Classic Christianity – Spirit Controlled Living – Part 1 – 10-12-26
~ Proper Conduct in the Midst of Pagan Darkness: Why Paul Exhorts the Ephesians on Walking as Light
Be imitators of God, therefore, as beloved children, and walk in love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant sacrificial offering to God.
But among you, as is proper among the saints, there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk, or crude joking, which are out of character, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure, or greedy person (that is, an idolater) has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God
Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things the wrath of God is coming on the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them.. Ephesians 5:1-6
1. Historical Background: The Pagan Environment of First-Century Ephesus
To understand why Paul wrote with such urgency in Ephesians 5, we must look at the culture the Ephesian believers were pulled out of:
- The Center of Artemis Worship: First-century Ephesus was a massive, wealthy Roman provincial capital in Asia Minor, world-famous for housing the Temple of Artemis (Diana)—one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
- Ritual Corruption & Temple Prostitution: The worship of Artemis was deeply intertwined with state-sanctioned sexual immorality, temple prostitution, and fertility cults. Indulging in sexual unrestraint was considered normal civil and religious duty by the local population.
- Occult Sorcery & Magic: Ephesus was also the epicenter of ancient sorcery, magic spells (Ephesia Grammata), and demonology (Acts 19:18–19).
- Commercial Greed: As a major maritime trade hub, the city was driven by aggressive commercial exploitation, idolatry, and material greed.
The believers in Ephesus were newly sealed Saints living in the middle of an environment where heathen degradation was the cultural baseline.
2. Paul’s Intent: Identity and Purpose, Not Legalistic Condemnation
When Paul writes to the Ephesians, he is not using fear, condemnation, or threats of losing salvation to force behavioral compliance.
- Writing to “Saints” and “Beloved Children”: Paul establishes upfront that the Ephesians are already reconciled to God, washed clean, and permanently sealed by the indwelling Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13, 5:1). Their sin-debt was liquidated 100% at Calvary.
- It Is Not “Works”: Paul does not treat godly conduct as self-manufactured moral labor or shift-work done to earn favor. Rather, it is “faith expressing itself through love” (Galatians 5:6)—the natural outworking (katergazomai) of the indwelling Spirit of Life.
- Out of Character for a Saint: When Paul warns that sexual immorality, greed, or obscenity should not have “even a hint” among them, he notes that these behaviors are simply out of character for who they now are in Christ. A child of light acting like a lost heathen is an ontological contradiction.
3. Why Proper Conduct Matters: The Body & The Outside Witness
Paul emphasizes that walking in purity, truth, and thanksgiving serves two critical vertical and horizontal purposes:
A. For the Health and Protection of the Body of Christ
When believers indulge in carnal patterns, greed, or foolish talk, it introduces horizontal friction, distraction, and spiritual sedation into the local fellowship. Walking as beloved children guards mutual unity, keeps the community grounded in King Jesus, and builds up the brethren.
B. For Those Looking In From the Outside
Unsealed vessels in the surrounding culture are observing the assembly. If believers look and act identical to the pagan heathen around them, it blurs the contrast between light and darkness. But when believers stand in purity, truth, and thanksgiving (homologeō), it presents a clear, un-scrambled, living testimony—demonstrating the transformative power of King Jesus to a lost world.
4. “Rather Thanksgiving” (Homologeō)
Notice the sharp contrast Paul inserts in verse 4: instead of foolish talk or crude joking, believers are called to “rather thanksgiving.”
This links directly to true biblical confession (Socratic agreement / homologeō)—standing not in anxiety or begging, but continually agreeing with the Father’s Sovereign Verdict and offering praise for the finished victory of Calvary!
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Pray to God:
Do you really want to know the WHOLE Truth of what is going on today?
Lord Jesus, teach me the truth of the world today and give me the wisdom to know the truth and identify the lies of the devil. Thank you God.”
