[Transcript represents full sermon's text]

       Today we come to Ephesians chapter 5, and we're going to be going through verses 1 through 10. We've got a lot to talk about. We're going to be going through some different topics of conversation, and we've got plenty of cross-reference Scriptures to go over, so it's going to be quite the discussion. And let's go ahead and get into the text. I'll read verse 1 first, Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 1: “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children” (ESV).

       This verse has come up a couple of times, two or three times, as we've studied Ephesians so far. And that is that that's our ultimate goal as Christians, is that we're supposed to be like God. We say becoming more like Jesus is a common phrase we use. Of course, we have the perfect example, right? And that is Jesus. When Jesus came to the earth as a human and dwelt on the earth about 33 years, The Gospels tell us of his life, and we have the perfect example of what God wants us as people, as humans born again in relationship with him, the perfect example of what he wants us to be like, who he wants us to be like. When I think about Jesus, one of the first things that comes to my mind is humility. Let's look at Philippians chapter 2, and I want to consider verses 6 through 8. I think that ties in well, so we go over to Philippians. Paul says (and he's talking about Jesus): “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 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” (ESV). And that really encapsulates the whole thing, and especially for us with our sin-natures, we especially need to take this to heart because that's the thing we want to try to dissect that pride from our lives as we live out our lives.

       Of course, for some of us, that's a little bit more difficult than for others, but I think we all have that battle to some degree. And the point is that Jesus gave his life for us, and we're going to come back to that in this very message. And that demonstrates probably what we would call the ultimate attribute of Jesus of God himself, and that is love, right? The ultimate, the first commandment is to love God with our whole being, but then the second commandment is just like it, to love our neighbors as ourselves. That ties in to this whole idea of humility, because that's what Jesus did. That's what he did for us. He demonstrated that perfectly on our behalf. We've talked about humility, we've talked about love. Well, what's another attribute that can come to our minds? Let's look at Luke chapter 6 and verse 36 . This is actually Jesus talking. He says, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (ESV). So he's showing us that God is obviously merciful. He's the one who forgives us of our sins, even when we don't deserve it. Well, we're supposed to take that idea and apply it to others in our lives, right?

       People are going to sin against us. We talked about this last time. People are going to commit offenses against us. We are going to commit offenses against other people, and we have to, we want to, have that attitude of being merciful, of being forgiving. And we could try to summarize this whole little discussion we're having in Matthew chapter 5, and this verse probably came to some of your minds, Matthew 5:48, Jesus says, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (ESV). And admittedly, I was thinking about this as I was writing out my outline. Admittedly, this is not one of my favorite verses, and it's not because there's anything obviously wrong with the verse, but it's how my mind tends to read this verse, because it's probably a Western thing, and I'm sure it's not just me, but if we read it like you therefore must be legalistic, as your heavenly Father is legalistic, if we equate perfectionism with legalism, then I think we have the wrong idea. The idea I think Jesus is getting at is perfect in heart, right? That's what really God's all about. He has the perfect heart, and we want to have a perfect heart, so you therefore must be perfect when you think of it as your heart, as your heavenly Father is perfect, you must have a perfect heart as he has a perfect heart, then I think that changes the natural or improper focus that we overlay, some of us overlay, to Matthew 5:48 when we're thinking about this verse.

       Obviously, we've just considered the character of Jesus, humility, mercy, perfection , perfect heart. Well , there's another passage. We could go to Galatians chapter 5, right? We could talk about the fruits of the Spirit, because that's what the Holy Spirit works out in us, that fruit. Let's tap over there, and we probably have this memorized, but Galatians chapter 5, starting in verse 22, Paul says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (ESV). If we think of the fruit of the Spirit as attributes or characteristics of God's character, if we think of it that way, if we think of it that God is love, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, obviously has self-control, if we think of it like that, well then, if we are living right, The Holy Spirit is producing this fruit within us that comes out in our characters, and then we are being an imitator of God, right? That's another way we could look at it besides the Lord Jesus Christ's character.

       Anyhow, back in Ephesians chapter 5, let's consider verse 2. Paul says, "And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (ESV).

