This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, and having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But you have not so learned Christ if indeed you have heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus, that you put off concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, putting away lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil. Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need. Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore be imitators of God as dear children, and walk in love as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us, and offering in a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. We are studying the section of Ephesians that makes practical behavioral application of those truths and doctrines which have been previously established in the first three chapters. Now, we've emphasized already that these obediences, and in fact, all obediences to Scripture, which we have keyed into verses 22, 23, and 24, we must always keep that model in our minds. But all obediences to Scripture must be a result of true faith, which arises in a newborn, spirit-filled person having a new mind. And obedience to these instructions in our text, obedience to any other instructions in Scripture, dare not laps into legalism, which is a poor substitute, but is often a very ready substitute for heartfelt obedience. And being conscious of Satan's desires and his devices, we surely know that if Gnosticism, mysticism does not work in his line of attack, then legalism is his next resort. And all of those are deceptions. And so we've talked about that at length, we've made some reference to it, I think this morning, that further elaboration on the subject of legalism is necessary before we go any farther here in Ephesians. And as we proceed through these applications of behavior, which is appropriate to our calling in Christ, it is not appropriate to self-driven righteousness for any other motive. So, again, our model of application is verses 22, 23 and 24. You need to glance at those continuously. We're putting off inappropriate things. We're putting on things appropriate to Christ. And we are renewing our mind about things, changing the way we think about things. And those three verses affirm that genuineness and not legalism is what is called for in all scriptural obedience. In other words, we don't just do the thing because we have to do it. We don't do it by constraint. We don't do it for some other motive or some other reason. We don't do it to please anybody or impress anyone or be accepted by anyone except God himself. Brad has emphasized recently that the book of Colossians is a very helpful guide to understanding Ephesians. In fact, it serves as a good commentary. And I want to appeal to just one section of the book of Colossians, if you would turn over there or turn back there. In chapter two, I guess you can turn ahead to it, Colossians chapter two, verse six is where we'll start. You need to read the context around this. We just want to sample the middle section of the book and read a few verses over into chapter three. And we'll just pick up with Paul's words here. Again, the context is not strange to Ephesians, but his approach is a little bit different. But notice the similarities in the text we've been studying and the passages preceding it. Verse six of Colossians, chapter two. As you therefore have received Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk in him. Notice it does not say walk in Christ. Because we all have a million ways to do that, we conjure up all kind of ways of doing it and we'd be dead wrong. We'd be wrong a thousand ways. And so that's not what he says. He doesn't say try to walk in Christ the way you see fit. He says, as you've received him. Verse seven, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith as you've been taught. Doesn't that sound like the preamble to verses 22, 23, 24 in our text? Abounding in that faith in which you've been established and in which you've been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. Meanwhile, beware of verse 8, lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit according to the traditions of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. You don't need anybody else's authority or information. You are complete in him alone. He is the head of all principality and power. Same reference to principalities and powers as in our text in Ephesians. In him you were circumcised with that circumcision made without him. by the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. You were buried with him in baptism in which you also were raised with him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead. And you being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, and that's where all the effort of the flesh of religion belongs. Being dead, he has made you alive together with Christ, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us and which was contrary to us, and he's taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed those principalities and powers, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in the cross. Therefore, let no one judge you in food or in drink or regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come. While the substance is of Christ, let no one cheat you of your reward through taking delight in false humility, worship of angels, intruding into things which he has not actually seen. He's just vainly puffed up. in his fleshly mind, and he's not holding fast to the head from whom all the body nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments grows with the increase that is from God. Same imagery, Paul, with which Paul describes us and our ministries to each other in the church in Ephesians. Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, and if you died with Christ, that's one of the things you died to, the basic principles of the world. Then why, as though you were still living as a citizen of the world, why do you still submit to those kind of regulations? Why do you try to improve yourself that way? And I think in these days we need to ask, and why do we try to requisition scripture and make it that kind of a device or that kind of a tool? Why submit yourself to worldly regulation? Now, what are worldly regulations? And don't they sound a lot like church regulations in many cases? Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle. Verse 21. 22, which are all applied to things that perish with the using. They're applied to temporary things. Why would God invest eternity in temporary things? He doesn't do things that way. These are according to the commandments and doctrines of men. Verse 22. These things, indeed, have an appearance of wisdom. They seem to be wise, and they seem to have good results. They give self-imposed religion. They give a false sense of humility, but people are pleased to see it. And they have a certain neglect of the body, but they are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh. They are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh. And then Paul returns in chapter three to his baseline, which he started in verse six in chapter two. If you were raised with Christ and you don't need all these kind of tricks and tools. If you were raised with Christ and what you need to do is this, seek the things which are above where Christ is. He's been seated at the right hand of the father and set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. Because you have died and your life is hidden with Christ and God and no other religious strategy or effort or philosophy can take the place of that. If that's not true, you can't fake it. When Christ, who is your life, appears, that is when you will appear with him glorified. Therefore, put to death your members which are on the earth. And he gives us an extended list, fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is actually idolatry. Beware of these things because of these things, he says, the wrath of God is going to come on the sons of disobedience. In which you yourselves once walked when you lived among them. But now you yourselves are to put off all these, and this sounds like Ephesians. Anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth, lying to one another. Don't do those things, verse 9, because you have put off the old man with his deeds. Now, if you haven't put him off, if you haven't been crucified with Christ, then you can't do any of this. But this is the logic for a believer. This is how you obey the instructions. You put off the old man of his deeds, verse 10, you put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him. That's the parallel in Colossians of verses 22, 23 and 24 in Ephesians 4. And in Christ, verse 11, there is no such thing as Greek or Jew or circumcision versus uncircumcision or barbarian, Scythian slave versus free. It's just Christ. He is all and in all to everybody. Therefore, as the elect of God. Holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering. Again, that sounds like our text. But notice that it does not say put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering and so on. It doesn't say that. It says as the elect of God who are holy and beloved. If you're not beloved, if you're not holy, if you're not the elect of God, that verse doesn't say anything to you. You wouldn't know how to do it. Verse 13, bearing with one another, forgiving one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, that's what you do. That's a commentary on our text in Ephesians. But above all these things, put on love. Verse 14, that is the bond of perfection. If you put that on, then all these other instructions are just information to describe what you're already doing or want to do. And let the peace of God, the literal word is referee in your hearts. Let the peace of God refer you. If it violates the peace of God and the peace of God with one of God's people, then it's out of bounds. Blow the whistle. Stop that pursuit. Do something different. This is that to which you were called in one body. And for the second time, he says, maintain thankfulness. And let the word of Christ dwell in you. That's different than legalism. That's different than Gnosticism or mysticism or any other world religious idea. Let the words of Christ dwell in you. And you teach and admonish one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And in short, verse 17, whatever you do in word or deed, do it in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. You'll notice, I hope, that this passage is the rough equivalent of our present section of Ephesians. But in Colossians, Paul is more emphatic in his warning against false or deceitful avenues of obedience. False strategies of the appearance of virtue. The logic in this passage of Colossians is clearly based, just as the logic in Ephesians is, on a genuine change in the reality of a believer's life. Without that change, obedience is worth nothing, is worth less before God. It is all a masquerade and a deception without that fundamental life change brought by the power of the Holy Spirit. The predicate of all Christian behavior is that we have died with Christ. It all starts there. The logic starts there. The things we're called to put off, we put them off because we have died to them. If you haven't died to them, you're lying when you pretend to put them off. That's what baptism symbolizes. That is the testimony of