Amen. Thank you. Maybe seated. If you turn with me in your copy
of the scriptures to Ephesians chapter five. And. Follow with me as I read. Again, starting in verse one
and down in into. Verse 12. The word of the Lord says. Therefore,
be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love, as
Christ has loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant
offering and sacrifice to God. But sexual immorality and all
impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you as
is proper among the saints. Let there be no filthiness, nor
foolish talk, nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead
let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this,
that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is covetousness,
that is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of God and Christ.
Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things,
the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore,
do not become partners with them, for at one time you were darkness,
but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light
for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and
right and true and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.
Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead
expose them. For it is shameful even to speak
of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is
exposed by the light, it becomes visible for anything that becomes
visible is light will stop there. And until we're done with this.
Section, I'm going to read all of that each week because it
is a full fault and it helps us to understand what this thought
is, and as we go into each sermon and each text, It won't seem
so topical as we're pulling out and extrapolating the details
when we read it and hear it in its context, but in today. What
I'm going to do in the text today, I want to pull out several things
from verses four through seven. We've already visited them. We
looked at covetousness last week. We saw the sexual immorality,
the sexual impurity, things of that nature. We saw that the
argument of Paul ties then to the sexual sins or the covetousness
or the lack of desire for righteousness. and the pleasing of the flesh.
We see all of the fact that Paul is saying that we are not that
way, so therefore we do not walk in that way, but we walk in a
manner of what? Worthy of the calling to which
we've been called in Christ Jesus. I've cautioned you, church, Not
to look at these texts and think, well, I am able to walk apart
from these things and thus I must be right with God. For God is
not a God who grants us mercy and justice or justification
because of our ability to walk in righteousness. But he is a
God that in his mercy, he has caused us to be born again and
justified us in Christ so that we then are empowered to walk
rightly before him, not because we desire to walk in such a way
that we earn his favor, but we walk out of the fact that we
have been granted his favor with no merit of our own. And so it's
very easy. It's very easy to beat. And as
I shared with you last week, it's very easy to beat the pulpit
and talk about don't do this and don't do that and don't do
this and don't do that. It's very easy to come to the
table of our minds and discern that what's happening here is
that God's given us a list of don't do so we should stop doing
these things. And though, yes, they might be
good for us to understand it in that way, it's not what Paul
was trying to teach us. Paul is showing us a picture
of what is not in the life of the Christian. He's not saying
don't do these things, he says, but. Sexual immorality and covetousness
and lasciviousness and all of these things are not named among
you. They should not be named among you because you are now
righteous in Christ. You are walking in light. Be
imitators of God, beloved children. So this is not a prescription
for how we are to imitate God. This is a comparison of what
it looks like for those who do not imitate God versus we who
are in Christ and thus in God. And so we then do take a test.
We measure ourself and the test of purity comes to play. The
test of humility comes into play. The test of satisfaction in Christ.
We must always measure ourselves according to the measure in which
we've been shown the reflection of the glory of God in Christ
Jesus that we're being shown every day as we read the text.
And we must be careful not to come to the Bible as a list of
things that please God, but rather we stand before Him as a pleasant
sacrifice to Him because of the imparted righteousness and the
imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ in whom the Father is
pleased, then we who are in Christ are now pleasing to Him. And
so understanding this, I'll give a little bit of a review and
then I have several things that I want us to look at. Last week,
we started with the understanding of verse five. Look at verse
five there. And this is the verse and that
it is a warning and I will. Remind you of what it says and
then we'll look at a few things and then I want to close out
taking this because as we left last week, some of us probably
felt a little bit, a little bit discouraged in that. Wow, we
see that there is sin somewhat of that nature in our hearts
and possibly our lives from time to time through the years. What
does that mean? According to verse five. So I
will give you some peace in that Paul gives us peace. But because
of the simpleness of our hearts and minds and how we've been
programmed for so many years as to looking at the scripture
of how to change our behavior rather than showing the reflection
of what God is doing. Then what we do is then we get
fearful when we hear warnings in Scripture. And it should be
fearful, but what does John say about fear? Perfect love drives
out fear. And so the love of God in Christ
toward us drives out the fear of condemnation in the believer.
