6-26-25 Study of Revelation Ephesians Chapter 5:1-7 Walking in Love Part 2

➡ This Bible study focuses on the book of Ephesians, specifically Ephesians 5, verses 1 through 7. The discussion emphasizes the importance of walking in love, imitating Christ’s conduct, and understanding that Christ’s sacrifice was a fulfillment of the Old Testament law. It warns against falling back into old sinful ways, stressing that such actions can lead to a loss of spiritual inheritance. The study also highlights the rampant sexual immorality in today’s society, urging believers to resist these influences and strive to live like Christ.
➡ As God’s children, we are encouraged to live our lives in love, imitating Jesus Christ in our daily actions and thoughts. This involves a mindset focused on love, which should influence all aspects of our lives. We are reminded that we are God’s children and should strive to reflect His love and characteristics. This process, known as sanctification, involves growing and nurturing our relationship with Jesus Christ, allowing His love to change us and manifest in our lives.
➡ This text emphasizes the spiritual power we possess through our connection with God. It explains that when we accept salvation, we become children of God and His spirit lives within us, giving us dominion over evil. The text encourages us to model our lives after Jesus Christ, emphasizing love and forgiveness as key characteristics. It concludes by reminding us that our ability to forgive and love is made possible because Christ paid the penalty for our sins.
➡ God’s love is forgiving, unconditional, and self-sacrificing. This love was demonstrated through Jesus’ crucifixion, where he bore our sins and continued to love and give despite our sins and lack of response. We are called to imitate this love by forgiving without limits, loving unconditionally without expecting a response, and sacrificing ourselves for others. This is not about liking people on an emotional level, but about embodying a nature of limitless forgiveness, unconditional love, and self-sacrifice.
➡ The text discusses the difference between worldly love and Christ’s love. Worldly love is described as conditional, unforgiving, and self-centered, often based on emotions and personal gain. On the other hand, Christ’s love is portrayed as forgiving, unconditional, and self-sacrificing. The text warns against the dangers of worldly love and encourages embracing the love taught by Christ.
➡ The text discusses the concept of love, focusing on the selfish aspects often present in human love. It criticizes the pursuit of personal pleasure and warns against the dangers of infidelity and divorce, particularly within the Christian community. The text also emphasizes the importance of self-control, especially in sexual matters, and condemns any form of sexual misconduct. It concludes by advising that those who engage in such behaviors should be removed from the church community.
➡ The text discusses the concept of ‘soul ties’, which are spiritual connections formed through sexual relationships. It emphasizes the importance of understanding this concept before marriage, as past relationships can impact your current ones. The text also highlights the importance of forgiveness and getting closer to God to overcome the effects of past sins. However, it clarifies that while God forgives sins, the spiritual ties formed in the past still exist.
➡ This text is a prayer asking for strength, guidance, and blessings. The speaker asks for protection while they’re on vacation and for open hearts to receive truth. They express gratitude for forgiveness and the sacrifice made on the cross, and they seek peace and love.

Okay, welcome guys. This is our Thursday night Bible study. We’re into the book of Ephesians as a sort of an outlay from the book of Revelation. We’re working slowly our way through the book of Ephesians, but we’re getting, we’re getting there. And we’re picking up tonight on part two of what we’ve classified as walking in life. And what time is it? And we’re going to. We looked last time at Ephesians 5, verses 1 through 7. And we’re going to be in that same grouping of scriptures for tonight. So let me, let me read the scriptures to you starting in verse one.

Does he want to follow along? I’m going to read him anyway. Be therefore followers of God as dear children and walk in love as Christ also hath loved us and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor. Okay, so I’m going to stop out here. I want to start. I’m going to break this down a little bit tonight that I didn’t do last time, but I want to break this down a little bit. Walk in love is your conduct. The conduct needs to be the same conduct that Christ did.

So what is, what Paul is telling us is we are to be like Christ was when he walked this earth and he goes further and he gave himself, okay, for us as an offering to God. So God died on the cross in the condition of his son ship, which is just another term for a physical body that God inhabited. Christ became an incarnation of God himself. That means that God himself dwelled inside of Christ in the form of the first physical human being that had the Spirit, the Holy Spirit inside of him. Remember, he’s dealing with this prototype, okay? He’s, he’s fulfilling the prototype of this physical system that gives us the ability to be sealed.

In other words, our, our soul is sealed. The Old Testament people who had no sealing of their souls. This, the Spirit came and went as God directed it to come and go inside of a particular individual. When we’re saved, we know that spirit no longer comes and goes. It stays inside of us. And we are sealed by the Holy Spirit as identifying us as part of the children of God. So he did that as an offering and a sacrifice, okay, to God for a sweet smelling savor. Now this goes back to Numbers. Sweet smelling, savory. If you recall the sacrifices of the lands, you will, you will remember in those scriptures that you, that the scripture said that you’re doing this as a sweet savor to God, because he smells it all.

Right, so what, what Paul has done is tied the old covenant, the law, to the new covenant, which will become a new covenant upon Christ crucifixion. And he’s tied them together because what Christ did, Christ came to fulfill the law. So his sacrifice himself as the sacrifice was no different than the lands sacrificed in the Old Testament. He fulfilled the law, which means that he became the last sacrifice. Okay, continuing, it says, but fornication and all uncleanness and covishness, let it not be once named among you. Okay, now we’re getting into the stuff where you’re. You’re getting rid of the old and you’re putting on the new.

So what Paul is identifying here is the old stuff. But fornication and all uncleanness and covishness, let it not be once named among you as becometh saints. In other words, what he’s saying is exchange, exchange everything of the old to the new. That’s, that’s the sanctification process. And it continues neither filthiness nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. In other words, stop lying st. You know, boasting about yourself. Stop coven coveting anything that you want, you know all this stuff. And be holy underneath Christ for this ye know. Okay, so what he’s saying is, I’ve already taught you, now listen to me again.

For this ye know that no fornicator, nor unclean person, nor covetous man who is an adulterer and an idol worshiper hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. That’s very important because it says if you do not get rid of your old ways and go to the newness that he’s given you upon salvation, then what he’s saying is you have no inheritance in the kingdom. What he’s saying is you’re not safe. Self assessment time. As I’ve said, if you have not gone through the transformation process and you have not seen the fruits of that transformation process, you need to question your salvation.

Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience. He’s now saying that if you don’t, if you don’t get rid of your old self, you’re just like you were born in Ephesians 2. You’re still sons of disobedience. You’re still controlled by the prince of the power of the air. That’s why he says there is no inheritance in the kingdom of God, if you have not changed, but not ye, therefore partakers with them. In other words, guys, you were that way. You have now been changed and you’re sinning, going back in that direction, stop it and come back around to where you need to be.

Don’t partake of that. Why? Because scripture says, do not associate with this world. Do not love anything in this world, and make sure that you only focus on the things above. Okay, so we’ve broken down the scripture a little more now. Let’s get into this tonight. We’re going to finish this up. So this is a very tremendously potent passage for you and I, and it’s very important for us today because our society, in which we live in even this group, is dealing with all of this in our culture. And if we are not paying attention, we’re going to be grabbed back into this culture and consumed by the culture.

And in doing so, basically says, you have no inheritance. You’re going to get your ticket, but you have no inheritance. If you’re truly saved and you’ve not turned away from sin, you need to question salvation to begin with. If you’re. If you truly had salvation. And through sin nature, you are drifting back into your old ways. If you don’t repent of that, what you’re doing is diminishing the inheritance that has been set aside for you not only on this earth, but in heaven. So in last week, we talked about four individual people. Okay. Well, we talked about.

We talked about setting up the four criterias of this, and we looked at two of them. But I want to. I want to talk about one thing that is. That’s truly going on, things we should not be doing. We live in an age and our children are being taught this in school, and we tend not to deal with it in a lot of ways, but we live in an age when fornication or sexual sin is completely rampant. You wouldn’t be adverse to calling this time period of our Society the Sexy 21st Century. Everything you see is sex.

Ever. Advertising is sex. We’re inundated, drowned, preoccupied. And our senses are so dulled to the potency of the attack that comes against us, we’ve normalized it. Yeah, you’ve normalized it in your thought, so you don’t even think about it anymore. You see it, and it’s just another one of those tick marks in your brain where there is no moral sense of understanding of what’s really going on. You can’t see an ad for cigarettes without sexy women. Everything is focused on the immoralities of the evil side of this world. So in my studying this week, I, I heard.

I heard from a pastor who was in. Who was involved in sins of fornication that led to another pastor who was fornicating not in the normal way. He was fornicating as homosexual and why is this happening? Guys, we are so dull to this. I’m going to bring it up. Why is this happening? What causes this? The apostle Paul deals with it right here. And I think we need to look at it very carefully at what he says. Last week we learned that one aspect of the worthy walk is to walk in love, right? Sets in verse one and, and in verse two, walk in love.

And we saw that the key element to walking in love is what to be a follower of God. That’s the only true way to do it. We’re to mimic God. We’re to be an imitator of God himself. Matter of fact, scripture says think like the. Think like God thinks. If it’s. If his first John says God is love and you are to walk in love, then you are to be like God. And so we are to imitate God. We are to mimic God. He is the pattern. And the pattern is best expressed by God in his incarnation of Jesus Christ.

We’re supposed to be like Christ. We’re supposed to put on Christ. We’re supposed to think like the mind of God because what the mind of God was in Jesus Christ in the physical form and he walked that way in all things. So we are to mimic God through his Son, Jesus Christ. And, and so if we are to walk in love, we are to walk as Christ walked. And that is exactly what First John 2. 8 says. If we say we abide in him, we are so to walk even as he walked. We are to then walk in love, which imitates God.

God is manifested in Jesus Christ. He’s Christ was the incarnation of God. So we are to be just like Christ. We are to love like he loved. Now if you go, if you remember it last week we, we talked about the word worthy walk. And in chapter four we begin to. That tells us to walk worthy. And part of that walking worthy of our, of our high calling, walking consistently with our high calling is to walk in love. So now this love walk has four elements and we get, we got through two of them last week and we’re.

And we’re going to get through the next two tonight and finish this up. But I want to quickly review them because we need to have continuity of Thought. First off, these are positive ones. The first there is the plea in verse 1 and 2. He pleads with us to walk in love. And the word walk means daily conduct mainly of life, process of living lifestyle, if you will. All right, your, your whole focus, your mental thought patterns, your, your way that you think about you, your way of thinking about others, the way you portray yourself. Put on, putting, put, put on the clothes, do all that stuff.

Everything about you should mentally be focused on how you are going to walk in love as Christ did. Oh, that would be an interesting conversation every morning talking to yourself. But okay, I’m going to walk today in love. So now what do I wear? How do I fix my hair? You know, do I or do I not put on this type of makeup? Women, you know, how, how you know are you going to do? I mean, all of this stuff has to be a mindset. That’s what I’m trying to get to. So he pleads us to walk in love.

And walking means daily cont. Conduct the manner of your life, the process of living your lifestyle. We are to be characterized by love, and the pattern is God. And we are to imitate God. The, the psalmist said, I will be satisfied when I awake in thy likeness. We are to be filled with the fullness of God, which says, chapter three says. And so what we want, what Paul is saying here, and I want to get through this thought. We don’t, we didn’t deal with all of this last week. I want to just throw it out to you guys.

Since you are God’s beloved children, as it says in verse one. Since you are God’s dear children, imitate him. Now listen, the basis of imitating is that we are his children. You can’t imitate God unless you are his children because you don’t have the relationship to do that. You’re set aside. This is one. In my opinion, this is the. One of the richest, most joyful designations of Christians in all the New Testament. We’re called the children of God were called the sons of God. And in John 1:12 it tells us as many as believed on him to them gave he the right to be called what the children of God In Ephesus, in Ephesians I will chapter one, it tells us that he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestined us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself.

We are literally, literally children of God. We are the children of God. The Offspring of God we have been to begotten by an incorruptible seed. Perfection. Yes. So we’re then as his children, to do what? To bear his likeness. When you look at yourself in the mirror, I’ve always says, when you look at yourself in the mirror, what do you see? Because whatever you see, that’s who you are. If you look in the mirror and what you see is the love of God through you, then you’re God’s child. If you look in the mirror and you don’t see anything good, that’s your starting point of the day.

