Ephesians 5:5-6 “For this you know with certainty, that no sexually immoral or impure or greedy person, which amounts to an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. See that no one deceives you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.”
Pastor Herk continued in his Sunday sermon series through the Pauline Epistle of Ephesians, stating that it is impossible to be content with your sins and truly be a Christian. The follower of Christ has to look at their life and recognize that in our fallen, just how flesh vulnerable they are to immorality all around us in society. The grace of God is not a license to sin. Some feel that by Jesus dying in our place to pay for all their sins (past, present and future), they had a “get out of Hell free” card to now sin all they want, confess it, hang it on Christ to pay and then they were guilt-free and shamelessly fine. That is not how forgiveness of sin works. There is no salvation without repentance. In John 8:11 Jesus said, “go, and from now on sin no more.”
We have become far too accustomed to and comfortable with sin around us in our lives. Godless secular society has been on a campaign to normalize sin for so long that the culture is at the point where we are desensitized to it and don’t even recognize some of it as sin anymore. It has gone far beyond tolerance. Things which used to be considered horrific sin, today are accepted and affirmed in public life because we have become familiar and callous to it. Sin is much too common and people of God have become too tolerant of its presence in our presence. Our worldly moral standards have changed so much, becoming so infested and infected, that our actions prove that we no longer believe that is sin is the voluntary departure of a moral agent from a known rule of rectitude or duty, prescribed by God; being any voluntary transgression of the divine law, or violation of a divine command; a wicked act of iniquity against God and man.
Yet, Ephesians 5:5-6 is encouraging and a source of great joy for the Followers of Jesus Christ. The difference between delight and dreed boils down to the difference between a lapse and a leap. Unconverted sinners leap into sin and love it; Converted sinners lapse into sin and loathe it. Everyone on earth is a sinner. Romans 3:23tells us, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Just like in Galatians 5:21, the Apostle Paul is writing about those who live a lifestyle consistent and characterized by sin. And continuing in Galatians 6:7-8the Apostle warns, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked [He will not allow Himself to be ridiculed, nor treated with contempt nor allow His precepts to be scornfully set aside]; for whatever a man sows, this and this only is what he will reap. For the one who sows to his flesh [his sinful capacity, his worldliness, his disgraceful impulses] will reap from the flesh ruin and destruction, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” For those who are children of God and have the Holy Spirit living in them, they are going to strive to live their lives to please their heavenly Father and endeavor to never let Him down by their thoughts, words and actions.
1 John 1:8-10 says, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”
When a child of God lapses into sin, they are convicted by it and are sincerely sorrow, knowing that they having sinned against our just and holy Creator God, confessing, repenting and asking for forgiveness. Daniel 2:22 proclaims, “It is He [God] who reveals the profound and hidden things; He knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with Him.” On the other, the sons and daughters of disobedience leap into sin knowing fully what they are doing. They live to feed their fallen flesh and sin nature because what they do comes out of who they truly are. In John 3:19-20 the Lord Jesus teaches us, “this is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the Light; for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light, so that his deeds will not be exposed.” They love their sin because they love their self more than they love God. Their selfish desires are characterized by pleasure-seeking, materialistic and existential hedonism where they idolize themselves, but are slaves to sin. As the Country song says: “It’s all about me, it’s all about I, and its all about number one, oh my-me-my. What I think, what I like, what I know, what I want, what I see.” To make a god out of yourself is idolatry.
Let's continue Pator Herk's message on believers and unbelievers in the next post.
In Christ, Brian
No comments:
Post a Comment