Ephesians chapter five, starting
verse one through twenty one. Therefore. The imitators of God
as beloved children. And walk in love as Christ 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 it is proper, as is proper among the saints, let there be
no filthiness, nor foolish talking, 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 covetous, that is, an idolater, has no inheritance
in the kingdom of Christ and God. 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 partakers
with them, for at one time you were darkness, but now you are
light in the world, in the Lord. Walk as children of light. For the fruit of 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 of the unfruitful
works of darkness, but instead expose them for it is even shameful
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. Therefore, it says awake, O sleeper,
and arise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. Look carefully,
then, how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best
use of time because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be
foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is and do
not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery. but be filled
with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with
your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the
Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one
another out of reverence for Christ." Now, we're only going
to deal with verses 3 and 4 and maybe a little bit of 5. We're
going to look at 5 and then we're going to jump on it next week.
And here is why I've been so adamant about continually looking
at how we look at Scripture, how we interpret Scripture, how
we apply Scripture, because if we're not careful here, especially
you young people, you children, if we're not careful here, we'll
learn that the Bible teaches us how to obey and it does not. The Bible, we are not to applaud
ourselves for walking apart from sexual immorality. We're not
to applaud ourselves because we walk in purity. We're to worship
Christ and thanksgiving. And so what we don't see here.
Is we're not seeing here now a way for Paul to say, get your
act together and walk the way God expects you to, although
he says that he's not saying that. He's saying that in the
sense that now, because you are in Christ, therefore, because
God has created you in Christ, now you will not have these things. It will not even be named among
you. Let it not be named. In other
words, let it not be pointed out that these things are among
the body. Period. But what it doesn't say is if
you walk purely, if you abstain from fornication, which is the
context here, then you have pleased God and thus earned grace. No,
grace is given that we might walk away from these things. And as you'll see here, though,
many of us might find an opportunity to be overjoyed that we don't
struggle here, we do struggle here. Paul is addressing the
church. Nothing in Scripture is written
to lost people. Nothing is written to the church. So when Paul addresses a sin
in the Scripture, he's addressing believers who are indeed born
again. And so there's four things that
we are not going to do today. Here they are. Number one, we
are not going to look at the significant errors and the debauchery
of sexual sin. This is not a sermon on sexual
debauchery. and sexual immorality. We don't
need sermons on that. Paul doesn't preach sermons on
that. Jesus doesn't preach sermons
on that. He says, let it not be named among you. Period. Because we understand the gospel,
we understand the significant wickedness and the simpleness
of sin. The second thing we're not going
to do is to beat everyone down for the level of sexual sin in
their own hearts. That's not the purpose of preaching. It's
not the purpose of this text. Paul is not beating anyone up.
He's not rebuking anyone in this text. The nature and the tone
of his writing is that but sexual morality and all impurity or
covetousness must not be named among you. In other words, test
your purity, church. If you are a child of God, test
your purity. The level of purity in your own
heart and mind will be very much an indicator as to how you walk
with Christ. So we're not going to beat everybody
up here. The third thing we're not going to do today is we're
not going to point fingers at others internally because of
such sin. All of us know people, maybe
even in this room, who are dealing with sexual sin. It's not for
the purpose of us trying to call out and look into the hearts
of one another. I see it. For as we might think we see
it in another, he or she may see it in us. So let us be clear
to take the log out of our eye that we might clearly see how
to take the speck out of our brothers. That's not the purpose
of this preaching. And the fourth thing we're not
going to do today is we're in light of all that, we're not
going to ignore the fact that we have such sin in our hearts. But what are we going to do?