To try to figure out what is going on in your life, in sin, to get you back on the right track. With Jesus Christ, we are to bear his character, his characteristics. We’re to manifest that which is true of him. We’re to adorn his very nature. Remember, he gives us a new nature. He gives us a new body. He gives us a new DNA. He gives us a new thought pattern. He gives us the ability to connect directly with him and not have to go through this ordeal of trying to figure out who you’re talking to.

Okay? He gives you all of that at salvation. But it’s left up to us to adopt the characteristics of Jesus Christ in our life. That’s called sanctification. Now, since we’ve been begotten of God, we’re going to learn in First Peter, since we are characterized by an incorruptible seed which lives and abides forever. Since God has come in to live in us and make us his children. Okay, let’s stop here a moment. In First Peter, it says this. The seed that has come to live in you is what, perfect? It’s not only perfect, it is Christ. It is God.

Incorruptible. That seed is the Holy Spirit. Incorruptible. Okay? It cannot be corrupted. If you try to live a physical life in an incorruptible world manner, you build a wall around that sea. When you build a wall around that sea, you get cut off. So it’s up to us to understand that salvation is the incorruptible seed. And it needs to grow, it needs to be fed. That is your building of the relationship with Jesus Christ. Sanctification. Where then to live manifesting his characteristics. Okay, we’re to live, manifested. What does that mean? That means you are pulling down from your store inventory that’s given to you in Ephesians 13, all the blessings of heaven before the foundation of the world.

That is what you’re doing. You are pulling Those blessings down to this physical life, and it changes you. We’re to manifest his characteristics into our physical life, such through the studying of the word called sanctification. And that’s the heart of it, guys. The reason we are to imitate God, as Paul says, is because we are his children and we are to pattern our lives after our father. Galatians 3:26 I and I’ll just add this. It says, for ye are all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. We’re adopted into the spiritual family. Upon salvation, we become children, we become sons of God.

We, we now have an incorruptible spirit seed that now has come to live inside of us immediately upon salvation. You do nothing to receive that. That’s the gift of the Holy Spirit. Notice that when you put your faith in Christ Jesus, when you received Christ as your Savior at that very point in time, you became a child of God. You were born again. You had a whole heck of a lot of maturing to do. To put it in John 3 terminology, there was an incorruptible seed planted within you. There was new life, right? New creature. Think about all the scriptures, all this.

What this seed is doing, it is. It is providing the root system for your new life. And the manifestation of the life of God through you should be the most important, normal thing to do. Self assessment time. Where you at? It is abnormal for you not to imitate God. That is where you’re at. Okay, so your fruit is this. If you’re saved, you want to imitate God. If you’re not imitating God, you probably are not safe. You look at a child. And the most normal thing for a child is to be like what their parents. That’s why we have so much difficulty looking at children when they got terrible parents at such a young age.

And we try to figure out a way to break that cycle. And so it is in the spiritual dominion, the same thing happens. Are you getting this now? When you become saved, the newness that is brought into you is an incorruptible seed that protects you, strengthens you, provides for you, teaches you, but you have to allow it. And the only way that you’re going to have dominion over this world. Now I want you to think about this. When God wrote in Genesis 1 that Adam and Eve had dominion over the world, what was what, what was he talking about? A physical base? No, they weren’t physical at the time.

He was talking about the spiritual side of this universe. Adam and Eve had total spiritual dominion over Satan and his minions until Eve and Adam transmis against God. So what we’re talking about here is you need to be mimicking Jesus Christ and understand that it is only through the mimicking of Jesus Christ that you have spiritual dominion. Okay, I want you to think about it. Because if you’re not mimicking Christ, what are you doing? You’re living in this world. And if you’re living in this world, how can you have spiritual dominion over that which you are not to associate with? Then you wonder why you have problems.

You have within you the indwelling life of God. I want you to think about that. We have been taught all our life that this is some mythical type of relationship that goes on at salvation. And, and that is so far from the truth. The seed that is planted inside of you is a live seed. It’s life that’s the new life. And the manifestation of the life of God through you should be the most normal thing you do. In Galatians, chapter 4, verse 4, it says this. When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his Son made of a woman, made under the law.

The law, the Old Testament, God to redeem them that were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. Oh, apply that to why Christ had to go to hell in those three days of being placed in the tomb. Because all of the saints through the Old Testament could not go to heaven because the law had not been fulfilled. And Christ went down, broke the saints out of jail, took the keys back from Lucifer, gave the keys to the heavenlies and said, okay guys, I’m sending you my spirit. I’m going to seal you to me.

And if you live your life with me, I then through you give you spiritual dominion over all evil things. That’s reason why you can speak a Rama word and evil runs. And because you were sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his Son into our hearts as a whole. A dwelling place, a place that he lives not just frequently in your mind, a place that he lives as a living home. You are no more servants, servants to the evil system, but a son. And if a son, then an heir of God. That’s how you become an heir of God, is because now why he’s co dwelling in you.

When you were saved, you became a son, you became a child of God. God’s spirit immediately entered into you and the life of God should manifest itself within you. And so because Paul says we are children of God, we are then to imitate our Father. And the most normal thing for us who’ve been saved is to be like Him. Now if God is love, then we are to imitate his love. If it is a true. If it’s true that God is characterized by Love, as John 1, 4711 says, if it is true that God is characterized by love, then we too are to be characterized in the same manner.

Now the second point we had last time is the pattern of our Lord Jesus Christ at the end of verse two. And this is like how is it supposed to work? How is it to be manifested? What is our example as Christ has loved us and given himself for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God himself for the sweet smelling Savior. All right, we are to walk in love. And the model we are to follow is the pattern we are to trace our lives on, which is Jesus Christ. And if you’re not in the word, you can’t do it.

This doesn’t come by osmosis. If you’re not working at it, you better look at your salvation and totality. Some of you might remember this. I tried to give a example here for you to recall what I’m talking about. When we were little kids and we were starting out in school, one of the first things that the teachers wanted to do was to teach us how to draw. Because mentally it has so many great impacts to the childbearing processes of understanding, controlling all that good stuff. And so they used to pass out papers of pictures and the pictures were in great big bold ink.

