The Children Of Light

In this message from the In Christ series, Scott Wiens opens Ephesians 5:3–10 to draw a clear line between darkness and light. He addresses the way darkness often disguises itself as “it’s not that big a deal,” “everyone does it,” or “that verse doesn’t apply anymore,” and he invites you to see how the gospel reshapes what we desire, how we speak, and how we live. Scott grounds the text in its original setting—Ephesus, a city saturated with pagan worship and sexual permissiveness—and shows why Paul’s words were aimed at the church. The call isn’t to outrage at the culture, but to personal holiness, integrity, and a community life that is above reproach.

Scott defines the four sins Paul names—sexual immorality, impurity, covetousness, and corrupt speech—and explains why they’re more than behavior problems. Sexual immorality is any sexual activity outside God’s design of one man and one woman in a marriage covenant. Impurity points to a mind that celebrates what God forbids, proving you can’t separate body and heart. Covetousness is greed turned into worship, which is why Paul calls it idolatry. Then Paul moves to our words—filthiness, foolish talk, crude joking—and gives a surprising replacement: thanksgiving. When we stay close to the gospel and remember the gift of redemption, gratitude becomes our new default, and over time it reorients our vocabulary and our choices.

Scott also names the “empty words” that try to excuse sin—cultural permission, selective theology, the claim that biblical ethics are outdated—and contrasts them with the conviction of the Holy Spirit, who will not be silenced in a true believer. He makes a crucial distinction between stumbling and making sin your identity, and he offers the pastoral help we need for real change: do not participate, learn to discern what pleases the Lord, and expose the works of darkness—beginning with our own hearts—through confession and accountability. Along the way, he cautions against “living on the edge,” reminds us that what we focus on is what we reflect, and shows why a life of gratitude leads to freedom and joy.

If you’re ready to stop partnering with darkness and to walk as a child of light, this message will help you take honest, practical steps. Watch or listen, share it with a friend who needs encouragement, and ask yourself: where do you need clearer discernment this week?

We are Trinity Community Church in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Subscribe to our Podcast & YouTube channel to find past sermons, classes, interviews, and more!
Find us on Facebook & Instagram

Transcript

In Christ Series And Why It Matters

Scott Wiens 0:02

All right, well listen, we are in the middle of a sermon series, actually the back half of a sermon series that we call In Christ. And we began it in the fall of last year. I hope you guys have been enjoying this. It's been a great, great series. And the book of Ephesians really naturally breaks up into two pieces. The first three verses, excuse me, the first three chapters really talk about what it means to be in Christ, what it means to be a child of God, what it means to be transformed inside. And by the way, a lot of you are newer, if you've missed any of these sermons, you can go back and you can listen to them. Just go to tccnox.com. You can click on the connect option, and there's an option to click on sermons, and you can go in there and you can listen to all the ones that you've missed. Because really, those sermons really lay a great foundation for what we're talking about now. So uh you can definitely do that. But we're in the second part now where we picked up with chapter four, and we began that in the new year, and it's been really good because now we're talking about what the lives of Christians who have been truly transformed should look like. What should it look like now that we've been transformed by grace? What should those lives look like? And you can't get these swapped because if you don't understand that you've been changed by grace and transformed, and you just look at it about, look at this whole thing about how what do I need to do to be righteous? Then you've stepped into legalism, and it's a hard place to get out of. So the text for today's scripture, uh, for today's sermon is Ephesians 5, verses 3 through 10. So we're going to read that. But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not be even named among you, as is proper among the 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's a sexual immoral or impure, or who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no 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 become partners with them, for at one time you were darkness, and now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true, and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Let's go before the Lord. Father, we thank you for this scripture. We do believe, God, that all scripture is God breathed. And so we believe that this scripture written so many years ago is for us today. And so as we unpack this, as we look at this, Father, I pray that you would speak to all of us and that you would teach us through this and convict us, Father, where we need