"Not Even a Hint" Ephesians 5:3-5 Sunday Morning Worship Service

Ephesians 5, verse 3 through 5.

Ephesians 5:3–5

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 or foolish talk or 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 idolatr, has no inheritance of the kingdom of Christ in God.

It's obvious that sexual sin has devastating effects on families, on individuals, and on churches.

Many years ago I heard someone make an observation that my own experience has borne out to be true.

It was in the form of a question.

Why, this person asked, does it seem like 90% of church discipline cases are for sexual immorality?

Certainly that's not the only kind of sin Christians struggle with.

Certainly that's not the only kind of sin in the church.

If you believe in the doctrine of total depravity, you recognize that every area of your life has sin, not just sexual immorality.

So why is so much of church discipline?

And I agree, it would probably be like 90%.

Nine out of ten people who go through the church discipline process, who have their name read to the church, and who are put out of the church, have that happen to them because of a sexually immoral sin that they refuse to repent from.

Why?

And I think the answer, to put it bluntly, is because that the sin of sexual immorality can entrap people in a way that few other sins do.

You know, most other sins you would repent from.

If somebody came and confronted you on your speech, you would likely repent.

If somebody came and confronted you on pride, you would likely repent.

That's the normal Christian response to being confronted in sin.

As I repent, I'm sorry, will you forgive me?

And you understand this.

Even if you don't think you're actually guilty of the sin they're confronting you on, you know, if a person comes and confronts you on pride, you would probably confess to pride and ask for forgiveness, even if the example of pride they're using you don't think you're actually prideful on, you know that the pride in your heart is worse than they know.

So you might say, I apologize for being proud, and in your heart you're going, what you said isn't true, but the truth is worse than what you said, and I know that, so I am a proud loser, and I confess.

Speech.

Somebody confronts you on speech or gossip or inappropriate language or slander, you would probably repent.

You would say, I'm sorry, you're right, I wasn't thinking it was wrong of me to say, and you would confess it.

That's the way we often work.

If your spouse confronts you on sin, you might at first deny and then later confess and repent for that sin and the sin of pride for not listening the first time.

That's normal Christian living.

But when it comes to the sin of sexual immorality, that's not our first response.

Our first response is often to deny.

Deny, deny, deny, and then to cover the denials or follow the denials with lies.

And then after the lies, after the lies grow too much to be sustained, you justify it in some way.

You come up with justification.

Well, God wants me to be happy, and God is a God of happiness and joy, and this makes me happy, and so how dare you suggest that this is actually wrong.

People get so entrenched in the sins of sexual immorality that they refuse to repent.

This is why, incidentally, that in the New Testament, among believers, adultery is the only sin that Jesus says justifies divorce.

If a husband divorces his wife and marries another, he commits adultery with the other for any reason at all, except if the original divorce was for adultery.

Because adultery severs the cords of trust and love in a different kind of way than greed or pride or gossip or slander.

And because of that, sexual sin is so devastating on a person and on families, on individuals and on churches.

Let me give you an outline as we work through our passage this morning: Four Truths about sexual immorality.

Four truths about sexual immorality from Ephesians 5, verses 3 and 5.

Ephesians 5:3

Again, we'll save verse 4 for next week.

First of all, sexual immorality poisons the church.

This is where Paul begins in verse 3.

Sexual immorality in all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you.

This seems out of left field, if you're familiar with the flow of Ephesians.

He hasn't been talking about sexual immorality, hasn't been introduced anywhere.

Earlier in chapter 1, he's talking about the glories of predestination and election and the kindness and the benevolence of God.

In chapter 2, God has saved you for good deeds that the Holy Spirit has empowered you to do and has chosen before time for you to walk in them.

And chapter 3, God is sanctifying you and equipping you for service.

Chapter 4, in light of the resurrection, Jesus sends his Holy Spirit who lets you serve in the church and empowers you for serving the church.

So don't serve like the Gentiles.

That's our first hint of this.

Don't serve like the Gentiles, don't walk like them, but walk in light.

And then chapter five is where the practical applications come in, and right out the gate, you feel almost like you got hit by a left hook here.

Sexual immorality and impurity and covetousness must not even be named among you.

It seems rather sudden and abrupt.

It begins with the word but there, a contrastive word here.

Walk in love in verse 2.

In contrast with that, is sexual immorality.

Don't walk like the Gentiles in chapter 4.

Instead, walk like God in chapter 5, verse 1, therefore, no sexual immorality.

In other words, sexual immorality is diametrically opposed to what it means to lead the Christian life.

The words in chapter 3 are very exhaustive.

They're generalized words.

But sexual immorality, that's the Greek word pornea.

We get the English word pornography from it, and that makes sense.

It's a broad word that covers every manner of sexual deviation from God's plan for marriage.

Any aberrant sexual conduct fits under this word.

It's used all over the New Testament in lots of different ways.

1 Corinthians 5, verse 1, it describes somebody who covets his father's wife, even his stepmother, and it uses that word, pornea.

1 Corinthians 5:1

John 8, verse 41, the Pharisees accused Jesus of being born in pornea, meaning that his parents weren't married when they conceived him, of course.

John 8:41

So it's a word that covers incest, it's a word that covers premarital sex, it's a word that covers adultery.

It's the word that's used in Matthew 5, verse 32.

Matthew 5:32

If anyone divorces his wife, except for adultery.

This is a very broad word.

It covers all matter of sexual immorality, and that's why the English word pornography is similarly broad.

