Our text this morning will be in Ephesians chapter 5. Continuing to work through Paul's letter. And we're in this very intensely practical and pointed section. The first three chapters are doctrine, content of our faith, and then Paul turns the corner in chapter 4 verse 1 and says, therefore, as a prisoner of the Lord, as one who's been redeemed and purchased out of slavery, We are to walk in a manner worthy of the calling which we have received. We have a new identity, a new calling in our life. The names Friedrich Nietzsche and Michael Foucault may or may not be familiar names to you. They were brilliant in certain senses and yet very tragic figures. Nietzsche was an influential French philosopher of the 19th century. He questioned all truth, cast aside all moral restraint, and arrogantly pronounced the death of God. Foucault was one of his disciples. Living years later, committed to Nietzsche's philosophies, He too was a leading French intellectual who lived a very promiscuous and godless life, casting off all moral restraint. These two individuals lived for themselves. They did whatever pleased them, regardless of how it impacted anyone else. In contrast to this, we as followers Christ have received a calling, a calling to be like God, and specifically to be like God in the areas of our love and concern for others. This has been sort of the thread that has wound together chapter 4 and now into chapter 5. So we don't lie or act in anger or steal, or use demeaning speech, or perpetrate violence, because we want to act for the good of others. We don't act against them. We don't act selfishly. We're acting for their good. This is what it is to be like God. This is God's pattern, is it not? Who didn't simply act for His own interest, but entered into our plight and acted for our good. This is the essence of self-sacrificing love. And of course, Jesus is our model, the consummate example of how we are to live. This is how Paul launches into chapter 5. Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us. A fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. And so Paul is going to continue here to call believers away from selfish lifestyles, lifestyles that are characterized by self-indulgence, and he's going to call them to sacrificial, self-sacrificing type of lifestyle. And you see even the contrast here in verse 3. But, sexual immorality and all impurity, this is the contrast. I want you to live a life of love, self-sacrificing love like Christ, and not to embrace this contrasting lifestyle. So let's look at these verses. This is sort of the backdrop for what he's going to write about in verses 3-6. Ephesians 5, 3-6. Hear the word of the Lord. But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral, or impure, or who is covetous, that is, an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience." The Lord add his blessing to the reading of his word. So again, here's the contrast to the life of self-sacrificing love, the love of Christ. And now he's going to paint another picture and call us away from this selfish orientation. And Paul's going to use a pattern that we've kind of grown familiar with through chapter 4. Every time he dealt with an issue, he gave a pattern or a behavior to avoid, a behavior to adopt, and then a motivation. Aren't you glad God gives motivation? Maybe enough for him to just say, don't do this and do this. But knowing that we are creating his image with the capacity to think to reason, he gives us motivation, he gives us rationale for how we are to live. It's a great gift to us. So behavior to avoid, I'll summarize it this way, stop selfishly seeking to take what isn't yours for your own gratification. Stop selfishly seeking to take what isn't yours for your own gratification. This is the antithesis of Christ's love. Paul confronts this propensity in us. He cites six different sins. He starts off with the overt and moves towards the cause or the root sin. He begins with sexual immorality, a broad term describing all forms of aberrant or deviant sexual conduct, including what King James would refer to as fornication, sexual relations between two individuals who are not married, adultery, sexual relationship involving someone who is married, but outside of that marriage relationship, incest, homosexual sex, prostitution, pornography, all of these things would fall under that umbrella term. God has reserved sexual expression for a marriage relationship between a man and a woman. Any gratification of sexual desire through illegitimate means falls into this category of sexual immorality. how pornography is becoming an increasingly prolific issue in our day, in part because of the accessibility of such materials. And of course, we're finding that it's not just a men's issue anymore. Increasingly, those who study these things are determining that it's also becoming a women's issue and not just the overt forms of pornography, but many of the forms of romance novels, or if you take it to the extreme, some of you are familiar with the best-selling book, Fifty Shades of Grey. This is a particular form of erotic, romantic-type literature that's really targeted for women, and selling like hotcakes. This is not just a men's issue, this whole arena of of sexual purity. I think there's also some interesting things just culturally to think about that make this even more challenging in the day and age in which we live. The average age of first marriage keeps rising. It's 28 now. Of course, people are getting more and more education, so they're delaying marriage. It wouldn't have been unusual for some of you or even your parents to have married at 18. You know, graduate from high school, maybe before you graduate from high school, you know, to get married. That's obviously very unusual today. The trend is working the other way. And so if you think about it, that creates sort of a danger zone, doesn't it? The gap between sexual