to be convicted. And we pray this in the powerful name of Jesus. Amen. Well, in this passage of Scripture, Paul is using the literary style of contrast. He's helping the Ephesian believers see the difference between living in darkness and living in light, meaning who they actually were. And he's specifically talking about sexual sin and crude talk. And so today we're gonna really look at these three things. We're gonna look at a con the contrast he's making in three specific areas. First, we're gonna define these four primary sins that he's talking about. And then we're gonna understand the warnings Paul gives against justifying these behaviors, sins. And then we're gonna examine what Paul says our reaction should be to these sins. So we're gonna do those three things. Now, before we dive into the passage, I want to make sure we have the context well in hand. A lot of you weren't here. You know, normally when we start a sermon series on a book, uh, and we typically are we're expository here at Trinity, we teach through a book. So we gave Mark, I think it was Mark that gave a great background into Ephesians way back in the fall, right? So if if you didn't weren't here for that, I'm not gonna go through that whole sermon, but there's two things I want to point out. The first is audience participation. Who is Paul writing to? Someone tell me. The church. Yeah, Ephesus, the church believers. So that means who's he not talking to? He's not right talking to the people in Ephesus that weren't a part of the church. Now you might say, duh, Scott, that's we understand that. Why you bring that up? Well, I bring it up because sometimes when we read scriptures like this, we want to deflect. We want to find a King James Bible with a hard cover, and we want to beat a non-believer with it. You see what Paul's saying? You shouldn't do this. And they're like, why? Why you why do we get so surprised when sinners sin? You ever figure that out? If you can get that through your head, then you're gonna stop judging people that aren't following Christ. So he's talking to us, he's talking to the church, he's talking to us. Get that clear in your mind. That's important. So if you were looking for a, if you'd picked up some stones or whatever, you can drop them and just walk away. We're not gonna talk about that. The second thing you need to understand is the Ephesian church was primarily Gentile believers. Now it had Jewish believers in there. We know that because he does talk about some of the Jewish uh traditions and beliefs that were coming in, such as circumcision and things like that. But it was primarily written to Gentile believers. And the the city of Ephesus, just so you know, Ephesus was a city of about 300,000 people at the time that Paul wrote that. 300,000 people. And they didn't even have public transit. Huge city, right on the port, bustling. And it was also the center of worship for the Greek goddess Artemis. In fact, we got a picture here of um the uh actual, this is what they think the temple rendering is or of the actual temple of Artemis. And if you know anything about pagan religions, and it's written all through scripture, um, most pagan religions included a lot of sexual promiscuity. A lot of that. So if we understand these people came out of this culture, right? Now they're in Christ, it's not a surprise that he's talking about these things, right? It's not a surprise because he's probably dealing with something that's happened in the church. Now, one last thing I want to do before we talk about this, uh go into this, is you have to understand and remember that Scripture wasn't always broken into chapter and verse, right? We know that. This was a letter that was written by Paul to the church in Ephesus. And by the way, these were spread and shared around all of the churches, right? But this was specifically to Ephesus. So the first two verses of this section cannot be ignored when we look at this scripture. And Tyler gave a great sermon on this a couple weeks ago. Uh, but these are the first two verses. Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Now, that sermon that Tyler gave was so good because what he did is he focused on how we are to live as loved children, as loved children. And I love, by the way, you went to 1 John, and he really pulled in this concept of unity and what that looks like to walk together in love and unity in the body of Christ. There's something else he touched on that I think is really important, and it's the very first verse. He says, Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children. If we miss this, we're gonna miss our text today. Children imitate their parents. I bet you all have seen that. I know when I was uh when we first had our daughter Brandy, she was our oldest, she was about three or four, and my wife took a video. I was in the backyard, I just cut down a tree, and I was moving all the limbs over to a pile. I was gonna pile them up and burn them, right? And she was helping me. And so I'd give a big old, I'd get two branches and she'd get this little thing like this, and she'd walk behind me and we'd throw it on the pile, and she'd walk back doing this. It was the cutest thing. And my wife was laughing