Breaking Free From The Slavery of Sexual Sin
Notes
Transcript
Ephesians 5:3-14
Ephesians 5:3-14
It was in 1859 that Charles Darwin wrote his revolutionary book on the origin of species. It took some time for the ideas of that book to sort of filter down to have far-reaching influence. Wikipedia writes, that because of Darwin's book, the fact that evolution occurs, became accepted by the scientific community, and much of the general public in Darwin's lifetime. But it was not until the emergence of the modern evolutionary synthesis from the 1930s to the 1950s, that a broad consensus developed that natural selection was the basic mechanism of evolution. It goes on to say that in modified form, Darwin's scientific discovery is the unifying theory of the life sciences, explaining the diversity of life.
Last century as Darwin's evolutionary theory developed as Wikipedia says into a unified theory. There were many Christian voices warning that there would be huge ethical ramifications of the theory. I mean after all, if man is only an animal, then why should there be any ethical imperatives that all? And those of you old enough to remember - will remember that Christians were assured by the Darwinists that man did not need God to be good. That man could be good without a God. That man could stay in line with the traditional moral code - really a reflection of the moral character of God established in the 10 Commandments in the heart of every man WITHOUT God.
There aren't any Darwinian naturalist still saying that. You see the situation has radically changed since the middle of the last century. Morality has been completely redefined. There was a time when ethics and morality referred to the issues DESCRIBED in the 10 Commandments. You were moral or not moral based on whether or not you remain faithful to your partner in marriage, whether or not you stole from others, whether or not you coveted what belong to others. Whether you told the truth, but that's NOT the same anymore.
Now morality is defined in a much different way. The NEW morality, and all you have to do is read the newspaper or pick up a magazine, watch television, you learn that the new morality isn't about those issues all. The new morality is about environmentalism, social & political views, world poverty, and animal-rights.
You can lie as much as you want, you can take from others. You can live however you want in your morals, but as long as you put your recyclables in the trash, where they can be recycled then you are moral. So if those issues; environmentalism world poverty, animal-rights, constitute the new morality, what exactly does today's cultural elite think about the traditional issues of morality, those things commented on by the 10 Commandments. Several years ago, I read a frightening article in world magazine about Peter Singer. Perhaps you read about Peter Singer. Peter Singer is an Australian who was placed in the chair role as a professor in bioethics at Princeton University in the “Center For Human Values” there.
He teaches “practical ethical behavior” to university students, to those who are the best and brightest in our country. If you doubt his credentials listen to how he is described by several leading publications the New York Times as a Peter Singer. No other living philosopher has had this kind of influence.
The New Yorker writes. He is the most influential philosopher alive.
The New England Journal of Medicine says of him. He has had more success in effecting changes in acceptable behavior than any philosopher since Bertrand Russell.
Now when you hear that he's dealing with ethics, your first thought maybe to think that he is weighing in on the cultural debates of our times. Things like abortion or same-sex marriage, but not at all. Those are givens to him. He is assuming those things. He is going way beyond into a brave new world. I won't go into all that he teaches. But he is even advocated; the morality of having a child for the sole purpose of killing that child and harvesting its organs.
What is he say about sexual behavior? Listen to what is teaching a new generation of the nation's cultural elite. When it comes to sexual issues, Singer said this; quote. Any kind of fully consensual sexual behavior involving two people or 200 is ethically fine. He includes in his list necrophilia and even beast reality. In fact, in an article entitled heavy petting Singer attacks biblical morality and supports beast reality. He writes that Judeo-Christian tradition has taught us that humans alone are made in the image of God. That's right, it does but HE SAYS evolution has refuted the biblical account of creation; “we are animals and sex across the species barrier” That’s a polite way of putting it, “Sex across the species barrier ceases to be an offense to our status and dignity as human beings.” Do you think Singer's views are being embraced? Consider that in 2002 a play opened on Broadway by the name of “The Goat”, or “Who Is Sylvia” and it received critical acclaim and it exalts this very sexual perversion.
It’s freighting, what is really what's going on in our culture, but I believe that we still have not arrived at the full consequences of the Darwinian evolutionary theory. I think it will get worse before it gets better because if man is an animal. There is no moral code except the survival of the fittest. With such radical agendas and such perverted views flowing to our society's elite and from our society's elite into the universities, It should come as absolutely no surprise to us that the sexual practices of our society have radically changed as well.
