Ephesians 5, and I want us to
look at verses 3 through, I don't know what yet, maybe
about verse 14 maybe. Ephesians 5, 3. But fornication and all uncleanness,
or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh
saints, neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting,
which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks. For
this you know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous
man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance, in the kingdom
of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain
words, for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon
the children of disobedience. Be ye not therefore partakers
with them. For you were at one time darkness, but now you are
light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for
the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness
and truth. proving what is acceptable unto
the Lord, and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of
darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame even
to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. But
all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light.
For whatsoever doth make manifest is light. Wherefore he saith,
Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead. And where
are we going to get some light? Christ is going to give it to
us. Paul has admonished these believers to be imitators of
God in the beginning of this chapter. And to do so out of
love for God. Be imitators of God, not because,
well, if I don't I'm going to go to heaven. No, because you
love Him. Because you love Him. And now
he mentions the things opposite to that. There's always the positive
and the negative, isn't there? Really, usually to understand
the positive, you have to see what it's not, the negative side. And that's what we have here.
And some of these, some of the negative, this is not everything,
but he mentions a few things. And these shouldn't be a surprise
to anybody. Does it surprise anybody to hear
that sex before marriage is a sin? Does that shock anybody to know
that? Come on. Yes, we need to be told, but
not because we don't already know it. Paul teaches this and
exhorts them in this because it was common practice in his
day, just like it is in ours. And those who preach the gospel
of free grace in Christ were often accused of being antinomians.
That means no law. Just lawless, just do, you know,
believe in Christ and just live as you please. And there's a
sense in which that's what we do. Because the way you are pleased
to live, Paul said, we reckon that if he died for us, it's
because we were all dead. And we needed him. The only way
we could live is for him to die for us. And now we ought to live
for him. We reckon we ought to live for
Him, so we do live as we please. We're just not pleased by His
grace to live like we used to. That's His salvation in us. But we're not antinomians. We're not known law. We're not
what we're accused of. John the Baptist, of whom, if
you'll remember, our Lord said there had never been a greater
man born of a woman than John the Baptist. He was put in prison,
and you know what he was in prison for? Later, they cut his head
off, and you remember that story, how that came about. But he was
put in prison to begin with, and John the Baptist, he was
in prison by Herod, who thought highly of him. He would hear Herod preach. Hear
John preach. John preached the gospel to him.
He was the ruler of Galilee under the rule of the Romans. And Herod
put John in prison, though, after hearing him preach and showing
some interest in what he had to say. But Herod, John told
Herod that it was sinful for Herod to have divorced and married
his brother's wife, Herodias. He said, that's not lawful for
you to do that. That's sin, that's blatant sin against God. And
he says that Herod would have killed him for it, but he was
afraid of the people, so he threw him in prison. But you see why
I'm saying that, that the idea that God's preachers condone
sin by preaching grace is slanderous and false. That's not it. We preach grace, God's free grace in Christ by Him sending His Son into this
world to bear our sins and to be punished for our sins. In
the sight of God, we have no sin. But we know now, we live
in this body of death. And as Paul described in Romans
7, the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the spirit against
the flesh. And we're taught to honor God
in these bodies. We're going to look at some of
it in a minute, I think. But Paul told the Corinthians
that your body's the temple of the Holy Ghost. Who are you married
to, Christ or Harlot? So while we're in these bodies,
we're to honor the one that saved us. We're to love it out of love
for the one that loved us. We're to keep ourselves pure
and unspotted from the world as much as we can. Well, Chris,
and I've heard this before, you don't preach against sin very
much. You don't ever preach against sin. Well, let me tell you what
we do. You can say we don't do that.
What we do is we go verse by verse, by verse, by verse, through
the word of God in four different places. We started in Psalm 1-1,
didn't we? And now we're in Psalm 86. We
haven't missed very many verses, have we? Sometimes, you know,
it's a little too long and I'll leave you the last three or four
to read on your own, but we've just about looked at every word
in those Psalms. We started at 2 Thessalonians
1-1. And before that, 1 Thessalonians 1, 1. We started in Ephesians
1, 1. And I'm pretty sure we haven't
skipped a single verse in Ephesians. We're looking into Proverbs on
Wednesday nights. And now Isaiah and Proverbs.