as she was videotaping it, right? She was imitating me because I did this to get the get the sawdust and stuff off my hands. It's so cute to watch your children imitate you until they imitate something you don't like. Have you ever seen your children in the mirror of you? It can be a little humbling, isn't it? And one of the greatest uh compliments I ever get is when someone who knew my father says, Oh, Scott, you talk just like your dad, or you you you you you laugh just like your dad. I mean, that was a huge compliment to me. But I'll tell you something else I got from my father. I got what we call the German temper. The German temper. In fact, I act the same way my dad acts when he would get mad. And I inherited this from him. By the way, just so you know, I'm not blaming him, I own it. And by the way, through this 25, 21 days of fasting, thank you very much, Tyler. God's been really convicting me on this, and it's been really humbling. And thank goodness it's changing in me. He's doing some really good work in me, but I have that temper. And I and I got that quite honestly from my dad. But there's a truth about imitation is that we reflect the things that we look at the most. We reflect the things we look at the most. That's why when my dad would get mad, I'm like, oh, that's with the way you react to that. You throw things or whatever, and I have punched holes in walls before. Not often, but I have. Only time I ever broke a bone is I broke a knuckle, punching the wrong thing. And it wasn't a person, I've never punched a person. We reflect the things that we look at the most. If we look to God and put his relationship first, guess what? We're gonna look more like him. However, if we place others above God, meaning we look at that more. Guess what? We reflect that. And so it's really important when we put this passage of scripture in context of that, that we understand. Guess what? He's saying, don't do these things. And if you're finding yourself doing things, you're looking at the wrong place and you're reflecting the wrong thing. And this is true. This is true. And I experienced this in my life, I'm sure you've experienced it in yours. So if we're what we're doing is reflecting the wrong thing, then we got to ask ourselves, where am I looking? What's my focus been? Okay, that's the background. Let's jump into the first one, which is the four sins Paul addresses. So in Ephesians 5, 3, it starts, but sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not be named among you as is proper among the saints. I want you to notice the word but. The word but is grammatically, it's what's called a coordinating conjunction. It just makes me sound smart when I say that. It's a coordinating conjunction. What is a coordinating conjunction, you might ask? Well, I'll tell you. It connects contrasting ideas, contrasting ideas. So he's saying, be imitators of God, right? Do all this. But sexual immorality, and he goes on. So we need to understand that's the first thing he's doing. That's why we can't go through this sermon without at least touching on verse one and two. So the first that he mentions is sexual immorality. Pornea is the Greek word for that. A lot of you know that word. You've heard it before. Uh, the strong says it's to engage in sexual immorality of any kind, often with the implication of prostitution, to engage in illicit sex, to commit fornication. And in the context of this, he's talking to Ephesians, you know, if the people from the church in Ephesus who came out of that culture, is undoubtedly that's what he was referencing, right? A lot of it was temple prostitution, but other things as well. But basically, pornay is any type of sexual activity that is a perversion of the original design for sex. And we know what that original design for sex is. It was between one man and one woman in a marriage covenant in covenant with God. That's simple. That's what it is. Anything else is a deviation from that. So that would include adultery, fornication, which is basically sex outside of marriage, homosexuality, or any other type of sexual activity outside of church. Now, I want you guys to understand really clearly, because I realize some of you have been kicking around the kingdom for a while, and we get really up in arms about things like homosexuality, but we kind of just kind of don't look at things like fornication, right? We uh it's not as bad. They're all sins. And what does sin do? Sin separates you from God. They're all sins, and we can't put more emphasis on one the other. And by the way, sin porny is a sin that Paul has mentioned before. In fact, he says something really interesting to the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 6 18. He says, flee immorality. No, that's not the smallest sin in the Bible, by the way. Some people flee immorality. Whatever, okay. All right, that's one of the jokes you learn in youth. Didn't you guys know that one? Okay, they don't? Now you do. Sorry about that. Okay. He says, flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immortal, immoral man sins against his own body. Wait, he's actually drawing a difference between other sins and this. Well, I can almost tell you and guarantee that Paul