In other words they were, they were like children size pictures. And then she passed out what she called tracing paper. Now all the little kids would take that paper and stick it on the bold page and the picture would come through and we’d take out little pencils and we would draw. Tracing the picture. That process is the very word pattern in the New Testament. When it says to pattern your life after Jesus Christ, it means to draw your life on his picture. That’s the word for type. Remember we’ve talked about, okay, David was the type of Christ, Moses was the type, all of these types, because why they sought after walking in fellowship and in character of Jesus Christ.

Paul says that to Timothy, be an example to the believers. Be somebody the believers can trace their life on. Well that’s exactly what he’s saying here. Take Jesus Christ, the bold statement of Christ’s life and put your life on top of it and trace your life out just as he did. He’s the pattern. This is the heart of the message. We are to love as he loves. Now backing up to verse 32 and we reminded the you this time that the characteristic, the major characteristics of God love is that it is forgiving. And you see that in verse 32 of chapter 4, forgiving one another as, as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.

So now for to walk in love, that’s the first characteristic I want you to notice it is forgiving kind of love. Those of you still holding grudges, ex spouses, children, ex co workers, boyfriends, girlfriends, whatever you need to deal with is a forgiving kind of love. And we went into that last week. God’s love is a forgiving love. Now we added a footnote to this, I’m going to add it to it again that you ought to see in verse 32, forgiving one another even as God has forgiven you. Now if it just said that forgiving one another as God has forgiven you would have a little problem because we’d say, now look God, you’re a holy God, you’re an absolutely righteous guy and you hate sin and you can’t tolerate sin and the Bible says you will punish sin.

In fact it says the waves of sin is death. Now God, who can you just forgive like that? If it said forgive one another as God has forgiven you? We’d say, well how can you just do that? How can you just say, well I know I don’t like that stuff, but I’ll forgive you? Well what does that do to God’s justice? Doesn’t it violate his holy justice? No, because the little phrase is there for Christ sake, which means because of what Christ has done. In other words, the penalty which was ours was born by Christ and because of something Christ did, God is able to forgive.

And that’s the whole point. Christ died on the cross, so you don’t. Because what’s only worth worthy to Christ is a sacrifice for sin. And God himself through his sonship paid the ultimate sacrifice for each one of us even before we were born. When Christ in verse 2 now when Christ gave himself for us an offering in a sacrifice to God as a sweet smelling savor, he paid the price that God’s justice demanded and he freed God to forgive the sinner. I want you to think about that. If you don’t forgive, you’re not going to be forgiven.

Remember there’s a law here. That which you want to receive, you must give first. If you want forgiveness for your sins, then you better forgive others of sin towards you. Because if not, how can you be justified in what Christ did for you when you’re not doing the same Thing for others. Remember the guy that owed the money and the talents? Remember him? Omen the money and the king forgive him. And then he went to a servant, says, I can’t. I’m not going to forgive you. You got to pay it all up. And what the king do, he took his place away and threw him in jail.

Guys, are you hearing what was, if you do not forgive, you can’t be forgiven. You might say, well, if I forgive, does that mean I have to have a relationship with this person? I’m forgiving. I know it does not. That’s not what it says. Why? Because the relationship is a physical level. The forgiveness is a spiritual level. See, if it hadn’t been for Christ, it would not have happened. God can love us. God can forgive us because of one thing. Christ paid the penalty. That is the message of the tenth chapter of the book of Hebrews, by the way, Hebrews 10:10, by which we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ.

In other words, the only thing that sets us apart to God is that Christ bore our sin. Verse 12 says, this man, after he offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down on the right hand of God. In other words, sitting down is a picture of rest. And when Christ one time made one sacrifice, it was tongue, it was complete, that he never needed to do another thing except set down. Think about it. God incarnating himself in his sonship, said, only thing I have to do is I have to go get crucified, be buried, go get, go deal with Satan, come back, be resurrected, get my glorified body.

And when I do that, I can just go sit. He was finished. And verse 14 sums it up. By that one offering, he perfected forever them that are what? Sanctified, not saved. Sanctified. He bore in his body our sins. He who knew no sin became sin for us. And so Christ did something that freed God to love us. And God loves, first of all is forgiving. Now, secondly, God’s love is not only forgiving, but it is unconditional. All right? This is the only time, probably in the. His, in the, in all of our discussion, am I going to bring unconditional love into play.

We have so confused the concept of God’s unconditional love with the unconditional love of this world that we don’t even know the difference. His love is not defined by the object in any sense. Unconditional love of this world is all defined by objectivity. It is his nature that was. It is his innateness that it is his loving as God must love because he’s God. And so his love is forgiving and unconditional. And the third thing that we talked about last week, that it is self sacrificing. God’s love is forgiving, unconditional and self sacrificing. God so loved what the world, not the earth, guys, the world that he.

That he. What’s the next word? Gay. I want you to think about what he says. That’s the key. It is in self sacrificing. Now, now listen guys, this is a very basic truth you must get. We’re to love like God, love. If we are to imitate God. And then we must love people with a forgiveness that is without limits. We must love people unconditionally with no dependence upon the response. And we must love people sacrificially, that is with the giving of ourselves, not the seeking of something from them. Now guys, you got to listen to this.

When you live and walk in love, it doesn’t mean you go around saying, oh, I like that person and I like this person. And you work and you work on an emotional level. That is not what this is. That is the world’s unconditional love because everything is dependent upon objectivity. It means that it is your nature to be forgiving without any limits. Loving without even a necessary response. Oh, half of you think about that. It’s self sacrificing, seeking only to give and not to gain. How many of you will do nice for someone because the next thing out of your mouth you’re going to seek something from them.

So he said last time that Jesus loves us. When we sin, he forgives us. When we don’t respond, he keeps loving us. And when all we want to do is take, he keeps giving. I want you to think, understand that premise because that is the process of the crucifixion. If he was not willing to continue to give and give and give and give, he would not have gone to the cross. That’s the kind of love that is to characterize our lives. Unconditional, forgiving, self sacrificing. I would be really unfaithful to my own mind if I didn’t have you look at John 13 for just a moment and, and then we’ll close out the these reviews and move to the two points, John 15, which I think is the most beautiful picture of the love of Christ apart from the cross anywhere else in the Bible.