And before that, we were in four or five different... You see
what I'm saying? That's what we do. And if I'm not preaching
against sin that much, you know why that is? Because this ain't
a book about you not sinning. Okay? It's a book about what
Christ did for people who sinned because they're sinners. We see
Him in every line, don't we? And then every once in a while,
just every once in a while, We see exhortations like this because
Christ is to be honored by those who know Him and love Him in
this world. We don't condone sin. There's
no excuse for our sin. Shall we sin that grace may abound? God forbid! Many religious preachers preach
constantly about what you should be doing and not doing. That's
not the gospel. That's not the message of this
book. And yet here we have some things that we ought not to be
doing. This book is about Christ and
these things mentioned in our text this morning. Do you remember
the context of it? Let me remind you why they are
mentioned again. Here in this teaching which we
might call practical teaching. And let me say something. Because
I may forget in a minute. It's not in my notes this morning.
Let me say something about this. Because I'm your pastor now. And God has clearly revealed
the things that are an abomination to him. The things that are wicked
and evil in his sight. And you young people especially
now. If you defy God in these things. Because I watch this
happen now. I watch it happen. John wasn't afraid to stand up
before Herod and say, this cannot stand. And you look me in the eye, and
by God's grace, I'm not afraid to tell you either. Because I
watch this happen now. And when you defy God in these
things, especially you young people, you are shaking your fist In
the face and spitting in the face of the one who is going
to decide every aspect of your life. Do you understand what
you're doing? You see why those that love you,
your parents are saying no, no, no, don't. Whether you know the
Lord or don't know the Lord yet. Do not shake your fist in the
face of the God who made you and who will decide every aspect
of your life. I know too many young people
that made one or two decisions that have got them now swirling
right down the toilet to hell. Their whole life is an absolute
disaster because they defied God and just said, I'm going
to live like I want to live. And they're nice and sweet and
they come to church and nice and sweet in every other way.
But God's way is God's way. And I'll tell you this, you,
your actions are not going to save you. You're going to have to be saved
by His grace. You're going to have to be saved by the precious
blood of Christ. And yet I see actions take place that sure
enough will damn you without His grace. And I warn you, don't shake your
fist in the face of God. He's on the throne. He's calling
the shots. And He's not to be defied or
trifled with. And as I said, many are just
constantly preaching what to do, what not to do. We had a
couple in Texas that were divorced. And it was ugly. It was horrible. The reason for it was horrible.
And the lady accused Jack and I both. She said, it wouldn't
have happened if y'all would preach against sin more. Well, that doesn't faze me. That's
not what the gospel is. That's not what it is. If hearing
about Christ and who he is and what he did for sinners doesn't cause you to live godly
and honor him, the law sure ain't gonna do it. This book is about God's son. And these things mentioned in
our text, let me remind you why. These things, this is behavior
now that we engage in or don't engage in every day. But let's
look back in chapter 4 and see what this is all about. Your
ability to follow God or not. Your ability to do something
for God or not. Look at what it is. It's according
to the gift, verse 7 of chapter 4. And every one of us is given
grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Ephesians
5.3 is in this exact same context. I tell you what, if we don't
have a measure of grace given to us by Christ, we're all going
to be adulterers and whoremongers and go straight to hell, defying
God all the way. This is about Him. And it's a result of redemptive
victory of Christ. Look, verse eight, wherefore
he said, when he ascended up on high, and you know what that
all involved. Why did he go? Why did he ascend?
How was he even able to ascend? Because he was dead and is alive. He said, I am he that liveth
and was dead, and behold, I'm alive forevermore. And he rose
and he ascended. Like we talked about this morning,
they just sit there gazing at him in awe and wonder. And that's the one who said,
here you go. Here are gifts, graces. Here's
the ability to honor me. Isn't that what it is? If you're
going to honor him and live godly in this present world, it's going
to come from him. And it's by virtue of what he
did on Calvary and the fact that it was acceptable to God and
he's risen and ascended to the very right hand of God right
now. That's what it has to do with. And it's for his sake,
verse 12. For the perfecting of the saints,
for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body
of Christ. We're his body. We're his workmanship. We're his bride. Everything my
bride does reflects on me then. We're one. It's for His sake. It's for His
glory. It's to make us more like Christ. Verse 13, 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
fulness of Christ. You know why I don't want to do these things
in chapter 5 verse 3 and on that we talked about? Because I want
to be like Him. I want to be like Him by His
grace. It's everything to do with Him.
And it is a product, the practical experience of it. What does he call that in verse
20? You have not so learned Christ. Why are we not going to live
with somebody before we're married and shake our fist in God's face?
