Sermon Transcript
Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children, and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality or any kind of impurity or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscene foolish talk, or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: no immoral, impure, or greedy person— such a person 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 God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.
Therefore, do not be partners with them. For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light, for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth. And find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.
It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret, but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. This is why it is said, wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. Be very careful then how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord Lord’s will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery.
Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to our Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Thank you, Serena. Good morning, everybody. I love having the scripture read before we get up to share, but I want to make a special request to Pastor Nate. Can I get some walk-up music sometime like Alba and Yadi had? Because that’s like a giant stadium, right, where somebody gets up.
I’ve always kind of wanted to, but I want to pick my song if I can, please, before I do that, and it will be unexpected, and that’ll be fun. Some of you know that about a month ago I had a chance to travel with Dave Stenfort to the country of Kenya and spend some time with some folks there leading a basketball camp. It’s a basketball ministry that a friend of mine who’s a pastor in Texas has put together and leads, and this ministry is called Hoops for Hope, and they use basketball as a way to share the Gospel. And so, I was invited to go along to participate in the program and to be trained in the program so that that then I can hopefully take a group of people to some of our different mission partners in other places around the world, missionaries that we support as a church, and take this program to them. And I invited Dave to come along with us, and it was a thrill and a privilege and an honor, and we’ve just had a blast.
And there were so many different highlights. One of my favorite highlights, though, is that in the few minutes before each day’s camp would start, the kids would start to gather, and there are dozens of basketballs just flying everywhere. Everywhere. And while the coaches are challenging each other and everybody’s challenging Dave to one-on-one and he’s beating most of them in one-on-one, I was gathering with the little ones at center court because that’s a little bit intimidating when the older kids are just throwing balls around and then it’s just a little bit dangerous. So I would gather with the little ones and I would just get down on their level.
And I don’t know Swahili, I know a couple phrases, some of them could understand what I was doing, but what I was using in order to communicate with them is what most of us would probably do, and that’s imitation. They would watch what I would do, and then I would do it, and it wasn’t always basketball-related. But I have some photos for you, and one of my favorite photos is just me on the center court with them where I would gather together, and they would just listen to what I was trying to say, but really it wasn’t the words that I was saying, it was just simply I would act out certain things, like daily routines and exercises, a little bit kind of like charades. And it was a way that I could bond with them, and we had a blast doing that again and again. I loved being with these children.
Imitation is a great way to communicate something to people who can’t necessarily understand the language that you’re speaking. And so I have other photos with me and the kids. That we can show here. We just had a ball doing this, and most of the bonds that we made— I will never meet these children again, but they made such an impression on me, and I would try to imitate what they were doing, and they would try to imitate what I was doing. We just really bonded through that experience.
But impression and imitation and mimicking is something that people naturally do. Kids naturally do this with older peers. Or siblings, right, or their adults and caregivers, people that they look up to. My kids, when they were little, each had different people that they wanted to aspire to be like. My son Tate over here, who’s 23 now, but when he was little, he wanted to be Spider-Man.
So I remember him going around and just shooting imaginary webs at things like Spider-Man would do. My youngest son CJ, who’s here somewhere right now, he’s 21 years old, but when he was little, he wanted to be like a Jedi, because he would go up to people and to things, and he would try to use the invisible force to move them, and he would use the sound effects. And of course, sometimes things would comply, and other times they wouldn’t, but that’s what he wanted to be. My daughter, Raya, who’s 23 years old, she always really liked to lead, and so she would just look for people who looked like they needed to be bossed around and to be led. And so she would just find people and start telling them what to do, and sometimes that worked and sometimes that didn’t.
But people use imitation all the time. I would gather the kids in the living room. I remember when they were little. Some of you have seen the show Man vs. Wild, and I would pretend to be Bear Grylls and to take my kids through the dangers of the living room and would set up all these different obstacles and going over couches and under tables and through things and pretending that there’s all these things out there, and they would just imitate my every move. You can use imitation to teach just about anything.
