Walk as Children of the Light

As you heard Sarah read the text, this is a heavy warning passage in many ways. There are significant strong prohibitions, and much of it has to do with sexual morality. To see what kind of culture we live in over against the Ephesians who were plagued with temple prostitutes. Sex was a significant part of the pagan worship. I thought, what kind of statistics could I find if I look around carefully? And I'm only going to give you one because they're all pretty daunting, but this is the one that stood out the most. For the last three years, Americans have spent 4.5 billion hours looking at pornography. It's probably more than that. But that's what the websites that were researched showed that for three years in a row, that's 13.5 total. 4.5 billion hours a year. Next week, we're going to be talking about redeeming the time. That reveals that There's a significant wasting of time and not recognizing that days are evil, but participating in it. This demonstrates a serious sickness. The diagnosis can only be dangerous. This is deadly. This disease, this sin of wanting to participate in sin and sex in a way outside of God's plan, it's ruined the hearts of men. It's ruining marriages. So this word, one of the key words I want us to focus on, and it's the opposite of one of the words we're going to be hearing as a prohibition, it's purity. Purity. As Christians, we should be seeking purity. Protecting it, promoting it, proclaiming it. Jesus is very clear about a call to purity. He says if your right hand causes you to sin, what should you do? Cut it off. If your eye causes you to sin, what should you do? Couch it out. That's significant. It's very similar to what we were hearing in chapter four of Ephesians. Put off so you can put on. You have to get rid of that dangerous practice. One of the passages that has challenged me the most, that I always come back to, Matthew 5, 8. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. We should strive for purity because we're striving to see the God who is pure. Now back to those statistics, 4.5 billion hours a year, let's be clear church, that's not happening just outside of the walls of this church. There's problems within the church. This is not a problem out there, it's a problem in here. within us. One of the most encouraging things that has been happening at Jefferson Park over the last few years is when you join this church, you share your testimony. And we've had a number of young men being willing to say, in the past, I've struggled with pornography, and I'm repenting, and I'm confessing, wanting to be part of this body, and not being afraid to talk about that sin. Too often, sexual sin has been a taboo to the point we're afraid to talk about it, but I'm thankful that that isn't the case anymore. This morning, as you heard that passage, these are commands, they're prohibitions, it's a calling for how to now live. If you're not a Christian this morning, I want you to understand something that is very important. Being obedient to these commands is not is not a prerequisite for becoming a Christian. No. What you need to become a Christian is to realize we are all guilty of these. There's nothing we can do to purify ourselves. There's nothing we bring but sin and we have to call upon God. Forgive me. And realize it is Christ's death on the cross alone that washes away that sin. It's the hope that we can be forgiven. It's the freedom to confess our sins. That's what brings us into Christ. And then because He's worthy, we see how deadly they are, we want to put these things away. For bigger context, if you're new with us, Ephesians 1 through 3, those are all the grand declarations of what God has done for us, how he has blessed us, how he's given us life, how he's called us to be a new people. Chapter 4, verse 1, I therefore a prisoner for the Lord urge you to walk. Live now. This is your pattern of life, your obedience. Walk in a manner worthy of the calling. if you've been called walk worthy. And now I want you to see that same word three times in our chapter. Chapter five, verse two, and walk in love. Chapter five, verse eight, walk as children of light. And then verse 15 of chapter five, look carefully then how you walk. How we live matters, Christian. As we look at our passage, I want us to see three basic parts. There's our model, verses one and two, our prohibition, three to six, and our mission, seven to 14. First, our model. Notice the measure. This really goes back to chapter four in many ways. We're to grow up to the measure of Christ. We're to be imitators of God. We do not accept some other measure. We're not seeking to strive for some other goal other than the holiness of God itself. Imitate God. That's pretty lofty. What does that mean? Well, as Mike prayed earlier, we're created in His image. God has given us amazing abilities that allow us to imitate him just by being his creatures. Now we decided that we would take all those abilities and instead of imitating him, we would use them for our own selfish means, but here we have to first acknowledge imitating God is something we were created for from the very beginning. And that means representing him. We were supposed to reflect His goodness as we were His ambassadors upon creation. This is the very thing Christ came to restore. That we would use our abilities, that we would use our gifts, that we would use now the power of the Holy Spirit within us to reflect the glory of God. As beloved children. Chapter five, verse one. Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children. So Jesus is the one true son of God. There's one father, one son, that are truly forever father and son, and it's the father and it's Jesus. And when Jesus comes and he's demonstrating, I am the son of God, believe in me, do you remember what he points to so people would recognize he's the son of God? In chapter five of John, the gospel, He says, you'll know I'm the son because I hear what the father says and I say it to you. I see what the father does and I'm doing it. You see, the way you know a son is that they act like the father. Jesus is the true son because he does what the father does and he says what the father says. But now Christian, we go back to chapter one, one of the greatest blessings we have, we're adopted. We're not naturally sons of God. We're naturally sons of obedience. Disobedience. But we're adopted and we're brought into a new family. So adoption is a legal declaration. You're given an inheritance immediately when you believe in Jesus Christ. And then you're brought into a family and what happens in an adoption when a new child comes to a new home? They have to learn the new habits, right? Like each of our homes, when we have dinner with each other, hospitality, we all kind of do things a little differently around the table. Most of your homes don't look like my home and my home don't look like most of your homes in the sense that we have little customs and little ways that we behave. In the same way, when we're adopted, we learn a new pattern of talking and behaving and walking because we're part of a new family. We have a new father. As we think more about this imitating God, we can't get away from the grand declaration, be holy for I am holy. Be set apart. Don't live up to human standards. My standard, God says, is your standard. Live according to what I have said. Now, this is actually one of the grand difficulties I have with Christianity. We're always so tempted to find some other standard and think it's better. It's amazing how easy it is to be tempted to want to add to God's law or make an exception for me in God's law. And it's frustrating because whenever I see God's law and I'm loving it as Christ has led me there and seeking to be obedient to it, what I find is freedom. God's law promotes freedom. It's the law of liberty, James says. But what happens when we adopt some other standard, some other measure of holiness, it only creates fear. It creates a fear of, am I living up to it? God's law is good, it promotes freedom. There's two ways in which we wrestle with guilt or insecurity. We're either intentionally living in sins that God has prohibited, or we're being bound up with extra commands of self-righteousness. Brother, sister, turn to God, His holy law, and let Him be the measure. This is actually the real beauty of God. As Augustine says, command what you will and will what you command. What you command is good, and then you give the grace that we might actually obey it. Notice the next verse, still our model. Walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Now, here we are, that most sacred American holiday coming up on Wednesday. Love, what does love mean? Tongue-in-cheek, most sacred, I hope you most all get. Love, according to Valenstein's day, the idea of love is make that someone, make that certain person, make them feel special about who they are. That's the whole goal, right? And that's fine, that's good. But here I want us to be very clear that love means something drastically different in the Bible. Walk in love, and here's the definition of how we understand love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. Christ did not look at us and think how beautiful and precious and wonderful I want to give myself over to them. No, Christ looked at us and saw nothing lovely and said, I will give myself over to you to make you lovely. Christ doesn't say, I find something lovely about you. Christ says, I love you because I love you and I'm going to love you so that you become more lovely. That that as is key, again, as we think of our model. As. We are to walk in love, and I believe here, walk in love for love one another. Walk in love as Christ loved. He loved the unlovely. We praise God for this, but then Jesus' own words in John 13, 34 and John 15, 25. This is my new commandment. Love one another as I have loved you. It's hard to love unlovely people. That's why the cross has to always be at the forefront of what we're thinking and how we relate. Let me say, and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. A fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. First and foremost, Christ is that perfect offering and sacrifice that washes away all our sins and actually makes us acceptable to God. And we too are supposed to be a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God. Our lives being lived in such a way that God is pleased. Christ, our great high priest, lives at the right hand of the Father, now, so that our lives can be presented before Him, and we're supposed to be a fragrant offering. What has God experienced with our lives? Is He watching? What does it smell like? What does it look like? Is it pleasing? One of the questions we're asked, what is the aroma of your life before God? So I want to confess one of my bad habits this morning. I like to wear clothes over and over again. The more they're worn, the more comfortable they feel. It's just fantastic. You can pray for my wife. I especially like wearing work clothes again. So I go outside. I get sweaty. They stink. And I don't realize how bad they stink until I take them off. and try to put them on again, and they reek. But I do it anyway, and eventually they get used to it again. The point being, we rarely know what we smell like. Here, I would actually encourage you, other brothers and sisters are probably going to be very capable of helping you realize where there's something off Where the aroma of your life isn't pleasing as a sacrifice to God? It's very difficult for us to self-diagnose our own sin? Another question as we think about the fragrant offering and sacrifice, what is the atmosphere of your home? As we think again about that law, is a home a place where spouses and children are free Do you talk about their cares, concerns, and sorrows without fear? Or have we created a place where it's fearful to really dialogue? Again, the church, are we free to talk about the struggles and confess sin? Do we actually believe it's a safe place where we can come and talk about these things? Is there fear? We should be seeking to live according to God's standards so that we have freedom. Realizing we fail constantly and God's grace is sufficient. So our motto, imitate