The Offering of a Pure Life

Grace Fellowship Church

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This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons, or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

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Well, as I mentioned, the text that is before us to preach, let alone live faithfully, will come,

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I think, at some consequence in the world in which we live. And I want to approach this serious topic with a serious story of sacrifice and of cost in the face of obedience, or the cost of obedience even in the face of difficulty.

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In the year 1920, there was a brilliant young German boy who was just 14 years of age when he announced to his family and to the world that he wanted to give his life to the study of theology.

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To some, this came as a surprise because he was a young man who came from a brilliant family.

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His dad was esteemed as a renowned scholar and professor.

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One of his brothers was a famed scientist. Another one of his brothers, a top -notch lawyer.

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In every respect, this man came from a family that was renowned for its intellectual powers, its cognitive pedigree.

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And yet, instead of using his mind to make a great profit, to make a name for himself, this young boy decided that he wanted to devote his mind to the study of scripture and to the work of German theologians that had went before him.

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In his teens, he began studying Hebrew. When others were still attending high school, he entered into the

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University of Berlin. At the age of 21, he graduated from that university with a doctorate of theology.

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Most 21 -year -olds are still trying to figure out what their major is going to be. And here he was leaving university with a doctorate.

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By the time he was 24, he found himself on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean teaching at a theological seminary in New York City.

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There, safely occupying a teaching role. And at this stage of his life, he might have very well felt that he was well on his way to achieving his dream of laboring, of giving his life to biblical scholarship.

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But in 1930, something came that disrupted absolutely everything. This scholar noticed that the tide had changed in his homeland of Germany.

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And what was needed more than ever was a committed Christian presence back in his homeland.

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Now, if you know anything about world history, you'll know that in 1930, the National Socialist Workers' Party of Germany, a .k

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.a. the Nazi Party, rose to power and secured 107 seats in the

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German parliament. And yet, despite being perfectly safe in the

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United States, living out his dream, or at least the beginning of that dream as a biblical scholar, in 1931, this young man packed his bags, traveled back across the

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Atlantic Ocean, and found himself in Germany. And there, for a short time, was able to teach at the

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University of Berlin before the Nazis completely took over. And at that time, he gave himself to this.

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He saw to it that he would operate a seminary for Germans, that he called his seminary on the run.

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He preached in churches, underground churches and churches above ground, whenever he had the opportunity.

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He wrote books. He served as a courier for the German resistance movement. And as the

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Holocaust began to take shape, he became a fierce defender of the Jewish people, doing all that he could to deliver them out of harm's way.

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And when he thought back on what it was to move from the United States, comfortably occupying a scholarly role at a university, and moving back to Germany and becoming an underground resistance fighter of sorts, he said this,

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Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. For this cause he had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God.

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So the Christian too belongs, not to the seclusion of a cloistered life, but in the thick of foes.

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And as many pastors and professing Christians allowed themselves to be deceived, and caved under the immense social pressure of the day, this young man lived as in the thick of foes.

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And as the story would go on, in 1943, he was found out for his resistance fighter work.

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He was part of a group that was collaborating to kill Adolf Hitler. And then on April 9th, 1945, just two weeks before the

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Allied forces were to enter into the concentration camp, where he was staying, the

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Germans, seeing the writing on the wall, executed him by hanging at the Flossenberg concentration camp.

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Now some of you, I'm sure by now, know who it is that I'm talking about. This young man, his name was

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Now, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, for many, many, many reasons,

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I have to put this caveat out here, I cannot commend to you his theology. He was a

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Barthian scholar, a liberal scholar, at least by the measure of his day. We cannot commend his theology.

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But at the same time, it is hard not to commend his courage. When many

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Christians in Germany were only preoccupied with self -preservation, Bonhoeffer gave up all of his life's ambitions to stand for what was right.

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In a time when many churches remained silent as great evils were being committed in their day,

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Bonhoeffer not only labored to embolden his fellow Christians, to equip German pastors, but he gave up his life's standing for a truly righteous cause.

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And one of the quotes that we hear often attributed to Bonhoeffer is this, that when

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Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.

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When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. Now how does this story relate to the text that is before us today?

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As we come to the first 14 verses of Ephesians chapter 5, we find the

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Apostle Paul calling us to a similar purpose. And I do not think that the

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Apostle Paul had in his mind probably what the Holy Spirit had intended for, looking now some 2 ,000 years ahead.

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But what we see is that the Christian has been called not to imitate the world, nor to love

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God and neighbor according to the world's terms, but we are called to imitate

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God and to achieve this imitation of God. We're called to walk in love even as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.