Because by God's grace, we've learned him. You see that? It's not because, oh, I'm afraid
I'll go to hell if I do that. It's because God has taught us
of his son. Not had somebody stand up and
talk about sin all the time and what you're supposed to do and
not do. If you learn Christ, you'll live for Christ. Does
that make sense? That's why I don't preach against
sin all the time. Because we've got one message,
Christ. If you learn Christ, then you'll
put away the flesh. as He enables us to do so, you
see, and live for Him. I hope that's clear. These things are condemned for
this reason. And think about the context of
our Scripture. Walk in love. He just got to
say, walk in love. Not love for yourself. If you
love yourself, you're going to do all of these abominable things
that are listed because that's us by nature. We're animals by
nature. We're vile beasts by nature and
we're gonna live like animals unless we love him. Unless by
his grace. And you know why we love him?
Because he first loved us. Imitate God as a dear child. that loves his daddy and wants
to be like him. Isn't that so simple and beautiful?
That's why we preach him. How are you going to imitate
him and fall in love with him if all we're talking about is
sin all the time and what not to do? The law never motivated anybody to
do anything. Not for long, at least. Being
afraid you're going to go to hell if you do bad things? That
might cause you to straighten up for a little while. But not long. You'll have to be propping that
up all the time. Look at 1 Corinthians 6. Verse 13. You're talking about all the
religious things that people do. They gotta eat certain things
on certain days and all that kind of stuff. Meats for the
belly and the belly for meat. The God's gonna destroy both
it and them. Now the body though, here's what we do need to understand.
The body is not for fornication. And you know why? Because it's
for the Lord. You see that? This has to do
with Him. His honor. The body's not for fornication,
but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. You're one with
one another, and God hath both raised up the Lord, and will
also raise up us by his own power. Don't you know that your bodies
are the members of Christ? You see again now, even when
we're preaching on sin, we preach in Christ. Because you can't
understand it any other way. It's not just about not doing
certain things and not doing certain things so you can get
to heaven when you die. Your bodies are the members of
Christ. Shall I then take the members
of Christ and make them the members of an harlot? He put the strongest negative
that there ever has been right after that. No, no, no, no, no,
God forbid that we do that. What? Know ye not that he which
is joined to and harlot is one body? For two saith he shall
be one flesh, but he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. Therefore, flee. You see, we're... Our flesh is so weak, isn't it?
Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is
without the body, but he that commiteth fornication sinneth
against his own body. And that own body is not yours. That's what we're going to see
here. What? Know ye not that your body is
the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you? which you have
of God and you are not your own. There's a sense in which it's
your own body. You know, those who are for killing
little babies in the womb, you know how they say, oh, it's my
body. I'll do what I want to do. No,
it's not. No. Whether you know the Lord or
don't know the Lord, it ain't yours. And sure enough, that
little baby's body in your body. You see what I'm talking about?
And that's just one thing. I'm talking about everything
that this applies to. We belong to him. We were made
by him. We were made for his glory. And especially now you believers.
He said, don't let it be named once among you, for you are bought
with a price. Therefore glorify God in your
body and in your spirit which are God's apostrophe s God's
and We like it that way don't we do you feel like a slave? The fact that you belong to God
does that make you feel like a slave? No, that's freedom To
be a bond slave of Jesus Christ is freedom. I It's not about, oh no, if I have
sex before I'm married, I'm gonna go to hell. Does that sound like
what it was about there that we just read? It's about who you are. It's
about who you belong to. It's about Christ. Who you are to him. And who he
is to you. Isn't that what it's about? Now
you see verse five, back in our text, verse five. For this you know, that no whoremonger,
no unclean person, no covetous man who is an idolater hath any
inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Now all of
us have committed these things in our hearts, if not in every
other way. But here's the question, is that
who you are? Is that who you are? After what we just read in 1
Corinthians chapter 8, is that what you are? It used to be, no doubt, he said,
and I tell you, this used to be who you were. That's not who
you are anymore. Who are you now? Look at verse 6. Let no man deceive
you with vain words. For because of these things cometh
the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. A lot of people
have a lot of things to say about stuff. Here's the lesson from
that verse. Let no man deceive you. A lot of people have a lot
of things to say. But here's what we need to do.
Young and old, every one of us. Just hear what God said about
it. Don't let anybody deceive you.
