DON'T BE DECEIVED (Eph 5:5-8)

If you want to make your way in here to find some seats, I encourage you if you're on like the end aisle and there are open seats in the middle, please squeeze in to make room for people to make their way into here as we try and make space for everyone.

But we're so glad that you have chosen to be with us this morning and we always remind ourselves that the writer of Hebrews tells us not to neglect the gathering together of the saints. And the purpose for that is what?

What is the gathering of the saints, the writer of Hebrews say, for the purpose of building up, right? Encouraging one another all the more as we see the day drawing near, as we wait for the return of our Savior.

And we are honoring our Savior by obeying and worshiping him together each Lord's Day, bringing all of our unique gifts to encourage, to build up, to challenge one another. And so I just want to say thank you for your service.

I want to say thank you to all of our covenant members for your commitment to this body, for bringing your gifts and abilities to the betterment, to the encouragement, to the challenge of this body. And I encourage you to continue to do so.

And remember in the whole process you are loved, right? You are loved by Christ, you are loved by this body, you are loved by the people of God. But I also want to say a special thank you to all of our guests, any first-time guests or regular attending guests.

Thank you for being here. We have a connection card. We would love it if you were able to fill that out so we know how to pray for you, maybe some areas you can write out some needs in your life, any information that you want to know about the church.

We would love for you to do that, but we hope you enjoy your time with us this morning as we worship together because our prayer is that all of us, those that are in Christ, would grow in the knowledge and fear and love of the Lord, of the triune God.

Amen. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. So before we start our service, each week we like to pray for another local church because, remember, we are not alone in this. There are saints all over this town, there are saints all over this world that are gathering on the Lord's Day to worship him.

And we like to pick one each week and specifically pray for them. And today is one that we've prayed for often here, and you may remember Creston as he came and spoke to us a few months back about his church plant in Pine Bluff.

Christ the Redeemer of Pine Bluff. We love this congregation. They are a very like-minded group of believers, and they are in a very difficult area, but God is doing amazing things in the midst of such brokenness and poverty.

And so let's bow our heads this morning, let's pray for Christ the Redeemer and pray for Creston and their people. Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you this morning, we bow our heads before you, the source of all things, the source of all good and love and grace and mercy.

And we ask for our brothers and sisters at Christ the Redeemer that you would encourage them this morning through your word. God, I pray that you would do the sanctifying work that we know that you set out to do through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives by renewing our minds in your truth and your word.

And so we ask this for these saints. We pray for Creston and his family. We pray that you guard him, that you gird him up, Lord. I pray that he would remember his desperate need to continually be in your presence and be with you and seek after your wisdom and your discernment, God.

We pray that you would allow him to preach boldly this morning as he has prepared the word, that he would declare it with truth. And that the Holy Spirit would set out and do the work that he does in all of our hearts.

I pray that you would save people. I pray that you would bring about revival in Pine Bluff. That even the watching world would have to look in and say something drastic has changed and only the gospel of Jesus Christ could have done so.

And that you would receive all the glory. We thank you for them. Lord, help them to know that they are loved by us. More importantly, they are loved by you. In Christ's name. Amen. Well, let's stand for our call to worship this morning.

Our call to worship comes from verses 6 through 13 of Psalm 140. And for those of you that are guests, you can see on the screen it is split. I will read a portion of this psalm and you will read a portion as a response back as we participate in this.

Here at 12 .5, this is not us doing something and you just partaking of it. This is us corporately together and this is why we do a call to worship in this way.

This is corporate.

The psalmist says, Surely the righteous shall give thanks to your name. When you read psalms like this, you are reminded that we are sojourners, right? That we are foreigners in this land and that the righteousness of Christ has been given to us and we long for righteousness.

We long for justice and we are surrounded by wickedness. And that wickedness seems to prevail, but I am here to declare to you this morning from God's word, it does not prevail. God will bring about vengeance upon the wickedness of this world.

He will judge all sin and he will either judge it like our sin at the cross on his own son, the perfect sacrifice, or he will judge it upon the evildoer. He will pour it out upon those that are wicked.