was addressing a mindset that was in the culture at the time. And you've heard of Gnosticism before, and I won't go through a long discourse on it. But in essence, part of Gnosticism was believing that the physical body was sinful, but it was separate from your mind. You could separate it. So you could do all these bad things, but with your mind, you could be, quote, right. And it was a twisting of reality. And it's sad, but a lot of people bought into that because it allowed them to just give into their fleshly desires. And that belief, by the way, has just been been disproven by many secular psychologists and in psychiatry. It's been proven you can't separate the two sex, the physical act, and your mind, they are connected. And our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, aren't they? We're not to join ourselves with anyone other than our spouse in a married scenario. That's what that's the design. That's the design. But our culture kind of propagates this belief. You know, if you think about it, how many movies do you watch where people are having sex outside of marriage? By the way, it's okay. I mean, I understand they're not called, they're not saved. Whenever I'm not gonna get the King James Bible and beat them, but that seeps into our belief system. And even the young people in the church think, well, I know Joe, he's got a happy marriage, but he had sex before they got married. So therefore, it must be right. It must be okay. Really? Really? I'll tell you, I've talked to people who uh were more sexually promiscuous when they were younger, and they will tell you they wish they hadn't. They wish they hadn't. I remember one time I played in a band uh with a bunch of guys in Texas. They were, I was young, I was like 30, and everybody else there was in their 50s and above. And we went, we did a really rare uh uh uh out of town gig where we had to stay the night. And so the the bass player, myself, and the steel guitar player were staying in this same room in this junky hotel. It was a memory I'll never forget. At the end of the first night, Friday night, we're in the room, it's like one in the morning, we're getting ready to go to bed, and the bass player said something. And he said, Man, Scott, guy like you, I bet you he wasn't saved, obviously. He said, I bet you you have your you've been pretty lucky over your lifetime. I he said, No, because man, I tell you what, I've I've slept with hundreds of women. And I looked at him and I said, Nope. I've been with one woman my whole life. And he looked at me. And at first I thought he was gonna call me some like uh, you know, he looked at me, he said, Wow. I wish I could say that. Because he knew he couldn't find happiness in that. He didn't have, he couldn't find happiness in that. And by the way, I'm not tooting my own horn, by the way, for that. Please, please me. There was lots of times I would have, but I just didn't, the opportunity wasn't there. I had the bounds of a very legalistic, rigid church to hold me. So I'm very grateful that didn't happen, but I'm telling you, it wasn't because I was this holy guy, but I was so thankful afterwards. Someone says, You want to know why God makes a law? Try obeying it for a while and see what He why he put it in place. And I'll never forget his face. To this day, I never forget his face. And it convicted me. The second sin he talks about is impurity. Impurity. And this is uh a nice Greek word called acatharia, acatharea, and it's a state of moral impurity, especially in the relationship of sexual sin, immortality, immortality, immorality. Immortality is a different sermon, and filthiness. Now, what's interesting is why does Paul link this together with sexual immorality? Because he's saying that sexual immorality and impurity are emphasized because the sexual sin is related and comes from the person's mind. Again, he's drawing that connection. He's attacking the Gnostic belief at the time. And there's no place that this is more poignant, and most of you have heard this before than Romans 1:24, where Paul is saying to the Roman church, he said, Therefore God gave them up to the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. Impurity and I keep saying immortality, immorality, sexual immorality, they're linked. They're linked because we know the body will act out what's already going on in the heart, right? It will it will happen. And it further identifies that the sexual sin of impurity uh really is when people just cast off all restraint and they celebrate sexual immorality. And you see that. We all have YouTube. If you want to, you can see it. The people just don't care. But again, they're not called. We need to pray for this world. The third sin Paul mentions here with the first two is covetousness. Now, impurity and covetousness are coupled together as well. I mean, Paul chose these words very specifically. Now, the word covetousness is plexinia, and it's interesting because it's the strong concordance will tell you it's a strong desire to acquire more and more material possessions or to possess more things than other people have, all irrespective of need. In other words, a lot of times if you read through the New Testament, that same word