Sunday Sermon: Children of Light (Ephesians 5:1-3)

You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a

New Testament book. On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament, and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday.

Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series, presently going through the book of Ephesians. Here's Pastor Gabe.

Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God.

But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you as is proper among the saints.

Let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.

For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is 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 be partners with them, for at one time you were darkness, but now you are the light 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. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we come to your word today, and as we come,

I pray that we are convicted in heart. We desire purity and holiness. If there is any way, as we read these things today, we find that we have sinned,

I pray that we would be convicted of those things, we would repent of it, and Lord, that you would even lead us to share that with somebody else.

For James chapter 5 says, to confess your sins to one another, that you may be healed, that we know how to pray for each other and lift each other up, that we not try to fight this battle against sin on our own, for we would never succeed, but we look unto

Christ who is the victor, and Christ who has conquered sin and death for us, will raise us up and make us holy and clothe us in righteousness and seat us in glory.

Deliver us from this kingdom of darkness into your kingdom of light. We pray in Jesus' name and all

God's people said, amen. Thank you. You may be seated. So as was mentioned, we have come back from our conference, and it surely was a wonderful, wonderful time.

Becky and Sonia had left before I did, and they visited with friends, met with people that they met online along the way, people who have listened to the ministry, and we'd probably encountered them at other conferences and things like that, or we knew their pastor, so fear not, this was not some crazy thing where they were just housing up with somebody they had no clue who they were.

So we did know who these persons were. Becky and Sonia had the chance to even meet up with friends who had formerly been a part of this church, the

Dunn's and Corman's, who are out at Fort Irwin right now. They met with them and had dinner with them and were making me jealous by sending us pictures and saying, hey, look at all the fun we're having.

I wish I had gone a little bit earlier. But then I flew out to California and met with Becky, and Becky and Sonia and I met with a pastor friend of mine,

Tom Buck, and his wife, Jennifer, and we went back and forth to the conference together, enjoyed a wonderful time of teaching, and of course, we knew the teaching was going to be epic.

It's John MacArthur, Bodie Backham, Phil Johnson, Justin Peters, Mike Riccardi, Todd Friel, just a few of the people that we listened to over the course of the conference.

Some of those guys even spoke more than once, and it was such a blessing. We knew we were going to be blessed by the teaching, but the hospitality and the friendship that we were shown as well were just remarkable.

And by day one, I was already saying this was my favorite conference I had ever been to.

By day two, it turns out I had spoken too early because I sustained an eye injury.

Some of you might have seen the pictures online where I had the patch over my eye. I was wearing that on Thursday, just happened to be.

I got something in my eye and didn't take care of it early enough, and it probably did more damage to my eye.

But then we were eating dinner with a couple on Friday, and the wife was getting over LASIK surgery, and so she gave me some of her drops that were helping her recover from LASIK surgery, and that helped better than anything else that I had been using.

So I'm still not able to wear contacts, so that's why I'm wearing glasses this morning. Even with the eye injury and as miserable as I was on Thursday, it still was the best conference we had ever attended.

Because I had the patch on my eye, every time I turned to my right, I was running into somebody. So Becky would have to stand on my right side and guide me, so I wasn't constantly running into people and things.

Whenever I come back from conferences like this, there's always kind of a burden upon me.

There is great joy, of course, but then there's a burden on my shoulders as well. And I don't want to call it bittersweet, because it's certainly not that.

There's no bitterness at all coming back from a conference of this kind. There's nothing but sweetness.

But there's an understanding as a pastor that as I stand in this pulpit, there is certainly great joy.

There is praise and thanksgiving unto God that He has called me to this, that He would appoint me to be a pastor, that I would stand before His Word and administer this to the people of God, and how grateful

I am that God would call me to this. But there's a great burden to do it as well. There is nothing that I do that is more fearful than this.

I have no fear when I study during the week. I don't dread opening my

Bible and reading it and studying it and taking notes and doing my cross -references, but to stand in the pulpit and deliver this truth, knowing the things that the culture has been telling you all week long, and that there are going to be people who will hate the declaration of the truth of God's Word.

But my fear is not of men. My fear is of God. That I would represent

His truth accurately and soundly, because there is one person that I must answer to, and that is

God alone. I do not fear the wrath or the judgment of men, but I do fear the judgment of Almighty God.

And James 3, verse 1 says, not many of you should aspire to be teachers, my brothers, for you know that teachers will be judged with greater strictness.