We're going to do four things. We're going to look at the fullest
meaning of Paul's argument regarding the heart of this issue, namely
the root of sexual lust and fornication. Because as it applies to us who
are not married, it applies directly. As it applies to us who are married,
it applies indirectly, but at the same way, it attacks the
heart and the root of the issue of sexual immorality. The second thing we're going
to do today is we are going to realize that, though we may not
be guilty of fornication, we are guilty of the same breeding
of such sin within our hearts by finding satisfaction in the
flesh and for the flesh instead of in Christ. The third thing that we're going
to do today is we are going to discover that there is peace
in the cross of Jesus Christ. And that we who suffer with such
sin have no condemnation on us. And the fourth thing, as we're
going to know that sin is at war within us and that we who
are in Christ will make war with sin. And we will fight against
it. We will not allow it to maintain
and rest in our hearts and our lives. Want you to quickly look at verse
five. I'm not going to deal with this
verse in its entirety. This is a very difficult passage
to preach, except you preach it incorrectly. So for me to
do it correctly, I have to. It all works together. All of
these verses work together. But yet there's so much in the
middle of this sandwich, if you will. Verse five says, for you
may be sure of this. What does that mean? That means
that Paul is being very clear in the fact that something he's
about to say is absolutely certain. That it cannot be argued. That
it cannot be refuted. That it cannot be ignored. And
that there is no way around it. It's an absolute guarantee. You
can take it to the bank and it will always fund. You can be
sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure,
or who is a covetousness, or who is covetous, or that is an
idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and
God. Now, listen carefully, Church. Paul is saying what you think
he's saying. If you are a coveter, a sexually
and morally person, non-pure, You have no inheritance in the
kingdom of Christ. Now, what that does to us as
Christians is it should shake us. We should shudder, there is no
I pray no one is OK right now. If anyone is OK, repent and believe
the gospel because now if you are OK because your faith is
in Christ and you know that he has paved this righteous way
for you and giving you his life, then good. But if you're OK going,
well, I don't deal with these things. I'm cool with that. Let's
be careful. Be careful for John says that
he who says he has no sin is a liar. And so any sin that you
think you do not deal with, you lie to your own consciousness.
The very nature of saying that you do not struggle with a particular
sin is pride, which is sin in itself. Be very, very careful,
there is not one command that any of us ever meet. None. None of us do it. So here we
know that we may be sure that all those who are sexually immoral,
all those who are pure and all those who are idolaters have
no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ. This is why this message
is so important to us, church. We can't ignore the reality of
what Paul is teaching here. It's not just for us to learn
to work on our sexual sin. That's not what this sermon is
about. That's not what this letter is dealing with, because Paul
is priming the pump to show the beautiful picture of the Gospel.
And in verse 22, he says in verse 21, then be subject to one another
out of reverence for Christ, and in the very next breath,
wives, be subject to your husbands. And then he moves right into
the beautiful picture of the relationships, whether it's husband
and wife, whether it's child and parent, father, son. Then moving into other areas
of relationship, culminating to the biggest beautiful thing
about children, obeying their parents. Then realizing that
our full battle is a struggle, not against flesh and bone, but
against the powers of Satan. And friends, I will tell you
right now that the enemy of God, Satan, the father of lies, has
lied to our hearts and we have bought it hook, line and sinker.
And there is nothing that we can do to stop his lies, but
we must be discerning to understand them. And the Scripture teaches
that apart from blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and unbelief,
that sexual sin is the gravest sin in measure of sins. Yes, all sin is equal in the
context of sin being falling away from the law or violating
the will of God. But the Scripture very clearly
states that sexual sin is not only sin against one thing, but
it's a sin against one's own body. Not just against God. And so it's important for us
to look at this. Why? I think there are many reasons,
but I had to sort of boil it down to three so I didn't take
three weeks to do this. The first reason is that we are,
as the church, surely a reflection of God's wisdom. Ephesians 3.10,
we've been learning that in the last few months. And because
of this, if sin – now listen, it's a conditional statement
– if sin is active and living in our lives, it shows us apart
from Christ, but yet our very place is in Christ, so something
is wrong. So we must deal with these things.
We must deal with the root of why, all of a sudden, now, Paul
is dealing with something here that seems out of place. But
it's not out of place. Because what he's been talking
about up until this point is the selfless, self-sacrificing,
pleasing, pleasant love of Jesus Christ and of the church as the
body. You understand that he's not
talking to you individually? He's talking to you corporately. Our faith, though it is personal,
is not private, and we as Christians are worthless apart from the
body of Christ. God is not looking for individual
little worshipers. He's looking for a bride. And
if we aren't functioning as a body, we're apostate. Mavericks, Christians apart from
the church, stay at home, watch it on TV. These people are not
seen. They're missing. They're standing
in disobedience. And we're not angry because without
God's grace, we'd be there. Sometimes if I had not been the
pastor, I'd be there. So we're not going to stand up
and be real guilty about this. We're going to learn from it.