~ In this message, Bob George introduces Ephesians 4 by connecting it to the earlier chapters’ discussion of HEBREWS and Gentiles. He argues that predestination and election concern God’s plan to bring both groups to salvation through faith in Christ, and describes the church as the community of believers—not a building or organization. He emphasizes that salvation is more than forgiveness: it is receiving new life through Christ’s resurrection.
Bob then outlines principles for Christian living from Ephesians: live in a way worthy of one’s calling, renew the mind, practice love, walk in the light, and live wisely. He explains being “filled with the Spirit” as being continually controlled by the Spirit, and encourages listeners to admit behavior honestly, avoid being a stumbling block to others, and rely on faith and the Spirit for understanding.
“Number three, chapter five, verse one: Be imitators, therefore, as dearly loved children, and live a life of love. So he says, live a life worthy of your calling. Renew your mind on truth, and live a life of love. Number four is down in verse eight. Live as children of light, for the fruit of light consists of all goodness, righteousness, and truth. And find out what pleases the Lord. Well, what do we know pleases The Lord? Faith. Without faith, it’s what? Impossible to please the Lord. So, what pleases Him? Trusting Him, walking by faith in Him. So, the fourth point that we have is live as children of light. You have been transferred out of darkness into light, and if you are in the light as He, Jesus, is in the light. There’s a result of that. You and one another have fellowship with one another. You have fellowship with Him. You have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, continually keeps on cleansing you of every sin imaginable. And the fifth point that we have is in verse 13, and it says, “Be careful now how you live, not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. So, in other words, it says live a life of wisdom. If you’re going to live a life of wisdom, is that a little different than living a life of education? Folks, the three most educated countries in the world in 1941 were Germany, Japan, the United States. You know what they were doing, blowing the daylights out of each other. So don’t ever think that education is the key to anything. And you say all you have to do to get a degree is have an ability to retain information. You don’t have to know anything; just retain information. If I can retain what I have, what’s in that book, long enough to get it in a blue book. I’m going to get a degree, and it’s no more complicated than that. It’s not a big deal, but you can retain information and not have an ounce of wisdom. As a matter of fact, a computer has a pretty good retention of information. Have you noticed that? But I wouldn’t want to go to it for much wisdom. I may go to it for some information, but not for wisdom. Wisdom has to come from who? From God, not from a computer, not from a book. It comes from God, and that’s why it says in the Scripture that it is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us our wisdom. Christ is our wisdom, and there is no wisdom apart from Christ Jesus. And so it says to live as people with wisdom.” ~ Bob George
Bible Study Booklets
Announcer 0:13
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Bob George 0:40
Well, let’s turn to the book of Ephesians. The key passages that you will see as you enter into chapter four of the book of Ephesians. All of the passages before that, the chapters before chapter four, are dealing with this thing called predestination, election. All of those terms that people have taken to mean something different than what the Bible says they are, because predestination and election and foreknowledge is not dealing with you’s and me’s; it’s dealing with HEBREWS and Gentiles, and so it is not dealing with with anything except a category of all mankind, and we took some great length to explain how, in those days, that the HEBREW was the only testimony on the earth about the one true God, and and the Gentile world was totally heathenistic, and so for the HEBREW to have even a clue or a slight belief that God could save the Gentile was impossible. At the most, they might say, “Well, He might be able to save the Gentile, but He certainly not save the Gentile the way He saves us, because we’re going to be saved by our good works and by our adhering to the ordinances and and obeying the laws of God. That’s how we’re saved, and for sure those Gentiles aren’t going to do that, because they don’t even have the law. Now today, of course, we went over and took the law that God gave to the HEBREWS and pulled it over into so-called Christianity, and that’s why we’re as messed up as we are today. But at those that that day and age, they knew the HEBREW didn’t have the law, and so that conflict wasn there like it is today, because the Gentile never claimed to have the law. They were totally heathenistic in nature, and so the whole idea of predestination was that just as God had predestined that the HEBREW come to faith in Christ. Come to salvation by faith in Christ alone. So also the Gentile was predestined for salvation, the same way the HEBREW was by faith in Jesus Christ alone, and how that there was a huge barrier between HEBREW and Gentile that has now been torn, so that both people come to Christ in the same way, and now in Christ there is no HEBREW, Gentile, slave, or free. We are now one in Christ, and and God took the two, the Jew and the Gentile, and made us into one person, and that is a child of God. So as far as God sees mankind, He only sees three categories of mankind. You have the HEBREW, you have the Gentile, and then you have the church or the ecclesia, which is made up of born again believers only.
