WHAT IS PROPER AMONG SAINTS? (Eph 5:3-4)

TWELVE 5 CHURCH

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

Let's all try to move in closer towards the middle so we have extra seats on the outside As we are getting seated, but I just want to thank you all for being here

00:09

I just want to remind you that we have our first Wednesday night Bible studies starting this

00:14

Wednesday Are there any youth out there? It's hard to see all the lights.

00:20

We will be meeting at Shadrach's Are y 'all pumped for that or what? I know some of the older students are jealous of us so More the merrier, so if you want to swing by and see the youth on Wednesday It'll be a

00:33

Shadrach's just up the road and the adults will be in here and all that will start at 630

00:40

And so we do have a children's ministry, so if you are a guest or If you have kids the age we will be able to facilitate that as well and so Once again, we just want to welcome everybody here, especially the members of 12 five you are loved and we appreciate your service

00:58

Utilizing your gifts to the body And so we also may are just being obedient to what we've been

01:03

Called to do the writer of Hebrews says that we are not to neglect the gathering together of the

01:09

Saints So thank you so much members that are in covenant fellowship with one another and if you are a guest or regular attender

01:16

You are loved too, and we want to thank you so much for being here And if you get a chance, please fill out one of our connect cards

01:22

We'd love to get to know you more and pray for you and so with that being said Our prayer this morning is that all of us would grow in the grace and knowledge and love of the triune

01:33

God. Amen And so as we do every Lord's Day, we lift up a local church in prayer

01:40

And so this morning we're going to be praying for Mount Zion Baptist Church. So if you would please join me and pray

01:47

Heavenly Father we wish to lift up Mount Zion Baptist Church Lord We pray for their leadership

01:52

God that you would give them wisdom God that you would bless Men in the church to be able to rally around you

02:00

King Jesus and that you would impress upon their hearts To serve you well God and also the women

02:06

God and all the people that you bring there God we pray that you would give their people a heart of service

02:12

God to just be a beacon of light in this community in Walcott Lord, we love you.

02:19

We pray for your blessing on Mount Zion Baptist Church in your name Jesus All right, if you would please stand for our call to worship

02:27

Where we will be looking at Psalm chapter 1 together The King David says blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked

02:44

But his delight is in the law of the Lord He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season

03:03

The wicked are not so Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment

03:18

For the Lord knows the way of the righteous Let's pray again this morning

03:28

Heavenly Father we adore you in all that you are God. We lift up your your name.

03:34

That is holy Lord I pray that this morning that we would not be distracted

03:39

But that we would rest in your grace and your provision in our lives Lord, please give us ears to hear and a heart

03:48

To listen to your word God, please impress upon us to worship you in spirit and in truth.

03:53

We love you Jesus We pray this in your name Oh So But children yet to come

04:44

Generation see You're strong Or Oh God Hey Your gracious hand

05:39

Your gracious and provides for all

05:44

Your mercy We call out to you here

06:37

And Forever without in creation will rejoice

06:53

We're worse of a wicked man Destroy Your power will proclaim to Christ How He's To me

07:42

I was made to walk with Treasure and forsake the king of kings

08:24

But mine is My Though I fall

08:32

His love is sure for Christ has Every High For ever

08:44

More My Times of sorrow

09:01

Darkness not yet understood through the

09:08

Valley I must travel Where I see no

09:16

But mine is In times of need

09:27

I know my Christ complete

09:54

One with I For this

10:54

Oh For his love

11:01

My reward Fear is gone and hope is sure

11:27

For his

12:06

I Sing come rejoice one more time

12:35

Yes Our scripture reading this morning comes from Romans chapter 8

13:10

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus The law of the

13:16

Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh

13:28

And for sin he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous Requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh

13:37

But according to the Spirit for those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh

13:43

But those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit Or to set the mind on the flesh is death

13:51

But to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God for it does not submit to God's law

14:00

Indeed it cannot those who are in the flesh cannot please God To you

15:48

Oh By faith

16:25

I saw the stream by flow

16:39

Redeeming love has been My These days

18:07

Let all the earth rejoice all the earth rejoice

18:17

He How great

18:37

Is Sing with me

18:50

Oh In time

19:10

Beginning Beginning Oh The lion

19:46

Sing with me It's our

19:52

God God will see how great, how great is our

20:02

God He's the name above all names, let's sing it out Oh, you're the name above all names

20:14

You are worthy of our praise

20:20

And my heart will sing how great is our

20:28

God Let's sing that again, He's the name Oh, you're the name above all names

20:41

You are worthy of our praise

20:47

And my heart will sing how great is our

20:55

God Sing how great, how great

21:02

One more time, how great is our

21:25

God Just our voices, sing it out And how great is our

21:33

God Sing with me His eye will see how great, how great is our

21:50

God Amen, amen, you can be seated Alright, this is our time for giving and offering