I see a whole lot of grace and mercy in those words from James when he says that, lest anybody think, hey,

I can do that guy's job, and then stand in the pulpit and make a condemnation of himself, because he did not answer or did not handle the

Word of God rightly. Not only must I proclaim this truth, but I must give you application.

I must give you exhortation. And I must show to you exactly how this pertains to our lives today.

That's part of the responsibility of teaching the Word of God. And the Word of God often doesn't get offensive until it gets specific.

I can stand up here and I can say that we need to open our

Bibles. We need to preach the gospel. We need to preach the truth.

And you might agree with all of that. I can't think of a single person who would be attending church this morning here in Junction City, Kansas, that would object to that very proclamation.

In fact, every pastor in Junction City may say exactly that. Open your

Bible. Amen. Preach the gospel. Yes. Proclaim the truth. Bible, gospel, truth.

We can all agree that those things are important. But then I start getting specific.

And that's where the offense comes. When I say that the

Bible is our authority and that the Bible has authority over every man whether they believe it or not, that starts to offend people.

When you start taking it as more than a book of fables and stories and moralistic tales or some sort of mythological thing equal to Homer's Iliad or the

Odyssey, and you start saying, no, these are the words of the divine creator that govern over every one of us and you are as answerable to these things as I am, that immediately becomes offensive to the person who is devoted to their flesh and loves their sin and is trying to conform themselves to the world instead of after the pattern of God.

Then the Bible becomes offensive. You can say, in the beginning

God created the heavens and the earth, and everybody can go, amen, yeah, I believe that,

Genesis 1 .1. And then you can come to a passage like we're looking at today and say, but stay away from sexual immorality, and people go, oh, well, wait a minute.

If you believe that God created the heavens and the earth by the speaking of a word, then you will believe that this word has been spoken and governs over even your own life.

And so when God says stay away from sexual immorality, that is a command from God that you must obey.

And there are repercussions if you do not obey it. Some might agree, yes, we should stay away from sexual immorality, but then when you even narrow it down further and you say

God created sex for marriage, it is to be enjoyed between a man and a woman, a husband and his wife only, and anything else outside the confines of marriage is sexual immorality, and God will judge the sexually immoral and the unrighteous.

And you say that, and then the person goes, whoa, that's not what I signed up for. Then the truth becomes offensive.

We saw this happen in real time even while we were at the Truth Matters Conference. There would be teachers that would proclaim certain things.

We've got a room full of people who have paid to be there, so you know that they're mostly going to agree with just about everything that is preached.

And so we have a room full of amens, 3 ,000 people in this room that are glued to their

Bibles and listening to the instruction of the teacher. And then we would get done with those seminars, and some of us would walk outside, and I mean, the hospitality was incredible.

There'd be snacks all over the place and drinks, and it was all free. 500 volunteers on this campus that were there to serve us and take care of us.

It was incredible. And while we're doing that, we're also pulling out our smartphones and we're checking Facebook and Twitter.

And we're starting to see that there are people who have been watching the things that have been preached at the conference, they've been watching it online.

Oh, and they hate some of the things that are being said. And they start quoting some of the teachers.

How appalling, how ridiculous that someone would say this, and they hurl nothing but insults.

They don't qualify their statements at all, but when those teachers stand up there and say what they said, everything was qualified.

Everything was straight from the Word of God. Yet there are people who hate

God's Word. And Jesus himself said, when they hate you, no, it's because they hated me first.

You hate me because you are not of the Father in heaven. You are of your father, the devil, as Jesus said in John 8.

So that is why they hate the Word of God. So we saw that even while we were at the conference.

And I know this is the thing that is going to happen to me as well, that in proclaiming the truth of God's Word, there are going to be those who are the saints who are in pursuit of holiness and righteousness who will receive it.

And there are others who are going to hate it, and the reason is not because they hate me. I try not to take those things personally, but their contestation is instead with God.

And my heart breaks for them, and I pray for them, but the burden for me is to proclaim the truth, and I'm going to proclaim nothing less than that.

And that is by the grace and mercy of God that I do those things. Even as we've been looking at Ephesians chapters 4 and 5 the last few weeks, one of the things

I said is that Paul does make these broad statements, like we had looked at in chapter 4, where Paul said to put off the old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds by putting on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

That's a very broad statement, and we can all agree with that. Yes, put off the old, put on the new.

So Paul makes a broad statement like that, but then he starts to get specific. Then he starts to show you exactly what that would look like.