Perhaps I shouldn't say, the practice because the sins have always been there, because man is a fallen being who love sin. But it has become much more acceptable than it was. We see that change all around us. But how did this change occur?
Understand that it was not an accident. It is a determined agenda on the part of social Darwinians. There are a number of possible illustrations of this, but let me share a couple with you. Most of us recognize the name Margaret Sanger - not Singer but Sanger. She was the founder of Planned Parenthood and famous for her views on birth control.
What you may not know is that she was also one of the chief architects of the sexual revolution. That's because she had a clearly defined and stated goal. I read about this - this week in an excellent book that I would highly recommend to you. Nancy Piercy wrote a book called “total truth”. It's a great critique of our time.
She was a disciple of Francis Schaeffer and it's truly excellent. But in this book, Nancy Piercy describe Singer's goal in this way; she said it was to construct a scientific approach to sexuality based on Darwinianism. Sanger portrayed the drama of history as a struggle to free our bodies and minds from the constraints of morality.
What she called - the cruel morality of self-denial and sin. She touted sexual liberation is QUOTE – “the only method to find inner peace and security, and beauty”. Piercy goes on to say; Sanger offered the sweeping messianic promise - and this is a quote from Singer herself; Through sex, mankind will attain the great spiritual illumination which will transform the world and light up the only path to an earthly paradise.
Alfred Kinsey would be another example. He had the same agenda and his major work: Sexual behavior in the human male. He criticized scientists for labeling in their research. Some behaviors normal and other behaviors abnormally, he said we should make such moral judgments. Sex he said is: quote - a normal biologic function acceptable in whatever form it is manifested. For Kinsey, he said; the only standard of what is acceptable is what do other mammals do.
What I want you to see is that people like Sanger and Kinsey had an ideology. They had a goal. And that was to apply Darwinianism to ethics and they sowed the seed and we are reaping the whirlwind. In March 1999, the New Yorker magazine. This is 21 years ago and it has become much more prolific since then. the New Yorker magazine published an article entitled; The Loose Cannon, Why higher learning has embraced pornography. The article reported that today – again, that was 21 years ago - in most colleges and universities, there are young people sitting in a classroom studying hard-core pornography. They sit in university classrooms and watch explicit images on the screen and in some of the classes that are part of this new trend called – “porn studies”, students even have to film their own as part of their homework. In the New Yorker article one of these professors explain why this is so important; “sex is now seen as the motive force of our beings.” He went on to explain that “true interchange is discovering the true nature of your sexuality”.
How do we wrap all of that up? Well, I think Nancy Piercy in her book, “Total Truth” was right when she summed it up like this. In short, sexual liberation has itself become a moral crusade in which Christian morality is the enemy an opposition to Christian morality is a heroic moral stance. Biblical morality is nothing less than the source of evil and dysfunction. Sexual liberation is not just a matter of sensual gratification or titillation. It is a complete ideology with all the elements of a worldview.
Here's what I want you to get, why are things going so extreme, in this sensual sexual direction? Some of it in the general population is just about pursuing their own sin, but understand that it is also driven by an ideology. It’s the ultimate outflow of Darwinian-ism, of evolutionary theory - man is just an animal. There are no social mores. You can behave however you want.
Now let's be clear, if it were true, that we evolved, that there is no God, that we are the product of natural selection, then all of those views of morality that they hold, would be consistent wouldn’t that? if man is just an animal, then who's to say what behaviors are right and wrong?
But thank God it's NOT TRUE. God created man in his own image, separate from the animals. and God gave to man made in his image, a wonderful gift, The gift of sexuality. And to truly enjoy that gift means doing so in a way the creator prescribed. And to use that precious and wonderful gift in any other way is to pervert it.
In fact, in biblical terms it is to enter into sexual slavery. We live in a society where those around us are slaves of sexual sin, but they think it's freedom. It's like the parable of the fish. The fish live surrounded by water BUT doesn't know it's wet because that's the atmosphere in which it lives. These people are the slaves of sin, but they don't know - they think they're free because it's what surrounds them. According to Ephesians 2 all of us used to be the slaves of sin as well, but we have been freed from that slavery. And Paul says we SHOULD to live in keeping with that reality.
