In Carl Provost's sermon titled 'The Root of Bitterness and Its Cure,' the focus is on Ephesians chapter 4, which emphasizes unity within the body of Christ. Provost discusses the destructive nature of bitterness, describing it as a 'mother sin' that leads to various other sins like anger, wrath, clamor, evil speaking, and malice. He warns that bitterness can destroy marriages, friendships, family relationships, and churches. To illustrate, Provost references Hebrews, highlighting how a 'root of bitterness' can grow within a person, defiling many. He emphasizes that bitterness often stems from not responding properly to hurt or offense, leading to a self-consuming cycle of negative emotions and actions. The sermon provides insights into recognizing bitterness, such as outbursts of anger, sarcasm, and a critical spirit. Provost stresses the importance of dealing with offenses promptly and forgiving others as God has forgiven us. He encourages believers to put on the 'suit of righteousness,' embodying Christ's character through kindness, tender-heartedness, and forgiveness, thus fostering unity and overcoming bitterness.

Please turn with me in your copy of God's Word to Ephesians chapter 4 for the reading of His Word. I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling, One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in you all. But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, When we ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.

Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first unto the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also, that ascended up far above all the heavens, that he might feel all things. And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints, for the works of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro, carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the slight of men and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. But speaking the truth in love may grow up unto him in all things which is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplyeth according to the effectual working and the measure of every part maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.

This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all in cleanliness with greediness. But ye have not so learned Christ, if so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus, that ye put off concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lust, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness, Wherefore putting away lying, speaking every man truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be ye angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands the things which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.

Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby you are sealed into the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice, and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." Heavenly Father, we come before you, Father, as we look at Your Word, we pray that Your Holy Spirit would come upon us and sanctify us and apply this Word to our hearts, Father, that we would be those who would put off sin and that we would put on Christ Jesus and that we would truly be unified under His headship as the body of Christ. And Father, we pray in Your Son, Christ Jesus' name, Amen. The title of today's sermon is the root of bitterness and its cure. As we look at this text today, we're coming to the end of this section in chapter 4, especially the section we've been going through where Paul talks about this concept of putting off and putting on so that we understand what the Christian life looks like.

But this entire chapter is built around the concept of unity within the body of Christ. This idea of how is it that we, as a diverse group of people, as a sinful group of people, can be unified? And we looked earlier at the different sins we put off, But the main theme of the passage that we have before us today is dealing with bitterness. The sin of Bitterness is a very destructive sin. In fact, there's probably not anybody here today that at some point or another hasn't been affected by bitterness, either in their own life or directed towards them.

I know of no church that hasn't been impacted by bitterness. It's a very destructive sin. And I believe Paul closes this section of putting off and putting on with the sin of bitterness, because it is the one sin that is most likely to destroy a relationship, most likely to destroy a church. The sin of bitterness will destroy your marriage. It will destroy your relationship with your children.

It will destroy your relationship with your family. It will destroy your friendships. And it will destroy the church if left unchecked. Now there's several things listed behind this word bitterness but I believe they all flow out of this idea or concept of the root of bitterness. Back in the letter of Hebrews it says looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you and thereby many be defiled.

And So Hebrews teaches this concept that there's a root of bitterness that develops and grows within the heart of a person that destroys them and troubles them and therefore many can be defiled by it. See, The sin of bitterness is like pride in the sense that it is a mother sin that produces many other sins. And in this text today we see many of the offsprings of bitterness. In verse 31, and in fact the text today we're dealing specifically with verses 31 and 32 of chapter 4, It says, let all bitterness and wrath and anger. See, wrath and anger are just the internal and external forms of anger.

Oftentimes, wrath coming from in the heart. Oftentimes, somebody can have wrath in the heart, and you're not seeing it on their outside yet. But the anger is that that comes out, comes forward and is directed at the person. The word clamor here, the word clamor can mean loud words of rage and cursing. This is somebody that just explodes.

We also see here in verse 31, an evil speaking. This is also the word that is in other places is translated slander. And these are yelling insults and injuries at a person or even towards someone else about another person. This is speech that's intended upon hurting the reputation of somebody else. It says, let all these things be put away from you with all malice.

And the word malice here is that a desire, a hate towards another so much so that you desire to injure them. And I say that all of these come out of that root of bitterness. It starts with the root. People don't become, don't come to the point of being so angry and full of malice towards somebody without first harboring the root of bitterness in their heart. So what is this root of bitterness?

