Ephesians 5:1-14
Introduction:
Text: Ephesians 5:1-14
Theme:
Verses 1-2
“Therefore” – What is it there for? Because of what comes before. What Paul says before Ephesians 5:1 is true; therefore believers ought to do this.
Paul has said a lot before chapter 5. We’re near the end of the book now. But what follows immediately before 5:1, and, indeed, what the majority of Ephesians is about, is that “God in Christ forgave you.”
He says more than that, but time won’t allow us to go over it all, and that sums it up well.
Because God in Christ forgave us, we should become imitators of God as beloved children.
Like a child who is well-loved by their parents imitates their parents, so we, as recipients of God’s gracious love and forgiveness, ought to become imitators of God.
The kind of grace, love, and kindness that God has shown us and that God is known for, ought to be displayed in our lives.
We see God do something and with the sweet simplicity of a child we seek to imitate Him. That is what we are called to do, and our motivation for it is the forgiveness we have from God in Christ Jesus.
If you lack desire or willpower to be an imitator of God, then probably you are not thinking enough about God’s gracious forgiveness of your sins. Our relationship with God as beloved, forgiven children is the strongest motivator we can have for trying to imitate God.
In your efforts to imitate God, you might try to conjure up thoughts of duty, or moral excellence, or fear of what others might think of you, or any number of things. But strongest and most effective of all is the knowledge of God’s love for you and His forgiveness of your sins.
Link: The verses that follow are really an expansion on what it means to be an imitator of God. First, and most crucially, it means to walk in love. God is love.
Just as the phrase “as beloved children” tells us what kind of imitators we are to be, so “as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us” tells us what kind of love we are to walk in – self sacrificial love.
Although our previous sermon came from Matthew, and this comes from Ephesians, the phrasing here is really similar to our concluding verse of last week. Jesus said “the Son of man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Our sermon last week was around the theme of living the life of a servant and giving your life in service to other people. Sacrificial service and love are extremely close concepts in Scripture. In the English language today, love and affection are extremely close concepts. But, biblically, love and service are much closer concepts. Love isn’t devoid of affection, but biblically it is much more frequently associated with sacrifice and service.
So it is here, it doesn’t say “walk in love, as Christ loved us and felt strong affection toward us.” It says “walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.”
Frankly, that should be a relief to us. Sometimes the people we are called to love are not people that you have strong feelings of affection toward. But it’s not about affection, it’s about sacrificial service. We should walk in that kind of love.
Link: verses 3 and 4 Paul tells us several things not to do and one thing to do.
Verses 3-4
The things in verse three should very obviously not be a part of the life of one who is seeking to be an imitator of God. Paul says they should “not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.”
God designed sexual intimacy to be a sacred thing between one man and one woman in the context of marriage. Anything out of one man and one woman in marriage the Bible describes as sexual immorality. God is faithful and pure. And God is not a greedy coveter.
Verse four we should probably explain the terms here. Αισχροτης = shameful, disgraceful, or base. It doesn’t have a word attached to it meaning talking or speech, like the next two words, so it can apply to behavior or speech. Both our behavior and our speech should not be shameful, disgraceful, or base. We should avoid saying or doing things that would shame or disgrace us or other people. Anything that would make a morally sensitive person ashamed must not be spoken.
Foolish talk is “μορολογια.” Foolish talk, or, more literally, moronic speech. The speech of morons. We should avoid saying or talking about moronic things.
Now, word of caution here. We need to balance this. Humans are not necessarily and not even usually the best judges of what constitutes moronic speech. Sometimes it is obvious, but sometimes it is not. God is the best judge of what is wise and what is foolish. Words spoken that are in harmony with God’s word and what God says is true are wise words. Words spoken that are not in harmony with God’s word are the words of fools. Look at the book of proverbs to gain some idea of what wise and foolish speech look like.
So, like we said in an earlier sermon, make sure to remove all logs from your eye before you go around trying to remove specks from other people’s eyes. Read Proverbs to learn about wise speech and the speech of fools.
And then, finally, we have the term crude joking, “ευτραπελια.” This means, essentially, jokes that have gone too far. It is not telling us that all jokes are wrong. It is telling us that jokes that go too far are wrong. When jokes venture into the territory of embarrassing others, damaging their reputation, personally hurting them, or when your jokes encourage sin, or make fun of things that are good. Basically, joking that in some way ventures into the territory of sin.
And frankly, this right here is a pretty strong rebuke to our culture and especially our media. This is a big part of why Jenni and I choose not to have cable television and watch movies pretty rarely. It’s not that I don’t appreciate a good joke. It’s just that our society tends to like the wrong kind of jokes.
All these kinds of things: filthiness, foolish talk, crude joking, are out of place in the life of an imitator of God. Filthiness, foolish talk, and crude joking have nothing to do with godly behavior.
Instead, let there be thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is proper and suitable for children of God. This means “seeing and acknowledging the loveliness and beauty of God’s gifts” – Tyndale Commentary. If your speech is characterized by “seeing and acknowledging the loveliness and beauty of God’s gifts” and gratefulness for what God has done, then that pretty much eliminates filthiness, foolish talk, and crude joking altogether.
