 15) but as he
who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16) since it is
written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” There is our motivation and
our standard all rolled into one. And -- He is living inside of us – a constant
reminder of this imperative. What grieves Him is sin. And to me the
passage shows two kinds of sins – sins of action and sins of attitude – put
another way, sins on the outside, and sins on the inside.

A. Acts of Sin

If one looks backward from verse 30, we see several things we are to put
off, which if we have not put off would grieve the Holy Spirit within. These
are lying, unrighteous anger, stealing and unwholesome speech. Three of
the four involve speech. It cannot be overemphasized that what comes out
of our mouth defines us. I have to be the first in line to confess that I grieve
the Holy Spirit within me every day with my speech. But the point is that
our actions – all of them – need to conform to the holy standard who is
living within or we leave Him heartbroken.

There is one other place in the Bible that speaks of grieving the Spirit of
God and it is instructive. Turn with me to Isaiah 63. Beginning in verse 7
God recounts His steadfast love toward Israel. The verse 9, “In all their
affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them; in his
love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them
all the days of old.” Concerning Israel’s ancestors God is saying, “When
they hurt – I hurt.” Do you see how personal this is? Do you see that it’s
not a code of ethics we live up to, but a God who hurts when we hurt.

But what did Israel do? “10) But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit;
therefore he turned to be their enemy, and himself fought against them.”
Having been rescued and redeemed by Yahweh – by God Himself, they
soon went after other gods, chased after the world in rebellion, In the
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process, they caused pain to this One who had shared their grief. They
grieved the Spirit of the God who redeemed them. They broke His heart
and forced His hand against them as He sought to bring them back.

When we sin, we do not violate some code – we violate the person of God
and grieve His holy heart. Sin is not some abstract, impersonal activity – it
is personal! It is rebellion against a God who loves us with an everlasting
love. Our words and our actions violate that love and pain the very heart
of God. This is what makes sin so bad – at root it is betrayal of God’s love.

On March 15, 44 B.C. Julius Caesar was at the heights of his power. No
conqueror in Rome had ever been so successful, nor ever would be. His
natural talents and abilities were without limit; his influence almost
universal. When he asked for less power, he had been made dictator for 10
consecutive years – but always refusing the title of king. Naturally, there
were those who resented his power, who were jealous of his influence and
who only wanted him gone. So on that fateful day he entered the Senate
against the advice of some friends and particularly his wife who had
experienced troubling dreams. He was encouraged by his young friend,
Brutus. His advice, “Don’t be bothered by the dreams of a woman.” Of
course, he went, was approached by a group of senators with a petition who
then struck with deadly force. Caesar struggled to free himself. According
to Roman historians, he continued to struggle -- until he saw his friend
Brutus among the assassins. Whether he actually said, “Ettu, Tu, Brute?”
(You too, Brutus) as suggested by Shakespeare is debatable. But all agree
that upon seeing Brutus, he pulled his toga over his head and fell to the
ground. The betrayal – more painful than the attack. Our sin – similarly,
is not against a code. It violates and betrays the very person who has
redeemed us, Beloved. Sinful actions grieve the Holy Spirit within.

B. Attitudes of Sin

Eph 4:30 reads, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you
were sealed for the day of redemption.” Now – with that in mind, take a
quick look at what follows. We are told that bitterness, wrath and anger
have to go. And what stands out about those is that they are attitudes as
opposed to actions. They may result in action, but in and of themselves,
they are attitudes. So – it is not just actions that may grieve the divine
resident in our life but attitudes as well. Now – it’s very personal.

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No outward code would ever attempt to limit what goes on inside a person.
This instruction goes where no code has gone or can go. One man cannot
see the thoughts and intents and attitudes of another; so he cannot hope to
regulate them by a code. But in a key verse in Scripture – I Sam 16:7, “For
the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but
the Lord looks on the heart.” The Holy Spirit doesn’t just dwell within –
He knows everything that is going on within. So – when we are thinking
that our thought life doesn’t hurt anyone, that it’s okay to entertain any
bitter, vengeful, angry, lustful, pride-filled unforgiving thought we want –
when we are thinking that, Paul is advising -- our undisciplined thought life
is not only hurting us – it is grieving the very Holy Spirit of God. I say it
reverently, He is figuratively shedding tears over you even while we are in
the middle of our private orgy of hidden pleasures – plotting revenge,
recounting to ourselves how we have been wronged, wallowing in self-pity,
resorting for comfort to the exotic appeals of sensuality – He is shedding
tears over us. He loves us so much that He is grieved. It’s very personal,
Beloved. It’s a matter of the heart. The appeal of Christianity goes where
no human code could ever dare to go.

This is why Jesus’ re-interpretation of the law in Matthew 5 is so

devastatingly personal. It’s not have you killed someone, but do you have
murder in your heart. It’s not have you brought an offering to the Lord, but
did you do so while harboring ill-will toward your brother or sister. It’s not
a question of keeping an oath, but a question of whether or not the truth
resides within you. It’s not have you been sexually unfaithful, but have you
lusted after another in your heart.

