Episode 2251 - Are You Bringing Sorrow To God

Good morning and welcome to this brand new day. This is Scription Link'daily Dose of Inspiration for Monday, January 20, 2025. And today is National Cheese Lovers Day. So tell me, what's your favorite kind of cheese? You eat it right off the block or do you put it in your salad or something like that? Let me know in the comments and, we'll see what you all like to do with with cheese. my favorite, by the way, is cheddar, followed closely by Velveeta. Now, I've had people tell me Velveved is not a real cheese, but I like it anyway. If you're reading in the Bible with us, today we're going to finish up the Gospel of Matthew. We're going to read Matthew chapter 28, Mark, chapter one, and Proverbs chapter 20. And I certainly hope you're following along in those and not just reading it for the sake of reading it, but reading it, hoping to get something out of it. And that's, that's my desire. Anyway, for you today, I want to look at ephesians, chapter number 40 is. There's a verse that jumped out at me the other day and not so much the way the King James words it, but it still is vitally important to us as we live for God, as we're living for Jesus today. Of ephesians, chapter number 40 in verse number 30 says this and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God. Grieve. What does grieve me? Because when we think of griefve today, we think of what we do when, when somebody passes away, you know, you grieve because you're sorry that the person's gone. You miss the person, whatever. But that's not the meaning the Bible has for greed. M. Greed simply means to cause, to feel sorrow, pain, unhappiness or distress. So I like the way that the new living translation puts this verse. It says, and, do not bring sorrow to God's Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember, he has identified you as his own, guaranteeing that you will be saved at the day of redemption. Are you making God sorrowful by the way you live? That's the question that we have to ask ourselves. And it's the challenge that I've put on myself and on this ministry for the year 2025 is to start walking as Jesus walked. And the tagline for this year, let'take it from the end of verse number four of Romans, chapter six, where it says, walk in the newness of life. And we have that idea all through chapter number four here in the book of Ephesians. And if we go back to verse number one, it says, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you or beg you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called. Paul is begging us here. He's telling us that we need to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called. In other words, he say, and walk like Christ. There are ways here in this chapter, and I encourage you, and I told you to read Matthew Ch. 28, Mark 1, Proverbs Chter 20. But if you get time, I beg you to read chapter four of the book of Ephesians, because in here, let's take a look at a few things. I'm sure that there's going to be more than what, what I'm going to highlight here today, which is why I want you to get in there and read it. But here are a few ways that you and I grieve the Holy Spirit. One of the ways is found here in verses 17 and 18. Paul says this. I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord that she henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding, darkness being darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of the heart. What Paul is saying there, that one of the ways we grieve the Holy Spirit is living the way we used to live. And that's something that so many of us deal with and so many of us. And I've used this phrase numerous times so far this year, and we're probably going to hear it a lot more. We try to walk with one foot in the church on Sunday and one foot in the world on, Monday. And it's not going to work. I'm telling you, it's not going toa work. Don't even try it. And when we continue walking the way that everybody else walks in this world, we're grieving the Holy Spirit, because are the Holy Spirit sealed us. See, that's part of the work the Spirit did the rest of verse number 30, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. We are sealed. You know, when you buy a new bottle of, let's say a new bottle of mouthwash right along the top of that mouthwash is that seal. And it says sealed for your protection. You know, as long as that seal isn't broken, that that mouthwash is safe to use. But if the seal is broken and it's still on the store shelf, you're pretty much assured that you want to stay away from that because the seal is broken. How does the seal get broken? Somebody tampers with it. Somebody infects it with something, and that's what happens. Here we are sealed. On the day of redemption, we are sealed. On the day that we give our life to Jesus, we are sealed. The Holy Spirit seals us so that we are protected until the day of redemption, until the day we stand before the Lord. And when we decide we want to go and we start living the way we used to live, that's going to break that seal. Let's look at another one. Verse number 25, Paul says, Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man'truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Lying is a big thing in this world. I just watched a short video where a pastor was admonishing people because everybody had their own definition of the truth. And there is no multiple definitions of the truth. There's one definition of truth. It doesn't matter if you're talking about witnessing a car accident or if you're talking about what the Bible says. There's one truth. It's not my idea of the truth. It's not what I've accepted as the truth, but it's the truth. