Love and Morality

August 27, 2010

Date: August 22, 2010 Scripture: Ephesians 5:1-14
Series: The Gospel for Relationships
Proposition: You love others by living a moral life.

Title: Love and Morality

(Click to Listen to the Sermon Audio or Right Click for “Save As” Download)

Intro: Last summer Rita and I rented a kayak and paddled up the Swan River. We were going against the flow, and it meant we needed to continue paddling or we would slowly drift with the current. It was a relief to reach the pond-like end of that river. On the way back own, things were much easier.

In this world, Christians are always paddling upstream. And one obvious current is that of lust, pornography, and suggestiveness.
Remember modesty? Just about gone, isn’t it?
Writing in the Washington Post, Tina Brown said that Paris Hilton’s pornographic antics and fame show we live in an age “beyond embarrassment.”
Madonna writes children’s books that people apparently buy. David Letterman proudly announces the birth of his out-of-wedlock child and the audience erupts in wild applause. He announces his numerous dalliances with female subordinates, and his ratings go up.

Transition: The old hymn asks pointedly: Is this old world a friend to grace to help me on to God? We know the answer to that question. We need a friend to grace, and some help to keep paddling. Let’s look the Apostle Paul’s teaching on this.

Main Points:
I) Be imitators of God
A) That is, seek to cultivate in yourself His moral attributes
Not his omniscience, omnipresence , and omnipotence, but his moral attributes:
faithfulness, holiness, justice, mercy - and in particular, one is highlighted in vs 2 – love.

B) Walk in love
Vs 2
As Christ also has loved us and given himself for us.
Jesus Christ is the gold standard for love. Christ’s sacrifice was a sweet-smelling aroma to God the Father – a pleasant aroma is a unique pleasure. And Christ’s sacrificial offering of the cross was a sweet smelling aroma to the Father because it was the beauty of love.
And we learn here how to think of love – “has given himself for us”
Think of love as sacrificial action.
In love you make sacrifices – of desires, of money, of opportunities, of self-determination and self- interest, and of time
But it isn’t a sacrifice where everything gets burned up and wasted.
It has a greater pay-off.
It is an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.
And so are we when we walk in Christ-like love.

C) This passage goes on to answer a common error - that we can love but still live immorally.
So one may be tempted to rationalize: I am loving and compassionate, so my personal decisions don’t matter. There is a large Hollywood pantheon that likes that idea – they take up all kinds of public causes, but their personal lives are marked by impulses and foolishness.
And they leave a heart break that all the money and fame in the world can’t heal, and lead many who would emulate them down a path of self-inflicted brokenness.

II) In Love Make a Decisive Break with Immorality
1) Decisively put away sin
3 – 4
You see the decisiveness of it – let it not even be named among you.
He mentions six things in verses 3 and 4: “Immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you . . . Let there be no filthiness, nor silly talk, nor levity.”
In other words, live in sexual integrity in your body and in your heart and in your talk.

Let it not even be named among you – Leave no room for it – be decisive.
The standard: Do what is fitting for a saint Vs 3b – one of God’s consecrated people.
Saints are not super-Christians, but every believer is a saint.

This past week Rita and I vacationed in Manhattan for a few days and we visited St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Step into it and there is an immediate sense of sanctuary. The noise of the city is shut out, and there were maybe be fifty people inside, but there is a hush. When we went back outside, we hadn’t been out for ten seconds when there was a confrontation between a motorist and a pedestrian who had neglected to use a crosswalk. – a horn honked – the pedestrian yelled – “You blankety!” The horn gave one more angry toot. It was a contrast to the peace inside the Cathedral. We crossed the street north on Fifth Avenue – to be confronted by three large mural size photos on the wall of a clothing store facing St Patrick’s. The murals were larger than life suggestive pictures. Again, the contrast to the sanctuary was startling.
It reminded me of this – you need to know that you are a sanctuary, a temple of the Holy Spirit, and carry that sense of sanctuary wherever you are.
Live as is fitting for a saint.

a) How to do this – in the midst of a culture that pours out lewdness and crass desire and lust – how can we do it? Instead “give thanks” 4 b
Being thankful has a great sanctifying effect
Here’s why – the sins of v 4 and 5 are built on cravings. And they can never satisfy or be satisfied. It’s like a thirsty man drinking salt water.
But being thankful –seeing what you do have and appreciating it is the extinguisher of cravings.

