We're going to read God's Word today from Ephesians 4, verse 17. Ephesians 4, verse 17. I'm going to read through the end of chapter 5, and then I'm going to read a section from chapter 6. Every time I get into this pulpit, I feel a responsibility to preach to you the Word of God in a way that will both encourage and challenge and exhort you. Today, I feel that the passage that we have before us is of tremendous importance to us as it builds on all that we have heard from Ephesians thus far. The way that I feel physically and emotionally today, I know that I am going to have to rely very heavily on the Spirit of God in order to bring this truth to you. So I would ask you to try and meet me more than halfway today and be extra attentive as we read this passage and as I preach to you. Ephesians 4, verse 17. Now this I say in testifying the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learn Christ. assuming that you have learned about him and were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life, and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbour, for we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down in your anger and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labour, doing honest work with his own hand, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. 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. 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, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore, do not associate with them. For at one time you were darkness, But now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true. And try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light that becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. Look carefully, then, how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the whole armour of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil, in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and the shoes for your feet, having put on the right readiness given by the gospel of peace, In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplications for all the saints and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel. for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak. Amen. And may God bless the reading of His Word. You were dead in your sin. You were living in darkness under the dominion of Satan. And you were doomed to the reality of a horror of a lost eternity. You were without hope because you were without God. You were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel You had no hope in the knowledge of God because the Word of God was not revealed to you. You had no one to show you the way of salvation. But God, when you were still dead in your trespasses and sins, when you were without hope, when you had no desire for the things of God, when you were heading to a lost eternity, a horrific, horrible, terrible, eternal existence. When that was before you, God made you alive in Jesus Christ. He broke the bondage of sin and Satan that held you. He smashed that bondage at Calvary with a force that you nor I could not muster. You were dead. You could not make yourself alive. You were held under the dominion of Satan. You did not have the capacity or ability, whether mental, emotional or physical, to change the reality of that. You were lost without hope in the world. And God, in the person of Jesus Christ, made you alive. He made you alive. You no longer live as a man or a woman or a young person without hope. If you were to die at this very moment, you have the prospect of going to be with Christ for all eternity. Not because of what you have done, but because of what He has done. If you had of God what you deserved, you would have been going to that lost eternity because you were by nature an object of the wrath of God. But because God poured that wrath upon His Son at Calvary, you were redeemed by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Before the creation of the world, He set His love on you. He loved you before the creation of the world. You say today, nobody loves me. God loved you before you were even born. God loved you before He even created the mountains and the hills, before the streams ran with water, before the birds filled the air, before the fish filled the sea. God loved you. He loved you. He loved you. He loved you. He loved you. Because He loved you, He sent His one and only Son. He who was without sin, He sent Him that He would die that you would live. He who should not have died because He knew no sin. He who should have not died because He was not of sin. He experienced the reality of the cross so that you might live. You might live. You might live for all eternity. You who had no right to live. You who had no right to live, that you might live. you might live. And He called you to be holy and blameless in His sight. He adopted you into His family according to the purpose of His will, that you might be to the praise of His glorious grace. He has called you to live for His glory. He has called you and He has given you a minister and members of a church who will co-labor with you that you might grow in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and live to delight in Him. That's what He has given you. He has given you the opportunity to live for His glory. And He has given you people who will help you to do that, who will encourage you to do that, who will challenge you to do that, who will ask you, why were you not at church last night? Or who will ask you, we've missed you at the prayer meeting. Who will say to you in an encouraging way, not in a discouraging way, not because they're ticking the mark on the book to say, we missed you, so you weren't there, so that's a bad mark against you. Who are asking you because they love you. Because they have a desire to see you walk in the things