Just listen to what God says. And I hope what I'm saying this
morning is clear. You're not going to be saved
by what you do and don't do, but if the Lord has saved you, and even if you don't know the
Lord yet, Don't defy the God that made
you. Don't say I want to live like
I want to live. Nobody's going to stop me. But as for believers, this is
who we are now. Listen to this. Verse 8. For
you were at one time darkness. That's what you used to be. We still guilty of all those
things, but it's not who we are. You know who we are? Children
of light. Now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. Imitate God. Walk in love. Walk as children of light. What
does that mean to walk as children of light? Walk like somebody
that knows better now. We were in darkness before. We
thought the way to live was to get all we can and can all we
get and dog eat dog and do as we please. I'm gonna eat, drink,
and be merry because, you know, we only live once. Walk, walk in love, and we remember,
what does that mean? Walk like somebody who loves
someone too much to dishonor them. Boy, I can't, I would never,
I can't think of a whole lot of human examples of this. But a wife or a husband, they
walk in love, don't they? They walk, if they're a true
husband or wife, they're gonna walk like somebody that loves
their wife too much to dishonor them, to break that
trust. We're married to Christ. Walk in light knowing what you
were and what you are and who made the difference. that you owe the difference to
Christ. Walk like you belong to Him.
Isn't that what He said in 1 Corinthians? Walk like you belong to Him. And wouldn't have it any other
way. God help us to walk like that. For the fruit of the Spirit,
and are we not? Children of his spirit and have
his spirit dwelling in us the fruit of the spirit is in all
goodness and righteousness and truth And remember from this
birth that the only way you're able to walk any different than
you used to As children of darkness and all those horrible names
that he called us By nature, the only way you're able to walk
any different than that now is by the spirit The spirit It's
not you turning over a new leaf, it's the fruit of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit of God who dwells
in you and bears fruit in you and through you. And then verse
10, proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. That word proving. What does that mean? How are
we going to do that? Proving here means to scrutinize something.
to determine whether it's genuine or not, whether it's the real
thing, whether it's acceptable or not. Scrutinize it. So what he's saying here is do
that to everything. Scrutinize everything, your motives,
your actions, your words, your thoughts. Scrutinize everything
with this test in mind. Does it glorify him? for me. Is it honoring to Him or not? Deem whether or not something
is worthy of Him before you say it or before you do it. It's going to take a lot of grace
and He has a lot of grace. We need a lot of grace. Thank
God He has a lot. Verse 11, And have no fellowship
with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather to prove
them. You see, what we do, our behavior, our walk has a lot
to do, for good or bad, with those around us. Doesn't it? Who we surround ourselves with.
Don't fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. What fellowship
hath light with darkness, Christ with Belial? They can't walk
together, but rather reprove them, for it is a shame even
to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. There
are many varying degrees now. You think about this. There are
many varying degrees of how outwardly evil different people are. You
know some evil people. I know some evil people. There
are some people I would say are a lot more evil than others.
Wouldn't you? But that's just outward. That's
just in the expression of their evil. We're all equally evil
by nature. All of us now. Believers and
unbelievers. By nature, we're the same. There are people that we just
consider absolutely vile and wicked and wretched. and just
don't even want to be around them. Just prefer not to even
see them. And then there are other people
that, you know, we can kind of tolerate, but rather not. And then there's everything in
between. All these varying degrees, but
you know how the scripture defines all of this. There's darkness
and there's light. And you know what that is? Christ or no Christ. That's what it is. You may be
semi-evil, real horrible evil, quasi-evil, But you either have
Christ or you don't have Christ. And there's darkness and light
and that's all there is. You see that? That's how God
sees things. We see all this different, you
know, well, you know, I don't know, ooh, no, you know. And
we see very little in ourselves. But there's darkness and there's
light. There are not varying degrees of light. There are,
with regard to understanding, but with regard to your stance
and your standing before God, there's light and there's darkness.
He said in verse eight, you used to be darkness and now you're
light. You see that? You used to be
dark and now you're light. Completely the opposite. Your light, notice this now. Again, what's the difference?
Your light, you see the next three words? Verse eight, your
light in the Lord. In Christ, you light. Without Christ, you darkness.
Whatever varying degree of outward evil you express, you darkness.
Darkness, that's what you were not anymore Not anymore it's
all about him in The difference between darkness
and light is Christ the difference between me then and me now is
Christ And we see this also in the next two verses in verse
13, but all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light
of How are you even gonna know whether you're evil or not? He
said, reprove the works of darkness. Well, okay, we said about to
do that, but to us, darkness is light and light is darkness.
We don't know the difference. You know how we're gonna know?
Christ is gonna turn the light on. That's the only way we know.
All things that are reproved, he just got through telling you
to reprove the works of darkness. It's going to be evident, it's
going to be made manifest, it's going to be made clear to you
by Him who is light. And that's the only way now.