22:04

What God has blessed us with in our life To be able to reflect and prayerfully contemplate about What He would have us give back to Him So if you would, please join me in prayer

22:16

Heavenly Father, I just want to lift up this time of giving God, I pray that no one here,

22:22

God, would give under compulsion Or of necessity God, I pray that we'd give from a place of cheerfulness

22:28

God, a heart of love God, as we've been singing about, Your name is above all names

22:33

God, You own everything God, Your word tells us You own a cattle on a thousand hills

22:38

And everything else God, I pray that we would give out of an abundance of a heart of joy and thankfulness

22:45

To You, Jesus Lord, we love You We pray these things in Your name Amen Go ahead and open up your copy of God's word to Ephesians Ephesians chapter 5

23:31

And we are going to be looking primarily at verses 3 and 4 today But we're going to start reading in verse 1 so we can understand the context and read on through I think we are in week 44 of our study through Ephesians, if I'm not mistaken

23:47

And so this has been a blessed time for our church I was speaking with someone the other day

23:54

And we were talking about the spiritual maturity that we are seeing being worked out in our church

24:04

And we're seeing individual lives growing in the faith, growing in spiritual maturity

24:09

We even see it in ourselves, hopefully, little bits at a time And that is not due to us, that is not due to our circumstances

24:18

That is not due to a building, that is not due to each other, necessarily That is primarily due to the fact that God's word never returns void

24:28

It always does what it sets out to do And we have been walking through this book that has shown us what it means to be part of the body

24:35

And so we are trusting in God's providential work in our lives to work through and in us in His word

24:42

So let's start reading there in verse 1 of chapter 5 Where Paul says, therefore be imitators of God as beloved children

24:50

And walk in love as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us

24:55

A fragrant offering and sacrifice to God But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you

25:05

As is proper among saints Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking which are out of place

25:14

But instead let there be thanksgiving For you may be sure of this that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure

25:22

Or who is covetous, that is an idolater Has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God But no one deceive you with empty words

25:31

For because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience Therefore do not become partners with them

25:40

This is the reading of God's holy word Let's once again stop and pray

25:45

Let's ask the Holy Spirit to illuminate our hearts and minds to this wonderful truth

25:53

Lord we bow our heads before you In humility acknowledging that we are but the creature

26:05

You are the creator You have given us your word and it is clear

26:13

It is good, it is right And in our flesh we struggle understanding it and we most certainly struggle obeying it

26:29

So we ask this morning that you work in our hearts and minds As you renew our thoughts and our minds that you mold us together as a people

26:40

Mold us into obedience to your word Guard my lips from error Guard their ears from hearing anything that is not true from this word

26:49

In Christ's name, amen Amen Well in the last half of chapter 4

26:55

Paul begins this process of calling us to live in light of this great inheritance

27:03

The great inheritance that you and I have in Christ The one that he has spoken extensively on in chapters 1 through 3

27:11

The whole first half of Ephesians was just about doctrine and who you are in Christ And how

27:17

Christ has brought you into this And he does so by telling us there in chapter 4 to no longer walk as unbelievers

27:26

To no longer walk as those who live in the futility of their minds

27:32

But for us to put off that old self, the futility of mind And to actively put on the new self

27:42

To actively pursue living in the power of the Holy Spirit that is within you now

27:50

Here's the thing, because when we walk in the old self When we walk in the flesh, that old futility

27:55

We grieve the Holy Spirit that is within us, don't we? That's what Paul says And in the process we do harm to ourselves

28:03

And we do harm to each other in the body We do harm to the church

28:08

We do harm to the very body of Christ that he is building And we got to the beginning of chapter 5 last week

28:16

And we saw that putting on this new is essentially imitating

28:21

God, isn't it? Pursuing, actively putting on the new self is imitating

28:27

God And imitating God is walking in love as Paul said there in I believe verse 2

28:34

And we can only define love, how? We can only define the love of God Because God is love and God is what defines love

28:45

And it is only seen in the person and work of Jesus Christ, isn't it?

28:51

Right? No one has seen the Father except through Christ He has shown us that tremendous love in Christ And here as we make it to verse 3

29:00

I believe that Paul is contrasting that walk in love with the perversion of love

29:07

With the earthly sinful distortion of that love One that the world not only walks in But the world is enslaved to You and I were once enslaved to it

29:19

We were trapped by it We did nothing but the perversion of love That's all we had, that's all we had to offer

29:27

That you and I, even though we've been made anew We often default to live in that old self, don't we?

29:40

And it's when we are not actively putting on the new self And it is obvious, even at first glance

29:47

That walking in love, imitating God Is self -sacrifice

29:54

We saw that perfectly exemplified in the life of Christ That's what we talked about last week

30:01

However, what we see Paul listing here Starting in verse 3, it screams self -indulgence

30:09

So let's take a closer look at it Look at it with me, there at verse 3 in chapter 5 What does he say?