maturity and sexual fulfillment is sort of widening. So that's a unique aspect of our culture. There's just a lot of different factors that I think we need to think carefully about. But Paul dealt directly with this. I think it's important that we think through what the boundaries are. This is what he's going to talk about is selfishness, and he's going to work towards covetousness, taking what isn't mine to take, this propensity to acquire, to act selfishly. And so I think we understand that in the realm of sexual morality, we need to understand what God's boundaries are. And Paul was pretty clear about this in 1 Corinthians 7. He actually dealt with it at length. And I thought it'd be good for us just to rehearse this. If you're married, then you need to understand the role that you play in safeguarding your spouse's sexual purity. This is what Paul deals with in 1 Corinthians 7, verses 1 through 5. Christians are often kind of accused of being really down on sex, right? Paul is just the opposite. He commands married persons to maintain a regular sexual relationship with their spouse as a proactive strategy for avoiding temptation and cultivating holiness. So it's important to Paul, he was very overt about it, to say this was God's design within the marriage relationship. And then he goes on to talk about singleness. He says if you're single, you're called upon to abstain from sexual relations. And Paul kind of puts an exclamation point on this. He says this is actually a really noble calling. This was Paul's stage of life, right, or status in life. And so Paul said in a broken world, singleness has great redeeming value. And Paul understood that as it pertained to his own life and his own ministry and the opportunities that he had to serve the Lord. And so he really exalts this arena of singleness. And then he moves into sort of another category of people who are single, but are really struggling in singleness, right? He says, in essence, I'm summarizing, if you're single and sexual expression is an area of great struggle, then you need to actively pursue marriage. Pretty much what he says, right? Verse 9, chapter 7. Easier said than done, right? Not always a flip of a switch on these things, but Bacall just is pretty proactive about it and kind of minces no words. We live in an interesting time, don't we? Where there's not like a set template for how young people are to meet and marry. You're living in certain cultures, right? It would all be determined for you. And there'd be an arranged marriage and your parents would sort it out. That's certainly not the culture we're in, right? When I was growing up, dating, just kind of this classic form of dating. And then, of course, in recent years, particularly in Christian circles, there's been a little bit of a recovery of what's been called courtship, right? Where it's not just two individuals, a boy and a girl, kind of trying to figure this off on their own, but the boy comes calling. And he kind of visits in the parlor, you know, there. And within the context of the broader family, they're discerning whether God might lead them to marry. So all these different things, but the reality is there's not really an agreed-upon way to go about this. So I'm going to just present something really crazy here, and that's online dating. Right? I'm serious. This is becoming sort of the common template. Dennis and Michelle Kasky, I didn't see them here this morning, but they were the first ones that met online through an online dating service. And they're able to punch in their values and their strong Christian faith and what they're looking for in a spouse. And I said, you've got to be kidding me. You know, that was like 10 years ago, more than 10 years ago, wasn't it? And I was the first I'd ever heard of that. Now I'm hearing it all the time. I met two people this weekend who met through online dating. You say that's really weird. I just can't bring myself to do it. But I just think we have to sort of think really carefully about this. Paul's pretty intentional. He just says, if this is an area of struggle as a single, and you're committed to living within the boundaries that God has established, then you need to pursue marriage. You need to take those steps and be active in that. So again, I realize it's maybe not as easy in our culture. There's some challenging things, but we need to really be intentional, I guess, is the best way to say that. Sexual immorality, we need to live within the boundaries that God has established, whether we're married, whether we're single. And then impurity would be sort of a broader category here. It literally is used to describe rotting flesh. It's used to describe what happens in a coffin after a period of time. Matthew 23, okay, I'm just quoting scripture. And so morally speaking, it would refer to immoral thoughts, or passions, or ideas, or fantasies, or every other form of sexual corruption. You get that idea of rotting, corruption, anything that's not wholesome, according to God's outlines, would fall into this category of impurity. So Paul's not going to go through and list every single sin. He's just listing anything that falls outside what God has clearly designed is impurity. It's unwholesome. And then he drives to covetousness, which I think is really the root issue here. It's the heart issue that's manifesting itself in impurity and sexual immorality. Covetousness, also translated as greed. And I think we ought to clarify right at the beginning that there's nothing wrong with ambition to strive for a goal, or to strive to attain. That's ambition, and that's good, or can be good. Covetousness is to try to obtain through illegitimate means. So you go back to the Old Testament, the Ten Commandments, it's coveting your neighbor's wife, or your neighbor's ox, or your neighbor's house. It's coveting something or desiring something that isn't yours to have. I have a 1983 