Now I want you to see this unconditional, forgiving, self sacrificing, love in Action. Now you, you got to remember the setting here. And we’ve talked about this. In, in some ways the disciples are having an argument and they’re arguing about who’s going to be the greatest in the kingdom. They’re really concerned about who’s going to rank high when Christ sets up his earthly kingdom. They want to get in on the gravy train. They want to be big shots, they want to be mucky mucks. And the Lord sees them in this big argument. And the real issue here is of course what that Jesus is about to be crucified.

And he’s already told them this, he’s already told them he has to die. And they’re trying to now draw straws as to who’s going to be the big guy on campus. He’s already given them the whole outline but they are absolutely indifferent to what he’s going to go through. They don’t care. They’re the disciples and they don’t care. They’re not really even concerned about his death. What are. They’re absolutely selfish, they’re absolutely sinful and they’re absolutely unresponsive to what is going on. Now if there was any real love in their hearts, they would have been comforting and encouraging and sharing that love with Jesus Christ.

If there was anything of self sacrifice in their lives, they would have been washing his feet. They would have been at his hands saying, what can we do Lord, because you’re the one that’s going to bear this pain. But what did they do instead? Their selfishness was manifest, their sinfulness was manifest, their self centeredness was manifest as they argued about who would be the greatest in the kingdom. Instead of being concerned about Christ himself. Do you get the picture? You own nothing. Oh and by the way, you really are nothing. Unless you have Christ. You’re dead.

But where’s your mindset? And we find that in that argument nobody would wash anybody’s feet. But it was a custom to wash feet in those days because before you had a meal. But none of them would do it because none of them wanted to take the role of a servant. They were all fighting for the chief places. And so supper had begun, if you recall this passage. And after it had begun, Jesus took what? A basin? In verse 4, he Rising from supper, laid aside his garments, took a towel, girded himself and poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples feet.

Okay, we gotta listen. That’s love in action. That is love. That is forgiving here. These guys were sinful. They were full of Pride, they were full of self centeredness, they were full of self seeking, they were full of indifference to each other, they were resenting each other, they were loving each other. They were trying to say who’s going to get the big stick and what do I have to do to get it? They felt the other guy among the 12 might be seeking to get a higher rank than they were. This was a terrible sinful aura in that whole deal.

And yet Jesus did what he washes their feet. Jesus does a kind and tender and loving sympathetic act that it was unconditional for giving love. He didn’t even ask a response out of that. Matter of fact he told Peter, if I don’t wash your feet, you’re not going to go to heaven. They didn’t even give him the right response. He didn’t say, now if you guys will come on, if you guys will allow me to do this, be cool with it and love me just a little and I’ll wash your feet for it. They wash their feet anyway because love does doesn’t have to depend upon a response.

And finally it is self sacrificing, the Lord of glory washing the feet of these sinful self seeking men. And then if you go over to verse 13, Jesus sums it up by saying this, Ye call me master and Lord and you say, well, for I am. If I then be your Lord and Master have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you. Verily rarely I say unto you, the servant is not greater than his Lord, neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him.

In other words, he’s saying that I am not greater than God himself, the Father. If you know these things, happy are you if you do them. Oh, that’s a key point, self assessment. In other words, he said to them, you saw how I loved you, didn’t you? You saw it physically, yes, you saw that I loved you by an act of love that was unconditional, that was totally forgiving, that was totally self sacrificing. And I expect you to do the same to each other. I can imagine you can heard pin drop about them. And later on in the chapter, verse 34, after an interlude with Judas, he picks the same teaching and he says, a new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

But this shall all men know. You’re my disciples. If you love one another, you’re outward Fruit of an inward Life. Notice verse 34. You are to love as I loved you. And how had he just loved them? He had just loved them with forgiveness, with an unconditional love and a self sacrificing love. And that’s the very thing he is asking for them to what? Manifest. Then how can you manifest it if you’re not getting sanctified? You have no way of knowing how to do it. And he says to them, the servant is not greater than his Lord.

If I love that way, then that’s the way you are to love. So that’s the positive side of this. Let’s get back to Ephesians. Now you’re to walk in love. What does that mean? We’re to love? Like Christ’s love. How did he love? Forgiving, unconditional, self sacrificing. That’s the positive presentation. Now watch how fast Paul goes to the opposite side. Here comes the negative. And right away in verse three, we see the perversion. The plea in verse one and the first part of verse two, the pattern at the end of verse two. And now the perversion, whatever it is that God establishes, Satan will counterfeit the law of duality.

We had a conversation today on Scotty Sacks radio about just that point. Discernment is to understand which side of the coin you’re being invaded from. You can only do that if you’re sanctified. Because the Holy Spirit is the only one that has the discernment. If the Holy Spirit’s not controlling your life, then you can’t discern. And here comes the perversion immediately in verses three and four. And you see it there. Fornication, sexing. And it’s propagated by verse 6 that the deceivers with their vain words who are nothing more than the object of God’s wrath. Children of disobedience.

Where God establishes true love, the world comes along and establishes the phony, counterfeit, unconditional world view of objectivity, of unconditional love. The world really, if I be honest with you, the world really wants to live in love. There’s no question about that. You see it all over the place. I mean that they want love bad, okay? In fact, the only thing that they want more than love is money. And you really say that that’s love too? Because the only reason they would want money more than love is because they love money. But apart from money, they won’t love.

The world really goes after love. People agree and you hear them talk about it all the time. Love, loving and being loved. Or making love as they call it. Being in love is the ultimate high. People agree it is the greatest experience to be what in love. It is a way of sensitizing life to the extremes of what emotion. Emotion is a physical response, not a spiritual response. You will never be as happy as you will be when you’re in love. You’ll never be as sad as you can be when you love. You will never know the gamut of emotions that you know when you are sensitized to these extremes by being quote, unquote in love.

Love is the ultimate human experience. And I mean we, the world just continue to sell it. The songs you listen to, I don’t care what type of music it is. This the, the songs of your parents generation or whether the acid rock craziness of the kids today, it’s the same underlying message, you know, that love is in there. It’s either the fantasy of love that you seek, or it’s the shatteredness of love that’s lost or whatever it is. I mean, country music makes its whole money dealing with this one topic. In and out of love. You’re either in love or you’re out of love, or you’re having a breakup or you’re getting, you know, married or whatever.