       Wow, so a lot is going on in this sentence. There, he kind of brings the love into the equation and walks in love. Obviously, as we all know or should know by now, love should be in everything that we do, right? And Christ gave us the perfect example of that. And he even said it to his disciples. If we go over to the Gospel of John and look at chapter 13 , let's look at verse 34. Jesus said, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (ESV). So there it is. In the most basic sense, Jesus is telling them plainly that what he is doing is out of love for them, and we're obviously to imitate that, to love our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, and really our fellow men. We could also look at John chapter 15, in verse 13. Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (ESV). So that's what Jesus ultimately did. That's what he's doing here in John, is he's going to the cross, and it's for the purpose of all of us, so that anyone can believe in his work on the cross, and therefore be saved from their sin and be reconciled to God. And Jesus gave the ultimate example of that.

       Paul will elaborate on that if we go to 1 Timothy 2, in verse 6, Paul says, of Jesus, “who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time” (ESV). There it is, the ransom. The idea of that word, it's the price paid to make us free. And what's the price he paid? Well, he sacrificed his life and death, right? That's what Jesus did. That's what that word would mean. And if we look at Titus chapter 2 and verse 14, again, Paul says, “who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works” (ESV). Doesn't get much clearer than that, right? So God is telling us why he has had Jesus die on our behalf . Gives us multiple reasons. It's to redeem us from all lawlessness. And it's so that our characters are pure. And it's purify as in the idea of sanctification, the idea of the ongoing process throughout our lives. It's not we become saved and then we become perfect. It's the ongoing process of this purification that takes place over our lives as we are obedient to God, to his word, as we seek to become better people. And the end result of that is we are zealous for good works. Now, again, that should change over time. Of course, when we become saved, we might be zealous for certain things. But I think that as we get older in the faith, we become even more zealous for good works. I think it's just the way it works as we grow in our characters.

       Now let's look at verse 3 of Ephesians chapter 5: “But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints” (ESV).

       Again, it's not that difficult. It's pretty simple. So Paul just lays out three things that we as Christians should not be found guilty of.

       The first one, sexual immorality. Now, he said that in multiple different places in his letters. We can think of 1 Corinthians chapter 6. We can think of Galatians chapter 5. And there are other places where we are not supposed to be sexually immoral. 1 Timothy chapter 1 coming to mind . And we know what that is. You know, fornication, having sexual relations with someone of the opposite sex outside of marriage. Two unmarried people having relations when they shouldn't be . And then adultery . That's somebody who's married having relations with somebody other than their marriage partner.

       Then he says all impurity. Impurity—that can cover different things. I mean, obviously coming to my mind is homosexuality, right? You don't want two people of the same sex trying to have a romantic relationship, trying to fulfill what God designed for male and female, but with two of the same sex. That doesn't work. That’s a type of impurity. And, I think we can think of some other types of impurity. I don't want to get too much into that, but I think coming to our mind is probably two, three, four other ways people can be impure .

       And then we have covetousness. So, greediness: whether that's with money, being greedy and that we're hoarding up money or we're spending way too much money or we're known for shady business practices or deals, business deals. Improper desire as relates to wealth, whether that be material possessions or monetarily. Somehow, either with possessions or money, a mismanagement in one way or the other. Probably more so in the area of too much, and not having the right attitude about those or about that money. And Paul will tell us elsewhere that the love of money is a root to all kinds of evil. We know that that's a problem. We know that that's something we should be avoiding. Paul says these three things must not be even, he says, “must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.” So no one in the church should be found guilty of these three things. That's really important.

       Now, Paul takes it a step down from that, but it's also with this serious tone in verse 4. Let's go ahead and read verse 4. “Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving” (ESV).

