We're in Ephesians five. Ephesians five. Ephesians is a very practical book. I'm glad that last week, you know, kind of catching us back up to speed, we went over just real lightly, you know, chapters one through four to get us ready for chapter five. That helped me be prepared in that witness encounter that I had, and it also helps us in for what we have this morning as well. But as a brief review, let's read chapter five, verse one again says, be you therefore followers of God as dear children and walk in love as Christ has also loved us and has given himself for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor. So we're to follow God, that's our pattern. for looking for someone to emulate it as him. Someone that we are to act like, someone that we're to behave. Now that I'm saved, how do I behave? Try to act like Christ. Try to act like our heavenly father. We wanna see a family resemblance, right? It should be there. That's why for those who come to know him, you begin to act like him and to live like him because there is a family resemblance. We taught the fruit of the spirit. Our morals should match his morals, the standards that we have. Verse two, he tells us that love is to be our motivation. Here's why we do that. One, because we love him. And so we want to please him. And so we try to live a life that's pleasing unto him, not to try to save ourselves. Our salvation is not based on what we do. It's based on what Christ has done. But I do want to please him. I do want to be obedient. And so I am to live a life and trying to do that. Love, love for him and love for others, love for my fellow man. So love pushes you to do things over and above what you might normally do. When I was dating my girlfriend a long time ago, I mowed her family's yard. trimmed the bushes. I would get the softball and the baseballs out of the bushes with the spiderwebs that none of them wanted to do. I would just plunge in and get that because Danny didn't like to. And so I go in and reach in and get that. I build hay many a summer. I also cut volunteer corn out of the beans back before it was drilled. It would come up and we went through with a corn knife. We would cut it out on a nice hot day and to do that we I helped plow. I learned how to plow. I helped plow. I chopped corn stalks with a bush hog out in the middle of the field. I found out why farmers wear hats, because I spread manure one time. And it flips everywhere. And I'm like, oh, that's why a farmer wears a hat, because it lands you on top of your head. I'm like, so that was good. And so I loved her. And I wanted her family to know it, so I went over and above. I didn't just show up and say, hey, I want to take you out to dinner. No, I went over and above. So my advice is check what her dad does for a living, because you might be stuck on a farm doing free labor. But I enjoyed it. That usually was my summer job, was helping other farmers around. So to be able to do that for them and to help, I loved it. I loved her. You know, I ended up, you know, I love her whole family. It's become my family, you know, because of that. And so love motivates, it drives you to do more over and above. That's why I get out and get the gas in the cold weather while she sits in the warm. I love her, I don't want her doing that. You know, so I make sure I do that. So the love of God should push me. A love for my fellow man. will help me put myself in an uncomfortable spot to study and to try to prepare and be extra busy to try to make sure I can, to tell them the good news of the gospel and communicate to them in a way that makes sense. And so the love of God, and I want to follow him. love for my fellow man because I want to reach them because you know it was a it was a fellow man who told me it was a guy who took time to be a Sunday school teacher who would teach and help plant a seed and then to water water upon it you know from the things of my family and there you know a whole church and all their efforts funneling down to a boy in a Sunday school classroom that would weigh out churches that did special outreach where they showed a burning hell or a thief in the night. And we watched those movies, all those things playing into it. It's like, it took all that. And so it takes all of us all the time, trying to reach the lost. And so we also find in verse two that it makes God happy. He receives it as an offering of a sweet smelling savor, it says. And we talked last week about when you smell something good, like a cinnamon roll, you know, you gotta smile a little bit, you know? So thinking that we have the ability to make God smile through our obedience and through our actions and pleasing him by putting ourselves in those circumstances where he can use us. So go out armed, be prepared with tracks, you know, have something on you where you could leave and be an example and be sensitive to the Spirit's calling. And he gives us a pretty short action list, you know, really here, we're in verse two, he tells us, we are to follow God, and we've been through all these things that we've talked about