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Now if you've been at any of the weddings that we've had over the last couple of months, you will have heard this exhortation or this quote at various times.

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When I look at the husband who is standing at the altar and say to him, Brother, love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

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And perhaps if you're not a husband, or if you're a wife or a woman, you've thought to yourself, well, how is it that I can give up my life in love for someone?

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And here Paul is going to paint a picture, a fulsome picture. So I'm not talking only to the men, only to the husbands, but to the whole of the church that Christ calls us to lay down our lives.

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And Paul has something in mind. And what is it? Is it acts of service?

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Is it through some form of mercy ministry? It is not what we would expect to find.

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But what Paul is going to put before us as he lays out verses 1 and 2, this call to imitate

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God, to follow Christ, upon issuing that summons, he's going to show us this.

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That in a world that has lost the plot, that has given itself over to every conceivable form of darkness, we are called to offer to God a pure life that aggressively seeks to put away all defiling sins.

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A life that shuns deception, that embraces discernment, and that seeks even to expose sin and to call lost and sleepy sinners to faith in Christ.

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Many of us have probably never thought of it this way, but one of the ways that we are called to take up our crosses and daily follow

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Christ is by maintaining a steadfast commitment to righteousness irrespective of the cost.

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What we find Paul calling us to today is one of the things that our redeemed souls long for the most.

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The eradication, there it is, of sin in our mortal bodies and the wholehearted embrace of a radical

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Christ -like righteousness. A righteousness that calls sin, sin, no matter what the world says.

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A righteousness that sees the sin in ourselves. So with our

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Bibles open to Ephesians chapter 5 verse 1, let's read verses 1 through 5 together.

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Paul writes, Let us 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 to God.

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

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

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For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

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We're going to break up this text into three sections. And what

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I want us to see, as I've noted here, is that the Apostle Paul, as he calls us to be imitators of God, he is once again going to root his exhortations in the person and work of Christ.

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And he's calling us to follow him, to love God, to love neighbor, not according to the world's standards, but according to God's standards.

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And even like Christ, at great personal expense to ourselves. Now to follow

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Christ encompasses many things. What Paul has in mind here is the offering up of a life marked by Christ -like purity in both character and conduct.

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It is having received the free and undeserved gift of Christ's love through his atoning work, responding by pursuing conformity to him.

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Now I'm not going to dwell on verses 1 and 2, but what we see is that it's very closely related to the text that we studied last week and the week before that, at least verses 17 through 32.

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All of these things that we are to put off as Christians, and all of these things that we are to put on, like Paul says in verse 32, to be tender -hearted, to be kind, to forgive one another.

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But just as equally as it applies to those passages, those verses in chapter 4, we see that it applies to chapter 5 as well.

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One Bible commentator, S. M. Bowes, adds this, he writes, certainly there is no Christian life at all without Christ's love and sacrifice as its vivifying root, as its motivating source.

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Moreover, he says, love motivates the rejecting of evil. Have you ever thought about that?

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That one of the best ways, one of the most unique ways that you can love

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God in this world is by rejecting that which is truly evil in his sight.

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Rejecting that which is truly evil in your own heart, and rejecting that which is truly evil in the world.

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In verses 3 through 5, Paul outlines what it is that we are to reject. I said

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I have three points. This is the first point that I want to make. That to imitate God and walk in Christ -like love, we must first make a complete separation from defiling sin.

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Make a complete separation from defiling sin. Dear Christian, if you want to be a true imitator of God, if you want to walk in love and so follow

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Christ, if you want to break with all of the world, you must, by God's gracious aid, cease from nurturing all defiling sins in your life.

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Though the culture, and sadly, even the broader evangelical church may bow to these defiling sins, we must identify and aggressively uproot all such sin in our lives.

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Like a man who has a limb that has been overtaken by some kind of pervasive, invasive, flesh -eating disease, we must aggressively seek to cut off all defiling sin from our lives before it infects our whole person.

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In verse 3, Paul provides us with a list of those things that we must make a complete separation from.

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In verse 3, Paul begins with this, with sexual immorality. He uses the

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Greek word porneia. You'll recognize the first half of that word, porneia, which is a flexible term that includes the sexual sins of adultery, of fornication, of prostitution, of homosexuality, and of every sexual sin that the human heart can conceive of.

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When we see Paul use this word, he speaks to at least these things, and we certainly know of more ways now that human beings can engage in sexual immorality.

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But he doesn't just stop there. He casts the net even further and includes the expression all impurity.

