The Christian and the Cookie Jar
December 02, 2006
Pastor Matt Black
Men’s Prayer Breakfast
Ephesians 5:1-7
Open your Bible to Ephesians 5. The title of tonight’s message is “The Christian and the Cookie Jar”. We are looking at verses 1-7, “Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; 2 And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. 3 ¶ But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints; 4 Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks. 5 For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 6 Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. 7 Be not ye therefore partakers with them. 8 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:.”
Introduction: The first words of Jesus’ ministry that we hear are those in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 1 and verse 14. We read, “Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, 15 And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.” This passage is really an exposition of that word “repent”. The teaching of this morning’s study is that we as Christians need to live that life of repentance. In other words, we need to be living holy, Word-filled, Christ-focused, God-saturated, Spirit-filled lives. Our lives are marked with that great biblical motto “Holiness unto the LORD”.
The three great areas of temptation for men are the three S’s: Status, Seeking of riches, and Sensuality. The greatest of this unholy trinity is sensuality, and that is what we are going to cover today.
As I trained for the mission field and traveled to hundreds of churches, I met many fellow missionaries and became friends with several of them. I can remember how exhilarating it was to finally arrive on the field and being the work of evangelism and church planting. I will never forget early on a communication I received concerning one of my dear fellow missionary friends. He had not been on the field that long, but he was all the sudden going back home. He was out of the ministry. Finished. He had become impure.
Tragically, this was neither the first nor the last such incident. I have seen this play out in the church over the years, from the new believer to the well respected men in the congregation. I have seen families, wives, children, and churches devastated over the raging sensuality that has been left unchecked in the lives of even the most prominent of believers. What immense human suffering has come to God’s people because of lust, impurity, and sensuality! And what a tragic irony, because Christianity has by far the most exalted view of chastity of any religion! Other religions make moral demands for chaste conduct and remaining faithful to the wife of your youth, but our Lord not only requires absolute chastity and purity outside of marriage, but He forcefully demands a chaste thought life. He tells us in Matthew 5:27, “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: 28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” None of the other world religions—whether Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, or any other—have such profound demand for purity. Yet the Church of Christ of the last fifty years has been so often racked with repeated scandal, adultery, divorce, and immorality. Why is this so?
Cookie Jar Illustration: Part of the answer is what I am calling the “cookie jar syndrome”. Let me illustrate it. A little boy’s mother had just baked a fresh batch of cookies and placed them in the cookie jar, giving instructions that no one touch them until after dinner. But it was not long until she heard the lid of the jar move, and she called out, ‘Son, what are you doing?’ To which a meek voice called back ‘My hand is in the cookie jar resisting temptation!’ Brethren, the fact of the matter is, no one can resist temptation with his hand in the cookie jar.
You see Christ tells us in the verses we just read that the greatest temptation for a man is lust, impurity, and sensuality. He warns us that if we look at a woman with lust, we are fornicators, whoremongers, and adulterers. Remember if this is the practice of your life, you have no hope of heaven. “All…whoremongers…shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death” (Revelation 21:8). Jesus said that dwellers in His kingdom not only will not commit adultery, but they will not even have impurity or lust in their hearts. It is in this context that He presents another principle. We read in verses 29 and following the principle of radical amputation. Look again at Matthew 5:27-30, “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: 28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” And here in verse 29 is the principle of radical amputation, “And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. 30 And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.”
In other words, you not only should not have your hand in the cookie jar “resisting temptation”, but you should break the cookie jar!
There are cookie jars all around us. The most obvious cookie jar of our culture is the television. There is a television in almost every home in America. Hook Cablevision up to it and you have our proverbial a cookie jar on steroids. Turn the television off, and you the goodies are present in an open magazine, on the Internet, or across a billboard. Men, sensuality and immoral passions sell, and our culture is inebriated and intoxicated with it. There are also living cookie jars everywhere, inviting passersby to taste of their wares. It would be so easy…but when those delights are removed from the jar, their sweetness turns to rot, and the decay and disease is caught by the hand that touched them. Dear brethren, lust, impurity, and unchasteness is the gangrene of the soul! How can we keep our hand out of the cookie jar? We may need to break the cookie jar. We need to use the principle of radical amputation.