Suzuki GS 550 motorcycle. It sounds really glamorous, it's not. It's a nice little bike and it's more than adequate for my short commute, but as we speak my dad is in Florida picking up a little purchase that he made online of a 2000 BMW motorcycle. It has a fairing, it has saddlebags, unlike my bike A, it runs, which mine doesn't at the moment. And unlike my bike, it doesn't splatter oil on my pant legs, which my bike does. So all these things. Now, I can save up my money and bide my time, and I can buy another better bike. That's all right, generally speaking, I have to sort it out with our family finances and wade through the priorities, but I could do that, and that would be what we might call ambition, right? Working hard to attain a goal. What I can't do is become fixated on my dad's bike and grow discontent and arrange to steal it so that I don't have to wait, right? It's not mine to have. Now, it might not be motorcycles for you, it might be clothes, it might be technology, but it would be any attempt to gain something for yourself that isn't yours to have. To step outside the boundaries of what God has established and what God has given you and to gain it through illegitimate means. And of course, it can also pertain to sex, which is what's going on here. It's the root issue behind sexual immorality and impurity. When you engage in a sexual relationship, whatever form, with someone other than your spouse, you're taking something that isn't yours. When a single enters into a sexual relationship with another single, they're taking something that isn't theirs to take. When you exploit another person by means of pornography, you're taking something that isn't yours to take. That's covetousness or greed, and it's what lies behind these other sins. Now, Paul doesn't technically say that we shouldn't do these things. That's obvious. We shouldn't do these things. But notice, Paul goes further, doesn't he? Look at the text. 5.3, but sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you as is proper among saints. It shouldn't even be something that's talked about or entertained Or in any way, we shouldn't get comfortable with the notions of sexual impurity or immorality. And I think there's probably a couple of reasons why Paul says this. One is that we don't want to become desensitized. When you kind of hear something or talk about it, all of a sudden it doesn't have the same level of sacredness anymore. It becomes common, right? We're not used to it. I've had the experience of watching a movie and then you sit down to watch it with someone else and all of a sudden you're very embarrassed because you didn't, you're heightened sensitivity now because you realize, oh, this maybe wasn't the best, I shouldn't have been watching this. I didn't realize the language was this bad, but we could become desensitized to it. So that might be part of what Paul has in mind. I think the other thing that Paul has in mind is reputation. that we shouldn't even be anywhere close to these things. We shouldn't even be talking about them, let alone doing them, for the sake of our reputation. One translation says these things shouldn't even be rumoured among you. There shouldn't be any sense of anybody looking at the church that would see or associate in any way these things. I like what John MacArthur says. These sins should be so universally absent from the body of believers that there should be no occasion to associate them with the church." Why? Because we're saints. That's what he says here. We're holy ones. So once again, this is classic Paul, behavior flows out of identity. I've been set aside by God, I've been redeemed, I've been declared holy, I've been given a new standing, a new position, and because of that, I shouldn't engage in these activities. My behavior should be consistent with that calling and that identity." Well, as he talks about not even allowing these things to be spoken among us or rumored among us, he goes into now some other areas of inappropriate speech, particularly again as it relates to this whole arena of sexual immorality. He talks about filthiness. translated as obscenity, not simply a swear word, that might be how we think of the term, but anything that's foul or shameful or indecent. Certain things we just don't talk about because we exercise discretion and we don't want to speak in poor taste. We don't talk about private body parts, right? If you're a parent, you have these little these little words that you use to help your kids know what you're talking about, right? Because we just we just are careful with how we talk about their bum, or we talk about their, you know, all these different, I won't give you our terms, you got your own terms, right? They use in your house and your kids or did with your kids when they were younger, right? We just use that that's part of just being appropriate. Right? Foolish talk, we get our word moron from this term, stupid talk. characteristic of someone who has either certain mental impairments or who is drunk, who says things that they shouldn't be saying. No person in their right mind would be talking like that, but they're not in their right mind. They're under the influence of alcohol. So this is foolish talk. Christians shouldn't engage in that. Christians ought to have a filter. We ought to exercise discretion. We ought to be appropriate. And certainly crude joking. So taking, again, sexual immorality and in some way twisting it to incorporate humor. Sexual innuendo. Taking an innocent phrase and twisting it. Making fun of someone because of their appearance. These things are completely out of line and inappropriate for the one who claims to follow Christ. The Church has often been accused of having a negative theology of sex. Don't talk about it. That's not an appropriate topic to talk about. Let's be clear here. We don't talk about sex. We don't avoid talking about it because it's shameful or