But it does not provide a cheap grace. It does not say, I can
love the flesh and desire the things of the flesh and act on
these desires and still be in Christ. It's an it's just it
makes no sense. So let's look at what verse five
says, for you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually
immoral or impure or who is covetous, that is, an idolater has no inheritance
in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Now, two thoughts. First,
you see that the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of God are one
in the same. This kingdom of heaven that John, that Jesus
describes in John three, that Nicodemus is not able to see
clearly or at all, then he's not able to perceive. And what
Jesus then says to him is he's not able to enter. is the kingdom
of Christ, the kingdom of eternity. And so this shows us an exclusivity,
as we talked about yesterday and on Tuesday, an exclusivity
of the Christian faith, and that there is not a wide door that
all people are able to just come in their own philosophies and
their own theologies and their own doctrines. We come to God
the Father and to His eternal life and to His kingdom through
one means, and that is the door who is Jesus Christ. And if any
other way, is presented. It is a lie. It is a deceitful
lie. And the same argument then is
being presented here in the things of the world and the desires
of the flesh. So that's the first thing. The second thing it shows
us here that I want to pull out in verse five is it says you
may be sure of this. To remind you, I said this last
week, but I'll say it again this week. I want to remind you that
Paul is sure that his readers know this. He is elaborating. I know that you know that you
know this, that there are no idolaters and sexual immoral
people and impure people who are in the kingdom of heaven.
They are not there. They are not in me and they are not in
the Lord. They are not in Christ, rather.
You know, this church, we all know this, but there's a contrast. And let me show you what that
contrast is. There's a contrast because we know this, but deep
in our hearts, we have been told from time to time, whether it
be through whatever means we've been told. Look at verse six.
Let no one deceive you with empty words for the cause of these
things. The wrath of God comes on the
sons of disobedience. Now, do you see that? Do you
see that complete fault? You know that you know this church,
that no one who is impure or sexually immoral, a covetousness
that is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and
of God. And let no one deceive you with empty words, for the
wrath of God is coming on the sons of disobedience because
of these things, sexual immorality, because of covetousness, because
of impurity. God's wrath is coming on them.
Now, here's the other portion of this. This frightens the living
daylights out of unbelievers, but it will not save them. Fear
of the judgment of God will not bring salvation, but it is a
good way of opening the door to the reality of what that person
of where that person stands, where we all have stood before
without Christ. So. Out of that. Where is our hope? We are no
longer the sons of disobedience. So then the question is, if we're
no longer the sons of disobedience, why is it that we continue to
disobey so often? Well, that's a question that
hopefully we'll be able to answer. But the good thing we know is
that the scripture teaches us that we who are in the kingdom
of Christ have no condemnation. There is therefore now no condemnation. Romans eight, verse one. To those
or for those who are in Christ Jesus, we have no condemnation
right after the chapter seven, where Paul so passionately and
disturbed and with such a disturbed soul shares that his covetousness
is forever lingering in his heart. But. It does not rule his heart
for. Oh, what is what hope do I have
this wretched man of me? What hope do I have except Christ?
What hope do you have, church, except Christ? And so let us
look then at verse four. And I closed last week with verse
four, looking at how this related to the at the The heart, how
this related in verse three, as we see the the sexual immorality,
the covetousness, the filthiness. And we saw that these things
then relate also to verse four in that we are not to even think
about these things in this way. Filthiness, foolish talk. or crude joking. What about those
things? Paul says these things are out
of place. Now, what does that mean? They
do not belong there. They do not only not belong there
because everyone agrees, yeah, we should not do those things,
but they don't belong there and they have no place there. There's
no there's no place to put them. There's no shelf to sit them
on. They don't fit. They don't belong. You open up
a cereal box and out comes a rat. He's out of place. It's not supposed
to be there. It doesn't have a place in there.
He doesn't have a little bedroom down there in which he sleeps.
He doesn't have a separate container that he lays in apart from the
cereal. No, he's contaminated the entire bunch. And none of
us, if we opened up our Frosted Flakes or our Corn Flakes or
our granola or whatever it is we eat, rocks and pebbles, if
we opened them up and rat came out, we would not just blow off
the top and eat the box of cereal. We would not do that. Now, there
are some who probably have to because they're starving to death.
But in the norm of American society, we don't do that. Maybe some
misers, but they probably eat the rat too, but maybe some misers. But we don't. Why? Because it
is not part of the cereal. It is not supposed to be there.
It is a contaminated substance. Now, the whole box has to be
thrown out. Is that a chocolate chip or what is that in my cereal?
I'm not sure I'm not eating that. So we throw the whole box away. Let's all have some lunch. The same is true with these things
in the life of the church, in the life of the Christian, they
are not there, they are out of place, they have no place there. What are we supposed to do with
these things? Let there be no filthiness. nor foolish talk, nor crude joking."
Now, specifically, Paul is referring to some things. Well, what is
filthiness? Filthiness is grossness. Grossness. Crude talking. Things that are
good and wholesome and we make them gross. Similar to the story
of a rat in the cereal. It is a good product and it's
a good thing and it's good for our food and good for our bodies.
And then we see the rat in there and it makes it gross. And so
if we were to talk about things that are good in a gross manner,
it is a gross thing. Making or feeling bad toward
what God said is good. And then if we look at the verse
before that, God is talking about sexuality as Paul is, rather,
and dealing with the idea that it rules the world. It rules
the mind. It rules the body. You can't
buy a Coca-Cola without some kind of a sexual influence from
the advertisements. It's there. It's always been
there. Thousands of years ago, we see sexual advertisements
on the walls of caves. It's there. It rules and governs
the world, but it does not rule and govern the church covetousness. and things of that nature when
we covet even that which is good. And we see that God has established
ourselves in the body. God has established marriage.
