Giving of thanks, Eph, 5:3-5

Good morning. We're going to move into a passage here that apparently has wane and fear and trepidation. I don't think we need to be afraid of the passage, though. I think it will come out OK. What we're going to do is, as we typically do, this passage has enough content in it. We're going to break it up into each of the three verses. But before we do that, just a few things to point out. that saints, in verse 3, and basically all of verse 5 in sort of a negative or upside-down sense, is talking about our position. The rest of it is obviously addressing aspects of our condition, of our daily condition, and there's the urging or the understanding that he wants them to have of their daily walk in Christ.

So let's start with this first verse, Ephesians 5.3. And the first word that hits us there is immorality, fornication in the King James. This is pornea. And this is the first half of the word that we have in English, pornography. And in New Testament times, this referred to basically any sexual immorality.

It was a word that the Jews would use to describe the way that the Gentiles lived and a way that they would understand. Now, see, the way it was in the Greek and Roman world, the Greco-Roman world, if you will, is that there was really nothing wrong with any relationship except having relations with another's married wife. Everything else was legal. And so that was the only definition. And just to clarify here, this word Greco-Roman, that's not anything about geckos. It's not gecko-Roman. It's Greek-Roman. Put it together, Greco-Roman. So it's not gecko.

All right. In the New Testament times, here was the way the practice went. Among the Gentiles, everything was allowed. Any relations were allowed, except with another married man's wife. Other than that, anything was permitted. A person could pursue any other relationship sexually, and it was very common.

You find even in Ephesus here is a place with a brothel and right in front of the Library of Celsius, they've got these footsteps. I show one of them. It's actually a series of them to invite you into the brothel near next to the library. Here was also a slave market in Ephesus, which was common throughout the Roman Empire. Slave boys and girls were candidates. to be used. They also had four different categories and different words for the different prostitutes. One of those we pointed out previously was the better than a thousand prostitutes that were at the Temple of Artemis. So this was the common practice. It was the norm. It would have been considered the typical thing. Even if you went to the theater, the ladies that were on the stage and in the orchestra were candidates.

It was rather Disgusting, but wild by our comparison. And yet, where are we headed? We've got things on the television that now normalize what Paul describes in Romans 1 as part of the cascade of moral decline. We have, for example, these housewives that are desperate, and it's not for graham crackers, okay? So anyway, we've been having our own culture enough going on. But as we go through both the books of Ephesians and Colossians, We see that Paul doesn't appeal to the world as the basis for how the Christians live. You notice that? He's been going through there. He doesn't say, see how these people live in the world. No, that's not the example at all, is it? He never appeals to the world. He never appeals even to the believers, go out and fix the world.

Isn't that interesting? I think that's an important distinction for Christians to make. Yes, we are indeed to live as believers out among those who are in the world, and yet, All these exhortations, these imperatives, none of them have yet said, go out and fix the world and make the world somehow conform to these things that I'm spelling out here of the life of Christ. Now, the next word that pops up there, or any impurity, this word is ekatharsia, and it's any immoral or spiritual defilement before God. It's how does God see it, is the perspective there. It may be involving your own self. It may be involving another person. But whether singular or multiple people are involved, the idea is that of cleansing or not being cleansed.

Notice what he says in Acts 10.15. Here's Peter describing his having this vision where the Lord lays before him these unclean foods three times. And he hears a voice in the midst of this vision that says, what God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy. It's the verb form of this catharsis, if you will, catharizo.

And holiness is actually a matter, it may involve, in the real world terms here, physical world terms, It may involve other people, but the reality is unholiness or uncleanness is before God. We're either clean before God or unclean before God. So it's really a standing before God that's at issue, even if it appears to simply involve ourselves or other people. You've heard people say, well, I'm not doing anything that's going to hurt anybody.

Well, wait a minute. It's your relationship with the Lord that's at issue here, isn't it? The next one that comes up that Paul addresses there is greed. King James has this as covetousness, pleonexia. It's an insatiable desire to have what is rightfully somebody else's.