it's bad. We simply don't talk about it in crude or casual or joking ways because it's sacred, because it's so good. because we don't want to cheapen it or make it common. We have a higher view of sex than the world does, or we should have. So Paul is interacting with all of these things to set the bar really high. Now I remember in high school going out with some of my friends And my mom went down a particular line of questioning, and she was particularly concerned about one individual that was going. Her name was Emma, and Emma had some issues. She had grown up in a broken home, and there were some emotional things there. She's kind of a chronic attention seeker, right? And she was sort of known for not being honest. And I remember my mom saying to me, she said, you are not to be alone with her. It's fine, you go out with your friends, that's great. You got the group. You are not to be alone with her. And I was really offended. I said, Mom, I'm not even interested in her. I'm deeply offended that you would think I would, you know. And my mom said, and I'm quoting the best as I recall, she says, I'm not concerned about what will happen. I'm concerned with what she will say happened. My mom wanted me not only to avoid sexual sin, but even the suspicion of sexual sin. And so that's led to a lot of practices, even in ministry for me, in terms of not finding myself alone in a car. If I'm taking people home, I'm always making sure that I've got one of my kids with me before I drop off that last girl or whatever it might be. And I just ask you, what standards do you need to implement to avoid even the hint of, or the rumor of sexual immorality? Do you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend? What are you doing to protect yourself and your reputation? For my parents, I was never allowed to have a girl over when they weren't home. And I was never allowed to go to a girl's house when her parents weren't home. I know, pretty prudish, right? 21st century. That's good stuff. That is sound counsel and advice. And we need to be thinking like, oh, Pastor, we're engaged. I don't care if you're engaged. What are you doing to guard your reputation? We live in a culture, a hook-up culture. This is the norm. What are people to think? What conclusions will they go to about the pattern of your life? What steps are you taking to guard your reputation and ultimately the reputation of the Gospel? Are you single? What elements of accountability are in place for you? Your entertainment choices? What elements of accountability are in place for your internet activity? How do you need to adjust your standards for movies and music? How are you practicing what Christopher Uran called holy sexuality? So there's the sin to avoid. We spent the bulk of our time there. Stop selfishly seeking to take what isn't yours for your own gratification. So this is the visual. And this is the opposite of what Christ modeled. who was giving of himself for others. We ought to get rid of this selfish gratification rooted out of our lives. Here's the positive, the action, the behavior we're to adopt. We're to recount God's blessings and remind yourself that God is for you. Recount God's blessings and remind yourself that God is for you. A gratitude is a really powerful antidote for a number of sinful propensities. It would be a great word study. Proverbs 4.6 tells us that gratitude is an antidote for worry. Be anxious in nothing but in everything with prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. So I'm worried about this particular situation. How's this going to work out? And I engage in gratitude and Thanksgiving and I rehearse how many times God has been faithful to me. And I'm able to come back to my present circumstance and say, God will certainly be faithful to me again. Right? It's an antidote to worry. It's an antidote to animosity. Second Timothy chapter one, Chapter 2, rather, Paul exhorts them to be praying for kings, for all those in authority. By the way, in the ancient world, in Rome, the kings were the enemies of the church. I mean, they're persecuting believers. And Paul says, I want you to pray for your leaders and offer thanksgiving for them. Why? So that you can live at peace and the gospel can progress. So by praying for someone and by giving thanks for them, I counter animosity. that might exist between me and that person. So Thanksgiving is a powerful antidote. And here, it's an antidote for covetousness, right? That's the real root sin that's going on. It's this desire to have a sense of entitlement. I deserve it. And as I engage in gratitude, and I thank God for His blessings, and I recognize that He's given me more than I deserve, that puts me in a place to be able to ward off greed and covetousness. So much to talk about so little time King Uzziah was one of the great kings in Israel Next to David and Solomon. He was probably the the greatest king and he was a godly man Came to be king at the age of 16 and reigned for 52 years. That's a good reign the text says that he had over 300,000 over 2,500 generals and over 300,000 finally trained and equipped troops under his command. And we're told actually in the text, it's kind of interesting, almost you get the sense that there were some technological advances under Uzziah's reign, like military-wise and some particular ways of combat. I mean, Uzziah sort of had it all. This great prominent reign says that his fame spread all the way to Egypt. That's about as far as it would spread at that day and age. I mean, that's a long way. He was world-renowned. He had everything. And yet, there's this cryptic statement about his life that he was greatly helped, greatly helped by the Lord, until he became powerful. But when he became powerful, his pride led to his downfall. He ended up going into the temple to burn incense. That was something that was reserved only for the priests. And the priests said, Uzziah, don't