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Jun 27, 2023
Ephesians 5:1-20
NO MORE DARKNESS
Paul continues to help the Ephesian believers understand how God’s extravagance pours into their lives and through their lives. Last week it was about leaving old habits (lying, stealing, and potty mouth language) and learning new habits (telling the truth, sharing their stuff, and using words to build up). There’s more of that this week as Paul unpacks the beauty of living a life of love (spoiler alert, he has some things to say about sex, debauchery, and getting drunk!).
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Ephesians 5:1-20
- Do you know of a family where the children seemed especially ‘loved’? What was it that made them feel loved, and how did they respond to that healthy affection? Do your group members experience themselves as dearly loved children of the Living God?
- Paul begins to explain ‘living a life of love’ by talking about sex! Why is sex important? Isn’t it just like other bodily desires, like the need for food and sleep?
- v. 10 tells us to ‘find out what pleases the LORD.’ What have you found pleases the LORD?
- v. 16 tells us to ‘make the most of every opportunity.’ What does that mean, and how does that play out for your group these days?
- Several verses in our passage speak about songs, singing, and making music. How important is music to you? How can you ‘turn up the volume’ of worship in your life?
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Recent Sermons
Paul never recovered from God including the Gentiles in the salvation invitation.
Like some of us, perhaps, he felt like some people should be excluded by virtue of where they were born or how badly they have behaved.
More than included, Paul instructs that former ‘outsiders’ should be treated as precious insiders, treated even better than we would treat ourselves. What would it look like if love came to town?
Human beings need reminders about how to get along, and Christians are no exception. We especially need reminders about how to love each other while we disagree. Paul draws the believers' hearts and minds back to what Jesus has done, and that paves the way for loving each other well through conflict.
How do we live with Jesus in a society that opposes him? Paul tells us to wake up to our resurrection hope. When we do that, loving others and rejecting sin in our own lives makes sense.
Romans 12 is the description of what happens when God’s mercy overflows in a church’s life. Lifelong attitudes change, love becomes genuine, mocking enemies are not met with equal and opposite force but, quite the opposite, with peace and gentleness. Be praying even now for how God will speak uniquely to your small group.
All along, we’ve been saying that God’s heart is to see us INCLUDED. That’s why Jesus came, and that’s the subject of Paul’s letter to the Romans. At times, Christians forget God’s radical inclusion of them and go back to the old patterns of competing and comparing. Sadly, that was happening in the Roman Church. Paul has one powerful dose for that sickness.
The resurrection changed everything! The story includes an invitation, a blessing, and a commission for the first witnesses … and for us today.