It includes pornography, of course, but also adultery and every other form of sexual deviation from God's plan.

It's interesting, in Revelation 17, it says, during the tribulation, the nations of the world will be led into pornea.

It will be led into sexual immorality by the kings that reign over them.

In other words, the political leaders and the societies in the tribulation will be marked by this kind of sexual immorality.

Pornea.

A very broad word.

It defines sexual immorality in culture, in adultery and marriage, pornography as we think of it.

All of it is included by that word.

And I spent a moment on that just so you recognize there's not like wiggle room in this.

There's not like, oh, I have a form of sexual immorality that is pleasing to me, but it's not technically adultery.

It's not technically pornography, and therefore it's acceptable.

But this is a broader word than that.

It covers everything.

And then, as if it were possible, Paul uses an even more generic word.

Next, in all impurity, which again is a very generic word.

Anything that's not holy is impure.

So it's even broader than sexual immorality, although the way this word is used in the New Testament is often connected to sexual immorality.

The first use of this word that we've had in Ephesians is back in chapter 4, verse 19.

It says they've become callous, the Gentiles have those in the world, and have given themselves up to sensuality.

Every practice, every kind of impurity, it says.

But that's not the way you learned Christ.

And so that's just a broad word that people in the world live in a non-holy way.

They live in a sinful way.

They live in an impure way.

And now Paul connects that to sexual immorality, that you practice sexual immorality, and that leads to impurity and all kinds of it.

The word all in front of it.

Every manner of impurity is what he's talking about.

Again, there's no exception clause here.

There's no sin.

There's no private sexual sin you can harbor in your mind or in your heart that is permissible under this verse.

Because it defiles you.

That's the nature of impurity.

It defiles.

That includes lustful thoughts.

That includes lustful looks.

That includes lustful desires.

Again, very broad.

And you think, you know, my lustful thoughts, they're not sinful because nobody knows about them except me.

Who can it harm?

It's just inside of my mind.

And Paul says it's impure.

It must not even be named among you.

Again, I've heard of people trying to justify sexual sins by saying it's not technically this or technically that.

Here's a very basic principle.

If the sin is significant enough for you to justify, then it's not justifiable.

If it is on your conscience to the extent that you come up with an excuse to allow it in your mind, then that's too much.

If you have to come up with an excuse to justify your conduct, it is impure and it is pornographic.

And that's obvious, by the way, to any kind of neutral third party.

Any person that's not not you or the object of your pornographic desire would recognize that your desire is impure and unholy and ungodly.

Galatians 5.19 says this.

Now the works of the flesh are evident.

In other words, they're obvious.

And notice the words immorality, impurity, sensuality, the same words that are used here in Ephesians 4 and Ephesians 5.

It's obvious to people.

Obviously, actions.

And then it goes on to be, we'll get to the word covetous later, but it goes on to be compared to idolatry if you look down at verse 5.

You may be sure of this.

Everyone who's sexually immoral, it's the word porne again, or impure, that's the word for impurity.

It's the same words we just saw in verse 3.

Or it is covetous, and we'll get to that again later, is an idolater.

Paul calls sexual immorality idolatry.

And again, this can be hard for us to understand because in our mind, idolatry is, you know, worshiping something, and sexual immorality is sexual immorality.

There are two different categories of sin.

But Paul connects the two.

And he connects the two for a very basic reason.

When you think about what idolatry is, idolatry is worshiping something, pursuing something that you think will satisfy your needs, and that's the excuse that is behind sexual immorality.

You think this will make me happy.

And I just want you to crystallize in your mind the exchange that takes place.

You are in a right relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ.

Your sins are forgiven.

You've come to faith, you believe the gospel.

Uh Hebrews 9 says your conscience has been sprinkled clean with blood so that you can serve the living God.

Like God has changed you, and you can serve Him in the church with a clean conscience, even though you were sexually immoral before.

Before conversion, you uh were sexually immoral, but through your salvation and your conversion, that's been changed, and you're now free to serve the God, the God of the Bible, with a pure conscience and clean hands, and it's such a joy that you have that right there.

And then the temptation for sexual immorality comes along and says, This is going to make me happy.

If I do this, that will make me happy.

That will satisfy my desires in a way that this, my right relationship with God, does not.

So here's my relationship with God, and my conscience is clear.

Here's the temptation for this sin that takes me away from what God wants.

And you examine these two and you say, I'll actually be happier going down this road.

This will make me happier and bring me more joy than this, the right relationship with God.

So it's a great exchange.

You're exchanging your relationship with God for a guilty conscience and sexual immorality.

That's why it's idolatry.

You're pursuing something else, and of course, sexual immorality takes over your thoughts.

Like you feed the desires and you think this will make me happy.

I coveted in my heart, I coveted in my mind, and you pursue it, and you think about it, and you exaggerate it in your mind, you fantasize about it in your mind, and it takes over your thought life.

It affects you and your emotions and your affections in a way that is reserved for God.

That's idolatry.

That's why Paul calls it idolatry in verse 5.

He says, Everyone who is sexually immoral is an idolater.

Because you're worshiping what you're pursuing.

Now he says back in verse 3 that those kind of sins must not be named among you, must not even be named among you.

Notice the passive.

It must not even be named.

Not by you.

It's not, it doesn't say you must not name it among you.

It means other people.

Like you should have no hint of it in your life.

So that a passerby in your life couldn't say, hey, that's sexually, that's sexual immorality in your life.