And as we look at the text today, we'll be looking at the three points. Is the root of bitterness, the fruit of bitterness, and the suit of righteousness. Bitterness, In fact, it's described in Loan Nida. It comes from the word pichrea, which means bitter or bitter to the taste. And so what we have here is a figurative extended meaning of something, of a word that means bitter to the taste.

In fact, if you go back to the root word, it could mean something that starts to cause problems on the inside and even to a poisoning effect. And so this word you use figuratively to describe an emotion that takes root, a sinful emotion that takes root within somebody. But think about that, a bitter taste. You know, I know nowadays we have a lot of candies out there that are popular, that are bitter or sour. But think about when you take something bitter into your mouth.

What's the reaction, physical reaction? Normally the muscles in your face tighten up. Normally you get a scowling look on your face, a look of shock. See, the root of bitterness does the same thing in our heart with our emotions. It causes us to tense up against others.

It causes us to close people off and to be unwilling to love them. Unwilling to let them in or to be a part of their life. We want to cut them off. We want it away from us. And so the figurative illustration is used to help us to understand what bitterness does to the body.

In fact, the concept of the root that we see in Hebrews is this idea of when you plant something, and it develops root and something grows from it. And it's to help us to understand that what can start off as something very very small can become very large and it can consume us. Now I'm going to give some illustrations today and some concepts that if anybody has read Lou Priola's book on bitterness they might recognize some of these so I won't give direct quotes so you won't hear me say his name again but if you hear anything that sounds familiar that's where it came from. But He has a very good little book on bitterness and he has a very good biblical understanding of how to deal with bitterness and anger in the life of the believer. So how does the root of bitterness spring up in your life?

How does it come about? First and foremost, bitterness comes from not responding properly to a hurt or offense. See, the Bible gives us clear instruction on how we are to respond to hurt and offenses that come from those around us. See, when we are hurt or offended, there's a tendency to allow that hurt or offense to take root and to produce bitterness in our life. In fact, you could almost think of that hurt or offense as the seed for the root of bitterness.

And depending on what you do with that hurt or offense, depends on whether it turns into bitterness or not. You can seek to deal with it biblically and to do away with it, or you can harbor upon it and plant it deep within your heart, and it will begin to put out roots and it will begin to develop into bitterness. See, scripture tells us if your brother or sister offend you to go to them. We are to deal with an offense or a hurt in order to not allow it to develop the roots in our life. So what are the characteristics of this bitterness?

How do we recognize it? First of all, it's the hurt or offense of sin that directly impacts us or someone close to us. Now we understand from that that we have a tendency to become bitter towards those who sin towards us. We're not so inclined to be bitter when we see sin out in the world and somebody's sinning against somebody else. Maybe we're appalled or grieved over that sin, but we don't have a tendency to become bitter or saddened, bitter over it.

We sometimes can be saddened over the sin of others, but when you find bitterness springing up in your heart, it's usually because either someone or somebody close to you has hurt you or hurt somebody close to you. It's a sin that we take personal, a sin that we internalize. It's an offense against us. And so we can say that bitterness is a sin that affects those closest to us. And that's why it's so detrimental to relationships.

That's where you predominantly see it, is it's destroying relationships because we don't find ourselves becoming bitter against those who we're not in a relationship with. And that's why so many marriages and family relationships are destroyed by bitterness because there's a closeness there and we live with sinners. And there will always be hurts and offenses, but we are responsible to not allow it to turn into bitterness. See, when we become angry about sin towards us, We need to check our hearts to make sure it's not becoming bitterness within our heart. There is a such thing as a righteous anger.

We talked about that earlier. Be ye angry and sin not, earlier in the chapter. And we talked about the difference between righteous and unrighteous anger. But here we're talking about, we're not talking about whether something makes us angry or not, we're talking about what we do with that anger. And maybe there's a place and a time when someone sends against us to have an anger, but it should be an anger that drives us to God and to his mercy and drives us to make it right and to not allow it to develop and consume us.

See, bitterness is a selfish thing in our life. Most of us don't become bitter because we're concerned about God's law and that somebody has violated God's law. Most of us are not that sensitive or have such strong convictions about the violation of God's law. Bitterness comes because we feel like our rights are violated. Someone has sinned against us.