baptism. Secondly, we put on things Because we have been raised to new life as new people in Christ. And those things are now appropriate to us. If you conjure a way to do those things when you've not been raised to life in Christ, you're just lying. You're being dishonest. You're getting farther away from salvation, not farther into it. You see, these are the two ingredients of salvation we have said repeatedly. The two ingredients of salvation. Not just one. You have to have a death and then you have to have a new life. You have to have the Holy Spirit and you have to have the removal of your sins. It's no sense trying to put off your sins if they haven't been put away, if they haven't been put to death. The argument is we are forgiven of all of our sins and the indictment that the law had against us has been destroyed. Christ satisfied the wrath of God on our behalf so that we are freed from that curse of the law. The curse of the law is not because the law is bad. It's because we are bad. Therefore, the law curses everyone who reads it. Christ has given us freedom from that curse, has changed the document, has changed the instructions in their sense of their friendliness to us. Therefore, all the evil influences and powers called principalities and powers, all those forces that love to torment us with guilt, that love to enslave us with false religions such as legalism, All those, Paul said, that the Colossians have been disarmed and defeated. They are powerless. They have a form of religion. They don't have any power. And in fact, we're called, we say in Ephesians, we're called to demonstrate to them the wisdom of God in the power of His salvation in our lives as His assembled family. And so in verses 16 to 23 in Colossians chapter 2, Paul's very clear in his stand against the legalism option. For example, he says, don't let anyone pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink. That doesn't mean judgments don't have to be made about food and drink. But the logic of how you do it is critically important, it's just as important as the outcome. The consumption of food and drink is no basis for judging a person's relationship with God. Now, Paul did indeed, across the board in his writings, deal with sinful abuses of food and drink, such as eating food off of dietals, as well as with drunkenness. But his approach to those sins is just like his approach to the things we've seen already in our application points in Ephesians. His approach to those things is never to forbid the food or drink legalistically, but rather to forbid the failure of love and faith in God. His appeal was always to a genuine, renewed, resurrected heart and mind. Anything else would be false religion. Verse 18 of Colossians 2, real life in Christ consists of holding fast to him. He's the head of the body, from him the whole body grows as it is nourished and knit together by the ministries of every joint and ligament to each other, which we've already seen in Ephesians. So verse 20 and 21, Colossians 2, the world's regulations are do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. Our world right now is as legalistic as the church used to be proud of being. Isn't that ridiculous? It's no more righteous, but it is legalistic. This does not mean that God never says thou shalt not. It doesn't mean that at all. But pay close attention to the world's list and the world's rationale for its list and pay attention to God's list and his philosophy for his list. There's a world of difference. The worldly person cannot please God by keeping God's rules. And the follower of God has nothing to do with the world's rules. We're not trying to please the world. We don't care if they approve of us. In fact, we don't want them to approve of us. So why resort to their regulations in an attempt to restrain worldliness? That's the most nutty thing you've ever thought of doing. Why would you ask the world how to stop being worldly? The world is just as pagan when they're nice as they are when they're awful. To appeal to the world as to how to be a Christian is to fall into Satan's most clever snare of all. So we dare not approach the instructions in Ephesians with a worldly model of either mysticism or legalism. And you see, of course, in Colossians, we're focusing on legalism, but in Colossians, he addresses both of these fraudulent substitutes to genuine obedience to Christ as your Lord. The prerequisite of it all is stated in verse 6 in Colossians 2. Just as you have received Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him. It's that simple. Rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught it by him, he makes sure to say to the Ephesians, and overflowing with thankfulness all along the way. Except no substitute for this basis of Christian behavior or Christian obedience. Don't be fooled by anything else. So many have conjured up, you see, belief in so-called salvation verses, but they have no real love, no faith at all for belief and trust of obedience verses. And when you see that kind of a split, you're not seeing newborn life working because that isn't how the Holy Spirit operates. And when you ascribe to a system of legalism to make up for that deficit, then you're in worse shape than you were when you were an honest sinner out in the world. You're in worse shape because now you're deceived into thinking you're right with God and you're still not right with God. Nothing substitutes for the change of heart. Jesus said you must be born again. It's all lost if you're not born again. It all flows from that. These worldly regulations have an appearance of wisdom. They promote vigorous devotions, self-abasement, serious discipline of the physical body. Legalism seems very upstanding, very