God has established the marriage bed. God has established what
is right and wrong. And he's established these things.
Why? For his namesake, for his glory. And here's what we often
forget as Brother Randy prayed, for our good. And when we think
that God's parameters and God's borders and boundaries on his
gifts are for our killed joy, we have forgotten the very nature
of God Himself. And so what God has established
to be good, when some of us decide or when the world looks at it
and says that it's gross or makes it filthy, it becomes wicked.
And it is an abomination to God to say that the gift that He
provides for good is now gross. We don't do that. So let there
be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking. And so
if we break these things down, these three areas down, there
are two main things. Making gross what is good and
wholesome and then taking lightly what is serious. Making fun of
it. Being apathetic toward it or
being looking at it in such a way that it becomes entertainment
and we laugh at it. When we laugh at what is good,
We really laugh at God. And I'll tell you, friends, this
is one of those areas that we all need to take a hard look.
We live in a world today when it's easy to laugh at a lot of
things. For example, if you go online and you find a video of
treadmill accidents. You ever seen those? And what you find is The early
ones were accidents. People, why they filmed themselves
running on the treadmill, I have no idea, but they do. What I've
discerned in the last few days is that many people who have
videos of treadmill accidents, it's because they set them up
and try their best to either hurt themselves on it or have
set it up in such a way where the person that's about to get
on it, unbeknownst to them, they're about to take a spill. And so
they want to get it and put it on the video. And before there
was the internet, we saw it in the American funniest videos.
We see Dad climbing up the ladder, and little Johnny's filming Dad,
and he steps out, and the ladder ring breaks, and he falls down
into the bushes, and he screams, and everybody laughs. But they
don't see the next ten minutes of the ambulance coming and putting
him in a cup, and there he sits in a wheelchair hoping to get
the $25,000. I mean, it's all funny, but it wasn't funny then.
Why is that funny to us? And I'm just using that as an
example of how we find things funny. Why is it funny? But we
can't help but laugh. I mean, if I all of a sudden
today turned around and fell and fell over this pulpit and
broke it all to pieces and got up, we'd all laugh. It'd be hilarious.
Once you found out I was OK, some of you be laughing until
you thought that I was hurt. And then you're laughing with
immediately come fear. And then after I was OK, then you laugh
again. And in a week or two, we laugh about it. I'd be wheeling
up here in my wheelchair and we laugh about it. Why? I don't know. I cannot explain
that, and I've not gone deep enough into my own psychological
makeup to discern why I think it's funny, but I would laugh
at myself if I fell over this podium right now. But are we
to laugh at the things that God has said are good at the cost
of those things, at the degradation of those things? And so I've
got some thoughts that we need to put into play as we move forward
in this text. The first one is this filthiness
is grossness. It's making or feeling bad toward
what God said is good. So if God says it's good, like
marriage, like obedience, like sexual purity, like holiness. Like discernment. When God says
these things are good or God says that food is good or God
says that sex is good or God says that these things are good
or that the world is good in sense of what he's created for
our good, the trees and the vegetation, the animals and we make it gross. You see how easy that is to do?
We make it wicked. We make it disgusting. Then we
make what God has said is good as a gift disgusting. Now, what
does that do? It distorts a desire in us because
God has given us a desire to be intimate with our spouses.
God has given us a desire to desire food for fulfillment and
for our sustenance. God has given us a desire to
enjoy the ability of the body to go and play and run and jump
and and do things like that. God has given us these things
for our pleasure. But we make idols of them. We
make crudeness of them. We destroy what God has made
good. And then we take a good desire
and we turn it into sin by making it a bad thing. Another thought
that came to my mind this week. Is it foolish talk and crude
joking? Now see, I have to readily admit to you that there is always
ten one-liners in the back of my head over any circumstance.
Everything. I don't care if it's just, look,
the wind's blowing. I can come up with something
stupid to say about the wind. It's just innate. It's part of
who we are. And all of my family, we're all
just a bunch of hounds when it comes to that. We're quippy and
snippy. And I think we lay in bed at night wondering how we
could have got one over on the other On that particular, oh,
that was a good one. I'll see what I can say tomorrow
to get it. There's a little creativity behind it. And so I have to examine
and say to myself, do I spend my life in foolish talk and crude
joking? Well, explicitly here, Paul is talking about the area
of sex and sexuality. Let's don't talk foolishly about
these things and let's don't crudely joke about these things.