will be interpreted as greed. Greed. I want more. I've talked about this before, but there's a study done, they talked to millionaires, and they said to each millionaire, there were like people who had like $10 million, people that had $50 million, people that had $100 million. They said, How much would be enough? And each one said, twice as much as I have. You see that person that's now $100 million? At one time they had $50 million, but it wasn't enough, right? That's greed. That's that's the that's what he's talking about here, this covetousness. And the reality is, why is he why is he joining this with sexual immorality? And it's basically because the impurity of the mind of a sexually immoral person is literally committing idolatry. They are coveting something other than God. That's what it is. Colossians 3, verse 5. Again, Paul talking, he says, put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire. And covetousness, which is idolatry. The mind that is completely enraptured in sexual immorality is basically worshiping that. Their sexual lust has become their God or their God replacement, as I've heard it said before. Now, the second part of verse three is kind of interesting because he, after he talks about these three specific sins, listen to what he says. But sexual immorality and all impurity and covetous must not be even named among you as is proper with the saints. Must not even be named above you, among you. What's that mean? Well, I think the connotation is pretty clear. He's telling the Ephesians that they should be above reproach regarding all of this stuff. It shouldn't even be a hint of it. You know, you have to be so careful because people can read things in. They can see any kind of behavior you have and say, oh, wait a second, that's that might he might be up to something wrong. When pastors counsel uh women, the door is always open. Never you have to be above reproach. And that's just one example. You don't have to be a pastor to be above reproach. You shouldn't be going to certain places where that activity maybe goes on. You have to be above reproach. He said it shouldn't even be named among you. And unfortunately, though, a lot of times as believers, we live on that edge. We're just right on that edge. Well, I'm not technically sinning, am I? Yeah, I just want to tell you something. If you're trying to live on the edge, you're already sinning. You get it? Yeah. Because your heart wants to live on the edge. Your heart is driving you there. I just want to live on the edge. I just want to live on the edge. I want to watch this movie, and my wife's going to be okay with it. I'm going to watch this movie, even though it's got some nudity. It's a great movie, but I really want to watch it because I want to see the nudity. See, we can excuse anything and say, well, it's really not sin. Yeah, it is. If you're toying with it, if you're toying with that edge, you're already in sin. We're not mirroring Christ. But it's important that you understand when he says this to them, look what he calls them. As is proper among you bunch of heathen sinners. No, he says saints. Ephesians 1 through 3. We're saints. And by the way, it doesn't mean we're so good. It means God's done a great thing in us. We should act like children of God. That's why we have to be imitators, right? He's saying we can't fall in that line. We can't fall there. And it's because it's not about just complying to some religious activity, it's about being transformed in our heart. And that's really important. Mirroring and reflecting the character of Christ. That's Christ in us. That's why we called this sermon in Christ. Because we have to be reminded all the way through what that looks like. Now, Paul brings up three other behaviors that I've grouped together as one because they're all really closely related. And in verse four, this is what he says Let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking, which you're out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. Now, Mark's sermon a few weeks ago. How many of you were here for Mark's sermon on this? Yeah. It was a great sermon. And if you missed that one, you should. You should watch it or listen to it. You can watch it online too. You should listen to that because it was really, really powerful. The three specific Aries that are obviously things that were common in the culture at their time, just like they're common in ours. Filthiness is the first one. Well, that basically is to act in defiance of social and moral standards, bringing shame on you and your family, right? Out of the heart, the mouse speaks, right? So obscene talk, things like that. Foolish talk. I don't know if you notice this, but some of these videos that might, you know, that uh you see on these reels and things, they're just foolishness. They're silly, they're foolishness. They're not even entertaining. They're they're only entertaining because they're so stupid. You wonder, have you ever wondered what do these people do for a living? Where do they get their money from? How do they because they they put these silly things together, they have no meaning. And then crude joking, vulgar expressions, and decent talk. Now, Paul contrasts