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So sexual immorality and all impurity, which is a broader term still. This term describes anything that was filthy, vile, or unclean.

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Our Lord Jesus in Matthew 23 and verse 27 used it to describe the rotting, decaying bodies of dead men in whitewashed tombs.

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It is a rottenness that accompanies death. One commentator notes that it's used in the

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New Testament at least 10 times to broadly refer to sexual sins, such as immoral thoughts, passions, ideas, sinful ideas, fantasies, and every other form of sexual corruption.

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So Paul is saying we must put away, separate ourselves from all sexual immorality, all that which is impure, and lastly, covetousness.

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That sin that involves the intense and jealous longing for someone else's possessions.

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Sometimes, as we see in Exodus chapter 20 and verse 17, sometimes even another man's wife, or vice versa.

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Now what Paul offers us here is not a comprehensive sin list of every possible transgression that we might encounter, but it is a list of sins that we must be especially careful to mortify in our lives.

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These are sins that should be earmarked in our lives. Sins to be put to death at first sight.

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And Paul writes in another passage in 1 Corinthians 6 .18 why that is. That every other sin is committed outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

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There is something uniquely pervasive, uniquely destructive about sexual sin.

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John MacArthur, in his commentary on this passage, says this. He says, because of the strong sexual nature of human beings, sexual sins are powerful and become perverted in unimaginable ways.

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If given free reign, sexual sin leads to complete insensitivity to the feelings and welfare of others, to horrible brutality, and even to murder, as news stories testify to daily.

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And as Paul lists these sins, he goes so far at the end of verse 3 to say that such sins are not even to be named among us.

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To the Christian, dear Christian, how often it is that professing

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Christians entertain exactly these kinds of sins. Yet what

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Paul is saying is that sexual sin should be so detestable, so repugnant to us, that even the hint of it should not even be tolerated.

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And then it's only natural, then, that in verse 4, Paul would go on to say that any kind of speech that is polluted by this kind of sin is completely out of place.

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Now, I addressed this last week, so I'm not going to belabor the point, but Paul says that we should put away all filthy talk.

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Now, this would include obscenities. It comes from the same word that the

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Greek word would be translated into as disgraceful. Any kind of speech that is devoid of grace, the kind of speech that Christians should be embarrassed to hear come out of their mouth.

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And not only to hear come out of their mouth, but to hear come out of their brother or sister's mouth. It is the kind of speech that we spoke about last week that has no place in the

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Christian life. Moreover, Paul says that we are to avoid all foolish talk.

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The Greek word here, and this is where the study of the Greek language is sometimes interesting and helpful because it paints a very explicit picture of what

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Paul is talking about. The word here that Paul uses is the word mora logia.

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Now, that is a compound word that takes two different words, moros. Now, does that sound like an

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English word that we might know, moros? Transliterated, it means, we would call it today a moron, to be a moron.

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It comes from that Greek word moros, and logia, which means word or speech. And so it is moron talk.

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And Paul says we are to refrain from all moron talk, which is to speak as one who lacks intelligence, to make foolish, and my children used to blush when

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I would say this word, but I'll say it, foolish and stupid statements that neither glorify

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God nor benefit those who hear. And it is to avoid all crude joking.

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As Christians, we should not only not speak foolishly, we should not speak disgracefully, but we should not speak crudely.

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We should avoid repeating sexually explicit jokes. We should avoid repeating sexually explicit innuendos.

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And we should avoid even laughing at such jokes. It is simply not possible to walk in love, to keep an eye always on Christ, and yet at the same time to laugh at the sin that necessitated

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His crucifixion, that was imputed to Him, that welcomed the just wrath of God upon Him on our behalf.

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I'm reminded of Proverbs 10 .23, where we're told, doing wrong is like a joke to a fool.

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Brethren, it is foolish, it is moronic, it is stupid, to make jokes at Christ's expense.

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But the writer of this proverb says, but wisdom is pleasure to a man of understanding.

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That we are to speak that which is wise. And as he says in the second half of verse 4, what is wise but let there be thanksgiving.

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Brothers and sisters, I won't belabor the point that I made last week, but oh that when the world would find us together, they would find us uttering words of heartfelt thanksgiving to God, rather than foolish, crude, and idle words.

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And in verse 5, Paul explains what is at stake. The sexually immoral, the impure, the covetous person, has no inheritance in the kingdom of God.

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Now there are any number of passages that I could have read to strengthen this point. I'm actually going to go to a text that we looked at last week in Revelation 21.

