Please turn with me in your Bibles to the letter to the Ephesians chapter five. Ephesians chapter five and verses one and two. Ephesians chapter five verses one and two. Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children and walk in love as Christ also hath loved us. and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour." And our subject this evening is being followers of God, followers of God. Well, we return this evening to the letter of the Apostle Paul to the Ephesians, which has been a letter of great challenge to us, as well as Great instruction, very instructive to us in many ways and profound ways. It is in many ways a very spiritual letter, certainly the first few chapters of the letter we have been taught of God's sovereign election of his people, the choosing of his people before the foundation of the earth and according to the good pleasure of God's will. And we've been taught profound things concerning the nature of the church, what the church actually is. It has been pictured as a building, but not a building made out of brick and stone. This is a building that is made up of living stones. It's built on the foundation of Christ. but it's made up of true believers, those who trust in him, and the church is growing. Believers are being continually added to the church, and it's growing also in grace, growing in sanctification, growing in love, love for God, love for one another, and we have been recently studying how we are to love one another in a church as a body of believers, And we have been brought together to love one another and to serve with one another. And different roles have been mentioned. We don't all have the same role. We all have different gifts. And so we exercise those gifts for the good of the church. And we're also challenged as individuals in putting off the old man, the old nature, that which we were before we were saved. We are not to hearken to the old nature, we're not to pine for the new nature, or to look at the old man with some kind of nostalgia. We are to put on the new man, which is fashioned in righteousness, which is according to the word of God, in obedience to the word of God. That's the new nature. And so we have that personal challenge, as well as the challenge of a church collectively given to us. And these things, well, they are very important for us, not only to understand, but to apply as difficult as it is. These are very challenging teachings, but we'll continue this evening, again, looking at challenging things. but things that God willing will also instruct us and grant us much wisdom. And all of these things, they are not simply written to bring us down, quite the opposite. They are written to help us, to sanctify us, to lift us up, to be better than we are, to have greater peace, to have greater joy as Christians and as a church. This is the way it is done, through obedience and through hearkening to the word of God. So these things we consider in the right mindset and with the right attitude. And verse one sets the scene. Be ye therefore, Followers of God as dear children. Well, this is a wonderful way to commence our thinking this evening. Followers of God. What a privilege to be called followers of God. And this is how a Christian could be defined. one of the ways in which you could explain what or who a Christian is, we could say we are followers of God. We are not followers of any other way. We are not followers of anybody else. We're not followers of the world, most certainly not. We don't follow the fashions and the trends and the opinions of the world. We are followers of God, and we stick to that, and we are not ashamed of that. Be ye therefore followers of God. We hearken to the word of God and we follow its teachings and its instruction. And we are told to be followers of God as dear children. So children, young children will of course imitate their parents. And the example is given here. The illustration is given here. Just as little children will imitate their parents, their father, their mother, they will follow their ways and their characteristics and their mannerisms. You see it in little children. Well, so too, we are to be followers of God and look to him and imitate him. And this is the great pattern. And again, what a tremendous privilege to be followers of God. Now, what a high standard, of course. Some people think that this is too much of a burden to be followers of God. Some will say, how can we be followers of God? God is so holy. God is so righteous. I am so weak. I am so feeble. How on earth can I be a follower of God? Well, That's almost irrelevant, that kind of thinking. I'll explain a little further. But we are called to be followers of God. We must obey. We cannot lower the standard. Some people will perhaps say, can I not just be a follower of somebody in the church? Or can I not just be a follower of my own standard? Maybe if I set a standard for myself and I just follow that. Can't I just follow that? No, dear friends. We as Christians, we must follow the highest standard. We do not have a right to lower the standard. And the standard is that we are to be followers of God, even if we never get there. Of course, we won't get there. We can never be as holy as the true and living God. But the point is not that we are going to get there. The point is that we strive. We strive to be more like the Lord. We strive to be more like the Lord Jesus Christ. We strive to deny ourselves. As I constantly say, our great duty is to be less like ourselves and more like the Lord. You're not following yourself. You're a follower of God. And again, you have people saying, well, you know, I'm just the way I am. This is the way I am. And you have to, You have to put up with it. I can't change. This is just the way I am. Well, then who are you following? Are you following yourself? That means you're a follower of yourself. This is just the way I am. This is just my character. I can't possibly change. Well, then you're not a follower of God. You're following yourself. You're making yourself the God. This is the way I am. I will follow me. Dear friends, that is so unchristian. We, by definition, who are we? We are followers of God. We're not those who follow anything else. We don't follow the world and we don't even follow ourselves and our own wills and our own passions. And so this is a very challenging start. But this is the way it is. Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children. And of course, this is all tied in with love. Children, little children, they imitate their parents because they love their parents. And so this is the relationship that we are to have. We don't follow just out of duty. This is explained further in verse two. Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children, verse one, and walk in love as Christ also hath loved us and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour. Well, we walk in love. This is how we imitate the Lord. and we are to do everything in love, of course. I often say this, when we come to a church, when we serve in a church, we must do everything out of love and not simply out of duty, not simply because you want to keep up appearances, not simply because somebody has told you to do something in a church, You must walk in love. Everything that we do, whether it be the Sunday school teaching or the evangelism or anything that we do, we do it in love. We come to church, not out of duty or chore or religious exercise. We walk in love. We love to be amongst the Lord's people. We love to sing the praises of the Lord. It's all done out of love. because this is how Christ has dealt with us, of course, as Christ also hath loved us. When Christ went to the cross, it wasn't out of mere duty. It wasn't out of mere obligation. Christ, of course, God is not obliged to save us. He's not obliged to come and to suffer and to die and to redeem us. He's not obliged to do that at all. If we were all lost, If we all lived and we all went to hell, that would be perfectly just because we're sinners. And God would not be at fault for that. But dear friends, there is no obligation in Christ coming down to die for us. He came down out of love for us. That's what he did. And so we follow his example. We are followers of him. We're imitating him. So the Lord did not go reluctantly, as it were, to the cross, begrudgingly, out of mere duty, routine. He came, He loved us, He gave Himself for us. We know the words very well. We simply imitate Him as we serve Him. And we follow His example. We read here that He's an offering and a sacrifice. Of course, He gave Himself on the cross. That is how we are to love the Lord. It is to be costly. We are to give ourselves. We have to sacrifice in order to truly walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us. Well, of course it has to be costly. Otherwise, we're not really, again, being imitators of God, we're being imitators of ourselves. We decide ourselves how much we're going to give, how much time we're going to spend, what the cost is going to be. We've set our own standard. We're not following God. We're not following Christ, his example. If we decide, well, I'll only give a little bit, but not very much, we're being followers of ourselves. We've made ourselves the standard. But what did Christ do? He gave everything for us. And He gave everything out of love for us. And this, well, of course, we will fail this standard. Again, I emphasize this. We all fail, I fail, but we nevertheless strive. And whenever we fail, we endeavor to do better. We pray to the Lord, say, Lord, help me. I know that I am not what I ought to be. I know that I am not walking truly as a follower of God. and I could do so much more, help me and strengthen me and give me that desire and that will. And he will, he will bless. So all things must be done in love, everything that we do as a church, and then we will be blessed because Christ gave himself an offering and a sacrifice to God out of love for us, well, that was why it was a sweet-smelling savour in the Old Testament, the sacrifices. that were offered up to God were described as a sweet-smelling savour. God was pleased with them if they were done in the right way and in the right spirit. Well, Christ, of course, his sacrifice was a sweet-smelling savour to God because it was a perfect sacrifice offered up in love. And again, our offerings, our service, They must be done in love or else they won't be a sweet smelling savor to the Lord. The Lord will see them and will not truly bless them. If we're just doing it out of routine, it's only if we do it in love for the Lord, then we will be greatly blessed. So these things, these are words really exhorting us not to anything bad, but to something good. We walk in love. And we imitate God because we are his dear children. And these things, well, they help us in our battle against our sins. And there are a number of sins that are then listed from verse three. And these things we ought to look at just in the remainder of our time. but fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints." Well, here we have the beginning of a list that describes sins and practices and vices that ought never to be mentioned concerning Christian people, that Christian people ought never to engage in. and there should be no question about it, there should be no thought of it to entertain it, there should be no excuse or justification for it. These things will be presented to us. Now it starts with things that are quite obvious. sexual immorality but then it will go on the list will go on to describe things that perhaps are not quite so obvious to us and yet they fall under this category of things that should not be associated with christian people so we have to look at these things And this is all part of being followers of God, of a holy God. God is so holy. And so if we