here is a link to an audio version of this message preached at HopeWhangarei in October 2025.
When we lived in Onehunga I used to go for walks along the Taumanu
reserve on the Manukau harbor. That is the beach at the end of Onehunga that
was reclaimed with the dirt and rocks from the excavation of the Waterview
tunnels. It was a great place for doing bird photography.
One day I was walking along and saw what I thought was a
white-faced heron out on the mudflats. They are the common heron you get in New
Zealand. Except it didn’t move or walk like that heron. It’s behavior was
different. It was squatter and walked with its neck pulled in. When I looked
through my telephoto lens I realized it was a totally different bird. One I’d
never seen before.
I took a photo, went home and put it through a google image search and found out it was a Pacific Reef Heron. Its totally grey, has a thicker bill and neck and shorter green legs. While common in the tropics it is rare in New Zealand, with only between 300-500 birds. As it’s more at home in the tropics there is a larger population in Te tai Tokerau Northland. I’ve seen a few of them since we moved up here. This one was at Onerahi… Now! just because of their stance and movement the way they walk, I can spot them right away even from a distance, and differentiate them from a white faced heron even before I can see their coloring. They walk different.
We are working our way through Paul’s letter to the
Ephesians. The series is called ‘every spiritual blessing/new life in Christ’.
Paul spends the first half of his letter ( what we call chapters 1-3) talking
about the fact that we have received every spiritual blessing in Christ. We
have been chosen, adopted into God’s family, saved, filled with the Holy
spirit, we were dead but now we are alive in Christ. Made into a new people in
Christ from across societal divides, jew and gentile. He finishes that with a
prayer that the believers, that we, may know this reality more and more in our
lives.
Then the second half of the book focuses on how we are to
live that new life in Christ. Ethics following on from theology. You are this
therefore. He does it by talking about that being a new person in Christ, we
should walk like it, walk different. He uses walk as a metaphor for live. Just
like the Pacific Reef Heron was a different bird and walked in a different way
so we who are new creations in Christ, are to walk, to live differently. Not to
earn God’s favor but because we have been made new in Christ. He does that
five times... In 4:1 he says we are to ‘walk or live up to the calling we have
received… walk in unity. In 4:17 to no longer live as the gentiles live, no
longer walk in their ways. Billy and Cath talked about that over the last
couple of weeks. Then in the passage today in 5;2 Paul gives the alternative
way to walk or live… we are to walk in love. Then in 5:8 we have live or walk
as children of Light. And finally in Ephesians 5:15 to walk in wisdom.
In the passage we had read out to us today Paul explains
what it means to walk in love. He puts it in a positive way, like the track we
should be on. Then he explains that in a negative way by listing actions and
speech that are direct opposites to the way of love and should not part of our
Christian walk. Final he uses the idea of light and darkness to reinforce that and
I believe gives an enlightening process for us to deal with the darkness in our
lives. To change.
Firstly the positive.
Paul starts by exhorting us to imitate God. elsewhere in his
letters Paul will talk about becoming imitators of him and by that becoming
imitators of Christ. But its more challenging to think of imitating God. How
this idea is used elsewhere in scripture helps us to understand what Paul is
talking about. In our Old Testament reading from Leviticus 19, the people of
Israel are told to be Holy just as I the Lord am Holy. In Leviticus it acts as
the introduction to the retelling of the ten commandments with some other laws
around ritual cleanliness. It is a call to reflect God’s nature in how we treat
each other. In the Sermon on the mount Jesus commands u to love our enemies and
says in this we reflect the nature of our heavenly father, who makes the rain
to fall and the sun to shine on the righteous and unrighteous alike. We are to
walk in the ways that reflect God’s righteous nature.
Paul goes on to say that we do this as beloved children. In Roman society an adopted child was expected to reflect the character and values of the family and in particular of the father who had adopted them. So we who are adopted into God’s family are called to reflect the family likeness. I took the photo behind me at Taumanu reserve in 2018 and loved the way the son seems to reflect, imitate, the movements of his father. There is an expectation of a family likeness. I love the term beloved as it reminds us of 1 John 4:11 beloved because God first loved us let us love one another.
Paul then commands his readers to walk in the way of love,
and expands on that by pointing to the example of Jesus Christ. As beloved
children we emulate the love of the beloved son. Our example is Christ who
loved us and gave himself for us. It is the kind of love that places the good
of the other person before even our own. That gives sacrificially. Paul says this is a fragrant offering to God
and acceptable offering. In the preceding verses we see this lived out in
forgiving one another, not letting anger lead us into sin, how we speak the
truth to one another. In verse 9 Paul will list the fruit of walking in the
light as goodness, righteousness and truth.
Then in verses,3-7, Paul gives us a negative, he zeroes in
on vices that should not be part of the Christian Walk and community.
The first is Sexual immorality. God’s design for the
expression of human sexuality is within the confines of a faithful loving
mutual marriage between a man and a woman. The word for sexual immorality here
covers everything outside of that, as biblical commentator Darryl Bock says
‘it’s a wider term than adultery. It deals with any sex outside of marriage,
consensual of not.” In fact the Greek word here is pornia from which we
get the modern word pornography. Pornography
with the internet has become pervasive and is destructive and harmful to
society. It exploits women and promotes sexual gratification without the need
for that loving mutual relationship. It predominantly promotes and glorifies
all the expressions of sexual immorality that stand outside God’s standards and
purposes. The other thing that makes it dangerous is that it is a very private
vice, or sin.
