The Turn From Sin

0:10Thank you for listening to the Sermon Audio Podcast for Crossroads Reformed Baptist Church in Rockdale, Texas. Crossroads Reformed Baptist Church is a reformed confessional Baptist church that meets every Lord's Day at 10 a.m. for Bible study and 11 a.m. for corporate worship. For more information about our church or for directions, you can visit us online at www.crbcrockdale.org. Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

0:41Please turn with me if you would. Back to the book of Ephesians. We are in chapter 5, covering just three verses this morning, verses 3 to 5. One of the, and we've mentioned this before, one of the scary but uh formative realities about preaching through the entire uh Word of God, one book at a time, is that you can't hide from anything. Uh there is a temptation of preachers, which is really a temptation of all people, uh, to avoid those tough things, to avoid the hard things and those hard, difficult conversations. And but preaching straight through the Bible, uh, if the Lord wills, you eventually will get it to everything. You will be forced as a preacher and as a congregation to deal with all of the hard things in there. And this morning's passage, then, is one of those passages in which one might be tempted uh to skip or to gloss over. And I was thinking about that this week, the difficulties of this passage and the difficulties of difficult passages, and the temptation to move on past them without this careful exposition. And providentially, Amanda and Chloe and I went to uh half-priced books this past week. And browsing around, I found a Bible commentary set by a guy I did not know, had not heard of him, and I can't even recall his name. But I immediately grabbed his volume on Ephesians. It was Galatians through Ephesians, and I turned to chapter 5, eager to see what he had to say about these verses that we're covering this morning. And unless there were some pages missing in this commentary, or I just completely missed something, he started at verse six in his commentary. Perhaps validating the temptation to breeze past these difficult passages, but it also solidified in me my resolve to take this passage on with the full force of our spirit. And as we will see then, this section begins. Before we read, I will point this out in verse three. It begins with the word but. And this word but is a conjunction, signifying that we have a contrast between the things in which he is talking about this morning against the things in which we covered last week. And before you dismiss that as obvious, like, yes, you know how the English language works and how conjunctions work, and I want you to feel the weight of this contrast with the word but. We all should long for that reality to be true in reality, not just in our hopes. And I long for the day when the temptation of sin is gone from us. And that the true glory, Jesus Christ Himself, is here once again, walking among us. There is no more fighting, there's no more crying, there's no more fasting, because it's only feasting. So the bridegroom has once again come to be with his bride. But that's where we are going, church, not where we are right now. And to think that sin and temptation and trouble are not ever presently crouching at the door waiting to devour us and those weak and absent-minded people, is to both neglect reality and to neglect the whole counsel of God and its warnings. But this is what we do. Because we are burdened by our sin, and if we pretend like it isn't there, if we just run from it, if we just ignore it, if we just minimize it, then we don't have to deal with it. This is the reality that Martin Luther, and I know I've mentioned this, I need to come up with some better analogies, I suppose, discovered in 1505. When burdened by his sin, the fear of life and the fear of death, he vowed and entered the monastery in hopes to get away from his sin and his fear by finding shelter as a monk. Some years later he recalled upon entering the monastery to get away from his sin, but that he found that his sin followed him through those heavy wooden doors. That is to say, you can run from your sin. You can try to hide it, you can cover it up, you can minimize it, you can explain it away, you can justify it, you can just skip over it and only speak of those more positive things. But your sin isn't going anywhere unless you face it and kill it. So by the power of God's grace and through the work of the Spirit, that is what we will do. That's what we will try to do this morning. So let's stand together then as we read our text. Ephesians 5, starting in verse 3. But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. This is the word of the Lord. Lord, even now we thank you for your word, even those difficult. Even those difficult words, Lord. We pray and ask for your spirit to be with us this morning, Lord. May you open our heart to receive what is spoken by and through your word. Lord, would you convict us of our sin that we may be turned more into the image of your beloved Son. It is in his name that I pray.

8:35Amen.

