Being Pure - Ephesians 5:1-14

Nothing should ever be more important to us than to be known as a Christian. Any Christian that attempts to be a ‘Teacher of the Word’ will be held accountable by God for the things we teach. The bible says that a false-teacher would be better off if he had a stone weight attached to his neck and then he be cast into the sea. We must recognize that we must be doers of His Word as well as teachers of the Word. Our lives must be so lived that we are known as teachers that practice what we teach. Above all any Christian teacher must imitate the love and forgiveness of God. We must be imitators of God and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Paul establishes the pathway of Christians in chapter five and encourages the Ephesians Christians and us to be imitators of God, and walk in love—the life of PURITY. Each person is responsible for their actions and should not revert into a life of sin. We must stand against sin; and always do our best to expose it as our enemy and the enemy of God’s plan and purpose for our lives. We must use our time wisely and follow God’s will for our lives. This is possible only when we let the Holy Spirit influence and direct our behavior.

In verse 3 Paul starts looking at different matters that directly hinder in the lives of purity. By the way he shifts to examples of impurity; there must have been a problem of sexual immorality in Ephesus. He tells them that there should not be even a hint of sexual immorality or any kind of impurity, or greed, because they are improper for God’s holy people. Then he adds other examples of impurities such as obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place. Then the list grows by adding some sins that could easily be found in the lives of many of our so-called Christians in the churches of our day.

For this you may be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such as an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. Therefore do not be partners with them.

You can be your own judge, as you listen to the conversations of Christian people today, do you ever hear yarns, or course joking that have shades of foolish talk. We are taught that we should avoid the very appearance of evil. Paul says here that improper language should have no place in the Christian’s conversation because it does not reflect God’s gracious presence in us. Do the words you use reflect the presence of God in you? There is no doubt that foul language is a sin but an unsaved soul should not expect the conversations at church to sound so similar to what he hears at the pool hall, bar or cattle barn. Our actions and conversations should reflect purity of heart.

At some time around Christmas we are often privileged to see a snow scene with a child who loves their parents walking in the indented footsteps of their father walking in the snow covered pathway to the front door of their home. No painted picture has ever expressed a better example of how we should feel toward our Godly parents, God the father and Jesus Christ his only begotten Son. It is also true that no better example of a Godly life will ever be lived than the one that depicts a Christian walking in the footsteps of Jesus Christ who loved us so much that he died on the old rugged cross to save us from our sins.

It is important to avoid the “Fruitless deeds of darkness” [any pleasure or activity that results in sin] but Paul says that we must go even further and expose these deeds, because our silence may be interpreted as approval. God needs people who will take a stand for what is right and prove their sincerity by the example they set. The conditions of immoral America have reached a high during the last half of the last century because of the way we have lived. The Christians of this area have allowed these unacceptable trends to grow simply by failing to speak out against the ungodly teaching and false practices of the so called New Age movement.

Paul told his converts that they must not allow themselves to be deceived with empty words. How and why did this happen? There were voices in the ancient world, especially the Greek and Roman teachers that taught everyone to think lightly of bodily sin. One line of such thought was called Gnosticism. They believed and taught others to accept a false doctrine which contended that spirit alone is good and matter is always evil. Men are composed of both spirit and matter. God created both man and matter. He did not create evil. In Genesis He tells us that he looked upon each part of his creation and declared it to be good…not evil. Genesis also tells us that the evil came when sin entered the garden through the evil one, the devil. Man is both spirit and matter. We have a spiritual soul and a body made of stuff…matter such as bone, flesh and blood and/or iron, oxygen, nitrogen and etc. The Gnostic taught that the spirit only was good, but that the matter was evil. And therefore it does not matter what we do with or to our body…it is evil anyway. They taught that Bodily and sexual sins were of no importance because they were of the body and not of the spirit. The Christian teaching was that both spirit and soul were God’s creation and so they are equally important. This Gnostic teaching came from without the church.

However, there was a teaching from within the church that was equally as important and just as wrong. Some were perverting the teaching of grace. You will find this teaching expounded in the sixth chapter of Romans. They said that grace was so important and powerful that it could cover every sin and that is true. But they also said that since grace was so powerful, then a sinner saved by grace could go on sinning, living as they desired, and grace would abound over all these sins. They went so far as to teach that our sinning was acceptable by God because it gave grace more opportunities to do its work. Paul simply said…God forbid this kind of teaching.

The gravest sin a false teacher can show toward man kind is to teach him that he can think lightly of sin and get by with it. Why? Simply because the wages of sin is death and the debt must be paid. Man can not pay the sin debt. The debt was paid on our behalf by the sinless Son of God when he bled and died on the cross. We are saved by God’s free grace through our faith in Him and there is no other way. If for any reason you live a life that brings any doubt into the heart of any unsaved person, you will be held accountable. The bible clearly teaches that we are either the light of the world because of our belief in Christ and acceptance of his grace, and the life we live; or we are still in the dark, because sinners prefer darkness that does not reveal their sinful ways.