And in all of it, we praise the mighty creator God, our Lord. Amen? Amen. Let's pray a prayer of adoration this morning. Dear heavenly father, we come to you once again and we bow our heads before you.

Lord, you, you are the one that will maintain the cause of the afflicted. You, you alone will execute justice for the needy. You, you alone are righteous. And we shall give thanks to your glorious name.

And your son has given us his own righteousness so that we shall dwell in your presence. And oh father, we ask this morning that as we enter into the gathering of the saints that you've called us to enter into, that you would show us your majesty and glory in deeper, more intimate ways.

Father, we ask that you would be honored because you are worthy of praise. Lord, guard us from trying to sit on the throne that belongs only to you. May you reign supreme in our lives and in our hearts this morning.

Not lip service, oh God. Do not allow us to come in here and just sing these songs flippantly as if they mean nothing. As if they are aimed at nothing, but they are aimed at the almighty God. And I pray that you would overwhelm our hearts and our minds with that truth.

That you would form us and mold us more into the image of your son. Oh God, we thank you for your great mercy in our lives. To God be the praise. In Christ's name, amen.

God is for us. The Father's love is a strong and mighty force. Love is greater. The Father is your voice now. No love is greater. Who can stand against joy now?

In verse 6, the apostle Paul wrote, Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him. Rooted and built up in him and established in the faith. Just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit. According to human tradition. According to the elemental spirits of the world. And not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity.

And you have been filled in him. Who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised. With a circumcision made without hands. By putting off the body of the flesh. By the circumcision of Christ.

Having been buried with him in baptism. In which you were also raised with him through faith. In the powerful working of God. Who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses. And in the uncircumcision of your flesh.

God made alive together with him. Having forgiven us all our trespasses. By canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside. Nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities.

And put them to open shame by triumphing over them.

As we get ready to take it up, Lord. I just pray that you would bless it and bless the giver, Lord. I pray that you would be with the remainder of this service this morning, Lord. I pray that you would just anoint Pastor Nathan this morning, Lord.

As he comes and stands before us and preaches your word, Lord. I pray that you would just make it clear, Lord. And clear out all distractions, Lord. And open our hearts and our minds and our ears this morning.

That we may take your word in. Lord, we love you. We praise you. Let's call these things in your son Jesus' precious and holy name. In Jesus' name, amen.

A survey done through Lifeway Research in 2022. I think promoted by Ligonier. Asked a series of theological questions to American churchgoers. I've got a few here that I want to share with you. That are pertinent to our text today, I believe.

They made a theological statement with a range of agree to disagree. One of the statements that they made is, sex outside of marriage is a sin. Now these are American churchgoers, mind you. 29 disagree.

They said abortion is a sin. 27 disagree. Religious belief is a matter of personal opinion. It is not about objective truth. 31 agree. You're seeing a pattern here, right? Every Christian has an obligation to join a local church.

36 disagree. Worshiping alone with or with family is a valid replacement for regularly attending church. 35 agree. And the worst on this list so far that I've seen. Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God.

40 agree. 40 of churchgoers in America agree that Jesus is a created being. You realize what this means, don't you? You realize the gravity of such a survey, right? It's that at least 40 of American churchgoers are fundamentally, thoroughly, and completely outside of the faith.

At least. Now that may be shocking for some of you to hear. Not for me. Not for me. I'll be honest, I'll be very surprised if that number is not significantly higher. I think I've shared it before, but Jonathan Edwards, during the peak of the Great Awakening in the Northeast, believed that only 10 of his congregation were truly regenerate.

Were true believers. Now take that with a grain of salt, of course, because the standards of piety held by Jonathan Edwards means that probably not a one of us in this room were within that 10%. Sorry to tell you that.

I simply point to that bit of information to let you know that this is not a new thing for the church. It wasn't new during the Great Awakening in the Northeast of America. It isn't new to the early church in Scripture.

There will always be tares amongst the wheat. There will always be goats amongst the sheep. That has always been and always will be until the return of our Savior when he makes all things new. However, I would venture to say that the American church culture, that we find ourselves in, has created a breeding ground for a disproportionate number of unbelievers feeling comfortable within the fold.