That's what's behind it. The underlying idea there is that if I have what I now don't have, that'll fix it. That will satisfy me. I will be finally deeply satisfied if I have that thing or if I do this thing that I'm not doing now. That will finally satisfy me and I'll be fulfilled. That's the message behind Pleonexia that he's spelling out here.

We have in our modern terminology addiction. And actually what Paul does here is he puts his finger on it. The world tries to deal with addictions, and we've got all kinds of clinics and things like that, and some of them may indeed have their place. But he says the underlying root of that is the sin nature. You see, the sin nature, as you may have noticed, is capable of addiction to almost anything. I've got various pictures up here, everything from substances, including food, to activities, things that you can do. Some of them may well be fine.

But what happens is that the sin nature keeps looking at that activity or that substance as the answer. If I just do that again, I'll be fulfilled. Well, no, not again. If I do it more, or if I have some more, that'll finally fulfill me. And the sin nature keeps bringing home that message.

There is this need, and the sin nature says, I've got to satisfy this need. And it looks to things in the world, because it has no choice otherwise, to keep coming back to, to try to satisfy that deep longing and need that basically is put there by God so that we seek Him. It may be several different things. When it is found that the sin nature is not satisfied, What happens is the sin nature goes in circles.

That's what the addiction is. You keep coming back, and back, and back, and back, and back, and back, and back, around in circles. Because the message it keeps telling you is you need to do it again. You need to do it some more. You need to do it again, and again, and again, and some more, and some more. And that's the message of the sin nature. I don't know how you drive this truck, but anyway, that's the idea.

Addiction is like a spiritual sinkhole. And when I say addiction, I'm not just talking about it in a psychological sense. I'm using the word Paul uses here, this pleonexia, this built-in permanent deficiency of the sin nature that keeps going back to the same thing, thinking that repetition or more will finally solve, will finally satisfy, will finally fulfill that need that is there.

But what happens is that it's What starts as a little hole gets bigger and bigger, and it keeps sucking more and more into it. It becomes all-consuming. Eventually, the addiction becomes massive and overwhelming, and the person finds themselves looking out of the hole that they've been drawn into, and the hole becomes the world. That's the way of this greed that the world keeps feeding.

Paul gets to the point, matter of fact, we're going to see in a couple of verses, addiction is as good as an idol gets. Because what the idol is doing is calling the shots. The idol says, if you just come back to me some more, oh, again, tomorrow, the next day. And you didn't have enough today, you just need more of the same tomorrow, and that will fix it. So the lie goes. And so the cycle keeps pulling us in again and again. And notice Paul's connection in a couple of verses from now. This covetous person who is an idolater, he calls it what it is. It's not simply a psychological phenomenon. It's a spiritual phenomenon. It has a spiritual root.

At the end of verse 3, he says, these must not be named among you as is proper among saints. And he calls back to their position. Notice that we said earlier that the first few chapters are addressing your position in Ephesians, and that after that it begins addressing your condition. But he doesn't leave position behind, does he? He keeps calling back to, you are saints.

He started off the letter, addressing the letter to the saints, to the hagios, the ones who are holy, set apart and dedicated for a holy purpose. Those are the ones he's writing to. There are three aspects of being a saint, and what he's really calling upon is based on this first one, the position that we have in the past. You were made saints.

His 1 Corinthians 1 and 2 is written, he says, you are sanctified and it is written in a perfect tense which implies permanence. It's a done deal. As a believer in the past you were positionally, completely, permanently, 100% sanctified. Done deal. In the present he is calling believers now to live as they have been made. That's his urging to them.

In 1 Thessalonians, and a lot of people will say, well, how can I find God's will? Guess what? He spells it out. You want to know God's will? For this is the will of God, your sanctification. That same word there, as you see there, is related to hagios, hagiosmos. You're, from your position as saints, being made saints in daily life. How that's carried out. You want to know the will of God? As we talked about earlier in the Acts class, God is not pacing the floors of heaven hoping that you'll buy the yellow Chevy instead of the blue one, okay?