30:15

He says But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness

30:20

Must not even be named among you as is proper among saints

30:26

Well, the first thing that Paul lists here In contrast to walking in love

30:32

Is sexual immorality We see this phrase often in the

30:38

New Testament The New Testament speaks quite a bit about this You see that phrase all throughout the

30:44

New Testament And sometimes, I'll be honest, I read it And I know you do too

30:49

We read a phrase like that, sexual immorality And our self -righteousness

30:54

Our self -excusing, self -preserving justification

31:00

Kicks in, doesn't it? We read something like that And I think, well, after all, I don't cheat on my spouse

31:07

You might not have a spouse But you might be thinking, well, I'm not out there just hooking up Like the hookup culture out there in the world

31:14

I'm not doing all of that And we think, whew, boy,

31:19

I'm glad I'm not guilty of at least that one And we just kind of skim over it, don't we? Well, maybe we should take a closer look

31:28

Maybe we should stop for a second Set aside our own self -righteousness and think In the

31:36

Greek, the word that we translate into sexual immorality is pornea You can hear it, it's where we get our word pornography

31:48

So does this phrase refer to adultery and promiscuity? Well, yeah, of course it does

31:55

Of course it does Yet it encompasses so much more It takes on a whole other level of meaning

32:03

When you understand what Paul's saying here As a matter of fact, if you remember in the Sermon on the Mount When we went through that just a few months ago

32:10

As we were walking through in Matthew chapter 5 Starting in verse 27, what did

32:15

Jesus say? Jesus says, hey, hey, you've heard it said And then he quotes the

32:20

Old Testament law that they were using, right? You shall not commit adultery They were proud of themselves

32:27

I'm not out there committing adultery I'm not committing the act of adultery And Jesus goes, but I say to you

32:33

Everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent He's already committed adultery in his heart And if you were with us then, you will remember

32:41

Jesus is not adding to the law here As some might think They think, well, man, Jesus comes and he just adds more on top of the law

32:49

He takes the, you shall not commit adultery And he just holds another level No, Jesus came to define the law

32:55

Jesus came in and said You think you're able to adhere to the law By just not participating in the physical act

33:03

What I'm saying is what's in your heart is already adultery We think we're okay because we've somehow restrained ourselves

33:13

From the physical act of that sexual immorality Yet have wondering eyes and thoughts

33:21

You see, sexual immorality is absolutely anything

33:29

Absolutely, hear me out Anything that goes against God's prescribed Created order of intimacy between a husband and a wife

33:39

And yes, that includes thoughts and intents And Paul places this in contrast to walking in love

33:50

Hey, you're supposed to walk in love You're supposed to be imitating God, who is love And here, this has no place

33:59

Paul says in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 He says, for this is the will of God I get that question a lot

34:06

People come to me and they say Well, pastor, what's the will of God for my life? What's the will of God for my life? I'm like, well, actually, come on, let me show you

34:13

I can show you, it tells us That's what Paul said He said, this is the will of God You want to know what the will of God is?

34:18

He says, your sanctification Your sanctification Your walking in the new self

34:25

That's the will of God And he goes on, he says What is sanctification?

34:31

What does sanctification look like? That you abstain from pornia, sexual immorality

34:39

That you abstain This is one of the first things Paul says Sanctification that's being worked out in our hearts and our minds

34:46

We're participating in that now That we've been brought into faith And we're walking in this

34:51

And God is saying, walk, put on the new self No longer walk in the old self The new self is sanctification

34:58

This is the will of God To abstain from this And it's interesting that he says

35:03

Abstain from sexual immorality Because it's almost as if Paul's implying That we all have a propensity towards it

35:10

I'm sure there are very few of you out there That might have the gift of singleness And don't have the problem

35:15

But for the vast majority of us This is an issue And to grow in that sanctification

35:21

Is to flee from it To abstain from it To run from it To stay away from it

35:27

And to kill it at every turn When it pops into our minds and our hearts Well, look at what

35:34

Paul mentions next He just keeps diving it deeper here Look back at verse 3 The sexual immorality

35:41

And all impurity This term that Paul uses

35:47

It adds here It's a more general term than pornea You see, this impurity

35:52

This refers to anything Anything that is unclean or filthy Anything that is unclean or filthy

36:00

As a matter of fact Jesus used this very word To describe the rottenness

36:06

Of a decaying body in a tomb Over in Matthew 23

36:12

When he compared the Pharisees to the whitewashed tombs He uses the same phrase So it's decay

36:18

It's rottenness It's death After all, what is sin?