So then where is the line there? Where is the discernment? Where's
the discrimination when it comes to those things? And here's what
I've come to find, is that we need to forever be careful. Don't
fall around and sit with your mouth taped shut and your mind,
you know, something ticking in your ear with an earbud so you
don't think about anything. We must always take captive the
thoughts of our hearts and minds. But we also must be very discerning
that when we find that our heart runs out of something that's
not wholesome, that we put it to death, that we say, OK, this
is funny, this is not. Let's don't laugh at this, especially
because we're making light of something that God has said is
good and for our joy and everything that God has said is good and
for our joy. Here's the problem. So what's the problem? The problem
is, is everything that God gives as good is a reflection of his
nature. And so it's supposed to remind
us of his goodness. And if we make it funny, if we
make it stupid, if we take it for granted, if we make light,
we're lighthearted about it and don't really care, then what
we're saying is that which should point us to Christ. And to worship
him, we're not even considering him in the equation is just for
a thrill. You see how this applies. with many, many things in our
life. It's a crude joking and foolish talk. I look at this
as silliness or making light of God's gifts or laughter at
the expense of sinful behavior. So when we see things that are
sinful, we laugh at it. Look at the sitcoms today. Consider
the sitcoms that you've seen in your life. None of them are
wholesome. There really aren't. And I look
back and say, well, there's nothing really inherently wrong with that. I
can't think of any of them, any show, whether it's sci-fi or
sitcom. I mean, you're really just inundated.
And if you look deep enough, you're really just dumbing down
your mind and you're sitting idle in a sense of not not even
considering anything spiritual, just sort of, you know, and then
the world just sort of force feeds you from what you see in
your eyes. It's true for me. It's true for it's true for most
people, I believe. I don't think anybody who is
so critical with everything would sit down and spend forty two
minutes and fifty seconds, which is the average hour sitcom and
sit there and consider contemplating the intricacies of all the conversations
that we just sort of take it in sort of, you know, just they're
not really critiquing it. It's not as different when we
read, but just sort of watching. And I'm not saying anything about
watching TV. I'm just using it as an example. Another thing that
came to mind is that which is that which God has given is good
and for our joy. It is not for us to demean. And
when we crudely joke or we make light of thing or make silly
that which is God. Now, let me give you an example
of of something that I that I have come to understand. And some
people's consciousnesses would be very, very, very hard to understand,
to deal with. Here we go. There's a church
out West who made some videos in 2003 and they took an old
Jesus movie and they overdubbed some very, very, very, very hilarious
voiceovers. And they use it in such a way
that was satirical. So the idea that most people have about Jesus
is that he's this powerful, maniacal man. That has no time for anybody. And he only wants us to have
no fun and walk around and be holy all the time and to our
demise and to our depression, like an old spinster at a Catholic
school. And so they made fun of that.
And I thought it was so funny, I literally lost my breath. But
then there was a young man, he was 15 years old in our church
one time, and he saw that and he was so disturbed, he got up
weeping and left the church. I thought, what's wrong with
that kid? I think there was something wrong with me versus what was
wrong with the kid. And so when we look at it in light of what
it is, we have to ask ourselves, what's what's the fullness? What's
the full example of of how these things affect our heart? Are
we sensitive to the spirit of God? Are we recognizing the fact
that in some people's hearts we are hurting the gift of Christ?
But in others, we can recognize it for what it is, is satire.
And so it's not for a broad audience. We don't need to use those things
in the church. We don't need to display that kind of stuff. And quite
honestly, a whole lot of no good has come out of that. So foolish
joking, crude joking, foolish talk, silliness, we don't need
to demean that which is good and from God. The next thing
that came to mind is that that which God has given is good and
for our joy. And our joy is in the gifting
of God, not the laughing at the gift. See, we consider joy with
this laughter and this excitement of this poking fun of something.
That's not real joy. Joy is the gift itself when it
points back to the father and to the nature of the son, when
it points back to the and sometimes laughter and finding things funny
is the gift. but not at the cost of the seriousness
or the gravity or the holiness or the point of the gift. So
we have to make sure that when we laugh at something, it is
humor and it's not humor at the cost of that, which is good.