Today we come to the next section of Ephesians 5. Paul explains how it is that you and I can live clean lives in a dirty world. He explains to us how as Christians we should live in a skewed sex obsessed culture. Now as we come to this new section, I think it's important for me to make sure that we don't lose sight of the forest for the trees.
i enjoy our studies and we DIG INTO the details, but I think sometimes we lose the big picture. Let me just briefly review them. For those of you that weren’t with us at the beginning, AS WE began our study of this book, we said that the theme of this magnificent letter of the apostle Paul is God's eternal plan. God has a plan and he's working that plan out in human history.
Chapters 1 through 3. Explain the plan. Chapters 4 through 6 apply the plan. Chapters 1 through 3 are doctrine, chapters 4 through 6. The application,
The first 3 chapters tell us what we need to know chapters 4 through 6 are primarily about what we need to do in light of what we know.
Chapters 1 through 3 our new position in Christ as part of that great plan. Chapters 4 through 6 our practice how we should live in light of God's plan.
So the theme of the second half of this letter, chapters 4 through 6, is clearly applying the reality of God's great eternal plan to our lives. It’s stated very specifically. Look at Ephesians chapter 4 verse 1, as he begins the second half the letter. Here it is. Here’s what he’s going to talk about. Therefore, I the prisoner of the Lord, implore you, I plead with you to walk in a matter worthy of your calling, what you have been called. Walk in a manner worthy of your calling – that is, your new position in Christ.
How do we do that? Well we discovered
in chapter 4 verses 2-16 that if you’re to walk worthy we have to walk in unity. In chapter 4 verse 17, down through verse 24 we discovered that to walk worthy, we must walk in the new life we have in Christ. We’re not the people we used to be, so we can't keep acting like we are.The last section, we looked at together began in chapter 4 verse 25 and ran down to chapter 5, verse two, and there we learned that if we are to walk worthy, we need to walk in love. Love for one another and Paul's very detailed about how that expresses itself in life and in relationships.
Today we come to the next section. The next section runs from chapter 5, verse 3 through verse 14. Let me read it for you. Chapter 5, verse 3, but immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. And there must be no filthiness and silly talker course jesting, which are not fitting but rather giving of thanks. For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore, do not be partakers with them. For you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, the fruit of the light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth, trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them, for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret. But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light. For this reason, it says, awake sleeper arise from the dead, in Christ will shine on you.
The theme of the section comes in verse 8 where he says, for you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. If we want to walk worthy of our calling, we must walk in the light, we must walk as children of the light, as will see its context here to walk as children of the light is to live a life of moral purity. If we are to walk worthy of our calling, worthy of our new position in Christ as detailed in the first 3 chapters, then we must walk in sexual purity.
Now as I read those verses, it’s tempting to sit there and hear those words and because they're not words we normally think of in context of sexual sin, and the struggles that we face with that sin in our lives. It's very tempting for us to hear that and to see Paul's views here as simple ideas working in simpler times. I mean after all. Paul didn't have to live in 21st-century America.
Paul didn't have the Internet, Paul didn't have to worry about all the modern technologies that make sexual sin easier. There was no printing press, there was no television, there were no movies. There were no computers
And so you know, it must've been a lot easier then to have lived a sexually pure life. IF we’re tempted to think like that. I'm afraid we reveal that we know nothing about the Greek culture of the first century. In the classic 10 volume set called the theological dictionary of the New Testament, describing one of the words will find in our text, as we work our way through it. One author explains the Greek view of sexuality and he explains that it was almost identical to – not of our day today but of where we are heading. Of the projection of where were going.
You see, the Greeks saw sexual behavior is natural and as necessary as eating and drinking and any expression of it, almost without exception was acceptable. Extramarital affairs were permitted and even encouraged in the Greek world.
The great philosopher Plato argued that involvement with prostitutes is acceptable as long as it's in secret and offends no one. Even experimentation within the sexes was tolerated. And if that was bad, and it was, the situation in the city of Ephesus was even worse. Ephesus was up huge city by ancient standards. Some 200,000 people called it home. It was the capital city of the province, the Roman governor lived there. It was situated on a major trade route and had access to the Mediterranean. It was an attractive prosperous ancient city.
But if you mentioned Ephesus in the ancient world, immediately one thing came to mind. The city of Ephesus was most famous for the temple of Artemis or Diana. You remember, in the book of acts that when Paul and his companions were there and Ephesus. They were confronted by those who worship this goddess. During their time there, they gathered in the theater and they shouted for two hours. Great is Diana of the Ephesians.
