15-Ephesians: “Become Imitators: Why Grace Never Cancels the Commands” | Ephesians 5:1-7

Chapter 1: Welcome and the comment that started it all

Hello. It's good to be back. Welcome back. Yeah, for those of you that were gone last week, I was gone as well. Um, we we decided that it was time to go on a vacation.

And while I was on vacation, I prepared some of our YouTube shorts in advance from this message that you may remember from several weeks ago. The reason why this matters is that this last Monday, I received a phone call from my oldest Emma letting me know that somebody was not too happy with me about a particular short. In fact, this was one of those those comments that had swear words in it. It led with the fact that I should stop teaching and so forth. Now, some of you might be peing this might be peing your interest.

What could be so foul and vile that would elicit such rage from someone who appears to be a believer in Christ? Well, I'm just going to show you the short and then you'll see how this relates with today if it'll go. Well, the commands, that's Old Testament stuff. Uh the New Testament is full of commands. [music] Full of commands. But the thing we need to understand about these commands is because we have the Holy Spirit, we've been given the power and the ability to fulfill those commands, to live those commands, to be true [music] to those commands.

Stunning, right? I hear you all gasping. How dare he? Now, to be fair, for most of us in this room, if you've been sitting under my teaching for any length of time, you're like, there's nothing really crazy about that. But what this individual struggled with was this idea that the commands still held weight in the life of the believer.

Now, why is this? Because if you've never experienced this, this won't make sense to you. There are whole churches, whole church movements that are out there that will tell you that if you do not obey the commands, if you fail at a command, you are damned to hell. That there is no hope for you that you will lose your salvation.

Chapter 2: The commands have never saved anyone

Now, if that's what you've grown up with, [snorts] rage makes sense. The problem is is that is a lie. That is not truth. The truth is that the commands have never saved us. There has never been a time in history where the commands have saved anyone.

What they do is they let us know that we're not worthy, that we're not good enough. But beyond that, and what we're going to see is they show us how we are to live. And the thing is the New Testament commands remind us this on a regular basis. Every year for the last six years, I have preached our purpose, mission, vision series that reminds us that we are to love God and love people. Family, this is a command.

This is what our God wants us to do as his children. He wants to show us how to live. And again, the New Testament is full of these things showing us how we are to live and things that we are not to do. And that's going to directly relate with what we're talking about today. And that's going to make more sense here.

But just to give you a little bit of a sample of just some of the things that we've taught here at Sunrise over the years to help you understand in Philippians 4:6, we're told to be anxious for nothing. This is also a command. Romans 12:2, do not be conformed to this world. Galatians 5:16, walk in the spirit. 1 John 2:15, do not love the world or the things of the world. Colossians 3:5 that's going to relate with today because Paul writes these books around the same time put to death the members which are fornication uncleanness passion evil desires covetousness which is idolatry right the old the new testament is full of commands now these again are but a sample so the question is if the new testament is obviously full of commands why did this person get enraged And it's because of what I had mentioned.

It's because of false teachers, false churches teaching these things only to bring about control over people. That is what all of that is for. That is what the Pharisees did back in the first century and is what these churches do to this day. But here's the thing that we have to understand. We do not change nor can we change truth because someone has told a lie.

What we do is we preach truth. In this book, Ephesians has helped us with this because where does salvation come? Salvation is by God's grace. It is by grace that you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

As we regularly summarize this here at Sunrise, salvation has always been by God's grace alone through faith alone. Amen. And and we know this because when we go back to Genesis 15, we see and he that is Abraham believed and that was accounted to him. It was credited to him as righteousness. That is rightness with God.

It has always been that way. When we look at the Ten Commandments, what they do is they show us how we are to love God and how we are to love people. So this begs the question again, [clears throat] what are the point of these commands? And it is to that point that we are not to. And this is one of the things I love to say because I've had people in this church tell me that the commands are no longer relevant.

Now, I'm going to dispel this immediately by something that you all know, but you've not necessarily thought about it this way.

Chapter 3: Did the resurrection cancel the commandments?

Okay? Has there ever been a time after Jesus went to the grave and was resurrected, having been crucified, where God is now okay with us using his name in vain? How about is there has there ever been a time post resurrection where God has been okay with us lying to one another? How about stealing? How about bearing false or bearing false witness?