God and love as Christ loved us, that's a very daunting and heavy command. But now we see what that looks like more. There's a prohibition. Our second point, our prohibition. But, There's a contrast here, right? Love as Christ loved, and here's what's out of bounds as we love as Christ loved. It's so good to know what's out of bounds. But, verses 3 and 4, there's two sets of three. I want you to see these. Sexual immorality, all impurity, or some translations have greed, they're not to be named among you. It's inappropriate for the saints. Then verse four, the second set of three, filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking, but you're out of place. So we have two sets of three, and you can see how those things are related. So let's begin with the first list. Sexual morality, all impurity, covetousness or greed. These all appear to be sins of the flesh. These appear to be lust, a sensual delight outside of God's boundaries. If we look at the word sexual morality, the Greek word there is porneo. It's the most generic word we have. It means any and all sexual activity outside of God's plan. This includes fornication. adultery, masturbation, looking at pornography, fantasizing about someone who is not your spouse, flirtatious behavior. That's at least what it includes. Sexual immorality is seeking sexual pleasure outside of God's design. Now, maybe you're new and you're another Christian and you're thinking, here we go again. Alright Christians, you're just going to tell us what not to do. Don't do this and this. Don't tell us to do all the things we actually want to do. I want to be very clear. God has numerous prohibitions about sex. Not because he doesn't value it. He actually has that many prohibitions about sex because he values it so much. Because of what a high command, what a good gift it is, that's why God's word talks about it so much. And because it's such a good gift with a good purpose, we tend to mess those up the most. God had to keep telling us, don't do this or this or this. It's because of how precious it is in its proper use that God says so many things about what it's not. We're so prone to mess it up. So let me say what is good about what God has designed sex for. First, it's for procreation. What a glorious gift that we can procreate human beings made in the image of God. But more than that, it is supposed to be designed for pleasure. It's designed so that one man and one woman can share this one thing with one another, that's the most intimate way of expressing love, and they don't share it with anybody else. It's the one thing that unites you with that one person in one flesh. Healthy sex is necessary for a healthy marriage. It expresses that covenant love. It actually finds the freedom within that covenant promise to truly be enjoyed in the way God designed it. It's a good gift. And we really mess it up. Because we typically think of it in one or two ways. We typically think it's gross. It's gross. No, it's created and mandated by God. 1 Corinthians 7. Paul says, you need to do this if you're married. It's not God, as the other declaration will make it very clear. We either treat it as gross or we treat it as God is the highest thing to seek to accomplish or to achieve. Now it's good in His design. As we look at our next word, covetousness, greed. This is simply a desire for everything you don't have. It's seeking to enjoy what God has not given to you that maybe seeking to enjoy what God has given to other people but not you. This one is specifically scary because we look around and we just think what more we would like that God has not given us. What's really scary about greed and these desires, I want you to think about these desires, sexual morality, the impurity, the greed, they're desires that are never satisfied when you partake of them. You know something's wrong when you have a desire and you fully partake and you're still left unsatisfied. Because it's sinful, it's never satisfying. You'll always want more. Here we see that it's even equated with idolatry in verse five, coveting. It's looking and saying, I want all the things God gives, but I don't want God. So a few practical applications. First, Christian. Be assured, God gives every good and perfect gift. What he's given to you is good and is good enough. Whatever he's not given to you, it's out of bounds. Seeking secret pleasure in sin and impurity, God does not turn a blind eye. If you're seeking to be sexually delighted with your boyfriend or girlfriend, until you say, I do, that you're potentially messing around with someone else's spouse. If you're a Christian dude, that's your sister in Christ. If you're with someone who cannot respect your purity enough to keep their hands off of you, you need to be wary of if they're gonna have the self-control to keep their hands clean when you're married. What's amazing about sexual sin is how compelling it feels when you're tempted, and then how guilty you feel afterwards. You go from this incredible, how can I not, to how could I? Christian, that's what I call Satan's spin cycle. That's getting tossed to and fro from temptation to guilt. Temptation to guilt. The way to break out of that cycle is to recognize that that is dangerous and deadly and put it off. Confess your sins and see Christ. You know what's actually amazing about this passage? And you know, we've had put off and put on. He's saying a lot of put off, but there is one put on in all of this. Look at the end of verse four. Let there be thanksgiving. All right, the way to overcome sexuality and impurity is eat more turkey. No, that's not what it says. That's not what he means. It means setting the disposition of your heart to recognizing you have so much to be thankful for. That's the opposite of covening, right? Covening says, I need more, I want more, I don't have enough. God, is that good enough? Thanksgiving says, oh God, I will constantly thank you for all the good things you give to me. That's how you battle sexual temptation. God has given me His good. If you're a young child or a young adult, be thankful for purity and cherish it and protect