No immorality in the believers life

We're going to go through Chapter 5 kind of slowly, I think as Bob pointed out. He had a whopping two verses last time, which are really two tremendous verses. But now we're going to kind of move on. This next section from three, I teach today and the next week. These next two sections are kind of a downer from a human perspective, but the Lord, they're in scripture, they're here for us to consider and ponder. So we're going to go through, there's some neat things in here, some things that the Lord would have us learn. So actually I've been using this outline from Macaulay The first part, we've already gone through the end of chapter 4, going into chapter 5, our relationship to one another.

We've looked at that. So we kind of wound down through chapter 4 and then to 5, Bob covered being imitators. When we look at the verse here, we'll just make some comments about that. But imitators is an interesting word. If we don't look at what scripture says, we may come away with the wrong impression.

Today we're going to talk about morality. in conduct and speech and at the end the kind of uplifting part of this little section is about our inheritance in God's kingdom and then next week we're going to talk about our relationship to mockers, deceivers, darkness and light down through verse 10 so some uplifting things and some things to cause us to remember that we're we have a fallen nature and that the world around us, as we know it to be told, is a bit out of control and with sinful actions abounding.

Okay, that was from Macaulay there. I kind of changed a bunch of the words in there, so if you were to look at his, you know, he has a, if you're interested, Macaulay, you know, you can go to his website, he has, you know, a lot of the epistles, he has little pamphlets or booklets and this comes from one of his booklets. It's available online. If you need some help with that, I can tell you where to go. You can download it electronically or get a paper copy. I'm not selling Macaulay, if you're interested. Could someone read these first five verses for us?

Therefore, being in this area of God's beloved children and walking love, just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us in offering his sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma, then immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you as is proper among saints. And there must be no filthiness or silly talk, of course, just things which are not fitting but rather giving thanks. 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 the Lord. Thank you. Okay.

So lastly Bob, now that's a great section we did talking about being imitators and one of the key words in that Is this word be? I think it's just a low word, but is this word in the Greek, it's ginomai, it's a state of being verb, to come into a new state of being. So really you can't be an imitator of God unless you come into this new state of being. And we saw that actually in the last part of chapter 4 where it says, be kind to one another.

The same word. You can't be kind unless you're a new creation in Christ. You just cannot do it. The flesh cannot produce a kindness or God's character outside of knowing Christ. And then based upon that, you go down to verse 2, you say walk in love. Why do we walk in love? Because Christ loved us. We can't walk in love without Christ being the driving force in that. And then it talks about because he loved us and gave himself for us as an offering and sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

Now we get the big but. But immorality. So we have these lists of downers, if you will. So we're going to go through those. But immorality or impurity or greed must not even be named among you as is proper among the saints. So I want to look at the main verb first and it's this idea of even be named and of course it's not even be named, it's not to even be named and it's among you. And there's a couple of looking at that Greek word which I'm not going to attempt to pronounce at the moment. It has some various, you know, in scripture, and this is what's cool, you don't really have to be a Greek geek.

You can look at words and just do it based upon words. You can look at words and with some helps you can figure out, well, where is this word used in other places in scripture? And many times it is. And you get some idea about, well, what does it mean in this context or that context? So this word, has different meanings in different contexts. So the first one is to be professed.

So let's look at, someone read 2 Timothy 2.19.

Could someone read that? Nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure, having his seal. The Lord knoweth not and let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. Okay, so in that context, everyone that names the name of the Lord, so that's the one that if I name the name, I'm saying I'm a believer, I'm professing that I know Jesus Christ. So, question, is that the meaning in this context?

And I really don't think it is, so let's look at some other verses here. to designate so this is a verse that talks about Christ and his disciples so can someone read Luke 6.13 and when it was day he called unto him his disciples and of them he chose twelve whom he named apostles OK, all right, so this is the same word named. So in this case, he said, Peter, he named it. He said, you're an apostle, you're an apostle.

So is that the meaning in our case? Well, it doesn't seem like that exactly fits. OK, how about Romans? Let's look at Romans 15.20. Could someone read that?

Yes, so I've strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man's foundation. Okay, so in this case, he's talking about, he doesn't want to, it would be like here, I don't want to come to a place that is heard about Jesus Christ. I want to come to, you know, new territory, virgin territory. They have not heard about Christ, I want to preach there. So you could render it, Christ is not known about. So in this situation, this one seems, you know, actually Macaulay had something to say about that.