Being covetous? How about stealing? How about committing adultery? Has there ever been a time post resurrection where God's been okay with that? The answer is no.

In the same way, we are not to have other idols. This is another one of those things. And we wrestle with this on the regular. And the thing is a lot of the commands when you look at the commands of the New Testament through the filter of the Ten Commandments, you will see them being reflected. Let me give you an example.

This is one that's going to cause some people in this room a difficult time because this has been a kind of a regular thing. Every time I bring this particular one up, we struggle with it because as we're going to see throughout this message, we struggle because our world tells us one thing that's in conflict with the Bible. And what it likes to do is say, "Hey, you know what? It's okay in the world." So therefore, it's okay for you who are Christian to do that very thing. So I

Chapter 4: Anxiety, idols, and the fight of faith

already mentioned this one from Philippians 4:6 that we are not to be anxious for anything. Being anxious for nothing. Family, if you are anxious, that is a sin. Now this again struggles with people because they're like, "No, but I'm a victim of anxiety." You are, if you are a believer in Christ, you are more than a conqueror. Amen.

We are never and will never be victims unless we allow ourselves to be victimized. Right? That is a promise of Romans 8. We are more than conquerors. So when we have the right attitude, yes, this thing vexes us.

Yes, we battle with it. You're staring at a man who's battled with this his entire life. And I recognize it. I recognize it as an enemy. I do not normalize this thing.

It is not my friend. It is a deity in my life that desires to rule me and keep it as its slave and if I hold it up in any other way as we so often do then suddenly it becomes my god and I violate you shall have no other gods before me. This will not be my god and I will fight it till the day I die. I will continue to fight this thing. And this is the thing with so many of these commands.

Our God desires us to walk in his ways. Now again, let me reiterate. Just because you may struggle with anxiety does not mean that you are not saved. It does not mean that you have lost your salvation. What it means is that you're not necessarily living in the way that God desires you to live.

What do we define sin as? Anything we think, say, or do that displeases God. You think God is happy with any of us living in anxiety? No. Just like he wouldn't be happy with us living in any other sin, he does not desire that for his kids.

So why does this matter? This matters because this reflects today. In fact, Paul is jumping right into six more commands for believers in Christ. And the thing that we have to continue remember as believers in Christ, we are aliens, right? We're different than the rest of the world.

We're to be in this world but not of this world. Jesus came into this world and immediately he was set apart. And so we remember what do we call ourselves today? We call ourselves Christians.

Chapter 5: Be imitators of God, Ephesians 5:1

What does Christian mean? It means little Christ. We are to be imitators of Christ. as we jump into Ephesians 5:1. Therefore, be imitators of God as dear children. Now, this is the thing that's so incredibly powerful about this this word be right here.

It's like, hey, do this, be this thing. But if we were to translate this the way that the Ephesians would understand it, it would be more become imitators. This is that we talked about sanctification. It's that process of becoming a thing. Romans 8 again says we are to be conformed into the image of Christ.

We are to become imitators of our God. That is to become more and more and more and more like a God. Which means who you are today is not ideally who you will be tomorrow and next week and the month after and the year after that. We are to be continuously becoming more and more and more like our God. This is a process family.

It is a process that we are in. Now Paul says that we are to be in the process of becoming imitators of God. That is what we are to be doing. Now when we hear that word imitator, our society has kind of changed this word to be negative, right? You got imitation crab, you've got imitation leather, you've got imitation butter.

I mean kids today would understand this as like the timu version of the real thing. [laughter] That's not what Paul is saying. He's not telling us to be the timu version of God. More what this is like is this picture, which is ideally how families are to run. It's the child mimicking, watching, imitating the good behavior, the good work ethic of their parents, how they deal and treat with people, how they work, the work ethic that they have, how they worship God, how they read their Bible, all of the different things. We as parents are to be examples for our children who begin to imitate us and become more and more and more like us as they themselves become adults.

And that is this picture. Which means we need to know what it is to look like our God. And that is perfectly shown in the picture of the Lord Jesus Christ who indeed is God himself who came to this earth who lived this perfect life. And we get to see how it is that he interacted as a human being and yet did not sin. He is our example.

And we look at that example and we continue to move in this direction. And we look at these commands not as things to take salvation away from us but to point us how we should be and how we should walk in love.

