Ephesians 5:3-14
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Introduction: Tsutomu Yamaguchi
Worked at Mitsubishi Headquarters in Hiroshima Japan.
August 6, 1945 @ 8:15 AM
August 9, 1945 @ 11 AM - Nagasaki
It was like the mushroom cloud had followed me.
We had official entered the nuclear age - and the effects were startling.
Hiroshima is a collection of islands, and Yamaguchi had to cross a river to reach the train station. All the bridges had collapsed or burned, so he steeled himself and began crossing an apocalyptic “bridge of corpses” clogging the river, crawling across melted legs and faces. But an uncrossable gap in the bridge forced him to turn back. Farther upstream, he found a railroad trestle with one steel beam intact, spanning fifty yards. He clambered up, crossed the iron tightrope, and descended. He pushed through the mob at the station and slumped into a train seat. Miraculously the train pulled out soon afterward—he was saved. The train would run all night, but he was finally headed home, to Nagasaki.
Ill and swooning, Yamaguchi arrived in Nagasaki early on August 8 and staggered home. (His family had assumed him lost; he convinced his wife he wasn’t a ghost by showing her his feet, since Japanese ghosts traditionally have none.) Yamaguchi rested that day, swimming in and out of consciousness, but obeyed an order the next day to report to Mitsubishi headquarters in Nagasaki. He arrived shortly before 11 a.m. Arms and face bandaged, he struggled to relate the magnitude of atomic warfare to his coworkers. But his boss, skeptical, interrupted to browbeat him, dismissing his story as a fable. “You’re an engineer,” he barked. “Calculate it. How could one bomb… destroy a whole city?” Famous last words. Just as this Nostradamus wrapped up, a white light swelled inside the room. Heat prickled Yamaguchi’s skin, and he hit the deck of the ship-engineering office. “I thought,” he later recalled, “the mushroom cloud followed me from Hiroshima.”he exhilaration of seeing them wore off, Yamaguchi felt even more ill than before. In fact, over the next week he did little but lie in the shelter and suffer like Job. His hair fell out. Boils erupted. He vomited incessantly. His face swelled. He lost hearing in one ear. His reburned skin flaked off, and beneath it his flesh glowed raw red “like whale meat” and pierced him with pain. And as badly as Yamaguchi.
In our culture a nuclary weapon has been unleashed that is as deadly as those that have fallen on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Namely - sexual prevision.
In Joshua Harris’ book Not Even a Hint: Guarding Your Heart Against Lust He Argues that
“lust may be the defining struggle for this generation.”
Mohler, Dr R. Albert. Desire and Deceit (p. 28). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Previous generations faced the moral challenges of war, poverty, and pestilence, but this generation is absorbed in a continual cycle of lust and sexual gratification.
Paul moves from self - sacrificial love to the opposite - Self-indulgent sensuality.
He moves from a life that directly reflects God to a life diametrically opposed to God.
3 But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.
4 Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.
3 But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.
4 Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.
5 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.
6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
7 Therefore do not become partners with them;
Sexual immorality has no place among the people of God.
Sexual immorality has no place among the people of God.
Notice how the NIV renders this verse
3 But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.
eph
Sexual immorality (Gk. porneia) indicates a variety of sexual sins, including adultery, fornication, homosexuality...
Sexual immorality (Gk. porneia) indicates a variety of sexual sins, including adultery, fornication, homosexuality...
10,000 Sermon Illustrations Sexual Purity
Are we being desensitized by the present evil world? Do things that once shocked us now pass us by with little notice? Have our sexual ethics slackened?
Are we being desensitized by the present evil world? Do things that once shocked us now pass us by with little notice?
What this means is as a church we must constantly affirm a biblical position of marriage and sexuality.
As the people of God we must affirm that the word of God is our authority as it relates to marriage and sexuality. Culture doesn’t define what is ok - the word of God does.
The only legitimate expression of a sexual intimacy is between a man and woman in a marital relationship.
The moral revolution has attempted to erase every boundary. But the people of God find their truth not from the position of the culture but the proposition of the word.
It has no place!
We don’t participate in those things.
We don’t joke about immorality.
We believe that the sexual boundaries that God has established are good.
We must constantly affirm a biblical position on marriage and sexuality.
We must constantly affirm a biblical position on marriage and sexuality.
YOU are called to purity not promiscuity.
Why does God place boundaries - Here is the great lie of the devil. The reason God gives boundaries is because he is hold out on you. He dons’t want you to have the best.
Sexual perversion is incompatible with the kingdom of God.
Sexual perversion is incompatible with the kingdom of God.
5 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.
6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
7 Therefore do not become partners with them;
You cannot practice perversion and participate in the kingdom.
You cannot practice perversion and participate in the kingdom.
4 Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.
5 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.
6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
7 Therefore do not become partners with them;
9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,
10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
eph 5
The moral revolution promises a blessing but it brings a curse.
1 corin 9-10
This doesn’t bring freedom - it brings bondage!
The please of sin is passing but the price is eternal.
I am not saying that believers don’t sin in this area. I am not saying that believers dont struggle in this area.
Holy living flows from a transformed life.
Holy living flows from a transformed life.
8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light
9 (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true),
10 and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.
11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.
12 For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret.
13 But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible,
14 for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
eph 5:
We must constantly affirm a biblical position on marriage and sexuality.
We must constantly affirm a biblical position on marriage and sexuality.
sexual sins, including adultery, fornication, homosexuality
As the people of God we must affirm that the word of God is our authority as it relates to marriage and sexuality. Culture doesn’t define what is ok - the word of God does.
Gk. porneia
The only legitimate expression of a sexual intimacy is between a man and woman in a marital relationship.
Anything else is incompatible with the kingdom.
We must consistently reject sexual perversion of every form.
Why because the consequences
A purified people
The Christian sexual ethic is absolute! There is no room for innuendo.
The statistics are truly frightening. According to industry studies, 70% percent of 18-24 year old men visit pornographic sites in a typical month.
Deeds of darkness have no place among
Deeds of darkness have no place among
3 But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.
4 Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.
5 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.
6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
7 Therefore do not become partners with them;
eph 5:3-
3 But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.
4 Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.
5 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.
6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
The saints of God are to be set apart from the practices of this world.