No, it can't even be named among you.

Your life needs to be such that nobody could even put that label on, not just you, but any of the saints, Paul says.

It doesn't fit anywhere in the church.

There should be nothing allowed in the church that even has a hint of sexual immorality to it.

In fact, the NIV translates this Greek idiom, I think, very, very well in verse 3.

The NIV, may it rest in peace.

So sexual immorality must not even, there must not even be a hint of sexual immorality.

I love that phrase, not even a hint.

And that's the title of the sermon.

And that's drawn from this verse in the NIV.

And that's a very good way of reflecting what this verse is after.

There must not even be a hint of that kind of thing in your life.

Then we justify hints.

We say, oh, it's just a hint of it in my life.

It's just a small part of sexual immorality in my life.

It's just a look every now and then or a glance or a thought.

Or maybe I look at inappropriate things on my phone, but only when no one's around, no one would know.

But the problem with a hint is that it doesn't stay a hint.

You understand that?

You can't tolerate a hint because a hint becomes a suggestion, and a suggestion becomes an action, and an action becomes a lifestyle, etc.

That's what happens.

You know, this doesn't stay small.

That's why you can't have a hint of it in your life.

If you tolerate a hint, it will take over your life.

In my basement, once in our basement storage room, I smelled just a small, just like a pinch, a small scent of something dead.

Like a smell of death, but very small.

And I even brought my kids down and they didn't smell it.

I brought my wife down, she didn't smell it.

I know there's something dead in this wall.

I know there's something dead, and I smell it.

It's like this little basement of smell.

Like, no, I know the smell.

And so we leave it.

I mean, what can you do?

We leave it, and a couple days go by, and the smell takes over the whole basement.

Of course.

You know, so we have to cut open a hole in our wall, and I get one of those like litter picker uppers from the ground and reach down in there and pull out a couple dead mice.

I mean, a whole crew of them got down there and died.

They couldn't get out, and they died and started to rot, and that's what the smell was.

At no point in this would you say, hey, it's just a a little smell of death.

You should leave it.

Like if you went to the very top of the house, you probably couldn't even smell it up there.

Because it's not gonna decompose into something pretty, you know, it's not gonna decompose into cinnamon.

It's only going to be death.

Now, this is sexual immorality in your life.

It smells like death.

And those that are around you smell it.

You smell it, and what's gonna happen to it?

Is it going to turn into something sanctifying and delightful to be around?

Of course not.

So this is why Paul says you cannot have a hint of it, because if it is left unchecked, it will become a stench, and a stench will become spiritual death.

It will reveal spiritual death.

It's the smell of death.

And this is very important to understand as far as his logic in verse 3 goes, the smell of death is not fitting among the saints, because God is the God of the living, not of the dead.

Jesus sanctifies you, he doesn't lead you into sin.

He purifies you, he doesn't defile you.

And so if you're in a relationship with Christ, you should be being sanctified, not defiled, and so there shouldn't be the smell of death stapled onto the church.

That's not proper.

It doesn't fit.

It's not proper among the saints.

1 Corinthians 6, verse 18, flee from sexual immorality.

1 Corinthians 6:18

Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

When you go through 1 Corinthians 6, he's talking about your individual body.

Of course, he's talking about the church because you feed sexual immorality and ends up harming the church.

Of course, it harms you and your family.

We'll talk about that later.

But specifically here in verse 3, Paul begins with it's not fitting among saints.

It doesn't help the church.

You think your spouse and your family and your coworkers and your friends don't pick up on the hints.

But God knows and God sees and God holds you accountable, and that kind of sin limits your usefulness in the church.

You're supposed to be walking in the light, instead, you're walking in the darkness, you're harboring darkness in your life, it leads to a wrong relationship with God.

I mean, just think about Adam and Eve.

When Adam and Eve sinned, which it was not a sin involving sexual immorality, they listened to the devil, they believed a lie, they doubted God's goodness.

There's all kinds of things going on, lying and doubting God's goodness and whatever.

But as soon as they fall into sin, they look at each other and they realize they're naked and they are ashamed right away, and so they hide from God, which is completely irrational.

Hiding from God.

Why would that work?

You're gonna hide from God.

That's the plan, hiding from God.

But that's what sexual immorality does to your mind.

You think you can hide from God, and so you think, you know, my friends don't know about this sin.

My wife or my husband doesn't know about this sin, my coworkers don't know about it, my people at church don't know about it, so I'm getting away with it.

That's Adam and Eve logic right there.

God doesn't see it.

God doesn't know.

But of course God sees it, and of course God knows, and that ends up harming you and harming your church.

You know, you can clear your internet history, but you cannot erase the sovereign knowledge of God.

He sees all.

And he knows what you look at and what you feed your mind.

1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 3.

1 Thessalonians 4:3

This is the will of God, your sanctification.

The first example Paul tells the Thessalonians of that is that you abstain from sexual immorality.

Pornea, you abstain from pornography, you abstain from sexual immorality.

He goes on in 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 4.

1 Thessalonians 4:4

Each of you know how to possess his own wife or acquire his own wife in holiness and in honor, not in passion or lust like the Gentiles who don't even know God.

And then he says, Let no one transgress his brother in this matter, because the one who does so will be avenged by the Lord.

What?

Paul says, lead a sexually pure life, have your own spouse, and if you wrong your brother in that, notice the word brother is a word for Christians.

If you wrong another Christian in this, you'll have the Lord to deal with.

Listen, you have an affair with somebody, it's you get caught.