       It's our attitude towards others. We can either have that kind of holy, secular, pagan is probably a better term, attitude where we're corralling that poor, jokeful spirit, however you want to term it. We're not supposed to be like the people out in the world who we know are like that, right? We're not supposed to have that attitude. We're supposed to have an attitude of thanksgiving. And that means realizing what God's done for us, whether that be collectively things he's done for everybody, like saving us from our sins, our inheritance to come, which Paul talked about in Ephesians chapter 1, or whether it's stuff we know in our lives on an individual basis that he's done, or whether it's just generalities, like he's blessed me with these possessions, He's blessed me with this money. He's blessed me with a family. He's blessed me with good friends in Christ. Whatever it is, it's just having that recognition, that recognizing that there are things to be thankful for. You know, we don't want to be looking at bad things, at perverse things. We want to be looking at the good things. Paul told us elsewhere that we're to be thinking about that which is good. I believe that's in Philippians chapter 4. He also told us to do that in Colossians chapter 3. It's just having that right mindset. And in this context, he's talking about it in contrast to that crude, unholy, jokeful mindset. But for us, it's probably, I think we're relatively good at avoiding that. For us, it's probably going from a negative or pessimistic or depressed, even we might say, mindset to that thankful, gratuitous, full of gratitude mindset. That would be a cousin concept to this.

       Let's go to verses 5 and 6 in Ephesians 4. Paul says, “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” (ESV).

       Now he's drawing back to what he was talking about in verse 3 and in verse 4 too, but especially verse 3, he's bringing that background up. And it seems to be that the idea is the reason why we can't be found guilty of those three things I talked about in verse 3. For starters, he's saying that those who practice those things are not going to have any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. That's a big deal, right? Well, it's also in conjunction with that, that these people seem to be telling other Christians that what they're doing, their living and sexual immorality, if that's what it is, or their impurity of whatever kind it is, or their covetous attitude, that those things are actually not a big deal, and you shouldn't worry about that, it's not a sin, it's perfectly fine in this day and age, or it's my problem, let me worry about that, just leave me alone, kind of thing. Whatever that attitude is, Paul's saying that's not okay. Let no one deceive you with empty words, right? And I can think of at least one person right now that I know who claims to call himself a Christian, but he lives with his girlfriend and they're not married. And this has been going on for several years now. And I know that this person thinks it's not a big deal. He thinks that, oh, well, I can still be a Christian and have this going on. Guys, that doesn't work. It doesn't work for multiple reasons, but God doesn't view that, number one, as okay . That's what Paul's trying to tell us .

       This is a big deal in our day and age, I think, especially for us American Christians, us Evangelicals, even other groups. This is a big deal. And notice the strong words. He says, “ no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ in God.” That sounds to me like that person is not going to be in heaven when they die. Now someone might say, “Well, it says no inheritance, so maybe they'll be there, but they're just going to lose all that inheritance goods, all their rewards, when they die and go to heaven.” Well, even if that were true, why would someone want to trade all that for an earthly relationship that's going to end anyway? And a relationship of which, if the couple just got married, if it's the case of a guy and a girl, they could just rectify the situation right there. Now I understand there are people that are doing improper relationships, adultery, homosexuality, that stuff, of which there is no way and there shouldn't be a way to make that relationship right. There’s a proper way to live fulfilling those desires, and there's a proper way not to. And God says it's between a man and a woman and marriage. And we know that to be experientially true. I mean, it's just blatantly obvious. For the people we know in our personal life, it just is. I mean, we know that that's the way that works best. That's the way that produces children. It's not hard, guys. The other thing Paul talks about is, he says, “ because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.” Notice that word disobedience. And that's what this stuff is. That's what sexual immorality, all impurity, and covetousness are.

       And it's not just that God is arbitrarily prohibiting this stuff. It's that it doesn't work. It's not best for a person's life. And Paul brings up the wrath of God . And we remember, in Paul's famous book of Romans, the epistle to the Romans in chapter one, He spends a great deal of time talking about this and all the different sins people can commit and how God and his wrath have given people over. And that, that's not good. You don't want it to be where God is no longer trying to help you, trying to get you to come out of your sin. He just gave you over to your sin. Well, that's wrath, the Bible says. And Paul talked about this in Ephesians chapter 2. If we go up there to verse 3, scroll up here, he says, “among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (ESV). So there it is. It's the same stuff he talks about in Romans chapter 1. And it can be wrath now in this life and that God gives us over to whatever sin it is. But it's also wrath at the end. If we look at 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 and verse 10, let's read this. Paul says, he says, of Christians, “and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come” (ESV). There it is. It's crystal clear that there's going to be wrath to come. And we as Christians have been delivered from that. Why would we want to subject ourselves seemingly to that? I mean, we are not supposed to be part of the wrath of God.