I read one time about a somewhat paranoid New Yorker. He put not one,
not two, not three but six locks on his door. Six locks attached to his front
door. The brilliance of the scheme was that he would only lock three of the
locks, leaving the other three open. His strategy was that should any thief
try to pick those locks, at any given time he would actually be locking at
least three of the locks! No one was going to get into his home that he
didn’t want. No one!

Many of us treat our “inside” life that same way. It is our private domain.
What goes on there is between us and us – no one else’s business. No one
is getting hurt. I can think what I want. And we forget, you can’t lock the
Holy Spirit out – He’s already in! You can’t fool Him. And just as He is
pleased or grieved by outward actions, so He is pleased or He is grieved
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by inward attitudes. You see, when we belong to God there is no secret
life; there is no keeping the code outwardly while violating it inwardly.
The attitude counts as much as the action. The Holy Spirit within knows
ALL. Surely we do not want to grieve this One whose intimacy extends all
the way to the center of our being. Change comes inside out. He is our
perfect reminder.

III.Perfect Redemption

The final motive to living right that we find in this passage is that we have a
perfect redemption. Let’s look at our verse again, “And do not grieve the
Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”
Follow me closely here. The words, “do not grieve” are present tense
meaning do not make a habit or lifestyle of grieving the Holy Spirit. They
do not suggest that we would never grieve the Holy Spirit – that would be
sinless perfection and that “ain’t gonna happen” in this life. But we can
have a pattern of holiness attach to our lives.

Then comes the incentive clause -- by whom you were sealed for the day of
redemption. “Were sealed” is in the Greek aorist tense. Single point in
time action. One and done! Once for all, when we accepted Christ as Lord,
the Holy Spirit was given as a guarantee of our final redemption. He
never, ever goes away. Hang with me a moment longer here. Redemption
comes in two parts. Ephesians 1:7 says, “7) In him we have redemption
through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches
of his grace,” There is a sense in which we already have redemption.
When we accept Christ as Savior and Lord, we are freed from the power of
sin. But you’ve probably noticed -- sin didn’t go away totally yet. It still
tempts us; it entices us and sometimes we yield. But there is coming a yet
future day of redemption – the day when Christ will destroy, Satan, sin and
evil – a day when our redemption will be complete. Meantime, the Holy
Spirit inside is a down payment – an absolute guarantee that we will be
fully redeemed from both the power and presence of sin. We have His
seal on it; it is an ironclad commitment. And his point is twofold; if you’re
going to be freed from the presence of sin eventually, why not live that way
now – and how could you stand to grieve the very One who is your
guarantee of salvation?

We forget so easily what a stupendous thing it is to be freed from slavery to

sin. Beloved – it’s the biggest thing in life. It’s like the Marine Corp
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corporal who was going through inspection one day. The commander
stopped to chat with him for a bit. “How long have you been in the
Marines?” he asked. “Two years, eight months, and 24 days, sir,” the
corporal responded. “Do you plan on reenlisting?” “No, sir.” “What are
you going to do after discharge?” “Cartwheels and handstands, sir.”
That’s how we should feel about being redeemed from the pit of slavery to
sin and the day is coming when we will be freed from its presence forever.
Meantime, we ought to be joyously living to please the One who has made
this all possible – doing everything in our power and in His not to break His
holy heart but to conform to His holy expectations because He provides
perfect redemption. What a God!

Conclusion

Why would I want to live a holy life? Why would I want to live in a godly
way that people might mock or laugh at? Why? So that I can reach God?
Never! Here is a man from India. He will walk 900 miles – on his knees –
why? To win favor with God and hope that it will save him. But the
message of the Bible is that 900 miles is not enough. Ten thousand miles
would not be enough. You can never be good enough – and so Jesus died
for my sins so that He could offer salvation free to anyone who would
accept it. But if I’ve taken the gift, accepted that which I could never earn
on my own, do you see that it would be unconscionable to grieve the One
who guarantees that gift. It’s not a code of ethics. It’s personal.

John said it this way in I John 5:3, “3) For this is the love of God, that we
keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.”
It’s not a duty issue – it’s a love issue.

In June 1965, President and Mrs. Johnson held a Festival of the Arts at the
While House (the first ever sponsored by a President) to which leading
lights of literature, art and music were invited. The festival lasted 13 hours
and included exhibitions of current American plays, movies, ballet and
music. One participant was Sarah Vaughan, the great jazz singer; for thirty
minutes she held her distinguished audience spellbound. Afterward, when
the part was breaking up, a White House staffer found Miss Vaughan
sobbing in her dressing room. “What the matter?” she asked. “Nothing is
the matter,” said the singer. “It’s just that 20 years ago when I came to
Washington I couldn’t even get a hotel room, and tonight I sang for the

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President of the United States in the White House – and then, he asked me
to dance with him. It is more than I can stand!”

It had become personal for her and our motivation to love and obey God
and live for Him is just as personal. It’s not about keeping the Ten
commandments or living by some Boy Scout code. That misses the point
entirely. Why live a Godly life? Because it’s personal – that’s why!