It’s the same stuff over and over and over again. It’s the constant quest for love. It may be a song about a father and a son, or two friends, or a husband and wife, or a lover and another lover or whatever. But love is this fantasy, this illusional dream that the world chases. And of course they base that, their concept of love on what it does emotional for them. It’s a self seeking thing. And it’s obvious from songs and plays and films and books and TV shows that they just keep fostering this chase for this fantasy love.

And people in the world are looking for, for that ultimate love. You know, they hear the philosopher talk about it and they hear singers sing about it and they say it’s so fabulous, so fantastic. And they read a book about it. Ladies love novels. Put them away. Or they see a movie about it. Our TV thing where, you know, everybody is in solo, okay? And if you really noticed, it’s always the person that you’re not married to that gives you the greatest thrill. That’s the fantasy. And so the world chases this fantasy, seeking a dream of a perfect love and a perfect fulfillment.

And they’re a lot like Ponce de Leon looking for the fountain of use. Now it’s really stupid. It’s a dream of a foot Fool’s paradise. They give themselves over to one person for a while and then they suck that person bone dry. And then they go off and find another one and they do the same thing. And it’s like this vicious cycle. God says, love is what you give. I want you to listen to me. The world’s love is based solely on conditional objectivity. The very opposite of Christ’s love is conditional. It says, give me what I want and I love you.

It is unforgiving. Blow it. You blow it too many times and you’re out of my life. I’m fed up. That’s it. And it’s on to somebody else now. I always think about the guy who got married and got his bride, and he got in the car that was pulled by the horse and they were leaving the wedding, the horse bolted. And the guy said, that’s one. A little while down the road, the horse bolted again. He says, that’s two. The third time the horse did it, he got out. The guy got out and he took a gun and shot the horse.

And his wife says, what are you doing? And he looked at her and said, that’s one. You know, whatever the world’s kind of love is, it doesn’t leave much room for error. You don’t mess up very many times. That’s the way it is. It’s completely unforgiving. Secondly, it’s conditional. As long as you get the right response, you hang in there. As soon as responses aren’t what you want, then you’re gone. And thirdly, is self centered, not self sacrificing. It is self centered. It feeds on its own need. It is the very thing opposite what God says, that should character be our character.

Look at Matthew 18 for a moment, Matthew 18, just to give you one illustration of how the Lord illustrated this worldly feeling. Now, here you can find that there’s a contrast. Jesus presents his love, which is totally forgiving, unconditional, and self sacrificing. And Peter comes to him and says, well, Lord, I mean this unconstitutional, self sacrificing, forgiving love, how far does it go? I mean, shall I forgive my brother? What seven times Jesus said unto him, I say not unto thee until seven times, but until 70 times seven. That’s 490 times, by the way. And that number is significant in biblical terms.

So he’s. He’s relating to him a gematra. Here, therefore, is the kingdom of heaven, likened to a certain king who would take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him who owed him 10,000 talents. This is the, this is the story I was talking about briefly earlier where the, the master forgave him of his debt and he went out and wouldn’t forgive others that owed him money. And he came back and the king threw him into jail. In other words, typical world’s perspective is no forgiveness. Matter of fact, instead of perfecting the relationships, we allow the world to dictate perfection to us.

And the Lord came to him and said, you give evidence of not being a Christian. You’re not in my family, you’re not in my kingdom, there’s no love in you. The point of this guys, it’s a very simple point. The world is not forgiving. Self assessment time. The world bases its responses on conditions. You pay up and I’ll tolerate you. The world is self seeking. The Christian is the opposite. That’s what we want you to see here. Now look at Ephesians 5 verses, verses 3 and 4 specifically. But fornication and all uncleanness and our covetousness, let it not be once named among you as become a saint.

Neither filthiness or foolish thinking, or jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. If God’s love and the love of God’s children is self sacrificing for forgiving and unconditional, then he be sure that Satan will pervert that and the love of the world will be selfish, self centered, unforgiving and conditioned on what it gains, not what it gives. That’s the point. That’s the reason why Christ says do not love this world. Do not associate with this world. And if you do, you’ve opened that legal door to sin because it is the complete opposite of what I give you.

So when the world says love, it isn’t using God’s definition. It means desire, self, pleasure, lust, now or I’m not denying that now and then there’s some self giving in it. Of course that now and then there’s some milk of human kindness, of course now and then there is some magnanimity in it. Now and then there’s some generosity in it. All of those things, yes. But there are times when love, human love, does not reach a higher level than at other times. But the basic commodity is self pleasure, self gaining and it is an conditional thing.

I never ceases to amaze me. Matter of fact, in my life. We’re getting a divorce because you don’t meet my needs anymore. Oh my gosh. Had I know today, what had I know then, what I know Today, different routes would have been taken. Well, who would ever said love was all about somebody meeting your needs. Love is about you meeting what somebody else’s need. Physical desire, personal gratification is a fickle dream. It’s an illusional bubble. And if you want to chase your whole life long to find the ultimate fantasy, you’ll wind up desperate, destitute and never having realized it.

Because we have a sense of always raising the bar when we get to that bar. What can I conquer next? The world says, I love you for what you do for me. It is shallow, selfish, sensual, sexual. Satan tries to sell this to the world and he does that through all the means of society. And it’s incredible to me that Christians fall into this trap self assessment. I think that’s what’s happening in all of churches today in the year of divorce and breaking up of marriage and infidelity and all of this kind of stuff. It’s based simply on this one particular principle.

Christian people will not walk in love as God defines it. They refuse it. Paul says, I’m not talking about the world’s law. Fornication, uncleanness, unconsciousness, that shouldn’t be once named among you, not one single time should that be heard of the word fornication. Well, you know the word, we’ve talked about it. It, it’s mentioned in its noun form at least 35 times in the New Testament. It’s got to be a really big problem. Well, yeah, it was what started this host body system in the garden. And so it started way back in time and it just grew to its complexity in today’s world.

Now when something is mentioned 35 times, it is a problem. And the word parnea means sex in and it means any kind. Okay. And the term in the Greek exchetra x. Practice this today. Egg cratea. Okay. E G K R A T E I A And that word means just over 3. These numbers are absolutely staggering, especially if you compare it to what black. So. And that word means discipline and self control. That’s its basic meaning. And it denotes the power of control that a person has over himself. It’s a good word. Socrates said it is one of the chief virtues.