When we call the church the church, we call that that thing down on the corner of Walk and Don’t Walk, and we call that a building with some stained glass and an organ, and that’s what we call church. That’s a building you can put hay in there, and if you lived over in Russia, that’s what they did with them, and so they used them for storage bins. They’re buildings. This is a building. This is not a church. It’s a building. It contains people who are born again, and there may be some that are not born again. But as far as God’s church is concerned, it is made up of only people who have come to Christ by faith. It’s not an institution to join at all. It’s not an organization to join. It’s an organism that has been developed by God through His Son Jesus Christ, whereby He is the head, and we, who are in Christ by faith alone, are the body. Now you do not become a Christian by getting baptized. You don’t become a Christian by joining the church. You don’t become a Christian by doing good deeds. You don’t become a Christian by obeying the law. You become a child of God, and I say that rather than Christian, because the word Christians just doesn have any meaning anymore. You become a child of the living God when, by faith, you respond to the offer of salvation from Jesus that He offered, quite frankly, to every man on the face of this earth. He died for the sins of the whole world. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not counting their sins against them.
Now we have to we have to walk by faith either in that, or we walk by faith in the tradition of what our church has taught us. But the fact is that there’s no man who will ever go to hell because of his sins. Do you understand that? No one will ever go to hell because of sins. Why? Because the sins of the world were placed behind the back of God, never to see them again. Jesus died for the took the penalty of God upon Himself for the sins plural of the whole world. Does that mean the whole world is saved? Absolutely not, not at all. Because salvation is not getting your sins forgiven. Salvation is receiving life. And so it is through the resurrection that we are saved, and we’ll deal with that in just a moment. It’s through His resurrected life that we are saved from what? The wages of sin, which is what? Death and the gift of God is what? Life. So what do we do when we come to Christ? We come to Him for what forgiveness? No, you come to Him for life. You have already been forgiven. That forgiveness is received in His resurrected life, provided for the entire world, received in His resurrected life, and that’s why Paul said, “Without the resurrection, we are to be pitied of all people and are still in our sins. How could you say that if the cross, if the cross was salvation, now is the cross a part of salvation? Absolutely, you could not have salvation apart from the cross, but the cross is not salvation in and of itself. So the cross is what cleared the deck for the divine action of now offering life to you and me, we were born dead, and here comes the offer of life. I am the resurrection and the life. I came that you might have life. In Him is life. If you have the Son, you have life. If you don’t have the Son, you don’t have life. He didn’t say you don’t have forgiveness because you do, but you don’t have life, and so we have to understand that that what you’re dealing with is: Do you want to run your life, or do you want him to run your life? Do you want to be on your own, or do you want to be dependent upon him? Do you want to remain dead, or do you want spiritual life? And there’s the whole issue. It’s not I just need some forgiveness for when I do things bad. You got a problem worse than what you’re doing. It’s you, and it’s me. So we don’t just come to cure what we’re doing. We come to get new life, God did not come to improve our flesh; He came to kill it, so that He could give us a new birth, a new life in Christ Jesus.