of God, and the grace of God, and delight in the ways of God. That you might embrace all that there is to for you in your life. And God has given you that. He's given you that. He's brought you into a church where the Word of God is preached. You're not hearing nonsense on a Sunday. You're not hearing what I think. You're hearing what God thinks. You're hearing from the Word of God itself. Where we're not seeking to entertain you. Where we're seeking to call you to be the people that you are. What a blessing. You can spend your life going to a church where you don't hear the Gospel preached, where you don't hear the Word of God preached. And this new life that you have in Jesus Christ, it just stays there in a static existence. There's no fruit being produced. There's no joy. No potential for joy. God calls you. God calls you to take this life and these blessings and these privileges, and He calls you to do with it that which is right. He calls you to live a life worthy of that which He has called you to. Chapter 4, verse 1, I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. For Paul, this wasn't merely a negotiable thing. It wasn't a case of, well, you've become a Christian, now you can see if there are days in the week that you want to walk in the ways of God, and there are days in the week when you just want to do your own thing. Paul says, I urge you as a prisoner, as a man who has found himself in a prison because of his commitment to the things of God, I urge you to walk in a manner that is worthy of the life that you have in the Lord Jesus Christ. Chapter 5, verse 1, Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave Himself for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Walk as Christ walked, because He gave Himself for you and I. as an acceptable, fragrant offering to God, as a sacrifice that God would accept, as a sacrifice that God would receive, as a sacrifice that would satisfy God. You are here today because of Jesus Christ's sacrifice at Calvary 2,000 years ago. Now, my question to you this morning is, how are you going to walk in response to His love for you? What are you going to do because He loves you? What are you going to do? Chapter 5, verse 10. He says we are to try to discern what is pleasing to God. What is pleasing to God? This is how we are to live our life worthy of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are to live in a manner that is pleasing to God. Let's look at some general principles that Paul presents to us in this chapter about what is involved in actually living to please God. He states them both positively and he states them negatively. Look at verse 15. Look carefully then how you walk. He's calling us to actually think about the way in which we are living our lives. To live to please God requires us to actually think about how we live our lives. It's so easy in life to get into a rut. It is so easy in life just to get into a pattern of behavior. We have certain things that we do on certain days of the week. And that's, in reality, the only way we can live our lives. We can't be all hair and skin over the place. There is to be an order and a structure to our life. But that order and that structure can then result in a sense whereby we don't actually think about the life that we are living in that structure, where the structure becomes our life, where the order becomes our life, where our life is governed by the fact that we do this or we do that. And what Paul is saying is, you need to actually think, as a believer in Jesus Christ, about the things that you do in your life. You need to consider the way that you are walking in your life. And he says, we are not to walk as the unwise, but that we are to walk as the wise. Verse 16, we are to make the best use of the time that God has given us, because the days in which We live our evil. We are actually to think about the life that we are to live, and we are to make the best use of the time that God has given us. If our time on earth was at an end, God would take us to our eternal existence. Because our time on earth is not at an end, then God has prepared works for us to do. As He says in chapter 2 at the very end of that section, verse 10, For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God has prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Isn't it amazing today that God has prepared works for you and I to do? You and I actually have works that God has foreordained that we should do. Now, it says to the Ephesians, you need to think about the fact that God has prepared work for you to do You need to look carefully at the life that you're leading so that you can fulfill those works, and you have to think about the way in which you're spending your time so that you can maximize the potential you have for bringing glory to God and being to the praise of His glory. You only have one life to live, remember. You only have one life to live. And every second, and every minute, and every hour, and every day, and every week, do you live that life in an unthinking, unbiblical way, as a second, a moment, an hour, a day, a week, a month, that you are not fulfilling God's purpose for you on earth. And if you are not fulfilling God's purpose for you on earth, then you will not be happy. You cannot be happy as a believer in Jesus Christ, living an unwise life, wasting your time, doing the things that are wrong. He speaks positively of the need for us to live to please God. Verse 8, chapter 5. We are to walk as children of light. We know the truth. We are to walk in the truth. there is to be a positive reality about our lives. We are to walk as men and women and young people who are walking in the light of the Word of God. We are to take the Word of God. We are to think about that Word of God with our renewed mind and our renewed hearts. And we are to make