Good evening, Church family. Hope you had a good week of rest. Tonight we're going to be continuing our study of Ephesians. And we're going to go through chapter 5 and 6 in this series. This is the second half. Tonight we're going to be tackling the first paragraph of chapter 5.

Let's take a moment to go before the Lord as we engage the scriptures. Our God, we thank you so much for your grace. And God, we thank you over and over again that you are teaching us through your scripture. God, we recognize that these truths you give to us are not things that we figure out on our own.

Our Father God, these are revealed to us by your grace and mercies. And you show us things, Father God, in the spiritual realities, things that, Father God, many people do not understand. And I pray that with gratitude and sincere appreciation, we would long for and we would desire all the more to heed your commands, to listen to, Father God, your wisdom, and all the more apply unto our lives.

We thank you so much for your grace and pray now that you would grant to us understanding and conviction. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Okay. Well, since we did take just a short break, it's good to review. And so if you recall, chapters 1 through 3 of Ephesians was a lot of the theology and the groundwork of how God has blessed us and how in the gospel, God has elected.

He is the one who is effecting salvation. And the contrast between what we were and who we are now was so evidently displayed in chapters 1 through 3. And then in chapter 4 is here began the application for us. Now here, oh, sorry. Here in chapter 4 verses 1, it says, "I implore you," and I gave you some blanks just to test if you guys recall, "to blank in a blank blank." Right?

Take a moment to think about that. What is the command there? And the command was for us to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called. Okay? Now, within the beginning portions of chapter 4, there was a huge challenge for us to seek unity.

And there had to be this unity. So he says that we have to have humility, gentleness, patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. So we talked a lot about that. And then in the middle of chapter 4, Apostle Paul says, "So this I say and affirm together with the Lord, that you no longer walk just as the blank." What's the blank here?

It starts with the G. The word is Gentiles. He talks about how the, within this passage, he talks about how the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind, in ignorance, right? In the callousness of their heart. And then he goes on in verse 23 and says, "But that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the blank blank." That blank blank is a new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

So we are challenged. These commands are really again, broad pictures of what we're supposed to be doing. We're supposed to be regularly putting a sign, the kind of ignorance, the kind of stubborn callousness that we have, and to be regularly putting on the likeness of God, right? That is something that we're regularly engaged with.

And so one of the challenges that I gave in the previous study was that we as believers, we are always changing in that we're always maturing. And the scripture's admonition to us was that we're supposed to be changing in every aspect unto Christ. Okay? Every aspect unto Christ. So we're going to be ever growing.

Tonight there's a continuation of the application. The application that we are supposed to be seeing the ramifications of the gospel applied into our lives. And for that, we go to this passage, chapter five, verse one through six, which says, "Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you as is proper among saints. And there must be no filthiness and silly talk or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. For this you know with certainty that no immoral or impure person or covetous man who is an idolater has an 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." Okay? Now this passage, I think breaks down nicely into three sections and it's two verses each. We're going to begin with the first section, which I like to call the commands.

So Paul clearly gives us two emphatic commands in this first portion of the passage. Let's read it again and says, "Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma." Okay?

When you look at that passage to be truthful, the commands aren't necessarily confusing. Neither are they hard to incorporate. They're pretty clear. And I just want to give a tip of advice. I know sometimes when you think about Bible study, if you're doing everything about outlining, observations, asking questions, then you do word studies.

And then you do X, Y, and Z, like the interpretation and then your own applications. You don't have all the time in the world to do all of it. Okay? So a lot of times what I do is I read the passage first, just run through and then start kind of deciding, is this a passage where I have to do a lot of word studies because there are unique words or words that aren't so commonly seen?

What's more, other times like this when there's clear commands, what I like to do is actually take time to meditate. I want to give you an example of that. For example, if I'm just simply doing my devotions, I would take the first top two verses as opposed to all six, and then I would start asking immediately questions about what I understand about this.

For example, in an interpretive way, you would ask the question, "Therefore be imitators," and you would ask, "What does it mean to imitate?" What's the Greek word for that or something like that? But another way you can do it by meditation is asking, "Is this the way I'm thinking about my life circumstances?" A lot of times when we look at a life circumstance, let's say difficulty, stress, or hardship, I'm more so asking the question, "How do I get out?" Am I asking the question, "How do I be like God in this?

How do I be godly?" What's more, as beloved children, meditate. What difference does it make that I'm a child of God in this expectation to imitate God? What difference does it make? As opposed to saying, "Imitate God as a slave. Imitate God as somebody who was once far and now close." What difference does that make for me?