Now, this is a very different. I know everybody's thinking of
what about this? What about this? Can you give me a list of things
that are we're supposed to laugh at? No, I can't, because what
I laugh at, you might not be able to in your conscience and
vice versa. And what I deem is funny, you
may not think it's funny and what I and what you think is
funny, I may be highly offended by. So what do we do? We just have to be careful and
we have to pray. We have to discern. Don't put
things in our hearts and minds. Don't look at the gifts of God
and frivolously and lightly. But let us pay careful attention
to what the world is doing, because as you'll see there in verse
in verse six, let no one deceive you. I believe this is how we're
deceived. One of the many ways we're deceived
is we fall into the trap of cultural acceptance of things. Cultural
acceptance. Another thought. When we laugh
or make light of or crudely joke about what is good as a gift
from God, it actually brings God down. It brings God down,
not literally, but in our hearts and minds, it brings God down
as the witness of the church. It brings God down. So in this joy. Is not. Found in laughing at things,
but as As Luther says it, we ought to
find holy cheer in the things of God. Not worldly cheer. Holy cheer, which comes from
what? Gratitude. Gratitude and contentment
with God and all that he gives, that we are not discontent, but
we are content. And the outcome of that is not
trying to find a way of making this, which is sort of wah, whatever,
meh, and turning it into some entertainment, but being fully
entertained with a holy cheer in Christ himself. Gratitude
is the overarching expression. So let's look at how this is
in our lives in verse six. Let no one deceive you. Why is
this so prevalent? Because we are deceived. Church,
we are deceived in some areas of our life. We must be discerning. We must be as the Bereans. We
must look and see, as John says in his first epistle, we must
test the spirits. And yes, there's some explicit
things in those arguments, but holistically, we ought to be
testing the spirits and be discerning in every aspect of our life.
Everything that comes in, even when we resolve, in our hearts
and minds, and we make no judgment on that, we should then go, wow,
I made no judgment on that. Let me test it. And it might
take one second. It might take one second. It may take a week.
It may take ten years for us to test what we think about certain
things. And then when we come to that
conclusion, let us rest surely in the consciousness of our spirits
through the power of the Holy Spirit, knowing that God has
given us wisdom. And then we do not waver in that. We stand firm, as it says in
James 1. And so here we see, then, verse
six, let's look at it. No one deceive you with empty
words for because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the
sons of disobedience. Therefore, do not become partners
with them. The first part of verse seven,
that's all we're going to deal with today. That's all we've got time for.
And so what we now see is that there are those the ones who
are deceiving with empty words. And they are the sons of disobedience. Now, just a few verses before,
we see that Paul has told us that we are no longer like those
who are in the world. We are no longer like the sons
of disobedience. upon which the wrath of God is
coming. The wrath of God does not come upon the children of
God. He does not give His wrath on the church. It is free. The
wrath of God has fully been expended on Christ, and therefore God
will not put any more wrath on His children who are in Christ.
Now, we will pay consequences. We will have chastisement. We
will have discipline for our good and our sanctification.
But we will not endure the judgment and the wrath of God. It has
been placed on Christ. But there are those who are acting
and living in this manner. They are the sons of disobedience.
And upon them, the wrath of God will come. You may be sure of
this. And he defines them by being
sexually immoral. sexually impure, sexually covetousness. So in that, then we take it from
that point of view and we look at it then from every aspect
of sin in our lives. Not just this. This just happens
to be the very core, as we looked last week, of most sin, is that
we covet to have what we do not have. And we want it not for
the glory of God and for the pleasures of Christ, but for
our own pleasure. For we are discontent in the
satisfaction of the Gospel and in moments of our weakness, even
as Christians, We seek after the flesh. Sometimes it's just
to get away because we can't stand to be around anybody one
more second. So we just need to get away.
I'm looking not for my joy in Christ in the midst of frustration.
I'm looking for my joy to walk across the street. You see how
simple and subtle those things can be. I'm not saying don't
walk across the street. I'm just saying, as you recognize
it, you think that's going to give you a little moment of peace.
Peace comes in the midst of the storm in Christ. You want to
walk across the street and carry your peace with you? Great, but
find it there first. Vacation, whatever it might mean,
and maybe a day in the life of our of our culture where there
is no such thing as leisure. But there's no such thing as
a couple of hours to ourselves, and I think it's good. Take advantage
of it. It's a gift of God. Don't waste it. Don't waste it
by pushing the spirit of God away. It's so easy to do. We
all do it. We're all guilty of such things,
even in our hobbies. We can very well move God out.
Well, that's just too much. It's too hard. It is not too
hard. And it's not too hard in Christ. It's not that we have
to spiritualize and find out the spiritual significance of
a needle and thread. But, oh, can we not praise God for the
beauty of all those things? Can we not be mindful of the
fact that we've been given the ability to articulate with our
fingers such things that are in our minds that come out on
this cloth? Can we not look at the brush
and the paint and the canvas and just be expressing our gratitude
toward what God has established in us that we might express it
in an artistic way? Can we not do it in our music?
