Obedience/ The whole counsel of God thru Ephesians 5

Certain things are unforgettable.

Some sermons change your life

We all stake our life on something. We all stake our life on what we believe.

What we believe influences how we act, how we behave, how we talk. Every little detail of our lives is based on what we fundamentally believe about life, about who God is.

Every single one of you here is a delegator of value. You place value on the things that you.. Value. You decide, im going to choose this, im going to choose that.

What we value is communicated not by our words, but by our deeds. What do you spend your time doing? Do you play x box? do you scroll on ig? Do you help the poor? Do you spend your time thinking of jokes and ways to be funny? Do you spend your time reading?

EVERY SINGLE ACTION IS A COMMUNICATION OF >> WHAT. WE. VALUE.

Every single message, I sit and consider what to speak on. Instead of preaching on topics I value. I ask God, Father, what do you value? and what parts of you have we undervalued? and my aim is to speak on the topics that we have undervalued SO THAT our list of values is exactly the same as GODS list of values.

Today, I am going to speak on something that I believe we have undervalued.

Ephesians 5:1–14 (ESV)

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 things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not become partners 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, it 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.”

BE IMITATORS OF GOD

We must imitate God. Its easy to imitate ourselves. To follow a human that is living for their own passions. Its easy to imitate our idols and role models. Its equally easy to imitate our own version of God. But to imitate God HIMSELF? That takes a true, supernatural work of the Holy Spirit.

Truth is what makes something beautiful. Our eyes have a way of surveying beauty. They are constantly taking surveys of the things in life we find beautiful.

How many of you ever saw someone and you thought they were gorgeous, then you talked to them and you were like wait ew. You liked what they looked like, but not who they were. There was an appeal to them, but when what you were appealed by was revealed, you saw that what appealed you wasn’t true. Appeal: the ability to attract. We all have an appeal. There are things about us that attract others to ourselves.

But I want to be clear, when we say that God is a God of beauty, we are not just referring to His appeal. We are referring to HIM. Not just what He looks like ——— but WHO HE IS. His nature, His character, His essence. ITS BEAUTIFUL

Before we talk about submission, we have to talk about truth.

Before we submit, we have to know what we are submitting to

Do you trust that His beauty is worth submitting to?

They turned away because they didn’t trust who He was. They turned away because they had a concept of who God was, but it was not who He really was. They had a concept of His beauty, but then when they realized He was different then who He appeared to be, they were like, ew, I can’t believe I was attracted to Him.

“His invitations to potential followers were clearly more costly than the crowds were ready to accept, and he seemed to be okay with that. He focused instead on the few who believed him when he said radical things. And through their radical obedience to him, he turned the course of history in a new direction” - David Platt

The things about God that were appealing to them, were different than who He really was.

WHOLE COUNSEL

Acts 20:27 “for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.”

IF WE DO NOT PREACH THE WHOLE GOSPEL, IT IS NOT THE GOSPEL. THEREFORE HAVING NO POWER TO TRANSFORM OUR LIVES.

Some of us wonder why we experience God in some areas of our life but not in others,

Some of us wonder why we walk in freedom in some areas and not in others

We might know the Gospel, but we don’t know His whole counsel.

“First, from the outset you need to commit to believe whatever Jesus says. As a Christian, it would be a grave mistake to come to Jesus and say, “Let me hear what you have to say, and then I’ll decide whether or not I like it.” If you approach Jesus this way, you will never truly hear what he has to say. You have to say yes to the words of Jesus before you even hear them. - David platt

We have lots of people come to us that say, teach us about prayer and worship. Im sorry, I dont like that question.

I CANNOT TAKE THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS I LIKE AND LEAVE BEHIND THE ONES I DONT. IF YOU CAME HERE, AND ALL WE TAUGHT ABOUT WAS PRAYER AND WORSHIP, THEN I FEAR THAT PRAYER AND WORSHIP WOULD BE OUR IDOL AND NOT JESUS.

THE GOAL OF BEING A CHRISTIAN IS TO BE CHRISTLIKE, NOT JUST TO BE LIKE CHRIST IN ONE AREA OF OUR LIVES, BUT IN EVERY AREA. If i teach on prayer and worship to those who do not know the full counsel of God, their actions will mirror the form of who He is but their hearts will not be like His.

SOMETIMES I LOOK AT CHURCHES AND IM LIKE AH MAN, THEY AREN’T REALLY WALKING BIBLICALLY, ITS NOT THAT WHAT THEY ARE PREACHING IS OUTRIGHT HERETICAL, ITS THAT THEY AREN’T PREACHING THE FULL COUNSEL OF GOD

ONE OF THE GREATEST MISTAKES A CHURCH CAN MAKE IS TO PREACH ACCURATELY ON A PORTION OF THE GOSPEL BUT NOT THE WHOLE GOSPEL.

APPLICATION

One of the greatest mistakes we can make is to try to live in the culture of a prayer room without living out the culture of Jesus.

Imagine someone wearing a wild fit. and youre like yo i want to dress like you, so the next day you show up and youre like, i dressed like EJ today, but the only similarity you were wearing was the same shoes, and everything else was different. Thats how many christians show up with christ. they are like look God! I look like you! but the only similarity is the shoes they are wearing.