What's more, to walk in love. I have to ask myself, in my current concept of God's expectation for me to be loving, what is the picture? What is a specific example? What's more, I have to ask myself the question, "Am I walking in love according to all the stuff that I've learned in Ephesians, or is my normal pattern of life marked by fear?

I'm walking in suspicion. I'm walking in doubt. Maybe I'm even walking in self-righteousness or even hatred." Another question, "Just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us, it's very clear really quickly that Jesus is the example and the model." Yes. But what is a case example of a specific application of this?

Another one, "An offering and sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. Meditate, how is God seeing my actions? If my actions follow Christ's model, how is he seeing me?" Those are all questions to be really reflected. I'd recommend just journaling all that. Okay? Now, for our purposes, we're going to tackle the main commandments and ask the question, "What are they?" And the two of them I've already highlighted for you there.

Let's tackle the first about being imitators of God. Now, in terms of the term, I'll identify that the Greek word is to essentially mimic. And we are talking about, in the Greek, it's used sometimes of impersonating an individual. So an actor who is not necessarily pretending, but behaving and mimicking another person.

So when you think about this, we have to ask the question, just simply, "Okay, I am supposed to actually reflect God in many different ways." And so by way of meditation, you should be thinking about, "Okay, if I am thinking about being like God, do I have the categories in my head, whether it be stressful moments or circumstances of my life, that I want to be walking according to his pattern?

That I'm walking according to the things that I already understand and know about him, his character traits?" You see, to us, we believe that God is an incredibly consistent individual. So consistent, he's predictable. What do I mean? You guys recall Jonah. Jonah knew that God was so predictable. He said, "If I go into that city of the Ninevites and I preach judgment and they repent, I know what's going to happen.

I knew it," he said, "you're going to show mercy." In that way, do we know enough about the patterns of God and his character that I can also be consistent in that fashion? I need to be like him in his pattern of faithfulness, his truthfulness, his love, and so on.

Now the emphatic commandment and expectation is there, but there's something also interesting to observe, which is, he says, "As beloved children." What is this? As I looked at it, I observed that this is an incredible motivation for us to be imitators of God. Now you could think of this and say, "No, our child relationship, that relationship is the foundation by which we imitate God." True, but when you think about what it is that children do, we realize it's an incredible motivation.

I want to show you a passage from 1 John 3 that talks so much about the connection between our relationship as children and then also then our mimicking God's character. So here, let me take a moment to read to us this passage. "Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet, oh sorry, not appeared as yet what we will be.

We know that when he appears, we will be like him because we see him, we will see him just as he is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on him purifies himself just as he is pure. Little children, make sure no one deceives you. The one who practices righteousness is righteous just as he is righteous.

The one who practices sin is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose to destroy the works of the devil. No one who is born of God practices sin because his seed abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God.

By this, the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious. Anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another." That there is an incredible motivation for you to have this mentality, "I need to be like God." Why?

Because you're of him, you're his child. The identity that you are his, you reflect him. Essentially, it's like you look like him. No, that's gotta be his son. Look at it. God has nose, God has ears, God has eyes. Our reflection of God shows us who we are. So with that thinking, I want you to just to think about the connections there.

What a privilege. What a unique privilege to be called son of God. So essentially, God has already established that foundation. God has already given us that motivation, given us the entire context by which we're supposed to be then walking according to his pattern, to his model, to everything that he's shown us about himself.

And I just want to say that's something to us like a massive privilege. For God to want us to be like him, to emulate him, that to us is a massive grace to us. And we should have an attitude of thankfulness as we think about that. But again, in way of meditation on that, is this the way you're thinking intentionally?

Meaning when was the last time you were specifically in a scenario and you intentionally thought, you know what? I need to be more like God here. I need to be more like my father. And that's the challenge I want to give to you. Again, within specific moments of stress, hardship, or difficulty, it is in our fleshly nature to say, how do I best escape this?

How do I eliminate the threat? That's just a typical rationale of somebody living in this world. But for us who know the father, the passage in John tells us that we need to be thinking differently. What's more, the passage commands us to walk in love. Essentially, a primary way by which we reflect God and show his character is by loving.

And so much so, remember the scriptures in 1 John teach us that if you're not loving, that means you probably haven't seen God. You probably don't know God because he is love. It goes hand in hand. If we've seen him, if we've actually experienced him, then we would also then emulate.