36:25

Sin is death, right? It leads to death He takes this further Paul doesn't just point to sexual sin

36:33

He takes it to the next step He doubles down He says, all impurity

36:39

Not just your thoughts and actions In that other way

36:45

But now, all filthiness Again, anything and everything That falls short of holiness

36:51

And righteousness Because that's what we're to walk in, right? This includes

36:58

And I'm going to get very practical here for a second I don't do this very often You know that, I usually try and just stick to the text

37:04

And say, okay, the Holy Spirit's going to do the work But there's just some obvious things That stick out in the text sometimes

37:09

And you can bring out the practical So that's what I'm going to do right now And so if I hit a little too close to home I'm not aiming at you specifically

37:16

I'm probably aiming at myself more This includes what we watch This includes what we listen to This includes what we read

37:29

It includes what we think about It includes who we spend time with No impurity

37:41

All impurity Is off the table for us Now, I have to be careful

37:46

I'm not talking about some type of legalism But here's the thing All of us know, whatever you consume

37:53

It's in you, isn't it? Whatever you take in to these eyes And these ears and this thought

37:58

It's in you It becomes part of you It's inside of you A steady diet of impurity

38:04

Will certainly lead to spiritual heart disease It will always corrupt from the inside See, the scripture never promotes

38:13

Some type of off the grid Amish lifestyle Because that's our flesh When I say that,

38:18

I know exactly what you're thinking The same thing I'm thinking Man, if I follow this to its logical conclusion That I have to live out in the woods

38:25

And detach from electricity And phones and TV And detach from everything And I have to remove myself

38:31

From every temptation of the world But that's not what scripture promotes But it does certainly say something

38:39

About consuming entertainment That glorifies sin It most certainly says something about that I want you to look at what he says next, though Look back at verse 3

38:57

It says, but sexual immorality And all impurity Or Covetousness I think there's some confusion as to why

39:07

This is in here. Scholars, as you read Through, you're like, man, he's dealing with Sexual morality and something that's really tied to Sexual morality, impurity, and then all of a sudden

39:14

He throws in covetousness. Like, why not another sin? Why covetousness? I think it's as if Paul is starting with the lesser

39:21

To the greater sin To the bigger sin. He specifies a specific Sin in sexual immorality

39:27

Then he zooms out a little bit And he says, oh, and guess what? Any and all impurity

39:33

And then he zooms out even more And now I think Paul cuts right to the heart To the core of what leads us

39:39

To any of these things And it's covetousness Essentially greed

39:47

All of us carry this in our hearts We know it's sin And we justify it so often

39:54

Well, he actually Defines what he means Let's clarify what he means Paul clarifies it for us

40:01

As a matter of fact, look down at verse 5 He lists those same Things off again in verse 5

40:06

Later on, he says, for you may be sure of this That everyone who is sexually immoral Or impure

40:11

Or who is covetous And then you see in parenthesis a definition Of what he means

40:17

That is an idolater Somebody that is covetous

40:24

Is an idolater is what Paul is saying Right? What is covetous?

40:32

Idolatry As a matter of fact, turn with me over to the book of James Keep your hand there in our passage in Ephesians But I want you to look at James chapter 4

40:43

Where Paul is speaking in Verses 1 and 2, he's warning against Worldliness here In James chapter 4

40:50

Starting in verse 1, he asks the question He says, hey, what causes quarrels? And what causes fights among you?

40:58

What causes This in you? Is it not this? That your passions

41:05

Are at war within you? You see the connection here to what we're saying

41:11

Paul said in Ephesians Put off the old self and put on the new Well, your passions that are at war

41:17

Within you, that's the old self Still fighting, still warring Against you He says, you desire

41:24

And you do not have So what do you do? You murder Why does anyone murder?

41:32

They desire and do not have Where do wars come from? They desire and do not have

41:37

They're covetous Look at the next part, he says, you covet And cannot obtain

41:43

There's that word You covet and cannot obtain So what do you do? You fight and quarrel

41:49

It's greed It's me It's me It's my desires

41:57

It's what I want It's what I think is rightfully mine And it leads me

42:03

To all types of sin The moral law of God In the

42:10

Ten Commandments Says we are to have no other god before him Have no other god before him

42:15

What does that mean? What does it mean to have no other god Before him? It's anything

42:22

Anything that you and I Desire Seek comfort in Rely on Chase after Can't live without Anything and everything

42:36

That pulls us away From total reliance On his providence Rest in his sovereign control

42:43

And obedience to his commands Is idolatry When we covet

42:52

When we covet You and I are desiring something other than him When I covet

42:59

I'm desiring something other than God And it's for my own gratification

43:08

It's for myself Leading us To all types of debauchery

43:13

Doesn't it? Why do you fall prey to sexual sin?