The second thing that makes this vital to us is if we ignore such
reality in our world. And in the life of the church,
we become callous to the Spirit. And Paul has already said, do
not grieve the Spirit. Do not grieve the Spirit by what?
Allowing your anger to rule. and not loving and forgiving.
Even when it's godly anger. What does he say? Be angry, but
sin not. If we do not forgive in righteous anger, we are wrong. And so we need to look at sin,
and friends, we need to hate it. We need to hate every aspect
of it. We need to hate every practice
of it. We need to hate sin because God hates sin. I said Tuesday night. And exegeting
John 3, 16, 17 and 18, looking at that text and that God loved
the world in this way, how close? That he gave his only son, the
only one he has. That those believing. How's life
eternal? And the comment that I made was
that the reason God gave the Son, and in Romans 3, verse 21,
it says God put forth Christ as propitiation. In Isaiah, it
says it pleased the Father to crush the Son. So God, in His
joy, killed Jesus because He hates sin. And we ought to hate sin. We ought to hate sin in the life
of the church, because when we see it in the church, Christ
has paid for that. So why are we adding to it? And when we see it in the world,
we ought to hate it because God is holy and he should bring justice
to the earth. But we ought to grieve in our
spirit because there are many who are lost. We should not want
the worst, most wicked person that ever lived to experience
the judgment of God. We have any empathy in our soul
at all. Though yet against what they've
done, we should cry for justice. Don't become callous, the third
thing is the reason it's important is we must test ourselves against
such teaching, for if we are named under the banner of sinful
passions, We may not be in Christ. As a matter of fact, if we're
named under sinful passions, we are not in Christ. And so here we see. A lot of
things, sexual sin. At its worst. Sexual sin in its
worst. Sexual sin in Scripture. And I looked through this, and
I thought this would be cool, but I don't really want to sit
here and bore you with numbers, although it's not really boring.
I'd rather see Christ and worship through the text than get the
statistics thereof. But look up how many times Paul
uses pornea, the word here. Fornication. is the correct translation
of that word. Fornication. It's on so many
lists in the New Testament, it blew, it'll blow your mind. Everywhere
there is a place where one of the apostles or where Jesus begins
to talk about those who will not inherit life, sexual sin
and fornication is there at the very beginning. It's there. along with drunkenness and lying. But now here, Paul puts it here,
and friends, I believe sexual sin is at its highest in society. No, it's not. Yes, it is. It's at its highest in society.
Our culture is so inundated with sexual sin that we don't even
recognize the wickedness of it. that we have pushed aside the
reality of what sin is and watered it down so much that it almost
has to be absolutely heinous for us to call it sin. Sexual sin is at the peak of
these lists because sex centers at the core of two things biblically. It centers at the core of a display
of Christ and His church in marriage. And that the desire of the flesh
in marriage is good within the confines of God and His purpose
and His wisdom. So it displays Christ and it
displays the good pleasure and the desire of the flesh in which
God has established in His boundaries of matrimony. of husband and
wife. And so what we see here now in
Paul's argument is a continuation of the comparison between two
things. The life in Christ and the life who is dead, or the
dead man in sin. So the new man and the old man. The one who is alive in Christ
by grace through faith, and the one who is dead in his trespasses
and is an enemy of God. This listing is a focus on the
self-indulgent, sensual satisfaction of things. apart from God's holiness
which is displayed in self-sacrificial love. Do you see that? Let me
recapitulate that. Paul now is expressing the contrast
between God's holiness which is displayed in self-sacrificial
love and says that the contrast of that is sexual immorality
and covetousness and the like, which is self-indulgent, sensual
satisfaction. And what happens is that so often,
so many people consider love from a sexual connotation, and
though it can be understood and expressed in some way in this
manner, love is sacrificial, not self-indulgent. And so there's
much at stake here. I got a lot of this, the five
things that I believe are at stake here with this text. With understanding sexual immorality.
Number one. The picture and glory of Jesus
Christ as the redeemer is at stake, at stake. If we do not
understand this, we miss who Christ is. Secondly, the picture
and purpose of marriage as commanded by God in holiness is at stake. And we already know. that that
is gone in the world today. We already know that in the Church
of America, the picture of marriage is no longer held to a high standard.
