David Jeremiah - Walking in Love
It was March of 2022, and Martin Douthwaite began walking on a crisp March afternoon in Selby, England. His plan was to make a circle around his village walking completely around it, and then around it again, and then around it again. In fact, he had committed to walking a full 24 hours in order to raise support for children in Ukraine, children whose lives had been turned upside down by a brutal Russian invasion in the early months of 2022. Like most of us during that season, he checked on the updates about the war in Ukraine. He was hopeful that the destruction might soon come to an end.
At that point, more than 4 million Ukrainians had fled their homes and become refugees. Many of the children were left without fathers because the fathers stayed to fight, and the families left for safety reasons. Instead of just sitting there, Douthwaite decided to do something. When something's wrong in the world, if you're a Christian, your heart breaks and you wanna do something. Douthwaite decided he was gonna raise money, so he walked around that city, and he walked around and he walked around, and he ended up raisin' some money. He raised £5,000, and he sent that to Ukraine to help in this situation.
And you say, "Well, that probably didn't even move the needle. I mean, $5,000 in the mess that's over there". And if everybody feels like that, nothin' ever gets done, does it? You do what you can do. And so Douthwaite walked around the city until he raised the money. I like this story because walking is a good illustration of a Christian life. In fact, walking shows up in the Bible a lot. We're told to walk in our faith. In the book of Ephesians, we are told that we are to walk worthy of our calling.
In the passage we're studying today, we're gonna be told to walk in love. You get the impression that walking is important. And you know what I like about that? Some of us have misunderstood this. We think we're supposed to run through the Christian life. I'm guilty. We think we have to do this in a hurry. But what you realize after you do this for a while is that living the Christian life is just every day doin' what comes next. Every day walking the Christian life. Someone said the hard thing about being a Christian, "It's so daily," and that's true. You can't get through the Christian life any other way, and walking is a tremendous illustration. We walk through sickness. We walk through trouble. We walk through heartbreak. We walk through death.
As Christians, we just keep walking. We walk in the faith, and the Bible tells us in the passage we have before us today that we're to walk in love. So let's take a look at that. The book of Ephesians is very clear about the importance of our walk. You see, the church in Ephesus to which Paul wrote this letter from his prison was a church in one of the most wicked cities in history. In the city of Ephesus was the Temple of Artemis, or the Temple of Diana, one of the seven wonders of the world. But it was a wonder in terms of its wickedness. Sexual immorality was a part of their worship. If you lived there, you had to be immoral almost to fit in.
And then a church was founded by Priscilla and Aquila, and a few believers got together, and little by little that church grew, and then Paul went and spent some time there, and then he put Timothy in charge. And the church in Ephesus was a growing concern, but it was a growing concern in the midst of a city like Hong Kong, Moscow, or San Diego, where wickedness abounds. And it was tough being a Christian. How many of you would say amen to that? It's tough being a Christian. It was tough for the Ephesians to be a Christian.
And here's Paul, he's hearing about all this stuff going on, and so he sits down and he writes to them. And this letter, while it is in your face, is a loving letter, and I hope I can express that as we go through these verses together. We're to walk in love, according to Paul. Verse 1, in chapter 5, he says, "Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love". "Therefore" tells us that it's related to what we saw last time we were studying in the 4 chapter. There we were told to be kind to one another and to be forgiving, even as God in Christ has forgiven us.
And the next verse says, "Therefore be imitators of God". How can you learn to walk in love? You imitate God. God is the God of love, and he's a God of forgiveness. And the word "imitator" here is a translation of a word which means mimic. The Bible tells us we're to mimic God. Paul says we're to mimic God in the matters of kindness and tenderheartedness and forgiveness, and we're to walk in that kind of love every day. Listen to this comment Samuel Johnson once wrote: "Example is always more effective than teaching". Albert Schweitzer said, "Example's not the main thing in influencing others, it's the only thing".