Someone has hurt us or hurt somebody close to us, and we become bitter. And so it's a sin in which we must take ownership of. It's a sin in which we must all, we must not be thinking now, oh, I know somebody just like that. We must be looking into our own hearts to see if this is a sin that's taken root in our own life. Bitterness is when we become zealous for our own rights, when we demand our rights.

But what we see is that bitterness is not tolerated by God. In fact we are commanded let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil-speaking be put away from you. God does not tolerate bitterness. We must put bitterness away quickly before the roots go down deep and cause much harm. We see the results of bitterness and the destructiveness of bitterness in relationships.

But bitterness is most destructive within the person that allows that root to take, allows that bitterness to take root in their heart and to grow. It's like a cancer that will consume them. When you find, when you meet a bitter person, you will find that they are consumed by bitterness. They cannot see positive in anything, they only see negative. They can't love.

They become haters of all things. So what is the fruit of bitterness? How does one become bitter? First of all, it's by focusing on the sins and mistakes of others. Are we those who spend far too much time pointing out the sins of others?

See, bitter people do not focus on their own sin, but they're really good at seeing the sins of others. They're really good at pointing them out. But Scripture teaches that we are to be examining ourselves. You find a bitter person and you will find a person who does not know their own sins very well. Someone who is self-righteous, proud, and someone who is easily offended.

So what makes a person bitter? We think about it when someone sins against us and we're hurt or we're offended, but what would make us bitter? Are we responsible for that person's sin? Are we responsible for our own response to that sin? And oftentimes we're offended by things that aren't even sin.

Maybe we're hurt by something. Maybe somebody said something that we thought was unkind. Or they said something that hurt our feelings, but there's no offense against God there. We have to ask ourselves, if God is not offended by it, why am I offended by it? See, oftentimes our hurts and our offenses are not hurts and offenses over something that is sin in God's Word, but there's hurts and offenses over our own expectations, our own desires.

And maybe they're not wrong desires, but if the other person who hurt us is not in sin, if they have not violated God's law, Why are we so offended by it? See, we need to even ask, did that person intend to hurt me? Or did they intend to offend me? As part of the body of Christ and having unity within the body of Christ, we are to assume the best of each other. And we are to let love cover a multitude of sins.

For righteous men cover sins. We are not to be those who are easily offended. We are not to be those who wear our feelings on our sleeve. But if there is true sin against us we are also instructed to go to our brother who has offended us or who is in sin. And we're given instructions, you can go to Matthew 18 or other places, where we're instructed to go to that one who has offended us and to make things right.

And if your brother is truly a believer, he will receive you. And He will ask for forgiveness for His sin against you. But what we learn from this text is that it's not dependent upon His forgiveness for us to put away bitterness. See, some people hold on to their bitterness. They take care of it.

They water it. They cultivate it. They harbor on those things. And that's where the sin lies. If we find ourselves being hurt or offended, and it's not something that's a violation of God's Word, then we are the one that is to repent.

We are to repent over being offended or hurt over something that is not sin. See, we have to recognize that we live in a fallen world and that we are going to be hurt and we're going to be offended by people, especially from the people that are closest to us, the people that we love most. We must ask ourselves, are we hurt too easily? Do we wear our fillings on our sleeve? See, you don't want to be that person where somebody has to walk on eggshells, or the term we use, walk on eggshells around them.

Meaning that you never know what you're going to say or do that's going to offend them. R.C. Sproul talks about this person who has landmines in their hearts. And you never know when you're going to step on one and set it off. That's not how we're to be as those who are bearing the fruit of Christ Jesus, those who have put on Christ.

We are to be long-suffering with one another, loving towards one another. Maybe you're easily offended because of your pride. Maybe you think too highly of yourself and you think that someone is questioning your character by something that is said around you. Maybe you're offended because you have no tolerance for people that do things differently than you think they should be done. Maybe you are easily offended because you're not aware of your own depravity.

See, those who are not aware of their own depravity are naturally offended because they don't see themselves as being in the same boat with everybody else. They see themselves as being above the brothers and sisters in Christ. And Scripture clearly says we are to esteem our brothers higher than ourselves. That we must remove the plank from our own eye before we can remove the speck from our brother's eye. Those verses are given to us because that is the pride of the heart.

To be able to point out sin in others but to not see sin in ourselves. So what are some of the signs of bitterness? What can we look for in our own life? Because sometimes it's hard for us to recognize that root of bitterness. And so what are some of the signs that might help us to examine ourselves to see if that root of bitterness is in our heart and is bringing strife and destruction in our relationships?