Romans 15.20 meaning to be known would teach that these pagan vices should not exist, should not be known among Christians.

Now that doesn't mean they never heard about it, I don't think. It just means that We aren't dabbling and stirring up the pot. We're not spending our time in these things, immorality, impurity or greed. It doesn't mean we never heard about them, I don't think.

It just means that we're not, that's not something we're spending our time in. And actually one, I had another translation to be known or maybe to be heard, you know, you may hear about them, but to just be immersed in those things is not Christ's life. Our focus is on Christ, not upon these particular things. In both these verses, 3 and 4, I decided we're going to look at the vices, we're going to look at these words, but I thought it's better to see what's the action that God has desired here. He's telling us that not even be named among you. This shouldn't be something that's You know, your small talk, if you will. Hopefully not. OK. So let's look at the words.

But it's on the contrary, on the other hand. So we have three nouns, immorality, impurity, and greed. They describe a life that is contrary to our life in Christ. Immorality, impurity, and greed. So let's look at each one of those. Immorality is from the word, actually, Pornia, fornication, lewdness, asexual sin, and actually if you look at those two verses, and we don't have to, this will ring a bell here, this guy right here, 519, do you guys know what 519 is about? I'm just wondering. We have the fruits of the spirit, That's the deeds of the flesh. So little light bulbs ought to go off in your head. Deeds of the flesh. That doesn't sound like a real good list to be a part of, right?

So we're going to find that these immorality, impurity and greed are all kind of wrapped up in the deeds of the flesh. And so scripture has a lot to say about those and that's just not our life in Christ. Yes, we can do these things and we're going to find out that at the very end Paul's going to say, and such were some of you, but you've been washed, you've been cleansed by the blood of Christ. So there's good news in that, that yes, you were there, but you've come into a new state of being and that's a believer in the Lord Jesus. immorality.

And that Colossians list is just another list. The Colossians list, well let's just read that. I refer to it a bunch of times here. Colossians 3, 3-5. Okay, so actually all three of these ones here occur in Colossians 3-5. Basically, consider the members of your earthly body to be dead or separated to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desires, greed, which amounts to idolatry. Okay, so that's the first one.

The second one is all impurity, uncleanliness, filth, both in a physical and a moral sense. And again, it shows up in the deeds of the flesh, and it shows up in the list we just read. Then the third one, greed, basically it's a covetousness, a desire to have more. Actually, in studying through this, a lot of people commented on the fact that, hey, greed seems kind of funny in this list, but it's really this desire to have more of these two we just stated.

It's never enough, right? Man outside of Christ, there's never enough money, there's never enough power, there's never enough whatever it might be. Immorality, there's never enough because they're not satisfied. So that greed comes into play as a kind of a driver in the other two. You can't get no satisfaction.

Well, that's what the world says, right? There's popular songs, and people say, hey, that's a great song. Everybody gets really excited about that song. And it's right. It's connected with the big label of truth. It's a little more powerful than that. Right. And I had a few little verses here, like with immorality.

In Colossians 6.18 it says, flee immorality. Actually, I have a story I can tell about that, but that's anyway. One time I actually had to flee immorality. I'm not sure I've shared that with Bonnie, but anyway. I think I maybe have, anyway. I shouldn't tell half the story. That's terrible. Go ahead. Is there something you want to say?

But the flesh is still the flesh. All these things kind of pervade us at times. Exactly. We're tempted by these things constantly. it's good that being an imitator of Christ is that life and when we live by faith these things are made pale but we still fall back don't we? there's still a lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh and the pride of life and all that enters in all the time and it's position that translates into condition that continues by faith to modify these but yeah, all three of these Anyway, they come up periodically. Oh yeah, and the Lord, he's not ignorant of these. I think that's what's cool is he doesn't say, well just close your eyes. No, he is and he says, flee that, get away from that. That's not part of who you are.

To fall back on those, therefore no content, oh wretched man that I am, who should deliver me from this life that I live in the flesh. It's Christ Jesus who delivers us. There's therefore no condemnation. You fall back on that comfort zone. That's sound theology, but to say these things don't show up is mistaken. To dwell there and be there, we're called not to be there. That's the whole thrust of this verse.