Children become like parents, churches become like pastors, students become like teachers, and all because of the power of example. There may be no greater power on earth to change the behavior of others than to follow their example. And here is Paul saying, "Be mimickers of Christ. Be mimickers of God". The Bible says one day we're gonna be just like him. Did you read that story? The Bible says one day we're gonna be just like him because we will see him as he is. In the meantime, we're supposed to becoming more and more like him every day on this journey to heaven.
Peter sounds the same note. He says, "As obedient children, not conforming yourself to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; but as He who has called you is holy, you also be holy in your conduct, because it is written," God says, "Be holy, 'cause I'm holy. Be like me". So we become imitators of God when we read his Word and discover who he is and what he is like. Then, through the Holy Spirit, we pray that these characteristics will be formed in our lives so that we become more like our Father. This should be every believer's goal: to become like their Father. When we imitate our Father, we'll be walking in love.
1 John says, "He who does not love does not know God, for God is love". When you walk in love, you're imitating your Father. When you forgive others as you have been forgiven, you're imitating your Father. If we follow Paul's reasoning back to the 4 chapter, we begin to understand that we are walking in love when we forgive one another. That's the point of Ephesians. And so the question that we have to ask ourselves today at the beginning of this talk is, are we walking in forgiveness? Are we forgiving one another as God has forgiven us?
That's Paul's initial message. 1 Peter 4:8 says, "Above all things have fervent love for one another, for 'love will cover a multitude of sins.'" Matthew says, "If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses". Some of you remember the film "Judy". Renee Zellweger worked hard to become the famed actress and singer, Judy Garland.
If you've ever watched "The Wizard of Oz," you'll remember Garland's remarkable voice. Millions of people thought she was as wholesome as apple pie because that was the image we were given. But behind the scenes, if you know the story, Garland struggled with her self-image and the pressures of stardom and depression, a spiraling addiction to alcohol and drugs. She suffered financial pressure, mental breakdown, multiple marriages, and career upheaval. She became suicidal, and in 1969, she was found dead in the bathroom of a rented house in London.
So they did a movie on her, and in the preparation for the role of this iconic American actress, Zellweger poured all of her energy into transforming herself into the image of Judy Garland. She immersed herself in all things Judy. She read all she could about Garland. She took music lessons. She learned choreography. She studied Judy's voice so she could duplicate it. She studies her gestures, her posture, her walk, her speech patterns. She used prosthetics, contact lenses, wigs, and costumes. And during filming, Zellweger sat in the makeup chair 2 hours every day just to get ready to play the part of Judy Garland.
This is how you become like someone. You study everything about them. You emulate them. And some way, a great actress immerses herself in character until she becomes that person, and that's what we're to do. That's what the Bible tells us to do in our relationship with God. We are to mimic God. We're to follow him. We're to become like him. We're to use everything at our disposal to become more like God. The call to walk in love. Now, notice the case for it. In verse 2, it says, "And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma".
The scripture says that God is love, which means Jesus is a walking, talking definition of love. A walking, talking example of what it looks like to love. If we are endowed as to how we are to walk in love, we just need to watch Jesus, 'cause Jesus is God in the flesh teaching us how to walk in love and in forgiveness. Jesus said, "Greater love has no man than this, than he lay down his life for his friends". That's Jesus's words. That's the Son of God speaking.
The Bible says, "For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. For when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son". And so the message from Paul is, just as our Lord sacrificially gave up his life for us, we are to sacrificially be giving up our lives for one another. When we are living in such a loving and forgiving way, the Bible says we are a sweet aroma to the throne of heaven. We send up perfume to God's throne.
I wonder if that describes my life, if it describes yours. Because, you see, Paul now is going to tell us that while there is a walk in love, there is a counterfeit walk in love. This is pretty ugly stuff, but hang with me. "But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks".
