Rusty Cars and Lustful Lives

One problem I didn’t anticipate facing when I moved north was rust. I have now discovered that harsh weather, snow and slush, salt and chemicals, and road grime take their toll on automobiles. This means that part of my regular car maintenance is rust-proofing.

Nicks and chips must be painted. The undercarriage of the car needs to be washed regularly, and other corrosion-prevention measures must be taken. The fact is, the only way to drive a rust-free car in the slushy north is to pursue car protection with intention and discipline.

The same could be said about living a lust-free life in our sex-saturated culture. Paul’s Ephesian readers lived in such a society. Ephesus was the home of the fertility cult which worshiped Diana (or Artemis), the multi-breasted goddess of fertility. Some scholars believe that part of worshiping Artemis actually involved sexual orgies and copulating with temple prostitutes.

Even outside of the fertility cults, sexual ethics were very low in the ancient world. While there were fairly high expectations for women, men regularly engaged in extramarital sex, which was socially acceptable.

Demosthenes wrote, “Mistresses we keep for the sake of pleasure, concubines for the daily care of our persons, but wives to bear us legitimate children and to be faithful guardians of our households.”^[1]

Ephesus was not much different from America today. According to the Barna Research Group:

• 60% of Americans believe that cohabitation is morally acceptable;

• 59% believe that sexual fantasies are morally acceptable;

• 42% believe having a sexual relationship with someone of the opposite sex other than their spouse is okay; and

• about one-third of the population gave the stamp of approval to pornography (38%) . . . and homosexual sex (30%).^[2]

Other research shows that more than 25 million people visit porn sites every week, and one out of every ten websites is dedicated to explicit sex.^[3]

Putting all those things aside, our society is still saturated with sex. With Victoria’s Secret, Cosmopolitan, beer commercials, sitcom television, and immodest dress standards, we are barraged daily with sexual images and temptations.

And it eats away at the human heart. The following poem, written by a young college student, expresses well the deadly allure of sexual temptation:

Just what kind of secret is Victoria trying to keep?
What blushing mystery pauses before the pursed lips
of the mannequin in the window?
Whatever it is, or whoever that plastic she is,
I’ve shuffled to a stop hoping no one spies my lingering.
We’ve all done it. Men that is.
I’m not the first to be fascinated by the accoutrements
of feminine mystique, which are many things, but not secretive.
Panties, bras, frills, straps,
and lace brandish a secret badly kept.
A message plain as an eye-shadowed wink.
Suddenly I get the message.
A purr from behind the window. Hooks in its finger,
peeling blushes off my skin, revealing bleeding secrets beneath.^[4]

In the midst of Paul’s society and ours, the powerful words of Ephesians 5:1-6 provide instruction and motivation for living a lust-free life. Paul addresses two realms where our lives must be lust-free and two reasons to pursue lust-free lives.

Realms of the Lust-free Life (Eph. 5:3-4)

Notice first of all the two realms where Paul commands us to live lust-free lives: our conduct and our conversation.

1.      Our conduct (v. 3)

Verse 3: “Sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you.”

The first phrase, sexual immorality, comes from the word porneia, from which we get the word pornography. Porneia refers to sexual immorality of any kind, but specifically to sexual relations outside of marriage, including adultery and fornication.

The word impurity means that which is physically or morally unclean. Jesus used it to describe the defiling uncleanness of a decaying body (Matt. 23:27). In an ethical context, the word can refer to any sexual impurity, as in Romans 1:24 where Paul uses this word to refer to homosexual behavior.

The word covetousness or greed could refer to any form of covetous or greedy desire, but it probably refers to sexual coveting—the insatiable lust to use another person’s body for oneself.

Paul is telling us that illicit, premarital sex, all forms of impurity (including homosexuality), and the sexual greed which gives rise to such sins “must not even be named among [us].” The NIV reads, “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.” Not even a hint!

A couple of years ago we noticed a faint smell of gas in our house, so I called our gas company. They sent a man who checked everywhere and often referred to the company’s “zero tolerance” policy: If there is any gas leak, they shut things down.

By the time he left, I had a list of four needed repairs, including a new cooktop, because every valve was leaking. They weren’t leaking much, but we could not have even a hint of gas in the house.

In the same way, the Lord wants us to ruthlessly remove the tiniest traces of sexual sin from our lives. Not even a hint should remain!

2.      Our conversation (v. 4)

Verse 4: “Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.”

The first word, filthiness or obscenity, “appears rarely in the classical period where it means ‘ugliness, deformity.’”^[5] It refers to that which is “shameful, disgraceful, base”^[6] in either conduct or speech. Foolish talk comes from the word morologia, which literally means “moronic speech” or the words of a moron.

Crude joking comes from another word, used only here in the New Testament. It literally means “well-turned,” and in classical Greek it refers to witty repartee or the well-turned phrase or the clever pun.

Paul uses it in its negative sense in reference to coarse, debased humor, or what Kent Hughes calls “sleazy repartee.”^[7] Double entendres, sexual innuendos, suggestive humor—just think of the ribald and sleazy humor of the late night talk show host, and you’ll get the idea.