are to be followers of him, there are things that should not be in our lives at all. Not in our churches, not in our lives as individuals. So I'll try not to spend too much time with each of these, because these can be difficult to consider. But the first thing, fornication, And well, of course, you will know that this means intimate sexual relationships between unmarried people, between single people. And really, it's the kind of behavior that is very common today, in society today. There's nothing wrong with it. Nobody sees anything wrong with fornication. If you're single, well, you can do what you want. If you're unmarried, you can do what you want. But it is not to be mentioned not even once amongst Christian people. Sexual relationships are meant for marriage. That is the teaching of the scripture. They are so special, those kinds of relationships, that they must be protected. How must they be protected? By the marriage vows, by a committed relationship. Not just a casual relationship, a casual encounter, That relationship is too special for something casual. It has to be enclosed in a permanent relationship, in the safety of a permanent marriage relationship. There's nothing casual about it. No fornication. Indeed, to have those relationships outside of marriage, not only is it not right, not only is it completely unbecoming to Christian people, and worse than that, indecent, immoral, you could even say that it's abuse. Abuse of your own body. Abuse of your own body, abuse of the body that you are engaging with. because this type of relationship is not being set in the right context. It is abuse. You may not think it in that way, and the world, of course, does not think of it in that way, but you are dishonoring the body. In the letter to the Romans, that's how the apostle Paul puts it, those kinds of relationships, dishonoring the body, cheapening your own body, because in a casual way, you are giving yourself, These relationships are so special, they need to be in a special relationship. So no fornication. And then all uncleanness. All uncleanness, well, it's associated with fornication. Really, it's speaking about what we could call carnality. or living to gratify the flesh in an immoral way, yes, in a sexual way, but this doesn't just refer to physical deeds, this refers to even our thought life, thinking impure things, impure motivations, deriving pleasure from thinking about things that are not right, that are immoral, seeking out things to arouse our passions. This is what is meant here by all uncleanness. Your motivations are unclean. They're not godly, they're not holy. You want things that will stimulate your flesh, carnality. uncleanness that's really what comes through in in the greek or covetousness well again this is connected to what has gone before it fornication immorality of those kinds it's born out of covetousness these kinds of immoral relationships they come out of a desire to to have something that you ought not to have That's what covetousness is. Something that God has not allowed you to have. You want it. You want to do what you want with whomever you want. That's covetousness. I must have what God doesn't want me to have. And that's what fuels this kind of immorality in our society. Covetousness. Not commitment. People don't want commitment. Covetousness. I want those things that I shouldn't have. And this is what drives this type of behaviour. Again, this is not what the Lord has saved us for. This is not what the Lord has called us to be. The Apostle Paul in the first letter to the Thessalonians, for God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. So no wonder he writes here, let it not be once named among you as becometh saints. You are saints, you are holy. So we turn away from these things. And then verse four, neither filthiness. Well, what does that mean? Well, the general sense is those things that cause shame, filthiness, Again, you can apply it to deeds, shameful deeds, but it would equally apply to shameful words, swearing, shameful thoughts, filthiness. Sometimes I use this illustration in evangelistic messages. If there was a screen up in the church that had filmed you throughout the past week, Would you be comfortable for it to be shown to everyone here? Would you be comfortable or would there actually be shameful things that you have said, that you have done? That's really the sense of filthiness, things that really are shameful, things that really you want to keep secret because they're not right. Everything, we ought to be men and women of integrity. not hiding anything. We are transparent. We are the saints of the living God, and we live as the saints of the living God. There ought not to be any filthiness in us, anything that is shameful, anything that needs to be hidden. So filthiness we can apply in that sense. We ought to avoid all shameful things. Foolish talking. Now, perhaps we're getting into the areas where we don't think things are quite as bad as they actually are. Foolish talking. Our words, of course. How we speak as Christians, how we speak to one another is so very important. And we've seen this already, how our words are to be gracious words, one to another, let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth in the previous chapter. And as an extension to that, no foolish talking. And well, we could say very simply that this would apply to anything inappropriate, anything that is crude, We don't say anything that is crude. We don't say anything that is pushing the boundaries. of good taste. You know, sometimes in the world, people appear to be quite moral, but they're always saying things that are pushing the boundaries of good taste. Innuendo, for example. This is all foolish talking. It would apply to songs, particularly in this society, where there is music everywhere and pop music everywhere. What are those songs all about? Sometimes I've heard Christian people, even