He is instead desiring that you be sanctified, that you live out day by day that sainthood that you had from the moment you believed. That's what He's urging and calling for. And so He uses words similar with Thessalonians, the Thessalonian church, as He does with the church in Ephesus. Your sanctification is God's will that you abstain from porneia, this word again, for God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, see the word again, but for sanctification, that you be living out that sainthood that you already have as a believer in Christ, the position that you have in Him. Then he says there must be no filthiness and silly talk, of course jesting, which is not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.

Remember, we said before in Ephesians 4.29, Paul had addressed this talk issue. And we also said then that he's not done talking.

Ephesians 4.31, he brought it up again. And we're seeing it here in this passage. And guess what? He's not done.

Ephesians 5.25-27, he talks about husbands and wives right in the middle of this passage. Ephesians 5, 25 through 27, he talks about washing of water with the word, the spoken word. So here he mentions talking again. So we're not done with it. We'll see that again from July 17th, August 21st, as we talk about husbands and wives and what Paul has to say there.

We brought up this point before, and it's just appropriate now as it was then, that it's out of here, out of our mouth. that comes things that go into ear and ear and ear and ear and into here. That goes into the heart. It's the things that we say, they do matter. They do matter is Paul's message here. As he points it out here, it's a negative statement in great part at the beginning that there be no filthiness, silly talk, horse jesting, which isn't fitting. Why?

Because those are things that the sin nature does and expresses. But rather, based on your position in Christ, the only logical conclusion is giving of thanks. That is the expression of life in Christ in the believer. That is the expression of the position that you have in Christ.

So then, let's look at these words. This one, filthiness, escrotes, okay? It means spiritually ugly. Yuck! That's the idea. Things that when exposed to the light are shameful. That's what he's talking about. It is in sharp contrast to the character of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is in sharp contrast to his righteousness. He is our righteousness. That's what he's spelling out.

Now this word, silly talk, this is the one that, Wayne, you might want to leave the room. Anyway, no, stick around, it's okay. This is the foolish talking, and now then the wondering, oh boy, what's this going to say? No more moose jokes? Not in your life. Okay. All right. So the Greek word is morologia. It's from moron word. Moron message. That's what it's talking about. We get our word moron from the first part of this word. It's talk that is without spiritual insight. It's talk that reflects the understanding of the world and the sin nature.

It doesn't mean that humor is forbidden. By the way, we once had some visitors when I was younger from a so-called Christian commune up in Northern California. There's a bunch of really unusual people there. Anyway, these guys came down, about three or four of them, and they taught that this meant no humor. And, you know, we were joking around. That was a Peterman thing to do. And they just thought that was horrible, you know. So they said you could be joyful in the Lord, But other than that, no humor was allowed, so they were pretty severe about that. That's not what Paul's talking about, okay? So yes, you can laugh. Paul's point here is no talk that is completely inconsistent with your position. That's the same message he's been giving all along. No talk that lacks spiritual understanding. No talk that is just the world's talk.

That's what he's spelling out. He also follows that with coarse jesting, and it was a word Utropelia originally had actually a good connotation. It was clever. It was, oh, that's a clever thing to say. And we ourselves might, you know, approve and enjoy something like that.

But it took on a meaning that went beyond clever. It's words that sound clever, but have a destructive meaning, degrading, innuendo. that comes from the world instead of our position in Christ, instead of the life of Christ. Years ago, we would have called it locker room talk. It might be something that's said in secret or that's something that's said in decibel levels that none of us would enjoy.

That's the kind of thing it is. It's the kind of language, well, you've seen these before and after pictures, you know, where you've got this before and it looks better afterwards. It's the kind of language that makes the opposite the case, makes you look worse afterwards. That's the intent. You know what I'm talking about.

It's the kind of stuff you see in the sitcoms, hour after hour on television, right? It's the kind of thing that's jab here, jab back, cut this person down, slice this person open there with words. So it comes to these questions. Just how loving to my brother, sister, son, daughter, wife, or husband is that biting sarcasm?