Some of you know that Shannon is a behavior analyst, and she works with children who are on the autism spectrum, and she uses imitation as a way of teaching all the time, as a form of communication. And she even taught our recently deceased black cat, the late, great Nitro— she taught Nitro how to ring a bell in order to get food, like, like a bell that you would have like at a hotel front desk to summon somebody. And she taught Nitro in the course of a morning with Casey Schofield— the two of them got together and taught Nitro how to ring a bell and then he would get a treat. Now, why did she do that? Just, I guess, because she could.
That sounds exciting. I would have preferred that maybe we teach Nitro how to do the laundry or to iron or something like that, but imitation can work with animals, it can work with children, they work in all sorts of settings. But that image of imitation and mimicry is at the heart of this passage that Serena read for us just a moment ago. It hinges upon verse 1. Let’s put verse 1 back up there again where it says that all of us who are part of God’s family, who seek to follow Jesus, who aspire to follow Him, are to, quote, follow example.
Other translations that some of you may have say that we’re to be imitators of God. We’re to imitate him. That word for imitate there in the original language literally means to mimic. It literally says mimic God. That’s what Paul’s saying here.
This is what I want you to do. I want you to seek to mimic a holy, righteous, gracious, pure, faithful God in everything you do. I want you to set your mind on this. I want you to set your heart on this. I want you to be intent on imitating him.
That’s your life’s goal. That’s your life’s focus. As audacious as that sounds, to try to imitate God, this passage is saying it’s actually possible. Last week, Pastor Dan walked you through Ephesians chapter 4. We’ve been in a little miniseries here on the book of Ephesians.
Ephesians, and if you miss any of these sermons, you can go back and look at them online. But in Ephesians 4:22-24, this is what it says: You were taught with regard to your former way of life to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its evil desires, to be made new in the attitude of your minds, and then look at this, to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. We were created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. But not only is this passage here in chapter 5 today saying that it’s possible for you and I to imitate God, it’s actually saying ultimately that imitating God is actually what it means to be a Christian. That’s ultimately what it means.
It is saying that you and I were made in the image of God and And an image is a reflection of something else, and you and I were made, going all the way back to Genesis, to reflect God. Now, on the one hand, everything that God makes reflects God. Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God. But God has made humans somehow able to reflect His own nature more uniquely and more clearly than other parts of creation. The problem though, as you and I can imagine, is that we can only reflect that which we’re pointed towards.
And if we’re pointed towards God, then we can reflect him more accurately. But like a mirror, if it’s pointed somewhere else, we’re going to reflect whatever we’re pointing towards. And so we have a nasty habit of turning to other things and then reflecting those things other than God instead of reflecting God. But then when God rescues and He saves us and He makes us new people, He turns us back towards Him in order that we can then begin this process of reflecting Him more clearly. That’s called sanctification.
It’s being conformed more and more into the likeness of Jesus Christ. And He’ll refine us and He will prune us and He will lead us through challenging circumstances and do whatever He needs to do so that we can more accurately reflect God and imitate him. So we’re called to be imitators of God. That’s what this passage is saying. We’re called to mimic him.
And so we’re going to spend brief time together today thinking through 3 different ways that this passage says that we’re to imitate God. And you may have picked up on these things as it was read. These are just super basic. They’re right there in the passage. 3 ways that we’re to imitate God.
But before we go there We have to say something here up front, and I think Pastor Dan did a great job last week of bringing this out, and he’s been bringing it out throughout this series that we’ve been in in Ephesians. And I want to reinforce what is arguably the most important single word in all of this passage, those 21 verses that were just read a moment ago. The most important word, and it’s in verse 1, and I don’t know if you caught it. Let me read it Read it again. Verse 1, follow God’s example, or be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children.