This is what's old, and this is what's new. Old is falsehood. So put off falsehood, and everyone speak the truth with his neighbor.

That was verse 25. So that's immediately after Paul says, take off the old, put on the new.

Well, what does that look like? Well, first of all, take off falsehood. Don't lie to your neighbor anymore. You must speak truth with your neighbor, for we are members of one another.

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths. Take off the old, but only such as good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear.

Put on the new. So Paul starts to get specific with those instructions. Something very broad, and then he gets real specific.

And we have that going on here again in chapter five. Now this really is a continuation of everything we had just been talking about in chapter four.

Pretend that the chapter marker is not even there. It's a helpful guide for us. It helps us to keep our place.

I'm able to organize my sermon according to these respective points and the numbers that have been put by each respective verse.

But just pretend for the moment that it's not there. And what did we read last week?

How did we conclude? Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.

Therefore, be 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 unto

God. This is in light of the fact that Jesus has died on the cross for our sins.

And we have been forgiven our sins, then we must also, as imitators of God, as beloved children, walk in love.

God has loved us. He has demonstrated his love for us by sending Jesus to die for our sins,

Romans 5, 8. And so as imitators of God, we must be as merciful and as gracious and as loving to one another as he is to us.

That's a broad statement. And then Paul starts talking about what that will look like as imitators of God in the life of a believer.

And starting in verse 3, we see to have nothing to do with sexual immorality. Everything that we talk about today from verses 3 through 10 are going to deal with that subject in particular.

And we'll get to that here in just a moment. The instructions that go on beyond that are going to be more specific and broad, as we'll have various contrasts that Paul will give.

Do not be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit. Make melody in your hearts unto God, singing and giving thanks always and for everything.

We have instructions for wives and husbands, that's coming up in a couple of weeks. We have instructions to children to obey your parents, and the

Lord for this is right. Instructions to bond servants to obey your earthly masters, and then an address to the entire church that we are to put on the full armor of God.

So the instructions get specific from here on out. But in the meantime, we have this broad statement in chapter 5, verse 1, be imitators of God as beloved children.

Another word that we might use to define just those few words that we read right there is godliness.

What is godliness? Godliness is being imitators of God.

We should want to be like God as He has shown us love and forgiveness and grace.

So we should be that way with one another. Walk in love as Christ loved us and gave

Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and a sacrifice unto God. In the book of Philippians, the apostle

Paul puts this another way, Philippians 2, verse 3, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Having the mind of Christ means that we consider others' needs ahead of our own, for Christ considered our need.

He stepped off His throne in heaven, as Paul will go on to explain there in Philippians 2, verse 6, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but He emptied

Himself. By taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form,

He humbled Himself. By becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross, therefore

God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name.

So that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is

Lord to the glory of God the Father. And so as imitators of God, we must humble ourselves for one another.

We must walk in love as Christ walked in love, as He took on human flesh and dwelt among us and gave

Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and a sacrifice unto God, dying for our sins.

I talked about how we can kind of make those broad statements that we all agree with, but then when you start to get specific on the truth, that's when the offense starts happening in the lives of some people who hate the truth.

So this idea that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, anybody who would call themselves a Christian would probably agree with that statement.

Yeah, of course, Bible says so. Jesus died for our sins right here. He died a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God, but then you start talking about the specifics of that, start to say, why

Jesus died for our sins? The reason He died for our sins is because we all sinned against God, and what we deserved for that was the wrath of God.

John 3 .36, he who has the Son has life. He who does not obey the

Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. Not that it comes upon us, but it was on us from the beginning because we were born in the line of Adam, sinful, rebellious creatures against a holy

God. And so because of our sin, what we deserved was God's wrath. What He showed us instead was mercy and grace through His Son, Jesus.

When Jesus died on the cross for our sins, He took the wrath of God, drank the cup of His wrath that is described in the

Psalms, and this is exactly what Jesus was referring to in the garden when He was praying before He was taken to the cross.

God, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, but not as I will, instead as you will as He prayed to the

Father. What was this cup that Jesus was referring to? It was the cup of God's wrath. And the

Scriptures say that Jesus drank it down to the dregs for those who would believe on His name.

He took the wrath of God upon Himself, and He imputed to us

His righteousness, all who have faith in Christ. This is what is stated quite plainly in 2

Corinthians 5, 21, He became sin who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God in Him, and He did this for our sakes.