So did Plato and so did Aristotle. The word was self control, self discipline. By the way, it is. It’s used 10 times in the New Testament. It always means self control, sometimes translated temperance, but meaning the same thing. But here’s where its real significance. The ancient Greeks used it to refer to sexual self control. Sexual self control. They said it is the ability to transcend one’s passions, to transcend one’s desires sexually. Now in the New Testament it is used in that way also. Acts, chapter 24, verse 25. And Paul here is talking about what? He’s talking to Felix.

And as he reasoned, he’s talking to Felix. He talked to him. And watch this one. This is very powerful about righteousness, self control and judgment to come. Now you say, well, that’s a pre general message. A little righteousness, a little self control, a little judgment to come. No, that’s not what Paul was saying. Do you know what he was doing? Felix married Drusilla in an adulterous relationship. And here is Paul in front of Felix and this powerful man. And he says to him, I’d like to give you a sermon, Felix. In other words, you’re going to listen to me.

It has to do with righteousness as opposed to lack of self control, sexual self control, which leads to the judgment of God. So he said, listen, what he was doing was nailing Felix to the wall on his own relationship to his wife. This wasn’t any generalized message. By the way, he was saying, felix, you’re a living illustration of God’s righteousness violated by a failure to have sexual self control which ends in judgment. In 1 Corinthians, chapter 7, the word is used again. And there it is used in reference to marriage where the apostle Paul is teaching.

And he says, if they cannot have self control, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn. I was talking about burning in sin. And it means sexual self control. If you have a problem with that, Paul says, get married. Don’t try to say I have the gift of singleness, but it sure is different and difficult because I have this tremendous desire for marriage. Now if you have that desire and you do not have self control, sexual self control, then you’re better to be married than not. Now, the Greek said that that word had an opposite, and the opposite was pornia.

And so now you can see by the opposite what it means. A lack of sexual control. That’s pornia. It is an antonym of the Greek word. It is a behavior out of control. It is undisciplined, it is beyond the limits that God has set. And by the way, it means bestiality, homosexual. It is used to speak of pedophilia, which is sex with children, child molestation and any kind of unchastity, prostitution, harlotry, anything comes under that term. Any lack of sexual self control is called paria. That’s a Greek Word which means to write para and graphe is pornographic.

It’s pornography. To write about sex is sin. That’s where the word comes from. There’s no place for this in our life. He says this shouldn’t be once named among you, not one time. You remember. If you were here in some of the studies going back in the marriage and stuff, you would know that. The apostle Paul says there’s no place for in this life, none at all, dealing with sexual sin. Because he said such were some of you before you were converted, you were saved, you used to be like that. This is in the past. But since you’ve come to Jesus Christ, that’s all gone.

Why? Because he gave you a new nature. He gave you a new, you became a new creature. That’s all in the past. There is absolutely no place for that. And if you recall, reason why Paul wrote the letters to Corinthians is because they were throwing up all kinds of stupid arguments about the fact, well, meat for our, for the body and the body for meat. Stupidity. I mean, it’s only biological. Just like eating. That’s what they were saying. It’s our life, it’s a way of life, it’s a nature. And after all, it’s just a biological thing.

And the apostle Paul says this, it isn’t biological at all. Want you to hear what I’m saying. Don’t you know your body is a member of Christ? And when you join yourself to harlot, you join Christ to a heart. Remember? Soul time. And by the way, a harlot is anybody who has sex outside of marriage. And when you do that, it’s not just a biological thing. You’re taught taking Jesus Christ, with whom you are one, and you’re joining Jesus Christ to a harlot. So soul tie, it’s not just biological. If you’re living in any kind of perversion of love, you’re a bright on the church.

And in First Corinthians, chapter 5, Paul writes, It’s reported commonly there is fornication among you. And he says instead of being stricken about it, instead of being mournful and broken about it, you’re all puffed up, you’re proud of yourself and you have not mourned, you have not asked for forgiveness, you’ve not got to the point in your life to understand that that was sin. And he says, your glory is not good. And he says to the church, grant. And you put that person out of the church. Oh guys, you hear what I’m saying? People need to be Removed from your circle.

If they are doing these things, you should not counsel them, you should not protect them, you should not associate with them. Don’t let that leaven destroy the lump. As scripture would say. He says, if you find a fornicator in the church and I write it, I write unto you not to company with a fornicator. If he calls himself a brother and he’s a fornicator or covis or an idol, idol alert or. Or a railer or drunken or extortioner, don’t even eat a meal with him. That’s what Paul tells the church. You need to be removed from the church if you live that way.

To say nothing of the fact that you’re definitely not walking as a child of God. In 2nd Peter 2. In 2nd Peter 2 he calls people that do that scabs and filth spots on the assembly. Satan will always introduce a counterfeit. I want to end. There’s more that’s going to be in the Bible study on this than what we’re going to go over. Because I had pages. Two points. Nothing will. Nothing you ever do in your life will teach you unselfishness like giving thanks. You spend all day giving thanks and you’ll step right outside of yourself.

Because thanks has to be offered to God. Don’t be self centered is what he’s saying. Give thanks. Give thanks. Give thanks. Expose your love to God. Express your love to God. Express your love to others. Let your life be characterized by saying thanks. And I believe you can go even from God here to those around you. Instead of wanting everything from everybody, instead of wanting to take, why don’t you love in a way that says thanks? Thanks for what you mean. Thanks for what you are. Thanks for what you allow me to give you. Just be a thankful and selfish person instead of selfish.

God’s love is unselfish and thankful. And the world’s love is thankless and selfless. And with that, we’re going to end tonight. Comments, thoughts, impressions, questions? All right, let’s pray. Oh, go ahead. Somebody was saying something different. No, I just. It was very good tonight. I mean, there’s a lot going on in our world that, that we don’t need to be part of. So. And we always look up spiritually. So that’s. I, I just. That was just a comment. So no, thanks. Anybody else? I have a question. In reference to soul tie, does that only refer to a man and woman in marriage? Or could it.