for the first four chapters, and that we're to walk in love or have love motivate us, or live in a life motivated by love, and that way, love for our fellow man, love for God, that's our action list that he's given us to do. Seems like a reasonable service, Paul tells us in Romans. But then he continues on, and he gives us a list of things that we're not to do, and it's a longer list. Verse three, but fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not be once named among you as becometh saints. This is the list that he begins, fornication. The Greek word's pornoneia. Yep, that's where we get our word, pornography. Any illicit sexual intercourse. Adultery, the breaking of a marriage vow. Fornication, any sex outside of marriage that's not breaking a vow, but not in a vow, you know, before God. Homosexuality is included in that. Lesbianism, intercourse with animals. Like Brian, you're getting a little crude. I'm just reading you the Bible definition for fornication. I'm not adding my own commentary. This is the list as it gives it. Any sex among close relatives, it mentions. Any sex involved with worshiping idols. That's just the definition of fornication from the Bible. And it gets pretty illicit and it's pretty all encompassing. That's fornication. All uncleanness, it goes on. The next part, so fornication and all uncleanness. That's anything immoral. We generally know. It's kind of written on our heart, Romans 2 tells us, right? These things are written on your heart. You know it. It's with your conscience. God gives us a conscience to know what is right and what is wrong. If you're looking over your shoulder before you do it, chances are it's wrong, right? All uncleanness, anything immoral, lustful, is included in that definition. Impure motives, thoughts or actions. And then it goes on down to that list covetousness in the same group. The one sin that if you're looking at the Ten Commandments, you're like, that's the one that seems like, that's kind of weird to have on there that I want something that's not mine. I mean, isn't that how commercialism works? I want something that's not mine, I go and buy it. But in the definition, it's like, you're not to want your neighbor's wife or husband. You're not to want his maidservant or his manservant. So it's tied, covetousness is tied with lust, with greed, with fornication, with adultery. So it's covetousness is any greedy desire in its definition to have more, whether it be more men or women, or more whatever. It gives the word avarice, which we don't use often. That means, any immoderate desire to have more of anything. That includes the desire to have more money, the more sex, more food, more cars, more guns, more purses, more shoes, whatever it might be like that. I need more, I need more Batman. I put myself on this list, you know, I have more Batman. He's like, I've got a Batman collection, but just that desire, it could be wrong. You know, we could build it to be wrong. I'm using resources that should be used for a better thing. Verse three, if I was to, let me read it again. But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not be once named among you as becometh saints. That verse, and I was kind of just meditating on it as a whole, that's what America sells. That's kind of our main commodity, is all those things, it seems like. It used to be, and God has used us as a godly nation in the past, I don't know that we are anymore, but to reach the world. that God had set before us an open door and we were able to send out missionaries and to go out and try to reach the lost around the world. But now we're known more for the pornography industry. Worldwide, it's $59 billion. It made $59 billion in 2023. They don't have the stats on 2024 yet. But it's expected to be $75 billion by 2030. And why do they project it to keep jumping up leaps and bounds like that? That's a huge growth. It's mainly because acceptance. It's accepted in our culture now. Well, it used to be something that was hidden. It was something that you had to go to a dark alley to find. And now it's all readily available and right there, carrying around in your pocket. You know, you can just get to it right away. And so social media has normalized it. Everybody does it. We all do okay. We laugh about it. It's a joke that we can say. You know, when Ray Comfort goes out and says, when was the last time you looked at porn? I'm like, yeah, this morning or a minute ago. You know, they're not ashamed of it. They readily admit it and tell it right out there. There's no shame. Everyone watches it. That's what they keep putting out there. No, we all do. It's all right there. You know, it's easy. You can even search for something innocent and they'll come right up there on your screen. There's no restraint. There's no restraint anymore. And right now they try to normalize it to the point, why should there be? You're wrong in thinking that there should be a restraint. They tried to provide things to make it easier, more convenient. Anyone can do it. Matter of fact, you can join the industry and monetize it