And what does it say in Hebrews? That we ought to hold marriage
to a high honor and keep the marriage bed undefiled. Well,
you know where the defilement of marriage comes from first? Fornication. The third thing that is at stake
is the picture and purpose of sex as a gift from God in the
marriage alone. And the fourth thing is that
the picture and purpose of joy in Christ is at stake, opposed
to the desires of the flesh. And fifth and finally. The gospel
itself is at stake. When we misunderstand the severity
of the old flesh in relation to sexual sin, we miss the gospel. We misplace it. We misstep it. So let's look at these one at
a time. And this is a test, if you will,
friends, of purity. A test of purity. So what I want
to do is look at these things one at a time and talk about
them and then expressly pray that the spirit of God would
help you see how these play out in your life. Let's go to the
Lord in prayer as we as we continue. Lord, we know that as we stand
here before You, Father, we are not able to stand righteously
in our own merits and our putting off or putting on except that
righteousness of Christ is given to us by grace. And then, Father,
by faith we live out by continually putting off these things. And
so, Lord, we as your children are able to stand righteous before
you, not just in image, but in reality. Though our flesh is
at war within us, we are able to stand because Christ has taken
our sin and you have crushed it. Father, protect us and protect
our hearts and minds from several things. Protect us from being
guilty and condemned, for we are forgiven in Christ Jesus
and we stand with our heads high, bold before your throne because
you've told us we are justified. Because we are. And Father, protect us from feeling
self-righteous, though we may not suffer as deeply as we think. Protect us from pride. And Lord,
protect us from the lies of the enemy. Protect our children from
those lies. That they would not misunderstand
the vital importance of marriage. And of holiness. And we pray
these things in the name of Christ, our salvation and our wisdom.
Amen. Sexual immorality and sexual
immorality, the word there is best translated fornication,
dealing with the understanding of sex before marriage, sex outside
of the marriage covenant, fornication. Obtaining that which is not rightfully
yours to obtain apart from the means and for the purpose of
which God has established for it. It causes grave problems. And the fool is the one who says,
I will not suffer the cause of sexual immorality. The very nature that one can
say that shows that they are suffering from sexual immorality,
for their heart and mind are callous to the Spirit of God. This text has been used in many
ways to describe many things, sexual immorality, pornea, but
holistically it refers to sex outside of marriage, fornication.
Paul expresses this He instructs that we each should
have our own spouse in 1 Corinthians 7. He says it is good to remain
single, if you can, for the sake of the gospel, but instead of
being tempted by sexual immorality, pornia, fornication, have a wife,
have a husband so that you're not tempted in that way. For
abstinence and not necessarily abstinence, singlehood is a gift
of God and a calling from God. And so now we understand that
Paul specifically says, avoid this type of temptation, avoid
it. In First Corinthians, chapter six, he says, flee from sexual
immorality. Every other sin a person commits
is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins
against his own body. In Galatians 5.19, Paul writes
to the church there, he says, now the works of the flesh are
evident. And the first on the list is porneia, sexual immorality,
impurity and sensuality. And we know what the works of
the flesh are. Certain death. They are not part of the new
man. And he does not practice them, and he does not allow them
to ruin his life, and he's no longer a slave to these things,
but a slave to Christ, who is his righteousness. Premarital
sex. is the foundation of this immorality. It is the violation of body and
soul and defiles a man in his standing before God. It therefore
has no place among the brethren. It has no place in the life of
the church. And so what Paul now is doing
is he's helping us see, well, what's the big deal here? We
go from there to all impurity. But in context, Paul then attaches
each one of these things to the concept of sexual immorality.
His argument is moving from the selfless, self-sacrificial, dying,
holy love of God in Christ that we should share with each other,
to the absolute abomination of the opposing view of that, which
is at its root, fornication. You might say, well, you know,
I'm beyond that. I'm married now. I don't partake
in that. Well, that's good. But I believe
then when we see this next thing, it says that all impurity. He broadens it. It starts here
and the root of the heart of the issue usually comes out in
this way. Physically, it comes out this
way, sinfully. But I don't want you to get off
the hook. Because you think you've got it. I'm not there anymore.
Well, you are there because then he broadens it. He says not only
sexual immorality, but all sexual immorality from a broad sense.
