Walk in the Love of Christ

"I want to start out with a question: what are the two main things our culture says we need to be happy? As far as society, the way people in our culture and the media think, what are the two main things that it says that we need to be happy?

The first one is money and material resources. Wealth is one. That you can't be happy without those kinds of things. And I would say the second one is relationships and sexual relationships. If we listen closely, that's what our culture says. And if we're honest, we can agree that these two areas, the way our society thinks about them are broken in many ways.

We can see there are a lot of broken things in our culture. There's much trouble and conflict around money. Money destroys families. Money destroys organizations. And the love of money and that kind of thing. And there's so much pain and so much heartache and so much devastation around relationships and around sexual relationships as well.

Many are living this. Many of you have lived this. And many of you are living this now as well. So why is this? Well, there are a lot of reasons. I think both these issues have massive amounts of destruction in their wake. Why is this? Well, Proverbs 14 verse 12 answers the question in a very, very general way.

      So there is a way that seems right to a man or to a woman, but its end is the way of death.

Now the writer of Proverbs was very wise in that way. He says there's a way that seems right to us. There are ways that seem like good ways, but those ways end in death, it says.

The cultural way of thinking to many people seems good. Seems right. And we should do it this way. And our question this morning is, is it good? Is it right? Is it this way?

If you've been with us, you know we've been working through the book of Ephesians. It starts in the first three chapters by explaining the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel of grace and the life and the death of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and invites us to trust in him. And it goes from there in chapter four to showing how a relationship with Jesus Christ affects our lives.

There is such a thing as a Christian life. A Christian life is meant to be different than a regular life in the world. We've seen that in several ways. Today we'll be called to walk in love and see how these massive issues of money and sex, see how they are affected by a life of love. And the point is this, and our primary claim is walking in Jesus' love transforms the way we think, the way we speak, and the way we act in regards to sex and money. The world needs a better and less destructive way to think about and to handle these issues.

We in the church have been affected by these and we need a better way to deal with these areas of life as well. So our passage deals head on with these difficult issues and calls us to consider what is a life of genuine love."

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