But when you start saying that what we deserve was the wrath of God, and Jesus died and took the wrath of God, the

Father put Him to death, as is stated in Isaiah 53, also in Romans 3,

He gave Him up to be the propitiation for our sins. When you start saying that the

Father put Jesus to death, then people start going, what a monstrous God, what an awful

God, would kill His Son? That's a terrible doctrine, that's a disgusting thing, but it is the doctrine of atonement that we have laid out plainly for us in Scripture.

So people can agree with the statement, Jesus died on the cross for our sins, but once you start talking about why

Jesus died, because the wrath of God was on us for our sin, Jesus died in our place,

He took the wrath of God for us, the Father poured out His wrath on the Son who died in our place, was buried in a tomb, and to show that God had received this righteous sacrifice, raised

Him up again from the dead? People will look at that and not hear the gospel in it, they'll hear something monstrous in it.

What a horrible thing, because they don't want to see that their own sin was worthy of the wrath of God.

That's the reason why they hate it. Most of the things that people contend with in Scripture, most of these doctrines that people have a problem with listening to and believing, is not because of the doctrine itself, it might really be because they have a tough time understanding their own depravity, their own sinfulness in the presence of God.

When we were in Ephesians chapter 1, we talked about election, we talked about predestination, that God having chosen from before the foundation of the world those who would be holy and blameless before Him.

And we have a problem with that doctrine, but our problem is probably not the doctrine of predestination and election itself, one of the most controversial doctrines in the church today, but the controversy there is probably not election.

The controversy there is that you don't understand that your sin made you incapable of choosing

God if He had not chosen you. So our contention here is really with our own sinfulness in light of God's holiness.

And it's this sinfulness that we must crucify, that we must put to death, that we must mortify in order to become imitators of God.

And we do this in light of the fact, here's the beautiful thing, we do this in light of the fact that we are beloved children, not be imitators of God so that you will be beloved children.

That's not what Paul says. Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children.

Did Jesus die on the cross for your sins? Do you believe that? Do you believe that right now in the

Father's presence, I am holy and righteous and I receive as a son or daughter of the

Most High? Do you believe that? Then be an imitator of your

Father in heaven. Walk in love as Christ, your

Savior walked and gave Himself up for us. We will show proof, evidence that we are the children of God when we obey these things because we are

His children, because Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God.

Fragrant offering, whenever we saw that in the Old Testament, fragrant offering means that the offering, the sacrifice, was pleasing to God and it satisfied

His wrath. It was a propitiation. That's always what that means. Every time you see it in the

Old Testament and then that metaphor is used again in the New Testament, it is to demonstrate

God's wrath was appeased, atonement was made by the precious blood of Christ.

He is a fragrant offering and a sacrifice unto God. None of us could ever have achieved that kind of offering or that sacrifice for we were sinful, but Jesus is the spotless lamb that was offered up for our sins.

So being imitators of God and walking in love and being beloved children unto the

Lord, we then have the specifics of these instructions as to what this pattern of living might look at in our lives.

And notice that what we're looking at today from verses 3 -10 all deal with sexual immorality.

Now anytime we get into a discussion of this and anytime I talk about this, I'm always kind of torn as to how much or how little

I should say because we are a family integrated church and we have children in the room. But I want you to know that I grew up in a family integrated church and I listen to preachers say things like I'm about to say from the age of two, three, four years old.

So there are going to be things that your children will not understand. It will be up to you, mom and dad, to explain those things to them as you see fit, as they get older, as they ask questions.

I know that can be kind of scary. I always thought like, oh, I am well equipped. I'm totally brave.

My children can ask me anything now. And then they actually ask the question and I go, oh boy. Go ask your mom.

No, I don't do that. In fact, Becky says, go ask your dad. So again, coming into this,

I wonder how much or how little I should say. But this is our culture is just absolutely inundated with this.

And as I said, I am burdened with the responsibility of teaching you the truth, and I cannot take anything for granted.

I cannot withhold certain truth expecting, well, maybe somebody else will say it to you down the road.

For this is what I've been called to, and this is the truth that I must proclaim. So here we go.

Verse three, but sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you as is proper among the saints.

Let there be no sexual immorality. What is sexual immorality?

It's necessary for us to define this. What God created sex for was to be enjoyed between a husband and a wife, a man and a woman in marriage.

It is a good thing. It is not a bad thing. The Corinthians struggled with that.

Some of them thought, hey, we need to be abstinent even in marriage for that's more holy. And Paul's like, what are you thinking?