Now, that’s what the first three chapters are dealing with in the book of Ephesians, is explaining that that was all a part of the foreknowledge of God, and in his mind from day one, even though he gave the law and all of these things to the HEBREW, that was for the purpose of setting apart a group of people through whom the Messiah was going to come. But always in his mind was, I’m going to also save the Gentile the same way that I save the HEBREW. It’s all for preordained. It’s all in his foreknowledge. It is all in accordance with election. Okay, are we together now? So what he is dealing with then is therefore now, if that is true, and if you and I have now become children of the living God. There’s about five points that he’s going to be making in chapter four, beginning in verse one. In verse one, he says, “I urge you then to live a life worthy of your calling that you’ve received. So that’s the first point he says. You’re a child of God. Now live a life that’s worthy of that. In other words, are you born again? Well, then live as a born again person. The second point is in verse 17. No longer live as the Gentiles do. That’s most of us in the futility of their thinking. In other words, get your mind renewed. Don’t keep hanging on to the futility, the futile thinking, of the Gentile.
Number three, chapter five, verse one: Be imitators, therefore, as dearly loved children, and live a life of love. So he says, live a life worthy of your calling. Renew your mind on truth, and live a life of love. Number four is down in verse eight. Live as children of light, for the fruit of light consists of all goodness, righteousness, and truth. And find out what pleases the Lord. Well, what do we know pleases The Lord? Faith. Without faith, it’s what? Impossible to please the Lord. So, what pleases Him? Trusting Him, walking by faith in Him. So, the fourth point that we have is live as children of light. You have been transferred out of darkness into light, and if you are in the light as He, Jesus, is in the light. There’s a result of that. You and one another have fellowship with one another. You have fellowship with Him. You have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, continually keeps on cleansing you of every sin imaginable. And the fifth point that we have is in verse 13, and it says, “Be careful now how you live, not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. So, in other words, it says live a life of wisdom. If you’re going to live a life of wisdom, is that a little different than living a life of education? Folks, the three most educated countries in the world in 1941 were Germany, Japan, the United States. You know what they were doing, blowing the daylights out of each other. So don’t ever think that education is the key to anything. And you say all you have to do to get a degree is have an ability to retain information. You don’t have to know anything; just retain information. If I can retain what I have, what’s in that book, long enough to get it in a blue book. I’m going to get a degree, and it’s no more complicated than that. It’s not a big deal, but you can retain information and not have an ounce of wisdom. As a matter of fact, a computer has a pretty good retention of information. Have you noticed that? But I wouldn’t want to go to it for much wisdom. I may go to it for some information, but not for wisdom. Wisdom has to come from who? From God, not from a computer, not from a book. It comes from God, and that’s why it says in the Scripture that it is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us our wisdom. Christ is our wisdom, and there is no wisdom apart from Christ Jesus. And so it says to live as people with wisdom.
Now he talks about why, and he says because you were once darkness, but now you are light of the Lord. So live as children of light, for the fruit of the light consists of goodness, righteousness, and the truth. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather to expose them. Now again, he’s not saying to go around and expose people, and we got some holier than thou’s, and that’s what they want to do is to go expose people. They love to do that. He’s not talking about exposing people. He’s talking about exposing deeds of darkness. Now, what does it mean by that? Don’t let someone call evil good. Homosexuality is not an alternate lifestyle. It’s sin. Drunkenness is not alcoholism; it’s drunkenness, and it’s called sin.
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Bob George 14:18
And we have to understand that you do not call something, rename something, so that you can call it something different than it is. You expose it for what it is. In my impression, when you’re dealing with things like depression, depression consists of things like worry. Worry is not a syndrome. It’s the opposite of faith. It’s called sin. How many of us do that? How many of in here worry? That’s all of us. Okay, don’t have worry. Yeah. So now let’s not call that a syndrome. You see. So what I’m getting at is to expose deeds of. Darkness is to just be very realistic in your life. Be sober-minded, as the Scripture says. Just call things what they are. Do we have to fear that? I don’t have to fear calling that sin. Why? He’s taken that away. I don’t have to fear condemnation by calling it sin. I’ll praise God for it because He’s taken that away. Is He condemning me for that sin? No. But I don’t know what he’s doing with my syndrome. I do know what he did with my sin. My syndrome, not sure. And so I’d rather call it what God calls it, wouldn’t you? Because that I know what he did with it. And so he’s telling us here that we need to expose sin for what it is, not sinners, sin, because if we’re out trying to expose sinners, then we’re gossippers and we’re slanderers. And the next time you’re going to be it. You’ve seen this in all of this presidential stuff, haven’t you? Because I’ll guarantee you, the ones pointing the finger are going to get it pointed back. Expose the sin, yeah. Expose the sinner. It’s not our responsibility.