from your own home. You don't have to go to a Playboy mansion now. You can just do it right there in your own home. Make it available and put it around. Monetize it, people will pay you for it. which dries up and normalizes and builds in the social construct of our society, sexual predators who think it's normal now. No, girls want this. They're putting it out there. And boys want this. Well, I should be able to do whatever I want, wherever I want. And schools teach that it's normal and this is okay. And there's things that go on in our public schools that I can't even tell you from here that is normalized and put it in that way. They'll tell you it's healthy, it's positive, it's acceptable. Hey, here's your own camera. Here's your own social media site. Here's your own password to box it out where I can't test. And your parents have no right to know what you're doing on your phone anyway. And here's some time alone and just go ahead. And we just like, I can't believe it happens in our youth and what's going on today. And the way we give them all the tools and leave them alone with a dark world out there trying to reach in and grab them all the time. And these can be good tools, but man, we need to be wise in how we use them and how we put them forth. Our system basically, our system that we have is our worldly system basically grooms young people to be consumers and producers of pornography, of fornication. It's not just the sitcom making it normal every day, it's everything making it normal all the time. And the whole thing is that all that industry All that it's building up and all that it's put out there is all a lie from the devil. It's a cheap replacement for the love that God has put in your heart that you wanna have. The relationship that you wanna have with the opposite sex that you desire, that God gives you as a good, healthy desire. Sex is a gift from God that he gives us in Ecclesiastes. The one time when God speaks in the book of Ecclesiastes is on the wedding night between the shepherd and the Shulamite girl and he says, enjoy, I've made this for you. The fire in the fireplace is a good thing, but you start dragging it all around the neighborhood, you burnt down the town, burnt your world. So God's made it in its place. And so because of that, because it's there and it runs contrary to what God has written on our heart as far as the conscience that he has given us that tells you that it is wrong, suicides go up. Because now a picture leaks that was only supposed to be shared with one person, then bullying increases. And now, you know, young children in school can be tried for producing child pornography because they took a picture of themselves and they sent it to a buddy or whatever else, however it might be. All of a sudden there are traffic in that. And that's why it becomes a big, big deal. Our police spend some time in. Blackmail becomes something against it. Hey, we found this image. We can use this against you. Catfishing comes worse. You know, scamming goes on. All happens, you know, costing money, costing lives, tearing down society and destroying our families. Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, says in verse three at the very end, let it not be once named among you as become a saint. How many Christians live together before marriage, fornication? How many Christians consume porn? How many covet for more of everything? We are victims of greed. And it's been flames that have been fanned across our world, across our society, across the social media, across just media, across books and movies and everything else. Greed for bigger, better trucks, houses, stuff. And the pulpits are silent for the most part. Because you gotta keep the money coming in. You can't offend your congregation, you know, because you gotta keep that building paid for and you gotta keep the staff. So it tends to be topics that you shy away. That's why we choose to do expository preaching. It makes the pastor super uncomfortable. But I vow to you that we will go through every verse of the Bible and we'll stave it out and we'll stomp on toes and we'll do whatever because it's God's love for us to tell us this in advance. To make us awake and aware how the world is and that we are to be different. Hold your spot here and turn to Revelation 3. Because you know it's me, we gotta work in Revelation. Revelation 3 verse 17. In Revelation chapter 2 and chapter 3, or seven epistles we don't always remember, seven letters that Jesus Christ himself writes to the church, to us personally, should be the most studied portion of Revelation because these are letters written to us where we are right now. I believe that they were, we know from history, they were literal physical churches there in Asia. In the book of Acts, we're kind of flirting around with that region. We mentioned some Wednesday, you know, because Paul was wanting to go there, but the Holy Spirit shut the door, said, no, not yet. I need you to go into Europe. And as Justin reminded us, we saw the first European convert. We'll see the second European convert this week