Ephesians 4:30, ‘Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.’
In these last days, let us repent for our cleansing, let us not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom we are sealed for the day of redemption.
V30(Message), ‘Don’t grieve God. Don’t break his heart.’
V30(NLT), ‘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 on the day of redemption.’
God’s Holy Spirit is never angry with us but is grieving for us! Let us examine ourselves, the areas where we are not listening to the Holy Spirit! When we instruct our children and when we warn them in love – ‘do not go this way, this is wrong way!’, and they do not listen in disobedience and end up in a tragedy, as Parents, we become grieved and become sad about it.
Apostle Paul is saying here, ‘do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by the way you live’! Why is our God’s Holy Spirit grieving for His children? – ‘It is by seeing the spiritual condition of His Children’s lives! By the way His children are living at their homes, at their workplaces, by the way they are dealing with others!’ The Holy Spirit is not seeing any fruit in His children, by the way they are living but they are manifesting the deeds of flesh, in their Christian lives and this is why the Holy Spirit of God is grieving for His children. We need to understand God’s love for us.
We know that Ephesian Church is a godly, matured Church. The message in Ephesians is divided into two parts:
- What God has done for us in love – this is the foundation of Christian Life, our position as a believer in Christ. We need to understand the wonderful things that God has done for us. He chose us in Christ, has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. Chapters 1-3, we see that God has done everything for us through Christ.
- How our life should be on this foundation. How the superstructure of our Christian life, on the foundation should be, is seen in Chapters 4-6. Here we see Ephesians 4:30, ‘.do not bring sorrow to God’s Holy Spirit by the way you live’.
When we are building the superstructure in our Christian lives, let us not bring sorrow to God’s Holy Spirit by the way we live! Let us not break His heart.
Isaiah 5:2, He dug it all around, removed its stones, And planted it with the choicest vine. And He built a tower in the middle of it And also hewed out a wine vat in it; Then He expected it to produce good grapes, But it produced only worthless ones.’
God has done everything for His children and He is expecting good fruit from His children. Let us not manifest the deeds of flesh in our lives, bringing grief to His heart. Let us not produce worthless fruit!
Ephesians 4:26-32, ‘Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and do not give the devil an opportunity. 28 He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need. 29 Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. 30 Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.’
The worthless fruits such as – anger, giving devil a foothold, stealing, speaking unwholesome words, bitterness, wrath, clamor, slander be put away from us! But doing these, we are grieving our God’s Holy Spirit.
V32 ‘Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.’
The word ‘grieving His heart’ is first seen in Genesis 6:5-6, ‘Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.’
After creating man, in Genesis 1:31, we see God says, ‘It was very good’. Let us not grieve God’s heart, by the way we live, speak and think!
In the parable of ‘The Prodigal Son’, We see the heart of our God. In Luke 15:13, ‘And not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey into a distant country, and there he squandered his estate with loose living.’
We see here, the younger son is going away from his loving fellowship of his Father and he is going away, towards the worldly love! His love became cold. We see the picture of a backsliding son of God. A father will not be angry with His son but his heart is grieving for his son! Day and night, his heart was grieving and he might be weeping for his son’s condition.
V20, ‘So he got up and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.’
Let us not grieve the Father’s heart!
We know Jeremiah is the weeping prophet because the people did not repent.
Jeremiah 13:17, ‘But if you will not listen to it, My soul will sob in secret for such pride; And my eyes will bitterly weep And flow down with tears, Because the flock of the Lord has been taken captive.’
Jeremiah says, ‘I will weep in secret for your pride’. May God help us, not to bring sorrow to His heart by the way we live. This is one side of a coin! What God wants from us is to try to live a life pleasing to the Lord. This is the balance of our Christian life!
Ephesians 5:10, ‘trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.’
Ephesians 4:30 (AMP), ‘And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God [but seek to please Him]’
Instead of grieving the Holy Spirit of God, we need to live a life pleasing to Him in all the areas of our lives! Our lives should be a pleasing aroma to our God. Are we pleasing or grieving our God’s heart?
Psalms 78:40, ‘How often they rebelled against Him in the wilderness And grieved Him in the desert!’
The Israelites were grieving and rebelling against God in the wilderness! Because of their disobedience, grumblings and complaining spirit, they were grieving God’s heart.
1 Corinthians 10:5, ‘Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness.’
Though they experienced many miracles in the wilderness, in their lives, God was not well-pleased with most of them! We might experience many miracles, answered prayers but this is not the criteria for God to be pleased with us. Seek to please the Lord.
2 Corinthians 5:9, ‘Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.’
Apostle Paul is having an ambition in his life and that is, to be pleasing to God. When we live pleasing God in our lives, one day we will hear from Him, ‘This is my beloved child, with whom I am well-pleased!’ We all need to hear this testimony from our God. Whether at home or absent, our ambition should be only to please Him.
John 8:29, ‘And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.”
Let this be our desire too!
Psalms 139:23,24, ‘Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; 24 And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way.’
NLT, ‘Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.’
Let us have this prayer in our lives.
Psalms 19:14, ‘May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.’
Let our words, thoughts and meditation be pleasing to His sight. If we are grieving God’s Holy Spirit, His heart, let us come to Him with a repentant heart. When God is showing us the areas where we are grieving our God, we should not be under condemnation like Judas Iscariot but God wants us to come to Him repenting like Peter and confess our sin to Him and God will restore us. Peter denied three times but it broke peter’s heart when Jesus turned and looked at Him – this look was not that of anger but was with a compassionate heart! This compassionate look made Peter have a deep repentance. Making him understand that he grieved God’s heart!
Luke 22:62, ‘And Peter left the courtyard, weeping bitterly.’
Come to God with a repentant heart and God will restore us. He will lead us to have an everlasting life!
May God help us to be a pleasing aroma to our God.
Let us not grieve the Holy Spirit of God but seek to please Him.