He doesn't want us to not even be named. It's not to be part of your dialogue in your life in Christ. Hey, it's going to show up, but that's not what you're spending your time about. Later on it's going to say your time is to be thankful to the Lord, be thankful to God. That's what you're spending your time doing.

One last thing on these. all impurity and greed they show up in the list you know if you read if you want to read another down to read Romans chapter 1 and just look at the look at the downward spiral of man and these show up both these words show up in that section if you look at Romans chapter 1 the first one impurity shows up in verse 24 therefore God gave them over in the lust of their hearts to impurity, that's our word right here, and their bodies might be dishonored among them. And then down in 27, in the same way also, men abandon the natural functions of women and burn in desire toward one another, and so on. So, it shows up, greed's in there somewhere. You know what also it shows, Roger, is we think how bad things are today.

Right. It was exactly the same. Man has never changed. The sin nature has been the same from the get go. Are we any worse than Sodom and Gomorrah? No. We're just repeating that cycle again. It just comes back again and again and again. So these three things. What's interesting is These three things talk about sinful acts, immorality, impurity, and greed. We're going to see in verse 5, these exact words are repeated in a little bit different noun form, and it's going to talk about an immoral person, an impure person, a person who is greedy. It's going to talk about these same words, and it's going to talk about can that person inherit the kingdom of God. But these same words will show up again in verse 5. We'll see it shortly here. I didn't actually see that. I thought, wait a minute, these are the same words. None of the commentators seem to pick up on that. I don't know why. But I thought, that's interesting.

These same words are in verse 3 and in verse 5. What's the difference? These are the acts. And verse 5 is going to talk about the person. So let's go on. So the last part of this, but immorality or impurity or greed must not even be named among you as is proper among the saints. So it adds this proper among or for the saints. So proper is the idea of being fitting or becoming. And let's see here. So let's just look at one of these. Look at Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 10. So it's going to be in a more uplifting context.

Hebrews 2.10. Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

Hmm. Okay. Can you explain? I had the wrong... Okay. I do that sometimes. Okay. Okay. Well, I'm looking for the one who is fitting for him. Maybe it was just in a good translation. No. Okay. Well, anyway. You can try the other one. Basically it was fitting for Christ to suffer on our behalf. That's what I'm looking for, but somehow it does happen I get the wrong... I try to double check them, but I don't always... Oh, okay, is that right? Okay. So actually what I have is, for it was fitting for Him, Christ, To do what was read at seven. Twenty six. Right. Seven. Twenty six. Both seven. Twenty six. And 210. Well, I have to double check that. OK.

You know, one thing I think you might read that back to the issue of the temptations that exist in this space. you know when you're I think positioned and understand that by faith, you know you fall short and you enter into this mindset, ultimately that's not who we are. Right.

And our citizenship is of a whole different nature. And when you're tempted, an old man who's in nature is tempted to enter into these spheres, you know a reminder is that that's not who I am. It's not only do I believe that I'm secure but why am I wandering into wrong territory here. I mean you don't do it. I mean just but that's not who we are.

Right. Right. So this 726 is really good there in terms of. Christ. For such a high priest was fitting for us, whose holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens. Right, that's good. So, Weiss actually uses the word benefiting, just as it is benefiting to the saints. Therefore, it's not proper or benefiting for the saints to be known by these sins. So, this is not something that we should be known by. So this kind of prompted me to think, well what should saints be known by? So I put down two verses, we can look at those, but before we look at those verses, just off the top of your head, what should saints be known by?

Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. They thought of it in the good sense. more Christians among them, behold how they love one another. That's good. That's one that we see a lot in 1 John, that they love one another. Other thoughts? I think even in places where you interact with people who are not believers or you don't know if they're believers or whatever, I think Non-believers can sense or feel something different about a believer. And sometimes they can't put their finger on it. They don't know exactly what it is. But I think it's that sweet savor that is talked about so often.

That when you're who you are in Christ, That comes out. Right, exactly. It's not that you're trying to make it come out, but I just think it comes out. Good, that's good. We need moral people. Yeah, right. That you do the right thing. When it comes down to it, you do the right thing. Good citizens. Good citizens, right? Well, it's just a whole bunch of things.

Well, I picked two here. The Matthew one, let's just read it. It talks about Well, let's read it before I say it. Matthew 7, 16 through 20. Hopefully I got the right address on that guy. You're talking of the kingdom made scripture. Yeah, I know. Actually, it is. I know. I looked at that and said, but I thought it was, I thought the message was good. So I know, I know I kind of crossed into, went out of the church age into the kingdom. But go ahead. But you know, Richard, think about that a little bit.