Come on. God created this to be good. And a husband's body is not his own, but it's his wife's.

And a wife's body is not her own, but it belongs to her husband. You are one flesh. It is a beautiful, intimate thing that God gave to us, and it is a picture of the relationship that Christ has with His church.

We'll talk about that more when we get to the instruction to wives and husbands coming up starting in verse 22.

But God created sex for marriage, and anything outside the confines of marriage, anything outside the bond of marriage is sexually immoral.

That is immorality. And we have it stated here that those who are sexually immoral or impure, this is verse 5, they have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 6, you know this passage, I've referenced it many times. We went through 1

Corinthians together a couple of years ago. In 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verses 9 and 10, we read,

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? 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.

Now, whenever we make this, we reference this verse, because this is pretty explicit on exactly those things that would be considered to be sexual immorality, 1

Corinthians 6, 9. Whenever we reference this in light of our present culture, what will often follow is somebody saying, well, notice there that Paul also talks about thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, or swindlers, so sexual immorality is just as much a sin as any of the rest of those things.

So why is it that you're singling out sexual immorality and saying that this is unique compared to all other sins?

The reason why we single sexual immorality out as unique is because the Bible does. First of all,

Paul does it here in 1 Corinthians 6, 9, where verse 9 is committed to sexual immorality.

Neither the sexually immoral, the idolaters, the adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality.

That's verse 9. And all of that dealt with sexual immorality. Then you get to verse 10, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers.

So Paul says these other things are sins too, but sexual sin gets the most attention here.

None of the other sins that are mentioned get as much attention as that one. And then when you go on in 1

Corinthians 6, you get to this part, starting in verse 18, flee from sexual immorality.

Every other sin a person commits is outside the body.

Every other sin a person commits is outside the body.

But the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

So it's different. Votie Bauckham, one of the speakers that we had at the

Truth Matters conference, he didn't say this at the conference, but I've heard him say it before. He said homosexuality in particular is the only sin that you see in the

Bible judged with fire from heaven. And our culture is trying to say that it's perfectly natural and normal.

We even have a Democrat candidate who says that he is a Democratic presidential candidate who says that he's married to a man and just at a recent town hall a little over a year ago said that he's not a sinner and God made him this way and it's perfectly normal.

And this is the way that the culture will respond to this. They'll say, hey, I have my desires and my desires are not sinful.

They are who I am. They make up who I am. Mike Riccardi at Truth Matters a couple of days ago confronted that concept exactly.

Here was the quote that I had written down from Mike Riccardi. He says, the culture will tell you I don't have to change my desires.

It's just who I am. Baloney, the desire for sin is sinful.

To want what the Father does not desire for you to have is sin.

It's not just the things that we do that are sinful. It's even the thoughts that we think.

Jesus made that point when he says it's out of the heart come wickedness, evil, sexual immorality, and all of these other things.

They come from a wicked and sinful heart. And we've been called to be changed not just in the actions that we do, but that our thoughts and our hearts, they would be changed.

We would not desire the things that are sinful, but we would desire the things that are holy. Isaiah 55, 7, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts.

Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man even his own thoughts.

We're not to think about sinful things anymore. We're supposed to have minds that are renewed to think about the things of God and not be after the passions of our flesh.

Paul goes on in 1 Corinthians 6, 19 to say, do you not know that your body is a temple of the

Holy Spirit within you whom you have from God? You are not your own. You were bought with a price.

So honor God, glorify God in your body.

The catechism that we did with the kids this morning, question, what is our purpose for living? Answer, our purpose is to glorify

God and enjoy him forever. How do we glorify God? There's an answer right here. You glorify God in your body.

Romans 12, 1, therefore, my brethren, in view of God's mercies, present your bodies as a holy and living sacrifice unto the

Lord. This is your spiritual act of worship. Worship is not just in what we do on Sunday morning and the songs that we sing and the word of God that is proclaimed.

Worship is what we do every moment of our lives. Taking even our thoughts captive, 2

Corinthians 10, 5, and making them obedient unto Christ. Here back in Ephesians chapter 5, once again,

Paul says, sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you as is proper among the saints.

Let me ask you this. Can you covet in your body? Does your body covet?

Your body doesn't covet. Your mind does. See here,

Paul is even confronting the thoughts, we think. Sexual immorality and all impurity or even covetousness, even desiring that which

God the Father did not intend for you to desire. It must not even be named among you as is proper among the saints.