8:42As we begin then, I will begin by way of an illustration, if you would allow me to uh in your mind's eye take you to the medieval days and to the court of a king, bringing a new knight into his service. That knight is entering into a covenant with the king, vowing to his service and vowing to the service of the people. And as part of that covenant and that vow, there are things that this knight must do. And there are things that this knight must not do. He must be chivalrous, protecting and honoring women and children. He must have honor and piety with his life, he must have loyalty to his king and to his country. And there are negative things that he must vow not to do, he must not lie. He must never flee from the enemy. He must never desert a battle. He must never use his authority for greed or to exploit others. This is the vow of a knight. Both positive and negative commands. A modern example: our girls just started a new year of ballet, and at the parents' meeting, there was a similar list of positive and negative commands with respect to our family's conduct, the girls' conduct, our commitment to the team. Things the girls and us as parents must do and things that we must not do. And such things are obvious in almost every area of our lives, except when it comes to the most important covenant relationship that we have. Our relationship with the Almighty God, the King of Kings. I will say here that this is a particular pitfall. That is, the minimizing of those things that which we must not do is a particular pitfall within the church among those who hold to Reformed theology, as we do. This error and temptation, that pull towards antinomianism, is not an issue with the Roman Catholics, for instance. They believe and teach that you have to earn your salvation through your own righteousness, that you can lose your salvation by way of those mortal sins. Even many Protestants among the non-reformed variety deny our beloved doctrine, once saved and always saved, or perseverance of the saints. They too would have little temptation of denying these negative commands because a failure there for them would lead to death. Eternal judgment. That faith is a gift from God, given to whomever he wills, not according to the one who wills or according to the one who runs, but according to God who has mercy, so that he is the one who has mercy on whom he will have mercy and compassion on whom he will have compassion. And further, confessing and believing that this gift of faith, given to us by grace, once it has been given, and the regeneration of man's heart has occurred, that blessed eternal justification has been given, that in that very moment the soul has been transferred from death to life eternally. That the Spirit indwells a person in that moment, sealing them and securing them for eternal life, never to be snatched away, never to be lost, no more condemnation, forever secure in the hands of a faithful and forgiving God. What a blessed doctrine that is. Even with us confessing true biblical theology, we so often champion grace to such a degree that when we hear a pastor exhort us from the pulpit to not do this, or to stop doing that, or to live like this and don't live like that. What is our common response? Hey, we're under grace. Not the law, don't burden me with a list of do's and don'ts. I came to church to hear about Jesus and to be under grace and to be under Christ. That's all I need.

14:42Then what do we do with our passage this morning, church?

14:49What do we do with verse six, verse five of our text? For you may be sure of this. That everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, who is covetous, that is, an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ in God. This is the temptation of Satan against those who understand grace, who have received this blessed truth. And that temptation is this you're saved. You're good. Just live however you want. It doesn't really matter. You're in. God loves you.

15:38You're going to heaven. Just live. Our response must be this.

15:48What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us have been baptized into Christ Jesus, were baptized into his death? We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into his death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. Romans 6, 1 to 4. So this is where we stand this morning. We firmly plant ourselves in the narrow way between those two errors. Between one that seeks to earn righteousness through a meritorious life, and the one that seeks to minimize sin, to gloss over it, and to live however they desire because they're saved anyway. Or assume that they are. But sexual immorality and impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you. And here it is, as is proper among saints. And again, verse 5, for you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or covetous, that is an idolater, has no inheritance in what? In the kingdom of Christ and God. As I long for uh cooler weather and for the holiday season to come, Lord, it is coming. I am reminded of our dear friend Ralphie, who you all know. Who all he wanted for Christmas was a Red Rider BB gun? His mother was cautious, and all of her warning about that centered around the worst possible outcome to said gift, which was you'll shoot your eye out, right? Don't do that, Ralphie. Or you'll shoot your eye out. Did that method work well for him?

18:45Oh, he still almost shot his eye out.

