Gratitude Unseats Lust

1:42 but also how he motivates us to fulfill the prohibition. If you don't see how it's to be done, then you don't see the Gospel. And if you don't see the Gospel, then the prohibitions become letters that kill rather than spirit that gives life. You might succeed in morality only to commit suicide. In fact, success in morality apart from the gospel is suicide. So we have to devote our attention now this morning to not only what is being eliminated from the Christian life here, but also how it's being eliminated. How does he get these things in verses three and four out of the lives of Christians?

2:41 But first we'll talk about what they are. What are the things that are being prohibited in verses three and four? It says immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you. And then verse four, let there be no filthiness. Nor silly talk. Nor levity.

3:08 So there they are six things, and this is not a vocabulary test. This is a test of your purity. Are there any of these things in your life this morning that you are going to have to deal with once God speaks to you this morning about them? Let's take them one at a time. First of all, immorality at the beginning of verse three. This is a broad word in the New Testament for sexual immorality. But I think there is a particular focus in Paul's mind with the word parnia, from which we get pornography. That's the word here. I think he has mainly in view premarital sexual intercourse, premarital sexual relations. Let me try to show you why I think that's his central focus.

4:02 This word is used numerous times where it has to refer to that rather than to say a broader unfaithfulness as a married spouse. For example, in first Corinthians chapter seven, verse two, Paul says, because of temptation to immorality, that is for Naya, each man should have his own wife and each woman should have her own husband. So clearly the meaning of porniah is premarital sexual relations. Because of temptations to premarital fornication, each man should have his wife and each woman should have her husband. There the meaning is crystal clear. It's premarital sexual promiscuity. Second, Matthew 15, 19. Jesus says, out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication. There's the word fornication.

5:00 It's so clearly a reference to premarital sex because it's used alongside adultery that the RSV goes against its usual translation and calls it fornication instead of immorality. It has to be because it's not adultery. That's here in this word. Moikia pornia. Two different things. So pornia has a focus on premarital sexual promiscuity. Third illustration. John 8, 41, Jesus is in a heated conversation with the Jewish leaders. He pushes them and pushes them until they are supposed to see their own inconsistency in relating to the Old Testament. But being unwilling as they are to recognize their own inconsistencies, they resort to ad hominem arguments. You know what that is?

5:52 as arguments that don't have any logical foundation. They're just emotional, but they usually work for unthinking people, which Jesus isn't. They say, we weren't born of fornication. What's that got to do with the price of cheese on the moon? It's out of the blue. It has nothing to do with anything, except it does have something to do with something. The point is very clear. We weren't born of fornication. You're a bastard. that's what they were saying. We know Mary wasn't married when she got pregnant. Nobody knows who your father is. Now, all I'm saying from this text is, pornia means premarital sexual promiscuity.

6:53 It's used that way again and again and again, as we've seen, and it's used here even for eventual engaged couples. So here's the first point. Among Christians who name the name of Christ, who call God their father, who are inhabited by the Holy Spirit, this has got to go. Premarital sexual relations are outside the revealed will of God. It is plain in the mouth of our Lord and his apostles. Second word in verse three is impurity. What does he mean by uncleanness or impurity?

7:37 It's used a half a dozen times in Paul's writings right beside sexual immorality. And I'm going to argue refers to the grosser types of sexual sin. Like homosexuality. We ought to call homosexuality a grosser type of sexual sin, gay movement notwithstanding. Now, let me try to show you why I think impurity here refers to homosexuality, among other things. I think it does because this is the word Paul chooses to use in Romans 1, verse 24, when he's referring to homosexuality. You know the situation in Romans 1? it's describing what happens when a culture exchanges its God, its creator, for man.

8:36 When a culture exchanges its God for itself, it isn't hard to see why men would exchange women for men. And women would exchange men for other women. It's exactly the connection Paul draws out. Verse 24 of Romans 1. God gave them up to the lusts of their hearts to impurity. Now, there's the word that's used here in Ephesians 5, 3. To impurity, to the dishonoring of their own bodies among themselves. And then verse 26. He gave them up to dishonorable passion. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural. And men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another. Men committing shameless acts with men.

9:37 Now, where did that come from? It came from exchanging God for man and particularly in the 20th century for ourselves. And it isn't hard to explain that when a whole culture has a mirror for its idol, that very soon there would follow a tidal wave of lesbianism and homosexuality. Third word in verse 3 is covetousness. We all would say covetousness usually means greediness for things, for money, houses, whatever. It has a broader meaning than that, however. it means a deep underlying dominating craving for anything. I'm going to argue that here it is sexual craving because that's the context here.