do this. You are not qualified or authorized by God to do this, to go into the temple. And Uzziah went anyways. He had this insatiable desire for power and a greater reach. And he was struck down with leprosy and lost everything. You say, why? If you had everything that Uzziah had, why would you keep grasping for more? But this is the nature of covetousness. A sense of entitlement. A sense that we deserve more than we have. And the way that we combat that is by gratitude. You know the song, and I really like this last verse. When you look at others with their lands and gold, Think that Christ has promised you His wealth untold. Count your many blessings. Wealth can never buy your reward in heaven nor your home on high. Count your many blessings. And this particular verse focuses on this idea of covetousness, doesn't it? When you look at others with their lands and gold. Think, remember that Christ has promised you His wealth untold. much of which can't be tabulated or reckoned in monetary values of our time, right? What it has to do with our inheritance. We rehearse our blessings so that we don't get ourselves into a position of feeling entitled. Feeling like we need to step beyond the bounds that God has made for us. So recount God's blessings. And then a motivation. Remember that the sexually immoral, the impure and the covetous will not inherit the kingdom. Remember that the sexually immoral, the impure and the covetous will not inherit the kingdom. This raises several questions to me. First, why are these sins so serious? It's a pretty strong statement, isn't it? Those who do these things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Well, Paul reiterates the list with this editorial note. Do you note it? That a covetous person, that is, and idolater. This grasping for more is, in essence, worshipping another God. It's putting something else in the place of God. Instead of functioning within the boundaries and under the authority that God has established for me, I step out of those boundaries and I become my own God. I begin to worship the creature rather than the Creator. That's idolatry. So it's very serious. Secondly, what exactly is at stake here? What does it mean that a person will not inherit the kingdom of God? Does this mean they won't receive the benefits or the perks of the kingdom? Or does this mean that they won't enter the kingdom at all? And I think based on the text, we must conclude that such persons will not enter the kingdom at all. Hohner's quote in his commentary, I think it summarizes it. The contrast in this passage is between those who inherit the kingdom and those who receive the wrath of God." Go on to look at verse 6. It is a contrast between heaven and hell. This is serious. Paul's not joking around. It's not that you're just going to have one fewer crown in heaven. Which leads us to this last question, who exactly will be excluded from the kingdom? It seems at first blush that we'd all fail to meet this standard, right? We're all guilty at some level of sexual immorality, impurity, or covetousness or greed. But Paul has a subtle shift here. In verse 3, as he talks about these things, he's talking about the sins. Sexual immorality, impurity, covetousness. In verse 5, he's talking about the people. People who are characterized by these things, this is who they are. They are sexually immoral, they are impure, and they are covetous. That is their identity. And if that's your identity, you will not enter the kingdom of God. You've shown yourself to not be a true child of the King. The court case went down just this last week about an Australian man who sued his mother over a $5.5 million inheritance snub. Robert Wilcox, 46, sued his mother Patricia in the Supreme Court of the state of New South Wales after she was made the sole beneficiary of a large rural estate owned by her father. An estate, the court said, that the grandson expected to be handed to him on a plate. And he could not shake his deeply ingrained sense that he was destined to take over some or all of his grandfather's enterprise. The court said this, his unhealthy sense of entitlement may have constrained his ambition. Yeah, you think? So he said, I'm going to get this. It's mine. I don't have to do anything. And I think there's a lot of people in the spiritual realm that sort of reach that same type of conclusion. Paul says, don't let anyone tell you, don't let anyone deceive you. This is verse 6. Don't let anyone deceive you and tell you that sexual immorality doesn't matter. Don't let anyone tell you that you're a Christian and you can just carry on and do whatever you want. Now, we don't earn an inheritance, right? And inheritance is gifted to us. I don't earn it. We're not earning God's favor with good works. That's not how it works. We're saved by grace, by grace alone. But if you wish to receive a family inheritance, you better abide by the values of the family. Or you show yourself to not be a true child in that family. And this is what Paul is confronting the church with. That's motivation, isn't it? This is the reason why you're to avoid sexual immorality and why you are to cultivate gratitude. Because God's true children will bear a family resemblance. Well, we'll close this morning with bringing you back to our French philosophers, Nietzsche and Foucault, remember, cast off all moral restraint, pronounced the death of God. How did their stories end? Nietzsche died in 1900 at the age of 54 after a long and pitiful bout with venereal disease and insanity. Foucault died in 1984 at the age of 58 after an excruciating and prolonged struggle with AIDS. They remind us that living within God's boundaries is not only right, but good. It allows us to live life as it was meant to be lived. The life lived for yourself is blighted and comes to a bitter end. The life lived for God and for others is a life of rich significance and leads to eternal joy.