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When we spoke about what becomes of liars. Now let us see what becomes of the sexually immoral.

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Revelation 21 in verse 8. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.

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What comes to those who give themselves unreservedly to sexual sin?

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It is not, as Paul would say in verse 5, an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

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But one who gives themselves shamelessly to sexual sin, their place, as John would say in Revelation 21, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.

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Brethren, I would seek with all of my might to keep you from such a place.

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I would keep you with all of my might, I would seek with all of my might to keep you from a life of faithlessness, of fruitlessness, of futility, by giving yourselves to sexually immoral conduct.

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We are so inundated with sexual immorality in this world, that whether we are looking for it or not, it is in the air that we breathe.

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Case in point, you can turn off your radio, which is full of songs that are not even full of innuendos, but of explicit references to things that the

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Lord hates. You can turn off your TV and your computer and block out all of the plots, many of which are based entirely on things that Christ died to put away.

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But even then, if you were to leave your house and drive down the freeway and look at the billboards,

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I'm amazed at the stickers now that are on the backs of people's cars. Shameless.

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If we put every other form of media and just leave our houses without fail, we will be bombarded by sexually explicit billboards, by sexually suggestive clothing, by sexually suggestive conversations at work.

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It is in the air that we breathe. And we cannot underestimate the effect that it has on each one of us.

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Each one of us, male or female. One author wrote in a book addressing specifically sexual immorality, he said,

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I fear many of us have become numb to the poison that we are drinking. When it comes to sexual immorality, sin looks normal and righteousness looks very strange, and the

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Christian looks a lot like everybody else. Now tell me that is not true with a straight face.

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That righteous conduct in this world, even amongst Christians, seems to be, at this hour, a very strange thing.

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Christians and professing Christians have become so discombobulated by this issue that the results in the world around us are staggering.

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The Barna Research Group, they do a lot of church surveys. They paired up with Covenant Eyes, which is a software company that helps to remove temptation from people's internet browsers.

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They did a study and they found that there are, and I'm going to speak in veiled language, but adults understand me as I'm saying this, okay?

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That there are over 42 million adult websites. 30 % of the internet are images that you would find on those websites.

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The revenue that is generated by these sites, by this form of media, on the regular web and then on the dark web, who knows, exceeds the annual revenue of the

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NFL, the NBA, and Major League Baseball combined. Think about the machine that is the

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NFL in the United States. The stadiums that they play in. Producers of this content make more than all three of these leagues combined.

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And then this is the shocking data. That among church -going men, as defined as men who profess faith in Christ and who attend church regularly, 68 % of the men surveyed said that they visit these sites on a regular basis.

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68%. That's three out of ten men in this room who have committed themselves to abstaining from sexual immorality with their body, with their eyes, with their heart.

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Three out of ten. The numbers for women are lower as we might expect, but not gone.

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30 % of women access these sites regularly in the church. And then perhaps for me and the position that I have, the most staggering number that as many as 50 % of pastors of evangelical churches have confessed that they visit these sites on a regular basis as well.

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What in the world has happened to Christianity in North America?

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Is it because the church is not teaching on it? Is it because we are not convinced of it from the scriptures themselves?

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Or is it because the church is full of unregenerate people? Brethren, I would seek to keep us from all three of those categories.

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To think that there is an entire segment of the church today who is living as those who have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

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And my exhortation to you young men, to you old men, young women, old women, is this, there are times when it is appropriate to fight sin.

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There is a time when it is appropriate, when necessary, to look sin in the eyes.

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To resist tooth and nail, to fight, to charge against it. But this must not be our approach when confronting sexual sin.

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What does Paul say? Does Paul say fight sin, sexual sin? Does he say resist it?

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Does he say charge it? No, but Paul says flee from sexual immorality.

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Brothers and sisters, we must flee from sexual immorality. We cannot kill sin by entering into situations where we are tempted.

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But like a deadly fire, and we have seen that on the news recently, like a deadly fire, we must flee from it and starve it of all oxygen.

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Give it no air time, give it no room in our lives. We must flee to Christ for strength in the moments of temptation.

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And then we must flee to our brethren. And this, brothers and sisters, is a tremendous resource.

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Not only do we have the power of God at work in us through his spirit, but the

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Lord has given us his church. And if we're saying that 68 % of men are dealing with this sin in at least the broader evangelical church, 30 % of women, 50 % of pastors, then we know that we can go to brothers and sisters, and we can confess that we too are being tempted in this area and seek accountability and seek prayer.