You know, the Sermon on the Mount, really, I mean, really, it's the Christ-like promise to the Jew. Exactly. But in effect, what Christ is expressing in terms of what his life did look like and will look like in the Jewish nation. one day in the kingdom age, is really identification for us today. That doesn't mean we study that for identification. There's a lot of meat there in terms of what you're going to share. This is just one example. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Sure, okay. Someone have that? I can read it if you don't. Got it.

We shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? Even so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth a good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. Wherefore, by their fruits ye shall know them. Thank you. Perfect. So basically, we just talked about that. It's exactly what you talked about. It's by your fruits you'll be known. And it's the fruit of our Savior. It's His life. So that's cool. So the other one talks about another picture here in 2 Corinthians 3.

Can someone read that? Are we beginning to commend ourselves again, or do we need, as some, letters of commendation to you or from you? You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men. being manifested that you are a letter of Christ cared for by us written not with ink but with the spirit of the living God not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

Isn't that powerful? Wow. I mean that just blows you away. I remember my brother Hal, I think you may have quoted what Emmett may have said this, we are the only scripture that people will ever read. We're that letter. And it's just, it's kind of chilling. You think, wow, I don't feel like I'm... And we shouldn't. We shouldn't feel like, well, I got that together so they can see I'm a great letter. No, I'm not a great letter. Christ is a great letter. He's a great message.

And that's what makes that wonderful. Well, and it's your life because that's who you are. Right. I mean, I think it all comes back to who are we? Right. What is our position and who are we in Christ? And that's really what it's about. It's who we are. Tom? It's not what you do, it's who you are. And once you know who you are, then what you do is evidence of who you are. It's who we are. That's right.

Well, this is a little off track but still abutting the subject. What is the gospel according to you? It's kind of like people aren't going to be automatically reaching for their scriptures if they happen to carry them around even though they may be unbelievers. Kind of a weak prospect. Unless it's a hobby horse they use as a backup. that it's something that can't be equaled by human effort, but it surpasses it.

That's going to be the big drawing card. Amen. Okay, so let's move on here. Verse 4. So now we're going to kind of switch here. We're going to focus from these acts to corrupt speech. Folks, the speech that should not be part of a believer's life, not only are our actions, but our speech needs to be fitting of who we are. And there must be no filthiness, silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather the giving of thanks. So the contrast to this here, of those three things, is Our mouths should be giving thanks for what we have, not involved in these other things.

And actually that word, silly talk, some have kind of objected. You almost think of high school kids running around doing silly talk. I taught high school, Sunday school sometimes, and a lot of silly talk can go on. Giggling and all this kind of stuff, silly talk. It's a lot stronger than that kind of silly talk. It's not the light, you know, oh, Bobby looked at me. It's not that kind of thing. Which is silly talk too, but it's not sinful silly talk. It's just kind of, you know, chatterboxes, whatever.

What's interesting is if you look carefully here, there's a bunch of words here, at least in this translation, that are not there in the original. If you read the King James, there's actually one sentence, three and four are one sentence, so it's really and, filthiness, silly talk, coarse jesting. So they focus back on that verb back in 3 that talks about not even being named. And then I say, what does which refer to? And that's kind of rhetorical, basically. It's talking about those three, filthiness, silly talk, and coarse jesting.

And basically, which are fitting, and the idea here, which are proper, becoming. Let's see here. And actually, the verse, could somebody read the verse there, 318? Colossians, I'm sorry, Colossians 3.18. Why submit yourselves into your own husbands as is fit in the Lord? My son is fitting, yours is fit?

As is fit in the Lord. That's King James. That's King James, I'm sorry. That's the new King James. What strikes me about this verse is that the subjection to their husband is something that is proper in the Lord. You just don't, hey, I'm a doormat, just roll over me, baby. That's not that at all. It's fitting in the Lord. Well, that takes on a whole new dynamic. That's his plan, what he's desired. So anyway, it's basically saying that those three things are not fitting.

This kind of speech is not fitting for believers. So let's just look at these three. We'll just kind of whip through these guys here. So filthiness, and it turns out that these three words only show up in this verse, which makes it challenging to get a good definition. So people have to go back to the classical Greek, and they have to go back to Aristotle. So you start reading about these guys here, and you say, well, Aristotle said this word was used for this and that. And that's where we get our definition.