That's quite an uncomfortable list of words. Fornication, uncleanness, covetousness, filthiness, coarse jesting, idolatry, empty words, and disobedience. Maybe you're wondering, "Why did Paul have to mess up this passage about love by bringin' in all that junk"? You kind of wonder that when you read it first time. The answer is Satan. You see, while we are called to be imitators of God, Satan is the counterfeiter of God. As such, our enemy has set up a counterfeit program of love, one that was evident in the world of Paul's day, as I mentioned to you, a counterfeit idea about love in the city of Ephesus. And that is evident in our own society today as well.
While God's love is filled with forgiveness and self-sacrifice and all manner of good things, Satan has set up a corrupted imitation of love that is destructive and disruptive, and unfortunately, more and more dispersed in our culture, and even in our churches. We need to spend a little time identifying, delegitimizing that counterfeit love so that we can be more appreciative of the real thing, which is God's love for us. So let's just take a moment and do that. "Immorality". That's the first word in verse 3. For starters, Satan's counterfeit system of love is bursting with immorality, as was displayed in the city of Ephesus.
"But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness," he writes, "let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for the saints". I think Paul sat there revisioning what was goin' on in his city and realizing that the overwhelming influence in the city of Ephesus was immorality and sexuality and pornography and all of the rest of it. And he sees these Christians who've come to Christ, and they've come out of that, and Paul says, "Don't mess with that anymore. Leave that alone. That's the counterfeit of what God wants to do for you".
Godly love seeks to give, lust seeks to take. True love is self-sacrificial. Lust sacrifices others for your benefit. While true love purifies and lifts us up, lust and fornication degrade us and drag us down. True love satisfies, but immorality leaves us with a gnawing emptiness in our hearts so that we continually hunger for more. The word "fornication" is from the Greek word porneia, and we get the word "pornographic" from that word. This Greek term describes all kinds of sexual sin against God, but it is especially in reference to adultery and infidelity, sex outside of marriage.
The word "uncleanness" refers to anything that is unclean and filthy. It is used to describe the decaying of bodies in a tomb. The third word that Paul mentions under the category of immorality is the word "covetousness". Covetousness and greed are at the core of immorality. Listen to this: for immorality is self-centered, lust-bent on personal gratification. It's the exact opposite of love. Love seeks the interest of the person that is loved, but lust is a desire to seek your own interest and your own gratification.
There are many examples of this counterfeit system, many examples to which we could turn. And I'm sure some of these examples have already crossed your mind. They're everywhere present in the world in which we live: pornography, sex outside of marriage, homosexuality, transgenderism, divorce, sexual abuse, just a few of things, and then the abuse of children. The Bible says that such practices of immorality should not even be such as named as being among those who are Christians. This does not mean they should not be talked about as they are in this letter or in this message, but that you never should associate these words with people who say they are saints or Christians.
John Stott wrote, "These are all corruptions of God's love for us. These are all violation of God's plan for our lives. We're not only to avoid indulging in them, but also to avoid thinking and talking about them. So completely are they to be banished from the Christian community". And then there's impurity. Not just our actions. Immorality is our actions, but impurity is our speech. The first is about our walk, and the second is about our talk. And Paul says what you say and how you use your mouth is really a critical thing if you claim to be a Christian.
Ephesians 5:4 says, "Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are of not fitting, but rather giving of thanks". Paul now turns from immorality to impurity. Filthiness is a dirty or vulgar language. This is a term that signifies something obscene or shameful. In fact, Paul uses this word again in verse 12 in this very same chapter. "For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret". "Foolish talking" comes from a Greek word that can be translated "buffoonery".
It's the nonsense you watch so much on television and in movies these days. And then "coarse jesting" describes taking something that was meant for good and turning it upside down so that it becomes bad, and we drag an idea of that speech or others into an off-color joke for the sake of laughs. Paul says that speech like that's not fitting for followers of Christ. We should be known for gracious speech and for thankful words. You see what he's saying? He's trying to help these believers in Ephesus and all the way down the history of the church, even us, understand that when you say you're a Christian, there's a creative difference about you, and you can't co-opt the old life into that.