43:21

Why do we fall prey to it? The world would say You're just wired for that It's only natural

43:28

But why are we drawn to it? Because we long To gratify our own flesh

43:37

Leading us to Treat other image bearers Other human beings

43:43

Made in the image of God As nothing more than an object To be used to fulfill

43:50

My desire Covetousness leads me to this

43:56

What I long for Why do we fall prey To all types of impurity

44:02

Things that dishonor God Because he is not our heart's desire We Have an idol

44:11

Maybe self Whatever it is, it's not

44:17

God On the throne of what you Most desire Look to We desire something else, we covet that other thing

44:26

That idol All of this is the opposite of love It is self -indulgence

44:32

Every bit of it And what does Paul say about these things? Look back at the verse in verse 3

44:39

Chapter 5 The sexual immorality And all impurity, or covetousness

44:46

Must not Even be named Among you

44:52

What does Paul mean by this? What is he saying? These three things shouldn't even

44:59

Be named among us Is he saying that we can't even speak of these things in any way? Is he saying don't even bring them up?

45:06

Don't bring them up in front of everybody Don't even bring them to the table Because the problem with that idea

45:11

Is in this case, Paul's broken his own rule He's brought them up here After all, we must preach and teach

45:19

Against these sins, right? They're present in our world, they're obvious They're here Are we not to name them?

45:27

Well I think we can gain a better understanding Of what Paul means here in the next phrase, look at it He says

45:32

He says These three things must not even be named among you As is

45:39

Proper among saints I think one way

45:46

To maybe translate this That might be helpful for you to think of Is that These three things must not even be named among you

45:54

In such a way As is improper These things should not be named among you

46:02

In such a way as is improper They must not be present See if you and I Are in Christ What are we?

46:11

What's the phrase for us that are in Christ? What are we at this moment? Paul's been talking about it in the letter so far

46:18

Saints, right? Saints, we are saints We've been set apart You and I have been made a people unto himself

46:26

And our actions and our lifestyle Should represent that To act like To be like the world

46:35

Like the old self has no place in our lives It has no place In our midst

46:40

It has no place amongst us As believers We are something altogether different A dwelling place for the

46:47

Lord God has made his dwelling place amongst us And then we

46:52

Bring the corruption of the world Into his very temple It has no place amongst us, does it?

47:01

Let me give you an example All earthly examples Fall short of a spiritual reality I say that all the time, so don't read too much into it

47:08

But I think this may give us a visual here Have you ever seen an older man Like up in age

47:15

Who He tries to keep up with the times a little much And he dresses hip

47:21

He dresses like a 20 year old Very fashionably Right? It just looks unnatural, doesn't it?

47:30

It's not It doesn't look good It's like the guys, the older guys over 40 Wearing skinny jeans, they look like a pug

47:36

Standing up on their back two legs You know what I'm talking about Here's a man

47:41

Up there in his age Who should have an aura of wisdom and maturity About him at this time in his life

47:48

Who has experienced enough of life To realize the futility And vanity of dressing stylishly

47:54

And just giving up on all of that stuff For more important things But his foolishness

47:59

Is paraded all over him His ignorance Is paraded all over him

48:05

And his outfits and his lifestyle It's not proper for the stage of life

48:10

That this man is in It stands out like a sore thumb, doesn't it? It's uncomfortable to be around it

48:20

You see this is the saint Masquerading as the world Living in the old self

48:27

It's the 70 year old guy Trying to dress like he's 20 It's something completely different And it's unnatural

48:35

This has no place The old self is not fitting for the new self It has no place there

48:41

They are as Paul will say In verse 4 later on Out of place This is out of place

48:48

This has no place here Amongst the saints It is out of order

48:54

So what is proper among the saints? What is proper for us

48:59

As believers within the body of Christ Well Paul goes on to tell us And he starts with a negative

49:05

What it's not, leading us to a positive Of what is proper Look at verse 4 He says, let there be no filthiness

49:20

Nor foolish talk Nor crude joking Which are out of place

49:26

How can we tell When sexual immorality

49:33

And purity and covetousness Are being named among us How can we tell

49:40

When they're in our midst How can we tell When they're in our own hearts and lives

49:49

What's in the heart Comes out the mouth It's pretty obvious Isn't it

49:58

You spend time with anyone You want to get to know somebody You want to know who they really are Just stand back and let them talk

50:06

Just let them talk You'll find out who they are real quick Because what's in here Will always come out here

50:11

They can only restrain it for so long You see Paul has already addressed this

50:17

Back in chapter 4 Remember in verse 29 he says Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths

50:25

No perverted Distorted corrupting talk Come out of your mouths Because of the harm that it does to the listener

50:33

Because of the harm That it does to those around Hearing the corrupting talk come out But Paul is taking a different angle here in chapter 5

50:40

And shows us how it is Unseemly And out of place for us As believers who are saints