Here’s why that word therefore, I would argue, is the most important word in this passage, and it’s so important for you and me. Here’s why that word actually sets apart Christianity from just about any other world religion. After saying in verse 1 that you and I are to imitate God, the rest of what follows in the verses that Serena read, and then what you looked at last week in chapter 4 of Ephesians, is essentially just a list of ethics. It’s rules of conduct. Here’s how you are to live.
For instance, you’re going to see virtues that we’re to affirm and that we’re to practice, and then you’re going to find vices that we’re to avoid. Do this, don’t do this. Now if you were to do a survey of all other world religions, you’re going to find very similar statements in their kind of ethical guidelines and in their scriptures. Just about every religion has lists of virtues and vices and ethical norms that true believers will aspire towards, like honesty is good, slander bad. Peacemaking, good.
Unrighteous anger is bad. Self-control is good. Lack of self-control is bad. You’re gonna find those things, and those exact same kinds of things are actually in this scripture, and we’re in chapter 4 last week. So what makes Christianity absolutely distinct, and why we’re repeating this, is this is so important.
What makes Christianity so distinct is not the presence of ethical guidelines guidelines. Do this and don’t do this. What makes Christianity distinct is that word in verse 1, therefore. See, other religions will tell you what you need to do, and you have to do better. You have to be more ethically virtuous than somebody else, and if you are, then God will accept and approve you, and he’ll receive you because now you’ve achieved this certain measure of human goodness.
And yet only Christianity Only Christianity says what matters is not that you’re nicer or more moral, but rather that you are made— what? Made new. And that the basis, the foundation, the reason for this ethical practice and life change comes not because you’ve worked harder than everybody else at being externally good, but rather it happens because you’ve been changed. You’ve been transformed from the inside out. You’ve received a heart transplant.
That is what makes Christianity so unique. It’s a message of God’s grace first and foremost. And so, the point is that the Christian lifestyle, friends, that we’re going to consider today and that we’ve been considering here in chapter 4 and chapter 5 today and chapter 6 in the weeks to come is meant to flow out of this new understanding understanding of our new identity in Christ, and that order absolutely matters.
Inclusion first, then action. This passage today is going to show us how a Christian lives. And it’s not that we live in a certain way and therefore become Christians. It is that we become Christians and are made new, and therefore we live in a certain way. Difference?
If by living a certain way that we became Christians, then we’d be saving ourselves through our own efforts and our own goodness. But if we become Christians and then we live in a certain way as a result, therefore, that’s because we’re saved not by what we do, but by what God has done in us by His grace through Jesus.
You have to get that order right. It says that we’re to imitate God, therefore, as dearly loved children. Therefore, as a result of what God has done in making us new, as dearly loved children, imitate God. This doesn’t say to do these things in order for you to become a dearly loved child of God, but rather because you are already a dearly loved child of God who has been adopted into God’s family by his mercy.
That’s how you are then therefore to live. And so this section of Ephesians is aimed at helping us to know, how do I live in accord with who I already am, if you are a follower of Jesus? So please hear the invitation today. Please don’t leave here today determined to try harder.
That’s usually what people expect when they come to church. Okay, I’m going to hear some things that I’m doing well and some things that I’m not doing well, and I’m going to leave here with a list of things, and I’m going to feel guilty about that, and then I’m going to forget all about it. Don’t walk out of here with that mindset. You need to be made new by God first and foremost. You need a new identity, and you need a new heart first.
And as you’ve been changed and you’re being conformed more into the likeness of Jesus, then we walk in these things. You get that? Okay, so how specifically are we supposed to, as believers, imitate God. If you’re taking notes, the first way this passage says that we are to imitate God is to walk in love. And by the way, if you’re taking notes, you’re going to see a 4th point that does not exist in this sermon.
I did a really, really lousy job of cutting and pasting when I sent in the message notes, so you that are noticing that 4th point there get to come up with whatever that point is in terms of this passage. It has nothing to do with it, but just— that’s— I just thought I’d mention that. That’s on me. Verse 1 and 2, we’re to walk in love. This is what it says: Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children, and walk in the way of love.