these three things again with that coordinating conjunction, but he says, but instead, let there be thanksgiving. Okay, hold on. Why thanksgiving? Don't you think if he was contrasting that, he said, but instead you should speak good, wonderful things, and you should not, but no, he says thanksgiving. Well, we need to go back to verse one again. You see, if we remind ourselves daily of the magnificent gift of grace and redemption that was given to us by God freely, if we're constantly looking at that, then our primary response can only be thanksgiving. That's gotta be our primary response. And what I have found in my life, in my prayer life, every morning when I pray, I start by thanking God. And I got lots to be thankful for, but there's one thing primarily, and that is the fact that he took the wretched man that I was, and he opened my heart and my mind to see who he is and gave me this gift so I could be reconciled to him. I thank God for that every morning. Every morning. And it doesn't make me pompous or feel better, it really just humbles me. Why me, God? Literally, in scripture says, before the foundations of the earth, God called you. God called you, he called me. Wow. So it wasn't based on how good you were because he already had a plan for you. No, he pulled so much of so many of us out of the gutter. He pulled so many of us out of lives that didn't really have any meaning. And he gave us hope and a future and a right standing with God. How can we not be thankful for that? How could we not? Paul was showing them that the true disciple of Jesus would be constantly focused on Jesus and therefore filthiness, crude joking, and all that stuff, you don't even want to do that. And I find this the more I focus on God, the more those things in me start to wane and go away. But you might say, that ain't kind of cool, Scott. You don't, you're not really cool if you don't do that stuff. Um, you maybe as a young person, and I I went through this in high school, I was worried about being labeled the goody two shoes, you know, the the uh the church kid, right? Or maybe you won't fit in in your your work culture. I had a guy one time say this, and I'm I'm I'm not kidding. This person said to me, and they were a believer, they said, you know, when I work with my crews, I cuss because that's the only language they understand. And you know, I dug into scripture and I looked and I looked and I looked, and you know what I found? Nowhere in Scripture did they allow for working with crews that were crude. There was no allowance for it. No scripture tells us that the end justifies the beans. So we have to think about that and be convicted of that. Now let's move to verse 5. 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. I love the fact he said of Christ and God. That's really cool. Now, it's really important to understand what Paul is saying and what he is not saying here. He's not saying that anyone who has committed any of these sins won't be in the kingdom of God. Because the reality is, some of us probably committed these sins this week. Maybe we had a wrong thought. Maybe we let out a cuss word, or maybe we told a bad joke, a crude joke, and we're like, oh, I shouldn't have done that. We're not talking about that because we're all gonna sin. We're all gonna slip up and make mistakes. But what's our response to it? Conviction and repentance. That's what it should be. No, no, what he's doing is he's talking about those who make a practice of these things to the point where their identity is wrapped up in this. That's who I am. That's who I am. And they basically don't follow God. These are people that aren't regenerated, not people who are struggling. Because listen, the reality is when we're when we're changed, that's instantaneous as far as a justification, but the sanctification process takes time. And we're all on that journey. And I can tell you exactly when your sanctification process will end. It'll come right after you take your last breath. It's a lifetime thing. Now, second point, how do people try to justify sin? We're gonna go through these fairly quickly. He says in verse 6, let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. So Paul now makes a warning. He says, Let no one deceive you with empty words. Now, he's telling the Ephesian church that somebody is gonna try to tell them that what they're doing is okay, or that these sins were okay. Because remember, this in this is the context, he's talking about these sins here. More than likely, there was probably people in the church, because we know that there were people in the church that would do these things that were telling them, no, it's okay. He was addressing a problem in the church that, frankly, has been a problem in the church for time and eternity. It's always been there. Because there's always someone, if you look hard enough, that will tell you that what you're doing is okay. Tim Keller has a quote that I found that I absolutely think is so spot on because it has to do with the mind, the will, and the emotions. Listen to this. You got to really think this through. He says, What the heart most wants, the mind finds reasonable, meaning I can reason my way through it. The emotions