The Path of Purity
Text: Ephesians 5:1-7
By: Ken McKinley
(Read Text)
Now before I begin let me just say that this sermon is rated NC17, no one under 17 is admitted without an adult… just kidding, but I bet I got some of your attention there didn’t I? There is a slogan today in marketing and advertisement that is truer than we would like to admit. And that slogan is this: Sex Sells!
Sexuality forms the basis of 90% or more of advertising today. Sitcoms always seem to get the most canned laughter from a sexual situation. Movies push it, or at the very least insinuate it, newsstand magazines advertise it, and the internet is full of it. And it seems like many people today see traditional morality as outdated as a horse and buggy.
Throughout history; humanity has struggled with this, in nearly each and every culture. We tend to think that sexual liberation happened in the 1960’s but that’s not at all true. The fact of the matter is that even in Paul’s time, and before there were people who were just as immoral, and lust as promiscuous as there are today.
When Paul wrote to Ephesus, he was writing to a sex-saturated society. The temple of Diana had paid temple prostitutes whose only job was to satisfy the so called worshipers who came there. But in our text we see Paul doing what he did so well; rocking the cultural boat, upsetting the immoral apple-cart, and being the firebrand that God had called him to be. And the great thing about this is that Paul’s words are just as important and just as practical today as they were nearly 2000 years ago.
So what does Christ’s death and resurrection have to do with my sexual behavior? Everything! Does God even care about this? Absolutely!
Now when we read this we need to remember that Paul was writing to the Saints in Ephesus, he wasn’t directing this letter to unbelievers who practiced immorality, he was directing it to believers who participated in immorality.
So what does God command regarding this issue? Well lets look at our text again (Read)
The word that Paul uses is the Greek word porneia, it’s where we get our word pornography. The broad term refers to any sexual activity that is outside of marriage. And like I was saying, this is a real problem with many people today. The pornography industry in one of the fastest growing industries in the world today, and even during our recession the pornography industry hasn’t really taken any kind of hit in its overall income. Just to give you an idea of how rampant this junk is in our society today I’m going to compare the pornography industry with some other well known companies. The pornography industry makes an average of $8 to $10 billion dollars a year. That’s more than the NFL, the NBA, Major League Baseball combined. It’s more than the Walt Disney corporation makes (though I think the argument could be made that Disney is involved in the porn industry).
The word that the NKJV translates as uncleanness is sometimes translated as impurity and it is often used to describe decaying bodies rotting away in a grave. Paul uses it here to describe the internal condition of a persons heart – that is rotting away because of sin.
The next word – covetousness is the Greek word pleonexia. Paul puts this word with the first two, fornication and uncleanness, and so when we look at the context we see that he’s not talking about coveting money or wealth, he’s talking about a hunger that drives a person to seek out filth and perversion. And the root of that is selfishness, self satisfaction. The Bible tells husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for her. Wives are supposed to submit to the authority of their husband. Both of these things are sacrificial, and both of them slap selfishness in the face. Now here’s the thing guys… If I’m not loving my wife as Christ loves the church, then I have no right to expect her to submit to my authority as head of the household. And if a husband or wife is seeking satisfaction outside of marriage then 9 times out of 10 they are seeking to satisfy themselves rather than their spouse. And usually that happens because somewhere along the way, the God-given design for marriage has broken down. Maybe the husband stopped loving his wife sacrificially and she felt she wasn’t getting her needs met and so she strayed, or maybe the husband was giving of himself sacrificially and the wife wasn’t reciprocating with respect and so he felt he wasn’t getting his needs met and so he strayed. In both of those instances both the husbands and wives were guilty of sin.
And let me just say this really quickly as well. Loving sacrificially and submitting sacrificially are not done with the words we say.
We can say “I love you,” to our spouses all day long, but if we don’t show it through our actions, those words are as empty as false professions of faith. Jesus said in Matthew 15:7-8 that hypocrites will draw near to Him with their mouths and honor Him with their lips, but in reality – their hearts were far from Him. And people can say all day long to their spouse that they love them, but their actions show that their hearts are far from them.
Speaking of words; Paul moves on to what we say in verse 4 of our text. He mentions filthiness, foolish talk and coarse jesting. Filthiness has to do with crude language, obscene or immoral language. Foolish talk literally means “moronic words.” Have you ever met someone who talks, just to be talking? The Bible tells us in Matthew 12:36 that we will give an account of every idle word spoken.
When I was in 1st Grade I remember one time at recess, I was telling a joke that I heard on TV. It’ wasn’t a dirty joke or anything like that, it was just poking fun a person, and I was re-telling it verbatim. It just so happened that in this joke the butt of the joke had the same name as one of my fellow students’ mother. I had no idea, and so I was telling the joke to be funny, to fit in, or for whatever reason, and here was my fellow student listening to this joke about someone who happened to have the same name as her mother. To make matters worse, this other student didn’t have a dad, and was being raised by her mother and there I was making fun of a person who had the same name as her mom. It hurt her feelings, and I had no idea why, until later on when the teacher got wind of it and told me what the deal was. And let me tell you something; I felt miserable about it. I felt so bad about it that I still remember it to this day… even though that was something like 31 years ago. At that time I didn’t know that the Bible tells us we will give an account for idle speaking, but I saw the damage that idle speaking can do to a person.
Now when Paul talks about coarse joking; he’s talking about humor that is demeaning. This is not only locker room type dirty jokes, it’s also talking about witty humor that might be sly and crafty but has a veiled reference to sexuality or immorality.
Paul’s not saying we can’t enjoy humor, he’s saying watch what kind of humor you enjoy.
All of this might seem trivial, but we need to understand the seriousness of this. When our lives are based on immorality, when what we say or do is not in keeping with our profession of faith, there are serious consequences. Notice what Paul writes in verses 5 and 6 (read). He gives the same warning in 1st Corinthians 6:9-10 (read).
This type of sinful behavior is so serious because it strikes at the very heart of Christianity. As Christians we are to love the Lord thy God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and love our neighbors as ourselves. If a professing Christian is engaging in this type of behavior on a regular basis, if he or she is practicing this type of sin, then what they are doing is; loving themselves and their sin more than God and their neighbors.
Now you might be sitting here today saying, “Why are you even preaching on this? No one in this church struggles with this type of thing?” And that might be true, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that even if no one here struggles with this, I bet that some of us, if not most of us, probably know someone who does. It might be a co-worker, it might be a student at school, it might be someone right here in this church. And if that’s you, or someone you know… God’s Word doesn’t just leave us with the condemnation.
The person who struggles with this type of sin, first of all needs to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior who bought them with His shed blood. They can’t love God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength if they don’t know Him. Secondly; they need to immerse themselves in God’s Word, and I mean saturate themselves in it. God’s Word has a sanctifying and cleansing power like no other, but when I say they need to immerse themselves I’m not just talking about reading a bit here and there, I’m talking about studying it out, working at it until they not only have it memorized, but until they know it to be true.
Having faith is more than just knowing the facts about something. It’s knowing those facts and considering them to be true. Many people in churches today know that the Bible says they are united to Christ in His death, burial and resurrection, but I don’t know how many of them consider it to be true. The Bible teaches that we are dead to sin because we are united to Christ in His death and burial. It also teaches that we are alive to God because we are united to Christ in His resurrection.
I think that when a Christian knows these things, and considers them to be true in his or her life, then it makes it much easier to do what Paul tells us we should be doing in this passage. When we know these things, and know that they are true, then it’s easier to be imitators of God as dear children, it’s easier to walk in love, and believe me, it’s easier to give thanks.
CLOSING AND INVITATION