       This is where we can get into the debate where if somebody is living in unholiness in these three areas in our context today, are they really a Christian? Because Christians are not destined for God's wrath, right? We are not supposed to be part of that. But Paul is telling us that that wrath is reserved for the sons of disobedience. We're not supposed to be like that. And the more we harden our hearts, if we're not a Christian, the more we practice sin, the more we harden our hearts, the more we risk getting to the point where we're never even able to accept the gospel, perhaps. I mean, sin is serious business because it hardens the heart. That's why a Christian doesn't want to be practicing it. Even if that person gets into heaven, even if it's like in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, where the person gets in, but it's the destruction of the flesh, but their spirit is saved. You still lose all your rewards for all eternity over an earthly relationship that could last 40, 50 years tops, probably. I mean, it's just sad. People don't think this stuff out. These rewards just aren’t a box of chocolates and a few other things. This is serious business. This is business that matters in eternity, that greatly affects our lives, our living condition, our quality of life, we might say, in heaven, etc., etc. People just, we really need to think this through.

       Let's go ahead and move on to verse 7 in Ephesians chapter 5. Here we go. Paul says, “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)” (ESV).

       There it is—no partnership with those works. That can also mean giving up people in our lives. That can mean giving up friendships. That definitely means for the Christian who's not married, that you're not going to marry somebody who's not identifying as a Christian who's not trying to walk out their life as a Christian. And that's just basic 101 Christianity, really. It's not hard. I mean, I would rather not have a spouse. I would rather be by myself the rest of my life than marry, try to marry someone who's not a Christian that would probably end up in divorce anyway. You know what I mean? Like, it just doesn't make any sense. If you're not aligned in your values and what you believe, why would you want to try to do that?

       And that includes friendships, too. Now, I'm friends in a casual way, in a light way, let's put it, with people who do not know Jesus. But I'm not going to have a deep-abiding friendship with someone who doesn't know Jesus because I can’t. I might be able to have an intellectual philosophical debate or talk with that person, but I'm not going to be able to be like best buds with that person because the most important thing in my life, my relationship with God, my belief in the Bible, that can't be shared. That friendship can only go so far. Not to mention, because that person practices sin, at least in some areas, that’s a problem, right? I don't want to be partnering up with that sin. So just stuff to think about. As Evangelicals, I think most of our churches do a good job at this. This is why we have home groups, small groups, whatever you want to title them. That's why we have those groups. Because it gives us an opportunity to be friends with, to be in fellowship with people, maybe our age, maybe older than us, maybe younger than us, who know Jesus and who are trying to live the life out as we are trying to live it out, being imitators of God. And I think it's just really important for the new Christian, especially to have to be getting connected in some type of group, some type of Bible study, so that they can meet people and try to live out their life with those people. That’s , again, basic stuff, but some people need to hear this. Some people don't quite grasp this. Maybe they're new to the faith or maybe they've been negligent in these areas . You don't have to have 50 friends. Even if you got three, that's fine. That's good enough. It doesn't have to be a massive amount of people.

       But Paul says, “or at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.” Paul says, “Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true).” Now, I'm going to pull out the King James Version of the Bible here off my shelf. Because I think this verse is a little bit clear, ironically, in the King James. Paul says in verse 9, “For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth.” That is definitely interesting how he calls it the fruit of the Spirit here. We've already been touching on that in this message. But I bring up the King James Version, because even if the ESV is technically more literally accurate, the idea is the same. The idea is that we're supposed to have that good, righteous character, like those things found in Galatians chapter 5. We’re supposed to have those things so that our works, that which comes out of our character, is good. So that we are doing good works. The fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true. Well, that's God, right? In the most simplistic form, that's God's character. And so that's what we're supposed to be doing, is being like God, and so imitating that which is good and right and true. And then our fruit, the fruit of light, will be actual fruit of light, will be good things that manifest from us because we are doing what we are supposed to be doing with our characters.

       Let's consider the final verse for today. It's going to be verse 10: “and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord” (ESV).

