Losing Our Inheritance

There was once a major public health crisis in a third world country. The problem was orange soda pop, Orange Fanta. Illiterate mothers saw the billboards for Orange Fanta and thought, “Oh, it must be modern. It must be healthy. It has a nice, pretty color.” When they tasted it they discovered it was nice and sweet. So they stopped breast feeding their infants and gave them soda pop instead. The babies drank it down. It seemed great, at first.

But what happens to infants who are raised on a diet of soda pop, flavored sugar water? They don’t thrive. They don’t gain weight. They don’t build muscle or bone. They are malnourished. And the public health agencies made a major effort to re-educate those poor women. Breast milk is best for babies. Don’t feed them soda pop.

But it isn’t just uneducated, third world people who get seduced by such things. I’m scared that many Christians in established churches in America today are suffering from equal malnutrition because they are living on a diet of spiritual soda pop, a false gospel that tastes sweet and goes down, oh, so easily, but doesn’t provide the essential building blocks for a vital spiritual life. Too often Christians are addicted to the happy thoughts of the gospel, assurances of God’s love and grace, promises that God will shower them with every blessing, while avoiding like the plague the call to sacrificial discipleship, the way of holiness of life. The gospel of Jesus Christ is more than chicken soup for the soul.

I heard a sermon this past week in which the pastor was obviously straining to take every opportunity to tell his hearers how good they were. And I’m sure they were mostly pretty solid citizens. The people he described wouldn’t have any need for God’s grace. But, then, he hardly spoke of God at all. And I’m scared what a constant diet of flattery will do to a congregation. It probably feels good at first. You might become addicted to it. But what motivation is there to strive for holiness when you are told that you are wonderful already? What’s the point of considering what God wants if everything I want is OK?

Flattery will often get you somewhere. It feels good for a while. But a real friend will level with you and tell you the things that are hard to hear as well as the happy thoughts.

This morning’s scripture is a reminder that God has high requirements for those who will follow him. There are moral choices that we must each make, moral choices with eternal consequences, choices which can prevent our entry into God’s kingdom. God’s blessings don’t come in spite of how we live. Most of God’s blessings come as we hear his word and change our lives through simple obedience. And that obedience prepares us for heaven.

Please stand now for the reading of God’s word, Ephesians 5:1-5.

1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, 2 and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. 3 But fornication and impurity of any kind, or greed, must not even be mentioned among you, as is proper among saints. 4 Entirely out of place is obscene, silly, and vulgar talk; but instead, let there be thanksgiving. 5 Be sure of this, that no fornicator or impure person, or one who is greedy (that is, an idolater), has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

As so many scriptures do, this passage lays out a choice for us to make, 2 ways of life. The way that we are encouraged to take is described in verse 1 as being imitators of God, in verse 2, as living in love, which is exemplified in the way that Jesus gave himself up for us, and in verse 4, a life of thanksgiving. Those are different ways of describing a love for life, a reverence for all of God’s creation, making choices that are the best for all.

Paul does the work of describing things that just don’t fit into this picture, things Christians just can’t do. He tells us that there are boundaries in life. And that’s not as much fun to talk about, but it’s essential for good spiritual nutrition.

I could be tempted to preach a sermon full of flowery generalizations about loving everybody and then sending you all home, with warm, fuzzy feelings in your hearts, but no understanding in your head of what in the world it means practically. But Paul refuses to do that. And I agree with him that that would be a diet for spiritual malnutrition.

Paul lists 3 types of activities that Christians don’t do and 3 types of speech that Christians don’t use. And when he’s done he says that these are things that can keep you out of God’s kingdom. God is serious about these.