Now it says, why is that? Because it’s shameful to even mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everybody exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is the light that makes everything visible, and that’s why it says, “Wake up, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. Be careful how you live, then, not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity. And why? Because the days are evil, and that is certainly true today. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is, and do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. But instead, be filled with the Spirit. What does it mean to be filled? The word to be filled in the Greek means to be controlled by. It means to be under the control of. Now, when you are drinking too much alcohol, what controls you? What controls you? Do any of you know? Experientially, alcohol controls you. That’s why it says to be filled with wine leads to debauchery. You’re going to be controlled by that. If you’re under the control of drugs, what controls you? Drug. That’s why they say you’re under the control of it. That’s why they call it mind-altering drugs. Is because it alters your mind and ultimately can control you, folks. If there’s one place in the world that we should be very sensitive to it. Should be our our brains. You know, when I understood that alcohol eats up brain cells, I came to conclusion I don’t have any to lose. And so, in as much as I can’t afford to lose any, it’s better for me to stay away from that, we have to understand that when you go under a controlled substance, you’re losing control right up here. That’s a very scary thing. Now it’s presented as fun; it is very frightening because you’re no longer able to function properly, and when that head goes, everything goes. So what it’s saying here is, don’t be drunk on wine. Now, did it say don’t drink wine? No, not necessarily. It just says don’t get drunk on it. Now you will see people who will talk about the evils of alcohol, and man, I can remember sitting there, how bear and my pastor saying, it’s just unthinkable that alcohol would ever touch the lips of our Savior, and I thought, wonder what they drank at that wedding feast. There’s no miracle of turning water into grape juice. A good can of Welch’s concentrate will do that. There’s no-I mean, I wouldn believe in God for doing that. Now, the instant fermentation, there’s a miracle, because fermentation takes time.
So don’t ever say that was turned into grape juice. A can of Welch’s will do that. Can can you say, I believe Jesus is God? Why? He dumped a can of Welch at that deal and turned it into grape juice. I’m sorry, that doesn’t work. So he’s not talking about not. He’s talking about abuses of things. You also are talking about not being a stumbling block. If I’m out trying to talk about Jesus to someone who’s a teetotaler, I’m not going to sit there and slop down a glass of wine in front of his face. If I’m talking to someone who believes in being a vegetarian, I’m not going to sit there and eat a pork chop in front of me. Or a ___ who might not believe in eating pork, I’m not going to sit there and eat a pork sandwich in front of me. Why? It’s a stumbling block. And so, in as much as we are to live in a newness of life, one of the criteria for living in the newness of life is not to be a stumbling block to someone. And quite frankly, that is the greatest guide to me. Is the reason for not doing something is because I don’t want to provide a stumbling block. What is that? That’s a law of love, and that’s what he says to function by, isn’t it? Is the law of love? Is that being a loving thing to do and to cause someone to stumble? And the answer to that is no, it isn’t. So don’t do it. But that’s your motivation.