We're depending upon Him in all of this. You're not going to
quit doing anything or start doing anything without Him. You're
not even going to know what to start doing and stop doing without
Him. And I'm not either. And the light is Christ. The
Lord Jesus said in John 15, 22, if I had not come and spoken
unto them, they had not had sin. Not in their own mind, not in
their own estimation. But now that I have come and
spoken, they have no cloak for their sin. He is the manifester
of sin. And so if you want to live for
Him and you want to reprove the works of darkness and walk in
the light, you're going to have to get it from Him, just like
we always have. So the answer to all of this
is Christ. Learn Christ rightly. He said
in chapter 4, you have not so learned Christ. How have you
learned Christ? Have you learned Christ at all?
Come to know Him. That's how you're going to be
able to walk in the light. And that's how you're going to walk
in love. You can't love somebody you don't know. So learn of Him. He said, take my yoke upon you
and learn of Me. And the more you learn of Him,
the more the light is manifest and darkness is manifest. And
I tell you, this is key. Also, the more you're going to
You're going to walk in love and in light. Walk in love in coming to know
him. When you do learn Christ, you're
going to fall in love with him. And you're going to say, oh,
then I might know him more. Isn't that what Paul said? That
I might know him more. And when you do know him more,
you're going to love him more. Walk in love. That's how you
walk in love. You see, there's no separation here. There's not
doctrinal or practical. There's no practical. You're
not going to walk without learning of him. Fear, fear will never motivate
a sinner to obey. You know that. Not for very long. As long as the law is a man's
only motivator, you know what he's gonna do? He's gonna find
a way to justify his sin. Every time. It's like a little
child. If you catch him doing something,
you know, it's not gonna... and you spank him, you punish
him for it, you correct him for it, for doing something bad,
you know what that's gonna make him do? Quit doing it. while
you're around, unless they love you. If they
just flat hate you, they're going to do it in a way that they can
get away with it. Oh, but fear, the fear of the
law, it'll never, never motivate you to obey and honor the Lord
Jesus Christ. but faith which worketh by life. Galatians 5, 1 through 6, you
remember that? Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision
availeth anything in Christ. The law is not going to accomplish
anything in making you righteous, and it's not going to accomplish
anything in causing you to walk in a way that's honoring him.
But you know what, Will? Faith which worketh by love. Let's turn over there, because
I'm done. I'm done right now. Let's look at Galatians 5, though,
before we quit. Stand fast, therefore, in the
liberty. You see that? Oh, Chris, you're
telling us do this and don't do this. You know, that sounds
like bondage. No, honoring Christ out of a heart of love is liberty.
You do it because you want to. It's freedom. Freedom from the law, the bondage
of the law. Stand fast in the liberty wherewith
Christ hath made us free. Don't be entangled again with
the yoke of bondage. Don't be entangled in this idea
of I've got to do and not do things in order to please God.
Because I'm going to go to hell if I don't. Behold, in fact,
Paul said, I say unto you that if you do keep the law in order
to establish a righteousness before God, Christ will profit
you nothing. Well, wait, Chris, you added
something to that verse. Well, no, because we're fixing to get
to it anyway. I'm just jumping ahead a little
bit. You look at it. Testify verse 3 again to every
man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole
law Christ is become of no effect unto you whosoever of you are
all here's what I added while ago But the only reason I did
is because it's right here in this in the tape justified by
the law If you were circumcised Because you think by doing what
God said, you'll be justified before God by the law. Christ
will profit you nothing. You see that? You've fallen from grace. You
forfeited the grace of God. You forfeited your own mercy.
Forsaken your own mercy. For we, through the Spirit, Wait
for the hope of righteousness by faith. We don't try to be
righteous by being circumcised or by doing anything else. We
wait for the hope of righteousness that comes only one way, by faith. Paul said, by the deeds of the
law shall no flesh be justified. In God's sight, in that same
context, he said, we conclude, therefore, that a man is justified
by faith without the deeds of the law. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision
availeth anything nor uncircumcision." You're not going to be good in
the sight of God based on what you do or don't
do. And I'll tell you what avails,
what doth avail with God. Faith. God-given faith which
worketh. Wait a minute, Paul, you've been
saying all through here, don't work, don't work, don't do anything
to please God. Oh no, faith's come now and you're
gonna start working. Not to be saved, but because
you are saved. Not to be justified, but because
you are justified. Faith is gonna work by love, not by law. And now skip down to verse 24
In this same context and they that are christ's There it is
again. Now. We belong to him They that
are christ. They that are christ bright christ
sheep christ workmanship christ people Have crucified the flesh
with the affections and lusts If we live in the spirit Let
us also walk in the Spirit. See that? That's what He's saying
there in Ephesians 5. We belong to Him. Now let's act
like it. We love Him, don't we? Let's act like it. We have light
from Him. Let's walk in that light for
His honoring glory. May He give us grace to do it.
Let's pray.