decisions on the basis of what we read about how we are to live our lives. We are only to live our lives in a way that speaks of light. Verse 1. We are to be imitators of God. We must know who God is and we must then walk in love according to the image of what Jesus Christ has presented to us of His life. Verse 17. We are to understand, Paul says, what the will of the Lord is. We are to know what it is that God wants us to do. We are to establish what is perfect, good and right and we are to pursue that. Why are we to pursue that? because we are slaves of Jesus Christ, because He has brought us from death, because He has brought us from under the dominion of Satan, and because He has brought us from under that domination and that doom condition which we were in. Why am I speaking to you today as believers in Jesus Christ? Because that's who you are. Why am I urging you to walk a life that is worthy of the gospel of our Jesus Christ? Because Jesus Christ died to buy you to walk in that way. He didn't buy you to walk in a way that was blindness and darkness and unwise. He didn't buy you to walk in the way of the Gentiles. He didn't buy you to walk in the way of the pagans. He bought you to walk in the way of light, as imitators of God, walk in the way of love. He bought you to walk as a Christian. Negatively, he speaks of it in verse 7. Therefore, do not associate with them. Who is he speaking of them? the sons of disobedience. Why are we not to walk with those who are in darkness? Because, he says, we are no longer in darkness. Verse 8. Why would you walk with those who are in darkness, with those who are the sons of disobedience, when we are no longer in that darkness, when we are now in light? Verse 11. We are not to take any part in their unfruitful works of darkness, but instead we are to expose them. We are not to walk. with those who are in darkness. We're not to do what they say. We're not to think what they say. As the psalmist says in Psalm 1, blessed is the man who does not walk in the way of who? The ungodly. He doesn't sit with them. He doesn't talk with them. He doesn't stand with them. Whose delight is in the Lord. Verse 17, he says, Do not be foolish. Do not be foolish. Do not walk with those who are unbelievers. Do not talk with those who are unbelievers. Do not engage in their practices. Why? Because their practices are of ignorance. Their practices are measured by futility. He says in verse 17 of chapter 4, Now I say this in testifying the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding. They are alienated from the life of God. because of the ignorance that is in them, due to the hardness of their hearts. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. We are not to walk in the ways of those who are blind to the things of God. That applies to us all. Positively, we are to walk as children of light. Positively, we are to walk as immaterials of God. Positively, we are to understand the will of God. Positively, we are to discern what pleases God and we are to pursue that with a vigour. What is pleasing to God? God tells us very clearly what is pleasing to Him. The prayer of the upright man pleases the Lord. Proverbs 15 verse 1. Proverbs 15 verse 26. The thoughts of a pure man are pleasing to God. Romans 12, verse 1. Offering our bodies as living sacrifices to the Lord is pleasing to God. Philippians 4, verse 11. Supporting those who minister in the Word is pleasing to the Lord. Obeying your parents is pleasing to the Lord. Galatians 3, verse 20. Find out what pleases the Lord and pursue it. And the thing that is not pleasing to the Lord, you don't involve yourselves with it. I want to speak especially to the young people. You are particularly vulnerable and I am conscious that you are no longer children, that you are no longer 9, 10 and 11. I am conscious that you are growing up. I am very aware of the world that is out there, very aware as we shall see in a few minutes of the way of the world and its desire to destroy you. And I want to leave you in no doubt this morning that if you profess to walk in the ways of the Lord Jesus Christ, you must walk in those ways. You don't mess with the world. You don't engage with the world. You don't walk with the world. You don't talk with the world. You don't dance with the world. You don't drink with the world. You don't do what the world does. If you are a professing believer in Jesus Christ, then you must be an imitator of God. You must walk in light. You must not act as a fool. You must not say, I believe in Jesus on a Sunday, and then go out and do things with people who have no thought for the things of God on a Friday and a Saturday night. There is just no basis at all for you ever engaging in that way. And I'm telling you this now before you get drawn into this. I am well aware of the fact that some of you young women are growing up and there are not too many young Christian men in this land that we live in. And I'm aware, young lads, that you're growing up and you have a desire to meet a young woman. And there are temptations to go out there and to engage in the world and to participate in the world. But I'm saying to you from God's Word that that is foolishness. Therefore, do not be foolish. Do not do that which is against the will of God. If you want to have a life that's filled with misery and grief and pain, then you go that route. I can well remember as a young lad speaking or listening at the CUI And when I grew up in a rural congregation, and the young farmers, and there were three or four older young fellas and girls, and they thought, it's okay to go with the young farmers out drinking on a Friday night. We don't touch the alcohol, we just go with them. I can remember thinking, that's daft. I couldn't express it from Ephesians, but I thought, Why would you want to go and engage with the world? Those