But what's more, I want to challenge us by doing this. In the book of Ephesians especially, we have seen so many aspects of God's love. And if we're saying we're supposed to be walking in that, and we're supposed to be imitating that, do you recall, are you able to put a picture to the kind of love we're supposed to express?

Really briefly, you don't have to write all these down. Maybe even just jot down the things that I've bolded for you here. Number one, remember that in chapter one, Apostle Paul said, "God has blessed you with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ." He's lavished us. But what's more, in chapter one, Apostle Paul taught us that God's love is so purposeful.

It's so intentional and it's so personal. God is not just generally saying, "I pray for you all. I have good thoughts. Sending my thoughts your way." His plan is so meticulous. It's so intentional and wanting our good, and wanting us also to experience his glory. And then it's tied with also his wisdom.

It's tied with his insight. It's not just, "You know, I'm just going to give you, give you, give you, whether it hurts you or not, whether you get fat or whatever it may be. I'm just going to shove it in your mouth." That's not what he's doing, is it?

It's in accordance with all of his wisdom. It's in accordance with all of his strength. It's in accordance with all of his might. What's more, chapter two taught us that although we were dead in our transgressions and sins, he was so rich in his mercy. The chapter two in Ephesians is so beautiful in how it contrasts.

There was such darkness and you walked accordance to this, but he was so rich in his mercy. What's more, it says, "You were so far. You were so far. You had no hope. You had no God. You were separated from the commonwealth of Israel, but he has brought you near." What's more, in chapter three, scripture says that he has shared his promise with us.

God has shared his inheritance. It was a mystery, he says. And this mystery, people did not understand, but it's being revealed that we, the Gentiles, get to be fellow heirs, fellow partakers of the promise. That is so crazy. What generosity of God's love. What's more, chapter four says that we ought to be humble.

Our love should be unifying. Scripture commands us that we are designed to be a household of God and our love for one another should pretty much draw us together in Christ. And then chapter four ends by saying, "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you." It is a forgiving kind of love.

Now within this passage, it shows us more. It shows us more in the expectation set by Christ's model, which also is to us the motivation. That this love that Christ showed to us is incredibly sacrificial. Jesus has shed his blood. Jesus sacrificed his life voluntarily. See, I think in our day, we, you know, just by force of habit, use the love, use the term love very flippantly as things pertaining to the things that just make us happy.

And that's not bad because love has with it the thought of things that are satisfying, things that are so delightful. And so the things that really bring joy to our heart, we say, "I love that." But the thing is, we say stuff like, "I love food. I love material things.

I love to be here. I love to be there." And all of those things are not wicked and sinful because there is within things that we love, things that bring us pleasure. But here, Christ's love transcends because his love leads him to bear cost, to bear a burden all for our benefit, all for our good.

And so within that, scripture says he is challenging us to do a kind of love that is sacrificial like his, which ultimately becomes an offering and a sacrifice to God as a flagrant Roma. We're thinking about motivations here. And one of the greatest motivations that we have for doing anything is that it pleases our Father.

It pleases our God. Think about how illustrative and descriptive this is. That when God sees us empowered by the sacrificial love of Christ, being strengthened to be able to love beyond reason, beyond just logistics and practicalities and to sacrifice things, time, energy, money, whatever it may be, to love other people.

God sees that as a pleasant aroma. Now I was thinking of like analogies for this, but I didn't know if it was appropriate because I'm trying to picture God being pleased by his children loving one another, loving others. I can't use just the analogy that I thought was of like coffee.

Like when I smell coffee, it's just, even the smell wakes me up. It doesn't do justice. It doesn't compare. Probably best way to think about it is when you're a parent and you see your siblings, what frustrates you is not, "Oh, you didn't do your chores." When the siblings fight, when brother and brother hurt each other, it's enraging.

How dare you? But when they are taking care of each other, when a child is trying to actually help the other person, maybe even say, "Oh, here, you take this first," right? You just, it brings you joy. It doesn't necessarily do anything for you. You're not like receiving the benefit of that, but it just brings you joy.

That's our father. A father seeing the children love one another. All right. We spent some extra time on that and let's move to point number two. Point number two, if the first two verses was the command, the next two verses, verses three and four is the rationale, right? And what he tells us is you need to behave that way because that's appropriate for you.