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Seek to be with a brother or a sister in need. Exhort one another not to be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

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And we must have a plan. We must have a resolve. Dear Christians in this church, have a resolve to say, as for me, as for me in my house, to the very best of my ability, you will find no sexual immorality.

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You can look in my books. Here's my phone. Here's my computer. Take it all.

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Look at the receipts. See for yourself. It is not in my life. Like Job, in Job 31 .1,

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I have made a covenant with my eyes. How then could I gaze at a virgin?

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Brethren, we cannot compare ourselves to other Christians. Our benchmark cannot be, and this is part of the problem,

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I believe, cannot be other Christians or other people in the world.

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We cannot make the most mature Christian our benchmark. Or as we often do when we want to sin, make the least mature

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Christian we know our benchmark. But Christ and Christ alone must be the benchmark for our morality, our standard of life, and especially as it pertains to good desires that God has given us that the devil himself perverts within us.

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We must align ourselves with Jesus Christ. We must not only take his name, but we must take his power, his standard, his all.

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There's a story about Alexander the Great, I think that really paints a fantastic picture of this, that Alexander the

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Great once found, and this comes from a reliable source, so I think it's historical, found a man in his midst, in one of his armies, who was known throughout his battalion or his unit as being particularly cowardly.

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Now if you're a coward in Alexander the Great's army, you have a big problem. This is one of the most fierce dictators, one of the most fierce fighting men in the history of the world.

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But this man, this cowardly man, had another problem, I would suggest an even bigger problem.

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Now if you were a coward in Alexander the Great's army, would you want to have the name

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Alexander? Well Alexander was very, very concerned that there was a man by his namesake, with the same name as him, who was a coward in his army.

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And so he found out this other Alexander, and he called him to stand before him, and he said this to him, point blank, he said this, you must renounce your cowardice, or you must renounce your name.

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We cannot be, we cannot be aligned, we cannot take the name of Christian, and at the same time take on the behavior of the sexually immoral, unclean, filthy, covetous man.

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We must renounce our participation in sexual sin, or we are to bring reproach upon the name of Christ and find then, that not only then, but through all of our lives we were hopelessly deceived and destined for the lake of fire.

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Dear Christian, dear professing Christian, you must renounce your cowardice, you must renounce your sexual immorality, or you must renounce

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Christ. My exhortation, my plea, my urge to you is that we cannot renounce

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Jesus Christ, and so we must renounce sexual immorality. Now this first point deals all with sin inward, right?

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When it comes to being angry and not sinning, it starts with the mirror of God's word pointed inward at our own hearts.

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And now we're going to look outward for a moment. This point is the point that will really get us in trouble, these next two points.

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Number two, to imitate God and walk in Christ -like love, we must trade deception for discernment.

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We must trade deception for discernment. Paul writes this in verse six.

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Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

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Therefore do not become partakers with them, for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the

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Lord. Walk as children of the light, for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true.

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And try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Not only do we live in a world that is filled with sexual immorality and temptations toward sexual immorality, but we live in a world that is full of deceit in all things, but as well and especially perhaps in the area of sexual immorality.

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I believe it has been a common strategy of the enemy of our souls throughout the ages of the church to have

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Christians believe this, that believers can lead lives that are devoid of repentance, that Christians can lead lives where sin can be tolerated and even at times embraced, and yet where there is no consequence for this kind of lifestyle.

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Let no one deceive you, dear Christian, with these empty words.

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It is for these very things that the wrath of God is coming. And such men and such women who participate in sexually immoral lifestyles habitually are not beloved children of God, but they are imposters and even more, they are sons of disobedience.

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And there is real, subversive, deceptive work at play when it comes to this.

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Has anyone here ever heard of the book After the Ball by authors Kirk and Madsen?

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No. I'm going to address one of the sins that we see in our world and the deceptiveness that has crept even into the church through this deceit.

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Our society's acceptance of homosexuality as a mainstream lifestyle is not, was not the result of an organic shift in public opinion.

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You might think that this is something that the culture, at least you would have, they would have you believe this, that this is something that the culture has discovered as something that is good and worthy to be celebrated.

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But no. It started probably, probably long before this, but where we can begin to perceive the start of this is back in the 80s.

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And there was one particular publication that played an important role in aggressively unveiling a public relations strategy that has sought to normalize sexual immorality in the world.

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Although it initially went unnoticed, before long it became, this book, the authoritative public relations manual, as one person called it, for the homosexual agenda.

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A book entitled, After the Ball, How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90s.

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And the authors of this book, Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, were not just two run of the mill people who wanted to advocate for the sexual revolution that was at play.