Chapter 6: Walk in love, Ephesians 5:2

Walk in love as Christ has also loved us and given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma. Now what did Jesus do in walking in love? Well, we see him healing people. We see Jesus feeding people. We see Jesus sharing the gospel with people.

Now, obviously, short of a work of the Holy Spirit, we're not multiplying fishes and loaves and we're not healing people. That certainly can happen and has happened. But we can still feed people and we can still share the gospel with people. We can do many of the things that Jesus did and exampled for us. But we keep in mind this truth about Jesus.

That ultimate element of love that he showed that greater love has no one than this than to lay down one's life for his friends. Family, this is so countercultural to our society right now, which is so self-centered and so self-absorbed. This idea that rather than focusing on yourself solely that you are pouring yourself into others is being more like God than being more like the enemy. Again, it's a beautiful view of what it is that we are to be doing of loving God and loving people. Jesus exampled this for us perfectly.

You want to walk in love, then live out the commands. Live out the commands. You're not lying. You're not cheating. You're not stealing.

You're not doing the covetousness. You're treating God with love and respect. But we see this also from the Apostle Paul to the Galatians. I say, "Walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh." This again, walk in the spirit is another one of these commands. And you're like, "Well, what does that mean?" We talk about it here a lot.

Paul says, "Love, joy, peace, longsuffering." What in the world is this thing's like going crazy? Oh boy. There we go. Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Now, when I read these, some people get stressed because they realize that they're not perfectly living these things because again, many of us have grown up in the church thinking and fearing the boogeyman that's behind us watching us and saying, "If you're not doing this perfect, you're out." But again, that is categorical nonsense.

That is not what our God is doing. Now, does that mean that our God can't be disappointed in us? Of course, our God can be disappointed in us. But it doesn't mean that he casts us out of the family because we didn't live it perfectly. As we're going to see here in just a bit, our God does indeed chasen.

He disciplines those he loves. But again, this is the process again of being. This is the process of becoming these imitators of our God family. We are in process of becoming these imitators of Christ who perfectly exhibited these. This is not something to be stressed out about.

This is a journey to be enjoyed. I I'll tell you what, as I was going through this, this is one of those things where your pastor was having moments where I'm like, "Oh, I failed at that one recently." But one thing I'm catching, this is one of the most amazing things. And you can talk to that. I don't know if my family's necessarily noticed this. This brand is a bag of cats.

Like, if you knew what was going on up in here, you would blush and you would be like shocked. But then if you knew where I came from, you'd be like, "Oh, okay. I totally understand it." And this is where the becoming comes up so much more is I'm catching myself not saying the thing that comes into my brain. And some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. You come up with something and next thing you know it's out and you're like, "Well, that's out in the world." And I'm finding myself holding my tongue so much more and not saying the thing that came to my mind and handing that over to God.

And I'll tell you what, it's been amazing. I'm becoming more like Christ. Now, we begin, we begin to recognize that we are to become what we're to become as believers. But we're also going to see Paul's going to include some things that we're not to be. He continues, if my clicker will click, it's got fresh batteries.

It's being

Chapter 7: What fornication meant in Ephesus, Ephesians 5:3

difficult this morning. But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting with the saints. Now, this word for fornication, this is one of those words that we don't use very often because it's a big churchy word, but it's a very common word. It has a very common meaning for for the Ephesians. They would have heard a word that was very similar to a word for pornography.

It was a word porna. And it meant something to them. Well, the original thing meant something. It was it was more like it had to do with sex that was purchased. So, we call that prostitution.

But also sex outside of marriage. This is what they would have understood that word to be. But by the time Paul is writing this, it be had become an umbrella term for every kind of sexual activity that was outside of marriage. So not only prostitution, not only sex outside of marriage, but adultery, incest, homosexual acts and things that should not be mentioned in pleasant company. So think of any kind of sexually deviant behavior for fornication was something that would they would have been known.

They would have known they would have understood. Now this is why this matters to Paul's audience and it also matters to us in the Ephesian culture. There was no more shame to going to a brothel, like to a prostitute, than there was to going to a tavern to get a drink. It was just part of normal culture. And you're like, well, that's not the case in our culture.