find valuable. I want this. The will finds doable. I will find a way to do it. The mind, the will, and the emotions. Let's face it, many of these voices that sometimes we hear come from people that we kind of respect. We respect them. And we want to hear that. We want to hear that. Maybe it's things like this. You might have heard things, here's just some, you know, possible. You know, you can have sex outside of marriage if you're in a committed relationship. That's okay. Let's see. I've looked through the Bible and I can't find that. That's my source of truth, right? Uh, cussing a little bit here or there, it isn't all that bad because everybody does it. I've looked through the scripture and I can't find that one either. Kind of wish I could, but I can't. Actually, I don't wish I could. That would just be justifying my actions. Or I like this one, and you hear this all the time from people in the progressive church. These scriptures on sexual immorality were written to a specific culture, and they're not relevant for today. There's this really cool scripture that said, God is the same, everybody say it, yesterday, today, and forever. That means his word doesn't change. There's not been a new, newer testament. It's still the truth. And I don't care what culture says, it's not truth. And by the way, whereas the conscience can be pacified through letting people tell you what you want to hear, the Holy Spirit cannot and will not be silenced in the heart of a true believer. If you're in a pattern of sin, the Holy Spirit will make your life miserable until you repent and turn back. Have you ever been under the conviction of the Holy Spirit for repentance? Go ahead, put your hands up. I want other people to see that. Is it fun? No. Is it necessary? Yes. Are you grateful for it? Yes. Man, I've been under that conviction and I've been miserable. But when he took me through it and I did what I know I needed to do, wow, what a change. What a change. And I was so thankful for it. How do you avoid this trap, by the way, of just letting people tell you what you want to hear? Well, I'll tell you the first thing is you need to become a part of a body of believers who believe in the truth of God. That's what you need to be a part of. And I could pitch our church, there's a lot of other churches around here that believe truth as well, right? But you put yourself in a spit in a sphere of a family and accountability. One of the reasons I love being an elder here is because I'm accountable to these guys. And it's convicting because sometimes I hear things that hurt a little bit, but I need to hear them, right? You need to be in that. That's why we're a discipling church. That's the way it's supposed to be. That's the way it's supposed to be. The other thing is you need to know your Bible. Study the Word of God. That's where truth resides. All right, the last point, really quickly. What does Paul say our reaction to these sins should be? How does he say we should respond to that? And that's the last three verses. Therefore, do not become partners for them with them. For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true, and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Now, the first thing he says is just don't do it. Just don't participate in it, which might mean that you're going to make some tough decisions. I go to a conference every year, a couple conferences every year. The old Scott, up till 2, 3 in the morning, drink a lot of scotch, come back to my room dizzy, fall down, go to sleep, wake up the next morning trying to act like I'm all okay. I never had any lasting joy when I did that. I was trying to be cool, I was trying to fit in with everybody, and I did. Oh, yeah, I did. Now I go to these conferences, I'm in my room by 9:30. I go to the have cocktails with people. I literally just go and I order a glass of soda or like soda water. They put a lime in it. I can drink those all night. By the way, it's not that I'm against drinking, but I guess what I'm saying is I don't even want to give the impression that that's what I mean, that I'm, you know, and I won't stay out late anymore because I know what happens as the evening gets on, people get more drunk. And guess what? Things happen. I don't want to be a part of that. I'm done with that. But I used to be that. I used to do that. Don't participate. And I love what he says. He says, because we are no longer darkness. And notice he says, you weren't, you're no longer not in darkness. You were dark, darkness. You were darkness, you guys. I was darkness. We were dark. We were, we literally were of that family. We were lost. And now it says, this is so cool. Now you are light. You getting a big head? Don't because it says in the Lord. That's just not like, and I like the way Tyler Brown talked about. That's not the way we behave because that's not who we are. That's not who we are. Secondly, he says we should discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Again, how do we do that? Well, we got to know the Lord. We got to know his word. We got to be in his word. We got to know what that truth is. The truth is our North Star, and the truth is a person. And that person is Jesus Christ. That's who we