Tag: Not Even Named

This will be the last exhortation based on the beginning of Ephesians 5, and one final reminder that thanksgiving is not just a sign of health, it is a medicine that works healing. Thanksgiving is not the completion of holiness, like splashing into the pool at the end of a water slide, the arms of thanksgiving swim against the stream of lusts and discontent and idolatry.

Certain things “must not even be named” among saints, certain things are “out of place.” Paul says in Ephesians 5:4, “but instead let there be thanksgiving.” And if the sexually immoral and impure and covetous are the sons of disobedience and have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God (5:5-6), then sons of obedience are also known as sons of gratitude. They are thankful on their way to get their inheritance.

At our L2L leaders retreat a couple weeks ago Ian Lugg talked about wanting to be known as “the gratitude guy.” It wasn’t in this context of opposing these sins, but it fits. It’s for his family, for the aroma of his home, for showing his kids not just what to say but how to say it. What an epitaph to pursue: “the gratitude guy.”

Thankfulness doesn’t mean every desire is eliminated, it does mean that desires don’t panic and get in front of their skis, or point off the trail toward the woods which God has declared off limits.

Fight filth with thanks. Thank God that you’re in the fight. Thank God for good desires, and for the opportunity to obey Him while you wait for Him to provide. So even later in Ephesians 5:20, those filled with His Spirit are “giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Sexual immorality has a lot of outlets, but it always starts in the heart. Lust takes root in chest-soil. Impurity is also an internal condition not merely measured externally. And while a lot of men have come out of the covetousness closet, it’s a failure of proper value proposition, hence why it’s also a synonym for idolatry.

In Ephesians 5:3 Paul says these “must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.” If a reporter was trying to dig up the sexual immorality skeletons of the church body, he’d have to make things up.

The first part of Ephesians 5:4 adds three more things that don’t belong among God’s children who are imitating the fragrant offering of Christ.

Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place

These are mostly mouthy sins. Jesus said that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, so addressing wrong mouth-words right after wrong heart-wants shouldn’t be surprising. What is too often surprising is what potty mouths Christians open.

“Filthiness” is shameful, obscene, disgusting. “Foolish talk” is being silly about the serious. “Crude joking” is coarse jesting (NKJV), talking about bodily functions in suggestive and non dignified ways.

This sort of talk is salacious, it gets attention, it’s ubiquitous. It’s “out of place” for Christians. Stop listening to it, enjoying it for entertainment, spreading it. Innuendo, double entendre, sex jokes, all misplace what God gave as good and honorable in its place. It turns your mom into meat, your sister into a punchline. My brothers, these things are out of place.

As I said last week I want us to hear the antithesis at the beginning of Ephesians 5. God’s children are to imitate God, and especially the pleasing sacrifice lifestyle of God’s Son. That means there are some things that are completely out of place. Here is the first trifecta of bad bets.

But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. (Ephesians 5:3 ESV)

“Sexual immorality” is porneia, a word that covers a lot of lust and lust outlets. That’s part of how these three sins relate: wanting something that isn’t appropriate for holy people to want. Lust for physical/sensual pleasure, desire for what is dirty/corrupt, greed for material things, fretful about and/or restless with what God has not given. Note how much of this concerns hearts more than parts, or at least hearts first.

These are to “not even be named” among Christians, not that we don’t know the words, but they don’t belong. It is not “proper,” it doesn’t fit with the “saints,” the holy ones.

This isn’t just about our witness. Joking about fornication at a prayer breakfast is almost a caricature. It is more than the threat of Google exposing what it knows about you. We have been saved, we are living sacrifices, and that means sex and stuff have a place, in righteousness, not in discontent and dissipation.

At the beginning of Ephesians 5 Paul exhorts the believers to imitate God and walk in love. In particular they should follow Christ’s example of love, Christ who was a “fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” So also Paul urges all the brothers to be living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God.

Paul immediately exhorts the Ephesian Christians about what their lives ought not contain. There is a similarity as in his letter to the Romans, who were to be living sacrifices for God and therefore not conformed to this world. But he gets more explicit about worldly ways in Ephesians.

I’m going to take two or three more weeks of exhortations to work through these verses.

But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. (Ephesians 5:3–6 ESV)

Sex and stuff, money and our mouths, there are righteous and unrighteous ways of dealing with it all in the world. But when we want what we don’t have, and sometimes want what God says explicitly is off limits, these are the ways of disobedience (verse 6), the ways of darkness (verse 8), unfruitful (verse 11), and shameful (verse 12). Because we are beloved children, some things must not even be named among us, some things are just out of place. In this “house” there are some things we just don’t do. More to come as we consider some of the specifics.