Well, it is in certain states to the west. But there are other things that we've normalized and that we've said is totally fine, at least to a large degree, the aforementioned pornography. Now, this is what I'm about to share is something that is a little bit difficult because I would love to say that the church is set apart in America from the rest of the world. But some studies I've seen when it comes to divorce were equal. In some other studies, we have a higher rate of divorce in the church than in the world.

And so then when the Barna Group came out with a study in 24 that showed that 54% of Christians look at least casually on occasion at pornography versus 68% of non-Christians. This didn't entirely shock me. It saddened me, but it didn't shock me because pornography in our society is becoming more and more and more normalized. Now ladies, you would hear that 75% of Christian men casually look at pornography, but would you believe that 40% of Christian women do as well? And that's where that 54% comes from.

Now, why does that happen? Again, because the voices and the words that are around us tell us these things are okay. They're normalized. And yet, what they are is something that a Christian should not be part of, that Christian should not have in their life. Now, here's the thing.

Paul goes on and says, "This stuff, these things that he's saying should not be named among you." Like, now this doesn't mean I need to do a better job of hiding it because that's where we usually go. I know a lot most of us are older than junior high, but we fall back into junior high brain pretty quickly. Well, as long as people don't know, it's okay. Here's the thing you need to understand. Our God always knows.

And again, he's not kicking you out of the family because you did this thing, but expect he will chasen you for it because he wants you to imitate him. And guess what? Jesus didn't involve himself with fornication or any of these other things as we continue on with uncleanness. Now, this is anything that is not of God. Again, this is the opposite of God.

This is unholy versus holy. Anything that is opposite of God. Here's an example from uh Galatians 5. This leads into the fruit of the spirit. Now the works of the flesh are evident which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lwdness, idolatry, sorcery, which again I love to mention this one.

This word sorcery, we think of Harry Potter. This is where we get a word pharmacy. Our country is obsessed with pharmaceuticals. Obsessed with pharmaceuticals. foreigners come to America and see all of our ads and hear all of the things that we are on and they are shocked by the things that we are putting into our bodies and then hatred and contentions and jealousies and outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions and heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revalries and the like. And here's the thing, a lot of us will hold on to that and go like, "Well, I'm not a murderer.

I I'm not a drunk. I don't even know what a revalry is. But my guess is there's some things in there that probably do relate with those of us in this room to one degree or another. And again, these are things that we should not have in our lives because they are anti-God. They are not him.

They do not reflect him. Now again, I'm not saying you lose your salvation. What it is is it says, "Hey, this is a thing that I can remove from my life so that I can become more like Christ." and you're like, "Well, my thing is not on that list." But then I point out and the like. I love that Paul did this because that's another thing where our junior high brains come in and say, "Well, it wasn't said, so I'm good." But if it doesn't line up with God and the character of God, you know, it's there.

Chapter 8: Insatiable greed

It's that and the like. And it is to be removed from our lives. And Paul then said as we get back into Ephesians, covetousness, this is greed. This is insatiable greed. If you don't know what insatiable is, that's greed that cannot be satisfied.

No matter how much you get, it's not enough. And all of us have seen those people. You know, I remember hearing this. I can't I'm not going to attribute to the rich guy because I think I know the rich guy, but I could be wrong. But it was this general idea, this super rich guy, one of the richest guys back, I think it was just before World War II, how much is enough?

And he said, $1 more. And it was always $1 more. It's that insatiable greed that we can have. And the thing is is many of us get that in different areas of our lives. And so we check it against this and ask ourselves, is this me?

And if it is, we lay that down at the foot of the cross and we become imitators of our God. Now, to summarize what we just saw in these in verse three, Paul has addressed what we do or whether not what we're to do, what we want, or what we should not want. Now, we're going to move into verse four, and Paul is going to address what we say and what we laugh at. I'm

Chapter 9: What we say and what we laugh at, Ephesians 5:4

just going to tell you right now, this is really going to hit a lot of us really hard because it's like, oh, you deal with the sexual stuff and things like that. Okay, that's really taboo. But then when we deal with the things that we talk about, a lot of us are much more okay with the things that come out of our own mouth. So Paul continues on in verse four, neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor coarse suggesting which are not fitting, but rather giving thanks. This filthiness is shamefulness or obscinity which is disgraceful and which is ugly.

This is indecent obscene talk speech that trades in what should should cause a shame that we just are not shameful over it. This is the first century equivalent of a mouth soaked in sexual crudeness. Sound familiar to any workplaces you might have been involved in or been around? Now, an extension of this that we also know is this foolish talking. Is this foolish talking?