good Christian people, when things come on the radio, they find themselves singing along to these things, and yet they're immoral things. They're celebrating the things that we have just been talking about. They're celebrating uncleanness. They're celebrating fornication. We ought not to engage in that. Don't let your mouth repeat the things that are being uttered by the world in their popular culture and so on. We are to be very careful with the way that we speak. Nothing unclean, everything appropriate, minding our witness, thinking upon our witness. How will what I say affect my Christian witness? So no foolish talking and then jesting. Now, this doesn't mean that we have to abandon all humor and all jokes. There is a place for humor, although if any of you have read Jonathan Edwards' resolutions, I always remember the resolution that he made never to speak anything that was a matter of laughter on the Lord's day. So that's a very high standard for us. I wouldn't go quite that far. We are permitted to enjoy one another's company and employ humor in a suitable way. But we have to be very careful with how we jest with one another, how we joke with one another. Now what comes through in the Greek particularly, is that we have to avoid joking that is not only coarse, we don't tell those rude jokes, but that is unkind. Joking that is unkind. You see this very often in the world. In fact, a lot of bullying that goes on in the world uses humor. Because a bully does not want to appear to be a bully outright, he will use humor, he will joke. to bring people down, to cut people's character. They will use humour, jesting inappropriately, maliciousness. They're actually being very malicious, but it's cloaked, it's clothed in humour. Oh, I'm just joking. That's what people say, I'm just joking, when actually they're attacking people and they're criticising people and cutting them down. jesting in that sense. That ought not to be amongst Christian people. That belongs to the world. That's what the world does. Practical jokes, of course. That shouldn't really be the way of Christian people. Again, very often used to humiliate people. This is not the way. This is not what God does to us. Remember, this is followers of God. This is the standard. Be ye therefore followers of God, not jesting. We are not called to that. We have not been called to cut one another down with jokes and using humor in that malicious way. And of course, well, perhaps Jonathan Edwards had this in mind. When we think about the things of God, we don't ever make light of them. Sometimes, not very often, but sometimes you will hear even creatures in the pulpit making jokes about the Word of God or jokey applications from the Word of God. That's not convenient as we read here, which means we are not called to do that. We have not been saved to use the Word of God or to treat one another in these ways. We have not been saved to do this. So no filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks. And we just look at this last part here, a positive application here. Giving of thanks. It is when we give thanks that we have greater power to overcome sins. If we are guilty of any of these sins, Well, we must repent of course, that will come in the next few verses and we'll speak about that. But why have they come into our lives? Why does covetousness and so on come into our lives? Because we're not thankful. We don't seem to be thankful for what we actually have in Christ. You may not have much materially or in your life. But you must give thanks because you have Christ and all the things that come with Christ. You have true joy, you have true peace available to you. You have a fellowship with God, a relationship with God. You have the facility of prayer, to pray at any time, whatever you are in need of, you can come, you can bring it to the Lord. You have his protection, you have his guidance. It's only when we don't think very much of those things that sin comes in. And we see this even at the very start of the Bible. And I often say this, Adam and Eve, they had everything in the Garden of Eden. What did Satan do? He made them unthankful. He made them look at what they didn't have. Look at what you don't have. God has given you everything. What does Satan do? Look at what you don't have. You can't have that fruit, can you? And that is what led them into great sin. This is what happens to us when we lose that spirit of thanksgiving. We must, well, we must maintain it because otherwise it will drag us into sin. There's no doubt about that. And even into the grossest sins, the sins that ought never to be mentioned amongst Christian people. Give thanks, be contented, dear friends. Are you contented or are you covetous? You know, covetousness comes in all sorts of forms. We've seen it here. but are you somebody who is never satisfied? That's really the essence of covetousness. You're never satisfied. And this is the way of the world. They have so much and they're never satisfied. They talk about their problems. As soon as one problem is gone, they've got another problem. They're never satisfied. There's always something that's wrong. That's not meant to be the character of Christian people. Constantly griping and complaining, never satisfied with anything that's going on. That's really a form of covetousness, to never be satisfied. That's covetousness, always wanting more, always wanting more things, a greediness, a hunger. Dear friends, we endeavor to be satisfied people, content with what the Lord has given us at all times. And then we will avoid sin. It's the antidote to sin, you can say. Giving thanks to the Lord for all his wonderful kindness to us. So I close on that point, that positive point and application. We must turn away from these things. But rather, what do we do instead? We give thanks to the Lord for all that we have. Well, may the Lord bless and help us in these very challenging teachings.