The next word is impurity and covers other moral areas of
behavior outside the sexual realm. As an example comes from classic Greek
literature where the same word used in Ephesians is used to describe the
actions of a character in the story who commits perjury with the intent of
injuring another person. You hear echoes of the ten commandments in this
passage as It talks of not stealing, or killing
and Jesus teaching in the sermon on the mount of how that goes to our very
heart attitudes.
The third word is greed. Wanting things wealth money etc for
our own gratification. Again the tenth commandment against converting our
neighbors property comes to mind.
Paul sums these three areas up by saying they are idolatry.
Idols are things that compete with God for first place in our lives. They revolve around
us and our wants and desires rather than the walk of love which emulating Jesus
seeks the common good, the highest good for each other. It is that love not
these vices that should characterize the Christian walk.
Then Paul covers speech that goes along with these vices. Obscenity,
foolish or empty talk, and course jokes or as another translation puts it
destructive sarcasm. Our talk should
reflect our new creation just as our walk does. James chapter 3 draws the
connection between taming the tongue and Christian maturity, he says that what
comes out of our mouths reflects the nature of our hearts. We can not praise
God and curse other humans who are made in God’s likeness. Paul says something
similar by saying our words are to be for thanksgiving, can we worship God and
use our language in these other ways that go against God’s nature?
We are called to express our new life in words and deeds.
The list Paul makes reflects those who are sons of disobedience, not sons and
daughter of the Lord most high, through faith in Christ. Sadly in our society
like the first century Christians we find ourselves compromising with our
prevailing culture. The royal commission to abuse in care is an example of
that, as it uncovered so much abuse in society and sadly in the church. Bible
commentator Andrew Lincoln talks of Paul's list being like the big three that
trip Christians up… sex, power and money. Our headlines are full of high-profile
Christian leaders who have fallen in these areas, and that reflects a wider problem
within the church. We need to repent and cry out to God for him to renew us.
The portion of scripture from this morning finishes with
Paul reiterating what he has been talking about using the metaphor of light and
darkness and also leaving us with hope, for change to become what we are new
creation in Christ. He sums it up by saying, we are to walk in the light, walk
as light. The fruit of that is Goodness, righteousness and truth. The opposite
virtues to the vices he has been talking about. Some see this as a summary of
the fruit of the Holy spirit in Galatians 5:22-23…love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These
qualities reflect God's character, imitating God, and grow as individuals live
in relationship with God. It is finding the things that please God and
doing them. Paul then tells his readers to have nothing to do with the
works of darkness. Not to partner with people who do these things. Note its not
that we isolate ourselves from those outside the faith in fact we are called to
be a light for them, rather we need to be in the world, as Jesus said, and not
of it. To walk and talk differently.
Then Paul speaks of the fact that what light does is that it
exposes darkness. It is easy for us to see this exposing of darkness to do with
uncovering what is happening out there. That is what the church kind of gets a
reputation for doing pointing the finger… one of the reasons we are to walk
differently is that it does show the difference between light and darkness, it
shows people that following Christ provides a more wholistic and healthy way to
live. Jo Aldrich in his book life style evangelism says the gospel is like a
song, the gospel itself is the lyrics and how we live and love is the music
that goes with it and makes it catchy. But here Paul is speaking to a church
that like us is wrestling with living this new creation out in their lives. Who
may not have changed their walk in certain areas, or who find themselves drawn
in to sin.
Paul here gives them and us a way out a way to change. Often
sin is able to exist in our lives because it is done in secret… we are good at
covering it up. Putting on a good face… a mask… But the thing about light is
that it exposes those things brings them out into the open reveals them for
what they are. Gunna Raman says that too often do Christian make friends with
sin in their lives. When it is revealed by the light, by Christ, either as we
expose ourselves to God’s word or we are challenged about it by a brother or
sister. We then need to acknowledge it as sin and ask for repentance and
sometimes it’s a process of working out how to disentangle ourselves for it. Paul’s
direction to not partner with it anymore speaks to with the help of the Holy
Spirit to stop doing it.
An area in my life that has come to light recently through
reflection and through the loving challenge of people who love me is my tenancy
to speak down about myself. Now there is an element of self-deprecating kiwi
humor. But when faced with stress and difficult situation I find myself
denigrating myself… calling myself useless… I’ve wrestled with it a lot in my
life. I come from childhood and internalizing paternal disapproval. I’ve had to
confess it as speaking in a way that James talks of ‘cursing someone made in
the image of God’. It stops me from recognizing what God has given me and just
leaves me battered and exhausted. In a conversation with my supervisor, in a
way that fits in which Paul's talk of walking, he said its like the stone in
your shoe… I’m working through healing that and repenting from. From how I see
me to how Christ views me.
We all have sin and areas in our life that as God shines his
light on we need to do that as well. To confess it and repent and work through
the process of learning to walk a new in the light. Maybe Taumanu reserve is a great parable for
that. Simply the rocky side of the south eastern motorway that cut across the
bay like a constantly humming scar… and the leftover rubble from massive
excavation. That has been turned into something new and beautify.
As we open ourselves to the light we will know the hope
of the hymn that Paul finishes this
portion of scripture with
Wake up sleeper
Rise from the dead.
And Christ will shine on you.’
Christ death and resurrection allows us to be free from sin and
live that new life we have received from him.
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