2) Paul gives warnings that help us be decisive
a) V 5 gives a powerful warning:
V 5 “no fornicator..has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.”
That is a slap in the face to wake us up. Know what is at stake, Paul says.

b) And v 6 Don’t be taken in by the arguments made for sin.
Arguments in favor of these sins will be made
50 plus years ago, Hugh Hefner, promoted the Playboy Philosophy, which made the highest value pleasure. That pleasure was to come by indulging one’s lusts and consuming the finer things in life. Chastity and faithfulness were rejected. And the high life consumption was theme – it was the consuming of woman as objects as well. And it decoupled sex from marriage.
The Playboy philosophy has permeated America. And the results:
The AIDS scourge is large a result of it. The rise in Sexually Transmitted Diseases is a result of it. And we can’t quantify the broken homes, the broken hearts, the betrayals, and the pornographic addictions.

Paul’s warning – – don’t be deceived by them.
They bring the wrath of God.

7 So make a clear break with them.

3) There is an incentive to make the break – in it you choose light
a) 8 describes the change Jesus Christ has worked in you. He changed your identity from darkness to light – so live that way. Walk as children of the light.
Which do you prefer to physically walk in? Light or dark?
To work in? To read in? To drive in? Physical light is far more desirable than physical darkness.
And moral light is far more desirable than moral darkness.
9 Here’s examples of light’s desirability
Just as v 5 was powerful disincentive to sinful choices, v 9 is a powerful positive incentive – to have the Fruit of light

When you walk in the light you search for what pleases God 10
By God’s standard, sexual relations are meant for the covenant of marriage. In the context of a lifelong covenant it becomes a moral, life-building and life-giving and life-protecting act. Outside it becomes deceptive and exploitative and manipulative and self-serving. Think of it as water that flows in a river bed versus water that floods over the banks.
One is beautiful and serene and life giving. The other is destructive

b) There is a further call for decisiveness in 11-14
As light have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness

There is a seeming contradiction between vv 11 and 12:
V 11b says expose works of darkness
V 12 says don’t speak of them

The resolution is vs 13
By living in the light you expose them
Not by searching for them and shining a spotlight them and describing them and publicizing them – but by living in contrast to them you show them to be dark.

c) Vs 14 is our “Wake Up” call
Wake up
Live
And receive the light of Christ.
John Piper told of writing an article commending this in a local paper, and received a angry letter from a man who said:”How can you say that? If you are asking me as a single man to refrain from sexual relations you are asking me to give up part of my humanity, to live less than a full human life.”
And Piper wrote back that he knew of a man who lived in life-long celibacy, yet lived in the very fullness of human life – that is Jesus Christ.

Application: Remember the original admonition: Walk in love –
You can’t walk in love without living morally.

This section in Ephesians is all in the context of unity.
You want to so prize unity – fellowship, reconciliation, creating together with others positive things. Prize that so soundly and solidly that the false promises of pleasure from the world will pale in comparison.

If you think you can love your spouse while indulging yourself in sin – you can’t
If you think you can be in godly fellowship with believers, and live in the fleshly nature – you can’t.

Love is not only affection for someone. It is also a desire and a choice to live according to God‘s will in areas of morality.
Here’s why – it builds trust.

You may have something of which you need to repent and seek God’s forgiveness.
You can start new in Him, by making a decisive choice.
Ask for God’s forgiveness – Jesus Christ died for all sins.

Conclusion: You love others by living a moral life.

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