Now, what's fun about this one is when you read foolish, you're like, ah, okay, well, at least I'm not a fool. It sounds kind of benign. It's like, you know, I can do that every once in a while. But the root word for this is where we get a word So, what Paul is saying is don't be about moronic talking. Now, how does this relate though biblically speaking?

Because what Paul's talking about, he's not talking about intelligence. He's not talking about IQ. What he's talking about is a person who is talking as though God's not present, that God's not there. And maybe if you had somebody say that to you before, it's like, would you say that if your mom were here? Because how easy for us is for us to pause and go and not realize and understand, well, you know, God's here.

But we can so easily push out the fact reality that God is here. What changes when we actually think about the fact what we're saying in that moment? Our God is right there present with us. And again, not that he's going to cast us out because of the words that we say because this is where we invoke grace. Well, you know, God's okay because grace.

It's like, no, we ask ourselves if Jesus were to walk into this room right now, would we say those things that we say behind closed doors to certain people? That is a metric that we ask ourselves. How would we say? What would we talk? This is not stupid talk.

It's godless talk. Conversation conducted entirely again as though God didn't even exist. That he wasn't even present. But this has implications for us in our world today. Maybe you've seen some of this talk, that group chat that runs all day and says and settles really nothing.

Maybe you've seen a podcast that went on for hours with men confidently saying nothing. outrage cycle that consumes a week or a month or a day or an hour and really accomplishes nothing. Breakroom talk about people who are famous about being famous leading to nothing. It's talk that has no weight. It has no substance. And Paul is saying weightless talk is not fitting for God's kids.

That is not how we are to be. And then he goes and he really begins meddling because he says we're not to be about courseing. Now what's difficult here is that the English we use here makes us think of things that we might agree with like oh this must be talking about that R-rated comedian that's really huge on Netflix right now. But that's not I mean it yes but that's not entirely what Paul is talking about. What Paul is addressing is quickwittedness which both in Greece of the time and in modern American culture is really treated with a level of respect is uplifted.

We love the person who can just quip these little witty things and and this is this is what I mean and this is something again that hit me really hard because this is the world that I grew up in. You're standing around with a bunch of your friends. Someone says something very innocent and then that's what she said. That's what Paul is talking about. Something that simple and that benign is coarse chesting.

We who are believers again you ask yourself if Jesus was the person who had that thing slip out of his mouth would you say that's what she said? Probably not. and ask yourself, if it's not meant for the ears of the savior, is it meant for the ears of anyone? Paul continues to say, "This is an example of what is not fitting. Instead, what the believer should be about is about giving thanks. This should be what is coming off of our lips." And I'll be honest, this one can be so difficult for me.

It's so much easier for complaints to come up, difficult situations, trials, and tribulations of this world. You know, I had a fun experience with a brother that was at our church in Oregon. I got to talk with him briefly last week, and I was standing there with his son-in-law, and he asked, you know, how are things going? And, you know, I shared with him a little bit and difficulties and things like that. And I said, "How about you guys?" He's like, "You know what?

Life is good. I am blessed beyond belief. I mean, I there I have there's no reason why God should be so good to me and to my family. And then his son-in-law pipes up, yeah, like your house burning down. But it wasn't even in the front of his mind.

This brother was so in tune with the Savior that the thing that came off of his mouth was how blessed he is. regardless of all the trials and the tribulations and the struggles which I know are there. His first thought was how good God is and he was giving thanks. Now what comes next is where so many believers trip up because we don't understand that Paul is not talking

Chapter 10: Who has no inheritance in the kingdom, Ephesians 5:5

about us as believers but an entirely different group of people altogether. as he continues in verse 5, for this you know that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man who is an idoltor has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ in God. Now, we're not going to go back over the fornicator, unclean person, covetous, and such because we just talked about that. He's like, people who live in the way that we just talked about, those people have no place in the kingdom of God. So we have to address who is Paul talking about when he says that they have no inheritance in the kingdom of of Christ and of God. Now here is this is how we know again that there's two groups of people because Paul is writing to the Ephesian church.

And if we go all the way back into chapter 1, we see Paul talks about people who have an inheritance in the kingdom of God. And it's this. In him you also trusted. This is Ephesians 1. After you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession to the praise of his glory.