50:48

First he says Look at the beginning there Let there be no filthiness

50:53

Some of your translations may say Obscenity And in the context that Paul uses it here

51:02

It is equivalent to Filthy language Filthy language

51:08

The root of the same word Is used by Paul over in Colossians chapter 3 when he says

51:13

But now you must Put them all away Now when you see in scripture

51:19

A command like that You need to stop in your tracks right You must put them all away

51:26

He is saying Put off the old put on the new Be active in this Put these away

51:33

Wrath put it away Malice put it away Slander put it away And obscene talk

51:41

Same root word here Obscene talk and he says from the mouth

51:47

Put it away Get rid of it Look at what he says

51:52

Next actually in verse 4 Let there be no filthiness Nor Foolish talk

52:02

The word that Paul uses here means Stupid babble Or foolish

52:08

Speech This as Paul says is out of place

52:13

For a saint because it has no Purpose Foolish talk has no purpose

52:21

Its only goal Is tearing down There is no neutrality in speech

52:29

There is no neutrality in intentions None You are actively

52:35

Building up or you are actively Tearing down We are told as Christians To grow up in every way

52:41

To no longer be children I think of this in this way Have you ever been around a group

52:47

Of middle school boys And heard their conversation Its maddening

52:53

Isn't it Its pure chaos Its totally

52:59

Nonsensical It is riddled with utter foolishness Understandably so though They have yet to grow

53:08

Into mature manhood They have yet to grow up They are still children But have you ever been around A group of adult men

53:18

Who maybe aren't directly Speaking of foul things Maybe they are not telling dirty jokes

53:24

And using foul language But their conversations Are foolish and lacking substance

53:30

Just foolishness That's the world

53:35

The world has no substance To offer It has nothing Darkness and utter darkness

53:43

And we once were But sometimes we bring this foolish talk To the table This foolishness comes to the table here

53:51

I'm not talking about goofing around And having fun There is a difference I've met guys that their conscience is so pricked on this

53:57

When they are around a group of guys And the group of guys aren't talking about theology They are like I feel like we are in sin

54:03

That's not the way it works here But there is a fine line here I'm talking about the type of speech that has no purpose

54:10

That has no meaning That has no substance No goal of edification It's incoherent and thoughtless

54:18

That's not what we are called to As believers And here is the problem What's the problem with foolish talk

54:25

Childish talk Immature talk What's the problem with Just nonchalant

54:31

Just goofing around and being stupid Like the world What's the issue with it Because it usually leads to what

54:40

Paul says next Look back at verse 4 Let there be no filthiness

54:45

Nor foolish talk And no crude joking Now just as I mentioned earlier

54:53

About sexual impurity We can read this phrase and think Oh man I'm so I'm good pastor

54:59

I don't ever tell dirty jokes I'm totally covered here That's okay But the word that Paul uses here

55:06

It's difficult to translate See depending on it's derivation

55:11

It can be quite innocent This word can be quite innocent here that Paul uses It's literal meaning is

55:17

That which turns easily Or simply versatile That which turns easy

55:23

Can flip very easily It's in reference to a person That can hop from subject to subject

55:29

Essentially a very sharp individual Somebody that can In conversation you want to start talking about This topic over here

55:37

They're able to make that switch back and forth They're very versatile in their ability to speak However depending on the context

55:43

This same phrase Can be used when speaking about Someone who is quick to turn

55:49

Any subject and topic into something Crude and inappropriate Using things such as Like a double entendre

55:59

I think I'm pronouncing that right That sounds good Thank you Taking something

56:07

That is seemingly benign And innocent And making it something filthy

56:15

I think that's why it's translated Crude joking here Now I'm going to be honest

56:21

This is This This used to be me This used to be me

56:29

I used to struggle this I have personally had to mortify the flesh Over the years on this

56:34

Feeling the weight and convicting power From God's word Because it's so easy

56:40

Even someone that has grown up in a church Grown up in a healthy church around godly men I find myself so easily

56:47

Be able to turn a phrase Or to begin to stand there In the midst of foolish talk

56:52

And take something seemingly innocent And switch it to something Foul Paul says these things are out of place

57:07

So why are they out of place? Why do they have no place amongst us? Well I personally used to make the excuse

57:17

That we were just having fun We were harming nobody We weren't hurting anybody standing there

57:23

After all I'm cautious about who I say it In front of and I'm with the guys I'm not saying anything they haven't heard before Seems innocent doesn't it?