as we go and study that there in Kosovo. But also they represent seven time periods. Ephesus, we're studying the book of Ephesians, the letter to the Ephesians, was that they lost their first love. The early apostolic church, that they were doing all the right things, but they forgot love as the engine, as Paul just wrote to them in the book of Ephesians, and Christ writes to them, again, I have this against you. You're good, you're really great on doctrine, but you forget about your love for me. And then he lists each of these churches that goes through the Middle Ages, the Dark Ages, to the Protestant Revolution, you have all those different things, and then he ends to the last church that's on the earth during the last days, and it's the Laodicean church. And what are they known for? Come on, y'all know. Lukewarm. Lukewarm. I can't stir you up, hot nor cold. We can be all up in arms about drones two months ago. Now we're like, who cares about drones? We're worried about the Cybertruck bomb. It's like, because the news cycle's moving so fast, we're kind of lukewarm and hard to get up in arms about much. Later to see ya. Look at verse 17, Revelation 3, 17. But thou sayest, I am rich. Because of the last, the latest things, they were rich. They had prosperity. And increased with goods. They had, you know, they were known for their garments. They had a lot of good clothes. And had need of nothing. They had money, they had food, they had an eye salve, they had medicine, they had all this stuff. And have need of nothing. And knowest not that thou are wretched and miserable, poor and blind and naked. They thought gain was godliness. The Bible warns us that gain is not godliness. The health, wealth, and prosperity preachers don't like that verse, but God tells it right out there. Gain is not godliness. But they thought because they had it all, and they had it easy, and they were rich, and they had plenty of clothes, and they had plenty of food, and the grocery store always had food, and the heat was on, and all that stuff, that they thought they had it all right. God must be smiling upon me. I get the good parking spot at the mall. You know, I can do all these different things that make it right, you know, that I can just get through and God's blessings on my life. This scares me. As I study the book of Laodicea, which came up in my discussion on Friday night as well, but I was ready for revelation study and talk questions, but this scares me. It scares me because God loves us. Am I afraid of God's love? Sometimes. Because he's a good father. He is a good father. He has our best intentions at heart. He loves us. He wants us to be our best, do our best, live our best for him. He wants best for all his children, all of us. And you say, well, why would that be a bad thing? We'll see. He wants you to enjoy eternity because this life is just for a short time. It may seem like everything now, but this is the shadow land. This is the temporary time. This is the shadow world, the real world's coming. And he wants us to be prepared for that. And he wants us to live best then. He wants us to enjoy eternity. He wants us to enjoy it to the fullest, at its best, the highest capacity that we could. And that love for us will move him to action. God is not gonna stand idly by like, well, they're adults now. They just make their own decisions. God's still our heavenly father. He never quits parenting. He's never done with it. He loves us. And so he will move. It's verse 17 again. Because thou sayest I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear, and anoint thine eyes with eyesad that thou mayest see. It's prophecy speak. You're like, I don't know, you said a lot, but I don't know if I got it all. It's prophecy speak. But you're basically saying you have it good. Spoilingly good, if spoilingly is a word. Spoilingly good, you know, and since we have it so good, it has made us lukewarm. Eh, it's kind of hard to be up in arms when things are going good my way. There was a time in my life where I was under some heavy persecution. It was horrible, lies being spread, trying to attack me, my character, my family. And I went to some leaders in my church at the time for help. And they're like, those things aren't being done to me. Sorry about you. I'm like, seriously? That's how Christians help other Christians? God is preparing me for ministry. He'll take you through hard things. But I think he's still telling me some of the hardest things come from fellow Christians. You know, that's gonna be there. You get some tough skin, buddy. Mr. Pollyanna, you gotta be on the sidelines here. You need to wake up to the real world. And he did. He did. He loved me enough to do that. But people were lukewarm. It doesn't bother me. I'm sorry it's bothering you. Sometimes you get blind to your own sin. You get comfortable in it. Seem like you're getting by with it. God's not judging me. He's not striking me dead. Nothing's going on. I guess I'm all right. That's scary. He recommends that we buy gold, and you're like, ooh, good gold, that's $2,700 an ounce