Likely their spouse will kill you.

You have an affair with some woman, and her husband finds out he might kill you.

A very reasonable outcome to that.

But that's not what you should be most afraid about.

Paul says here that the Lord himself might come after you.

The Lord Himself will avenge.

And then he says, kind of a strangely funny verse, 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 6.

1 Thessalonians 4:6

We told you beforehand, and we solemnly warned you of this.

In other words, if the Lord comes and kills you for having an affair with someone, I want the last thing that you think about to be that I told you so, Paul says.

I mean, I warned you.

What did you think was going to happen?

The Lord is the avenger.

Sexual immorality poisons the church.

Secondly, it harms the sinner.

Sexual sin harms the sinner.

Sexual sin is potent because it exposes you.

This is why people are, it has a shame element to it.

It exposes your innermost desires, it exposes what you think will make you happy.

It exposes the lusts of your heart.

It exposes you literally and figuratively.

It exposes the most intimate parts of your life.

And so when it is exposed, and it will be eventually brought into light by the Lord, there's a shame element to it because, again, it reveals your hidden passions.

It reveals what you really desire in the secrets of your heart.

So that brings a shame element to it.

It exposes you to shame.

It exposes you to revenge from the wrong spouse.

I mentioned that a minute ago.

It exposes you to revenge from the Lord.

It exposes you to divorce.

Your husband or your wife might leave you when it comes to light.

Very plausible outcome to it.

You go down this road, you expose yourself to shame, revenge, divorce.

Why would anybody do this?

I mean, that's what's going to happen.

And it exposes you to that in this life.

I'm talking about in this life.

I'm not even talking about in the life to come.

I'm talking about in this life.

Proverbs 6.

Solomon asks a very interesting question.

Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned?

What a great question, huh?

Have you ever thought that?

Of course you haven't thought that.

It's a dumb question.

I mean, a kid might ask, can I grab that stick out of the fire?

I've had a child ask that before.

Can I grab that stick out of the fire?

No.

Because it's on fire.

But you wouldn't try to scoop up the whole fire and move it over here.

Like I'm going to scoop up the campfire, hold it on my chest, and move it over here and expect that to work.

You'll get burned.

Your clothes will catch on fire.

I mean, that's what would happen.

You can't walk, verse 28 of Proverbs 6, you can't walk on hot coals without your feet getting scorched.

So is he who goes into his neighbor's wife.

No one who touches her will go unpunished.

So Solomon's saying the desire for an affair is about the same level of contemplation here as the person who thinks he can move a fire on his chest.

But people nevertheless give in to it.

And so he warns you: people don't despise a thief if he steals to satisfy his appetite.

When he's hungry, but if he's caught, he'll pay sevenfold and he'll give all the goods of his house.

You know, in other words, somebody who's a shopless at giant and gets busted, and the manager calls the police, and the guy comes over with a sob story about, you know, I have kids at home and they're starving and all that.

He's still going to get in trouble.

We might have a little bit of sympathy for him, but he'll still have he'll still get in trouble.

He might get fined, or who knows?

It gets handed over to the courts.

You're not going to kill him there, but you might even have sympathy for him, is Solomon's point.

He stole stuff, but it's understandable.

He's starving, he still gets in trouble, but that's just life in the fallen world.

That's the point of that.

What a difference from sexual sin.

He who commits adultery lacks sense.

In other words, you understand somebody stealing for food.

We get it.

But he who commits adultery lacks sense.

He who does it destroys himself.

Wounds and dishonor he will get, and his disgrace will not be wiped away.

What do you get out of it?

Wounds and dishonor.

That's what you get.

That's what you acquire.

And it's not going to go away.

You'll have that on you for a long time.

Back in Ephesians 5, Paul's concern isn't even about this life as much as it is the next.

Look at what he says down in verse 5.

You can be sure of anybody who is sexually immortal, he has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

There's a lot to unpack in this.

I wish we had, you know, we could, I could easily take more time on this, but it's just interesting.

He calls it the kingdom of Christ in God.

This is a verse, one of the many verses in the New Testament that establishes premillennialism, I think, where he's talking about an inheritance.

The word inheritance implies death.

So Paul's spelling out here there's a moment in time that's coming where you will die, you will wake up.

There will be something you get after you die, and what do you get after you die in this analogy?

Is the kingdom of God.

It's coming later.

It's not now.

He's saying you're going to die and resurrect, and you will enter the kingdom of God.

Unless you're sexually immoral.

And he calls it the kingdom of God in Christ, the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

The kingdom promised in the Old Testament to the prophets, promised in Haggai chapter 2 to Israel.

Haggai 2 · chapter mention

Seen veiled in the New Testament as the king walks among his people, prophesied looking forward in Acts chapter 1, when the disciples ask, when is the kingdom coming?

Acts 1 · chapter mention

And Jesus says, it's not for you to know when, it's in the future.

It's a future kingdom.

He will come in Revelation chapter 20 and establish his kingdom on earth.

Revelation 20 · chapter mention

Well, he will reign over the nations from Jerusalem over the earth.

That's the future kingdom.

Do you think that future kingdom will be marked by sexual immorality?

Of course not.

Jesus is reigning over it.

It won't be marked by sexual immorality.

The kingdoms of men in Revelation 17 are marked by that, but not the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

Not the kingdom of God and of Christ.

Another attestation of the deity of Christ, even.

It's the kingdom of God and of Christ.

They're together in this.

