Talk 10 - Ephesians 5:1-20

0:00 Okay, let's read, just pick up from where we left off last week. We're in Ephesians 5. We're going to read up to verse 21. Follow God's example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. 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. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk, or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure, no immoral, impure, or greedy person, such a person as an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things, God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient.

0:57 Therefore, do not be partners with them. For you were once darkness, but now you're light in the Lord. Let me say that again. For you were once darkness, but now you're light in the Lord. Live as children of light. For the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth. And find out what pleases the Lord. have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.

1:26 It's shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret, but everything exposed by the light becomes visible and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. This is why it is said, wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. Be very careful then how you live, not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

2:24 In the world of fashion, which I am not in any way going to claim to know anything about, these days there are all sorts of professional services out there to help the fashion-conscious individual look their most fabulous darling. And even if you are a Belfast lady looking to be chic, or if you are a Belfast man looking to be dapper, you could, if you wanted to, make your way along to somewhere like Victoria Square, where there would be a professional shopper there available to help you do something. First of all, don't ask me what this is. It's called a color consultation. Some of you might well know I don't. Oh, and help style you, help pick out clothes, help you find clothes that fit, I presume, your coloring, that fit your shape, that actually fit your identity, fit who you are so that it's not out of place. For example, we all know there are certain things that we can wear and certain things we can't. I had a brother-in-law up behind me this morning leading worship.

3:41 Worship leaders can wear jeans halfway up their legs with white socks showing. And they get away with it. It works. Preachers, if I did that, you'd be wondering what had happened to me. Certain things fit and certain things don't. And in terms of this, I'm looking out and going. It's hard to see who has made use of this sort of thing before. It's a lot easier to see who hasn't.

4:14 Without doubt. Right, at the heart of our passage then this morning, as we continue on from where Gilbert left off last week, is our highest and our truest and our new eternal identity. We are, according to verse 8, no longer darkness. Not just in darkness, but actually darkness. But we are now light in the Lord, and we are called to walk as, we're called to live as children of light. And when it comes to walking as children of light, to being light in the darkness, to shining like stars, as Paul talks about in Philippians, in the sky in the midst of a warped and crooked generation, There are actions and there are choices and there are attitudes and there are appearances that fit our new cells, children of light identity, and there are those that do not fit. And we're going to continue to look at those as we make our way through this section of the letter. We're going to draw out the contrast that Paul makes, especially this one between darkness and light, and then also later the contrast between wisdom and foolishness.

5:25 And we're going where we get both the motivation, but also the power to truly live and grow as children of light. But before we do that, we've got to make sure that we get things the right way around. Sometimes people buy and they put on certain clothes because they're trying to create, they're trying to appropriate a certain identity. It's that sort of mantra as dress like the person to be. But that isn't the case here. It's vital that we read today's passage in light of the whole letter that stunningly tells us about how much we are loved by God, how he has already lavished the riches of his grace upon us, how he has already blessed us with every blessing in the spiritual realms, how he has already, as Ricky read a few moments ago, made us alive with Christ because of his great love for us. The Father loves us.

6:34 Whatever we hear this morning in this passage, we need to keep that front and center. The Father loves us. As we've sung, the Father is for us. He has in Christ given us this glorious new eternal identity. And in his love and because he wants to continue to bless us. He guides us in how to walk. And he asks us to come to him to get the power to be able to walk in that way. This isn't a dress like the person you want to be.

7:10 This is dress like the person that you already are in the Lord. And we've got to keep that the right way around. And the pioneer, the trailblazer, the founder and forerunner of what it is that we're to put on, of how we're to walk, how we're to live, how we're to behave, our model to imitate is Christ himself. We've been given him to look to. We've been given him to look at. We are to walk in the way of love, verse 2 tells us, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. If it doesn't imitate Christ, if it doesn't fit Jesus, then it doesn't fit us anymore either.

8:09 And Paul moves on. He calls what doesn't fit, all the stuff that doesn't fit, deeds of darkness. It would seem that the people he was writing to in this letter had in some way lost their grasp of what does fit and what doesn't. They were deeply influenced and formed by what the prevailing culture around them in the first century Roman Empire said was good and said was acceptable, and many of their lifestyles and their choices weren't fitting their new self, children of light identity. And we're the same, aren't we? If we're honest, deeply influenced, deeply formed by the world that we live in, with our ability to see clearly what fits and what doesn't, getting clouded and getting compromised. Things that we see so often begin to become normalized in our own minds and hearts, certain behaviors become rationalized, certain choices become acceptable.