Now, last time I checked, God's guarantee is guaranteed. God's guarantee is eternal. God's guarantee is not contingent on you or me or we. God's guarantee is. When God seals us, he does not break that guarantee.

We are sealed by the Holy Spirit of God who is himself God. And the only person who could break that seal is God himself. And he has said, "I will never leave you, nor will I forsake you." Our God has made that promise. So what Paul has been saying is because you are God's kid, because you are saved, because you believe, because you have been redeemed, live like it because of what Christ has done for us. Live like it.

Be imitators of Christ. Stop living like those who are separated from God, who have no hope, who have no inheritance. rather start and continue living more and more and more like we're actually saved children of God. We've say this, we hear this. We've said this as parents, we've heard this as kids, look, you're a grown-up, act like it. Most of you that are approaching adulthood, you're going to go through that struggle.

There's been many, many young people, I mean, I I it never never ceases to be humorous to me when I've got someone who is legally an adult who's like, I'm an adult, right? Act like it. I'm a believer. Act like it. Live like it.

Be it. Now Paul continues,

Chapter 11: Let no one deceive you, Ephesians 5:6

okay, we're gonna get there. Let no one deceive you with empty words. For because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. This let no one deceive you with empty words. These deceivers here that Paul's talking about, these are not believers in Christ.

These are not believers in Christ, but those who were telling the Ephesians that they should Yeah. go ahead and accept this Christian thing, but feel comfortable with just living like the rest of the world. You've probably as a believer in Christ had that happen in your life. Look, you've got freedom. You've got grace. Enjoy life.

You got your fire insurance. Enjoy life. Do whatever you want. Don't incur the wrath of the world. Just give into it.

Accept it. Enjoy it. Nothing's going to happen. Now, they're saying that to you because they don't believe God exists anyway. They believe that this world is all we have.

They believe that a grave is coming where you're just going to rot in that grave and you're going to be in darkness, no longer existing whatsoever. So, you might as well enjoy this life right now. Do not let these people deceive you. Amen. Live like our God has instructed.

Live like our God has commanded. And part of this again is not something that is new. Paul was dealing with this in this time. So when Paul's writing Ephesians, he al would also write Colossians and Philippians. He would also write Romans.

All within like a few years span of each other. And he was dealing with stuff in the church that was trending this general direction. One of the things he dealt with with the Romans was this idea that well, you know, God has given us grace. And again, remember that middle school mind that I told you about earlier? It's existed for millennia.

That's thousands of years. Because the Romans had in their mind, well, if God's grace came because of sin, maybe if we sin more, we get more of God's grace. Does that not sound like a junior higher to you? And also some adults that you might know. And so, this is how Paul addresses this.

He says, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue to sin that grace may abound? Now, I didn't get the slide in here, but guess what the next two words are in verse two? Certainly not. That is not who we are to believe be as believers in Christ.

Now, we do not continue to sin because of the grace or more grace. We stop sinning because it's the desire of our God that we not sin. And I pray it's our desire to become more and more imitators like Christ. and to not sin. Now again, what about this whole like wrath of God comes upon the sons of dis disobedience. Well, first ladies, I want to make sure that you understand this is all inclusive.

This is humanity. It's not just the guys. This is something that we all face. But the thing we need to understand is that this wrath of God is coming for these sons of disobedience. They may boast now that they're facing no wrath because they don't see the wrath of God.

But it is coming. But what about believers? Well, it's important for us to understand that God did not appoint us to wrath. Right? We as his children will not face the same kind of wrath that those who reject Christ are going to face.

But the thing that we need to understand is that this relationship with God, he is our father. We are in relationship with him. That is what we are to be. But we also need to understand that he has said that either you are for me or you are against me. This is what the Lord Jesus had said.

So if we get into some other kind of partnership outside of our God, something is going to happen. And it's important for us to understand what this means because you've probably seen this people who claim Christ and then suddenly start involving themselves with other things. So one of the things that came out of that that same sermon that the short I showed you earlier was that 60% of people who claim Christ in America have added in things like reincarnation and crystals and all of this other stuff which is not of our God. That's that's getting into partnership with something that is not of our God. And so the question is what ends up happening with that?