live our life with. Without doing these things, we won't know what to truly believe, and we will falter. And I will tell you this as one of your pastors, you know, we can preach truth up here. And we do, and that's one of the things I love about this doing what we do as far as a rotating pulpit, because each one, God uses each one of us uniquely. But I'll tell you what, every Tuesday before we preach, we talk about this message beforehand. We're accountable to them, right? Because I want to make sure it's truth. Many times I've reached out to Neil and say, Neil, I'm struggling with this passage. Can you help me out? Or Tyler, run that by hand. We do that because we want to make sure it's truth, but we can't live your life. You can act all kinds of nice here, but you might be doing some stuff that's bad. We don't know that. That's on you. You are accountable for the truth you receive. You're accountable for it. You cannot rely on other people to know truth. You must know truth yourself. That's why we want you to be a student of the Bible. That's why we do the Bible reading every year. And guess what? The more you're in God's word, the more you reflect God. That's the way it works. Listen, I want to conclude this message quickly by just asking some honest questions. Could I just can we be real here just for a second? I don't know what's going on in your head as you've listened to this message. I have no idea. I mean, some of you may be experiencing some level of conviction over these words that Paul's written. Maybe you're um, and maybe you're already a believer and you realize and you're convicted that man something Scott said, something that word, the word brought out, I need to change. That's a good thing, by the way. Maybe you have looked at yourself and said, you know what? I'm not reflecting God because I'm not spending time with him. I'm imitating the world because that's where my focus has been. I'm not imitating God. And you might be convicted that you need to make some changes. I know I am. That's a you know, given a sermon, by the way, you gotta understand it, it nails us first. Maybe you're convinced and you're finally realizing that you're not reflecting God to the people that you love the most, like your spouse, your children, your community, or even the church. You might be getting defensive right now, by the way. Maybe these words are making you a little angry. And by the way, a lot of times that's what happens. When you get convicted, you get a little angry. I want this. You're stepping on my toes. Stop it. I've been there, I've sat in church, and somebody said something I didn't want to hear. I understand that. That could happen. Maybe you're not a believer, maybe you're not a sold-out born-again Christian yet. And maybe, just maybe, you're listening to this and you're saying to yourself, you know what, my way's not working. I I want what he's got. Because I've been striving and I've been trying to find happiness and joy, and I've been doing these things, but it's never brought me joy. Happiness and joy are two very different things. Happiness always leaves you wanting something else, it's empty. Joy, joy doesn't matter. Because it doesn't matter your circumstances, because joy comes deep within. So if you've never made that decision to repent and surrender your life to Jesus Christ, and you want what we have that we've been given because we're reflecting Christ, then maybe that's today for you. Maybe that's today. And I will tell you uh, like the song I heard by Ben Fuller one time, he said it was called Black Sheep, it was a beautiful song. Powerful song. He says, Amazing grace is a pesky, pesky thing. Because if you're being convicted today, you can walk out of here, but God will chase you down in a good way. Because he wants to bring you into a way of life that's free from condemnation and guilt. Your life can change today. So whether your believer needs to deal with some strongholds or whether you're in that last group, I just pray that today's the day for you to do that. And we have a group of people that come up and pray. We'll be up here praying, and I'll be up here as well. And if you need prayer, if you're just struggling with something, if you just need prayer or you want to make that decision, we'll be here. And we'll pray with you and we'll encourage you. That's what we do. Because we love to see people come to the kingdom. And we love to see believers freed from the stranglehold of Satan. Please stand with me. Heavenly Father, you are so good and so kind to us. We thank you for this passage of Scripture. We thank you how you used a broken man like Paul, who was a persecutor of the church, to write these profound things that convict us even today, 2,000 years later. Thank you, Lord, for that. Father, I pray that whatever you're doing, your Holy Spirit's doing in our hearts and minds, God, I pray that you would continue to do that. We love the fact that you love us so much that you will never let us go. And you will continue to search for that one lost sheep because that's how much you love us. Father, do what you do so well, change lives, and we praise you for that. And we thank you for that in Jesus' precious name. Amen. Amen.