Can we not do it in our hunting and our hobbies or our athletics
or our collections? Yes. It's not that difficult,
it's just a change of thinking. It's putting our focus always
on Christ, being mindful that there is always just a very fine
line of idolatry in every aspect of life. And that our only hope
comes in not getting over these things and stop being an idol
worshipper, for there will always be, as Calvin says, a factory,
our heart is a factory of idols. And one we may find and throw
into the kiln of destruction, but then ten more come right
out that we cannot see. And so what happens here is that
there are those who oftentimes profess to be Christians who
remain in this type of behavior, who never heed the warning here
and who continue along the path of lucidiousness and debauchery
and sexual immorality. Not only do they remain in that
behavior, but they embrace that behavior, they embrace that lifestyle,
they are named for it, they are known for it. And they delight
in the decimation of what God has proclaimed good. And those
who do that are not his. So what are the effects of such
behavior? I believe in six ways, very quickly, the effects of
such behavior has even an effect on the church. And that's why
it tells us to not become partners with them. But more specifically,
I'll explain that in a moment. The effects of such behavior
is that when we continue in this way, we find no delight in God
or his gifts of grace. We find no delight in what God
has given us, nor who God is. When we seek to find delight
in the things of this world, even the gifts of God, we put
the meal and the table and the master's banquet ahead of the
master. The second thing, the effect of such behavior is it
establishes in us a cold heart. And a heart of works based on
a view of eternal life in Christ because of our righteousness
rather than his graciousness. The third thing that happens
is that we're bound by legalism rather than freedom in the gospel.
Well, I can't do this and I can't do this and I can't do that and
I can't do this and I can't do that or even worse, we get even
better. We get righteous legalism. Well, I won't do that and I won't
do that and I won't do that. And I'm not going to be like
those people. Well, how about I don't want to do that? I don't
want to do that. I don't want to do that. What
I want to do is honor Christ. But why do I do the very things that
I don't want to do? See, this is Romans 7. Because you're at war. You're at war with sin. You're
at war with the flesh. And God has defeated it. And
it's in Christ's flesh that it's been defeated. And He's paid
for it. And one day, through it all, this will pass away.
If you're not looking forward to heaven, you haven't really
taken a good, deep, hard look at your sin. I can't wait. There's not much in this life,
and I have a lot of things that I'm looking forward to. A lot
of things. I'm looking forward to being 90 years old. I'm looking
at that and I'm seeing it. And I pray by God's grace I'll
have a mind and a voice to preach. I'm looking forward to seeing
my grandkids and my great grandkids and just seeing, you know, I
just look forward to all that. But if it stopped today, I'm
not going to be upset about it. Because there's a greater joy.
So we are grateful for what we have and we long and see what
God has in store for us in the future. So today, tomorrow and
forever. But all these things we hold
loosely because they're only insignificant, small little gifts
of God's glimmer of his glory and the glimmer of his graciousness.
And the greatest thing that we could ever imagine this worth
is the worst thing that could ever be had without God's favor. And so we look for that day when
we are like Christ fully and forever, worshiping Him and learning
Him without a clock, without a stomach to rule our hearts,
without having to deal with buying food and paying bills, without
having to worry about disobedience and sin and constant frustration
over the fact that we want to be what we are not yet. No more
anxious and hopeful desire of what we will be, but we will
have fulfillment in Christ alone. And the fourth thing that happens
in the effects of such behavior of remaining in all of this type
of stuff and this true joking and this foolish talk is that
even in our emotions, as I've already expressed there, we find
ourselves cut off from the blessings of God. We find ourselves cut
off from the blessing. We miss it. And so oftentimes
we hear people say, we've got to get the blessings of God.
Don't miss the blessings of God. Look, you don't miss the blessings
of God. Don't miss them. But what is Paul already said
in chapter one of Ephesians? We who are in Christ have all
spiritual blessings. There is not one blessing that
God has withheld from us who are in Christ. And so if we are
in Christ, we have them all. If we are the sons of disobedience,
we have none of them. We are cut off without hope in
the world, without God in the world. We are alienated from
the covenant of promise. But we who are in Christ now
are in that covenant. We are the children of God. We
are the beloved of Christ. He did die for our sake so that
we might become the righteousness of God because of the great love
in which God loved us. He put his son on the cross that
we might live. That's beautiful. And when we
practice or fall into a habit, the reason the warning is so
strong in verse five is because it should not be. We ought to
be at war with the fight, with the sin in our hearts. We ought
to recognize that if it rains, we might or most likely are not
in Christ. Is sin reigning or are we at
war with it? The fifth thing that I think
happens with the out of this behavior is that bitterness and
entitlement come. And it's encompassed with covetousness
and a very endless stream, an endless journey of non-content,
uncontendedness. We're very discontented. And ultimately, number six. We find ourselves deceived into
believing that this behavior and these attitudes are good. And that what God has made is
bad. So that brings us then to. Verse
six here. Let no one deceive you, church,
for those things will come to you, those things, even as the
church, please do not be deceived, you will find yourself called
in this. And what are the deceivers? See
here, we have to be very careful When it says, Do not be deceived.