They both reign over this future kingdom that you will experience after you die.

And Jesus says through the Apostle Paul that if you are sexually immoral or impure or covetousness or the idolater, you have no inheritance in that kingdom.

This lets you know that Jesus despises sexual immorality.

Even the phrase that starts verse 5, you may be sure of this.

This is another idiom.

Like it, this is obvious.

You can be sure of this, Paul says.

You know this with 100% confidence.

It's self-evident, it's axiomatic.

It's obvious that Jesus is opposed to sexual immorality.

I mean, you probably wouldn't have written verse 5 like this.

You would have given lots of wiggle room.

You would have a footnote at the bottom that says, I'm not saying people don't struggle.

Hey, we're all people, we're all humans.

Footnote: everybody does sin, we get that.

Paul gives you no footnote here.

He gives you no soft landing on this.

In fact, he says, brace for impact.

You can be sure of this.

It's obvious.

Everyone is sexually immoral has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

It's not to say that believers don't stumble in sin, of course.

Here's my own footnote, I'll provide it.

It's not to say that believers don't stumble in sin.

Or even that a believer, that if you have an affair, that means you're not a Christian.

A criminal might do a good deed, but he certainly isn't characterized by good deeds.

Christian might stumble in sin, but he certainly shouldn't be characterized by it.

If he is, if your life is characterized by sexual sin burning in your mind and in your heart, I mean your house is on fire, my friend.

Your house is on fire.

Wake up to that reality before it's too late.

It's not just you that's harmed, it's your family that's harmed as well.

Imagine what the harm sexual sin does to your family.

And contrast it.

Contrast it with what sexual sin offers.

It offers joy, it offers delight.

You really want this, you want this experience, you deserve it even.

What does it deliver?

Chuck Swindah says one of the best ways to fight sexual immorality in your own life is to just imagine the conversation that would happen after you have an affair.

Like play it out in your mind.

Swindah describes a person who has an affair and then keeps it quiet, and his spouse doesn't know about it.

He gets away with it for a year, two years.

But his conscience begins eating him.

He's like David, there's bones waste away, and eventually he goes to his pastor or to a friend and says, three years ago I had an affair.

And the bottom line is that the pastor or the friend will probably say, You need to go tell your wife.

So Swindal says, imagine that car ride home.

From the church to the house, a street you've driven on many, many times before.

Where you walked your dog on the sidewalk.

You probably drive up and down the cul-de-sac a few times where you park in front of your house.

You walk in, you're late.

You know, because you're at a church.

So your kids run and greet you, hug your leg.

They're excited you're home.

They trust you, of course.

They are excited to see you.

Your wife's in the kitchen, dinner's ready.

Of course, you're gonna again you're running late, and you send the kids outside and you tell your wife, you know, we need we need to talk, let's go upstairs.

Go to your bedroom, you sit down on the bed.

Probably this point where she sees something's wrong.

She asks, What's happening?

You tell her, three years ago I had an affair.

And what does she do?

She hits you, throw things at you, yell at you, cry, hug you, pray.

I I don't know what she does.

And then what?

She grabs her phone and calls her parents, hands you the phone and says, you tell them to call your parents.

What happens next?

And imagine the scene of having to pack up your stuff and put it in the back of your truck, telling your kids, hey, mommy and daddy are gonna live apart for a while as we work on things.

Imagine having to sell the house, the house your kids grew up in.

Why?

Can you hold a fire in your chest and not get burned?

It won't just burn you.

You know, and that's what sin doesn't tell you.

Sin doesn't give you that script.

The temptation doesn't tell you this is what will happen.

The temptation tells you, hey, this is gonna bring you joy.

This is what you need to make you happy.

Esau sold his birthright for a cup of soup.

It's just always struck me about that.

I mean, how long is soup even good for?

I mean, ten minutes, it's not good cold.

What a his birthright.

And Paul describes that in Hebrews 11.

The language he uses is his birthright versus soup.

And he sold it.

A lifetime inheritance for his family for 10 minutes of soup.

What a fitting analogy for sexual sin.

Thirdly, sexual immorality flows from ingratitude.

It flows from ingratitude.

And this is where we get to the other word we skipped in verse 3, but covetousness must not be named among you.

And it's used again in verse 5.

The one who is covetous, that is an idolater.

So covetousness initially strikes us as a different category of sin.

You have sexual immorality, sin, and impurity, which is a broad category of things.

But covetousness is something different, isn't it?

But not really, when you think about it for a little while.

It is the tenth commandment, after all.

Don't covet your neighbor's wife.

It's on the list.

I mean, so something that is often driving sexual immorality, not every example of sexual immorality, but many of them is covetousness.

Where you desire your neighbor's wife.

You wish your wife was more like your neighbor's wife.

You wish your wife was more like that person over there.

She's, you know, whatever.

She's funny.

She respects me.

She's, you know, I think many times the women think on my husband's temptation would be to covet somebody who looks better than me, but I think more often the case, it's, you know, my husband would be tempted to covet a wife that treats him better, that's nicer to him, that respects him more.

And this is where the seeds of adultery are sown in your minds.

You don't feel respected by your wife, you don't feel loved by your wife or honored by your wife.

And here's this other woman who does respect you and does honor you and does show you affection and show you attention.

And so you covet that.

That's covetousness.

Or a wife that thinks her husband's not, you know, working hard and not providing for the family and not caring for her, and then there's this other guy who is working hard and he has his act together, and and plus he notices you.

He's attracted to you.