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But Kirk himself was a researcher in neuropsychiatry. And Madsen, a skillful public relations consultant, and together they argued that homosexuals must change their presentation to the heterosexual community if there was going to be any success made in their cause.

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And as it gained steam, this book became, unknown to the larger world, but known well within this culture, the manifesto, the gay manifesto, for the 1990s.

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And what they sought to do was this. To repackage homosexuals and homosexual behavior as mainstream citizens demanding equal treatment.

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And they did not seek to do this simply by holding it up as a worthy lifestyle.

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As holding it up as a lifestyle worthy of the culture's acceptance. But you'll recognize this play from the playbook in other areas.

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But they said, and this is in quotes, they sought to portray gays as victims, not as aggressive challengers.

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And they said, for all practical purposes, gays should have been considered to be born gay, and anyone who would come against them would be their oppressors.

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And now, as we look, some 35 years after the publication of this book, that the moral revolution is now so complete that those who will not join in it, in the words of Al Mohler, he wrote a wonderful book on this, the book,

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We Must Not Be Silent. He said, are understood to be deficient, intolerant, and harmful to society.

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And this book that Mohler has written, he says, that there is one final obstacle that stands in the way of the total acceptance of this agenda.

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Think about this for a moment. What is the one thing that stands in the way of the widespread acceptance of this agenda?

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It is biblical Christianity and the moral resolve of the church.

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And because the Bible's statements on homosexuality are clear, it is not the contents of the

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Bible that are under attack, but the authority of the Bible that is now in the crosshairs of this aggressive, advanced activist.

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And we see this around us. In 2022, the executive producer for Disney Television Animation said this, and this is a quote, that they were not at all ashamed of their gay agenda.

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She said that it was her aim, her job, as far as she saw it, to, wherever I could, add queerness.

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In June of 2023, participants in the New York City Drag Queen March shouted, we're here, we're queer, we're coming for your children.

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And as schools have taken the baton of the sexual revolution and sought to normalize it, it has had devastating effects on the young, impressionable minds that have been entrusted to the schools' care.

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There's one school district, the largest in the state of Maryland, on the east coast of the United States, and over the course of a two -year period, they saw a 582 % increase in the number of children who identified as gender non -conforming.

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There's a book, it's a fascinating book, I'm afraid to buy it. It's being released in two days by Megan Basham.

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The title of the book is Shepherds for Sale. And having listened and heard a bit about this book, it's an expose about how those who would seek to promote the leftist agenda have infiltrated some of the largest conservative evangelical denominations in the world to be the hands and feet of these activists in promoting said agenda.

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Groups like the Southern Baptist Convention, to pick on them for a moment. This group has set their crosshairs on the

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Southern Baptist Convention because they see them as being the most influential evangelical body in North America.

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And if they can only conquer them, then everyone else, they can isolate and pick off one at a time.

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And so we read about groups like the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission who have taken unknown sums of money to promote these agendas.

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Names that you have heard, names perhaps that you have listened to in the past who have taken money that they might promote an agenda of sexual immorality in the church.

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And then they will come for our children. I'm not being sensational about this. I'm being dead honest.

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And children, I want to address you for a moment. I've addressed you in the past about things like this.

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There's something, when a man marries a man, they cannot have children. When a woman marries a woman, they cannot have biological children.

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When a man seeks some kind of surgery or medical treatment or a woman, likewise, to become something that they are not, they often lose their ability to reproduce.

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And so how do they continue their agenda after they are gone?

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It is a marketing ploy that corporations have used for years, that if you can win the children when they are young, you will have a customer for life.

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And if you can win the children when they are young to this revolution, they believe at least that they can win you for life to support that cause.

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Christians, I'm not trying to be political. I'm not trying to be scandalous. What I'm trying to say is this, that there is a deceiver.

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There is a deceiver that is trying even to creep into the church. And Paul's exhortation to us is this, let no one deceive you with empty words.

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In verse 7 then, Paul expands his exhortation even further. Not only are we not to be deceived, not to be deceived, but we're not to be partakers with them.

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This does not mean that we cannot associate with those who are engaged in a sexually immoral lifestyle.

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Although there are instructions in 1 Corinthians chapter, in 1 Corinthians in general and other places on how we relate to sin in the church.

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We won't look at that today. But it does not mean that we cannot love those who are engaged in sexual immorality with Christian love.

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It does not mean that we cannot be kind to them. I don't want you to hear that. It does not mean that we should not evangelize them and treat them as hopeless cases.