       There are basically two areas we do this, right? In the collective sense and the individualistic sense. So collectively, the church wants to try to discern what God wants that particular church to be focusing on. That might be certain missions opportunities, certain outreach opportunities, certain giving opportunities in the community. Whether that benefits Christians or even those who don't identify as Christian, whatever those things are, the church, through prayer, through discussion, wants to try to discern what God wants them to do, what is pleasing to the Lord. And of course, we hopefully understand this on the individual personal matter, that we're supposed to be doing this in our lives, especially with the big decisions. Little decisions like where I eat lunch, God really doesn't care for the most part where I eat lunch. And that's my freedom. That's up to me to decide. God's given me free will. He wants me to use that free will in conjunction with my brain to make good and wise decisions. If it's a big matter, like taking a job, moving to a different city, marrying a specific person, things of that nature, those types of big decisions, we definitely want to seek what the Lord's will is and those things—What is pleasing to the Lord— because God can see all different kinds of things. He has all different tons of data we don't have. I mean, again, we should know that. But when you state it, it might make it a little clearer. God can see all these different things that we can't see. We might only be able to see 5% of the 100% of God can see it all, right? And because he can see it all, he can help guide us into making correct decisions. Because we might think that this pathway over here is good, but there's one or two things God knows that if we go down that pathway, there's potential problems that we can't see, but God can see those possibilities. Well , that's why we want to include God definitely in those big things.

       We can look at 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 21 for all this. Paul says, “but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil” (ESV). We can see that if we're not sure about something, we can run a test, whether that's through the church doing that or the individual doing that. We can run a test and see if it's good. That's perfectly fine. If we do something and we lose our peace or we don't feel that good afterwards, eh, probably made the wrong decision there. Let's not do that one again. That wasn't the right decision. That's perfectly fine to test something. And we've all experienced that. I think we made a decision, but then afterwards it just didn't feel right. You know, we think, “I probably should have gone the other way on that one.” Well, next time, let's go that other way.

       And another thing, like in my own personal life, to just bring up some personal examples, just so you get the idea of this, like I can think of a couple instances with God where, I was either overworking, or not, this is kind of funny, sort of, not spending enough of my own money and enjoying my money. Those are two different matters where I felt, haven't felt right about that, and I felt like God was dialing back the work. He didn't want me to overwork, and he also didn't want me to be so conservative with my money. He wanted me to enjoy my money a little bit more because, after all, he's provided me with that. And I wasn't enjoying it enough. I was holding too much of it back and not spending enough. And I know to some people that might seem like, well, most people do the reverse. Well, maybe that's true. But I think there are some of us who, we probably should enjoy our money a little bit more. After all, we don't get to take it with us. It's not like our soul grabs our bank account when we're going to heaven and then converts it into heavenly cash or something. So just a couple areas in my personal life that I noticed along the way at one time or another where God was saying, hey, and I made correction in those areas. And that was trying to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. And I think we all get those feelings like when we are not doing something right. And that's good. That's not something to dread. That's not something to get upset over. That's the opportunity to make that correction.

       And it may be today that there are some of you, a few of you listening, where you feel like, well, I need to make a correction in that I don't even know God. I'm not even in a personal relationship with God. I don't even think my sins are forgiven. Well , anybody can make that choice today through their free will to come into a relationship with God through what Jesus accomplished on the cross through his death for our sins and resurrection from the dead so that we can have new life in God. Anybody can make that choice today. Anybody can choose to become a Christian, to choose to follow the Bible, to become an imitator of God, as Paul said at the beginning of this chapter. All one needs to do is simply just go to God in prayer and just tell him you want that. Sa:

I believe Jesus died for my sins. I believe he really rose from the dead, and I trust in that. For this personal relationship with you, God, I want to start this today. I want to give myself over to you so that I can have this new relationship with you.

It's the best decision one can make, and God will change you over time. Some things may happen instantaneously, but others may not, but the important thing is that we're now in fellowship with God, and we're on God's side, and we're working towards becoming imitators of God, becoming more like Jesus, as it's often said, and ultimately becoming pleasing to God, and then ultimately storing up rewards that we're going to later collect in heaven. It's tremendous stuff. And I encourage anyone out there who feels they need to make that decision to not be afraid to just go ahead and make that decision today.

- Daniel Litton