I wish I had that.

As a husband, the wife might think.

It's covetousness.

And that's a form of sexual immorality because it won't stay as covetousness.

It will grow.

It's it's bread that when you put it in the oven and bake it, it comes out as full-fledged adultery.

And that comes from ingratitude.

This is the point at the end.

I said we'll save verse 4 for next week, but let me just steal one word from verse 4, the last word in the ESV.

Let there be thanksgiving.

That's the antidote for this.

The way you fight against sexual immorality, the way you fight against this kind of temptation for an affair or for adultery is with thanksgiving.

So don't name sexual immorality or impurity among you.

Instead, thanksgiving.

Don't have an affair, instead, be thankful with what God has given you.

Don't have premarital sex, instead, be thankful for what God has called you to be.

Be thankful for your singleness.

Be thankful for your marriage rather than be bitter about it.

Because if you're bitter about it, guess what that will lead to?

Sexual sin.

Proverbs 5.

Verse 15 drink water from your own cistern.

Flowing water from your own well.

Water is a great analogy for this.

Makes no sense to covet somebody else's wife.

Even in a very basic level Solomon, he's going to change the analogy here in a few verses, but in Proverbs 5, he's saying, listen, water kind of tastes the same.

This well, that well.

There's not going to be a difference.

Why would you poison your own well by coveting your neighbor's well?

It doesn't make any sense.

And now look at what he does with the analogy.

Should your springs be scattered abroad?

So you think of what happened?

Here's my well.

It's fine, but I don't like it for whatever reason.

I like that well over there, so I covet this.

Well, what happens to yours once you covet that well?

Well, your well has the water drawn from it and spread on the ground, poured out.

Nobody gets the water anymore.

You dumped it on the ground.

Instead, let the streams of your water be for yourself alone and not for strangers with you.

He's obviously talking about intimacy here.

Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe.

Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight.

Be intoxicated always in her love.

Notice the joyful words he's using: intoxicated, love, rejoice, blessed, delight.

A more basic generic word for that is contentment.

Be content with what you have.

Be content with what God gave you.

When discontentment comes into your heart, you become susceptible to immorality.

When you are discontent with your job, you become susceptible to sexual sin.

When you're discontent with your family, you become susceptible to sexual sin.

When you're discontent with your spouse, obviously you become susceptible to sexual sin.

You can skip over to left a few books in your Bible to 1 Corinthians chapter 7.

1 Corinthians 7 · chapter mention

You can flip there with your own eyes.

I want you to see it.

Left a few pages.

1 Corinthians chapter 7, Paul says, concerning the matters about what you wrote.

1 Corinthians 7 · chapter mention

It's good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.

Paul says it's good to stay single.

People apparently asked him, is it okay to stay single?

Would you rather every Christian marriage?

And Paul says, no, it's great to stay single.

In fact, he's going to go through 1 Corinthians 7 and say singleness has a lot of virtues to it.

Don't resent it.

Don't allow discontentment into your life.

Be happy with singleness.

But then he also says, because of temptation to sexual immorality, there's that word pornae again, because if you're tempted to sexual sin, to sexual immorality, then get married.

Each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.

The husband should give to his wife for conjugal rights, likewise the wife to her husband.

The wife doesn't have authority over her own body, but the husband does.

Likewise, the husband doesn't have authority over his own body, the wife does.

Do not deprive each other except by agreement for a limited time for prayer.

Then come together again.

So Satan may not tempt you because you lack of self-control.

So we won't spend more time on this, but follow his logic here.

It's good to be single, but if you want to get married and if you're tempted for sin, then get married.

Marriage is good.

God designed it.

It's a blessing also.

He's not saying one is better than the other.

He's saying getting married is fine.

But understand that in marriage, the point is to enjoy each other.

And if you're not enjoying each other, you're missing the entire point.

Be happy with each other, delight in each other, and don't deprive yourselves of each other.

Because when you deprive yourselves of each other, then comes discontentment.

And when discontentment comes, notice his language.

Satan is tempting you because of your lack of self-control.

He's not concerned about grumbling as the fruit.

He's concerned about grumbling as the root that leads to the fruit of adultery and sexual immorality.

You can turn back to Ephesians.

Taken together, this should let you know that the main weapon against sexual sin.

If you want to fight sexual sin in your life, let me tell you what the main weapon is not.

The main weapon is not accountability partners, although they can be helpful.

People that keep you accountable is helpful.

Friends that ask you questions can be helpful.

That's not the main weapon, though.

The main weapon in your war against sexual sin is not software on your computer, although that can be helpful for sure.

I'm not knocking software.

Use it.

It can be helpful.

Our family with our kids and everything, we have we use Circle by Disney.

If you have a family, you might think about that.

Circle, it's a device that manages all internet in the house and filters things, and it's it's a little bit like God.

It's sees all things.

It's not the main weapon against sexual sin.

The main weapon against sexual sin is not counseling.

Finding the right counseling group or the right counseling material, that's not the main weapon.

It might be helpful to some people, but that's not the weapon.

The main war in your battle against sexual sin, the main weapon is filling your heart with gratitude for what Jesus has done.

You're satisfied in Christ.

If you're delighted in Christ, I would say the majority of the temptation, maybe not all, but the majority of temptation is muted by delighting in Christ.

By thinking of the gospel, by filling your heart with gratitude for what Jesus has done for you.

I don't mean this in a simplistic way, like you're tempted to sin and you know, say a Bible verse or listen to a Christian song.

