Today on Summit Life with J.D.
Greer. Intermixed through these different moral things that Paul is going to discuss, he is going to intermix six reasons why Christians act righteously. And these six reasons are again what makes this different than what other religions teach.
So if you're going to write down an outline, this is it. Six reasons that Christians act righteously. Welcome to another week with us here on Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of pastor, author, and theologian J.D.
Greer. I'm your host, Molly Midovitch, and I'm glad to have you back. So if you're joining us for the first time, we are in a study from the book of Ephesians, and Pastor J.D. has been showing us that God isn't just concerned about our actions on the outside. He's concerned about reshaping our hearts and our desires from the inside. And today we're going to see a practical example of how that plays out in one of the most intimate parts of our lives, our sexuality.
It's part of our series called Mystery and Clarity, and Pastor J.D. titled today's message Sex, Idols, and Darkness. Here's our question. What, if anything, makes Christianity different from other religions?
Our culture that we are in believes that all religions are essentially the same, different brands, same product. And that's what we hear at just about every turn. Here's the question. Is that true?
Is that true? Last week I tried to show you that in chapters four and five of Paul's letter to the Ephesians that Paul talks about a lot of different Christian behaviors. And candidly speaking, candidly speaking, on the surface there is nothing particularly remarkable about that list. It's got things on it like honesty and hard work, kindness, loving your family, loving your wife, generosity. Well, all religions teach those, don't they? It's not particularly remarkable the things that Paul is saying to us in chapters four and five on the surface. But what I showed you is remarkable is why a Christian does those things. Paul shows you that the Gospel makes us the kind of people who want to do those things. Woody Allen once made a statement that the heart wants what it wants. And believe it or not, the Gospel agrees with that. The heart does want what it wants.
And so if you force the heart to do what it doesn't want to do, it's going to feel like it's in captivity. And that's religion, which is why a lot of people resent religion. It's why religion often feels like drudgery to people.
It's forcing you to do stuff that you don't really want to do and then threatening you with eternal damnation or bad karma or whatever if you don't do that. Well, the way the Gospel changes us by contrast, Paul says, is to change our heart so that it begins to want what God wants. The Gospel fits the wanter in our heart that is broken. So for the first three chapters in Ephesians, Paul gives you one of the deepest explanations of the Gospel that is recorded anywhere in the Bible before he gives you the first one of these moral prescriptions. Three chapters of deep Gospel doctrine followed by three chapters of intense application joined by a single word.
Therefore, therefore in light of the Gospel that I have walked you through for three chapters, therefore your life will be like this. The behaviors flow out of the Gospel's work in our heart. The Gospel changes us internally and then our behavior changes naturally. The opposite of that is a word that I taught you last week. The word was moralism. Moralism is emphasizing external obedience more than internal disposition. I told you that many of us grew up in churches that were just like this, where we were told constantly that we were to do this or to do that.
Around here we call those doo-doo churches because they're always telling you what you're supposed to do or what you're supposed to not do. I compared it last week to stapling roses on a dead bush. You know, if you had a dead bush in your front yard and you're trying to figure out how to make it look alive and so you go out and buy a dozen roses and you cut off the roses and you staple them onto the branches of that dead bush, it may make it look good for a little while, but it's just a dead bush with some live looking fruit on it. Right? Or you remember that movie, that 80s movie Weekend at Bernie's? Anybody remember that? Where you got the dead guy that you're making look like he's alive. How many of you actually have remember that movie or is this? Okay, good.
See, so I'm not that old yet. You got the dead guy that you make look alive. That's what religions are doing. Religions are making dead people look like they are alive by making them do things that their heart doesn't naturally want to do and that's why religion is such a drudgery to many people.
Gospel change is exactly the opposite of moralism. Your behavior changes because you change. You're made alive so you act alive.
The fruit tree does not need to be commanded to bear fruit. It just does so naturally. Living people don't need to be commanded to breathe. They just do that naturally. I've never once had to tell my kids, you better start breathing or I'm going to take you over to your room and spank you.
You don't tell a kid. They just do that because they're alive and if they don't do that it's because they're not alive. So how does the gospel bring that kind of change into our lives?
Right? You can't just command your heart to change and start to love something it doesn't love. What it does is it shows you the beauty of God and then it gives you an appetite for it so that you begin to desire God more than you do sin. You see the gospel unlike other religions is not primarily a prescription of what you are to do.