disciplined, very civilized. Mysticism seems very deeply contemplative and prayerful and meditative. Nevertheless, they are of no value in restraining the indulgence of the flesh. I wish every Christian would just highlight that verse. They are of no value. It doesn't say they're of a little value or of some value. They might help some. They're of no value at all. That's what God says. They don't work. Legalism is simply a very complex system of dishonesty. It'll make you a better liar, but that's all. It'll make you lie about the truth of your life, and it'll end up causing you to believe a lie about God. One of the most sinister things that has ever been come up with in the history of the world. Having legalistic membership requirements might well give you a church with one common attitude toward all agreed upon vices. It might do that, but it will be of no help at all in making that congregation a sanctified people who are not living according to the lust of the flesh. It won't work at all. Won't accomplish that. They'll take you farther from Christ. I was deeply disappointed to see in the Southern Baptist Convention this past summer a resolution calling for the prohibition of the use of alcoholic beverages for all church membership standards. That is extremely disappointing. Not because people don't have a right to believe they should abstain from alcoholic beverages, but because Colossians says the word of God says it doesn't work. It just makes carnal fleshly indulgence more tricky, more deceitful. God's Word says very clearly, legalistic rules do not cause holy behavior. They rather cause tricky behavior, deceitful behavior. They drive carnality underground. That's the worst place you want to drive it. At the same time, Talk about the relevance of Colossians. At the same time, our convention elected a president whose favorite book is a devotional from the contemplative so-called emerging church movement. Put those two together. I hope our convention will happen across Colossians this year. There is indeed a true doctrine of separation from the world and from worldliness and from sin, and we get separated by death. That's the Christian doctrine of separation from the world. There is separated behavior because we are people that God has set apart to himself. But that's the only reason for it. We are a peculiar people, Scripture says, peculiar not because we decide to act in certain stereotypical ways, but because of the new birth. But you don't become a born again person by crafting a strategy of behavior. You become a born again person by the power and the work of the Holy Spirit. Paul said to the Romans, abhor what is evil, hate it, desire to do what is good. That's the key that has to be in you. It's only put there by the Holy Spirit. We must hate what God hates. We must love what he loved. We must reform our hearts so they're like his. That's Paul's constant comparison. We do these things as Christ has done them to us and for us. Make no mistake about it, God hates legalism. God hates false religion. God hates lying just as much as he hates drunkenness and alcoholism and gluttony and malice and dishonesty and evil speaking and so on through the list. Legalism does not restrain any of those evils. That's not how you put them off. Legalism connives a way for you to exchange one carnal behavior for a more deceitful carnal behavior so that you can seem to conform with your fellowship group. You better make sure that Christ is the head of your fellowship group. Legalism causes you to behave dishonestly so that you can gain the dishonest approval of other dishonest people. Then the pressure in your life is coming from who saw you do something, despite the fact that God Almighty sees your every thought. Now, which should be the greatest motivation? The practice of legalism actually conditions you for Gnosticism. You'll have to resort to mystery because nothing will make any logical sense. Satan is very clever. He disguises himself as an angel of light. He keeps his deadliest diseases dressed in the most sanitary appearances. And he uses religion and carnal faith and carnal devotion, self-efforts at improvement, vain reasons for being successful. We've got to develop discernment. We've said this before, but we have to discern the Holy Spirit versus the devotional contemplative form of carnality. There's a vast difference. They're not the same thing at all. Our desire to be good and to do good and to better ourselves is just as dangerous or more dangerous than natural native depravity. But most people don't believe that. They simply don't believe it. They confuse good citizenship, according to their neighborhood standards, with the requirements of Almighty God. They think if the mayor and town council proves a view, then God Almighty will. They're in for a rude awakening. Legalism is no improvement on depravity. Rather, it is the worst complication of depravity you've ever encountered, because Satan is the father of lies. And legalism is based on dishonesty. Legalism is more dangerous than honest evil precisely because it doesn't seem to be evil. It seems to be sincere. It seems to be righteous. But its key word is appearance, not truth. Always apply the test of consistency to legalism and legalistic doctrines. See if they're doing the same thing to some other birth over here that they're doing to the one they're shoving in your face. If they are, then they could still be wrong, but they might be at least sincere. It might be a secret of truth. If they're not, they're just they're just false. That's all there is to it. Acting is the violation of sincerity. I think we've had that quote before of A.W. Tozer. Pretending is the violation of sincerity. Legalism looks