Everything about today's services are geared towards making sure that the unbeliever feels comfortable. I know this because I've read many books and heard many lessons on church growth and all of the stuff that goes along with that.

Many preachers are careful with what they preach. They're careful with the songs that they sing, the prayers that they pray. I'll be honest, I've even been told here that we pray too much during our service and it would make guests feel uncomfortable.

I'm like, well, maybe they should feel uncomfortable. Pray too much during the gathering of the saints? Because these things that we're doing, for those of us that belong in Christ, our souls will be refreshed through that prayer, right?

Our souls are refreshed from the Word of God being proclaimed in totality, in its fullness. Our souls are refreshed from the doctrinally rich songs that we sing. Not to mention this gathering is not for them.

It's not for the unbeliever, is it? We've gotten that backwards in America's church. We gear the whole service towards the unbeliever and the visitor, but this isn't for them. Don't get me wrong, we're thrilled to have unbelievers visit with us.

I'm thrilled to have them. But the gathering is not for them. This is not for them. This is for the saints. It's for the purpose of encouragement of the saints and for building up and equipping the saints for the good work to go out and live their lives, trying to reach those that are not in Christ at the moment.

So I believe this is where we have lost our way in many evangelical churches today. You see, we're not being clear. We're not being precise with what God's Word teaches. Leaving unbelievers comfortable in our midst and leaving believers comfortable in their sin.

I'm going to say that again. We avoid things in the Word of God to make unbelievers comfortable in our midst and believers comfortable in our sin. That's why we preach expositionally here, walking line by line through Scripture, without the ability to skip the hard things.

We don't have the option to skip the hard things. We have to deal with them. If I don't, y 'all are all going to call me to task, aren't you? Praise God. We must address it when we come to it. And today is one of those portions of Scripture that I believe many pastors will either distort when teaching or just avoid altogether.

So please, open up your copy of God's Word. If you have a copy with you, I encourage you to open that up. We purposely do not put the Scriptures on the screen during the sermon, and the reason is is I want you to be familiar with your copy of Scripture.

But open your copy to Ephesians chapter 5. As we've been making our way through Ephesians over the past few months, we are primarily going to look at verses 5 through 8 if we can make it through those today, but I want us to start reading in verse 1 of chapter 5.

And I've titled today's sermon, Don't Be Deceived. Don't be deceived. Paul says in Ephesians chapter 5, starting in verse 1, he says,.

He says,.

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 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 partners with them, for at one time you were darkness.

Oh, but now you are light, and the Lord walk his children of light. What a beautiful portion of scripture. All the scriptures are beautiful. I particularly like the one that I'm in that week, right? Let's pray that the Holy Spirit would illuminate our hearts and minds to this wonderful truth.

Lord, we come to you once again, and we acknowledge our frailty. We acknowledge our shortcoming. We acknowledge our inability to understand the perspicuity of your scripture, the clarity, the perfection of it.

We often distort it through our worldview, through our lens of sin. We ask this morning that you would guard us from such. We ask, Holy Spirit, that for those of us in here that are in Christ, that you are an indwelling in, that you would illuminate our hearts and minds to this wonderful truth.

Guard my lips from error. In Christ's name, amen. Well, I want us to see four things in this text today that I believe will help guard us as a church from the onslaught of worldliness that permeates so many churches today.

And the first one I want us to see is that we must be disciples. It's pretty obvious, right? We must be disciples. This is where it has to begin. It has to start here. If we're not disciples of Jesus, the whole thing is a nonstarter, isn't it?

A disciple, what is a disciple? This is simply one who follows another, a student with a teacher. One who is learning from, one that is watching, that is evaluating the life and the actions of their teacher and seeking to align their lives with that pattern.

This is a disciple. And our teacher, of course, is our savior, the perfect Jesus Christ. We are disciples of Jesus Christ. And we all fall very short of imitating him, don't we? None of us imitating well.