But we don't have other verses directly to go to, except there is a case where filthiness It's both in word and action, and actually there's a synonym in Colossians 3.8.

Let me read it this time. If someone gets to it before I do, go ahead. Now you also put off all the anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Okay. Actually the last one, mine has anger, wrath, malice, slander. and abusive speech. What did you have, Tom, for the last one?

Filthy communication. That's basically our word. It's literally vile language out of your mouth. That's filthiness. That's a synonym for trash talk. That's not part of our life in Christ. Silly talk, like I said, it actually comes from moronic or moron. So it's not just that kind of talk. It's foolishness which is foolishness and sin together.

In Ephesians 4.29, we talked about that before. It's a very similar kind of talking about speech and that kind of stuff. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. Okay, great, thank you. Okay, and that actually could apply to this verse, silly talk, I mean, to this word, and then coarse jesting. And did I see something off there? I think I somehow chopped off a part here. Oh, there we go. Sorry. Oops, let's go back here. OK, yeah.

Used in a bad sense. What's interesting is this word, coarse jesting, this is going to change. This original word can be used in a positive sense and a negative sense. And here it's used in a negative sense, scoffing, sneering, coarse joking. What we're going to see later on, in fact, at the end of the verse, The giving of thanks actually is a form of the same word, but it's used in a positive sense. As has been said many times, many of the original words can be used in a positive sense or a negative sense. You have to look at the context. Always look at the context. that the first two letters of that Greek word, which is supposed to mean good.

Right. In this sense, it's more like clever, but not good. Exactly. In fact, you're going to see the first part of that word will show up in the giving thanks. You'll see that shortly here. OK, but rather giving thanks. The idea here is, but rather is a strong contrast. Both those verses, the one in Romans and the one in Timothy, just use that phrase, but rather this, but rather that. It's making a strong contrast between the filthiness, silly talk, and coarse jesting, but rather, in strong contrast to that, the giving of thanks. Here's what you're talking about, Tom.

Here's a good word for giving thanks. The first part of the word is the same, and this is I might not attempt to pronounce it but anyway it's a much more it's good good something. E-U is good I think and Charis is kind of in there too so this is giving a thanks. Actually, there's a bunch of neat words for that.

Reminds me of what my grandmother used to tell me. If you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all. I've heard that over the years. I think that came from him, honestly. I do. Maybe you feel justified in saying some of those things. Maybe the person is really... Actually, that's not... Christ didn't go around, that wasn't part of his ministry to put down people. He did the opposite of that.

I think that was one of those things that came out of one of those little teachings that came out of this exact kind of verses. I just think that words are much more powerful than you realize. Absolutely. And I think it's not unusual for humans to speak without thinking. Right. And you don't know your impact. I know. Even when you speak off the cuff. Do you remember the little, this will date me a little bit.

The old thing about sticks and stones will break your bones but words will never harm you. Boy, is that ever an untruth. That is totally untruth. Well, now with social media, you can totally do it anonymously from home. You don't even have to be face to face with someone to say things. Yeah, that's right.

Which is so harmful. It is, very harmful. And once they're down, I often think once those words are down, especially in paper or electronically, they're there I have forever. I can't tell you how many times it worked in terms of people who work with me or for me. Email is not the way you agree.

Oh, absolutely. Oh, they're so misunderstood. It's documented forever and ever and ever. I know. You call the person. Yes, exactly. Exactly. You can also say it another way, engage Christ's life in you in the hope of glory before opening your mouth. Okay, great. So let's see here.

So actually Colossians 4.2 says, devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert, in it with an attitude of thanksgiving. I exhort therefore that first of all supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men. Okay, so I was looking basically for the idea that giving of thanks is a really important thing. Just think about Christ's example when he, there's a couple of examples in parables where the person that was thankful is, he points that person out.

Nine? I've forgotten the parable exactly. So many didn't come back, but one or two came back and they gave thanks. Well, thank you for doing this and thank you for that. Being thankful is a powerful thing. It really is. Think how uplifted you are when somebody comes back and says thank you. Actually, even with our grandkids. Our little cedar, he's a little handful. But sometimes he'll actually say, thank you. Thank you, Nana. Thank you, Papa, for doing this. And boy, you're just kind of floored after you scolded him for doing something, you know, slamming his sister to the ground and jumping on top of her. OK, that might be a little bit over the top, but anyway.