good, therefore it will always be popular in all world religions. Very popular. You see, drunkenness makes people fail. Legalism helps them succeed in the world. Drunkenness, just as an example, makes people dependent on an artificial mood and feeling. Legalism makes themselves sufficient and independent and proud. Drunkards are typically plagued by shame and guilt. Legalists love to hear their morality praised and honored. Which do you prefer? Which do you want? Legalism is no solution to evil. It's an insidious resource of evil. It's not the solution. Galatians 6, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision, neither abstinence nor social drinking, neither legalism nor alcoholism, neither gluttony nor fasting. You can put any set of opposing virtues in there you want to. None of it is of any prevailing influence with God. He sees and knows the heart and the only thing that avails with God is, read it for yourself, a new creation. It's all that counts. When you show up before God, it's all that counts. You can just throw your resume in the trash. One thing counts, that's being a new creation. Nothing else will stand before God except the creation of his son's work. By his crucifixion and by his poured out Holy Spirit, that's all that counts with God. All virtuous abstinence and all virtuous participation flow only from that new creation or they are worthless. Well, the New Testament doesn't actually use the word legalism, but the word is a justified description of the false philosophy of religion. Of which the scripture says a great deal, I want to give a two part definition and actually legalism usually takes one of these two forms. Number one, legalism is treating biblical instructions as regulations to be kept so as to please God, so as to earn His favor. Biblical instructions as regulations to be kept by our own power in order to earn God's favor. Any moral behavior that is not from faith is legalism. Any moral behavior that is not from faith is legalism. So just don't waste people's time in the world when they're telling you how good of a citizen they are because they're a good devoted Jehovah's Witness or Muslim or Buddhist or whatever it is. It doesn't matter. It has nothing to do with anything. When the question is, how do you stand before God? Millions of unbelievers heed every technical adage of legalism you can think of. There's millions of people doing it, whatever criterion you want to have. But regulations require no inner love of God or of His Word or of His people. Therefore, they do not avail with God. Legalists are all moral people. That's why it's so popular. Legalists are moral people according to some human tradition of morality. The problem is God doesn't go by human traditions of morality. Their morality does not arise from a humble contrite dependence on the grace and mercy of God. Rather, for a legalist, morality serves the same function as immorality serves for the hedonist. It's self-expression. Both are worldly philosophies of mental futility, according to verse 17 in our text. Both are expressions of self. Both are reasons for pride. The moral legalist is always the elder brother of the immoral prodigal, if you appeal to that story in Luke. The moral legalist is always the older brother of the immoral prodigal, except that typically the legalist less often comes to his senses. He doesn't think he has to. He already knows everything. He's already better than everybody else. You see, legalism just takes evil undercover. You will enjoy, if you have any experience in evangelism, hopefully if you don't, you're going to. You will enjoy much more productive evangelism, and you'll enjoy your efforts of evangelism among honest hedonists than you will among legalists. It is more likely that an honest sinner will come to his senses than it is that a legalistically righteous person will. That was the experience of Jesus, as you can read easily for yourself. Number two in our definition of legalism, or the second form of legalism, The practical application of legalism is establishing requirements of conduct that are beyond the teaching of scripture. And then making adherence to those requirements the means of qualification for fellowship and acceptance. This is where unbiblical exclusivism happens, unbiblical separation, unbiblical exclusion. Now, the church certainly is exclusive. It does not include everyone. It is not a public organization. But schools and clubs and societies can set up regulations for their membership any way they want to. They can cause you require you to wear a green hat if they want to. They can keep certain people out and maintain a particular style and identity any any way they want. But the church belongs to Jesus Christ, therefore, he doesn't need any of our language added to his. He didn't forget to say anything when he wrote Holy Scripture. We don't go to Scripture with our editorial pen out. We go on our knees before God, broken at the lostness we have revealed before the requirements of his word. He's the head. He sets the standards. We just read them and trust them by faith. We dare not use our own resourcefulness to make ourselves moral. We don't need the world's definition of morality. We dare not use our own ideas to make the church moral. We do not dare minister to each other trying to make others moral. According to the traditions of mankind, we're not trying to achieve comfort for ourselves. We've got to understand this in order to do the ministry that we're plainly called to do in Ephesians. We're called to rely solely on the power of God for our own sanctification, as well as for the sanctification of others. We give the information that faith can seize hold of, and that information is the words that