Such sexually slanted conversation should not characterize our lives, because it slowly desensitizes our spirits and defiles our souls. I can testify to this. My first year out of high school, I worked for someone who turned everything into a sexual joke. I remember that my hearing and sometimes participating in such talk had a dulling effect on me.

What should characterize our speech is not filthiness, foolish talk, and crude joking, then, but rather thanksgiving. Why does Paul bring up thanksgiving in a talk about sexual ethics?

Two reasons: First, this is how we should use our mouths; second, sex is a good gift from our good God. We should not drag sex down with dirty humor but lift it up in thankful worship.

Reasons for a Lust-free Life (Eph. 5:1-3, 5-6)

Paul gives two reasons for living a lust-free life.

1.      Their destiny (vv. 5-6)

First, Paul describes the destiny of those who live in sexual sin.

Their destiny will not be God’s kingdom.

Verse 5: “For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous [that is, an idolater], has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.”

As believers, our destiny is to inherit the fullness of God’s kingdom, of which we are a part. Having already referred to our inheritance in Ephesians 1:14, 18, Paul is now saying, “Since this is true of you, do not live this way!”

If we live in sexual sin, we will not inherit that kingdom. This is just another way of saying that if we continue to live in sexual sin without repentance, we are not Christians, no matter what we may confess with our lips.

Their destiny will be God’s wrath.

Verse 6: “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.” 

Empty words are words “void of content or without truth,”^[8] deceptive words, false words. Perhaps these were the words of false teachers denying the reality of God’s judgment on sin.

Most likely, Paul was referring to the common beliefs of the unbelieving pagans (“the sons of disobedience”) who would have scoffed at Paul’s sexual ethics. Paul assures his readers that those who live lust-dominated lives are on a collision course with God’s wrath.

The verb tense could indicate either present or future wrath, and it is probable that both are intended. God’s wrath is presently revealed (cf. Rom. 1:18), in that sexual sin results in death and destruction because it distorts God’s good creation.

Divorce, STDs, AIDS, abortion, pornography, rape, incest, and child abuse are some of the pain and suffering from, and judgment for, sexual sin.

Yet that is not to deny the future reality of even more severe wrath (cf. Rom. 2:5). There is coming a day when God’s wrath will be unleashed once and for all in judgment on all sexual sin; and since this is not the destiny of God’s people, we should not live in such sin.

2.      Our identity (vv. 1-3)

It strikes me as wonderfully gracious of God to couch these commands about sexual sin in so much gospel. This is evident in the gospel-defined words with which Paul identifies us.

We are saints.

Verse 3: “But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.”

An amazing assumption here reaches all the way back to this letter’s first verse. The assumption is that the Ephesian believers are already saints. The word saints, of course, means “holy ones” or “holy people.”

Saint is not a word designated only for deceased and canonized Christians—Saint Paul, Saint Peter, Saint Augustine—as if all believers now living are not yet saints. Nor is it a word for “super Christians” or the ones who seem to have it all together.

If you are a believer, you are a saint! You are still a sinner, but you are also a saint because of your identity in Christ and because of His Spirit’s work in you.

We are God’s sons and daughters.

Verses 1-2: “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

The same basic principle (in different words) is there as Paul tells us to imitate God as His dearly loved children. Because you are God’s son or daughter and because God loves you, imitate Him and live in love!

In effect, Paul is saying, “You are saints and you are sons, so don’t live in the slavery of sexual sin. Live as the holy people and loved children that you are!”

These two truths are the most powerful motivations I know of for pursuing purity. They are also more fundamental to fighting sexual temptation than any list of practical, helpful strategies I could give.

The reason they are more fundamental is that they are rooted in the gospel. If our fight is not rooted in the gospel, it is mere moralism; and moralism without Jesus leads to death.

In his book Slaying the Giants in Your Life, David Jeremiah tells about a nuclear submarine called the Thresher, which

went too deep into the sea and collapsed under the weight of the water. The sub was crushed into such tiny bits in the ensuing implosion that almost nothing could be later identified. You see, a sub needs thick steel bulkheads to withstand the pressure of the water as it dives. But there are few walls we can build to withstand the pressure of the deepest oceans; even steel gives way, as the crew of the Thresher tragically discovered.

But he further describes something else, in interesting contrast to the submarine:

And yet isn’t it interesting that, in those same deep waters where that steel submarine had been crushed, little fish swim without a care in the world? What is their secret? Why aren’t they crushed? Are they made of some new indestructible iron? No, they possess only the thinnest layer of skin, measured in micrometers. The little fish, it seems, have an internal pressure that perfectly corresponds to the pressure from the outside. God gave them what they need to swim in the deep places.”^[9]

Without the gospel, all of our strategies to fight for purity have no more strength than a submarine’s steel against the deep waters’ pressures. But if we are gripped by the truth that we are saints and we are sons, then something deep within our hearts will empower us to say “NO!” when sexual sin knocks on our door.

 

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