Uncomfortably Numb

They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity (Eph 4:19).

I'm a real wimp.  I don't like pain.  Hate it.  Avoid it.  Let's face it, I would make a terrible masochist.  But here's the deal.  Pain is my friend.  Pain is a gift from God.  Pain is a good thing.  Through pain, God lets us know when something is wrong and we need to change.  When we can't feel pain, we're in BIG trouble.  That's the problem with diseases like leprosy and diabetes.  Numbness sets in and we don't know if we're bleeding or burning.  Paul warns us that when we become numb to the pain of our sin, we head down a slippery sewer of seediness and sexual perversion.  He tells the Ephesian church the hard truth about the hard hearts of unbelievers.  "They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity" (v19).  They become uncomfortably numb.

In the previous verse, the apostle has warned against developing a cardiac callous like the unbelievers who live all around them.  He goes on to let us know what happens when we "become callous" (v19).  Paul uses the Greek verb apalgeo, which means to lose all feeling, become insensitive, cease feeling pain, shame or grief.  It's the only time this term appears in the NT.  Think of this as an anesthetic for sin.  Sin causes pain.  God tries to get our attention by causing irritation and discomfort.  Out of His great love for us, He wants us to stop.  But we eventually become calloused.  We eventually become insensitive.  We eventually become unfeeling.  Like a needle full of novocaine given by the doctor, we go numb to our sin.  Uncomfortably numb. 

When he writes that they have "given themselves up" (v18), Paul makes it crystal clear that when we stop feeling pain from sin we do terrible things to ourselves.  There's no one else to blame.  Not the devil.  Not our so-called friends.  The one responsible for our sin is looking back at me when I shave in the morning.  No one pushed me.  No one shoved me.  No one dragged me.  I gave myself up.  That's what happens when I'm numb to my sin.  

This lets me know that I'm accountable for decision to accept or reject Jesus.  Paul's words here bring up the long running debate about destiny.  Predestination versus choice.  Calvinism versus Arminianism.  I realize that I'm not going to convince you if you're a committed member of one team or the other.  It sure seems obvious from what we read here that we're accountable for our decisions.  But wait just a cotton pickin' minute!  The apostle started this very letter with one, long, run-on sentence of how God chose us to be His back before time began (Eph 1:3-14).  So what is it?!?  (OK, I realize the answer I'm about to give is not going to sit well with folks on either team.  So everybody just take a deep breath and relax.)  It's both.  Yeah, you read that right.  Both.  Clearly there's evidence for both ideas all throughout the Bible.  Our God is a big God.  A VERY BIG God.  In this case, He's a "both/and" God.  He is completely sovereign and in charge of our destiny.  He clearly predestines and elects long before we were born.  But we're clearly accountable for whether we choose to worship Him.  He's a "both/and" God.  (Yeah, I was right.  I knew most of you wouldn't like that answer.)

The numbness to our pain and sin inevitably leads us to "sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity" (v18).  The result to our insensitivity isn't pretty.  It's like driving through the part of town dominated by strip clubs and X-rated movie theaters.  What you're about to read isn't for the faint of heart.  It's not the kind of discussion you'll hear in your grandmother's Sunday School class.  It's raw.  It's real.  The language in the original Greek is gritty and graphic.  We're going to see why the Playboys are under the bed.  We're going to see why skin flicks are available in every motel room.  We're going to see why porn is the most popular topic on the internet.  It's because we're uncomfortably numb.  We need talk about it.  Ready?  

Paul lets us know that uncomfortably numb unbelievers jump into "sensuality" (v18).  This is the Greek noun aselgeia.  It means unbridled lust and outrageous immorality.  Extreme debauchery.  Extravagant indecency.  With a thick cardiac callous and an unfeeling conscience, you're willing to do anything to feel anything.  And few things in our lives stimulate our senses like sex.  Our sin has completely corrupted the sexual intimacy of marriage, one of God's greatest gifts.   All throughout Scripture, God sounds the alarm when it comes to sex and lust.  In his letter to the Roman church, the apostle said we're to start living our lives in broad daylight of Jesus rather than skulking around in the dark "in sexual immorality and sensuality (Gr. aselgia)" (Rom 13:13).  Paul told his Corinthian friends that it breaks his heart that many folks who've heard about Jesus have not "repented of the impurity, sexual immorality, and sensuality (Gr. aselgia) that they have practiced" (2Cor 12:21).  

When I'm uncomfortably numb, I'll do anything to feel anything.  

This unbridled thirst for sex and porn isn't a one-time thing when we feel no pain from sin.  We become "greedy to practice every kind of impurity" (v18).  The original language here lets us know that the search for sexual pleasure becomes the overriding obsession.  We work harder at it than anything else in our lives.  We make time for it.  We rearrange our schedules for it.  It becomes an idol we worship.  Our libido becomes the god worshiped above all.  Sex becomes an addiction.  To paraphrase those great theologians, the Rolling Stones, we can't get no satisfaction.  We'll do anything for it because we're uncomfortably numb to sin.

The translators have used a bit of whitewash on the last part of this verse: "every kind of impurity" (v18).  A rough translation might be "all filth in exploitation."  Like a junkie willing to do anything to get a fix, we'll crawl through the sewer of sexual stimulation in order to feel something.  It's disgusting.  It's nasty.  And we don't even notice because we're uncomfortably numb.  Eugene Peterson pulls no punches in his paraphrase.  "Feeling no pain, they let themselves go into sexual obsession, addicted to every sort of perversion" (v18, The Message).  Numbness.  Sexual obsession.  Addiction.  Perversion.  We become slaves to our own lust and libido.

But Someone has come to set us free of all that.  Jesus left the luxury of the heavenly palace to come find us in seedy part of town.  He's willing to search every strip club, every porn shop and every skin flick theater to find us.  He's not coming to punish you.  He's not coming to shame you.  He's coming to save you.  He's coming to set you free from that disgusting steaming pile of sexual sin you can't seem to live without.  He comes because He loves you.  

Jesus wants you to feel again.  He wants you to feel peace.  He wants you to be know true and lasting satisfaction.  Christ wants you to know that He is everything we'll ever need.  Everything else is just a cheap imitation or counterfeit.  He died so that we could experience "life and have it abundantly" (Jn 10:10).  Christ is the only cure for the uncomfortably numb.