Do not let anyone deceive you. How do they do that with empty
words? What are the words of the deceivers? The words of the
deceivers are devoid of truth. See, the Word of God here in
verse five through seven is not condemning you. Church, listen
to that. Hear that right now. This is
not a sentence or a judgment to you. This is an already condemnation
of those who are not believing in Christ. For all the ones believing in
Christ have life, but all the ones believing not in Christ
are condemned already. That is who Paul is talking about,
not you. And so as you see a glimmer of
these things in your life and you go, wow, I'm not condemned
and I must run away from this stuff. I can leave this sin. I can fight that covetousness. I can walk away from this crudeness
and this sexuality that is unpure. I can walk away from this covetousness
and this idolatry in my life. I can because I am not the sons
of disobedience. And walking away does not put
me in right favor with God. Because I am in Christ, I now
can walk in light. as beloved children. See, that's
why Paul uses that. He wants to sap us up a little
bit and keep us in check that we are beloved children. Walk
in as imitators of God as beloved children. Don't walk as fearful
enemies of God who wait in impending judgment and expectation of a
tempest and wrath, but walk as children who have been forgiven
of these things and turn yourself away from them and walk in Christ.
You have been given the blessing to do so in the election of your
faith. Walk away. And so these words
here, you know that no one who is of this way has an inheritance
in the kingdom of Christ and God. This is not a judgment,
but it's giving you grace. This is a warning, not a sentence. This is the word of God. Listen
and hear and heed the word of God. It is not a killjoy. It's showing us that sin kills
joy. Do not listen to the words of
the flesh. Do not listen to the rationality of the philosophers
of the day. Do not listen to the politicians of our world.
Do not listen to your neighbors who think that you're crazy.
Do not listen to those in your own household who continue to
tell you that it's OK if you walk this way. Do not listen
to these who are deceived and in anguish and in grief. You
pray for their souls, but you love them and you suffer for
them. But do not be deceived by these
empty words. This is a warning and heed the
warning. Do not listen to the media. Do
not listen to the unbelievers of the world. Do not listen to
the propaganda of the philosophies and the rationale of political
things. Do not listen to cultural expectations. Do not listen to
these things. They speak words that are empty. The word they're vain, which
means worthless. devoid of truth. They give you
a box and they say, look at this big box and look what's in it.
It's the greatest joy that you've ever wanted. You open it and
it's nothing. Nothing. And you've spent everything you
own on an empty box, except you think it's nothing. It's lined
with an invisible gas of death and you open it and inhale it
and it's too late, for you've embraced it. You've embraced
it in such a way that you've inhaled deeply. You've crawled
into the box to see if you could lick the surface for a remnant
of that thing in which you wanted so greatly, but you found nothing
but death. And Christ is life. Words that
are devoid of truth, they ring rationally in our ears, but they
are not in line with God's word. They are not in line with God's
character. They deceive and they bring poor and they bring sinful
habits into the church. The words that are empty tell
us that there is no death and sin. Surely you will not die.
That's the very first deception of Eve in the history of humanity. The very day they were created
and the devil took them into the garden, or they were in the
garden, the devil entered the garden and deceived them by telling
them that what God had said was not true. Surely you will not
die. For you are already in favor
with God. He's not going to kill you, He
just made you. And these empty words, they lie
and they discourage contentment in God. We find ourselves bitter,
not belated. We find ourselves discouraged,
not delighted. We find ourselves empty and devoid
of joy. And we who are in Christ have
nothing to take that away from us. Why so easily do allow the
lies that are empty, these worthless truths, these worthless whispers
to take away our joy in Christ? These empty words, these words
that are devoid of truth, destroy the joy of what God has given
and creates a lie within our hearts that tells us that God
is not looking after our good. These words that are devoid of
truth teach us that the flesh is strong and powerful and that
we can engage here while still honoring God here. And that if
any time we can walk to the very edge of temptation and without
falling into it, that is not true. The scripture says to flee
temptation, the scripture says to stand firm against the enemy
so that God is the victor. We do not have it within us,
nor have we ever been commanded to stand up and run into temptation. We are to resist it. We are to
fight it. We are to run from it. The words that are devoid of
truth, reason to the sensual, you need this. It's OK. God understands. It's normal. It's part of who you are as a
human being. It's part of the natural desire that God's given
you. Go ahead. Take a bite. Go ahead. Sit there
and contemplate on it for a little bit. Go ahead. Fantasize about
it. Go ahead. Do it. It's OK. It's
normal. But see, if it's normal and we
covet that which is normal that God has given us, there are boundaries
for how we express what is normal. And it's not in lucidiousness,
it's not an impure, even in sexuality. Sexuality is normal, but it has
boundaries for our good in the marriage alone, not outside the
marriage, not gay marriage, not not animal marriage, not anything
else. We are not to engage in those
things. It is not the way God has commanded us to do. And what
happens when that takes place is that the gospel is distorted.