You can't have "almost I'm a Christian, but I like some of that old stuff to it," so you co-opt that impulses. No, it can't even be mentioned. It can't even be discussed. And the cost of not walking in love is verses 5-7. If you're like me, you've wondered why anyone would take a medicine that comes with so many warnings. Sometimes it's actually like you hear all these warnings when you see a commercial on TV about some medicine, and as crazy as these warnings sound, you think, "The possibility that can happen with this drug is worse than the disease I have, which is the reason why I'm takin' the drug in the first place. I'm not gonna risk it".
But we can't let warnings get a bad reputation. As crazy as some of them are, we need warnings in our lives. Warning signs on the road inform us of what is ahead. Signs warn of a stoplight, a curve, or a deer crossing ahead. These signs help us. They keep us from damage or even death. And on the spiritual highway, there are also danger signs, and these signs warn us about our spiritual life. Why is this a big deal? Why is this something we need to discuss? Because of verse 5.
Here's what it says: "For this you know, that no fornicator, or unclean person, or covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God". That's hard. And here in verse 5, Paul uses three of the same words he just used, and he adds a fourth word to describe idolatry. And he reminds us that people, now listen carefully so you don't get this wrong: people who are characterized by these things are not believers. He's not saying that if someone commits one of these sins, he's not a believer any longer. What he is telling us is this: you cannot be a child of God and live like a child of the devil. This is an impossible picture, here's why. I'm gonna tell you why.
2 Corinthians 5:17. "Therefore, if anybody be in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new". You can't be an old-life new Christian. Not possible. Titus 2:11 and 12 says, "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly and righteously and godly in the present age".
Eugene Peterson, here's what he said: "People conceived and brought into the life by God don't make a practice of sin. How could they? God's seed is deep within them, making them who they are. It's not the nature of the God-begotten to practice and parade sin. Here's how you tell the difference between God's children and the devil's children: the one who won't practice righteous ways isn't from God, nor is the one who won't love his brother or sister. It's just a simple test".
Christians are not sinless, but Christians sin less. Are you with me? It's a powerful thing to think about. No, none of us are gonna show up to heaven having never sinned once we became Christians. It's not possible 'cause we have the old nature still in us, and we know that. But listen to me, don't use that as an excuse for not tryin' to be holy. The Bible says we won't be sinless, but we should sin less if Jesus Christ is our Savior and the Holy Spirit, whose first name is Holy, is livin' in our hearts, right?
So Christians should be better people than people who aren't Christians, and that's what Paul is saying, and that's what he's saying to us. Don't fool yourself that you're a Christian if you're still livin' like you used to live before you said you were a Christian. It's not possible. The Bible says when you're born again, the Holy Spirit comes to live within you to convict you of sin. How many of you know what that's like? You didn't even know some of the stuff you were doin' wrong till you became a Christian and the Holy Spirit started barkin' at you, right? And all of a sudden, you said, "Whoa. Yeah, that's not right".
John Phillips has a powerful comment here. He says, "A cheap form of Christianity in circulation today is not really Christianity at all, just a popular counterfeit. People make professions of faith that entail no repentance, no genuine conversion, no regeneration by the Holy Spirit, and no dynamic new life in Christ. Such people can be deceived into thinking they are Christians, but they see no need and feel no impulse from the indwelling Holy Spirit to give up sinful practices or resist them. It is business as usual. Such people," said Phillips, "are as lost as they were before they went through the meaningless motions of professing to believe, being baptized, and joining the Church".
If Christ is not changing your life, if you're not becoming a new person, old things passing away and new things coming to pass, if that's not somethin' that's happening, if you can't even look at one little thing in your life that's different than it was before you became a Christian, it's not possible for you to be a Christian because when Christ comes, he comes to change you. Someone said, "If you were arrested for being a Christian, is there enough evidence to convict you"?