right now. Gold's doing pretty good, it's on the upswing. It's expensive, hard to get, and you spend that much money, you get a little bitty coin, but not gold, gold. Gold tried in the fire, that's the thing he's trying to convey to us. Refined gold, gold that has been through the heat, Gold that's been through persecution. He is telling us, if we are the gold, he's saying, I am recommending that you go through some persecution. That we burn off the dross that you've allowed in and we get you down to something better. Something that's worth something. Something that's gonna have value through all eternity. That's what scares me. That's what scares me. He's saying, I'm gonna take you through some fire. Because God's like, if you're not gonna do it yourself, I will do it. Fire. Am I talking about the LA fires? No, but yes. Where does our industry come from that we've been talking about that gets produced with air and a lot of it's on fire now, so maybe some of that's probably a wake-up call that God sent them? No. Are they victims of everything that they've chosen to do? Yeah, a lot of it. I've watched a lot of things on it. But he's talking about our faith that is tried, persecution. hard road to hoe that might be ahead. Fiery trials for believers that will then help refine it. Fiery trials for the last day's church, the Laodicean church that God loves us enough. He's saying there might be some persecutors, there might be some hard times come upon the world where my Laodiceans are so that they have something through our eternity so that we can burn away the dross and their lukewarmness to give them a little passion in their soul, to give them a little something they can send some treasure ahead so that they can enjoy eternity better. He loves us enough for that. Verse 19, as many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous therefore and repent. He's like, have some passion, have some fire, stand for something, quit being lukewarm. Be offended by things and not accepting of things. Discipline from the Lord. He loves us enough to refine our faith before our homecoming. I think it's one of the things that might show us the closeness of the time. He's saying, I'm gonna put you through something because I need to make sure you're refined and ready. Cause he wants what's best for us. He's gonna burn off the dross. He's gonna make our faith real where you really have to depend on him and not your bank account or your job or the country or the army. He's like, no, you're gonna depend upon me. You're gonna see me as precious and you're gonna reprioritize your life. And you're gonna cry out to me to help you and to see you through this. That's what he's saying. A refiner's fire in that way. Back to Ephesians five. It's probably gonna take some extreme things to wake us up, to shake us out of the things that are not to be named once among us that we've embraced and allowed and winked at and like, eh, it's okay. Now, we try to reach people and not repel them so we don't come out just saying, attacking them for everything that they're doing, lost people are lost people. but we're still to say it, verse four. It says, neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks. No off-color jokes should be in the church. Foolish talk, that's dumb, profitless, not good for nothing, talk. I've been victim of this. Too many stupid conversations. It's like, could an elevator lift Thor's hammer? Because it's not really a person. And so would it lift it or does it have to be? It's like, yeah. It's like, yeah, that's a profitless talk. What's good for that for all eternity? I'm not sure I know my comic books or theories in that way, but you know, it's like not really much good for much. We're spiritual talk and Bible talk and talk about that. That's good for something. He wants us to have that about how can I reach the laws? How better can I get there? Is there a new way I can present the gospel? That is good. That is good. So we need to think more Bible oriented. We need to think eternity mindset. So we can make it better in this life, better to reach and better for the next life. So add that to the following. So God says that we're supposed to be following God. We're supposed to have love as our motivation. And then verse four ends with, but rather giving thanks. We're supposed to also give thanks. So in our list of things we do, we're to follow God, love as our motivation, to obey God and for our fellow man, and we are to give thanks. We're to be thankful for what we have, not asking for more. Be content with what we have. Now again, moving upward, this is all within reason. It's to the point where it becomes sin that he's talking about. We should be thankful for the Bible, that we have the Bible and all the different ways that we have the Bible that we can read and understand and all the study tools that we have available to us that weren't available to others. There's things that make my study time go so much faster than it used to when I had to get a Strong's book out and flip and look and spend hours to get ready and prepare. But