9:17 Our sensitivity gets dulled. We begin to say things like, sure, There's no real harm in that. And I suppose it's just inevitable everybody's doing that, aren't they? Paul wants to remind his readers, he wants to remind us of the seriousness of these deeds of darkness from a holy God's perspective and how ill-fitting they are to those of us who are children of light in the Lord. And he calls out certain ones in particular. calls out sexual immorality. He calls out impurity.

9:56 He calls out greed. And he's so stark in his warning. It's not like, just be careful. It's far stronger than that. Get yourself as far away from them as possible. Not even a hint among you, he says. Don't even mention them. He's trying to get them to see the danger of them.

10:19 Let's consider sexual immorality and impurity for a minute. Now Paul brings these two words, pornea and akatharsia, together to include any sexual activity or impure behavior that goes outside God's good design and purpose for sex. And that good design context is the context of a covenant marriage between the complementarity of one man and one woman who have promised themselves to one another because it's a picture that points to the gospel, to the covenantal and complementary relationship of Christ and his bride, us, his church, and anything outside of this, anything outside of this that doesn't have covenant and that doesn't have that complementarity doesn't conform to Christ and therefore doesn't fit who we now are as children of light. that goes for sex outside of marriage that goes for sexual activity between two people of the same gender that goes for porn-fueled masturbation that goes for anything outside of God's design for sex of one man, one woman marriage and that's not as it's often claimed to be, or we're accused of, that's not because Christians have some sort of low view of sex as dirty and grubby.

12:00 If we get it right, it's actually the opposite. It's because as children of light, we have such a high view of sex as a unique gift from a loving God of its glory, of its wonder, of its power, of its intensity. And so to be children of light is not to avoid sex. It's not to hate sex. It's to fully enjoy and to celebrate and to give thanks to God for the gift of sex within the covenant marriage relationship. is this completely out of step with culture absolutely it was in the first century roman empire when married men were sort of expected to use prostitutes it is today in a world where porn is everywhere where hookup culture is normal where sexual partners are disposable but here's the thing children of light are not meant to look the same. We're meant to be different.

13:11 We're meant to shine. And in this area of sexual ethics and choices, this is an area where we can truly shine. Then Paul mentions one as well. And we often miss this as we read, especially if it comes after any word that says sex in it. We miss greed. This pattern of Christ's example is sacrificial love. He's giving himself up love.

13:47 It's cross-shaped. Some of us might take sexual immorality and impurity warnings very seriously, and we should, but are we anywhere near as serious about greed, about our greed? And I say this to myself as much as I say this to anybody else, about our giving in to that desire of our old selves for more, for more for me, about giving in to that idea that life is about getting more, more money, more stuff, more experiences, that somehow there's this correlation between that more and more happiness. A serious question. does a car or a handbag or a watch or a pair of shoes bought as a symbol of status or bought because we saw somebody else having them, we really want it. Does that truly fit our identities as children of light? Walk in the way of love. What does it say?

14:55 Does it say just as Christ acquired for himself all that he could because he deserved it. No, it says walk in the way of love just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God, gave himself up for us. Often within the church, it seems the old clothes of greed might not be as noticeable or somehow we know they're old, but they're just that little bit more acceptable. but they're not fitting for children of light called to walk in the way of love. Greed diminishes our light. Diminishes our light. What is fitting is loving and sacrificial generosity that reflects Christ giving himself up for us, that seeks to use how God has blessed us in blessing others.

15:58 and where we let greed stop that happening, we diminish our life. Sexual impurity, immorality, sorry, sexual immorality, impurity, greed. And the others mentioned here are not the clothes that fit someone who is receiving a glorious inheritance, Paul says. In fact, he's pretty stark again here. He says these are actually the clothes of those who refuse to give God his rightful place, those who turn their backs on the offer of God's grace and will face God's judgment when Christ returns. Why would we want to put on these clothes? They're the uniform of judgment, not the uniform of light.

16:46 But there were in Ephesus at the time and there are within the church today people who will, and we know this, will try to dress sin up as holiness, who will say to themselves and others, we're far too hard on ourselves. Jesus wouldn't condemn this. Jesus would accept this. He would be happy with this. Jesus would delight in this even. And Paul says that no one deceive you with empty words. Don't be partners with them in this deception and delusion.

17:30 Don't excuse yourself and don't excuse others. Don't self-justify yourself or justify others into a life of unrepentant idolatry. Of making this thing higher than God. and doing it by pretending you think God's okay with it. Remember, we will all, as Paul says in Romans 14, stand before God's judgment seat and we'll all give an account of ourselves. It's vital that this truth, this reality, this understanding of judgment, this knowledge that we are only saved by the grace of God informs our thinking and informs our acting. I sort of get an idea of what might be in your head right now because it probably wasn't mine as I prepared.