But the other things of the world, immorality, impurity, and greed, these, it is absolutely inappropriate. And so I've entitled it, "It Doesn't Fit At All." What he says is, "But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you as is proper among saints. There must be no filthiness and silly talk or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks." What I'd like to highlight for you by way of observation first is not the contents of the immoral stuff, but actually the strength of the prohibition.

What I mean by that is, look how emphatic this is. He says, "Of these things, they must not even be named among you." That's really strong, as is proper among saints. So essentially saying this is not proper for the saints. He says, "There must be no filthiness and silly talk or coarse jesting, which is not fitting." It doesn't fit.

I like the way NIV says, it says, "But among you, there must not even be a hint of sexual immorality." Right? "Your name and this stuff shouldn't even be in the same sentence. It shouldn't be mentioned among you guys," essentially what it's saying. And so when we look at this strong exhortation, the strong commandment, we have to appreciate this extreme measure, so to speak.

Because within our framework of mind, we have a gauge. Every single one of us exercises a kind of bar, a standard. And I'm going to ask you this question. Have you adopted this measure or have you set the bar wherever you're comfortable? What is your comfortable, like a, sorry, what to do, what degree are you comfortable with this stuff is the question, right?

What am I saying? I think in this generation, people definitely, I mean, this is my opinion, but I think most of you guys will probably agree with me that in this generation, we live in a very permissive, excuse-oriented generation. And given that, the bar in terms of what is appropriate, what is fitting, constantly moves.

And if you talk to anybody in the previous generation, they're like, "Oh my goodness, we would have never even done that. We would never even, that would have, people would have been ashamed of that kind of stuff," right? There's talks like that. And the thing about it is, in this generation, not only are we like that, but we're defensive and we're sensitive.

If someone says, "Hey, that's not right," it's like, "Who are you to tell me what's not right?" "Hey, that's inappropriate," like, "Inappropriate? What do you mean inappropriate? That sounds like," and then they get all defensive like that. But for us, we have to make sure we're not setting the bar by what you're comfortable with because we believe in God.

Our Father sets what we should be comfortable with. And what he says here is a measure that says it should be way over here. There must not even be a hint of sexual immorality or any kind of impurity in you. Have you adopted that? Now, this being said, I want to move to thinking about this with the categories that he says, that there should be no immorality, impurity, or greed.

There shouldn't be any filthiness, silly talk, or coarse chesting. If you even take a moment to think about these two categories, and these two categories I asked for DC themes, and yes, there is. Immorality, impurity, and greed, essentially it is talking about that kind of lustfulness, passions, maybe sexual pleasures.

And so essentially what you have is this self-oriented input. And then with filthiness, silly talk, and coarse chesting, you have output, the stuff that comes out of your mouth. Both ways it should be pure, right? It should be pure. But we are talking about the degree of purity, and I'm emphasizing that more because I want you to think about this.

To what degree and measure did Christ expect when he was teaching the disciples about our purity? He says, when you even look at that woman, and you sit in your heart, you have an adulterous heart, right? He wanted purity even right up here. He wanted purity even in the fantasy lands of our mind.

He wanted purity even of our speech. He said, if you call your brother a fool, you're going to be condemned. I want us to think about that. Now because you guys have done your own study, I'm going to leave this to you to discuss to what degree we should be fighting these things.

How can we even raise our standards, especially personally for ourselves, to what measure are we striving now? So moving to the next part, section three. I'm sorry, I should have edited that. It should say point three versus five and six. So if the first two verses was commands, the second two verses is going to be the rationale.

It doesn't fit at all. And this last section is called the sobering reality, verses five and six. Let me read for us what the sobering reality is. There it is. Okay. He says, for this you know with certainty that no immoral or impure person or covetous man who is an adulterer has an 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. Okay. So notice how he says for this, you should know with certainty, you should already know this stuff and you should already know this stuff. Well, what should we know?

Well, if we summarize those two sections, it can be summarized this way, which is first that immoral, the immoral person who practices immorality, impurity, and greed, that kind of selfishness will go to hell. That is a massive category in our minds. That's a massive gospel truth. What's more, it says God's wrath is coming upon the disobedient, right?

God's wrath is coming upon disobedient. I want to share this with you guys that it is so important for us to have the proper worldview, not as how the rest of the world sees it, not as how some people, some pockets of individuals sees it, but as God is teaching you, this is how you should see this generation.

It's a perverse generation. And this perverse generation without Christ is going to go to hell. And as we think about that, I want you to realize that where you stand versus where a non-Christian stands, there is a massive line. It's a huge gap. That line is eternal. Think about that.