See, he spelled out 415 and now here in 5. No, that's not what he has in mind. Just exactly how does that hot flaming comment build up the body of Christ? Because notice he's brought this up repeatedly in chapter 4. Building up the body of Christ is the goal. So that's what he's looking at.

He's saying these other things are not from the character of Christ. It's not his life. It's not his character. It's not who you are as a believer. These things which are not fitting, okay, convenient as the King James there, this filthiness, this silly talk, the coarse jesting, they don't fit with who we are in Christ.

It's a disconnect. Ever have parts that don't fit? You've probably seen these things that you buy at the store, some assembly required, and there's always something that you get it together and it's leftover. That's the thing that doesn't fit, right? These are things that are leftovers, that do not fit who we are in Christ. These are things that are not part of the assembly, apparently.

When we turn on a faucet, for example, We don't expect dirty water or paint or gasoline to come out of it. If we do, that's not good. We expect something clean to come out of it. That's what we anticipate. When something like that does not come out of it, that's alarming. Nancy and I lived in an area of Carson City that during a certain time of the year got some really nasty stuff coming out of the faucet. And so one of the last engineering jobs that I had before we left Carson City was studying that for the city to tell them how to find the problem and fix it. So we get disturbed when we find water that's like this. We don't want to drink it, right? That's a problem. You don't really want to take a bath in this stuff, okay? You don't really want to put it in a water jug to drink it later, okay? So what do we think about stuff like that, right? Yuck.

That's what Paul's trying to convey here spiritually. He says, those things just don't fit. You just don't want that. Paul's giving this horse's expression to the expressions of the sin nature. But rather, now he's repeating kind of a combination of two brief words that he used previously in 4.28, and these brief words point to a sharp contrast Not this, but in sharp contrast, this other thing. Okay?

And so what he has here, he spells out the giving of thanks. And what he's making clear here is the source, whether it's the sin nature or whether it's Christ Himself, makes a big difference. There's no grayscale. The expression and the character of what comes out of the believer, if it's this, that's yuck. If it's this, that's good. And he's putting them in sharp contrast, not grayscale, not a range of variation between. He's saying there's worlds of difference between this and the other. But rather, sharp contrast, giving of thanks. This is Eucharistia, good gracing.

The sharp contrast with the filthiness and the silly talk, the coarse jesting, is when we don't recognize God's unfathomable and abundant blessings. The life of Christ in the believer recognizes those blessings, recognizes the marvelous grace that He's expressed to us.

One of the things we pointed out when we were going through Colossians, and you notice we've been kind of alternating between Ephesians and Colossians here, Colossians has seven times telling the believers in Colossae to be thankful. I think they need to learn to be thankful, right? So he's seven times telling them to be thankful. Paul is giving them a very succinct message, but a pointed one. Giving of thanks.

Now that is the life of Christ and the believer. That is understanding our position. That is why he spent three chapters talking about position before he even told them, do this, don't do that. For you know this with certainty." That's a very interesting thing to say.

What? Certainty? We live in a world that suspects uncertainty. We live in a world that is skeptical. If you say something with certainty, you're automatically suspect. How can you say that with certainty? You can't know anything with certainty. That's what the world says. And yet here Paul turns around and says, here you know something with certainty.

One of the things that this brings forward, and it's a message not only communicated here, but in numerous places, that absolute truth is communicated and knowable. Our culture keeps coming on with this message that there's a permanent question mark between that title and at the end of the title. It's stuck there. Even many who claim to be Christians embrace this idea. Really, we don't know what the Bible says. You may have heard that.

But Scripture says repeatedly that God is the very definition of absolute truth. He is absolute morality. It is His character. He is a holy God. And Scripture says that He has repeatedly communicated that to mankind in the things that have been made in general, but more specifically through the person of Jesus Christ and through His Word. Truth is indeed knowable is the message that we keep getting. Think about this, Jesus said numerous times, here I have just from those places from John, truly, truly I say to you, how true is true? What does it take to get the idea that he really means true?