And the warning becomes less real. That's all right. We're going to be OK. Words of
devoid of truth reflect God, as I've already said, as a killjoy
when he knows and he has told us that sin is the only true
thing that kills our joy. And the most horrible thing that
happens when we listen to the lies. or those empty words, is
that we believe that there is no wrath that's coming upon us
if we remain in these sins, but it will come. We who are Christians
do not remain in these sins. We repent of these sins. We turn
from them. And as we've stated so many times
over, repentance is not just stopping the sin. Repentance
is looking at all that the world offers and hating it and running
to the one true love who is Christ. We turn from the world, from
our flesh, from our sin, and we run like we've never run before
toward Christ. Only those who are his do that. So here, Paul makes sure to remind
us that we know for sure that God does not allow such in the
ranks of the church and in his children, and that Christ has
indeed paid for such sins. Therefore, put them away. Put
them off. Walk away and further than that,
avoid those who lie to you and who walk in that manner, for
they will bring you to a place of despair. Do not let the world
tell you that you are fine while you live in sin. This warning in closing is a
blessing of God's love toward us. A blessing of God's love. To be able to be told, watch
out, Death is right there. Be careful. Caution. Don't walk
another step. That's affection. That's grace. That's beautiful, awesome compassion. And God is showing that to us
today to say, look at your sin and realize that if you are mine,
that's not real for you. That's not true for you. That's
not who you are. So walk away. You can walk away. Walk away from that. In Christ,
put off the old self that has been crucified in Christ. It
is dead. It no longer has dominion over you. Put them off. This grace is a blessing of God's
love toward us in Christ. But to ignore this warning, friends,
is to stand in disobedience. For, for. You may be sure of
this. No one who is sexually immoral
or everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or covetousness has
no inheritance in the kingdom of God. So do not stand in disobedience
as the sons of disobedience, but stand in obedience, obedience
and righteousness, because you are indeed the righteousness
of Christ. You are the righteousness of God. Why? For because of these
things, the wrath of God comes on the sons of disobedience.
Do not become partners with them. Now, what does it mean to be
a partner? A partner walks together. A partner talks together. A partner
spends time together. A partner embraces intimacy together.
A partner goes hand in hand and they enjoy the reward of what
they look for, of what they work for, of what they take, of what
they employ. And then they also share the
consequences. of such things. So what we're
seeing here is that if we partake as partners in sin, we will also
suffer the consequences of those who are in sin. So it means that
we are not in Christ. Do not share in their shame,
do not share in their guilt, do not share in their sin and
do not share in their wrath. Why would he say that? Because
you are children of God. We are the church. We will not
share in the wrath of God with the sons of disobedience. So
therefore, put away malice and anger, frustration and envy and
unforgiveness and crude talking and silly joking and filthiness
of sexual immorality and covetousness. Put away all of these things,
for the wrath of God comes on these things and the wrath of
God will not come on you. So therefore, do not walk in
these things. Do you see that? You see how so clearly it shows
us that walking away from these things will not will not keep
us from the wrath of God. But Christ alone will keep us
from the wrath of God. And so, therefore, because we
have been forgiven and we have escaped the wrath of God, we
do not engage in these things. It's an act of worship. It's
an act of expression of love. Is Christ really your greatest
treasure? Walk in light. For he who walks
in light walks in Christ, abides in him. And none of us in this
room, I don't care how old we are, how young we are, none of
us in this room are guiltless right now in our conscience,
but we should be. We should see and recognize,
wow, I see it, but we do not stand guilty before God. We're
convicted, but we're not guilty. We're warned, but we heed it.
We were guilty, but we've been forgiven. Let's walk away. For his sake and for the sake
of our testimony and for the sake of his grace toward us,
show the body, see why church discipline is so important. Because
if someone can stay in sin, they might not be in Christ. Be full of joy. For the love
of God has manifested the warning in your heart. And your hope
is not in getting rid of all sin. I do not believe in sinless
perfection. But I do believe in righteous
living and holy pursuits. And we as a body together can
walk that way. Not by ourselves. So let us walk in Christ with
His power Through his word and for his glory in the name of
Jesus, let's pray. God, we thank you for the love
that you've given us. Father, for the amazing grace
that's given in Christ. Nothing can separate us from
your love in Christ Jesus. Nothing. The powers of hell cannot
separate us. The expanse of the universe cannot
separate us. The depths of the sea cannot
separate us. We can never be removed from your love toward
us because we are in Christ, sealed forever and justified
before you through the living sacrifice, the willing atonement
of Christ. God, help that to grow deep into
our hearts. Lord, bring those who are not
yours. Bring those who have not come.
Bring those who cannot see to life, to faith. Show them the
beauty of your grace. Show them the reality of your
son. Bring them to a new birth. That they may believe and repent
from this day forward. Father, thank you for leading
us not into temptation, but father, for your through your son, you
have delivered us from the evil one and he has no power over
us. Let us stand and praise you and
love you and worship you, and we thank you for this opportunity
to worship in Jesus name. Amen.