I've been in it long enough now I can look and I can Google, no I don't use Google, but I use Blue Letter Bible and I can search and I can find and I know how it works. I use that tools in extension. I have all my old books and things, because I'm prepared in case the system goes down, that I have a way to still prepare. But I know the Bible, I have its truths. We have all these tools, we have podcasts, we have sermons, we have all these things available to us to listen to. We have such access to God's word that I don't think we realize how rich we really are in that area. We need to think more Bible. We need to think eternity in mind. Verse five says, for this you know that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Should make you nervous. But God says what he means and means what he says. In chapters one, as we were reviewing last week, in chapter one, verse 11, verse 14, and verse 18, it talks about the inheritance that he has laid up for you. As we get born again, we repent and we trust Christ that God has an inheritance there available for us. But if we're living and loving these sins that he's listed, we are robbing ourselves from a future inheritance. We are taking away, he's like, he sold out for the short term, take that part of his inheritance away. He sold out for that here and now versus what I have for you here. Man, you're like Esau trading your birthright for a pot of stew. Take that away. We don't lose our salvation. He doesn't say that here. If you've lived in these sins or living in these sins, he said, you can lose some inheritance. You lose reward. Hmm. You're saved. You're not in hell, but you're missing out on more. You're missing out on better. Because God is just. I know we've all grown up in this world where everyone gets a trophy. You all get a participant one. Well done, you did nothing. Even though you were peeing in the outfield. It's like, well done. You get all that. Guilty. But not everybody gets a trophy in heaven. It's the harsh reality of how life is. God says, I am just. I will reward justly. He's good. He's kind. He's merciful. But he's like, work with me here. Verse six, let no man deceive you with vain words. For because of these things come with the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. There's people that'll preach that all that's okay, that I'm an extremist and I'm twisting God's word and I should probably be arrested for this hate speech that I've been giving here this morning. And I look to probably be arrested one day for the things that I say from the pulpit because the way that God stands and God's word goes totally contrary to the world and what it says. But I'm gonna preach the word. I don't wanna be arrested. I don't want those things, but I'm not gonna alter how I speak or what he says, because we're gonna go through an expository and try to rightly divide it. But we need to do things that are pleasing unto him and not be deceived with vain words. We know what's right and wrong. And so don't listen to those preachers that just tell you that it's okay or gonna go along with it or what's popular today or love more and all these things. No. Love rightly, love truthfully, honestly. Verse seven says, be not ye therefore partakers with them. We're in the world, we're not of it. You know, it's all around us. We see it, we hear, we know, but we're not to be partakers in it. Verse eight, for we are, you were sometimes darkness. Notice that. You were, you were sometimes darkness. Not that you were in darkness, you were darkness. But now you're a light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. And so we're supposed to be ones exposing darkness. We're to shine light on those situations. We're supposed to be one that bring it in and the darkness flees. That's supposed to be your testimony. That's the breastplate of righteousness as we wear that into this present world, that we come in and darkness sees it. And they're like, oh yeah, and they're gonna attack you. Know it, but stand for it. But know that darkness is supposed to flee. And so I think the love of God is, as we sit here this morning and through this list of things, try yourself. Don't make him have to throw us into a fiery trial where he burns away the dross of us because of our laziness and ignorance and lukewarmness. God tells us these things in advance in a congregation like this, in a setting like this, so that we will try ourselves and we will put ourselves through that fire and say, Lord, I see it your way now. Forgive me, I can't believe I was embracing that or I slipped into this and then I got comfortable in it like a pig returning to the mire. Lord, forgive me. I'm glad, forgive me for satisfying my flesh in the muck in the mire like that pig. Forgive me for that. Help me to die to my flesh. And we're to try ourselves now so that we're not tried then. As we go through communion, we'll read that where we're supposed to put ourselves to the little judgment seat. Now that's the love of God. Try yourself now so that he doesn't have to. He teaches us and instructs us first. So then we