Does it apply to, for instance, a, say, a daughter in law or son in law? Because of the connection of the GR of the grandchild soul. Tide, by definition, is the imprinting process that is attached to your individual soul by enjoining yourself with another soul to the act of sex. I’m sorry, what you just say through the act of sex. Oh, okay. So if you. If you were actively a sexual person as teenage and young adult years, every person you slept with, you now sleep with over and over and over and over again. And not only do you do that, but your partner does the same.

Right. So whatever. Nature. Why is this important? Because it’s the nature of that soul tie that causes a nature to be disruptive that Christ gives you. That nature of that individual that you have slept with becomes part of your nature and the nature of your partner because you slept with it. Okay, so. So if you know your partner had, I mean, didn’t know that, you know, before you were married, then you’re sleeping with everybody that they slept with, then that imprints on you. They’re. They’re all. There’s the sin nature of the people that they slept with you now sleeping with.

And your soul is now tied to their nature. Oh, wow. So how do you do. You can’t. You can’t. This is a condition that was set up in this biological realm as a punishment for not observing the. The ritual, the. That God set up as the church marriage. Okay, yeah, I get that. Yeah. This is the judgment on that activity. Well, that I guess. Oh, I guess that’s why it’s important that to. For the children that are getting. Bringing up. I mean, like you said, the two generations that are gone. I mean, if you look at everything right now, I mean, what’s going on, guys? There’s girls at 8 years old in school that are more sexual active than I know of people in my teenage years.

Wow. And it’s because of the cell phones, the. All the stuff. Well, I mean, wait, I shouldn’t say that, but let’s don’t put it on. Let’s don’t put it on our object. It’s the problem is the parents. Yeah. That’s where the problem lies. Right? Yeah. Wow. CD you go through the process of forgiveness, but you don’t go through the process of undoing a soul tie. God will forgive you for your sin, but he’s not going to unsoai your past. Well, that’s upsetting because I thought that when we went through that process of healing, that. That broke that soul tie.

No, that soul tie is soul tie. That’s. Your soul is tied to your Past, whatever you created in your past, your soul is tied to that. But he forgives you. But it’s. That soul tie still exists. So that’s really upsetting to me because when I was a teenager and I had a long term relationship that was obviously sinful, I ended that relationship because I found out my sister was having sex with him. Oh, well, that’s, I mean, that’s just how it is. So that’s like ev. I mean, my husband and I love each other very much, but I don’t want to be going through that kind of weird soul tie when, when we’re in communion with each other.

Well, you just have to understand this. The, the choices you made in your, in the previous life, the sins are forgiven, but the judgment for those sins, you’re going to be judged. This is the judgment for sexual, you know, outside of marriage. So this is why we pray for the others as well as ourselves in that. Yes. This is the reason why marriage, in the process of marriage, as I was talking to some people a couple weeks ago, this is why that process is so important before you get married. Because you should understand all about this stuff before you get married.

Because all of the people that your potential spouse is bringing to the table is a nature that is going to impact what your soul. And you don’t want th. Those evil natures to have a legal door into your life. Any other points? Well, what about the children that have been molested? And I mean, what, how does that tie in? Same thing. It doesn’t matter the cause. Okay, okay. It’s the action. Okay, I got it. So as you close your legal doors through the process of sanctification, you may have that tie and there may be an influence.

But I’m guessing that because of the elevation into the spiritual life, that, that that may have less of an impact. Is that so? The more you align with the Holy Spirit and he takes control of your life, the less and less you’re going to be likely to sin. The more and more, the more and more righteous you become. But that does not remove that judgment. It just says you’re now closer in nature to Christ than you were at the time deeded the deed. Look at David. David lusted over Bathsheba, soul tied Bathsheba. And then he wanted to go what the nature of that relationship wanted him to do what Murder.

All through the Old Testament, you have this as examples, okay. Of how lives were affected. When they. Look at Israel. Oh my gosh, look at Israel. How many people did God kill for doing this? Same Thing in the nation of Israel. Just go take the Old Testament and start going through it. Yeah. Wash clean. What do you wash clean? Your sins. Your sins. It doesn’t say. It makes you healthy. Okay. Healing comes by the Holy Spirit inside of you. Of a physical problem. This is a spiritual problem. There, Macers. Good conversation. Something we all have to think about all the time.

Don’t dwell on it. Understand that that’s what is there. Go get sanctified. Live closer to Christ. This shouldn’t be something that you. It’s happened, it’s judged. Now get closer to God. Let the Holy Spirit rule your life. Any other point? Sure. All right, let’s pray. Father, thank you for this evening. Thank you for working through me on a very, very difficult subject, especially since it applies to me. But God, just. Just continue to hover over us. Teach us. Continue to open our hearts and mind to your tr. Okay. Give us the peace and an understanding of the fact that the.

This body, this physical body is of the devil. And what we need to be concerned about is our spiritual walk with you. Things that we may have done, we may not have done. Things that have happened or have not happened in this physical form. As scripture says, they were all controlled by you for the glory of you, good and bad. The outcome of this physical life only is impacted when we allow this physical life to control our spiritual journey. Give us the wisdom and knowledge to seek your truth, to grow the seed of salvation as scripture says, to be sanctified in you.

In that process, we allow you to control us and changes will be made to our life, our spiritual life and this physical life. Father, work with us on manifesting the blessings because all. They’re there for us. They’re in our store. There’s no issue in getting them. The only issue is how to manifest them. Work with us in a knowledge set that gives us the understanding of that process so that we may achieve those blessings on earth as you’ve already provided to us before the foundation of the world. Father, we. We have special prayers for people that are in.

In particular needs. Tonight. Will recovering from a heart attack. Deborah Paparo. Bobby. We can go on and on and on, but Father, you know each one of those needs and you know the strength that is needed and you know the actual fortitude of managing the process that you’ve laid out for us to do in order to receive your healthy blessing. Father, be with us the rest of the week. Father, watch over this group while we’re going to be on vacation. Please just ask you to open their hearts to ministry that will give them the truth while we’re gone.

And we ask that basically you continue continually to touch us, to love us, never give up on us. We’re flawed and we. We want nothing more than to seek not only your love, but the truth. Father, thank you for forgiveness of sin. Thank you for putting yourself as your sonship on that cross. Because without that, none of this would be happening today. Look over us. Give us peace. Ask all these things in your sins now.
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