18:32 It's like, thanks for that, Chris. Now that you've told me all that, it's all going to be a doddle. It's all going to be fine. Sexual immorality, no temptation out there, no problems whatsoever for me. Impurity, not an issue. Greed, got that sorted. We can all go home and be happy. I know only too well the challenge that I am putting in front of us, or the challenge that God, through Paul, is putting in front of us.

19:05 It is a serious calling. It is the calling of God and Christ on us to be children of light, to be those stars that shine, to display the wisdom of God in the heavenly realms, to grow in the wattage of our light bearing. And the major problem, of course, and I speak from experience here, is so often we fall again and again into the trap of aiming to live up to this calling in our own strength. And we grit our teeth and we clench our fists and we slap our faces and we say we're going to do it this time. And before we know it, we're right back where we started. Because the reality is that we do not have the power within ourselves to live up to this calling. We don't have it. The power comes from Christ and Christ alone.

20:02 As children of light, we're not like torches internally powered by these spiritual batteries. We are, if you like, solar powered. The strength of our light comes through placing ourselves in the light of Christ. We're not light in ourselves. We are light in the Lord, Paul says here. The way to produce more light is to let the light shine on you. It's to rest in the light. It's to soak up the light.

20:39 this isn't about effort. It's about relationship. Let me say that again. It's not about effort. It is about relationship. This is about spending time with Jesus. This is about turning your face to his example, his word, turning your face to his sacrifice for you, his love for you, his light. It's about spending time with him and getting to know him and letting him take hold of your heart.

21:13 Day in, day out, over and over again. This is about thinking about and pondering and meditating on and being inspired by his beauty and generosity and purity. This is about growing in love for the one who first loved you. it is less teeth gritting and more sunbathing. We'll come back to that as we close, but let's keep moving through. Verses 15 to 17 set up another contrast. And this time the contrast is between wisdom and foolishness. Here Paul makes clear that our calling to be children of light goes beyond behavior that is fitting.

22:01 It also includes choices. It also includes decisions that are fitting, that are sort of outside this realm of black and white moral decisions. And all of us have all sorts of decisions to make every day. How will I spend my time today? How will I spend my money? What will I watch? What will I read? What will I listen to?

22:31 How will I go about my work? How will I interact with my wife, with my kids, with my friends, with my colleagues? Who will I choose to spend time with? Why will I do any of this? And that's just the normal, run-of-the-mill, daily decisions that we've got to make. What about the big ones, depending on your stage of life. What A-levels should I choose, for example? Should I go to university?

23:00 What career path should I take? Should I get married? Who should I marry? How am I going to budget my finances? What goals are going to shape my life? Or if you're a certain age, how am I going to spend my retirement? All sorts of big decisions to make. And Paul makes it clear when it comes to making these sorts of decisions, not moral decisions, but these decisions to do with wisdom and foolishness.

23:31 He says, we need to be careful. We need to think. We need to prayerfully discern. We need to avoid drifting into thoughtless decisions, consistently asking before God, what choice is the wisest one? Not just from a worldly perspective, but what choice best fits my identity as a child of light in the Lord? Like I said, these aren't black and white choices. They might be a choice between something wise and something foolish, yes, but they might also be a choice between something good on something even better. Be careful to be wise, he says.

24:21 As a child of light under the Lord's name of Christ, there's always different criteria to apply. So for example, imagine you've got the opportunity of taking two jobs. One of them has a 20% salary that's better, and you get to work from home far more. Is that going to be the only criteria you apply? Or is it going to go deeper than that? Paul talks here about making the most of every opportunity for the kingdom. Are you going to apply that criteria to your decision? Are you going to think through the culture and the ethos of the company that you're going to work for and the impact that that might have on you and your discipleship with Jesus?

25:16 I've seen lots of people. Lots of people in their sort of late 20s and up. Become very successful in their careers. And make certain choices that way. But there's a spiritual cost to it. There's an eternal cost to it, at least temporarily. And their careers go like that and their discipleship goes like that. Do you think through things like that before you make those sorts of decisions?

25:58 Wise in terms of what it is to be a child of light. listen if there's no difference between the two go for it, go for the higher salary and the working from home and be generous and not greedy but if there is a difference don't be foolish but seek to discern what the Lord's will is, that goes for jobs, that goes for deciding who to start a relationship with, that goes for the friendships that you invest in, that goes for the size of the mortgage that you saddle yourself with, that goes for all of those sorts of decisions, we don't think exactly the same way as those who are still in darkness think. We don't apply the same criteria as they do. We have other things that make these decisions wise or foolish. You're a child of light in the Lord. Be who you already are in your choices. Be careful, be thoughtful, be prayerful.