This was what Ephesus was known for. By the way, the temple of Diana and Ephesus is still listed today as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. If you go there, you’ll see a field with a single column that has been reconstructed from broken pieces. But in its day, It was a magnificent structure. People that lived in Ephesus you would walk to the edge of the city and you would immediately have come upon a very special road. It was made of all marble - 35 feet wide and a mile long. Leading from the city of Ephesus you would walk this marble highway out to this magnificent structure AND when you came to the Temple of Diana, you would find that it was huge.
The footprint of the temple was larger than a modern football field. The roof was supported by 127 marble columns. Each column was 6 feet in diameter and 60 feet high, more than twice the height of the ceiling. It was a beautiful structure. I've seen reconstructions of an artist, reconstructions from descriptions of the time and it was a magnificent building even in that form, but it was at the same time and absolutely disgusting place.
You see, Artemis was the mother goddess of fertility and so they believed and taught that the best way to worship her was to engage in a sexual act and that was an expression of worship. So, there were rooms there at Temple of Artemis for religious prostitution. History tells us, more than a thousand priests and priestesses who were there for that sole purpose of prostitution.
Imagine, what the Bible clearly calls sexual sin, becomes a pure and holy thing, that is an expression of worship to your God. It is one of the highest acts of Greek culture. Understand that is the culture in which Paul lived for three years when he lived in Ephesus and he ministered there in that situation. That is the situation in which these people live, to whom he wrote these words about six years after Paul left them.
He wrote back with this letter, and he was still concerned about their sexual purity. He's concerned about the influence that their culture would have on them, in that magnificent but pagan ancient city. So, he writes to these dear friends and he reminds them of the need for moral purity. What I want you to see, is that, the Christians in Ephesus were facing something that is really no different than what we're facing today.
The passage that we we’re going to study together, is every bit as appropriate for us as it was for Christians in Ephesus in the first century. In fact, I've had the joy over the last couple of weeks of meditating on, thinking through this passage and I can tell you this, as we track our way through, over the next several weeks, we will discover incredibly practical help, as we pursue sexual purity.
As with all the Scripture, there’s so much there beneath the surface than meets the eye. It is so incredibly helpful. Paul begins in verses 3-4, now I’m just going to lay the foundation today, we’ll look at this passage in detail beginning next week, but I want to set the foundation for you. Paul begins in verses three and four with a very straightforward command. In verse 3, but immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints and there must be no filthiness and silly talker course jesting, which are not fitting but rather giving of thanks. Knowing the Greek text. This is one sentence. Our English translations tend to divide it up in some way. But it's one sentence. You can also see in the NAS, That the words the beginning of verse four are in italics. Whenever you see that know that that means the translators added those words to help in their minds clarify the meaning or not there in the original so this is one unit of thought verses three and four. There are two sets of three cents. The first set of sins is immorality, impurity and greed. The second set of sins is filthiness, silly talk and course jesting. All six of those sins share the same verb and that verb is a negative command. These six cents Paul says must not even be named among you. Now it's clear that the this is about sexual purity for couple of reasons. This whole sentence for the six words that he uses here are used regularly of sins connected to sexual impurity. So for the six words are regularly connected to that one of the two other words of the fifth word occurs on occasion in a sexual context. So there's only one word here in this list of six. That's a surprise, we'll talk about it when we get there. It also applies to sexual sin and its context. In addition, verse 12. He looked at verse 12. It seems to make the same basic point because it describes the sins. Paul is talking about here as those things that are done by them in secret that are disgraceful to even talk about Paul is saying listen you need to know about these things. He's teaching them to us here. You need to be armed against the sins but you don't need to know all the details about how these perversions work their way out and all the gory and grisly details of life, you need to understand they are sin, you need to understand to some extent what they are. You need to understand that there not to be part of your life, but you're not to dwell in the scene CD and seemed unseemly details of how the sins express themselves. So the theme of this paragraph, then, is putting off sexual sin in all its forms, you'll deal with sexual sin of action sexual sin of thought and sexual sins of speech, and in addition to that we are to put on sexual purity theme of the paragraph putting off sexual sin in all its forms and putting on sexual purity Paul is going to tell us what specific sins to put off what God's standard of morality is God's standard of moral purity is he's going to tell us what virtue to put on in place of that sexual sin the means of sexual purity and then pausing to give us the motivation that we need to pursue sexual purity really get to the details of this text. Next week, and I just want