A vindictiveness or backbiting? Outbursts of anger? Do you find yourself blowing up? Biting sarcasm? Sly remarks?

Put downs towards others? Perhaps these are signs of bitterness. A critical spirit. Someone who cannot see good in anyone else, but all they can see are what's wrong with the others. A suspicious spirit, one who always, who's always putting a different interpretation on somebody's thoughts and actions and words.

Maybe they meant it this way. They're always taking an offense on what they think somebody did or said and it might not be that that person meant those things or said those things at all. Those who make little things big issues and offenses. This is making a mountain out of a molehill. Those with intolerance and hypersensitivity to others who do things differently.

See, some people get offended if things aren't done the way that they want them done, and they become hypersensitive to this. And this can become a problem within a marriage, it can become a problem within a church, it can become a problem within a family. I've seen marriages blown up because of somebody that our psychological system likes to call them a type A personality. But one of the persons in marriage has something done a certain way, and because it's not done their way, they grow bitter to the point that they will actually destroy their own marriage. Remembering offenses in detail could also be a sign of bitterness in our heart.

Can we remember things that happened to us, wrongs that happened to us from 20 years ago, and tell you every detail about it? Now some people have really good memories, but are these things that are still hurtful to us when we think about them? Those are signs of bitterness. Desiring that bad things happen to those who have hurt or offended us, our signs of bitterness. If someone speaks unkindly or falsely accuses you, do you become bitter?

Remember that we deserve a lot worse than what others have said. If they could only see what was in our heart, they could not devise anything falsely that's as bad as what we know is in our own hearts. Why do we take such offense? See, we have problems dealing with the sin of bitterness because we see our problem of bitterness as someone else's problem. It's that person who offended us or hurt us that caused the bitterness.

And we fail to take ownership of it. See, we must be willing to forgive the person who has hurt us before they even ask. That's how we start to deal with that anger and not allow it to turn into bitterness. It's to be ready to forgive that person before they even ask. To not take it and internalize it but to recognize that it is their sin, not ours.

See, we must be putting away bitterness, putting away sin of the person who offended and hurt us and to not allow it to grow within our heart. So how do we overcome this bitterness? Scripture teaches us that it's always about putting something else on. And this whole chapter has been about putting on Christ. And he's given us specific examples of things we could put on.

But these are all characteristics of Christ. And what we recognize is, is this isn't something you can do if you're an unbeliever. Unbelievers who are eaten up with bitterness don't have the Holy Spirit sanctifying them and applying Christ to their life. But we as believers are to put on righteousness. In fact, It's being presented like a garment in other places of Scripture that we put on.

And it's this understanding, and I give the title of this point as the suit of righteousness. And it's this understanding that there's something we put on that covers us and covers our sin. And we recognize that it is the righteousness of Christ. It's the righteousness of Christ and our trust and faith in Him that allows us to put away bitterness, and to put away anger and wrath, and evil speaking and malice, and to put on, as we see in verse 32, and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." How do you do that? Someone has hurt you.

Someone has offended you. Be ye kind one to another. That's how we build unity in our relationships. That's how we build unity in the body of Christ. It's by putting on Christ and being kind to one another.

See, the only hope we have of overcoming this bitterness is that Christ has atoned for our sins. He went to the cross and He took our sins upon Him. Our sin was imputed to Him and His righteousness is imputed to us. So we have to confess our sin. We have to take ownership of it.

We have to own up to the bitterness that's in our heart. And we have to take responsibility for our sin. We will never be able to put away bitterness as long as we blame it on someone else. See, we have lots of emotions going on, and God has given us the emotions and they're good things. But we have a tendency to blame, that when certain emotions come out, to blame those on other people, that they pushed our buttons.

But we have to recognize that we're responsible for what comes out of us. When we blow up, The person who so-called pushed our buttons is not going to be held accountable for that. We are. We're responsible for the sin that comes out of us. Be kind to one another.

Basically, keep a short account. You know, one thing that builds bitterness is that harboring of offenses. Harboring of hurts and sins. And it builds and it builds and it builds. And it becomes destructive and it destroys the relationship and it destroys the person.

And it says that we are to be kind to one another. There was a movie a number of years ago that sort of illustrated the destructiveness of bitterness. And it was about a man who basically had bought his wife everything she desired. He worked hard. Of course The one thing he didn't give her was much time with him because he was working all the time.