I mean it sincerely.

Your sin killed Jesus Christ, the one that you love, nailed him to the cross, or he paid the penalty for your sin, which is worse than you can imagine.

Do you have gratitude for the empty grave?

Thankfulness goes to war against sexual sin, whereas a grumbling heart feels justified in seeking sinful escapes from reality.

Your heart is upset at work and you feel justified in sinning.

Your heart is upset about how your spouse treated you or spoke to you, then you feel justified against sinning.

Your heart is upset about where your kids are in life or in this world, then you feel justified in sinning.

And you feed that desire in your heart.

And of course, you feed the desire as you escape reality in your mind, and you feeding that desire and that appetite becomes an opportunity to act.

And you could be smarter than your spouse and smarter than your kids and smarter than your neighbors and smarter than your friends and get away with it.

But the Lord sees, and the Lord sees and takes it personally because the root of it is a lack of contentment with what the Lord has given you.

In contrast, a thankful heart with what the Lord has given you, thankful for your kids, thankful for your spouse, thankful for your signalness, thankful for your job, thankful for whatever the Lord has given you.

It finds contentment.

And it's in that contentment and thanksgiving that you can resist the devil.

You cannot use willpower to get out of the slew of sexual sin.

You can't just say, okay, this time I really mean it, I'm not gonna sin that way anymore.

I mean it this time.

Nope, this is it.

It's not gonna work.

Your willpower is what you got you into it.

It's not gonna get you out of it.

What gets you out of being stuck in sexual sin is a thankful heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Which leads to the fourth truth about sexual sin, it can be forgiven by God.

Sexual sin is not the unforgivable sin.

Adultery is not the unforgivable sin.

Marriages do survive adultery.

Marriages do survive sexual immorality.

And they come beautiful pictures of God's grace in a way that many other marriages are not.

But sexual sin does dominate our society.

Adultery does dominate our society, dominates our entertainment, dominates so much of our worldview.

Nevertheless, it is forgiven by God.

And here's where sexual sin is like every sin.

I think it's really helpful to understand this.

Your sexual sin does not determine your sanctification.

Your sanctification is seen in a lot of different areas, your love for Christ, your giving, your evangelism, your prayer time.

There's a lot going on in your life, and you err when you define your spiritual growth based solely on sexual sin that you're dealing with in your heart.

When you define it just on that, you miss so much of what the Lord is doing in your life, and I encourage you to zoom out a little bit.

That being said, sexual sin is only forgiven by God when you confess it.

Like every sin, when you repent of it.

Your sin is not forgiven without repentance.

I know in some sense, in eternity past, when the Lord chose you, your sin is forgiven in the mind of God.

I know in a different sense that Jesus purchased your forgiveness on the cross at Calvary 2,000 years ago.

I'm not talking about in those senses.

I'm talking about in the manifestation of forgiveness, your experience of your forgiveness, your experience of reconciliation, the gulf between you and God, and you're reconciled to God.

That experience of forgiveness happens at repentance, and it does not happen without repentance.

And so there is no way to be made right with God in any significant or meaningful way without repentance.

And so I'm talking specifically to people who are here this morning that have not repented of this sin.

You're not experiencing forgiveness because you're not repentant of it.

You could be sitting next to your wife or sitting next to your husband who might not know the sin in your life, might not know the affair that you had, might not know that you're addiction to pornography, they might not know, and so you think you're getting away with it.

But the Lord knows, first of all, and secondly, you're not experiencing repentance and forgiveness.

You're not experiencing the joy that comes through the gospel because you're not confessing and repenting of your sin.

I mean, this is David, who after his affair with Bathsheba thought nobody knew.

And do you remember what he said?

It was eating his bones inside of him.

He was wasting away for a year.

He felt like death.

And nobody knew.

Nobody knew.

So you had an affair a while ago and you keep on living and your spouse doesn't know on what's happening inside of you.

You're being eaten up.

And so you need to come, you need to come clean.

You need to confess to the Lord.

He already knows.

You're not when you come clean to the Lord, you're not telling him something he doesn't know.

He knows about your sin.

He knows what you look at on your phone or on your computer.

He knows about those things already, so you may as well tell him.

And there is an ocean of difference between those that confess their sins and those that are caught in their sins, an ocean of difference.

If you wait until you're caught, nobody is going to believe you.

Just deal with that reality right now.

If you wait until you are caught looking at pornography, or if you wait until you're caught in an affair, or even an affair years ago, your wife finally finds evidence of it.

If you wait until you're caught, nobody is going to believe you.

You're going to cry and you're going to cry more, and you're going to talk about how much shame you're experiencing and all that, and you were caught.

How does anybody know if your repentance is genuine?

Is it possible to know?

Through time, I guess, through time and time and truth go hand in hand.

So you see the results of the, you know, the changed life.

I mean, that takes years.

Verse, you confess.

You come clean to the Lord.

You come clean to your wife.

To your husband.

And you cry, the tears will be the same, I'm sure.

But you came clean.

And now there's a basis on which there can be trust.

Not saying your marriage will survive it, but I am saying a key component to having a marriage survive this kind of thing is confession.

It is confession.

Come clean to the Lord.

Come clean to your spouse.

You might think again that you're getting away with it, but it affects every area of your life.

It does.

And you don't know it.

But other people start to realize, like you're prone to anger outbursts.

You get angry about random things that aren't that important, and you're suddenly angry about it.

It's bubbling out of you.

