A Clean Life

Good morning, welcome to NHCC, please open your Bibles to Ephesians 5.

Read Ephesians 5:3–5- “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.”

Pray.

1. What must be put away?

These must not be named among you.

What Paul describes in the following six behaviors, he is calling for a complete annihilation of all of them.

How I parent. We make some allowances for what we deem to be an appropriate level of mistake.

We hope that God will view us the same way. But He doesn’t. Let there be none of this.

We find ourselves thankful for God’s mercy and forgiveness.

Sexual Immorality.

Illicit sexual behavior.

Sexual behavior that is not permitted or allowed.

So what sort of sexual relationship and behavior is allowed? What is spoken of positively in Scripture?

Marriage between a woman and a man and the sexual behavior that takes place between the two of them.

In one sweeping word that is translated as ‘sexual immorality’, Paul does away with every sexual behavior and relationship outside the realm of the marriage between a man and a woman.

Impurity.

Uncleanness.

Whatever it is that keeps you from being clean.

Whatever it is that keeps you from being what God desires you to be for His purposes.

Possible that even that which is good can cause a person to be unclean or impure.

Hebrews 12:1- “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,”

The misuse of that which is good.

Covetousness.

Greedy desire to have more than what has been given you.

We so often think here of money, but if we rightly understand all that we have as a gift, then greed and coveting reach far into other areas of life.

We can even covet another persons life.

Filthiness.

Obscenity.

That which seeks to offend, to cause discomfort or pain in another.

What comes out of us when we find ourselves hurt.

Foolish Talk.

Buffoonery.

Consider how the Proverbs speak of the fool.

Contrary to the wisdom of God. Living life the way it was meant to be lived.

Careless words.

2 Corinthians 10:5- “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,”

Crude Joking.

To easily turn, to easily adapt.

To become like that which surrounds something.

Behaving like a sponge.

The temptation to be one way when with some, and another way when with others.

What is Paul describing in all of these matters that are to be put away? He is ridding the church of that which will corrupt love.

He provides a contrast for his readers between a cultural understanding of love and a biblical or godly understanding of love.

Ephesians 5:2- “And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

Paul in v. 3-5 describes a love that is self-centered rather than self-sacrificial.

And here we find our own cultural descriptions of love.

There must not be a hint to be found.

2. Why must these be put away?

They are not proper among God’s saints.

Fitting, or becoming.

Saints- hagios, takes us all the way back to 1:1- Those who have been set apart for the purposes of God.

Do we live as though we have been called out of one world and into another?

They are out of place.

What Paul has been doing throughout chapters 4 and 5 up to this point is not merely stating that people shouldn’t do things because he somehow wants to limit their enjoyment of life, but instead Paul is reminding them that they have been called from one kingdom to another.

Kingdom of Christ and God.

We are called to be a part of God’s Kingdom with the same desires, the same ideals, the same character.

You no longer behave like a child.

Changing out the clothing of our kids.

Imagine we wait a few years and try to put them back in what they wore as children.

Any stranger would be able to look at them and see that something was off, that what they were wearing didn’t fit.

In the same way, to be a part of God’s Kingdom causes us to think and behave with the mentality and character of the King.

When we live in the indulgence of other foreign desires, we show ourselves as not a part of God’s Kingdom.

3. What if these are not put away?

You may be sure of this.

Notice the insistence here, the gravity or weight that Paul gives to v. 5.

This is serious stuff, and it cannot be weaseled out from underneath.

Use of the word “everyone”

How are we to understand these words? Are we to walk away without hope?

An idolator.

Those who are idolators have no place in the kingdom of God.

What is the mark of an idolator- one who has placed trust in anything other than God.

In the OT, false deities, pagan gods.

Today, anything. Self, income, status, wealth, etc. etc. etc.

When God has taken a backseat to something else, we have become idolators.

And those who live as idolators without repentance have no reward from God as they truly seek no reward from God.

No inheritance.

Not surprising, as these idolators are not children of God’s family.

4. How can these be put away?

Repent.

Come to grips with who you have been.

Psalm 51:1–4- “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.”

What is the mark of the idolator who has no part in God’s Kingdom? A lack of repentance, of seeing the sin in his life.

So we begin by honestly telling God that our sin is before us, that we see it, that we need to be cleaned.

Starving sin.

“Do not even think about it!”

Must not even be named among you.

Goes further than merely saying that you must not do something.

Paul is telling them not to give these sins an utterance in their lives.

Bryan Chapell- “We should remember that God made us as sexual beings who should long for one another within the bonds of marriage. What turns down the intensity of improper lust is starving it of improper fuel. Indulging sexual impurities of speech, thought and entertainment will feed the power of sin in our lives.”

Let there be thanksgiving.

Here is what we replace everything with.

Let your lives be full of thankfulness.

Let your words be full of thankfulness.

Think about these behaviors, in particular the first three, that are to be put away.

Sexual immorality, impurity, covetousness.

At the root of these sinful behaviors is a lack of trust in God.

And lack of trust so often stems from thinking that God is withholding something from us.

How do we combat the root of these three behaviors? By becoming thankful.