Not even close. Yet we continually seek to do so, don't we? At least we ought to. Seeking to follow our Lord and Savior as disciples of him. If we do not seek to do so, we are more than likely not disciples at all.

If you are not seeking to follow the pattern of Jesus Christ and the lordship of Jesus Christ in your life, you are probably not even a disciple. This is, like I said, a non-starter. From here on out, this sermon, what you need to do is repent of your sins and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And then we can look at the next three steps, okay? But this is where it must start. Look at verse 5. For you may be sure of this. Paul is essentially saying, hey, take this to the bank, right? This is an absolute.

This is a guarantee. You may be sure of this. If you're sure of anything, you can be sure of this. What does he say? That everyone, without exception, without rule, everyone who is, and here he goes. He's repeating these three sins that we looked at last week in the previous verse.

Anyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is covetous, and then he defines that, right? That is an idolater, meaning placing anything on the throne of God, putting anything before the Creator that is the only one that sets on that rightful throne, Jesus Christ.

Anyone who is in these categories of sin has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. If that didn't just take the breath out of your lungs, maybe you're not hearing it. Everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is an idolater through covetousness has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

We've seen this inheritance language repeated throughout this letter. Look back at chapter 1 and verse 11, right? He's laying out the doctrine in chapters 1 through 3 that we went months going through, and we see this inheritance language that is integral into what Paul is saying here in this book, and he's speaking about our position in Christ.

And in verse 11 of chapter 1, he says, in him, in who? In who? Christ, right? In Christ, we have obtained, we have gained an inheritance. Something has been given to us, right? An inheritance. Having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.

Look at verse 14 there in chapter 1. He's speaking of the Holy Spirit now. Now in Christ, we've obtained an inheritance, and now in verse 14, he's speaking of the Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory.

I love the beautiful Trinitarian work that we see patterned over and over again. Later in verse 18 of chapter 1, Paul's prayer for the saints, right? He gives them the doctrine, and then he kind of goes into this prayer for them.

And in verse 18, he says, I pray that you would have the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you. What are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints?

And now as we get to chapter 5, he says everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no inheritance. You see, to be a disciple means that Christ himself has called you.

We see Jesus say, hey, my sheep hear my voice, and they come to me. If you're a disciple, you've followed the voice of the shepherd, haven't you? You've heard it, and you follow him. He has called you.

What has he called us to? What is the point of being a disciple? What is the point when we become a sheep, when we become one of Christ's children and we're awakened? Well, it's first to trust in him, right?

We're brought from death to life, and we see him for who he is, and we believe that he lived the life that we could not live. He died the death that we deserved, and he rose victorious, defeating death once for all for all of his children, setting at the right hand of the Father and interceding for us.

We believe that, don't we? And in light of that, we follow him. We live in light of his lordship. Do you understand the weight of that? There's a whole discussion that goes on of lordship salvation, right?

Do we come to Jesus as our savior, and then later in life, through sanctification, accept him as lord? There's no categories like that in Scripture. Because when we come to Jesus as our savior, we're seeing Jesus for who he is.

We may not have a fully well-orbed theological paradigm for it, but we understand the principle that this is God's son, and he came to redeem me, and he is king. We understand that much, don't we? Otherwise, you probably don't have salvation.

And so when you see him as your savior, you see him as your lord. He is your lord. This is being a disciple. And since he is lord, he makes the rules, right? If he's king, he makes the rules. This is not a democracy in the kingdom of God.

It doesn't function like America does, right? That functions as a king who reigns supreme, and us in full submission to that king. And what does this king say? He says sexual immorality, all impurity, covetousness, idolatry.

They're sin.

This is disobedience to me. You are disobeying me when you fall prey to these sins. Turn over in your scripture to 1 Corinthians 6. I know we're going a couple places here. I want you to see this. As Paul tells the church at Corinth, a very similar thing, but he goes into greater detail.

If you remember in Corinth, this church is a mess. I mean, they've got all kinds of rampant sin going on within their midst, right? By the time he makes it into chapter 6, he gets here to verse 9, and he says something very similar to the text we're reading.