10:41 And my second reason is in verse 19 of chapter four. Turn back with me just a few verses. Chapter four, verse 19. We preached on this a few weeks ago, you remember, and saw six layers of corruption in the human heart. One of them, callousness, is mentioned in verse 19. Let's read this. And you look for the connection between impurity or uncleanness and covetousness in this verse. It says, who have become callous and have given themselves up to licentiousness. Then the RSV says greedy to practice every kind of uncleanness. Now, literally, it's they have given themselves up to licentiousness to do every kind of impurity. Same word is in verse three of chapter five in covetousness. See the close connection between impurity here and covetousness.

11:36 The impurity is planted, as it were, and growing out of covetousness. Well, what does that mean? in. I think it means this. The covetousness he's talking about is the deep craving for satisfaction to be gotten through sex that is so strong that it elevates the desired fulfillment above the will of God. That's what I mean by covetousness. Now, I'm not talking about ordinary sexual impulse and urge and desire. Every one of us have it. It's good. It's fine. I'm talking about a dominated craving for sex that elevates the desired pleasure above the will of God. That's the covetousness that is driving impurity and fornication in this verse. So the summary then behind verse three would be a Christian must strip off, get rid of, put out of his or her life fornication, homosexuality, and all the deep dominating cravings that drive to those impurities.

12:49 Now, let's go to verse four. What are the next three things that are be taken off? Let's put all these together since we don't have time to take them all at once. It says, let there be no filthiness or obscenity, no silly talk, no levity, jesting. Now, what's he mean here? What's this all about?

13:12 I see as I try to put this all together, two warnings. He's warning against two ways to abuse creation. You can abuse God's creation by treating it as filthy and becoming obscene with it. or you can misuse God's creation by treating it as trivial and becoming flippant with it. So if it helps to hear two words.

13:42 Filthiness and flippancy are the focuses of this verse, as I see it. And he's saying that's got to go. And lest you fear that he is against all humor, let me read a great quote from Charles Spurgeon on this difference between levity or flippancy and humor. Here's what Spurgeon says. He's talking to preachers, and I think preachers ought to heed this. We must conquer our tendency to levity. A great distinction exists between holy cheerfulness, which is a virtue, and general levity, which is a vice. There is a levity which has not enough heart to laugh, but trifles with everything.

14:42 It is flippant, hollow, unreal. A hearty laugh is no more levity than a hearty cry. That's good. But it's good for us to hear a warning, to watch out for being flippant with life and with God's good gifts. and to watch out being dirty and filthy and obscene with God's good gifts. That's what I see then in verse 4. Let's put them all together now. There are six things that are to be gotten out of our lives if we are Christians. Fornication, that is premarital sexual relations. Uncleanness, that is gross sexual distortions like lesbianism and homosexuality. and covetousness, the underlying craving that elevates itself in dominating power over the will of God.

15:44 And the other three then are filthiness, silly talk, levity or flippancy. And now the question rises, how are you going to get these out of your life? How does Paul attempt to motivate a person to be like this that is free of these things? Well, now, before we go to that, let me notice with you what Paul puts in these things place, because it will help us understand the way he fights against them if we see what he puts in their place. Now, keep in mind that we're still working with the model of chapter four, verse 22, 23 and 24. And the model there was strip off the old self like a dirty garment, be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on a brand new coat. Renewed, created in the likeness of God.

16:38 Now, here, what's the old garment and what's the new garment? Well, we know what the old garment is. It's fornication and impurity and covetousness and filthiness and silly talk and levity. What's the new garment? It's in verse four. It says, let there be no filthiness, nor silly talk, nor levity, which are not fitting. But here comes, let there be thanksgiving. And that just blew me away when I saw that. Because I never would have chosen thanksgiving as the alternative to these six sins. It just didn't seem to be the natural follow-up. You know, purity or cleanness or... But Thanksgiving just seems to come out of nowhere.

17:35 But then I started meditating. You see, you always let the Word judge your surprises rather than you judging the Word and shaping it according to what it should say. You just sit and you ponder, like I did for an hour or two on this. What's going on here? And let me show you what I think might be going on here. Why does he use Thanksgiving as the garment to replace the garment of all these sexual and filthy sins? He says, I would say. If fornication and impurity are driven by covetousness and if covetousness is a deep and domineering craving. that comes from a discontented, unsatisfied heart, then it's easy to see why thanksgiving is the opposite.