57:37

But look at what Paul says next He says let there be no filthiness

57:42

Nor foolish talk nor crude joking Which are out of place That should be enough But then he gives us the positive

57:49

But Instead Let there be thanksgiving He doesn't leave us with the negative of hey

58:02

Christian don't do these things Just stop doing them But He points us to something better To something that is more

58:10

Something that is of benefit Turn with your Bibles one more time

58:15

With me to Colossians chapter 3 Colossians chapter 3 I want you to see what

58:20

Paul says here Verses 15 through 17 Colossians chapter 3

58:35

Paul says Starting there in verse 15 He says and let the peace of Christ Rule in your hearts

58:42

To which indeed You were called in one body He's speaking of the body of Christ He's speaking of us

58:49

The one body brought together Each one of us as saints And be thankful Be thankful You've been called to this

59:02

Let the peace of Christ Rule in your hearts How you doing that? By being thankful Look at verse 16

59:09

Let the word of Christ Hold on The word of Christ, is there anything crude

59:17

Or foolish Or filthy in that The word of Christ I hope your heads are saying no

59:27

There's nothing crude, filthy Or foolish In the word of Christ The word of Christ is sufficient and good

59:35

It's life giving Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly Remember what's in here comes out there

59:42

Right What's in here comes out this mouth And so if the word of Christ Is dwelling in you richly

59:49

What are you going to do? Teaching and admonishing That's an external that's coming out of the mouth Through your actions, through the way you live

59:56

Through the way that you speak Through every intent and purpose you have Is teaching and admonishing one another

01:00:02

In all wisdom The foolishness and incoherence is gone from all of this It has no place amongst us

01:00:08

This is something greater He says singing psalms and hymns

01:00:14

And spiritual songs With thanksgiving in your hearts to God Look at verse 17

01:00:20

And whatever you do In word How you speak

01:00:26

Or deed What you do Do Everything Does it say

01:00:37

Whatever you speak and whatever you do When you're at church Does it say

01:00:43

Whatever you speak or whatever you do Most of the time Whatever you speak or whatever you do with some things

01:00:49

You can categorize your Christian life And then you can live like the world elsewhere That's not what he says is it

01:00:54

He says do everything Absolutely down to the Down to the fine print

01:01:01

Every single thing In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ Giving thanks to God the

01:01:06

Father Through him This is the life of a believer This is the life of a believer

01:01:12

This is the Christian life here All of the other stuff has no place Amongst us Foolish talk and crude joking

01:01:20

Are forms of selfishness Aren't they That's what we've already come to the conclusion right

01:01:27

These are forms of selfishness Me, look at me Pay attention to me

01:01:33

Look at how quick I can turn this How creative I am Or how How smart

01:01:40

I am Or whatever you want to think But thanksgiving is an expression of unselfishness

01:01:46

You cannot be selfish and thankful at the same time Try it Because the moment you become selfish

01:01:55

You can no longer be thankful You say you're thankful but you're not being thankful When you were thankful You were acknowledging that you deserve nothing

01:02:20

Seriously Maybe I should stop You're acknowledging Right That you deserve nothing

01:02:28

Leading you to not desire For everyone to look at me And pay attention to me When thankfulness is in your heart

01:02:37

You appropriately pointed to the object of that thankfulness The one that you are thankful to Your life will be one

01:02:48

That desires to point absolutely Everything to him The one that has so graciously

01:02:54

Purchased us Made us into a new creation The triune

01:02:59

God, right Be thankful to the triune God God the Father Who loved us before the foundation of the world

01:03:08

God the Son Who came and purchased us by blood ransom God the

01:03:13

Holy Spirit Who indwells in us and seals us For the day of glory For our glorious inheritance, right

01:03:20

That's thankfulness This should incite in us What we should be doing

01:03:26

Which is one of praise One of thanksgiving This glorious truth should inform, it should guide

01:03:31

It should consume all of our thoughts And intentions and speech Every bit of it

01:03:38

I'm not saying You have to go to every party and everything And only talk about theology

01:03:43

But if your speech is something That pulls anyone Here or not, or even yourself

01:03:49

Away from thanksgiving To the glory of God Then it is wrong, and it has no place

01:03:55

Amongst us It's meaningless, it's foolish It's childish

01:04:02

It has no purpose Other than to Tear down Every action from our mouths

01:04:09

Should be an expression of this thankfulness Every word and every action of our lives

01:04:16

Should scream out The glory of God So saints, let there be

01:04:26

No sexual immorality No impurity Or covetousness named among us

01:04:34

But what is proper among us Saints Let there be no filthiness

01:04:40

Nor foolish talk, nor crude joking Those things are out of place Instead, let there be thanksgiving

01:04:50

May our thankfulness To God just flow from us Because what's in here

01:04:56

Is going to come out here You show me a person Who continually

01:05:01

Speaks in crude ways Dishonoring ways to God And I will show you a person who is not

01:05:07

Thankful to the creator See, if you are struggling with these things today

01:05:15

In your life I encourage you To continually have your mind renewed

01:05:20

By his word Keep going back to it Consume it I said a moment ago

01:05:27

All of the What we watch, what we listen to What we read, all of those things

01:05:33

Whatever is coming in Is going to corrupt us May your life be saturated

01:05:39

In the word In goodness and truth Confess your sins

01:05:45

One to another so that Your brothers and sisters can rally around you And pray for you in moments of weakness