That's the issue. In Paul's day, he saw this. He saw it happening in Ephesus. He saw people being continually influenced by the wickedness of this city and Temple Diana and all that they had been through before, and sometimes co-opting what they had before in what they were. And he says, "No, you can't be a Christian and live like you used to live". If you're a Christian, you're gonna be new. You won't always be perfectly new at the beginning, but little by little, you should be able to look back over your life at New Year's and say, "There's some things about my life that are different than they were last year".
All of us should be able to say that. In Paul's day, there were some in the church who had been influenced by pagan philosophers, and they were teaching that no physical act could harm the Spirit, so the believer could continue to be sexually promiscuous and not be tainted in his relationship to God. Ephesians 5, 6 and 7 says, "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 of them".
I don't know if you've noticed it, every time you turn around in our Christian world, someone is makin' a case for more toleration. I mean, it's just the culture of the world seeping into the church. People who have convictions of things that are from the Bible that we know, you know, you don't have to say, "Well, how do I know if that's right"? 'Cause God said it's right. "How do I know if it's wrong"? God said it's wrong. God isn't changin' his mind. He didn't wake up and say, "Oh my goodness, this is a new culture. I must put out a new version of the Bible".
Well, he hasn't put out a new version, but we got a lot of new perversions that are comin' along saying that what once used to be wrong is now okay because we're in this cultural thing and he didn't mean what he said, and if you look at... and I'm sick of it. Some of these standards are just as hard on me as they are on you, but they're God's standards. And I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful for truth, 'cause when you know the truth, you've got someplace to go.
If you don't know what the truth is, you're lost. And I feel sorry for people in this culture who are buying into this idea that you can change God's Word to make it fit your culture so you can keep doin' what you wanted to do and not be different. God doesn't give us these truths because he doesn't like us or he's trying to make us miserable. God didn't say, "Let me see. I'll send my Son down to earth and give his life for these people, and then I'll spend the rest of their time on earth trying to make them as miserable as they can be till I finally take 'em to heaven". That's the way some people think.
Ephesians chapter 5 begins with an encouragement to follow God and be imitators of him. And as we close our message today. I want to leave you with some thoughts that come from this passage, as tough as it is. Here's some things to remember. Number one, remember God's love when you think of this passage. We obey because we are loved. We're not loved because we obey. How would you turn others from sin? You should warn, yes. You should command to avoidance, yes. Should you condemn participation? Yes, but what first? First, remind those who love God and are grieving for their failure that they are his dearly beloved children. You are a wonderful child, a precious child of God, dearly loved. You are precious to him, so live like a dearly loved one.
Be what you are in Christ. Henry Nguyen once said in a leadership journal, "I cannot continuously say 'no' to this or 'no' to that unless there's something ten times more attractive to choose. Saying 'no' to my lust, my greed, my needs, and the world's powers takes an enormous amount of energy, and the only hope is to find something so obviously real and attractive that I can devote all of my energies to saying 'yes.' One such thing I can say 'yes' to is when I come in touch with the fact that I am loved by Almighty God. Once I have found that in my total brokenness I am still loved, I become free from the compulsion of doing sinful things".
So remember Christ's love. The reason he puts all this in the scripture for you is because he loves you. He knows the end of these things in your life. You know them, too. You watch it on television. You see people who live this lifestyle, and they die young, and they die miserable, and they die hopeless, and their families are a mess, and it doesn't take them where they want to go. And maybe they didn't see the warning signs, or maybe they didn't grow up in a Christian culture where they had a God in their life who loved them enough to say, "Don't do that, 'cause it'll ruin your life".