18:31 What is thanksgiving? Thanksgiving is what you feel when God is for you. Thanksgiving is what you feel when you believe that God will give you every good thing and withhold nothing good from you. Thanksgiving is what you feel when the tragedies of your life are perceived and believed to be not evidences of God's cruelty or His incompetency, but rather of His fatherly discipline that He cares more about our holiness than about our temporal happiness. Thanksgiving is what you feel when you are abounding because of faith. And if you are abounding with joy towards God who is good towards you, where's covetousness going to come from? Covetousness is the opposite. Thanksgiving says God is my all. He supplies all my need. I'm satisfied in God. Praise God.

19:24 Thank God. Covetousness says it looks within. Instead of looking up, it looks within and says, God's not enough. I've got to have sex. I've got to have money. I've got to have. I've got to have. I've got to have. I've got to have. You see? So good. But it's so right of Paul to put gratitude here in the place of covetousness. And you can see easily from verse 4 how it's the opposite of filthiness and triviality. Just ask yourself, when you are most full of gratitude, do you use dirty language? When you are bubbling with gratitude to God, do filthy words come out of your mouth at those moments? Or when you're full of gratitude, do you treat things as trivial and flippant? And are you superficial in those moments?

20:17 No! Those are your best moments, your deepest, your richest moments. Or when you're caught up to God in His fullness and you're overflowing in gratitude. So Paul is a deep, deep seer of the human heart. when he puts gratitude as the new garment to take the place of the old. And we should, too. And there's another way now. I want you to see this before we go on to the how. There's another way of describing the transition that has to happen besides the way of taking off the coat and putting on another. Notice in the middle of verse five. what a covetous person is called. It says, one who is covetous, that is an idolater.

21:14 Now we're at the root of the problem. the root of the problem is that a covetous person is driven by desires that have dethroned God. The person who is ruled by covetousness is ruled by a craving that so dominates the life that God is dethroned. That's why he's called an idolater in verse 5. But what is gratitude? Gratitude looks away from the self and gives God all the credit for all that is. Just look at verse 20 of chapter 5. This is the most difficult verse in the whole book in one sense. Be thankful at all times for all things.

22:12 The gratitude that Paul has in mind is a gratitude that looks to God and gives him the absolute sovereign glory to dispose of this world as he wills and calls it glorious. And gives him thanks. that's the opposite of idolatry isn't it gratitude and covetousness are simply paul's way of putting god in the place of self or god in the place of man gratitude exalts god covetousness exalts me and my drives I think we're ready now to ask, how does he motivate all of this? And the first thing I want you to see is what he does not do.

23:08 He does not quote the Ten Commandments or the Tenth Commandment in particular. What's the Tenth Commandment? Thou shalt not covet. it lies on the surface that it's ready to hand. Use it. Take the sword of the Ten Commandments and use it, Paul. Come on, it's right there. You're telling people not to be covetous. God said not to. Quote it. And he didn't quote, thou shalt not steal when he was dealing with stealing. And he didn't quote, thou shalt not bear false witness when he was dealing with lying. What's going on here? Doesn't he believe the Old Testament?

23:49 Something deep is going on here. Very deep. Something gospel is going on here. Something good news is going on here. It's just this. Paul only wants obedience from the heart, not obedience under the external constraint of authority. how do we know that because of the two key words in verses 3 and 4 which I've skipped up until now the word fitting let's read them Verse 3, immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you as is fitting. Verse 4, let there be no filthiness nor silly talk nor levity which are not fitting. What's he doing? What's he saying?

24:46 He's saying, oh, people, I don't want you to obey under constraint. I don't want you to obey just because God said to. I want you to obey because your mind is new. Verse 23, chapter 4, be renewed in the spirit of your mind. I want you to obey because you've become the kind of people who have a whole new way of looking at the world. A new way of looking at sex. A new way of looking at money. A new way of looking at pregnancy. A new way of looking at everything so that new things are lovely. New things are attractive. New things are compelling. New things are fitting. So that you're free. Do what you want to do. Be holy. Be holy. As a new creation of God. He wants freedom. That's what he's after here. That's why he's not clubbing them with any commandments.

25:40 He wants freedom. Obedience that comes from the heart. This is Reformation Sunday. Let me quote my hero here one more time today, Martin Luther. Here's the gospel obedience as he saw it. Although I am an unworthy and condemned man, my God has given me in Christ all the riches of righteousness and salvation without any merit on my part, out of pure, free, sovereign mercy, so that from now on I need nothing except faith which believes that this is true. Why should I not therefore freely, joyfully, with all my heart and with an eager will, do all things which I know are pleasing and acceptable to such a Father who has overwhelmed me with his inestimable riches? That is gospel obedience. That's why the Reformation happened.

26:33 Luther was overwhelmed with the power and glory of God.