Now, when it talks about to be controlled by the Spirit, what does that mean? Well, it depends on which denomination you go to. If you’re out of a charismatic background, that’s going to mean all kinds of stuff, from rolling around on the floor and barking like a dog, getting slain in the Spirit, speaking in tongues. Anything else you can think of? All of those kind of things. That’s what it means. Be filled of the Spirit. I’m a. How many of you heard? I’m a spirit-filled Christian. How many ever heard that? There is no such thing. There is no such thing as a spirit-filled Christian. You can be Spirit controlled right now, but you pull out here that driveway and let someone pull in front of you, and you’re going to see that filling go. Now, what a spirit-filled Christian would mean is I am controlled by the Spirit 24 hours a day, and that wouldn’t that be a designation? That’s an identity. Who are you? I’m a Spirit-filled Christian. What’s that mean? Well, I’m little Jesus walking around down here. You’re never going to see me get angry at somebody pull in front of me. Is there such a thing? Is there anybody like that you’ve ever met? I had a guy on the radio one time sounds spirit filled Christian. Said, “Let me interview your wife. Let me talk to her. He had the audacity to let me, but didn’t take long for he got her off the phone. So there’s no such thing as a spirit-filled Christian. That’s why he’s saying to be continually being controlled by the Spirit means it’s a moment-to-moment activity, because you can not be controlled by the Spirit. But then again, you say, what does that mean? And again, you’re into all kinds of things. But the scripture in chapter three told us exactly what that means. The problem with the memorization of scripture is, if you memorize a verse of scripture and you don’t pay attention to its context, then the meaning means anything you want it to mean, and you can take a person who quotes scripture just just flowing out of his mouth, but the issue is well that’s nice, but I can get a computer to do that. Do you know what it means? There’s the issue. Say Bible, get up, read your Bible. We have people do that every morning. Get up and read their Bible just daily. That’s a habit of mine. I got my quiet time. I read the Bible, and you can do that for 50 years. Don’t have a clue what any of it means, but I read it every day. There’s something magical. See, if I read my Bible every day, I’m going to be okay with Jesus.
Well, He doesn’t want you to read the Bible. He wants you to know what the Bible means. Now, if reading it will help me to know what it means, read it. If listening will help you to know what it means. Listen, but my goodness, folks, to think that reading a Bible is a formula that’s going to keep me in some kind of good graces with God-that’s ridiculous. So the issue is that He wants you to know what the Scripture means, and only the Spirit of God can reveal what it means. And that’s why, if you’re not born again, you’ll never know what it means. You may not know what it says. You may sit and hear what it says, but you will never know what it means until the Spirit of God reveals it to you. And we’re told that in the Scripture, no eye has seen, no ear is heard, nor mind has conceived of those things that God has prepared for those who love him, but it must be revealed by the Spirit.
And so we have to understand that. So, in the third chapter, if you want to turn back, you’re going to see where it tells you exactly what it means to be filled with the Spirit, and if you get a hold of that, then you don’t have to, you don’t have to be led astray by all of this wild stuff that is going on in Christendom today under the auspices of this spirit-filled activity. Now go to chapter three, verse 14, for. This reason I kneel before the Father, from whom His whole family in heaven and earth derives its name. So He’s talking about I kneel before the Father, the whole family of God. Everyone who is a born again Christian gets His name from that, and I pray that out of His glorious riches that He may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Folks, there’s only one way Christ can dwell in your hearts, and that’s through faith. And folks, faith isn’t saying, “I’m going to make up my own Jesus, and then, Lord, I’m going to expect you to perform. Faith is totally nothing less, nothing more, than understanding what God has already provided for you, and enter into it by faith. You don’t create God to do one earthly thing. If you do, you have become God, and He has become subservient to you. And so He wants Christ to be dwelling in our hearts through faith to know Him, and I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints-not power to go out and do something great for Jesus, but the power to understand something. Folks, why do we need God’s power to understand something? Because we’re dumb. We’re called sheep. There’s nothing dumber than a sheep. We are easily led astray, are we not? We’re easily tempted into things that we know are not right for us, are we not? We are not strong. We are weak, and Paul said, “Rejoice in that weakness, because it’ll keep you dependent upon Jesus, and in Him you’ll be strong as you ever want to be. Not in your own, but in Him.
Announcer
Thank you so much for tuning in to Classic Christianity with Bob George. We hope you’ve enjoyed today’s program. We truly hope that today’s message has inspired you to walk a life of faith in the Lord. Find more information online at BobGeorge.net. There you’ll also find available CDs, DVDs, and Bible studies available for purchase. It’s through your help, that we are able to spread the good word of Jesus Christ. Until next time, walk in faith, be good to one another, and praise the Lord. Amen.