who pit the Lord Jesus Christ to death. Why would you want to sit with them? Why would you want to talk with them? What were you going to get with the darkness of this world? And I'll tell you today, there's none of those ones, none of those ones who are three or four years older than me that I know of involved in any sphere in the life of the church in Ireland. And it was the younger ones of us sitting thinking, this is wrong, who said, is that right what you're thinking? Is that right what you're doing? We're the ones that are involved in the Kingdom of Christ. It's too easy to say, I walk with Jesus Christ, and then to go out and dance with the world, and sing with the world, and drink with the world. I don't care whether you're drinking alcohol or not. That's not the point. The point is, you don't deal with darkness. You don't deal with ignorance. If you want to walk in the ways of the Lord Jesus Christ, if you say that Jesus Christ loves you, Jesus Christ died for you, then you uphold the name of Jesus Christ every day of your life. And if that means you live your life and you never get married, then God will love you and God will provide for you and God will care for you. And you may say, it's alright, for you, you're married. You've experienced it. I say to you, with all the love that I can muster, You stay away from the world. You stay away from it. You stay away from it. During my university days, I never went, every time I was asked, I never went to the bar. I said, guys, I don't do that. I just don't do that. I would carry them physically up the stairs of the house that we lived in when they'd come home drunk. I put them into bed. The end of University Bash, they said, Andy, you must come. You must come. And I said, OK, I'll come this once. Come this once. Went to the bar. Went to a party afterwards in the house. I sat there and I watched them as they got out of their nines and all sorts of substances. And there was one guy sitting, and he was probably the hardest guy of all, the biggest drinker of them all, and he sat there and he never drunk all night. I couldn't figure out what's going on. And Owen sat down and began to speak to them. It was amazing. Watching the rest of them going round 3 o'clock in the morning drinking dregs out of cans. He sat and he said, you know, he says, Andy, see all these guys, he says, they wish they could be like you. He said, I was like you when I was 16 or 17. He said, I was like you. He said, I went to everything in our church. He said, I was the guy. And they started to engage with the world. And he says, the only reason why I haven't drunk tonight is because you're sitting there and I can't drink in your presence. Because I know that's where I should be. That's who I should be. And I looked at him and I thought, I said to him, you're still a young man. You're only 22 years of age. He says, Andrew, the things that I've done in my life in the last three or four years, three or four years of his life, Brought up in a godly home. Taken to worship. Participated in the life of the church. And then he began just to engage in a wee bit. A Friday night, just go out with the mates. Then it would be a Saturday night. You can't play with the world. And I say to the rest of you as adults, you can't play with the world either. I'm not taking you to the young people. You can't do it either. You either walk as an imitator of the gospel, you either walk as an imitator of God, you either walk in the ways of Jesus Christ, or else you sell yourself to darkness and you pay the consequences. It's the reality of the truth. It's the reality. There is no in-between road. Because there was no in-between road at Calvary. And that blood flowed from the body, the broken body of the Lord Jesus Christ. That blood did not flow to buy us half out of hell. It didn't flow to buy us half out of darkness. It didn't flow to buy us half out of ignorance. It flowed to buy us out of all of that garbage and rubbish for all eternity. You can't do it. Look carefully then how you walk, not as the unwise, but as wise, making the best use of your time. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand the will of the Lord. Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit." Look what he says about our world. Verse 3. Sexual immorality. Our world is full of sexual immorality. It is absolutely full of sexual immorality. It's unbelievable. That court case of that young girl who wanted to wear that ring to say that she would not engage in sexual intercourse before she was married. And I happened to be in on a daytime program, a daytime program, nine o'clock, half nine in the morning, where they were discussing this. And one of the people on that show said she shouldn't have that ring on her finger, she should have that ring on the place that would stop her getting sex. Now you know what I mean. Do you know what the response was? They all laughed. They all laughed at the idea of that joke. Our world is destitute and it's filled with debauchery. It's filled with foolish talk. It's filled with crude joking. It's filled with all the filth of the world and are they happy? Are they happy? They are broken. They are broken. The world is broken. The world isn't a mess. Our society isn't a mess. Our young people, you just have to listen to the news and hear it. Hear what is being done to young men and young women in our society today. It's incredible the mess that our society is in. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is covetous has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ. You go out with them. You engage with them. You're messing with your internal inheritance. You need to get this into your heads. There can be no messing about with the world. There can be no messing about with the world at any level, at any age. We are to be holy and blameless. You cannot be holy and blameless and play at the edges. You can't do it. You cannot do it. It will have you it will destroy you and then it will spit you out. How can I be so sure? We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Chapter 6, verse 12. The world in which we live in is not purely physical. There is a huge spiritual dimension to it. We do not wrestle against darkness and ignorance that can be addressed by the pulling on of the electric light or the presentation of the truth of God's word. We are engaged in a warfare against rulers that are spiritual, that are powerful, that are evil and that are cunning. There are forces at work in this world on a day-to-day basis, forces that we meet and encounter but are unaware of, forces that are real, and they are powerful. They are not more powerful than Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ defeated them at Calvary, but they are more powerful than you and I. They are more powerful than you and I. And they are real. They have rule. They have an authority. They have power. And their one modus operandi is that of delivering and presenting that which is evil. Paul talks about it being a present darkness. He talks about the spiritual forces of evil. This is not good that we're not talking about here. This is not wholesomeness that we're talking about here. This is horrific evil. This is a reality that every one of us should be aware of. They are not out for your good. The spiritual forces of darkness are not out for your good and they're not out for my good. Why? Because we no longer are subject to their dominion. We are no longer under their authority. We are the enemy. We are the enemy and they want to destroy us. Their methodology is cunning. He schemes and he connives and we cannot stand them on our own. Why is it that there are not people flocking to the Church of Jesus Christ today? Because they are under the power of the evil one. And that power is real. Whatever addiction they are held under, they are held by that. They know not freedom. Whether it be addiction to work, addiction to pleasure, addiction to their garden, addiction to abuse, one abuse or another, addiction, whatever it is, they are held. And the one goal of our enemy is to destroy us. Now he can't destroy us because we are held in the hands of the Almighty, whose love will not allow him to destroy us, but boy, Can those spiritual powers, can they not affect our lives? Can they not affect our lives? And they can deprive us of the joy of the walk of the Lord Jesus Christ. And when I'm telling you and saying to you that you must look carefully to your walk. And when I say to you, you must not be a fool. And when I say to you that you must not walk with those who are in darkness. And when I say to you, you must walk in light and you must be an imitator of God. And when I call you to be wise, what I'm really saying to you is, do not expose yourself to those who would take you in In whatever way they want, take you in and then spit you out. And leave you in 10 or 20 years time looking back on your life and saying, what have I done? What have I done? What have I done? There can be no engagement with the world at all because these spiritual forces work through the world. These spiritual forces work through the darkness. These spiritual forces work through the ignorance. These spiritual forces work through the sexual immorality. These spiritual forces work through the foolish joking. These spiritual forces work through the impurity. These spiritual forces work through all that is wrong and evil. And they will work, and they will work, and they will work to draw, and draw, and draw, and draw, and draw you in. You have to stand firm. And the only way that you can stand firm is by filling your life with God. filling your life with God, putting on the whole armour of God, putting on the belt of truth, the blessed plate of righteousness, the feet that shod with the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and pray at all times for it. You have to put it on. You have to put it on. Because you cannot stand on your own. We're not talking here about some spiritual hypothetical issue. We're talking here about the reality of life and about your potential to enjoy life. We're talking about the decisions that you make each day of your life that will determine the level of joy and happiness in your life. And those simple, basic decisions have a profound effect on you, your children, your children's children, and your children's children. They have a profound effect on everybody around you. So when Paul calls us to walk in the light and to be who we say we are. When he calls us to be imitators of God, when he calls us to be wise and not unwise, when he calls us to shed light into the evil, when he calls us to be the people of God, then he is calling us to be the thing that is best for us so that we can be holy and blameless to the praise of the glory of the God who has saved us. And that's the reality. That's the reality. And each one of us, each one of us, have to make our choice. Where and with whom are we going to walk? With God and His Word, or with the world and the evil? You can't have a foot in both camps. Father, we thank you for the salvation that we have. We pray for us all that we, Lord God, would see that that was a purchase that was made at the greatest of costs and that we, Lord God, would give ourselves to walking in light and in truth and righteousness and to put off the ways of darkness and ignorance, futility, stupidity. We pray, Lord God, that you will help us, especially our young people whom we love. Lord God, we love our young people. They are so good. And Lord God, we never want to lose one of them in this church again. Not one of them. Lord God, not one of them. And now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.