Paul writes to Timothy and Titus, and those are the two guys that he writes letters to who are apostolic delegates, guys kind of in the inside circle, And he says, it is a trustworthy statement, or this is a trustworthy statement, and he writes it to each of them. In Timothy, he writes it in each letter, including it at least once. Why? He can say that because it is trustworthy. It is true. The things that he follows with are indeed true. So what does he say here that you know with certainty?

That no immoral, impure person or covetous man Those are the things he's listed in verse 3, right? A person who is like that, who is an idolater, is an inheritance in the Kingdom of God. Now, one of the things to note is that in the Greek, there is no definite article, and that puts the focus upon the character of these people, the continuing, unaltered character of these people. It is not saying that if you're a believer and you slip, Instead, it's saying, no, it's the character of those who are unalterably and unchangeably continuing in these paths of immorality, impurity, and covetousness. Now, he characterizes those who are idolaters.

Of course, there was lots of idolatry in just about every pagan city that Paul went to, and certainly no less true of Ephesus. We're tempted, however, to think of idolatry as something, here's this idol made with human hands like you see. Notice what he points the finger at here. This is not, idolatry is not just something made out of stone or wood or metal.

Idolatry has to do with the character of the person. Idolatry springs from the sin nature. There's nothing wrong with the wood. There's nothing wrong with the metal or the stone. The problem is in the character of the man. That's where he puts the finger. That's where he spells it out.

That's why earlier we said addiction is not just simply a psychological phenomenon, it is also a spiritual phenomenon, and it's called idolatry. It's as good as an idol gets. It's the expression of the sin nature, because the sin nature is always trying to look for solutions within its own grasp.

How can I solve this problem of feeling empty? How can I solve this problem of being unfulfilled? I know I'll fix it with what's in the refrigerator. I'll fix it with what I get from the guy on the corner. I'll fix it with the stuff that's coming out of the television.

The sin nature is always looking for the solutions within its grasp instead of looking for what the Lord is holding out before us. Now, the thing that is important to look at here, this is indeed spelling out those who are unbelievers, who have by character, because of the lack of an article, the sin nature, and only the sin nature to rely upon. They do not have the life of Christ. If we were to look at 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 11, that verse 11 there, he says something very similar, In verse 10, talk about, here's a list of people whose character is of the sin nature, and he says, they won't inherit the kingdom of God.

And he says, but such were some of you, in verse 11. He says, you were washed, as positionally cleansed from sin, as a believer. You were sanctified, and notice he writes this in 1 Corinthians 1-2 in a perfect passive, it implies permanence. Hebrews 10-10, by the way, says the same thing.

You are sanctified permanently. As a believer here this morning, are you trying really hard to be sanctified? You don't need to be, because God did it. That's the sanctification that you can rely upon. His sanctification. He says, you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of our God. That also is given in other contexts in this perfect tense, implying permanence.

It's a done deal. You don't keep slipping in and out of justification. Justification, by the way, means you've been redeemed and forgiven and declared righteous. So there's no sense going and beating yourself up. Oh, no, I ate another 17 hamburgers tonight. It is not something over which we can pronounce any guilt. Paul is asking us not to sit there and pronounce guilt. He wrote to the church at Rome, there's no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ.

He says instead here, however, count on your sanctification done deal, permanent. Count upon your justification done deal. You've been declared righteous by God. Count on that. It's permanent. You're not slipping out of it. Count on it. A key New Testament principle is that believers in the New Testament are not threatened with loss of salvation if they think or behave Contrary to the life of Christ What he repeatedly tells us here in this book and elsewhere is that there's no basis and who God made us to be For the believers to act out of the sin nature, that's what he's telling So then he says, this person has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Now, what's that talking about? Well, first of all, I would tell you that there's that 1 Corinthians 6, 9 and 10 passage that has a similar message, and Galatians 5, 19 through 21 has a similar message too. You might make note of that.

This is the only place, interestingly enough, where he points out the Kingdom of God and of Christ, and he puts it together. It's the only place where it's listed in one spot. We need to clarify this a bit because there's been a lot of confusion in the Church over the years, over the centuries, over talking about the Kingdom. What does it mean to be in the Kingdom? What is the Kingdom talking about?