take it to heart. That way we don't have to go and face all those hard things. And when the hard things come, we're prepared because we've already tried ourselves. And so try ourselves. God loves you enough that he will do it for you. If you won't do it, God loves you enough. He'll put you through the heat. but he loves us enough to warn us first and says, I'm giving you a chance to course correct yourself. Let's do that. Let's be a church that's ahead of the game. We've tried ourselves and we're prepared and ready so we can self-correct. In verse nine, for the fruit of the spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth. So we should be resting in that. We should see fruits in it and that God is producing fruit within us. The things that are right and just and good for him. Verse 10, proving was acceptable unto the Lord. We're to test everything that we do. If you're like saying, well, Brian, I don't know. I'm doing this one thing. I'm not sure if it's a gray area, if God's okay with it or not. Can you invite Jesus into it? Can you pray before you do whatever you're about to do? Dear Lord, please be with me as I go into this website and look at this. Would you mind helping blessing my time here? If you can't invite Jesus to it, probably I'll not be there. You know, Jesus, I'm not ready to go into this restaurant or go into this place or this setting or whatever it is. And Lord, I'm about to say this or do that. Is this gonna bring you the most honor? If you can't invite Jesus and he wouldn't give you the right hand of fellowship, then you need to depart from it. That's a good practical rule. If you can't pray and ask Jesus to bless what you're about to do, then we probably shouldn't be doing it. That's a good way to test it. If you can't invite him along, then let's just avoid it. I'm glad that we live and have a God that loves us enough that he tells us how to manage through these things, to live in a lost and dying world, to live in a dark culture as light. I'm also glad that we have a God who says, if you fall down, get back up. Righteous man, he falls down, right? But you get back up. Casting those things that are behind, behind. Pressing towards the mark, going forward. I'm glad we have a God who forgives and forgets. Who buries our sins as far as the deepest part of the ocean. Removes them from us as far as the east is from the west. Never to be remembered anymore. I'm glad he's given us the Christian bar of soap where we can wash ourselves and make ourselves pure. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Verse 11. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. Call it out, expose it, abhor it, resist it, fight against it. I'm sick of hearing, let's live your life or I'm not going to judge you. You be you, you do you. That's well and good. That doesn't help society. That doesn't help them. Like I say, we can do it in a loving way. We don't have to embrace every immoral sin that is out there and put our right hand of fellowship by it. No, we can say, no, that's wrong. Because God says it's wrong. That's why it's a good place to quote the scripture. I'm not saying, I'm just telling what God says and I'm trying to march with him. Let's not try to make everything normalize. We need to tell them, that's part of our job is to tell them how they know unless they have a preacher. Sometimes you're called to preach and do it in a kind way that's trying to reach them, not repel them. Verse 12, for it's a shame to even speak of those things which are done of them in secret. Yeah, there's things that should not be mentioned that are now normalized. I'm hoping as a nation, we start turning things around. The darkness that we've been under for four years, just as a society, the things that they've tried to normalize, the things that they've tried to do that I'm hoping that we can at least try to repel and take things back. Verse 13, but all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light. For whatsoever does not make manifest is light. And so light exposes it. Light shows it for what it is. So let's see it and let's be aware and let's turn from it. Verse 14, wherefore he saith, awake you that sleepeth and arise from the dead and Christ shall give thee light. We need to wake up. We talk about that a lot. politically anymore. Are you awake to the things that are going on? Are you awake to the evil that's in this world? Are you awake to the shenanigans that are happening? It's like the Trump movie's inauguration inside just because of the cold, probably partly, but not all. It's also, there's been a lot of death threats. I've heard of at least three other assassination attempts that haven't been really made that public. A truck bomb that they tried to get him with at the Carter funeral, another man who was loaded up with some stuff that they were able to stop as he tried to get in, you know, other stuff. So there's probably like, it's probably safe for you to move inside, fewer people that are here, maybe. There's a lot of dark things that are going on in this world. We need to be prepared. We need