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We're to love them and yet we are not to join them in their sin. Matthew Henry, this is 400 years ago, says this, there are many ways of abetting or taking part in the sins of others by commendation, by counsel, by consent, or by concealment.

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That if you see sexual immorality and you seek to conceal that sin even, you are a partaker in it.

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He says this, if we share with others in their sins, we must expect to share in their plagues.

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This is a principle that many have missed over the years. That we must not become partakers with them.

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Now there is a dear brother, I trust he is a brother, who has ministered in the church for a number of decades.

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Decades of faithful gospel ministry. You might know his name, Alistair Begg. He recently became embroiled in some controversy because he was speaking to,

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I believe it was an older woman, who was asking if she should attend the wedding of her homosexual grandchild.

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Her grandchild who was engaged in homosexual behavior. Who was going to be entering into a same -sex union.

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And Alistair Begg, much to many's dismay, as he recounted the story, he spoke about how he counseled this woman to attend the wedding.

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And not only to attend the wedding, but to give a good gift as well. Now I am a firm believer that a man's entire ministry should not be judged, should not be discredited based on one poor act of judgment.

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But this is a significant misstep. And it is a violation of exactly what

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Paul is speaking about. If you were to ask me, should you attend that wedding?

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I would tell you, love your family member. Love your grandchild. Pray earnestly for them.

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Be kind to them. Receive them in your home. As often as you can, share the gospel of Christ with them.

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That Christ came to die for sinners, even for the sins that you are engaging in. Counsel them from scripture.

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But do not attend their wedding. And so become a partaker with them. Those who are engaged in this kind of behavior are looking for allies.

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Brothers and sisters, the most surprising thing I'm going to tell you today is this. Be their allies.

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But be the kind of ally that they will be grateful for in eternity and not in time.

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Not the one who encourages them in destructive patterns of sin, but one who speaks the truth to them in love.

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In verse 8, this is not some kind of reluctant moralism on our part, but it is rooted in our very identity.

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That once we were darkness, but now we are light in the Lord. And Paul's exhortation is to walk then as children of the light for the fruit, he says, of light is found in all that is good and right and true.

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That is the world is deceived and being deceived. Brethren, walk as children of light.

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Be an alternate source of life in the world. In 1

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John, sorry, we're saved by and seek to imitate the one who said in John 9, verse 5,

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I am the light of the world. In 1 John 1, verse 5, we read this. This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.

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If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

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But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from sin.

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I'm here to call you out of your comfortable, cloistered life to not give in to the sexual revolution that is around us.

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To not give in to darkness, but as Paul says, to walk in the light, to be found in all that is good and right and true and to show the world what true orderliness looks like.

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True happiness looks like. True godliness looks like. And not being deceived.

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In verse 10, to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. To try to discern.

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To seek to know. Now why would scripture say to try? Because I don't think it comes naturally.

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But we need to open this book and say what does the word of God say? How might

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I discern what is good and pleasing to him? And then like Christ, laying down our lives, as it says in Romans 12, presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is our spiritual worship.

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Then we will not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of our minds, that by testing we may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

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Brethren, we must not be deceived. And then point three. We are to imitate

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God and walk in Christ -like love. And to do this, we must expose sin with the light of Christ.

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It is not enough to not partake as a Christian. It is not enough to not be deceived as a

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Christian. But we must expose the sin for what it truly is. Paul says in verse 11,

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Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.

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For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible.

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For anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, and he quotes here from Isaiah, Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.

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Now what is Paul calling us to when he says, Take no part in these unfruitful works, what we've already looked at, but instead expose them.

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Is Paul and his God, through the Apostle Paul, calling us all to become documentary makers that produce mass marketed exposés of the evil of sexual sin.

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I don't think that that is what he is getting at here. But this word to expose sin can be interpreted, the same word can be translated as to reprove, to rebuke, to correct.

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We as Christians, when we see sexual sin in our midst, when we see sexual sin in the lives of the people around us, when we see covetousness in those who are in our midst, we are to rebuke them, to correct them, to admonish them, to call them to a life that is fitting of Christ, call them to repentance and faith in the

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Lord Jesus. John MacArthur says, Sometimes such exposure and reproof will be direct at times, and at other times, indirect.

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But hear this, and I invite you to approach me, dear brothers and sisters, with this.

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And I invite you to invite other brothers and sisters to approach you in this as well.

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It should always be a reproof, whether direct or indirect, that is immediate in the face of anything that is sinful.

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Silent testimony will only go so far. Failure to speak out against and practically oppose evil things is a failure to obey

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God. Believers are to expose them in whatever legitimate biblical and ways necessary.

