Awake Sleeper and Rise from the Dead

In one paragraph

This message continued the series through Ephesians, picking up a slide the pastor had skipped the week before and working through a dense paragraph covering corrupting speech, sexual immorality, impurity, greed, and what it means to walk as children of light. The thread running through all of it was the gap between what Christians have been made in Christ and how that identity should show up in...

Read together

1. Ephesians 4:29 the corrupting talk verse read aloud: let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth but only that such as is good for building up
2. Ephesians 5:1-2 be imitators of God as dearly beloved children, walking in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us
3. Ephesians 5:3 sexual immorality, impurity, or greed must not even be named among you as is proper among the saints
4. Ephesians 5:4 no filthiness, foolish talk, or vulgar joking, which are not fitting, but rather giving thanks
5. Ephesians 5:5 you know with certainty that no sexually immoral or impure or greedy person has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God
6. Ephesians 5:6 see that no one deceives you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience
7. Ephesians 5:7-8 do not become partners with them, for you once were darkness but now you are light in the Lord
8. Ephesians 5:9 the fruit of light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth
9. Ephesians 5:10 try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord
10. Ephesians 5:11-13 do not participate in the useless deeds of darkness but expose them, for all things become visible when exposed by the light
11. Ephesians 5:14 awake sleeper and arise from the dead and Christ will shine upon you, quoted with uncertainty about its Old Testament source
12. Matthew 11:28 come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest
13. Psalm 90:12 teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom, quoted in the opening prayer

Talk about it

1. The pastor said this paragraph would convict everyone in the room, and that if it does not, we are probably wishing someone else were here to hear it. When you heard this passage, who did you think of first, and what does that tell you about yourself?
2. The sermon worked through a long New Testament list of vices and noted that corrupting speech shows up on that list more times than sexual immorality does. Does that surprise you, and why do you think we tend to treat those two categories so differently?
3. The pastor described greed and covetousness as things the church does not mention very often, even though they appear right alongside sexual immorality in this passage. Why do you think that is, and where do you see greed show up in your own life?
4. The sermon drew a distinction between identifying as a sinner and identifying as a saint, and said that insisting on the sin as your identity means resisting movement toward Christ. How do you personally hold those two things together, and does the label you use for yourself affect the way you actually live?
5. The pastor said that as he tried to learn what is pleasing to the Lord, he wants his opinion to bend to what Scripture says rather than bending Scripture to fit his opinion. Where in your own life is that the hardest to do, and what makes it difficult?