The gospel is a story that reveals the beauty of God by telling you of God's great love for you that he showed for you when he purchased your salvation. You see every religion in the world tells you to obey and if you obey then you will be accepted. So you obey in order to gain God's acceptance but the gospel declares no you are accepted not because of anything you have done but because of what Christ has done and in response to that go and obey. We call that gift righteousness. It's one of the most important elements of Christianity that most people don't get and that is that God's righteousness is given to you as a gift not as a reward for what you have earned.
In response to that, in response to seeing the beauty and the power and the grace of God freely given to you, you change. You begin to love God and you begin to love what is good and what is right. We're going to continue this discussion here in chapter 5 because Paul is going to give you some more things that Christians ought to be doing. Ways they should be behaving but I don't want you to hear this it's just a to-do list because intermixed through these different moral things that Paul is going to discuss he is going to intermix six reasons why Christians act righteously. And these six reasons are again what makes this different than what other religions teach. So if you're going to write down an outline this is it. Six reasons that Christians act righteously.
Okay here they are. Ephesians 5 1 is our first one. Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children.
Here is number one. As beloved children of God we imitate our daddy. As beloved children of God we imitate our daddy. Imitate means we act like him.
We respond how he would respond to situations. But notice we don't imitate God to become his children. We imitate God because we are his children. You see most religions teach you that if you imitate God enough you will become his child. The gospel says no imitate God because you are his child. As beloved children imitate God.
And this makes all the difference. Here's why. When a religion tells you to imitate someone be like Muhammad, be like the Buddha, be like Jesus or the Pope or the saints. When it does that but does not give you the heart to desire what they desire imitation becomes wearisome.
You ever get around somebody that you really admire and you really want to be like and you want to imitate but you just don't seem to be the made up the way that they are made up. You ever have that happen? Maybe they're just like a great student or they're a great worker and you're like I wish I I wish it was just like them.
That happened to me recently. I was around the guy who is just I mean he was just so good with people. Whenever you got around him he just like he had this contagious kind of you're the most important person I've ever talked to kind of attitude. You just felt good about yourself when you're around him. He's always you know putting his hand on you and you just he just excited about being around people and I was like man I want to be like that. So for a while I came back and I tried to be like that. I was like every person I'm talking to you're the most important person to me and and I'm really excited just to know you and just to be a part of your life and then after a while I realized it's like I just don't like people as much as this guy does. I think that's the problem.
It got wearisome to me. More than I need to imitate that guy's behavior I need his heart. That's what I need. More than we need to try and act like God we need to love in the depths of our hearts. We need to love what God loves. I asked you last week why does God do righteousness? Why does God do righteousness? Is it because God feels like he's going to be rewarded and blessed if he does?
Well I mean of course not. I mean he's blessing himself. He he's not going to bless himself more if he does righteousness and therefore he does it to earn that. It's not because he feels like he's going to look bad in the eyes of all the other neighborhood gods if he doesn't do righteousness. He's trying to keep a reputation. It's not that he's afraid he's going to throw himself into hell if he doesn't do righteousness.
No. God does righteousness because he loves righteousness. He does good because he is good and that's why it never gets tiring to him.
It's always what he wants to do. So again here's the question where and how do we learn to love righteousness like that? God produces that in us as he makes us his child. He puts his spirit in us. He gives us his desires.
He helps us see who he is and what he did for us so that we are so overwhelmed with what our daddy did to rescue us that we start naturally to love what he loves and to want what he wants and naturally we begin to imitate him. So it's not that we imitate him to become his child. We imitate him because we have become his child and we love him.
So don't get the cart before the horse. It's not that imitation brings salvation. Salvation produces a desire for imitation. Imitation does not bring salvation. That's what other religions teach you. The gospel says no, salvation produces a desire for imitation.
As beloved children of God, not in order to become children of God, but because you are children of God, imitate him. In every situation ask how does God feel about this? How does he feel about this show that I'm watching? How does he feel about this joke that I'm telling or laughing at? How does he feel about this? How does he feel about this relationship?
How does he feel about this attitude, this activity? Does God enjoy this? Reason number one, we act righteously as as beloved children. We imitate and we love what our daddy loves. Number two, verse two, and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Number two, we live lives of love and sacrifice for others because that's what Jesus did for us. We live lives of love and sacrifice for others because that's what Jesus did for us.