Well, first of all, there's the universal Kingdom of God. The universal kingdom of God is God's kingship over His creation. Passages that talk about this will often talk about God being the creator of everything. Everything exists because He created it, laying that out in the first place.

We give a few passages here for your reference, Psalm 47, 57, 11, Jeremiah 23, 24, but there are others. Now, the millennial kingdom, which is A kingdom yet to come is a thousand years long. That's six times in Revelation 20. It's spelled out to be a thousand years long. It is a kingdom yet to come.

Christ will rule as king of the Jews over that kingdom. Now notice, when you see this, that this kingdom here is a part of the universal kingdom of God. See that? It is a part of the universal kingdom of God. So you see reference to the kingdom, one of the questions you have to ask is both.

Is it this one or is it this one? Or is it both of them put together? And that's what Paul just spelled out for us. The kingdom of Christ, the millennial kingdom, and of God. God's universal kingship over all His creation. Both. So if it's clear, where's the confusion? God is clearly the king of his creation, the universal kingdom. We can count on that.

Jesus Christ is clearly king of the Jews. As a matter of fact, that's one of the questions that Pilate asked him. Are you king of the Jews? Because he wanted to put that over his cross, you could tell. Are you king of the Jews? Jesus says, it is as you say. Yeah, he claimed that.

Jesus, however, is pictured for the church as head of the body. He is the head, the church is the body. Christ is the Bridegroom, the Church the Bride, and Christ is our Lord, but what we never see is Christ is not called the Church's King. We don't see that in the Scripture.

The Church believers have an inheritance in the Kingdom of God. We will be there with the Lord. We saw that when we studied Revelation Chapter 20. We come with the Lord, we will be with Him. We will have a part in and an inheritance in But the church is not the kingdom. That's the distinction.

The Millennial Kingdom will be a fulfillment of the promises to David, and it's for Israel. That's why the promises to David were for a house, a throne, a kingdom. A thousand years later, the angel Gabriel comes before Mary and says, this person who is going to be born of you, this Savior is Jesus. You're going to call him that, and he is going to be the one who will have a house, a throne, and a kingdom. Same things that were promised exactly to David. So it's the fulfillment of that. He will reign over the Jews, having the house and the throne and the kingdom.

The church explicitly does not replace Israel. We're not taking over Israel's kingdom. Jesus is not coming to be the church's king as if we took over it. No. We have it clear from Romans 11. Twice there in verses 1 and 2, the denial. God has not rejected Israel and put Israel aside so that the church can take Israel's promises.

Israel is promised, if you follow me, I will bless you in earthly ways. Read Deuteronomy 28. But to the church, he said, you've already been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Where? In the heavenlies, not in Israel. Romans 11, 28 and 29 later on at the end there, the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

God doesn't say, here, take this gift. Nah, I changed my mind. He doesn't do that. Okay, so we've gone through this passage. It's had everything from silly talk to thank yous. What's the bullseye? The bullseye is giving of thanks. It's brief words. But why that? It's the one thing that we can do in that passage, okay? It's the one thing that we can do because it expresses the life of Christ. It's the one thing that we can do because it is based on who we are in Christ and is recognizing the ways that we've been blessed. Paul has already told them that they've been blessed with every spiritual blessing. He said in 3.8 of Ephesians, the blessings are unfathomable. They are so deep we can't begin to touch them. We haven't scratched the surface.

We've been shown glimpses of God's grace as we go through this book, but what he says there in 2.7 is that the grace is so vast it will take eternity for us to soak it in. So is there a lot to give thanks for? Yes, if we understand our position in Christ, if we understand who we are in Him, if we understand how immensely and unfathomably and amazingly we've been blessed, how amazing is grace. Let's pray. Lord, we thank You for this time. We look at what You have done and accomplished. We thank You for Your Word that spells things out so clearly and so succinctly. We thank you for the truth that we can stand in here this morning, and that we can thank you for, for all eternity. In Jesus' name, Amen.