Isaiah 66:2 ESV

All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.

It is critical that we walk with humility and contriteness. Its critical that we tremble at His word

You can stir thousands of people to excitement, but that won’t prepare them to preach the Gospel.

God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

The thing that makes us furthest from God isn’t immorality, its pride.

What would happen if almighty God.. Who made the heavens and the earth.. Opposed us

We must be humble, and heres the thing

I CAN’T HUMBLE YOU

I CANT MAKE YOU TREMBLE, ONLY A VISION FROM GOD CAN DO THAT

THAT YOU SEE HIM RIGHTLY AND.. REALIZE. THIS ISN’T ABOUT YOU

God we need you to humble us. Show us that this isn’t about us.

This is my favorite verse in the Bible right now

THE WORD BECAME FLESH

John 1:14 “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

When we are obedient to this we are not obedient to a book but to a person

So many people say I want to follow Jesus, but they never read this book. This book became flesh and dwelt among us.

You can claim to be following God’s voice but if its not in allignment with this book its not God’s voice its your own voice.

You would consider it rude to leave a friend alone who came to visit you: more so a friend who came from afar, why then do we neglect a God who came from heaven?

In the beginning of the summer, we had a meeting with our board of directors, we were enthusiastically sharing about our dreams and visions for prayer house. They looked back at us and said, you can plant hundreds of prayer houses across the world, you can do all these dreams you have in mind. But when you get to heaven, God will not be pleased with you planting hundreds of prayer houses, he will be pleased if you were wholeheartedly obedient to Him.

Those who have fallen

Ted Haggard · Jim Bakker · Bill Gothard · Tony Alamo · Ravi Zacharias · Bob Coy · Dave Reynolds · Carl Lentz · Doug Phillips · Jimmy Swaggart · Mike Hintz · Bill Hybels

Jerry Falwell, the founder of liberty university, and a former mega church pastor in Lynchburg Virginia, Called Bakker, "the greatest scab and cancer on the face of Christianity in 2,000 years of church history."

but then in 2020, Falwell jr. his son, ended up being disqualified for ministry by his own actions and sex allegations

2 Timothy 4:1–5 ESV

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

HERE IS THE KEY

1 Corinthians 10:12–13 “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”

God is faithful, SO TAKE HEED.

Death comes through assumption. Assumption that we are doing God’s word when we really aren’t

When God calls you, what is your response?

He asks us to preach the gospel and pray for the sick.

Have you ever thought? IF i go… And i pray.. For the sick… And they dont get healed, i am going to be misrepresenting God

I promise you. You aren’t misrepresenting God if you don’t see someone healed.

You're being obedient.

God is NEVER misrepresented by our obedience to His commands

I would even go so far to say that He is much more pleased by our obedience than He is by our performance

Be obedient, Give your yes to Him

In fact, the reason why you are here right now is because you gave your yes to Him, and if your idea was that you’d come on this trip and meet cool people and have a good time, and then do missions on the side, post a picture, and act like a missionary. You missed it.

I want to remind you that your yes to Him IS NOT just to incorporate HIM into your life, It was to fully surrender.

The tendency is that we have a lot of fun and a little bit of missions.

The devil is terrified that we actually surrender and live our lives all for Christ

I hear some of us use certain terminology that unveil what we believe. The Bible says, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. When someone asked us how encounter went, why is it that our first response is, good! There were 400 people there. But the more and more I read the Bible, I see that our metric for success is much different than Christ’s. The church doesn’t have some special anointing on gathering. The world gatherings much better than we do. We

In some ways i wish i could erase everything everyone knew about prayer and start over, because we've got it so confined to a religious activity that we've lost the fact that its actually like breathe. When he said pray without ceasing, he said do it all the time. All moments are good moments to pray.

Certain things are unforgettable.

If you dont leave this place and walk in obedience than this means nothing.

Some sermons change your life

Include deliverance ministry excerpt. We have deliverance ministry because we dont know how to worship

We all stake our life on something. We all stake our life on what we believe.

What we believe influences how we act, how we behave, how we talk. Every little detail of our lives is based on what we fundamentally believe about life, about who God is.

LETS PRAY

Ask yourself, Father, how can i be completely obedient to you. It could look like stepping out in faith to pray for the sick, it could look like evangelizing, it could look like having conversations you know you should be having, but it WILL ALWAYS LOOK LIKE FOLLOWING THIS BOOK

COMMUNION

Every single one of you here is a delegator of value. You place value on the things that you.. Value. You decide, im going to choose this, im going to choose that.

Philippians 2:7–8 “but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

What we value is communicated not by our words, but by our deeds. What do you spend your time doing? Do you play x box? do you scroll on ig? Do you help the poor? Do you spend your time thinking of jokes and ways to be funny? Do you spend your time reading?

EVERY SINGLE ACTION IS A COMMUNICATION OF >> WHAT. WE. VALUE.

Every single message, I sit and consider what to speak on. Instead of preaching on topics I value. I ask God, Father, what do you value? and what parts of you have we undervalued? and my aim is to speak on the topics that we have undervalued SO THAT our list of values is exactly the same as GODS list of values.

Today, I am going to speak on something that I believe we have undervalued.

Ephesians 5:1–14 ESV

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 things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not become partners 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, it 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.”