It is a response. We get so overwhelmed with the love that Jesus showed to us that we begin to act that way toward others. You see, when you study the gospels, you see how love burst through every part of Jesus' life. You see it when he's talking with the woman who was caught in the act of adultery and rather than joining in her rightful humiliation, rather than joining in her condemnation, he looks at her and talks to her the way a father would to a daughter and says, neither do I condemn you.
Go and sin no more. He looked at her with love even though she was guilty because that's what he felt for her. You see it coming through when he weeps with Mary and Martha at the tomb of Lazarus because he feels their pain. You see it coming through in the Garden of Gethsemane when he wept for us, when the horrors and the hell of Gethsemane were pressing in on us and when he subjected himself to Roman whips to be torn apart and when he let Roman nails tear through his skin and put him on the cross.
It was love that was bursting through. And when you see that and when you are encountering that in the pages of the Gospel, what you are put face to face with is tender love and we respond to that. Listen, this is really big around our church. We say this all the time, if you have been changed by Jesus, you will show it by forgiving others, by loving others, by being generous to others, by serving others, by serving our city, by meeting the needs of the people around you. And if you do not do that, it means you have not been changed by the love of Jesus. You see in some places where you and I grew up, we were taught that being changed by Jesus meant you got your hair cut, you quit listening to rock music, you didn't watch Terminator 2. All right, maybe some of those things are right, maybe you shouldn't do that, but what I'm saying is that's not the sign that the Gospel has changed you. What the sign of the Gospel is is that you begin to love others. Deeds of great mercy, acts of sacrifice and forgiveness and love and generosity for the people around you is the inevitable sign that you have encountered the grace of God.
It is a response. One more thing let me point out in this little verse, it's because it's just a great image. Living this way is a sweet fragrance to God and if you love God, you want to be that way to it. There's nothing worse than encountering a foul odor, would you agree? Right, I mean your day can be ruined by sitting next to somebody on a plane or maybe here in this church who has a foul odor. Maybe they're closed, they just you know didn't drive them right and they get that sour smell and every time they shift in their seat you're like, you know, it makes you wince. Or you get next to a close talker who's got bad breath. Had that ever happened, a person who just insists on talking this close to your face and you're just and you know on the other hand there's there's there's nothing better than a sweet fragrance that reminds you for example like you know every once in a while I'll encounter some fragrance that reminds me of my mother making cookies when I was five years old and I get taken back into my childhood by this by this this fragrance.
There's nothing sweeter than that. He's saying this kind of life is a fragrance to God. Verse three, but sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you as is proper among saints. Let's talk about that word proper for a second.
Proper here means that it doesn't go along with or it doesn't fit. Sexual immorality and covetousness he says do not fit with the character of God. So there's reason number three, Christians do righteousness.
Here's your third reason. We do righteousness because living impurely does not fit with those who love and are loved by a holy God. We do righteousness because impurity does not fit with those who love and are loved by a holy God. Let's look at those two things mentioned in those verses sexual immorality and covetousness and let's ask why don't they fit with somebody who loves and is loved by a holy God?
All right, let's take them one at a time. Sexual immorality. Sex is not supposed to be selfish and it is not supposed to be self-serving and where you do it just because it meets a need or it fulfills a desire in your life it is being done selfishly. Sex is supposed to be oneness of your bodies that is accompanied by oneness in every other area.
Listen, I don't want to go all PG-13 on you or get graphic but when you are in the midst of sex your bodies literally have become one. You're very open, you're very vulnerable, your bodies literally interlock. You have become one person physically. That is to be matched that physical oneness by oneness in every other area.
Every other area. It is to be matched by oneness emotionally, oneness spiritually, oneness financially where you have become part of that other person completely for life. When you have sex outside of marriage you are taking physical oneness from them without giving them the rest of yourself and it's unbelievably selfish because your body is telling them one thing. Your body is saying I'm yours but that's not really true because you are not really joining the rest of you to them. You're like oh but I do I love them and that's why we're having sex. Well marry them. Marry them if you love them and become one for life. You and I both know that when you're having sex outside of marriage and you're not married you can walk away at any point. Sex is a powerful gift from God and in the right context it is a wonderful loving blessing but out of that context it is selfish and it is destructive. The analogy I always use here is I ask you do you want fire in your house?