That's because of how you feel, because of your sin.

You get angry at your kids.

Why?

Because of your sin.

You think, well, it's not connected.

The affair I had a few years ago is not connected to why I'm getting angry at my kids.

Yes, it is.

And other people see it too.

They don't know exactly the details of it, but they see your unreasonable anger, and it's obvious something is going on.

Or you're morose and you're somber and you're sad, unreasonably so.

There's lots of reasons to be depressed, but many times in my own pastoral experience here, many times it's because of hidden sexual sin.

It starts to corrode other areas of your life.

So, what should you do?

You confess it to the Lord.

He already knows about it.

You confess it to your spouse.

I'm not saying your marriage is going to survive it, but it might.

And if it does, it'll be an incredible picture of the grace of the Lord.

An incredible picture.

Our church is strengthened by so many families that have gone through this kind of thing that are just beacons of joy, and it is living out the gospel in a very powerful way.

But it requires confession.

Then come clean to a friend.

Which is exactly what people don't want to do.

They think if I tell a friend what I'm going through, my friend won't respect me, my friend won't trust me, my friend won't this or that, my reputation will be ruined.

Well, your reputation will be severely harmed because of the affair.

That's Proverbs 6 again.

That's what harmed your reputation.

Not telling your friend.

That's not what harmed your reputation.

You don't want to tell someone because you'll feel like you're a hypocrite.

It shines a light in a dark place of your heart.

That's exactly why you do need to tell someone because light is disinfectant.

The light of God's word and the light of truth disinfects your soul.

It exposes it, exposes things that are hidden that you don't even know the layers of sin that are going on in your heart.

They get exposed by the light of God's word and the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

And that helps your sanctification.

Crushing your pride, crushing your reputation through confession helps your sanctification.

Your friends, or at least one or two key friends, should know what you're going through.

Listen, if I'm going to swim across a river with you, I would like to know before we get too far across the river that you can't swim.

It would be helpful to know before getting into the water.

Not that I can't be your friend.

I just am dealing now, I'm entering a new situation with full knowledge.

So I can help you get across the water.

I would like to help you, but it's hard when you're a hundred yards from ashore.

So confess your sin.

Sometimes the humiliation involved in that kind of confession is what helps you realize your dependence upon Christ.

All the more you cling to Christ even more closely when you're exposed before your friends.

James 5, verse 16, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another.

James 5:16

That's a command.

Confess your sins to one another, pray for one another.

Galatians 6, verses 1 through 2, brothers, if anyone is caught in a transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.

Galatians 6:1–2

Keep watch on yourself, lest you two be tempted.

Bear one another's burdens.

So that's the command.

Bear each other's burdens.

So you lift up your friends' burdens, you lift up your friends' sins, you help him carry them through repentance.

And then James, our apostle says it's Galatians 6, 2, in so doing, you fulfill the law of Christ.

So that makes it sound not optional to me.

You do it, you fulfill the law of Christ.

That's an imperative.

That's a powerful command.

You want to fulfill the law of Christ.

So you think it would be too hard to confess.

It would be too hard, too embarrassing.

Yes, but in so doing, you're fulfilling the law of Christ.

You let other people bear your burdens.

You're confessing your sins to one another so people can pray for you.

That's the command.

So since Jesus commands you to do it, you should go ahead and trust that it is for your good.

And let God do what he's going to do through your obedience now.

Obedience now may be painful.

If you're here today and you feel like I don't have Christian joy in my life, you might ask yourself, are you harboring sexual sin?

And I'll tell you a very basic thing.

If you're a Christian, the Lord loves you too much to let you harbor sexual sin in your life and give you joy at the same time.

You're not a Christian, sure.

Delight in your sexual sin.

Live that life for you.

You're gonna, your conscience will be seared.

You're gonna bring destruction in your family, live for yourself, whatever.

But if you're a Christian, I hope the Lord loves you enough to keep you from experiencing joy in this life while you are harboring that sin.

You want to experience joy in the Lord?

Confess to the Lord.

Confess to your spouse, confess to some friends, let them pray for you and pursue Jesus together.

It's so encouraging, it should be so encouraging for you to know that Jesus was tempted in every way like we, but was without sin.

And so his mercy seat is open now, even for the cries of those who feel enslaved to this kind of sin.

His mercy seat is open.

The sign is on the door of heaven, it is open for business.

You can bring your request to him through faith in Christ.

He has died on the cross for your sins.

He forgives sins, that's what he does.

And trust him for what happens when you come to him.

Lord, we are grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ that forgives us of our sins.

I pray for marriages in our church.

Many broken marriages are here today.

But we know that you fix broken things.

You restore, you reconcile.

And we know this because you've done it to us.

We are broken people, Lord.

We're broken people.

We love sin, we've pursued sin.

We've given ourselves over to sin, and yet your gospel saved us and ransomed us and reconciled us, and you declare, behold, the old things are gone, the new is come.

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

So we have had that experience.

We have firsthand knowledge.

We can testify, even through being here today, that you save broken people.

And so, Lord, now we delight in that truth and we turn to pray for broken marriages.

And we pray that through confession of sin and through restoration, that you would save broken marriages, that you would bring reconciliation and restoration.

And we know you forgive sin when it is confessed.

Whoever confesses their sins to you, you are faithful and just, and you forgive sins that are confessed in the name of Christ.

It's in his name we pray.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thank you for joining us today.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

Our service times and church information are on our website at ibc.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.

May the Lord bless you.