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. So we got to make sure that we don't, that we always speak truthfully to people. Verse 26 and 27. Be ye angry and sin not, let not the sun go down upon your wrath. Neither give place to the devil. When we give in into anger, that's when we're grieving the Holy Spirit. That's a tough one because I talk about my struggles when I'm talking driving down the road and it's. It's, it's not exclusive here to East Tennessee, but nothing drives me more crazy than when I'm cruising down the road it at 45 miles an hour and the speed limits 45 miles an hour. And I come across traffic, a car in front of me that's driving 25 miles an hour. And they're in the left lane and they won't move over and you can't move over to the right lane to pass them because there's a car in the right lane going 25 miles an hour. With no traffic in front of them. It gets me angry. But if I let that anger take control, that's when it becomes wrong. When I act upon that anger, when I, you know, when you, when you flip the bird, when you, when you shout something, you shouldn't shout at him. Whatever. Don't let anger control you. Verse 28 says, Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor working with his hands the thing which is good that he may give to him, which to him that hath need. Stealing. Stealing is something. And I remember talking years and years and years ago when I first started out in ministry back at a church in Puntorda, Florida, we were talking about stealing and I had made the comment, I'll never forget this, I had made the comment. Well, before I get to that, I used to teach a adult Sunday school quest. It was me and one other guy, and we would switch off. We'd each teach about a month, six weeks, something like that, and then we'd switch off. And one of the times I was talking about stealing and I had said, you know, even when you take a pen home from work, or when you take an ink cartridge home from work, or you, you spend time around the water cooler instead of working, that's theft, that's stealing. And the other guy that taught the class, no, no, no, that's not stealing. That's, you know, that's just stuff that happens with the territory. No, that's stealing, and I'm going to drop it right there. Verse 29. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying or building others up, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. We need to make sure we don't use abusive words and abusive language toward others all those ways. And I'm sure that there's more in here and more throughout Scripture. Those are all examples of the ways that we grieve the Holy Spirit, that we bring sorrow to God's Holy Spirit by the way that we live. What then, is. Does the Holy Spirit want to do in our life? Well, if we go back to the Gospel of John, chapter number 14 is where we're going to start. John, chapter 14 in verse number 26 says, but the comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. Part of things the Holy Spirit wants to do is to teach us all things. Teach us all things that pertain to living our life for Christ, teaching us the things that we need to know and we need to understand to live the life that God wants us and expects us to live. And then through our, through our now, through our reading of the Word, through our reading of the Bible, the Holy Spirit is going to bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. If we look real quick, get back at chapter two, in verse 22, Jesus is talking to cleansing of the temple. And in verse 19 he said, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. And if we jump down to verse 22, this is what I want you to see. When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them. And they believed the scripture and the words which Jesus had said. See, that right there is an example of the work of the Spirit at the death of Jesus, when he was resurrected, the Spirit reminded them that Jesus talked about that temple, what he was referring to his body instead. So you see, when you're studying in the scripture and you're going out and you're living your life and something happens and you're ready to flip the bird at somebody that's driving too slow in the fast lane, the Holy Spirit'going to remind you saying hey wait a minute, that's not good. That's not what Jesus taught. Or another example I like to use is when you're ready to say something or you're ready to do something and all of a sudden it feels like your heart weighs 10,000 pounds. or, or it's about to beat right out of your chest. That's the Holy Spirit coming in there saying wait a minute, this ain't right. Let's go over to chapter 15 and verse 26. But when the comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me. The Spirit is going to testify of Jesus. To testify simply means to bear witness or to declare the Holy Spirit is going to bear witness of Jesus. The things Jesus done, the things Jesus taught. But look at this in verse 27. And ye also shall bear witness because ye have been with me from the beginning. Somebody out there right now is scratching their head saying that's Jesus talking directly to the disciples. No it's not. And let me tell you why. Because Jesus said that you have been with me from the beginning. Yes, the disciples were with Jesus from the beginning of his earthly ministry. But you have been with Jesus from the beginning of your life. With him. At your moment of conversion, when you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you've seen things that even the disciples haven't seen. You've seen things that I haven't seen. I've seen things that you haven't seen. And those are the things that we need to bear witness. Those are the things that we need to testify of the things that Jesus has done in our lives. Too often we're quick to point out what everybody else is doing wrong, like driving slow in the fast lane. But we fail to go out and say, hey, this is what Jesus did for me. This is how I know Jesus is real. And we need to start doing that. What's our application for today? If we allow the Holy Spirit to do his job as what we just studied in John 14:26 and John 15:26 in if we allow the Holy Spirit to do that, it's going to help make sure that we don't grieve the Holy Spirit. See, another way we grieve the Holy Spirit is when we don't allow the Holy Spirit to do his job in our life. Are you keeping the Holy Spirit from doing his job? Are you grieving the Holy Spirit because you're not living the life you're supposed to be living? Ask God. He'll tell you. Think about that as you go through this day. And remember, get into God's word and allow God's word to get into you. Then share that word with someone today. Have a blessed day!