But he asks a question. He says, Hey, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? They have no inheritance, the unrighteous. And then he says, Do not be deceived, Christian.

Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

Man, that list just got really big and broad, didn't it? Look at verse 11. And such were some of you. And such were some of you.

But...

Hallelujah, you were washed. You were sanctified, set apart, right? You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. You were washed clean, you were sanctified and set apart, and you were justified, declared righteous.

Before the Creator, you and I have been purchased. You and I have been given new life, a new nature, that new man that we have read about earlier in Ephesians. One that desires righteousness. We desire righteousness.

And Paul said in Colossians chapter 1, he says, he has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son. Now, the question at hand is, if that's the case, that none of these people inherit the kingdom of God, are any of us disciples?

Let's be honest. Every single one of us is guilty of sexual immorality. Every single one of us is guilty of all types of impurity. Every single one of us is guilty of covetousness and idolatry. So is Paul saying that we must not have that inheritance?

Because if that's the case, we are all without hope, right? You see, I would say this can't be what Paul is saying. He must be saying something else. Paul can't be saying that every one of us who has fallen prey to these sins during periods of time and in our life, even consistently as we go about our life, falling back into the old man, this can't be.

Because in Colossians 3, 5, what does he say to the church? He says, hey, put to death therefore what is earthly in you. He doesn't say put to death what is earthly from when you were back there in darkness.

He's saying now to the Christian, put to death what is earthly inside of you. There's something earthly and fleshly inside of you. Put it to death. And he lists those same things, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

He says, put it to death. Paul is making a statement here that you and I still have the propensity towards these sins. And we are actively called to put them to death. And that's what a Christian does.

The old self is still in us. However, a disciple will actively put them to death. Whereas, in contrast, an unbeliever is enslaved to them. Are you enslaved to those sins? Do you fall prey to those sins and just live in them comfortably?

Or are you mortifying the flesh? Are you putting to death what is earthly in you? Because if you are, there's a good chance that you're a disciple. And if you're a disciple, then you have an inheritance.

And God is going to work it out in you. What's my favorite text I always quote? Philippians.

What is it?

For he who began a good work in you will see it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus. We hold to that truth that it's God who is sanctifying us. And he is working in each one of us. If we are in him who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, they're sealed for that day for that beautiful inheritance.

Then he is working in us. He's convicting us of the old self. He's driving us to put on the new. So we must be disciples. Secondly, we must be discerning. If we are disciples, Paul calls us to be discerning disciples.

Look at verse 6. He says, Let no one deceive you with empty words. Essentially what Paul's saying is, don't let anyone lead you to believe that if you live in these wicked things, you are part of the kingdom.

Don't let anyone lead you to believe that they can just live in open debauchery and idolatry and covetousness and sexual immorality and impurity and claim Christ. Don't fall for it. This is the problem we have in Christianity today, isn't it?

And obviously it was a problem even back then. But now we say, hey, pray this prayer, get baptized, and now never doubt it. Anytime Satan throws that doubt up in your mind, you look at the date in your Bible, and you remember that day you prayed that prayer.

You're good. You got an inheritance.

Go live like the devil.

It's licentiousness, and it's godless, isn't it? It's godless. Now we have people inside the church claiming to be of Christ while living in just open habitual sin. 40 of them claiming that Jesus is a created being.

They don't even have the beginning foundations of who Christ is, much less in the faith. And Paul says, Christians, don't be so naive. Don't fall for this. You will know them by their fruit, right? A good tree produces good fruit.

A bad tree produces bad fruit.

Always.

That's the way it functions. That's what Scripture says. I'm getting passionate about it. My voice is cracking here. Maybe I need a drink. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians again, but in chapter 15 this time.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 15, of course, we have the same kind of dynamic. These people are living in sin. And in verse 32, Paul says, What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fight with beasts at Ephesus, if the dead are not raised?

Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. Do not be deceived. Bad company ruins good morals. Oh, wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning, for some have no knowledge of God.

I say this to your shame. What's Paul saying? He's saying, hey, church at Corinth, wake up. You have got goats amongst your midst, and they're just living as goats. They're not even pretending to be sheep.