Where does it come from? It comes from the desires of
the flesh. So this refers to all types of
sexual sins, all impurities. All type of things. Sexual sin
degrades the nature of God. It degrades the character of
God. It takes down His divine purpose and His holiness and
His decree of holiness. And so all impurity relates to
self-indulgence and sexual sin. And this is, listen, any sexuality
apart from God's design of marriage. Any sexuality. That doesn't mean just sex. It doesn't mean just intimacy
between two people. It means thoughts and desires
and images. Words. Dress. What we laugh about, what we
talk about is Paul's about to show us. What we make fun of. What we watch on television.
What we read. It's there, is it not? It's everywhere. So how do we do it? Do we just
pluck out our eyes and stab out our ears? No. It's going to be
there. We're going to see it. And we don't throw, we don't
ban books because it's in books. We don't burn down Hollywood.
How do we handle it? It's not going away, friends.
We can't be separatists. We can't move out to a place
in the middle of the woods and have nothing. We ought not to
have any books that contain sex. Well, throw the Bible out because
it's there. Not only is it there, rape is
there, incest is there. But there's a difference in seeing
it, understanding it and practicing it. There's a difference in being
entertained by it and just knowing that it's there or that it's
presented to us. We flee from sexual immorality. We flee from
sexual temptation. We flee. The reality is, church, is that
God has established here's what it ultimately boils down to.
God has established his rule. Over all the pleasures of man,
I want you to hear this. This is where Paul is going.
God is the Lord over the pleasures of man. So He tells man how he
should have the fullness of joy in this life. God tells us how
we're supposed to enjoy His gifts. God tells us how we're supposed
to enjoy His food. God tells us how we're supposed
to live our lives for our good. And the sinful man, the man who
hates God, doesn't want Him to rule his pleasures. No, God,
I will take your pleasures on my terms. I will do what I want. I will seize what is mine. I
can do it. Carpe diem. I go. I take. And you can't stop. See, it is not for man to decide
what is best for him. You see, this is very much the
same argument that Paul is developing in Romans 1 to a larger extent. And we know that in Romans 1,
Paul specifically deals with sexual immorality. And the idea
that what happens is that these things are birthed in the sinfulness
of man when man does something, when he exchanges the glory of
God and its satisfaction, and its beauty, and His worth, and
the joy that's found alone in Christ when He exchanges all
that for the things of the world that He wants for Himself. And
the Word of God says that God gives them over to their desires. So people who are ruled by their
flesh foundationally, and most of the time are ruled by their
sexual appetite. But the culture has changed the
focus of that habit. The culture has made sexuality
as a right. The culture has made sexuality
as something that everybody is supposed to enjoy. And look at
it. I don't want to talk about statistics
here, but look at it. How often are women raped in
the world? Every few seconds? Every six
seconds? Every four seconds, a woman is
raped in the world. God has turned man over to a
reprobate mind. The issue of culturally defining
what is good denies the rule of God, and when we allow the
world to define how this should look and this is what it's supposed
to be and this is how it's supposed to work and this is how it's
supposed to be listed and this is what we know and this is what
we want, then we are denying the good rule of God. God has
established rule over all things. And when the culture defines
how these things are to be taken and enjoyed and received, then
what happens is it defiles God and it defames His name. His authority over all things
is challenged. And the creation is condemned
for such by being turned over to sin in the flesh to pile up
more wrath for the sin that is compounded in their own hearts. I want you to be very careful.
Be very careful, Church. This is not a test of practice,
it's a test of purity. What do we want? What do we desire? We know the difference in the
desires of the flesh and the desires of God in our heart. And we say, I can't help it.
No, but Christ has already helped it. He's already killed it, and
so that's just a lie. It's just a lie. Oftentimes,
when it comes to sexual sin, many couples try to rationalize
fornication or they establish rules of what constitutes sex. Well, the scripture teaches that
the thought of things or the appearance of such things should
be fled from. Not just the act of those things. The opposite of impurity is purity. So let's look at the next word,
covetousness. Now, where is Paul going? He
starts out with the specific term, sexual immorality. Then,
all types of impurity to express and broaden the horizon in that,
wow, any type of sensuality that is not pure in the confines of
God and His purpose for it. And then he broadens it even
more and he expresses the root of it all. Covetousness. What is covetousness? Covetousness
is a strong craving of the flesh, a desire that is insatiable,
something that we get up every day and we stay up late every
night with anticipation of receiving or doing. We covet things. And covetousness reflects the
nature of the heart in this way, in that the heart is dissatisfied
with God, and it's dissatisfied with His rule in our lives, it's
dissatisfied with His authority over the pleasures of man, and
it's dissatisfied with the Word of God and the commands of His
Word, and it's dissatisfied with the holiness of God, and so on.