Keeping our lives pure is a constant challenge for all of us here, and we are going to jump into basic training in the war against lust in verses 3 through 7 of Ephesians 5.
Bear in mind that these verses were addressed to Christians who had come to Christ while living in the notoriously sinful port city of Ephesus. In that wicked metropolis the dominant religion was the worship of the goddess of sensuality, Diana, and ritual prostitution was a way of life. In fact, sexual immorality and even perversion was not only culturally accepted, but it was looked at as even an exalted way of living.
Friends, we are living in a 21st century Ephesus. My goal this morning is to have each of us make a commitment to moral purity as men. If you are married, you are to be faithful in thought, word, and deed to the wife of your youth, and to her alone!
1. Principle number 1: Children of light will cut off impurity from their walk and talk.
So how can we “cut off the hand” of impure thoughts and deeds? Look at verses 3-4. Paul says, “But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints; 4 Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks.”
WALK:
We need to define the three prohibitions in verse 3:
Ø Fornication: sexual immorality
Ø Uncleaness: any kind of sexual impurity (crossing the line)
Ø Covetousness: Insatiable impure desire (beyond crossing the line)
You have to be so careful with the sin of lust. We must not even have a hint of it among us! We must not enter into the fulfilling of it in our minds or in our bodies. Marital passion is good and holy. The marriage bed is undefiled, but it is reserved for marriage. It is a picture of our union with Christ. It is a picture of Christ and the church. We must not defile it!
It is important, that we heed the words, “let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints”. It is important that we don’t turn a testimony of our past lives into a bragging on sin! We shouldn’t even want to name it! We should be utterly ashamed of it! Especially this kind of sin!
The television is filled with juicy morsels of sensuality. We read the paper and watch the television and read about the latest pervert. We keep up with every immoral nugget in the lives of the stars and famous people. We have a generation of Christians that are hooked on CSI and Extreme Makeover, and Reality TV that always glamourizes lust and sensuality. These are the cookie jars we need to avoid!
The Internet is another trap for sensuality. Everything is “on demand”. You can google something and you don’t know where you will end up.
The answer is accountability. If you are married you need to speak to your wife. If you are single, you need accountability with another brother. You need to get help right away. Don’t wait! We must not have a hint of it named among us!
Then Paul deals with talk. Look at verse 4, “Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks.
TALK:
Ø Filthiness: oral filth
Ø Foolish talking: morologia—moronic talk. Remember Proverbs 15:2, “The tongue of the wise useth knowledge aright: but the mouth of fools poureth out foolishness.” People who use this kind of talk want to draw attention to themselves. It is empty and vain and does not reverence the other person or God. God and others are used at the expense of stupidity.
Ø Jesting: Coarse Joking. This is joking that sometimes can have a double meaning. It is very witty and funny talk, but it is dirty—there is an under element of sleaze in it. People who use this kind of talk want to draw attention to themselves also.
Mark 7:20ff, “That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. 21 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, 22 Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: 23 All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.
2. Principle number 2: Children of lust will indulge in impurity and go to hell. Look at verse “5 For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 6 Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. 7 Be not ye therefore partakers with them. 8 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:.”
If you are not able to cut impurity off from your life, you reveal that you have an uncircumcised heart. You are not a believer, but instead, you are a “child of disobedience.” If you are outside of Christ, no matter how much theological knowledge you have, you are what Paul says shockingly in verse 8: you are “darkness” itself. If you are not a child of light, you are the incarnation of darkness. I does not matter what theological persuasion you are—how conservative you are—how much theological knowledge you have—how active you are in the church. No impure person will enter into heaven.
Hebrews 12:14 Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:
No unrepentant sensualist has eternal life. No matter what prayer you’ve prayed!
Do Christians fall into these sins? Yes! Think of David. But with these sins in the Christian’s life there is real repentance.
Let’s close with Psalm 51.