You know, when I was much younger and much dumber, I used to,

I would hear my brothers in the Lord say something like, man, I just haven't mastered the sexual immorality thing yet. Boy, I'm sure still struggling with it.

I think I've got it down and suddenly I fall right back into it and it's difficult and it's hard and I don't know that I'm ever going to get mastered to that, right?

I mean, it's every man's battle. Every man is going to go through this. Every man is always going to struggle with this. There is no changing it.

I guess I just have to accept that this is the way that I am. And I used to, in my young stupidity, just receive that as, oh, that's good.

Well, I'm glad that you're humble about it. I'm glad that, you know, at least you're trying to do something with it.

Now when I hear a man say that, I am terrified. If a man who is a brother in the

Lord says to me, well, I'm just still struggling with this sexual immorality thing, man.

I don't know if I've got it down yet, but, you know, I wrestle with it all the time, but I think I'm getting it right there on the spot.

I'm going to say, boy, let's pray about this. Let's get this under control because if you don't get this under control, if you don't master it, it will master you.

God said this to Cain. This is back in Genesis 4. This is the third and fourth person to exist on earth,

Cain and Abel, right? Cain is the firstborn child of the sons of men, and he has wrath against his brother

Abel. What does God say to Cain? Sin is crouching at your door, and its desire is to have you, but you must master it.

And my brethren, if you're struggling with some sin in your flesh that you can't master, do what you got to do to mortify that sin, put it to death, because the longer you let it sit there, and if you just have this complacency of mind of, oh, well, it's just always going to be there, that could be that you are declaring surrender.

You must be scared if that would be your position against the sin that you feel in your flesh.

You must put it to death. You must crucify it. As Paul instructed plainly in Colossians 3, 5, put to death what is earthly in you, dead.

That thing wants to become a zombie and try to raise its head again, bury that thing in the ground even deeper. And it's not by our power that we do that, but the power of the

Holy Spirit that is within us. We don't wrestle with these things alone. Do the scriptures not say to us in Romans chapter 8 that you are more, more than conquerors through him who loved you, through him who loved you, right?

You are more than conquerors, so get out there with your spiritual sword and shield and just take care of this matter and then come back to me when you're finished.

We are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Listen to this in Philippians chapter 2, verses 12 and 13.

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

Let me stop there. That's the end of verse 12. I've read that on the podcast a few times and more often than not somebody will follow that up with an emailed question and say, how do

I work out my own salvation? How do I work out my own salvation with fear and trembling? If we read in Ephesians 2, 8 that we're saved by grace through faith and not of works, and my response to that person is, well, the answer was in verse 13.

Did you keep reading? The end of verse 12 is in the middle of a sentence. Keep going to verse 13.

For it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

So let's look at that all together again. Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is

God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Both to will and to work.

So once again, changing our mind as well as changing our actions. Our minds must be changed as well as our behaviors.

This is not about behavior modification. It's about heart transformation. That we would be transformed by the renewing of our minds and follow after the holiness that has been set before us by the example of Christ our

Lord. Sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you as is proper among the saints.

Going on to verse 4. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking which are out of place.

But instead let there be thanksgiving. We had read at the end of chapter 4 when we looked at that passage last week that we are to be forgiving of one another as God has forgiven us.

That's not the kind of behavior that we see in the world. What we see in the world is bitterness and malice and anger and wrath and slander toward one another.

Just a few weeks ago, this was at the start of the month when this news story came out. There was a man by the name of Botham John.

It was about a year ago when this happened, but some of you know this story. Botham John was sitting in his apartment in Dallas, Texas when a woman came in and shot and killed him.

Her name was Amber Geiger. She was an off -duty police officer and she wandered into the wrong apartment and thought he was an intruder and killed him.

And Botham, my wife has corrected my pronunciation of that a couple of times,

Botham John died just sitting in his own apartment. Amber Geiger was arrested.

She was put on trial for murder. At the start of the month, we heard the results of that trial that she was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Now this was a woman who was truly sorry for what she did, stood on the stand and wept and wept and said that she hated herself because of what had happened.

Botham John's brother, Brant, in the family addresses to the perpetrator, he got on the stand and he said,

I forgive you for killing my brother. And he said,

I don't know if we're allowed to do this, but he looks at the judge and he says, can I give her a hug?

And the judge allowed him to do that and he stepped down in the middle of the courtroom. He hugged her as she just sobbed and sobbed.