These things that God says that sound so hard to us that Paul writes about that are so in your face, they're not given to you to make you miserable. They're warning signs to say, "I love you". They're the kind of talk we have with our children when they start to go out on their own. We gather them together in the living room, we say, "Yeah, you can go tonight, but listen". And we got ten rules before they can go. Why do we do that? We're gonna mess up with their whole night. No, we want them to come back to us 'cause we love them. And God wants us to come back to him, 'cause his love is still very much a part of who he is and how he feels about you.
You may be listening to me today and you think, "Well, you know, this isn't for me. I'm already way past this. I've crossed the Rubicon, Pastor Jeremiah. All these things are true of me". Let me tell you somethin', if you're really a Christian and you know something's wrong in your life and you have conviction about it, you come back to God, and do you know what you'll find when you come back to him? He's standin' here like this. He wants you back. He loves you. He's your Father. So remember God's love.
Number two, here's the opposite of that, in some degree, respect God's wrath. You may resist the biblical teaching of God's wrath, but consider this analogy. The more a father loves his son, the more he hates in him the drunkard, the liar, or the traitor. Anger isn't the opposite of love, hate is. And the final form of hate is indifference. To be truly good, one has to be outraged by evil and implacably hostile to injustice. That is what Paul is saying in Ephesians 5. God is angry at the things that destroy people. He's working against immorality and impurity. He wants us to fight against the things that destroy life, and he wants us to embrace the things that bring life.
N.T. Wright uses the following illustration to describe how we should avoid sin and embrace the new life we have in Christ: "Think of an animal," he said, "you're really afraid of, whether it's an angry rhinoceros or a large spider. If you come around a corner, found yourself facing it, what would you want to do? Run away, of course.
Well, as a Christian, that's how you should feel about a lifestyle of greed and lust and jealousy, injustice, or another sinful pattern. Then think how you'd feel if you saw the person you loved best in the entire world, whom you hadn't seen for years, walking down the street. What would you do? Why, you would chase after him or her, of course. That's how you would behave when you think of Jesus and the new life that he is offering you and the whole world". You run away, and you run toward. You run away from sin, but you run away from sin so you can run toward God.
Thirdly, and finally, remember to respond to God's grace. Very interesting. Just a little phrase at the end, giving thanks. It's been said radically and basically, "All sin is simply ingratitude". I think that is true. One pastor says, "One of the greatest ways to defeat sin's through expressing gratitude and thankfulness. Thankfulness is the opposite of lust and greed because the thankful heart has stopped prowling around for everything it doesn't have and is overwhelmed in appreciation with all the good things it already possesses.
The logic of lust and greed requires you to be discontent with what you have, pay attention to all the things you don't have. The logic of thankfulness requires you to focus on what you have been given by God: a good husband, a good wife, a great family, a good living, a good job. Whatever it is, you've already received these things, and you should be overcome with thanksgiving. Gratitude is the opposite of sin. It's hard to be truly thankful and be sinful".
These are hard words. These are words for us to think about, but words to think about because they're offered to us from our Father through his apostle, and I hope from your pastor as your pastor. God loves you. He loves me. He set up some warning signs. He wants us to be like him. And he tells us, "If you want to be like me, here's some detours you want to stay off of".
Here's a little poem to end the message: "You are writing a gospel a chapter a day, by the deeds that you do, and the words that you say. Men read what you write, whether faithless or true. What is the Gospel, according to you"? "What are men seeing in me that makes them want to know God"? That's how we should be living. "Lord, make me like you. Make me like you". And then we walk. We're gonna walk back into the world and walk back to our job, walk back to our family.
And, you know, sometimes we'll get a message like this, and we get all hyped up, and, "I gotta go change it". No, just walk. Take one step at a time. As God speaks to your heart, you do what he tells you to do. Take the next step. That's what walking is, isn't it? It's just takin' the next step. Walking means you put one foot in front of the other, and you have a little bit of faith that the foot you put in front of the other is gonna land on solid ground and take you to the place you're going. So let's walk, and how are we supposed to walk? Tryin' to be like Jesus.