01:05:51

That God would deliver you From that idolatry For those of you in here who are not

01:06:00

Actively participating covenant Members of a healthy church This will most

01:06:06

Certainly be impossible for you Do not think That you cannot be

01:06:12

An active participating member Of a healthy church and accomplish this That common means of grace is absolutely

01:06:20

Essential for you So you're fighting an uphill battle You will not win that You must have that But I want to speak to those of you

01:06:30

In here because I know there Must be some who have no Desire to submit yourselves to the word

01:06:36

And to holiness You're sitting here hearing me say it and you're going

01:06:41

Yeah I feel a little guilty but I'm going to keep doing it I don't often say this

01:06:50

But friend you are probably not in Christ I don't care what prayer you prayed

01:06:59

I don't care what Waters you were dunked in I don't care what membership card

01:07:05

You have at whatever church Christ's sheep hear his voice

01:07:10

And they desire to obey him It's pretty cut and dry

01:07:22

Now unfortunately None of us are able to do this perfectly None of us perfectly desire it

01:07:31

None of us can perfectly Obey it And this saint is where We continually rest

01:07:38

In the finished work of Christ Amen This is hope Because you can feel it

01:07:44

You feel the tension You feel in your own heart And conviction You see the words The words never return void

01:07:50

They penetrate into your mind And you go I see it I got to bend the knee to it I want to obey

01:07:56

God I'm just struggling to do so We'll continually look to Christ And rest in the finished work of the cross

01:08:03

And thankfully we see this Sacrifice every week in the

01:08:08

Ordinance of the Lord's Supper don't we That's why we do it It's ever present before us

01:08:14

We can look and see What our great savior has done for us You and I were not able

01:08:24

To save ourselves were we You and I You and I were not able to do right

01:08:30

To be right We still struggle with Doing anything right don't we

01:08:37

That we were left to If it was left to us we would all be Without hope

01:08:44

I saw a quote this week that was Very good one of you shared it That said if Salvation is 99 .9

01:08:52

% God and .001 % man We would all be damned

01:08:59

Because God is the one that did it He sent his son His son willingly

01:09:06

Came Lived the life we could not live Died the death we deserved

01:09:11

And rose from the dead declaring victory And now sets the right Hand of the father interceding for us

01:09:18

Those that are his And he Says my righteousness is placed

01:09:24

On you Remember that when we go to this table You remember when the wine

01:09:31

The blood that was shed for us Paid for us That perfect spotless blood

01:09:38

The body that was given Over for us and the bread Remember this great sacrifice

01:09:45

Rest in it If you have to repent If you need to go before God And lay some of these sins down Of the way you have spoken

01:09:53

The way that you carry yourself The way that you think or any other thing Me or Pastor Jeremiah will be up here

01:09:59

We will pray with you if you desire But you don't need us You can go right to the source

01:10:05

You go to the Lord and lay that down And then come Joyfully to the table

01:10:12

Knowing there is Therefore no condemnation For those that are in Christ Jesus Oh man

01:10:20

It's so It's so glorious Isn't it? I can't think of a better word Anybody think of a better word than glorious?

01:10:27

I say it all the time but it's my favorite word Because it is! This is a glorious truth Let's pray that God Would be honored in our time of worship

01:10:34

For those of you in here by the way that Aren't familiar with how we do this There's a table on this side and there's a table on that side

01:10:40

You can come around the outsides And get in line Take the wine and the bread

01:10:46

There is juice on the back sides So the front is wine The back is grape juice for conscience sake

01:10:53

You can partake of that Come back to your seats through the center And you can pray as a family

01:10:59

You can pray individually, you can pray in a group You can partake right there And then we will come back together as we do

01:11:04

Every week and sing the doxology in praise To our triune God Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father We ask

01:11:12

That you continue to do that great work In our hearts that That you began

01:11:21

That we know that you Are continually doing and that you will finish We love

01:11:30

We love That we get to stand Redeemed, clean As saints, even when there is filthiness

01:11:36

That comes from our mouths Even when we fall prey to crude joking And all types of impurity

01:11:43

Lord Even when we do that Our glorious Savior We are standing there going

01:11:49

Child, I even paid for that I already paid for it

01:11:55

You are In good standing with the Father Because I was perfect I never fell prey to it

01:12:06

Help us to remember this truth today As we come to this table We partake of these elements

01:12:16

And Lord We know Jesus that you are You are with us even now

01:12:23

But you are with us uniquely You express your presence With us uniquely at this table

01:12:29

So I pray that all of us The saints would experience Your loving arms

01:12:35

And acceptance and grace Be honored in our worship