And Botham said to her, I don't want any harm for you. I just want you to know

Christ. And then when she went back to the table, the judge,

Tammy Kemp, grabbed her Bible, which she had there on the stand and went down to Amber at the table, at the, at the defendant's table and opened the

Bible up to her to John 3, 16 and explained the gospel to her, the judge and hugged her and said,

I love you. And I hope that you know the gospel truth that Jesus Christ has died for your sins.

And then she was taken from the court, from the, from the courtroom to prison where she will spend the next 10 years.

And there were people online that were incensed about that scene.

One person that I read who was a pastor, by the way, accused Brandt John of having post slavery disorder.

And that was why he hugged this white woman and forgave her. There were people that slammed judge

Tammy Kemp. How many other perpetrators does she go down there and hug? Matt Scarabini, who used to work for Ben Shapiro, in light of all of this that was going on in the news, he said the following, grace and forgiveness looks like madness to the unbeliever.

Folks, the way that we live in this world, it's going to look weird to people. When we desire sexual purity and we understand the instruction that's given in Hebrews 13, let the marriage bed be undefiled and let everyone hold marriage in high honor.

That means that even people who are single are supposed to help out those who are married in the church, that the marriage covenant would be held sacred among all who are in the church.

When we find those instructions that are given to us in scripture and we start to live that way, the rest of the world is going to call us absurd.

You've probably even seen this where you might have a family that you know who has a bunch of kids, amen guys, and the rest of the world will look at them and say, oh man, when are you going to stop?

Are you Catholic? Are you Mormon? Goodness, how many kids do you have? Do you know where kids come from?

You know, they'll make jokes like that. A desire to have a large family, to be fruitful and multiply, to keep sex within the covenant of marriage, these things are going to look absurd to the world.

And Peter even warns us in 1 Peter chapter 4, the rest of the world is going to look strange at you and they're going to malign you because you pursue godliness.

But you must not fear what the rest of the world is gabbing about. Our standard of judgment and righteousness and morality is not the world, it is

God. Now I did not get as far as I wanted to today. We're going to come back to this section,

Ephesians chapter 5 verses 1 through 10 next week. But I want to leave you with some exhortation before we conclude.

Let me give you three things. I'm going to give you three do's and three do not's. So number one, in light of these instructions, being imitators of God as dearly beloved children, walking in love as Christ, not in sexual immorality but in purity, giving our bodies as living sacrifices unto the

Lord, this is our spiritual act of worship. What are we to do in light of this?

Number one, do look to Christ. Look to Jesus.

Hebrews 12 too. Take off every sin and weight that entangles us and run the race with endurance, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith.

And as I asked the kids this morning, and even the kids understood this, how do we see

God? How do we know what it looks like to imitate God and follow after Him?

We have it right here in His Word. At the end of this section that we've read today in Ephesians 5, 10, it says, try to discern what is pleasing to the

Lord. How do we discern what is pleasing to the Lord? We read the Word of God. This is the revealed will of God.

We know what God's mind is, what His heart is, what His will is, His desire for us when we read

His Word. How do we look to Jesus? He's seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

We read about Him in His Word. And as Paul says to the Colossians, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ.

And we know about those things that we need to know for our salvation and our sanctification when we look into the

Word of God. Folks, it's the same as how you get to know somebody. How do you get to know the person who's sitting next to you?

You talk to them and they share things with you. How? By talking. You share words with each other.

That's how you get to know one another. God gave us the gift of language and communication. And He has not left communication silent between us and God.

He speaks to us through His Word and we speak to Him through prayer. So do look to Christ.

Do not look to the world. Save yourselves from this crooked and wicked generation

Peter preached at Pentecost in Acts 2. Do not look to the world. Look to Christ. Don't look to the world.

Again, they're not our standard for righteousness. They're not our standard for morality. Whatever you see on the evening news tonight, you pass through the filter of this.

Do not look to the world for our standard of goodness and right and wrong. While we were at the

Truth Matters conference, Todd Friel played a clip of an encounter that he had with a student on the

Georgia Tech campus. And he asked the student, is 2 plus 2, 7?

And the student went, yes. If you want 2 plus 2 to be 7, it can be 7 for you.

This is the kind of moral relativism and postmodernism that is in our culture today. And Todd Friel was sure to preface that clip even before he played it.

He said, this is not an anomaly. This is exactly the students that we encounter at Georgia Tech. Georgia Tech, I hope that guy is not in architecture.