18:50This is why so many fear and have aversion to this hard preaching against sin and against the dangers of sin, because it's always grounded in the negative, isn't it? It's always focused on the negative. When Scripture always, and I'm hesitant to say always, because I can't say that I know every single instance, but I'll say always, for his children, always brings it around from the negative back to the positive again, to ground it in something positive. Look again at verse 3. We are to turn from these things that he lists there, to not even have these things named among us. Why? Because if we don't, we're gonna shoot our eyes out and go to hell. No, because we are saints, he says. This is what Paul has been saying since chapter one, right? Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God to the saints who are in Ephesus, who are faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him. Flee these things, church. Kill these sins, cast off the old men, have nothing to do with that, despise and turn from these things, from sexual immorality, from impurity, from idolatry. Because you are a beloved saint of God. You're a child of the king. You have been graciously given an imperishable inheritance in the kingdom of Christ in God. One that flesh and blood cannot inherit, but by the power of the Spirit, that which is perishable has put on the imperishable, that which is mortal has put on immortality. And because of that promise, because of the faithful work of Christ, because of the grace of God, it shall come to pass what is written. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. That's the exact same position that was taken in Hebrews 6. If you remember when we were back there more than a year ago, maybe closer to two years ago, and the dangers of apostasy, right? The dangers of falling away, that warning passage there. How does he conclude that section? Says this, though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we are sure of better things, things that belong to salvation. Again, bringing it back to the positive. The our identity as beloved children of God. And do you see the difference then in that grounding of faith and life? You see the contrast shown here in who we were and who we now are. You see the blessing of what God's grace has saved us from. A knight will bow his knee to a faithful king and he will do whatever is asked of him, whatever is asked of him, even if it means the giving of his life. Not from compulsion, not from guilt, but from gratitude, from devotion, from service. This is what we are called to, church. This is why I can boldly and confidently preach the law. It's why I can even delight in the law. It's why you can delight in the law. Because you're not a slave to it. You have no fear of it. Because we are saints brought into fellowship with our King, we can love his commands. And we can say, May our Lord let such things that are opposed to us be not even named among us. What you say, Lord, I will do with all the power that is in me. Even if it means the sacrifice of my desires, even if it means the sacrifice of my tendencies, of my dispositions, of my bents, of my very life, I lay it all down. Because Christ is my Lord.

24:04Because I am a saint, because I am his. That is our grounding and our motivation.

24:16We do, though, have to talk more specifically and directly about these sins, lest I be accused of dancing around the subject or not being direct about what the text is commanding. Told you I'm going at this without reservation. And there are two categories of sins given here in these verses, and providentially, I'm so glad and pleased that our God brought in our paths this teaching series from Dr. Sprohl on Wednesday night, specifically a couple weeks ago. He outlined the reality that the Bible clearly makes distinctions between degrees or types of sin. Surely we know, as Dr. Sproul said, that all sin, even the most minor transgression that we can imagine, is still worthy of judgment. Right in the court of a perfect and holy God. And in that respect, all sins are equal in that there is a penalty of death for all of them. However, it seems here that our text that it would say and allude to and explicitly says that there are some sins that are out of place, and there are others that are wholly incompatible with our position as saints. We'll begin then with the lesser of those, and this is the verse that I have not yet read a second time. Verse 4. Let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. These are sins of foolishness that we are commanded to turn from and put off. We, as saints, are called to be dignified people. We're called to be set apart in speech and action. Remember then what the word saint means. In the Greek, it is the word hagios, which is holy or sacred. In Latin, this is where we get our English word that we pulled from. It's sanctus or set apart one, one that is set apart. That is to say, in light of our calling as saints, we are set apart, sanctified, holy.

26:51We're to look different than the world.

26:57We're not to act, we're not to speak like the world speaks. Our speech must not be filthy or foolish, that is, inappropriate or flippant or careless. We should be in no way indecent. This includes everything. Not just our speech, but how we dress, how we act, how we talk, the things that we say, everything should be brought under the Lordship of Christ and should be done in a manner worthy of our King. Our lives should be filled with grace and thanksgiving and purity such that people know immediately, oh, this one is different. Set apart. Whose eyes or whose favor are you trying to attract?