Don't be fooled. Just because they come in and say they're sheep doesn't mean that you must believe them. They have unbelievers in their midst. All right, let's look back at verse 6 again. Let's finish out verse 6, back in Ephesians 5.

Let no one deceive you with empty words.

For, right?

What's the purpose? Why? For, because of these things. Because of what things? Sexual morality, impurity, covetousness, idolatry. For because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

Saying, why do we run from these things? Why do we long to mortify them? Why do we run to seek to destroy them within our midst? Why should we put them to death? Because our Savior had to die because of them.

Our Savior had to die because of them. And we just tolerate it. We break God's law, His holy law. And the righteous, just wrath of God must be poured out upon all those who commit that lawlessness. And as we said before, that righteous wrath will either be poured out on a son at the cross, or it will be poured out upon the evildoer.

Either way, the justice of God will be served perfectly. God will not just tolerate it. He won't overlook it. He won't judge you on a scale of if you're better than your neighbor,.

But God.

Right?

But God sent His Son to take that wrath for us. Back in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 2, Paul says, in which you once walked.

Right?

You once walked in this darkness, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work, and the sons of disobedience. There it is.

Right?

Look back at verse 6 that we just read. Because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. And we were once the sons of disobedience. This should lead us to long to live holy lives, because we've been redeemed from such darkness.

Amen? We've been brought from darkness to light. But we are no longer sons of disobedience. Remember, we have an inheritance. Meaning what? We are sons and heirs. We have a new name. A new identity. We are not enslaved to sin any longer.

We do not belong to this world any longer. We belong to Christ. And we long for it. Paul goes on there in chapter 2 of Ephesians. In verse 3 he says,. Among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. And he's raised us up and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Heirs of that inheritance. And because of this grace, you and I, who are in Christ, will no longer want to go on living in disobedience. So when someone is habitually comfortable in that sin, don't be deceived.

They are not of us. That's why we carry out church discipline here.

Right?

We don't just take somebody and just quietly let them leave when they just live an open sin. After a period of time of pleading with them, repent. Because we all fall prey to sin, right? Anybody in here sinless?

Raise your hand. Thank goodness no one's dumb enough to do that.

Right?

We are all guilty of falling prey to sin. The difference is, what do we do?

Repent.

We turn from it because of what our Savior has done for us. We won't stay in it long. And so we give people periods of time to please repent. We beg of you. We plead with you. Look to God's word. Look to the cross.

Look to the Savior. And until finally at some point we have to hand them over to Satan to be sifted as wheat.

Right?

We have to remove them from the fellowship. Not that they can't come and we don't love them. We don't shun anybody. But what we do is, what? We make a declaration that they are not of us. They don't come to the table.

They are not members of this body. And they are not in Christ. This is why we must be discerning. Thirdly, and this one gets people. We must be divided. We must be divided. You say, wait a second, Pastor.

I thought this whole book of Ephesians was all about unity. And now you're saying that Paul's saying that we must be divided. Yes, it is about unity. Unity in Christ. Unity that the Jew and the Gentile are no longer two separate entities but are one in Christ.

And light has no fellowship with darkness. Look at verse 7. Therefore, do not become partners with them. Therefore, if you are being discerning, Christian, and you are not deceived by their empty words, seeing the inconsistency of their sinful actions, do not become partners with them.

What does this mean? What does it mean not to become partners with them? Is Paul saying that we can't have business partners that are not Christians? Is Paul saying that we shouldn't be in marriage relationships that are not Christian?

Well, of course, those principles all are in Scripture that you are not to be unequally yoked. But obviously, that principle stands. But however, here, Paul is getting right to the root of it. And he's speaking of the church and the unity.

The Greek word that Paul uses here, translated partner, symmetrikos, I think is how you pronounce it.

Symmetrikos.

You're like, oh, well, that doesn't help me, Pastor. Well, you can actually hear the English kind of word from it, symmetrical. Symmetrical. I looked it up in the dictionary. It says, made of exact similar parts facing each other, or round in axis.