And if you're smart the answer is it depends on where you want to put it. Fire in the fireplace is awesome. It's a nice you know accent to your house. Fire in the sofa? Fire in the sofa?
Not so good. Sex in the right context is loving and it's wonderful and out of that context it is destructive. You remember a few years ago when I did this you remember this and I got tongue-tied and I said sex in the fireplace is awesome.
Not talking about that okay. Fire in the fireplace is a metaphor okay for sex in the right place. Paul says sexual immorality should not even be named among you because selfish sex does not fit with a holy loving sacrificial give myself completely to others God. When you are having sexual relations when you are enjoying sex with somebody outside of the confines of marriage it is by definition selfish.
I know that takes a bunch of you off but I don't care because that's exactly what it says. Sexual immorality when it is not accompanied by oneness in every other area is saying I will take this from you without giving you the rest of myself. Oh but I want to give them the rest of myself then do it. Come to me and we will have you married by the end of the week I promise.
If you're like well we just can't quit then fine let's get married right here right now. It says it should not be named among you it should not be practiced fantasized about longed for or even named. I love how the NIV translates this verse. It says there should not even be a hint of immorality. Not even a hint.
What does that mean? Not even a hint means that we don't flirt with it. The question I get from teenagers Christian teenagers and Christian college students all the time is well how far is too far? Draw the baseball diamond. How many bases can I go around before I start sinning?
Where we go foul? That very question for some people betrays that they don't get the point. You're not trying to see how close you can get to impurity without falling into it. The point is to be as pure as possible.
I understand that if you're in a relationship that is headed toward marriage that the occasional show of affection is not inappropriate. But there is a difference and you know exactly what I'm talking about. Don't say you don't. I'm saying that you should not be lighting a rocket you do not intend to launch okay. You should not is that bad?
You should not be writing checks with your lips that you don't intend to cash with your body. If you want more on this then you go listen to our Song of Solemn Series and we get to this in unbelievable detail okay. So you go look at that. Not even a hint means you don't flirt with it. Not even a hint means that we don't fill our minds with it and call it entertainment.
All right. In fact this verse has made me think a lot this week about my own viewing habits and what I watch and what I listen to. I don't have time to get into this too deeply but I'm just going to say many of us really need to think about what we watch and what we view. And again it starts with me looking you know I know I realize it is impossible for us to live in this world and not come into contact with things that are simple. I realize that.
And Paul is not saying that you isolate yourself from the world and that you're completely and totally removed from everything. But I also know that some of you the shows and the movies that you watch and the books you read are so filled and dominated by sexual humor and by sexual themes that your mind is saturated with it every night before you go to bed. It has become a part of you and it is a hint of immorality and for me it's not even so subtle of a hint.
It's what you fill your mind with. You know by the time the average kid graduates from high school the average kid by the time he graduated high school will have seen no less than 14 000 depictions of and references to illicit sex on television. Not even a hint means you should not even have it in your mind.
Not even a hint means you don't talk about and joke about improper sex. Verse four look at this let there be no filthiness or foolish talk or crude joking which are out of place but instead there ought to be thanksgiving. Like Pastor JD Greer just taught us we live lives of love and sacrifice for others because that's what Jesus did for us.
This was a challenging message today on Summit Life. If you happen to join us late or if you'd like to catch up on previous messages in our study of Ephesians you can find them online at jdgreer.com. And for those who are more visual learners like myself much of our teaching is available on the video format as well as having the option to download the complete unedited message transcripts for further study. We love making all these resources available free of charge because we want people everywhere to be able to dive deeper into the gospel without cost getting in the way.
So when you donate to support Summit Life you are making that happen. We're so grateful for your partnership and to express our thanks we'll send you a copy of the matching study guide that goes with our current teaching called Mystery and Clarity the book of Ephesians. We'll hold up the mystery and the majesty of the gospel to show us that even though God loves to blow our minds He also loves for us to see Him, to know Him and to feel His presence daily in our lives.
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That's 866-335-5220 or it might be easier to give and request the book online at jdgrier.com. While you're on the website check out what it means to become a gospel partner. A gospel partner commits to a regular monthly gift because they believe in the power of God's word and their gift helps us produce and distribute these gospel-centered messages every day on the radio, web and in podcasts.
I'm Molly Bidevich. Thank you for being with us today and be sure to tune in tomorrow when Pastor J.D. Greer describes the key to being more like Jesus right here on Summit Life. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.
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