So this should completely inform us in terms of how we react to things in life, how we see our decisions, and especially when we have the temptation to live according to the world, to think like the world, these truths should affect us. We know that this world is going to experience the wrath of God.

What I realize is as I'm thinking about this, sometimes you have individuals who just, they love the world. And they say like, you know, I just can't help myself. I just keep looking at this stuff on the internet and I want it. I want to buy it. I want to have it.

You know, now I can sit there and instruct them, what you got to do is turn off the TV. What you got to do is turn off the internet. But it's not so much the specific instructions. They have to have a correction on the whole world view. What you think is so lovely is going to be judged by the wrath of God.

Even now, right now, there's so much turmoil, people fighting each other. Now there are so many things in terms of injustice that we should care about. And of injustice, there are things that we have to take actions for. However, when Christians start saying, you know what, I hope for a world, I hope for a generation.

I wonder if they're buying into a vision of the world that's ungodly. Ungodly, not because it's like vile and sinful, but ungodly because it's so limited. I want you to look at something here. The world view that is wrong for the individual within this first sentence, the immoral and impure person or a covetous man, you know why his world view is wrong?

Because his God and his world view is wrong. His God is an absolute fake. It's an idol, right? And typically when you practice idolatry, you're practicing an idolatry where you are at the center of the world. Your world view needs to be radically shifted. But what's more, take a look at this.

Let no one deceive you with empty words. What are empty words? Let me tell you what are empty words. What are empty words? Are words like, you got to do what makes you happy. You know, something as innocent as YOLO. Now, I'm not saying you could never say that.

Say it. You know, like you only live once. It's kind of a joke, right? But what is that motto used for? Motto is used for live it up. YOLO is used for, I know this is stupid, but I'm just going to do it because you only live once, right?

Those are empty words. You know why? Because those words are rational when you live only this life. And what Apostle Paul says, what King Solomon says is when your rationale is limited to this generation, it is fleeting, it is temporary, and therefore it is empty. It's vain. It's weightless.

Our rationale has with it eternity. We reason with Christ in mind, God with mind, eternity in mind, and heaven in mind. We're not looking for better days here. This world, God is not going to salvage and make better. He says sin is going to get worse. Sin is going to inspire more sin.

The love of most will grow cold. It's going to get hostile. You'll be persecuted and it's going to be difficult to live in this land. And when it's ripe for judgment, God is going to bring this wrath and burn it. Why are we talking like the rest of the world hoping just for better days here?

We can't think like that. We've got to be thinking more in line with the gospel truths. We're not just waiting for new policies, new governors, and new presidents. That's not where our hope is. For us, we're eagerly anticipating the return of our King. And so our rationale and our words are waiting.

This is the way that we need to respond. So as we take a moment to think about these things, to me, these things are sober realities that not only dictate how we respond to current events and life situations, these things also dictate our specific momentary decisions. As I experience temptation, what should I be thinking?

I should be first thinking I should be more like my God, my Father. I should be thinking I should be living and walking in love and not in selfishness. I should not have impurities, lusts, and greeds. I should not have gross things coming out of my mouth, but rather I should be a pure light in this generation because I'm living with an unshakable hope in God.

That's the way my mind should work. And so by way of conclusion, I want to say we have received some really broad exhortations and commandments today to imitate God and to walk in love. But just remember, we have to make sure that we take these broad commandments that encapsulate everything that we're doing.

And you have to be the one that takes case examples and apply specifically. How am I going to walk in love here? How am I going to show up into this scenario and exercise the kind of sacrificial, giving, lavishing love that God exercises with me? This is to you the kind of intentional, purposeful living that we want to do before the Lord.

And that we know is going to be pleasing to God. Let's take a moment to pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much. Lord God, we pray. We pray for the people around us. We want people to have hope in Christ, not to place hope in this world. This world, Lord God, is ready for judgment.

This world, Lord God, you say is getting filled. It's getting filled to the brim. And I pray, Father God, that we would then now have even a greater urgency to be lights, placing our hope and our trust and our confidence in our God. I do thank you so much, Lord, for your gospel truth that empowers us and shapes our thinking.

I do pray, Lord, that we would be all the more renewed. And I also pray, God, for our church, that there would be such a sobriety then in realizing that as we perhaps even are thinking more now about the end times. It has been long and people have been waiting.

And Lord, we want to say, God, that we eagerly await your return. We thank you, it's in Christ, and we pray. Amen. (fork clinks)