came from the mouth of God. Jesus said, that's your spiritual food. You can't live without that. That's the food we give each other. We don't need to editorialize in it. Legalism depends on unbelief. Depends on a lack of faith, a lack of grace. A legalist does not believe that it is God who is at work in us, causing us to will His pleasure and to do His pleasure. Legalism does not trust that God will make His will known to His people if they read Scripture and if they hear Scripture. They don't believe that God will incline His people's hearts to do His will, that it'll be a miracle of His grace, a powerful effect of His Spirit. They don't believe that. They think you need to give them the behavioral list. We've got to trust the purity of the church to the power of God, not to our attempts and our ideas of morality or conventionality. We trust the purity of the church to the outpoured Holy Spirit of God. Keep in mind those themes that we've got open from our study of the Book of Acts, the relevance of spiritual power, the relevance of the name of Christ. Legalism feeds on a lack of trust in God's mighty hand to change a person's life. Inevitably, we try to compensate for a lack of faith by an increased effort and an increased resolve to be good by keeping man-made regulations. Whenever our confidence in the power of God weakens, then the carnal flesh intensifies, and especially its religious influence. Therefore, let us not adopt lists of put-offs and put-ons that are arbitrary, that are invented outside of Scripture. But even with the list in Scripture, we must also renew our minds and affirm our newness of life and the relevance of the power of our faith in Christ at each point of instruction and obedience. Our purpose is to glorify God, not to impress our neighbors. Colossians 2, 6 again, walk in him just as you received him. That's the same logic for our text in Ephesians. It does not say in our text, be kind and tenderhearted and forgiving of one another. If it did, legalism would emerge as your primary resource. Instead, it says, be kind and tenderhearted and forgiving to one another, just as God in Christ forgave you. That's the transforming fact. If the second part is not true for you, you cannot do the first part. And anything you do in an attempt will just make you more and more false and dishonest. It'll get you farther and farther away. Same pattern continues in the chapter five in Ephesians when it tells us to be imitators of God. Be kind like He is kind. Be tenderhearted like He is tenderhearted. Be forgiving the way He is forgiving. Do not conjure up your own versions of these virtues. Imitate God as his children, verse one of chapter five, who are dearly loved. Before you try to requisition obedience from a person, find out if they know they're dearly loved by God. Because if they're not, it doesn't matter if they are. Obedience is the most irrelevant thing in the world. If they're not loved of God, there's no future in obedience because we've already sinned. If you've ever committed a sin in your life, There's no use obeying any time from now on. You are doomed before God. There's no solution to that. Why preach legalism? If a person is dearly loved of God, then the grip of glorifying God is in their soul. They might need a lot of help getting it out and getting it in place and making proper application. But if that's not there, behavior is irrelevant. Children actually imitate their parents. If you have God in your life, you imitate him. You'll try to, you need help, you need guidance, that's the ministry we're to give to each other. Teach others to imitate God as someone he dearly loves. Verse 2 in chapter 5, it does not say live a life of love. May I invite you to write a book about it or come up with your ideas and efforts. It says live a life of love just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as the offering and the sacrifice that was pleasing and acceptable to God. We can't please God by being pretentious and phony. Who do we think we're trying to deceive? All things are naked and open in his sight. Every thought, every motive of our heart is open to him. We give an account to him. If the love of God is going to grow and flourish in our fellowship, we've got to be deeply rooted in the power of Christ, not in legalism, not in trying to please each other and be acceptable to each other. And being personally loved by Christ is the basis of loving others. And that's what Paul's mainly instructing here in Ephesians. You do it as Christ has loved you. First John, chapter four, verse 16. We have come to know and believe the love that God has for us. If that's not true for your life, all of this is irrelevant. And the more good things you do and the better you try to look and appear, the farther you're getting from home. We've come to know and believe the love that God has for us. That is the doom of legalism, and that is the foundation of true obedience in our lives. And the key to believing the love that God has for us is seeing it revealed in the words of Scripture. That's how faith comes. Our faith in God's love of us is not based on sight and touch. It is based on faith in His Word. In John 17, Jesus prayed. for those who would believe in him through the disciples' words, and we're still passing those same words on. Don't forsake those words and their power for some kind of worldly legalism, some kind of worldly religious system. Paul prayed. You remember Paul's prayer in chapter 3? We study these things that we take a verse and extend it so long we forget our own context. But remember his prayer. This is what his present instruction is about. I pray, verse 17, that Christ would dwell in your hearts through faith