to assure you I know some of you have young children in here that this is as graphic as I plan to get. I will do my best to keep my messages G rated but understand the Scriptures deal with this. The Scriptures address this and I want you to know that I'm only gonna go as far as the Scriptures goes in addressing these things, but it's so important that we understand the and that we understand what the text says about them now really get to the details, as I said this next week, but what I want to do in the rest of our time this morning is to make sure that you get the big picture. I don't want you to miss Paul's big point to get his point, you really have to go back to chapter 2 go back to Ephesians 2 Paul begins Ephesians 2 by talking about what we used to be before Christ found us. Notice he says and you were dead in your trespasses and said you were spiritually dead because of your acts of rebellion against God, and your sins. And in those trespasses and sins. You formerly walked and you walked or lived in lockstep with three powerful forces you walked in lockstep with the spirit of the age are the course of this world as it's described here. You walked in lockstep. We all did with Satan himself. We walked according to the prince of the power of the air of the spirit that is now working the sons of disobedience. Satan's major role in the world is what false religion and we walked in lockstep with some false religion, even if it was attached to Christianity. It was probably a works based expression of Christianity, and Satan loves that we also walked in lockstep with 1/3 powerful force verse three and that was our flesh. The lusts of the flesh, the cravings of our fallenness so among the sons of disobedience. Verse three says we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh noticed the two important words of beginning of verse three we all know exceptions and it's interesting by the way, Paul changes pronouns. He had been saying you you you you and he staying changes the verse 32. We all Paul even includes himself ear course. He was included before, but here he makes explicit nobody excepted from this apart from God's miraculous intervention. There is never been a human being who can't be described by verse three was Paul mainly says we live in the lusts of our flesh, he means that before Christ. There were within us. These powerful sinful cravings for something that God had forbidden us there part of our fallenness and those cravings dominated our lives we work for a we thought we were free, but we were free. We were controlled. We walked in lockstep with these powerful cravings that were part of us. Paul takes another step in verse three he says not only do we live with these cravings but we actually carried them out, literally says doing the desires of the flesh of the mine. This word desires is a different word than lusts. The remains will so literally the Greek text is this doing the wills of the flash and the thoughts by using the plural. I think Paul is pointing out that there were two wills there was the will of the flesh, and it was the will of the mind. The other words here's what Paul saying before Christ, we did what ever the flesh, probably here, meaning body, whatever our bodies wanted and we did. Whatever our thoughts told us to do. We were driven to do what we were told in our bodies and our sinful minds dictated and we walked in lockstep with those things. Paul's point is before conversion. We were all slaves of our bodies and our thoughts, but a radical change occurs down in verse four he begins. But God because of his mercy, because of his love even verse five when we were dead, made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been rescued. This dramatic change regeneration and with that active regeneration of new life. Something dramatic happens. Listen carefully at the moment of salvation. The Bible clearly teaches that the dominium that is the rule. The enslaving power of sin was broken. I love the way the apostle John puts in Revelation 15, you described Jesus Christ as the one who loosed us, who released us from our sins in his own blood. We have new power to overcome sin in our lives that look at verse three of chapter 2 we all formerly lived in this kind of slavery God changes us. No longer do we have a dominating enslaving love for sin. Instead, we have both the desire and the capacity to present ourselves to God. Now don't misunderstand me, this freedom from the slavery of sin is not the end of our war was sent. In fact it's only the beginning. For although we died to sin at the moment of salvation. Send and guide us as John Murray observed there still a huge difference between an enemy controlling the capital and the whole country and that defeated enemy causing problems in the countryside. No think about the war in Afghanistan, regardless of your views of whether we should be there, not before we entered the war in Afghanistan. The country was ruled, dominated, controlled by the Taliban. Their word was law. Today they continue to be a serious problem if they continue to strike targets and cause havoc. But those are two different kind of problems to entirely different kinds of problems. It's one thing for them to cause trouble. It's another thing for them to be in lockstep control of the entire country, but under rule the same thing is true in our struggle with sin at the moment of salvation. The rule of sin in our lives was broken, the dictator of our souls. The tyrant sin was rendered powerless and removed from the throne during this life. Sin will continue to attack us and to make every attempt to cause havoc in our spiritual lives, but never forget. Never forget it is a defeated enemy were to spend our lives rooting out the resistance wherever we find it in our hearts and lives. That's what Paul is telling Ephesians about her battle with sexual sin. There was a time when we were in slavery to