it as your sacred prize. Your purity is something to be thankful for. If you're married, be thankful for your spouse. The number one way to avoid promiscuity, the number one way to avoid sexual morality, constantly reminding yourself of how good it is that somebody is willing to put up with you in marriage. Be thankful in every way for your spouse. Now, some people might be uncomfortable by some of the words I've used, by wanting to talk about this. I want to be very clear, church, this topic can't be taboo. We have to be able to talk about this freely. God's word talks about it regularly. This has to be something that we know that there isn't a shame in talking about it. There has to be a freedom that we can confess it. That is the beauty of the Christian life. We can confess sins to one another and be healed. And I bring you back to the other passage, Matthew 5, 8. Blessed are the pure in heart. Seek purity, promote purity, proclaim purity, That, Jesus says, is you have a promise that you'll see God. Now look at the other list. Filthiness, foolish talk, crude joking. These are out of place. Now it makes you wonder, these all seem to be having to do with our words and joking. What's so bad about jokes? What's so wrong with this? If you think about your closest friends, you typically laugh together. Right, right. The way you form deep relationships with one another is by laughing and crying together. And I think the way you form the deeper relationships, it all depends on what kind of relationships there's going to be. Are they good ones and healthy ones in terms of what you laugh about together? Do we come together to mock, to laugh at filthy things, and is that our bond together? Or is it the purity of Christ? Now I also recognize this can be kind of hard. I used to have a normal job where I was a barista. And I remember hearing regularly filthy jokes. And one of those awkward things is just refusing to laugh. Because it put me and the others at odds at some level. They noticed I wouldn't laugh and it made them feel uncomfortable. But that is what Paul is saying here. Do not take pleasure in these kind of filthiness. I also want to say I've practically participated in ways in which words can be horrible. In my 20s, I was a youth pastor for a summer. I was a youth intern for a summer. And at this time in my life, I like to show off my quick wit and sarcasm. My native tongue is sarcasm. And I really desired that these youth would grow in Christ. My desire was that they would grow, but I wanted to connect with them by being funny. And by the end of the summer, I realized I couldn't have a single conversation with them because I did disciple them. I just thought it would be a bunch of sarcastic kids. This kind of language, it corrupts and corrodes. It's not good. So think about your friendships and the kinds of things that you're uniting around together to laugh about. And again, look at this solution. Let there be Thanksgiving. It's amazing how many times Paul seems to slide in the command, be thankful. Over and over again, be thankful. Over and over again, be thankful. Speaking words that are constantly praising God and thanking God, proactively being thankful is a way of putting off sin. So why is this so important? What's at stake? Why are these prohibitions so important? Verse 5, for you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral, or impure, or is covetous, which is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. It's a weighty warning. Let's go back and make sure we understand. What he just prohibited, he's saying anyone who proactively practices those things has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ. If you go to chapter 4, chapter 1 I mean, Paul used the word inheritance over and over again. It's the riches of the blessing of God, your inheritance. The blessings of God is your inheritance, and you should not think you have any inheritance if you are someone who is proactively practicing these things. Now, Christian, we still sin. There's a difference between sinning confessing, repenting, and being renewed, and regularly being someone who practices this kind of lifestyle and says this is okay. It's the latter group that I believe Paul has in his sights to say, Christian, you cannot proactively practice. That means you're getting better at it. These things, and believe you're gonna have some kind of inheritance. He says something very similar in 1 Corinthians 6. 1 John 3.3 makes the same charge. This is why confession is so important. When we sin, we don't keep sinning or hide it. We confess it to be free from it. Realize what's at stake is our salvation. Finally, we look at our calling, our third point in our final section. Our calling. Therefore, there's a connection, a logical inclusion. There's a consequence of the truth he's just declared. Therefore, do not become partners with them. Now, them has to be the sons of disobedience who are also the sexual immoral, the impure, the idolaters. Do not become partners with them. What does that mean? What is the word partner? It's actually used one other time in the New Testament. It's actually right next in the last section, Ephesians chapter 3 verse 6. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, member of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ used through the gospel. That word partake is the same Greek word translated as partner. The two are partnering together. We, all who believe in Christ, partner in the gospel of Christ, a close covenant relationship. So what he's getting at here is do not enter into a close covenant relationship with the sons of disobedience. Those who are sexual and moral. Those who are impure. You were like that, but now you're like the Lord. Now we have to ask, what does that mean for my relationships outside of the church? Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5, you are going to have to associate with people. You should be associating with people of all kinds in the world. We should be evangelists. We should be entering into relationships where we're sharing our lives with others so that we are being able to share the gospel with them. But here it's recognizing if the kind of partnership he's talking about is letting them influence who you're becoming. Letting them have a say and a partnership with them so that they are forming your identity and your behavior. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, 33, bad company corrupts good character. Do not become. Do not enter into a friendship with the sons of disobedience so that they would begin to change you. Why? For at one time you were in darkness and now you're a light of the Lord. We can look and see Ephesians two, one to 10, the same truth. Now we have that next walk command. Walk as children of light. For the light that is found is in what is good and right Is it true? Walk as children of light, discerning. What is pleasing to the Lord? When we're children of light, we're looking up to God and saying, let me live for You. Let me live according to Your law that is my light. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness. but instead expose them. Now, I really wrestled with what this meant. What does it mean? I can understand what does it mean to not partake, so I'm not gonna jump in, I'm not gonna dive in, I'm not gonna partake of that sinful behavior, right? Sin is not excused in the name of evangelism. But what does it mean to expose them? So I decided, well, we should go to the one true light of the world, Jesus Christ. You know, when Jesus came and he taught, When he spoke to the Gentile pagans, he didn't actually address them specifically or harshly. He typically spoke the truth, he would see the heart change, and then he would speak words of welcome and love. The ones that received the harsh words were who? The self-righteous Pharisees. I believe Jesus as the light of the world is a model here that as we live, as we proclaim, our light in the workplace should help expose, by the way we're living obediently, the darkness. I don't think this is saying go around and try to point your finger at as many sinners in your workplace as possible. At least being a light, so that when their sin is revealed, they know they can come to Christ. For it is shameful even to speak of the things they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible. For anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." As I think about what it means to be light, one pastor, one preacher, he talked about the sun. He said Christ is like the sun. He is the one true light. When Christ came, He did everything the Father did. He said everything the Father said. He was the perfect light, that shine light into the world of darkness. He said now the church, it's like we're supposed to be the moon. The moon doesn't have its own light. The moon is merely a reflector of the light of the sun. In the same way, Christian, we are called to participate in the light of Christ, to be imitators of God, so that when we live, we're shining the light of Christ. Not our own light. Not our own glory. Not our own law, not our own expectations, not our own measure, but we're shining the light of Christ. For si. This morning, as we think about what it means to Fulfill this calling. Our obedience as Christians and as a church is the greatest and most powerful evangelism tool we have. We need to realize that. How we come together and the kind of light that we are here together, that that is one of the most powerful evangelism tools we have. And then how we live in our homes. What our neighbors see in here. How we invite them in. How we share the gospel with them. How your co-workers see you deal with stress. Your co-workers hear you talk about others. Realize we have a calling to be light into this world so that those who are dead in Christ might see His light and they're going to have to hear the words of the gospel to be saved. As we conclude, I want us to go back to Ephesians chapter two. Let me read 19 to 22. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In Him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. As we think about these prohibitions and this call, we have to remember constantly, we're a temple. Individually, we're a temple of God because the Holy Spirit resides in our hearts, but as a church, we're being built together as a temple. If you think about the fact that God resides in us seeking to promote guidance, God is looking at us seeking to be pleased with the way we're living according to His commandments by His grace. If you think about the fact that we're a temple, we're supposed to be a light where other people can come and see what worship looks like. It's a high calling. One to be thankful for. And when we actually see what we're supposed to be doing, how we're supposed to be imitating God as His temple people, This is obvious. Sexual immorality, all impurity, and covetousness must not even be named among us. Let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor poor joking, which are out of place in the temple of the Holy God. This is what's beautiful about Christianity, folks. When our sin is exposed, when our sin is revealed by the Holy Spirit of God, We can confess it. We can have assurance of forgiveness. We can set our ways to say, I'm going to stop doing that sin. I'm going to put it off. I'm going to put it to death. And we can be seeking to be a beacon of light as we walk in the love of Christ. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that you are a good and holy God that we can trust. We thank you that you're a good and holy God that gives a true word, that gives us freedom in Christ. We thank you for the good gifts you've given us, and we forgive us for how we continually corrupt them, how we continually want more. Forgive us for not being thankful, Lord. Heal our discontent. but by giving us thankful hearts. Help us, Lord, to encourage one another into a thankfulness. May that what marks our speech together. And we realize that great high calling we have to not only be a holy temple for your grace and praise, but to be a holy temple so that the nations, the world, would see your goodness in our lives and in the gospel you've given us to proclaim. In Jesus name we pray, amen.