Ephesians: For His Glory (5)
Ephesians: For His Glory • Sermon • Submitted
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This Changes Everything
This Changes Everything
UP to this point in the letter to the Ephesians Paul has dealt with some of these topics
Salvation by Grace through Faith
Reminding us that we are hopeless and helpless without Christ
Unity and Peace of Christ:
Christ’s People unified
Peace with God
Revelation of the Gospel Mystery
Paul’s apostolic ministry and the laying of the foundation
The Mystery and the wisdom of God and the establishing/using the Church
Unity in the body of Christ
different Gifts
edification of the body
Exhorts the believers to an edifying lifestyle
The response of the followers of Jesus Christ
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.”
This is the sort of Message that we hear and we say “Amen” But it is one that we often forget when we are offend, or disagree with one another.
There is a story of Great Preacher who had preached a sermon on sin and repentance. The congregation was moved by the message and began to cry out to God ith tears in there eyes.
The minister Stood up and said, “The saddest thing ins’t the tears or the grief you feel because of the weight of your own sin. The saddest thing that will happen is that when you leave today some of you will forget this moment. It will become a fable or a fairy tale to you, and it will not have any effect on your life.”
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.
Our problem isn't getting people in the world to live like Christians, but getting Christians to stop living like the world.
There is a call to imitate God in self-sacrificing and in Forgiveness
Holy living Is the result of the example God has shown us
This example was giving as God demonstrated what the love Christ looked in our owen lives
We are Without excuse when it comes to the demonstration of God grace because we have experienced it
we are benefactors of it
we live in it
We were the ones who were once dead in our trespasses, We were the ones who were once far away.
But God Showed us Grace: He gave us what we didn’t deserve
And God Showed us Mercy, by not giving us what we did deserve
These verses show us the characteristic that we are supposed to be imitators of-
Love- We “walk in love”
“As Christ loved us”- Sacrificial love
complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ 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.
It is the passing on of the legacy to us His Children
God is love so His Children are known for their love.
“Beloved Children”- it is the motivation and the means to be imitators of God
It is the way I train my children- Watch what I do and now you try
We have seen and experienced God’s Love toward us now we walk it out
As Christ’s people we are renewed to new lives of holiness in thought, word, and deed, and we must reject our old, sinful, lifestyles.
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 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.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
There is a clear distinction in the way we now walk as followers of Christ.
Ephesians: Temple Diana or Artemis- Paul is calling the Believers to live a life that is counter cultural
Silversmith’s made idols of Diana-
Paul Says don’t be Idolators
Which is act 19 causes an uproar because as The Ephesians become believers they stopped buy the idols and the silversmiths caused a riot
The ritual of the temple services consisted of sacrifices and of ceremonial prostitution, a practice which was common to many of the religions of the ancient Orient, and which still exists among some of the obscure tribes of Asia Minor.
Paul says no more Sexual immorality
Sexual immorality: any kind of illegitimate sexual actions, especially adultery and sexual relations with prostitutes, fornication. Fornication is idolatry.
For us and our culture we are called to the same:
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.
Sexual sin and covetousness follows the same sequence as the temptation of Eve in Genesis 3: you see a particular person or object, notice its attractiveness, begin to desire and burn for it, and finally take it as your own. Sin is fought with the gospel by the same progression: you see the good news of Jesus, you find him overwhelmingly compelling, you desire him, and make him your own. Jesus proves more satisfying than the fleeting pleasures of sin.
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.
WE have been called out
Now there is a contrast to the way we once lived
From our mouths now comes thanksgiving in contrast to crude joking and foolish talk
There is no longer covetousness which is when we place our ultimate allegiance in the acquisition of the possession of other.
“I deserve that”
“I want that”
But in its place is Thanksgiving
Greed and Idolatry are the same in the sense that they both put things before God
AS Christians we have a new center of our lives: Jesus Christ
Where is your treasure?
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
It is the great Principle that- “You will know them by their fruit”- It is produced
not solely by their words
“Do not be deceived by empty words.”
These are words with no purpose: vain futile
There is a common deception that has been although church history, and that is that professing Christians can live unrepentant, sinful lives after conversion to Christ-
This practice leads to wrath, because there is no repentance: “Sons of Disobedience”
The ESV Study Bible Chapter 5
This Hebrew-inspired phrase describes people who habitually live in disobedient sin without repentance and thereby prove themselves to be children of the devil
Their fruit has revealed their hearts
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
The terminology here: “You Were Darkness”
Darkness is the condition resulting from the partial or complete absence of light- This is What we were
Eugene Peterson, “Most life is spent in darkness, whether literal or metaphorical. No one seems completely at home in the dark, even though most of un lear to accustom ourselves to it,
We invent devices to make the ark less threatening- a candle, a flash light , a lamp.
We lose perspective and proportion : night mare terrorize us , fear paralyze us.
In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
light reveals order and beauty
Light shows the evil in proportionate relationship to all that is not to be feared.- God
God has taken us who were once dead and made us alive and here He has taken us who were once darkness and now turned us into light
The light we are is in relationship to the source of light
As the moon is to the sun so we are to God
What is the Fruit of Light?
What is the Fruit of Light?
It is similar to the Fruit of the Spirit found in Galatians 5:22-23-
It is the Fruit that is produced as we walk as Children of light
It is the sanctification that the the Spirit of God is doing in our lives
Where we once were darkness now the Spirit is producing the Fruit of Light as we are maturing in Christ
With maturity as a Christian we use Discernment to know how we should live
Now we no longer live in darkness
We don’t live in darkness but light. We are blessed not cursed.
Light, not darkness , is the fundamental reality in which we live.
God is Light- and we are now Children of light
Now because we reflect the God’s Character; Goodness, righteousness, and truth- We walk in such a way, As Children of Light, we expose the “deeds of darkness”
When light exposes evil deeds, they become visible, manifest for what they really are. Seeing them as evil, a believer then cleanses himself of them (1 John 1:5–7), realizing they are detrimental not only to him but also to other believers.
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
Paul quote here is most likely a combination of a couple of verses from the Prophet Isaiah:
But this quote is the call of Christ to those still in darkness, and it should be the quote of our lives as we go out into this dark world and shine for Christ:
for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,
“Awake, O sleeper,
and arise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”