Focus on doing the good thing – thanksgiving, and the bad things will tend to naturally be excluded from your life. You really have to go out of your way to practice thanksgiving and crude joking at the same time.
Link: verses 5-7 parallel verses 3-4, and also give us a very strong warning.
Verses 5-7
In verse 3 Paul says *read verse three* and in verse five he says *read verse five.* Not only is sexual immorality, impurity, and covetousness (which is essentially idolatry) improper for Christians, but if you make a regular practice of doing these things you have no inheritance in the eternal kingdom of Christ and God. Or, to put it in terms more familiar, if your life is filled with sexual immorality, impurity, and covetousness, then you aren’t saved.
This statement can cause confusion, so let me clarify. God’s word is quite clear that we are saved by faith apart from works. “By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one can boast.” Being saved is something that happens through faith in what Jesus did for us. And it is neither earned nor maintained nor lost by works. But if a person places their “faith” in Jesus and then remains an unrepentant sinner, then that faith wasn’t real.
I’ll give you an illustration from my life. When I first decided to trust in Christ as my Savior when I was 18 years old, I was not the only person to make a profession of faith in Christ that day. In fact, I brought a friend of mine with me to church that day, his name was David. David and I both went forward at the end of that day’s sermon to indicate trust in Christ as our Savior.
David might have come back to church once or twice after that. Another friend of mine, named Erin – E.R.I.N – later asked him about why he stopped coming to church. His reply was to the effect that he had already checked that box and wanted to make sure some other boxes like Buddhism were checked too, just to be extra safe. Since he had trusted in Christ as his Savior, he didn’t need to go back because he was safe now. Erin told me that David had said that, and then shook her head.
I didn’t really understand the gravity of the situation then like I do now. I thought something like “well, I’m glad he will be going to heaven, but that seems awfully ungrateful to me. Kind of underhanded too.” But now I realize, in light of God’s Word and the transformation it speaks of when true faith occurs, that David hadn’t really trusted in Christ as his Savior at all. I hope he has since then. He lives in Russia now and I’ve lost track of him, but who knows. But saving faith isn’t a safety measure from an otherwise unbelieving heart.
Saving faith isn’t “well, I think this is all probably bogus, and not really worth much of my time, but if it is as easy as saying a prayer then I might as well say that prayer, just to be on the safe side.” Nope. That is called unbelief. If you think it is or might not be true and you are just checking a box, then you have not placed your faith in Christ. The Bible says “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” You are assured and hold as your conviction that Jesus Christ died for your sins, was buried, and rose again three days later so that you could be saved.
True faith in Christ is going to be reflected in our lifestyles. A beloved child of God, someone who believes and is well aware of God’s love for them and the forgiveness that is theirs in Christ Jesus, will, on some level however small, seek to be an imitator of God. Especially, considering that the Bible teaches that believers are born again, that they are new creations created for good works, and that believers have the Holy Spirit present in their lives.
A person defined by sexual immorality, impurity, and idolatry hasn’t lost their salvation. They were never saved in the first place. They haven’t been born again, they are not new creations created for good works, and the Holy Spirit isn’t directing their life. If someone “places their faith in Jesus just in case,” then they haven’t deceived God and earned salvation through an insincere prayer. They have deceived themselves.
Instead, they are sons of disobedience upon whom the wrath of God is coming. To say otherwise, to teach that salvation and utter rejection of God’s ways are compatible, is just deceitful and empty words.
Link: Therefore…
Verses 7-14
There is and should be a separation between light and darkness. Once, we were darkness. Once, our lives and behavior were defined by things like sexual immorality, impurity, and idolatry, but no longer. Therefore, we should not form partnerships with people who do such things.
We should “walk as children of light… Try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.”
This exposure, by the way, is not about speaking, shouting at them and accusing them. Because, for one, the Bible says it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. “Shameful” is the same word mentioned earlier in verse 4. Ephesians verse four says there should be no filthiness or shameful things done or spoken by us. And then in verse 12 it says it is shameful to speak of the things that are done in secret. Connecting the dots, don’t do or say shameful things, it’s shameful to speak about the secret behaviors of the ungodly – therefore, don’t speak about them.
The other reason we don’t expose these things through speaking about them and accusations is because they are done in secret. You don’t know what someone else is doing in secret, do you, or else it wouldn’t be a secret, would it?
No, we expose the darkness by our lifestyle. Anything that is exposed by light becomes visible. As we walk as children of light, the contrast between dark and light becomes clear.
As we live godly lifestyles and refuse to partner with darkness in unfruitful works it’s going to go one of two ways. Either, those who are living their lives apart from Christ in darkness are going to withdraw from us because they don’t want to be exposed by the light. Or they are going to be drawn to the light, allow the light of Christ to shine on them, awake to new life, arise from the dead, and become children of light themselves.
Application:
- Reflect upon God’s love and forgiveness as motivation to…
- Be an imitator of God. Being an imitator of God means:
- Avoiding the works of darkness
- Walking in the light
- Speaking with thankfulness