I hope he's not responsible for building a bridge that I'm going to be driving across one of these days. Truth is truth and it's the same for everybody whether you want to accept it as true or not.

So we cannot be looking to the world and their morally relativistic standard for truth.

We must look to God's word. So do look to Christ. Do not look to the world.

Number two, do discipline your body. And that is in our thoughts and in our actions.

The Apostle Paul said, I discipline my body so that I will not be found to be unqualified on the day of Christ.

So we must submit our thoughts to Christ, all of our actions as we follow the instruction that is in Romans 6, submitting our members to Christ as instruments for righteousness rather than the members of our body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness.

Discipline your body, your thoughts, your actions, et cetera. All of it must be made into submission unto

Christ. Rule your thoughts. Don't let them rule you. As I've said many times, you may not be responsible for the first thought, but you are responsible for what you do with it.

And there are times that unfortunately I can say of my own self when I did not take that thought captive. I had the thought.

I wasn't responsible for it popping in my head, but once I had it I was kind of like, I kind of like this thought and I just let it sit there.

I may not have ever even acted on it, but to think about something once again that God does not desire for you is sin.

And to have pleasure in it like it's a Tic Tac sitting on your tongue that you're just letting linger and enjoying the taste of it, that's awful.

Takes our mind away from God and instead submits it to the ways of this world and the passions of our flesh.

Let us not be that. Be disciplined in your body. Do discipline your body. Do not do nothing, right?

Don't just sit there and go, well, if I just don't do anything, maybe sanctification will take care of itself.

That's a mistake. Because everything in this world is subjected to futility, even our own bodies.

If we don't do anything, we're still going to fall prey to our passions and our desires. We must be active in this fight against sin.

And Paul's going to make that clear when we get to Ephesians 6, a prelude to this, when he talks about putting on the full armor of God.

Spiritual warfare is not something that's just like demons and angels battling against one another in this unseen realm all around us.

Spiritual warfare we do every day. When you take your thoughts and the passions of your flesh captive and you submit them unto

Christ. Do discipline your body. Do not do nothing. Number three, do give your whole self unto

Christ. Once again, Jesus was asked, what is the greatest commandment?

And his reply, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength.

There's nothing left to ambiguity there. So which part of me do I not have to give to God?

All of it. You got to give all of it to God. Love the Lord your God with everything that you are.

Christ gave us everything. And in light of this fragrant offering and sacrifice to God, we must give him everything.

Do give your whole self unto Christ. Do not take the grace of God for granted.

Do give your whole self unto Christ. Do not take the grace of God for granted. What do I mean by that?

Don't give in to sin and pleasure and think, well, God will just forgive me for that tomorrow. That's cheap grace.

That's not the true grace of God. As Paul again said in Romans chapter six, if we are dead to sin, then how can we go on living in it?

If we are in the grace of God, we must walk in the grace of God, not in the sin and the unrighteousness of our former selves.

That doesn't mean that we are going to be sinless. My friends, we're not going to be sinless until we get to glory.

But my saying that is a grace to you. Don't let that be permission for you to do the sin thinking, well,

I'm going to be struggling with it anyway. I might as well give in. A man sat in my office earlier this year and told me exactly that.

He told me exactly the sin he was about to do, and I asked him, why are you going to do that?

And he said, because I'm going to mess up anyway. I might as well go ahead and do it. My friends, that is a person who's already surrendered to their own passions and lusts of their flesh.

Don't do that. If we are more than conquerors through him who loved us, put to death what is earthly in you and live in righteousness.

Put on the new self, which is being renewed after the knowledge of our Creator. So once again in these exhortations, do look to Christ.

Do not look to the world. Do discipline your body. Do not do nothing. Do give your whole self unto

Christ. Do not take the grace of God for granted. With the kids for catechism this morning,

I had read to them from Psalm 73. I'm going to conclude with Psalm 73 here. We'll pray and then we'll sing. Psalm 73, beginning in verse 23.

Well, let me go back a little bit. Verse 21,

Psalm 73 verse 21. When my soul was embittered, when

I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant.

I was like a beast toward you. Nevertheless, I am continually with you.

You hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory.

Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

For behold, those who are far from you shall perish. You put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.

But for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the

Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.

Thank you for listening to our weekly sermon presented by First Southern Baptist Church of Junction City, Kansas.

For more information about our church, visit fsbcjc .org.

On behalf of our church family, my name is Becky, inviting you to join us again this week, Growing Together in Christ, when we understand the text.