And he bought her the house that she wanted. And then one day she says, I want a divorce. And he didn't want a divorce, but she was at the point that Bitterness had built up to the point that she had made the decision. And if you've done any kind of counseling, and you know anything about people that get divorced today, that's usually what happens. They wait till it's too late.

And it builds and it builds and it builds, and then they said, I've had enough. I want a divorce. Well, then in this movie, this man becomes so bitter towards this that he is unwilling for her to have this house that he worked so hard for. So he, in the process of this they end up destroying the house and destroying each other. And at the end of the movie, they both fall off of a balcony and they're laying on the floor.

And in his last breath, he picks his hand up and places it on hers. And you're thinking, oh wow, there's actually some sort of restoration here. But in her last breath, she tosses his hand off. And that's what bitterness is like. It will destroy and consume people.

But see, we have to be kind to one another, loving to one another. Keep a short account. We have to deal with those sins and offenses before they grow and become something large. We need to go to the person soon. In fact, We're told earlier in this chapter to not let the sun go down on our anger.

We are not to linger on it. You've oftentimes heard that when something blows up or a relationship falls apart, they'll say, well, that was the straw that broke the camel's back. Well, we all know a straw doesn't break a camel's back. And we understand what that means, that there were a large amount of offenses that had never been dealt with. And that final offense that broke the camel's back, that final offense, See, we're never to allow things to build in the first place.

We shouldn't get to that point. We're also told here to be tenderhearted. Now this is why I want us to be sensitive to one another. We recognize that we live with others who are sinful and weak. And that we need to be sensitive to the weaknesses of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

And even though we might not be sinning, if we know that something hurts somebody and hurts their feelings, we should be one who desires to not hurt our weaker brother in Christ. And so we should be sensitive in how we speak to others. We need to recognize that we live in a fallen world and that we live with sinful, frail, imperfect people. We are married to Sinful, frail, and imperfect people. Our children are sinful, frail, and imperfect people.

And we have to be tender-hearted with them, recognizing that God is sanctifying them and working them in their life and growing them. We're also told here in verse 32, it says, Be ye kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another. That's the biggest key right there to overcoming a hurt or forgiveness, a hurt or offense is forgiving one another. We must be willing to forgive those who offer an offense. First of all we must make sure that the offense is real.

That just because our feelings are hurt doesn't mean that our brother is in sin so we must first examine ourselves. And we must remember that if our brother comes and asks for forgiveness that we must forgive him. In fact, we're instructed that if a brother comes to us seven times in a week, we are to forgive him every time. And there's a tendency in which, If someone continues to ask you for forgiveness for the same sin that we start to wonder whether they're they're Sincere in asking for forgiveness The scripture commands us to forgive our brothers in Christ's seat The reason why we are to forgive others is because we are commanded to forgive. It's not an emotion.

It's an act of the will. We forgive our brothers or sisters in Christ. We forgive our wife. We forgive our children. It's an act of the will and the feelings follow.

And we're told here, it says, forgive one another, Even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. See biblical forgiveness is forensic. It's talking about standing. And we recognize that we have been forgiven. A great debt.

A debt that none of us could pay. Our sin imputed to Christ, His righteousness imputed to us. We now stand before a holy God because of the righteousness of Christ. But yet we know that we're just yet sinner at the same time. We still struggle with sin in this life, looking towards a day when we will be glorified and we will no longer sin.

But we recognize that our sin is completely atoned for, past, present, and future sin. And because we have been forgiven a great debt, we are told that we should forgive others. See, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. See, we're never to forget where we've come from. We're never to forget that we have been forgiven much.

In fact, if there is no spirit of forgiveness in you, if you find yourself not able to forgive others, You probably need to check your salvation. For one of the fruit and characteristics of a believer is that we forgive one another. We're told in God's Word, They will know that you are my disciples by the love that you have for one another. And the only way we can display that love to one another is if we are kind to one another, tender-hearted towards one another, forgiving one another. We need to put on the righteousness of Christ Jesus and live with love with one another.

Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, we come before you And we pray, Father, that You would use Your Word to instruct our hearts. Help us. Father, we know that we are not easy to love. We know the sinfulness and the wickedness in our hearts, but we also know that we have Christ Jesus in us and that we stand before you, covered in His righteousness, and we pray that The fruit of your Spirit will be clearly displayed in our relationships and our church.

We pray in your Son, Christ Jesus' name. Amen.