and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to understand with all the other saints what is the width and length and depth and height, verse 19, to know the love of Christ. which surpasses knowledge so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. That's what all these instructions are about. This is critically prerequisite for our faithful, non-legalistic obedience of all these instructions and applications, and this is what legalism lacks. We must know the love of Christ for us. This is the root of obedience. We've come to know, 1 John 4, we believe the love that God has for us. That's the ground of our love for others. That's what's directed into application here in Ephesians as the practice of the ministry, which he's previously said we have to each other. Well, how do we know the love of Christ, as Paul prayed that we would, and how will others know that we have love for them because of Christ's love for us? How will they compute that? How will they know? If you answer one of these, the other answer goes with it. You notice in chapter three, Paul's prayer, that by knowing that love of Christ, all the dimensions of it, all the extent of it, we would be filled by that route to the full measure of the fullness of God. Do you see in the text that you cannot be full of God without being full of love? Can't do it. Cannot be full of God without being full of love. That's why when you go to minister to another person, even when they're in dire sin, If you're not ministering the love of God, ministry is the wrong word. You have no business there. It's not your business. Because you can't be full of God. You can't minister for God if you're not full of his love. If you're not full of God and full of his love, then you have no ministry in his name. You have no holy power to the ministry of his name. Four things in closing about knowing this love. And these are just, I hope, thought starters, not conclusions, but How would you know that love? How we know Christ's love for us and how would others ever know we have love for them? Number one, we know the magnitude of someone's love for us by what it costs them. By what it costs them. The greater the cost, the greater the sacrifice, then the greater the assurance of how deep and wide and high and long that love is. And we're all expensive people as far as God is concerned. We know the extent of Christ's love for us. That'd be another whole year's worth of sermons. Everyone here could preach that sermon from some testimonial perspective. We know the extent of Christ's love for us. The question in our application in Ephesians is, do others know the extent of our love for them? As an agent of Christ's love for them? Someone said our trouble, the trouble of our lives, is the sieve through which all our acquaintances pass. Those who are too big to be filtered out are our friends. They're the ones that stick. Avoid, like a curse, the gnostic idea of love that has no practical cost, because if it has no cost, it has no benefit. We're all very troubling to love. Very expensive to love because we are all sinners. But while we were still sinning, Christ died for us. That's what makes the difference. Legalism has nothing to contribute to that work, for that business. That's what we're ministers of, that kind of love. We know we're loved by the extent someone else would go to love us. Secondly, we know the magnitude of someone's love for us in terms of understanding Paul's prayer in chapter three. By how little we prove to deserve it, even after we know we have it. By how little we prove to deserve it. And if proving you don't deserve it can extinguish it, then you cancel both points. They're both false. They've both been phony. But if you can overpower Christ's love, he's got a problem. And we don't understand Christ, who is Lord, to have any problems. If we're perfect and sinless and properly pleasing at all times, then when someone loves us, it doesn't prove very much. But when we prove to be offensive and insulting and disdaining and sinful and evil and wicked, that proves a whole lot. And the more undeserving we are, the more amazing and profound is any love we receive. Despite our lack of merit, and that's the logic the Holy Spirit has to get in our souls if we belong to God and the efficiency is not the issue. God doesn't care that you'll waste a lot of that on people who you hope are Christians and are not. He's not concerned with efficiency. Romans 5, 6, while we were powerless, Christ died for the ungodly and verse five, the basis of our hope. The only hope we have is that God poured his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who he has given us. Jesus said, whoever has sinned much and is forgiven much can love much. Now, that's not good for your pride or mine. That's a shame, but that's the way it is. There is no other deal. No pride in that logic, but that's the real way it is. That's why legalism is far more deadly than wickedness. Thirdly, about knowing the extent or the magnitude of someone's love for us. We know it by the greatness of the benefits we receive by being loved by them. Again, avoid gnostified love that is sentimental and moody and emotional, but has no consistent, concrete benefit. They're the cost and there is a benefit. If Christ's love for us did not, by his work and effort, actually deliver power and practical benefit, then it's a waste of his time. His love would be worthless. But if someone helps us and we experience the help, then we register love. And the magnitude would grow exponentially and accordingly. If someone loves us, we experience the benefit of it. And there would be a cost, a deficit, a deprivation to doing without their love. That's what it means to know it. That's Paul's