And so everything that God is and gives and the manner in which
He gives it and all of His wisdom, covetousness is saying, I don't
like that. I want this. That's what it is. And so it operates out of a discontented
heart, namely and namely toward the current state of reality.
Where I am today, if I could just get over there, then I'll
be at peace. What I have today, if I could
just make it better, then I'd find joy. I want this. I'm not going to settle for this.
This is covetousness. Why do they have and I don't?
That's covetousness. I want people to see me. and
think this way about me, so we covet. It's deep. And in Romans 6 and 7, Paul says
that his sin is the sin of covetousness. Covetousness cannot be seen,
though we can act upon it. It's an invisible sin that we
could go to our grave and no one ever know. Covetousness is from a discontented
heart toward the current state of Christ in one's life. And it desires more and more
and more and more in hopes of finding satisfaction apart from
Christ, for it is dissatisfied with Christ. This desire is strong,
and it's the strong craving of the flesh. It can be sexual. It can be materialistic. It can
be power. We see this fully in the threefold
example of 1 John 2, verses 15-17, where John says, Do not love
the world. For anyone who loves the world,
the love of the Father is not in him. And he lists them. The lust of
the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. They're
not of the Lord, but are of the world. So what is this strong desire? This covetousness. It can be. Listen, you might think, well,
there's nothing that I want that's really sinful. It's not about
wanting what is sinful. It's about sinfully wanting something. It's about being dissatisfied
in what you want and what you have. Covetousness is not. Lust is
not looking at the thing and saying, I want that evil over
there. The lust is evil, for you in lust want that which may
be good apart from Christ. You think that gives you the
joy that you need instead of Christ. We often will praise
God for our lusts for those things. God, give me this because I need
it. And you know I want to be happy
and I need that to be happy. Thank You, God, because You're
such a great God. And we patronize and we play
with God. We placate to His goodness as
though He can't see our hearts. We're all guilty. Nobody is free
from such things. I mean, even bread and water
and clothing. People kill for that. People
kill for food. In the Northeast now, in New
Jersey, we see it. People killing because they're
starving. So they kill someone for food. They need clothing or their babies
are dying and they kill for food. And we understand that somehow. But why is your life more important
than their life? And it's a coveting of something. We understand. In some sense,
we believe that, wow, it's so sad that that has come to this
place. People kill for money. Most drug deals that go bad are
people shooting one another for twenty dollars. They take somebody's
daddy or son or brother or sister or mother and they take them
out and they kill them because they didn't pay their twenty
dollars. Police officers are shot every day because someone
runs a red light and the person doesn't want a ticket, so they
kill them. It's covetousness. People kill for sex. I'm not going to let my wife
leave me. I'm just going to kill her. We see it all the time.
Missing persons, man goes on trial. Two years later, he's
in prison for killing his wife because he wanted to have the
neighbor's wife. Covetousness. People kill for
popularity. What do you mean my daughter
didn't make the team? Well, she's an alternate. Well, I'll make
a spot for her. What do you mean my daughter didn't win the beauty
pageant? What do you mean my son didn't get the scholarship? What
do you mean he's not on the starting line up? And they kill somebody. Power and position. And though we may not kill, friends,
the heart of murder is the one that desires to have. That's
what James says. In James chapter 4, what does
he say there? Turn there with me. What causes quarrels? And what
causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions
are at war within you? You desire and you do not have,
so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain,
so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do
not ask. And you ask and you do not receive because you ask
wrongly to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people, don't
you know what friendship with the world is enmity with God?
Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes
himself an enemy of God. The question is now, what is
it that we covet? What do we love? And that we
may not kill. Without God's grace, we would
definitely ultimately work to that end. What we love is seen clearly
in our passions. What we desire, what we hold
to be the most precious is seen in our passions. We as the children
of God, as I've already said, are no longer slaves to the fleshly
desires, but we are free from them. Even the good things that
God has made and given to us, we are not slaves to the desire
of those things, but we are free to take when God gives and be
gloriously happy when He takes away. We take them as they come in
the order and in the manner in which God has given them. And
in this argument, sexuality is a gift from God that is so precious
and such a reflection of the good that will come. To consider
it anything other than a gift in itself is sinful. But look what the world has done. Made it dirty. We should be content
with God's gifts. with his character, with his
nature, and we should be joyful in all that he has established
in Christ for us. In chapter one, all spiritual
blessings. We ought to crave not the things
of the flesh, but spiritual food. We ought to crave spiritual milk,
spiritual meat. We ought to crave glory. We ought
to crave holiness. We ought to crave godliness.
We ought to crave worship. We ought to crave that God and
Christ be in us and through us and for us for all things. We do not crave the world with
all of its pleasures. Jesus was tempted with stones
because He was hungry, and Satan came to Him and said, turn those
stones to bread. Forty days of fasting, and Jesus
needed bread. His body needed bread. Nothing
was sinful about bread, but had He taken it upon Himself to provide
for Himself at the purpose apart from the Father, He would have
sinned. And the Scripture says in Hebrews
that Jesus is not some high priest that can't sympathize with us,
but in every way He sympathizes with us, and that He has been
tempted in every way in which every man has been tempted, yet
he sinned not. And so then what does Paul begin
to say now? Do not let filthiness or foolish
talk or crude joking. Look what he says here. These things, what we'll do is
in the next few weeks, we'll look at them in more detail,
but in the closing of this. We'll see how they relate to
this theme of covetousness. You see the fullness of it. It's
not really about sex, but it is because in that, sexual immorality
is a knock, is the outward expression of true covetousness, of dissatisfaction
with God, of self-worship instead of holy worship. That which is good and glorious
given by God is to be praised and held high, such as marriage
and the gospel and sexuality. But the nature of the flesh and
its disdain for what is good should be avoided." Here, what
Paul is now saying is do not talk about the filth of sex outside
the will of God. Do not play with it. Do not discuss it. Do not listen
to it. And I have to be honest, I don't
hear much of that. When I was in the workplace and
working in the executive level or the business level, you hear
it. I don't hear a lot of that. And
so it's hard for me as I wrap my mind around this this week,
I'm like, what? Where is this evident in my life? Where is
it? Where do I witness this? I witness it on the news. I witness
it on the talk shows. I witness it in the conversations
of people. I witness it in the culture.
And it's so subtle, it's not there. It's not just the poking
fun of or being crude or dirty in their talk. It's the fact
that how we downgrade and downplay sexuality and we make it something
that it's not. We downplay covetousness because
there's an entitlement that the world has. And friends, I am
sorry to say that I see covetousness at such a high rate inside the
professing church that I wonder if there is a good core of Christians
in most congregations. I fear that there isn't. I fear
that pulpits are backed up with unbelieving men who are coveters,
who are idolaters, who worship themselves and their glory in
the pride of their own possession, which they call their church.
And I fear that such is going to expand more and more. And
I fear that Jesus, and I say I fear, but I fear for them,
not for us. But I fear that Jesus will seal
their hearts to destruction and seal them over to the reprobate
minds that they want so badly and that the true church that
preaches worship will be hated as he said and promised that
we would. People, friends, are not defined in two ways. They're defined
in one way. People are either defined. in
Christ, which is the passion of their heart, who is the passion
of their heart, who is the fullness of their satisfaction, or they're
defined by their flesh and what they love in that. And so in
a way of example, we who are in Christ are defined, we're
identified, we're named in Christ. So therefore, sexual immorality
is not named among us. Christ is. Covetousness is not
named among us. Worship and self-sacrificial
love is named among us. We die to ourselves as we'll
begin to see how the husbands and wives relate in about a month
or so. But those who are not defined
in Christ are defined by the idols of their hearts. And thus,
they have the name of the very thing that they love the most.
And that thing will be the measure in which they're judged and they
will be condemned for that affection. The examples are sexuality. People now today, more than ever,
are defined by their sexuality. Homosexuality, heterosexuality,
unisexuality, triple sexuality, you name it. Antisexuality. Well, I'm a so-and-so. Well,
I'm a so-and-so. Well, I'm a so-and-so. Well, I believe this. Well, I
believe that. Well, good. God could care less what you believe.