28:14God or man's.

29:04That if left unchanged and unchecked, prove that one is indeed not a child of God. At least not the one that they presume they are. We can see the connection here in the text that these are the big three sins that are repeated many times in Scripture. These are the sins in which all other sins branch from, because this was the original temptation from which Adam and Eve fell. This is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. This was the temptation that Jesus faced, right? Directly from the devil, the temptation to gratify the carnal flesh with temporal sustenance, as opposed to trusting in and loving that which is lasting and eternal and spiritual, the word of God, the temptation to desire only that which we see now, earthly glory, even if it means compromise or impurity. The temptation to exalt oneself over God, to trust in one's own will and one's own desire, to tempt God to trust in one's own wisdom, to presume that whatever I want is good because God wants me to be happy. Those are lies. And to embrace them is to embrace a king and a kingdom that is not ours. It is to bow to a king that will fall to the king of kings. This is why we fight these things. Not because I am up here saying don't commit these sins, because if you do, you're going to go to hell. However true that may be. But I'm telling you, Christians, dear beloved ones of God, don't fall for these things because the true king, the eternal glory, the promised inheritance, your future as everlasting saints is of far greater value than whatever the world has to offer temporarily.

31:52The problem is, I need you to believe that this morning.

31:59I need you to believe that such a future reality is true. The biggest hindrance to our modern faith in these areas is, without question, materialism. We fall into these temptations because we fail to realize that our battle is spiritual and it's eternal. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

32:38Do you see that? Your battle, then.

32:47This battle as children of the king, your battle against the sexual perversion of our culture, your battle against materialist idolatry, your battle against carnal selfishness, against pride that runs so rampant. This is an eternal battle that is held in the spiritual realm where those evil forces of darkness have waged war against our holy God. They will not stop trying to ruin the culture. They will not stop trying to corrupt the good, to tempt us to sin, to pervert justice, to destroy everything good in every way they can. This is a spiritual battle. So we must put on the full armor of God, and we'll get there in Ephesians 6 later. But we must rest and we must trust in these words. Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. And so we approach these topics with humility, knowing, church, that these are indeed our sins. And you probably have already, but don't fall into this trap that in these moments and in your mind, as you hear me talk about these sins, you're immediately going to, oh, I know, I know who needs to hear this, or these are your sins.

34:40These are your temptations, these are your issues, these are your commands. But take heart then.

34:52These temptations are millennia old, and nothing you face is unique to you. Our God, by his spirit, is empowering you to fight these temptations, to turn from these sins. You can escape them. If you believe that the word is true, you can escape them. You can endure these temptations. You have the power of the Spirit to resist them. Not because it's inherent in you, but only because by the power of God, by his indwelling spirit, our helper, God, the Spirit, is with you. As we begin, it is time for us all to face our sins, to fight them. And we do that this way, as we close. Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. How within do we fight this? We fight by remembering. We fight by remembering who we are, who God has made us to be. We fight by remembering where we're going. We take the turn from sin on our way to glory because we are sure, according to the will and the promise of God, that we are saints bound for an eternal inheritance. We are children of God and citizens of an everlasting kingdom. Won't we live, though, church, as though that were true? Won't we turn from our sins as though that were true? We must. Because by grace through faith it is true. Let us get there then. Let us fight our sins together, church. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you again for this word. Lord, we thank you for the reminder this morning that you have called us saints. You've called us holy only by and through the righteousness of Christ that you have given to us, Lord. And we were reminded again, Lord, that you have empowered us to fight these sins, to turn from them by your spirit that you've given to us, our helper, our seal for eternal salvation, Lord. So we rest in these blessed truths of the doctrines of your grace, of the reality of our firm and assured salvation by grace through faith, Lord. And from that now, Lord, would you empower us as saints, as your beloved children, to turn from these sins, Lord. Make us pure by your spirit. Root out all of those things on our heart that are still not in accord with you and your will. Let us delight in it. Let us be transformed by it, knowing that you have saved us and that you are transforming us into your blessed and holy image. Lord, please help us. Amen.