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Love that does not openly expose and oppose sin is not biblical love.

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How are we to expose sexual immorality in the church? In the lives of our brothers and sisters and then in the lives of the world?

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Well, today I seek to start that by exposing it here from this pulpit that we have a sexual immorality problem in the church, at least in the visible church, at least in the professing church.

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And then, from there, brothers and sisters, it is watching over each other carefully.

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It is not meddling in your business. If a brother or sister comes to you and says, I see the sin in your life and it is my intent to expose it, that you might walk in the light.

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Oh, if a brother or sister comes to you with such a statement, praise God in that very moment that you have a brother or sister who loves you so much that they would have such a difficult conversation with you.

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And we know what it is like, at least and especially for those of us who are shy of conflict, that you see something happening and at first it is just a little molehill.

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And you say, you know what, I am not going to address it because I am sure it will flatten out.

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And then that molehill grows into a little toboggan hill.

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This is a truly Canadian illustration. And then from that little toboggan hill, a foothill.

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And then at some point, if you have been in this position, you think to yourself, well now at this point it is almost impossible for me to approach my brother or sister about this issue because I have tolerated it for so long that now it is not only awkward, but it is almost unproductive to try to come to them.

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Brothers and sisters, when you see a molehill in the life of your brother or your sister in Christ, when you see, even as Paul says it, a hint of sexual immorality, not with a public documentary, but one on one, expose that sin to your brother or sister and call them to repentance.

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Pray for them. Seek their repentance and reconciliation to Christ.

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And when we see it in the world, again this is where we put our necks out.

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We must expose it and oppose it, to quote from our brother John MacArthur, by whatever legitimate biblical means necessary.

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This does not mean that we are to be the people that are at every political rally.

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This does not mean that you have to put the conservative, and by the way, they don't really represent our position that well.

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I'm just going to say that. But it doesn't mean that we put the conservative candidate's name on the back of our car.

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What it means is that by every legitimate and biblical means possible, we call out sin for what it is.

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If your child is in a school that is mistreating the children through deception, then speak to that school.

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Call the education minister. Tell the world at large what is happening. Don't be afraid, as our brother

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer did, to stick out your head when everyone else is keeping their heads down, seeking not to make any rifts, any waves.

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To stick your head up, to stand up for what is right and to speak on behalf of that which is good and true and righteous.

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Matthew Henry said, If we do not reprove the sins of others, we have fellowship with them.

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Brethren, we cannot remain silent. We cannot let our consciences, we cannot silence our own consciences when we see sin in ourselves.

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We cannot remain silent when we see sins in our brothers and sisters and we cannot remain silent when we see the destructive effects of sin in the world.

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In verse 14, therefore it says, partway through, Paul quotes from Isaiah 60 in verse 1, at least a partial quotation,

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Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. Some historians think that this may have been a hymn in the early church that was an invitation to unbelievers to come to Christ.

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This is a call, as brothers and sisters in Christ, not to seek to be the moral majority, but to seek to be those who expose sin and call all sinners to repentance and faith in Christ.

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It is to call all who are in darkness to come to the marvelous light of Christ.

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It is the call of the Christian not simply to stand in judgment, but to call lost and sleepy sinners to the

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Lord Jesus himself. Quoted from Matthew Henry twice, the third time is a charm.

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He says, after the example of the apostles and prophets, we should call on those asleep and dead in sin to awake and arise, that Christ may give them light.

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Let us not be Christless conservatives. Let us not be Christless moralists, but in everything from start to finish,

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Christ is our all. Jesus is the motivator and Jesus Christ is the remedy.

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Beware of anyone who would offer to you a life of God -pleasing purity apart from Jesus Christ, but Christ and the gospel must be our song.

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It must be our plea. It must be our slogan in all that we do. So, dear saints, the call of Christ to you today is this.

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He bids you come and die. Come and die to the impure and defiling sins that seek to destroy you from the inside out.

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Come and die to the deceitfulness of sin that you might discern that which is pleasing to the

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Lord. And then being found alive in Christ, go out into the world and die thereto, walking in love, exposing the unfruitful works of darkness and pointing lost and sleepy sinners to the purifying, radiant person and work of Jesus Christ, of whom it is said, he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

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Amen. Thank you for listening to another sermon from Grace Fellowship Church. If you would like to keep up with us, you can find us at Facebook at Grace Fellowship Church or our

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Instagram at gracechurch, y -e -g, all one word. Finally, you can visit us at our website, graceedmonton .ca.