And I say that, and I'm actually wrong. He cares greatly what
you believe. But He does not care about your opinion on these
matters, especially as they defy His name. The culture cannot
define what God has established. His decrees are forever and eternal
and permanent. They're divine. And so therefore,
all that is apart from what He has established is therefore
judged accordingly. And so the church is defined. We are named in Christ. We're a people for his own possession,
called out of darkness, transferred out of sin and depravity and
death and brought to life by the grace of God in Christ Jesus.
Therefore, it is not named among us. We are not known for the
lust of our flesh. We're not known for our material
goods. We're not known for our popularity in society. We're
not known for our good looks, or our nice clothes, or the money
in the bank. We're not defining ourselves
based on what we do for a living, or who our daddy is, or how good
our kids are. We're not known for that. We
are defined by not the success of the devil, but by the sacrifice
and the death of Jesus Christ, who in turn has said, we will
also die like He did. And then we will also live like
He did. So when the lust of our flesh
drives to the future of success so that the world can say, look
at that! How wonderful! We're dead! We love things that are rotting
flesh in a field and we think they're treasure. Promiscuity. Houses. power, authority, self-righteousness,
wisdom, intelligence, degrees. These are not what define the
believer, but Christ defines us. We are in Christ. We are now His possession. We are an inheritance of light. We are saints. We sang about
that this morning. So we back up and in closing,
I want you to see three things very quickly, just three things
on how this works in our life. What is the antithesis of these
things? What's the antithesis of discontentment?
What's the opposite of covetousness? Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. It's that simple. Paul says,
do not grieve the Spirit. He says, be imitators of God.
And then in verse 1 and 2, verse 2, love as Christ loved. So here,
in the fullness of this argument, Paul now has established the
Trinity. And he said that we, in our lives, in Christ, now
resemble and reflect the full nature of God. And so if we're
to reflect the full nature of God, we are to reflect that nature
in the fullness of our lives. That's how Paul can say in Romans
that anything that is not perceived from faith is sin. If we're cooking
and it's not from faith, it's sin. Now, people like to argue
with me, and I'll tell you, and this is very dogmatic in the
expression of how I'm going to say it. But if there's anything that
we can do that drives the focus of the gospel from us, we need
to learn to establish the practice of these things for the glory
of God. And so that even though we may
not be focusing on Christ, we have to focus on our work. We
know that when we're done with that project, we sit back and
say, thank you. Thank you that I've done that.
Thank you, God, that you've given me this to do for your glory
and for your glory. I've done this. I've accomplished
this by your grace and for your name. Thank you. Gratitude. Thank you, God, that we do not
have bread today. Thank You, God, that we are where
we are. Thank You for what we have and
thank You for what we may not have tomorrow. Thank You, Father,
that the flesh inside of me fights so hard to go after that, but
that in Your power, You have kept me from it. Thank You, God. Thank You. Thank You for saving
me. Thank You for creating in me
satisfaction. For in you I am sure. I don't need that. I don't need
that. I don't need that. Though if
I don't get that, I will die in my flesh. I don't need it
to be satisfied. I may need it to live, but I
don't need it to be satisfied. Do you see that? Do you see that? So we must be
content. And the expression of contentment
is gratitude. Thank you. For when we realize
that all we are and everywhere we are is where God has established
for us to be and has established for His time, for our good, we
are thankful. So in it, as we sang before our
service, All I have is Christ. All I have is Christ. Let's pray. Father, we thank You. We thank
You for the joy that comes from Christ. Lord, help us to walk not away
from Your holiness, but Lord, in line with Your holiness, help
us to understand Your will. to understand righteousness,
to understand the flesh that so easily deceives us. And Lord,
guide us and direct us to righteousness. Father, please help us not to
stand condemned in our hearts today, for You have given Christ
to pay the debt of our sin. And what you have been paid for,
you cannot collect, for you are a righteous God. And you have
promised that those who are in Christ are satisfactory to you. Continue to grow us and sanctify
us. Continue to help us to understand
the awesomeness of your power. Continue to help us to be satisfied
in Christ alone. In His name we pray, Amen.