prayer, that we would know it. And he's not praying that we would know about it. He's not talking about academics or reading the subject in a book so that we know love academically. He's praying that we know love experientially. Actually, the true word is gnostically, something you ought to know gnostically by the miraculous power of God. But we are to know the power of it by experience. Always ask yourself, how did I get here? How did I get to where I am on this date? Remember all the names and faces along the way, all the time spent. What people have loved you? Where would you be without them? And where would some people be apart from your love? If someone even helps us pass a test when there's nothing in it for themselves, we're loved in some way that testifies, hence that grace. If someone helps us get a job, we feel loved. If someone helps us escape oppression, we feel loved. But we should, and surely if we are rescued from eternal torment and given a place in God's family, surely we know the love that surpasses all other benefits. And that is that of which we are ministers, that love. And finally, fourthly, we know the depth of someone's love for us by the freedom with which they do it, the freedom with which they love us. If someone does beneficial things for us, but they have to do it or they're doing it because they're paid to do it or it's just their job or they're half hearted about it, then we question their love. We distrust their motive, though we may appreciate the benefit. But you wouldn't call it love. You certainly wouldn't call it Christian love. Love is of great depth in proportion to its freedom to do something else. Love is of great depth in proportion to its freedom to do something else. Forced behavior is not love. If you wreck your car this week and your insurance company gives you $10,000, you will not marvel at how much they love you. You'd be an idiot if you did. But when someone loves you because they purely want to, then you know it is love because you know they're free and they're willing. And Christ didn't have to do anything that he did for us. In fact, he said, make no mistake about it, he said, no one's going to take my life from me. He doesn't even have to raise a little finger to evaporate all his enemies at once. He said, no one will take my life from me. I will lay it down of my own accord. freely and willingly. That's how his love was. That's how our love is, if it represents him. When the roots of our lives are in his love, then the fruit of our lives will be love for the people he has organized around us, arranged in our path. And the fruit of our lives will also be a love for his commandments, according to David's heart in Psalm 119, repeatedly. Oh, how I love your words, your law. They're my instruction. They're my guide. They're my manual. I meditate on them day and night. Galatians chapter 2, and this is the real conclusion. Galatians chapter 2, verse 19 through 21. And again, you need to read the context. Paul says, for I, through the law, died to the law, so that I might be alive toward God. No one on earth can stand before God and the law. It can't be done. You never pass judgment if you plan to do that. A death has to happen. Verse 19, I have been crucified with Christ, therefore it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, and the life which I now live in this flesh, I am living it by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. And I never set aside the grace of God. Never set aside the grace of God. For if righteousness ever comes through the law, then Christ died in vain and we are lost. Lord, we come before you so gratefully for what you have done for us, for the love that we cannot miss. Lord, it would be absurd for us to now cling to any legalism, any hope in ourself, any little wellspring of pride that lets us think that we're bringing something to your victory, when we know by experience and we know by Your Word that there was nothing in us that approved ourselves to You, but it was You who reached out to us and saved us for no reason other than love. Lord, we look at what Your love costs you and we can see that Christ's death, Christ paid it all. He gave up everything for us. How enormous and how convincing that love is. We ask, how much did we deserve it? And the answer is obvious to anyone who tells the truth that we didn't deserve it at all, in the least. There was no benefit to you to save us, but you did it anyway, at least for them to believe and see the benefits. The benefit that we receive, eternal life and life in Christ here on this planet, how could we ever hope to receive a better benefit than that? And you handed it to us, and then you did it. only for love, only something that you would do if you had the complete freedom to destroy everyone who ever sinned. And it would have been just. But to receive Christ's death for us and satisfy your justice that way is just more than you could ever hope for. Given that that is what we have, how could we be so selfish as to simply basket it and think that everything is all about us and not about you, and serve ourselves and not serve you and your people? We ask that you would help us as we meditate on this this week, that you would propel our actions and help us to keep everything in perspective, the glorious blessing that we have of having the opportunity of loving you by loving your children and gushing out a little bit of the gratitude that has to exist if you truly believe what it is that you did for us and want to do it. So we ask that you would serve us up in that regard and that we would love you more purely and more deeply and obey sincerely as a result of the great gratitude that we have for you and your work. We ask this of Jesus.