Six Don'ts and One Do

In one paragraph

Pastor Mark opened Ephesians 5:3-16 by noting it hits everyone where they actually live, and he worked through it honestly rather than around it. The passage sits inside a larger section of Ephesians that began at 4:17 and runs nearly to the end of the letter. The positive commands that lead it, be imitating God and be walking in love as Christ loved us, set the tone for everything that follows....

Read together

1. Ephesians 5:1-2 opening command to be imitators of God and walk in love as Christ loved us
2. Ephesians 5:3-16 the main passage for the sermon covering six don'ts and one do
3. Ephesians 4:17 noted as the start of the section on applying theological truth through put off and put on
4. Ephesians 4:22-24 put off the old self and put on the new self created after the likeness of God
5. 1 Corinthians 7 because of temptation toward sexual immorality each man should have his own wife
6. Matthew 15:19 Jesus lists evil thoughts, murder, adultery, and sexual immorality as what comes out of the heart and defiles a person
7. John 8 Pharisees attack Jesus saying we were not born of sexual immorality, and Jesus replies they are of their father the devil
8. Romans 1:24-27 God gave them up into impurity and the dishonoring of their bodies, women and men exchanging natural relations
9. Ephesians 2:1-5 you were dead in trespasses and sin, following the prince of the power of the air, but God made us alive together with Christ by grace
10. Revelation 12:11 we overcome the enemy by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony

Talk about it

1. Pastor Ray described Christianity not as a list of dos and don'ts but said that when you are a believer in Jesus, there are things that are fitting and things that are not fitting. How do you personally experience that tension between grace and the call to live differently?
2. Pastor Ray argued that covetousness in this passage is not just about possessions but about chasing new experiences or gratification, and he contrasted it with gratitude for what you already have. Where do you see that cycle of temporary gratification and emptiness showing up in your own life?
3. Paul's one 'do' against six 'don'ts' is thanksgiving. Pastor Ray suggested that gratitude, rather than a stricter law, is what actually breaks the hold of these sins. Why do you think gratitude works that way, and what makes it hard to practice?
4. Pastor Ray read from Ephesians that 'at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord,' and connected it back to Ephesians 2. What difference does it make to your daily choices to think of yourself as light rather than someone just trying harder to avoid darkness?
5. The French cleric's prayer ends with God saying, 'It is not falling that is the worst, but it is staying on the ground.' How does that idea sit with you, and what makes it hard for people to get up and bring a hidden sin into the light?