Well, one of the things that can happen is we begin to lose our usefulness to the kingdom because we're partnering with something and someone that is not our God. They can lose the peace in their household. They cannot think that your you cannot think that your sin will not spill into the lives of your family. So many of us have been deluded into this idea that well this is my secret personal sin. It doesn't influence anybody else. family.

That is a lie from the pit. Our sin spills out into our relationships. It will impact our witness, which we begin to lose our credibility. If we walk around as sinners, like overt sinners, partnering with this nonsense, why would anybody who doesn't believe in Christ want to listen to us?

Chapter 12: Rewards, discipline, and do not be partakers, Ephesians 5:7

And then when we stand at the judgment seat, we will literally these individuals will literally have less to show for it. You're like, "Well, what do you mean?" Well, family. Well, I'm just going to read Paul from to the Corinthians. I don't have the slide, but he says, "He who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor." The work that we do in this life actually has a reward at the end. Now, Christ is the ultimate reward, but there's these other rewards.

We often call them heavenly rewards. And if we jump to verse 13 in chapter 3, it says, "Each one's work will become clear, for the day will declare it because it will be revealed by fire. And the fire will test each one's work of what sort it is, and what is not of God will be burned away." And I want to stand before God, and I want as much of the things I've done in this life to be remain after God has judged them. And that should be the desire of every single believer. Our desire should not be, well, I'm going to get everything I can in this life and just kind of scoot right into his eternity.

Finley, that should not be our heart. We should not be trying to see how we can game our God. Because isn't that what so many of us do? We go into a situation and think, "What can I get from this? What can I get away with?" That should not be the heart of a believer.

And the thing we need to understand is that our God indeed loves us. And some of you are going to have experienced what I'm talking about. For whom the Lord loves, he chastens. That is, he disciplines and he scourges. That sounds harsh because it is every son whom he receives.

Our God wants us to walk in his ways. And he will chasten us in his perfect way. He's not going to go rageful and just beat us for some strange reason and set us aside and and for no particular purpose. That's not how God is. But he will direct us.

He will chasen us. And now Paul is going to finish this section with what is better. He says, "Therefore, do not be partakers with them. Do not be partners with these people." That's those sons of disobedience. That's again that be in the world but not of the world.

We family are to be different. Do not partner with those who will lead you to live in a manner that is out of alignment with our God. Do not partner with those whose lives are opposed to God. As believers, we should live differently and we should be different. And so Paul is not done.

But that, my dear family, is for next week. And so as we close, family, we do not become imitators of Christ by accident. It's not something that we fall into, right? Nobody ever became like a plumber or a welder or a pilot just by walking in and picking up tools or sitting in a cockpit. They had to learn by imitation.

They had to be trained in that way. and may we all actively work to become imitators of our God. But before we close today, before we head into a new week, let's close our eyes as we do at the beginning of every month and let's prepare our hearts. Let's confess any unconfessed sin and maybe today brought out some of those things that need to be confessed. And let's do this as we head to the communion table. Take take a few moments in silent prayer and then I will pray and then the ushers will begin to distribute the elements. [snorts] And Father, we've heard you this morning and we're not walking away from the words that we've heard.

You've called us your children and you've told us to become imitators of you. So before we come to this table, Lord, we bring what we're still becoming. Every one of us just heard something. Maybe it was a word in verse three. Maybe it was a word in verse four where you put your fingers on our lives.

Lord, we're not going to hide it from you now. Lord, we name it before you. Whether it be our appetites, our humor, our speech, the partnerships that we've kept that stand opposed to you. Father, forgive us. Father, cleanse us.

And thank you that we do not come to this table because we've perfectly cleaned ourselves up because we recognize that's not possible in this life. Lord, we come though because Christ loved us and gave himself for us. He gave himself as an offering and a sacrifice to you for a sweet smelling aroma. Lord, we earned nothing. And Lord, we recognize that your grace never cancelled the commands, but the commands were not the things that brought us to this place.

Lord, your son did. And so quiet us now. Lord, may no one take this bread or this cup just out of mere habit. Let us take it as children who have been forgiven, who have been sealed, and who have been kept. Lord, we remember you what you did by allowing the Lord Jesus to come.

Lord, we remember what the Savior did by coming and living and and being tortured and dying and raising again. Lord, we remember that and we're thank you for that in that matchless name of the Lord Jesus. Now God's people said, "Amen.