There is a temptation to put these things as kind of a law before us. If we put this as a law in terms of our behavior, then you are going to fail because the flesh is being called to an activity that you are really not capable of. I think it is so important to steep this in grace and faith in our position. That is what Ephesians is all about. Keep these things, A, B, C, D, E, F, these things I can't do. I mean, it's scripture. We're being reminded. But I think it's important. Yeah.

The question is how do we accomplish this thankfulness? Is that something that we, well, okay, I got to say, you know, or I say three, three sort of so-so words, but then the last one I give thanks, and then they'll take care of the other ones that will kind of wipe out.

No, it's, you're thankful because you really are thankful. Thank you, Lord, that I, that I'm saved for all eternity. Thank you, Lord. And you can use that as an approach to life rather than than saying, well, okay, it was a bad day, and you roll off all the bad things that happened, you could thank the Lord for what was good that day.

Also, you know, he wrote this letter to the Ephesians after Romans. Right. I mean, Romans is in there. Exactly. So, there's some assumption that we understand who we are in Christ. Exactly. What our real character should be. Right. So I have a couple of alternate translations for this little phrase. Wheeler, who is a Greek scholar, says, but Thanksgiving, rather let it be named. He kind of used the idea that back to this main verb from verse three. But Thanksgiving, rather let it be named. And then the Amplified had it. But instead, voice your thanksgiving to God. So that's the Christ life that Paul's pointing out here. OK. OK, so now we're going to start into the this is a repeat.

For this, you know, with certainty, this is this is pretty cool. There's a couple of this starting off for this, you know, with certainty. So you actually have two words for no here. And this is this is pretty interesting. I mean, this maybe it's a little geeky, but for this, you know, absolutely. And experientially, that's how we does it. So there's actually two words here.

And we talk about these on and off, I know both Bob and I do, and I think Randy does too, a couple of words that are noteworthy about, that are behind the word no. The first one is oida, which speaks of absolute knowledge, self-evident. That's like, you know, God is light, you know, or there is a God, you look and there is a God. I have a verse I want to show you here shortly. And the other one is gnosko, It's the idea that it's a know of experience to recognize.

So he actually has, pretty powerful, he has both you know and recognize. He's saying that the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ knows with a certainty and also experientially that this kind of person will not inherit the kingdom of God. It just doesn't fit. It doesn't fit with the Christ life. So actually there's a verse here that actually has both Oida and Gnosko in it. So let's read John, does someone read John 8 verses 54 and 55? John 8, 54 and 55.

Jesus answered, if I honor myself, my honor is nothing. It is my Father that honoreth me. of whom ye say that he is your God, that ye have not known him, but I know him. And if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you. But I know him, and keep his saying.

OK. So we're going to start. We're just going to focus here on it. I did 54 just to get the context. 55. So we've got no one there about four times, four or five times. OK. OK. I'm going to have to move along here. OK.

Well, the first no, he says, and you have not come to know him and that's the word Gnosko you don't know him by experience he says but I know him I know him absolutely Oida I know him absolutely and then the rest of them are all Oida they're all I know him and I keep his word, and so on. So all the rest of those are oida. And there are other verses that have this too, but this is one of the ones that combines both the know of absolute and the know of experience. So this is, like I said before, this verse is saying, for you know with certainty, or you know and recognize the following.

OK, so you know, and here's our three things again, an immoral person, a man who indulges in fornication, an impure person, morally unclean, and a covetous man. Those three, the same as we had in verse 3, who is that? And it adds, who is an idolater? A Servant of Worship of Idols. Let's just look at that briefly. We don't have a whole lot of time. 1 Corinthians 5, 9-11. Then we'll try to wrap it up here quickly.

So Roger, as you go forward there, do you think then that the immoral and the impure person or a covetous man, that's all identified with who's an idolater of these things? Or is that a separate thing? Thank you. Yeah, because it sounds like it's saying that you are idolizing these things.

Yeah. Well... Is it? Yeah. Thank you. I was wondering that. I thought it connected with a covetous man. I thought it was a further... but actually I had it... Because you can be all those things without worshipping idols also, right? Well, let's go ahead. Let's read out my verse here and see if that helps. I'm not sure I know at the moment, but I hear what you're saying. And I thought, my recollection is that idolatry was further defining a covetous man. It says he's a covetous man, but in addition to that, he's also an idolater. I mean, that's kind of how I put it. 9 through 11.