to wake up for those things, but let alone the things that are spiritual that we need to be awake to, that we need to know what's going on. We need to battle it all. It all matters. We need to stand up for it. Because if we ignore it, it gives the wicked and the darkness a place to breed and to grow. And so we need to make sure that we engage and call it out. They're just useless distractions anyway, trying to pull us away. We need to get things around spiritually. Verse 15, see then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise. And so we're to live as wise. We're to be walking as God. Circumspectly means diligent, exact, purposeful, determined. That we're in this world that we're determined. I'm living for Christ. Are you? Then live like you're living for Christ, doing things that matter for Christ, doing things that you can invite Christ along with so you can stand up for him. Verse 16, redeeming the time because the days are evil. If this isn't a verse for the Laodicean church, I don't know what is. We need to redeem the time. We need to make sure that we are purchasing back all the idleness. We live in a day and an age where we should have so much time on our hand to do things for the Lord, but we are so busy with busyness that we have no time for nothing. I think back, my wife and I, I don't know how many times we spend looking back to our childhood in the 70s, where we, I remember it was a big deal when we got the convenience of our microwave. And we made our little biscuits, you know, we'd put pizza sauce on it, you know, get a little bagel, put some pizza sauce, some cheese on it. Like, oh, I got a meal in 30 seconds. You know, we'd eat it and, man, we should free up our time. I had time to, we had time to visit our family. We had time that we played out in the yard. We had time to be doing all this. And now I have all these speedy conveniences. I have no time. Someone's lied to us. Someone's robbed it and taken it away. We need to redeem the time. We need to make sure we capture these things back by doing things for him. We need to make sure we're making use of everything. Our drive, you can listen to the Bible while you're driving now, take it in, make it a study time. And all these things, we can redeem the time for the days are evil. Man, we need to know that they're evil. We're trying to rebring it back for him, for his sake, using the time, because time is short. We need to make the most of it. We need to try to find a way to make sure that we can redeem these things and bring it around. We need to be heads up. We need to be watchful. We need to be seeing what we can do for the Lord, for Christ's sake. We need to test ourselves. We need to try ourselves. We need to confess. We need to confess. We need to get things right. When we need to get things right, we need to abandon sin by the sidelines. We need to make sure that we are walking in the way that he would have us walk. And we need to start fresh today. That's what Sunday's for, right? This is the first day of the week. We've got a week ahead of us. Are we gonna redeem this week for the cause of Christ? Are we gonna go into the same things that we've always done? We're gonna have a lot of idle time. If you get called off, well, tomorrow's a holiday for some of us. You gotta get some time off. What are you gonna do with that time? We're just gonna do the doom scroll? Or are we gonna try to think of something for Christ's sake that we can do? You can make a good post so that people can go by and do it. Is there some way that you can encourage them that way? Could you call someone? Could you write someone? Could you invest in that way? Could you make some cookies and take them to the neighbor and enter into a conversation and invite them to church or whatever, something. Is there something that we can do this week? Let's just set out to do one other thing. One thing that we might not have ever done. Redeem the time for that. And then we can build on that for next week and the next week. And we'll have a whole year, 365 days by the time we get back around to here, we'll have done stuff to redeem for Christ. And we should be on a roll then by what can we do? How can we reach? What can we say? That we'll be a lighthouse in the county, in the state, in the world. We have that potential in front of us if we would but do it. Let's try to shake up, wake up old sleeper. Let's not be in Laodicea. Let's put ourselves in Philadelphia, the evangelistic church, the church that wants to go out, the one that Jesus Christ had, I have nothing against you. I have sat in front of you an open door and you have taken it and no man can shut it. We have that potential as individuals and as a church body. Help me to do that. Let's do that. And it starts with, most judgment starts with the house of the Lord. But he's given it to us that we can judge ourselves. That we can take it to him and say, Lord, search me if there be any wicked way, show me so I can be right with you. So I can live and walk in lockstep with your word, pleasing unto you. I hope we do that this morning.