our lusts. In fact, deeply makes it even point about sexual sin in chapter 4 chapter 4 verse 17 he says walked no longer is the Gentile stop walking like you used to walk and how was that verse 19 callus having given ourselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity, with greediness, so sexual slavery was a part of our past life, but that slavery is over. Why, because God has this great plan that Ephesians is all about a sweeping plan to do something else with us. In fact, turn back to chapter 1 even as Paul begins to unfold. God's plan. Verse three he says God given us all the spiritual blessings. Verse four the first of those blessings is sovereign election. He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. Why did God choose us. He had a purpose in order that we would be holy and blameless before him. God chose us, so that someday we would be holy and blameless. He had a purpose. Reminds me of Romans eight verse 29 that says we are predestined predetermined destiny by God to be conformed to the image of his son. Can you think about this with joy. One day Christian, you will be as sexually pure as Jesus Christ. We were made to reflect his moral likeness, and God has designed that one day you will stand before him in holiness, blameless, as pure as Christ himself is pure how that happened. Well, at the end of verse or the end of chapter 1 of Ephesians, Paul says it's because there's this power at work in you. Verse 18. I'm praying that you understand verse 19 the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe it's the same power God used to raise Jesus from the dead is at work in you what's it doing well to accomplishing God's purpose. Chapter 2 verse 10 for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we would walk in them. Listen folks, we are no longer slaves to sin slaves to sexual sin because God has a plan and is working out that plan. He's already broken the rule of sin in our lives and now we are to root out the resistance step by blood. He step four Christ we were enslaved, but God has made us free, he's made us alive and set us free. Now Paul says to us, he can say to us as Christians don't even let the sins be named among you see the contrast Paul's big point, but I don't want you to miss is the because of our change in position in chapters 1 through three. We can now walk worthy of our calling by walking in sexual purity and Ephesians chapter 5, Paul is going to explain how know if you're here this morning and you have about your need to Jesus Christ. If you never acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord over you. Your only hope is Christ because even the apostle Paul included himself, all of us left to ourselves. All of us without divine intervention are in slavery to our send including sexual sin. There's no hope for you. Apart from Christ, but if you are willing to come and turn from your sin and embrace Jesus Christ as your Lord if you will do that today. He has the power to set you free. Pure believer here this morning. You know what it means to be locked in a struggle with sin. We all are. We all understand these issues and temptations, but you may feel that this goal of sexual purity is completely impossible. You understand you don't understand where this began in my life. You understand how far back it goes. You don't understand the struggles I have the temptations I face. Listen, I love the way Paul finishes the first half of Ephesians. Look at the end of Ephesians 3 essay the position I have. I don't under I don't understand how my practice will ever come in line with my position in Christ. I don't see how I can be sexually pure as Paul. Ephesians 320 listen to how he describes God now to him who is able to do God is able to act. Notice he says God is able to do what we ask, listen, God is more than capable of doing what we ask him to do, but he goes on to say God is able to do what we imagine what we think not only what we ask, but other things that are good things that we don't even dare to ask God because were afraid it will be an embarrassment. Listen Paul says God is able to do even what we imagine, but it doesn't stop there. Notice he says he is able to do all that we ask or imagine, is not done yet though because he says he is able to do beyond all that we can ask or imagine, and he adds yet another he says God is able to do far more abundantly. God is able to do infinitely beyond what we can ask all that we can ask or imagine. That's our God. Listen folks, we cannot we cannot make ourselves sexually pure, but we serve a God who can and he's told us how and will trace it together. In the weeks to come. Let's pray our father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for its richness for its clarity for its directness, or for how it speaks to the issues of our lives. Father, thank you for the circumstances in Ephesus. Thank you that Paul lived there and experience them that these people to whom the right rights were Christians like us living in that incredibly pagan environment that's even worse than the one in which we live. And yet he could still say that it was possible for them to be morally pure. In Christ, Lord, teach us how from this passage give us open hearts and minds give us willing desires to pursue the path of likeness to Jesus Christ Lord. We look forward to the day when we will be as pure as he is pure. But until that day of God, don't let us ever give in, help us foot by blood. He foot to fight the remaining forces of evil in our lives. Father I pray for the person here this morning who knows they are in slavery to sin knows there's nothing they can do that tried father may this be the day when they give up their resistance and when they bow their knee to your son when they are willing to turn from their sin and put all of their hope in Christ is the only one who can rescue them by this be the day we pray in Jesus name and for his glory and