Yes, thank you. I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators, yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters. For them must ye means go out of the world. But now I have written unto you, not to keep company with any man that is called a brother, be a fornicator, or a covetous, or an idolater, or a raider, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, with such and one not to. So actually it lists that characteristic, it puts those together, it puts the covetous man with the idolater in that verse twice. So I thought it was further defining the covetous man. That was my take on that.

So who are the persons described in verse 5? Who are these persons? We've already kind of talked about this, so I won't spend a lot of time. I took what Macaulay said here. there's a level of content that reveals an unsafe condition and verse 5 describes that condition and that makes sense with what Paul's presenting he's saying and it's going to make total sense when we look at the rest of this verse because if this isn't a person then we've got a problem then we've got a verse that says well there's some condition under which your salvation's in jeopardy okay so let's go on that I'll wrap it up with this right here okay so basically There's a parallel passage, this verse states, for this you know with certainty, no immoral, impure, or capricious man who is an idolater has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

So some have taken this and said, wow, Boy, if that ever happened, my salvation is in jeopardy. So is that true? But this verse that Paul is going to offer in Corinthians is going to expand that. He is going to give the full picture here. He says, Okay.

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? So it's good to know, it's a believer, righteous or unrighteous. We have Christ's righteousness. We're all righteous because we have Christ's righteousness. And he said, don't be deceived. And he goes through, neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor feminists, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. The last verse is just dynamite.

Such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God. Without that, you might have a worry about this verse up here, but with that you say, oh, I see the picture.

When I become a new creation in Christ, that's no longer my life. I have Christ's life now. By the way, just because you become a believer, Most people don't immediately. I mean their life doesn't change immediately. The Holy Spirit then comes in over time. And it can be a whole lifetime. It can change the total behavior of that person all the way until they're an old person.

Yeah, we're saved. I mean whoever you are. Do you remember our brother Hal's story about being, maybe it was Las Vegas or someplace, he became a believer. This is Hal Malloy. He's told this story many times. He liked to gamble. Hal liked to gamble. He liked to drink. And he became a believer. And he still was gambling and drinking. So he's talking to this lady here, and he has his glass of whiskey with him. He's telling her about Jesus. I'm not sure of the time period, but then there was a time period that came.

He came home one night after being out, and Lindy, who still is here with us, he dumped all his liquor down the drain, all the empty bottles were there, just all over the place. So she got up in the morning, All these empty bottles, she thought, he drank all that. He's going to be dead. He's going to be dead. No, I poured it all out. That was all gone.

But you know, interesting, later on in his life, he did still drink wine. I think he liked beer occasionally too. And he liked beer, because at that point he realized, you know, what his identification was that he wasn't under law. But it took him a long time to get to that point where he grew in the Lord and understood what his life was in the Lord. And you look at the things listed. Oh, I know. You read that 9b through 10? Oh my goodness.

I mean, but the thing is, again, I'm going to say that in our earthly nature, we all fall into... I'm going to list them because that puts us under the law. Have you ever been occasionally covetous? These are nasty things, but I think what the verse is talking about is two different lives. Lives that are in that space, not all of them necessarily, because the self-righteous flesh tend to think, gee, I'm not a drunkard, I'm not covetous, I'm not a homosexual. They take credit for that in the flesh. We're talking about two different kinds of citizens here. Right. And I think it's nice that you've listed verse 11.

You know, actually, I wasn't going to have, I wasn't going to have, well, that I definitely have. I wasn't going to have this, I was going to drop this out and think, well, we know about that. I thought, oh, wait a minute, if I don't put it in there, then you don't see the contrast. And you say, well, wait a minute, all those things, But such were some of you.

You were right there. But what's happened? You've been washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, it's just powerful. Context is everything. Exactly. Okay, we better close because actually Bonnie is playing today. Okay.

We thank you, Father. Thank you so much for this day, Lord. Thank you for the blessings we have, Father. Thank you for this wonderful life we have in our Savior. That it knows about that old life. It knows about all the things that are filthy and unclean. But Lord, that we have a life that can give thanksgiving to you and praise you for what you've accomplished through your son. We ask in his name. Amen.