26:49 Don't drift or sleepwalk into foolish ones. Don't waste the time you have, the limited time you have. Redeem it. Make the most of it. And I don't mean kill yourself in action either. Wise, wise living involves rest too. Open yourself up too to the wise influence of other children of light. Maybe those with more life experience with you who can gently guide you with the decisions they got right but also the decisions they got wrong.

27:20 That they don't want to see you walk the same path at. Put yourself under influence of those wiser people as you seek to make wise choices that best fit who you are in Christ. And it's on that focus then of influence where we finish up this morning as Paul says, don't get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Be filled with the Spirit. In another context, Paul was writing in first century Ephesus. Drunkenness was often a central aspect of cult worship, especially in the worship of Dionysus, the god of wine. And the idea was that he supposedly entered a drunk worshiper's body when they drank the wine and got drunk, as they lost control and lost inhibition.

28:19 And you can see then the contrast that Paul is drawing here. between cult worship of fake gods and true worship of the true God. The early Christians, of course, in Ephesus would have gathered in homes around a meal where the Lord's Supper of bread and wine would have been shared. And people having far too much wine, there might well have been an issue just as it was in Corinth, if you remember back to reading in 1 Corinthians 11. Paul has already told the Ephesians that the Holy Spirit indwelling them is the seal guaranteeing their inheritance. He's already told them not to grieve the Holy Spirit. And now he tells them, don't get drunk on wine, but instead be filled by the Spirit. Paul urges them and us to put ourselves under the influence, so to speak, of the Holy Spirit who already indwells us.

29:20 Be filled with the Spirit. It's a present continuous passive tense used here. In other words, it really means let the Holy Spirit keep on filling you. Let him fill you. Let him keep putting you under his influence. In a partner passage in Paul's letter to the Colossians, he tells them this, to let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts and let the message of Christ dwell among you richly. That's the way he puts it to the Colossians, the same thing. Again, we're reminded the power to live as children of light doesn't come from within ourselves.

30:07 It's the power of Christ, the light in us by his spirit. And we open ourselves up to his empowerment as we submit ourselves to him. As we yield ourselves to him. As we stop for him and rest in him. As we read his word and meditate on his word and allow his word to dwell in us richly and as we invite his spirit to work in us and take what we learn in our heads and ask him and invite him to make it real in our hearts. I invite him to capture our hearts with the beauty of his word and with the beauty and the glory of Christ himself. And the question there then is obvious. Are we yielding to let ourselves be filled?

31:11 Are we yielding to let ourselves be filled? in the analogy of those torches, are we resting to let ourselves be spiritually charged so that we can be the children of light that we are? In busy, full lives, with all manner of distractions and attention grabbers, Often inside this both wonderful and terrible machine. How often and how much do we yield? Do we give way to the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit in us? Do we truly invite him to work in our hearts? Do we carve out the space? Both individually and as part of community to let the message of Christ dwell in us richly Is it more like a verse a day will keep the devil away type thing?

32:15 Which it doesn't, by the way. Are we asking how we might be grieving the spirit, an ongoing sin that needs repented of, or quenching the spirit with certain attitudes or hardness in our hearts, blockages to his filling that we need to invite him in to help us dismantle? how are we starting each day for example with his word or with the first app that pops up on our screen whether that's facebook or tiktok or bbc news or bbc sport or whatever it is remember this is an ongoing everyday thing today today let the holy spirit fill you and then tomorrow and then the day after that and then the day after that keep coming back and coming back and coming back and yielding. And letting the Holy Spirit keep on filling. And here's the promise then. As we're filled,

33:21 as we're under the influence of the Spirit, light will spill out. It will spill out. And here's how it'll spill out. That's how Paul finishes. It'll spill out in praise. It'll spill out in joy in God's word. It will spill out in a singing heart. No matter how terrible a singing voice you have, your heart will be singing.

33:50 It will spill out in gratitude. It will spill out in selfless submission of my agenda, my rights for the good of others. As the Holy Spirit captures our hearts with the beauty and with the glory of Jesus and all that he has done for us through his sacrifice. This is who we are. It is a glorious identity. The amazing grace of God that he gives this to us. This is who we are. This is who we're meant to be.

34:30 children of light in the Lord, fully loved by God, living lives, not limited lives, but living lives in all their fullness by his grace, by his power. Let's invite him in to help us live them and be children of the light. Let's pray. Father, we're so blind so often. We're so forgetful so often. We get captured by so many of these little, small things that pale into complete insignificance when we see clearly.

35:28 the beauty of Jesus the reality of our identity in him the reality of our hope and our future in him how amazing it is that we who were once darkness have now been brought into light wake us up by your spirit as we think for ourselves how it is we need to let the spirit fill us guide us in wisdom as we examine our own hearts and our own lives Christ may your light shine on us Amen.