How? Just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. In other words, we’re to love just as we ourselves have been loved by God through Jesus Jesus. These verses are saying that the reason that Christians are to imitate God by walking in love is because we believe with all of our heart, and we are staking our eternal future on the fact that there was a man who was and is God, who stood in our place, took our sin upon his shoulders, paid the penalty for our sins, endured the wrath of God on our behalf, and offered himself up to God the Father to be a completely satisfying sacrifice. And that very belief is the foundation for how we are then to live.
There’s absolutely no way— maybe some of you will try to think of a way. I’m going to suggest there is no way that you can have a lifestyle of love the way that this passage is suggesting if you don’t believe that Jesus died for you, and if you don’t continually come back to the fact that God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son for you. To the degree that you understand Jesus’ substitutionary sacrifice for you, to that degree, then you will walk in love. And if you and I don’t walk in love, then I would argue we haven’t fully grasped that belief. You’re instead being driven by a belief of, I’m not that bad of a person.
I mean, I’m not saying I’m perfect. I’m pretty decent. I don’t go around trying to harm other people. I try to help my neighbor. I’m a good person, or at least I try to be.
Isn’t that what really counts? And so on. If that’s you, I implore you, go back to verse 2 and then notice it doesn’t just say that Jesus loved us and then keep it there. It says that Jesus gave himself up for us. Why?
Why did he give himself up for us? I think many of you know the answer to this. Because we all sin and fall short of God’s standard. We all are guilty. All of us.
Us, and we all are deserving of God’s wrath, all of us, apart from what Jesus did to rescue us. So we’re to walk in love. Notice it doesn’t say we’re supposed to sprint in love. Notice it doesn’t say we’re to cartwheel in love. It doesn’t say we’re to somersault in love.
We’re not to jump in love. It says we’re to walk in love. Sprinting, cartwheeling, somersaulting, jumping, those require really deep concentration and focusing your attention and gathering your strength together, and then you do it. You have to think about it. Nobody just accidentally or involuntarily somersaults.
Well, I didn’t, I didn’t see that coming. How’d that happen? Why did I do that? No, those things are not spontaneous. They’re not natural.
You almost always have to plan for them. But whenever the Bible talks about walking, and it does a lot, it’s talking about a lifestyle. It’s talking about something that’s routine and spontaneous, ongoing, natural. Love should be something that happens so natural that it is organically part of your day-in, day-out, hour-in, hour-out life. So here’s a simple question for you, and I’m asking it of myself.
I ask myself, if someone who knows you or me well was asked to describe you or me in 2 words, 1 or 2 words, would one of those words be loving?
Would they think about that for you or for me? 1 Corinthians 13 says, love is patient, love is kind, love doesn’t envy, love doesn’t boast, love is not proud, love does not dishonor others, love is not self-seeking, love is not easily angered, record of others’ wrongs. Does that describe you? Does that describe me? You and I can be full of religious and spiritual zeal.
We can be full of ministry skills. You can be super knowledgeable about Scripture. You can be sound in your doctrine. But none of those are the essence of what it means to be a Christian. What is— what is the essence of being a Christian?
Christian. The only absolutely unmistakable mark of genuine Christianity is the ability to walk in love. And not just love, but the kind of selfless, sacrificial love for others that Jesus demonstrated for us on the cross. And the way that we grow in love for others is by thinking, and thinking often, about Jesus’ love for us. We’re to walk in love, therefore, as God’s dearly loved children.
Second way this passage says that we or to strive to imitate and to mimic and to follow God is to walk in light. Walk in light. That’s verses 3 through 14. I want to highlight verse 8 here where it says, you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. So live, or literally walk, as children of light.
And what this section is saying is that Christians have to, have to have an acute sense of just how dark darkness is and sin is. What is sin? Verse 11 defined it for us. Verse 11 describes sin as, quote, fruitless deeds of darkness. Well, what does that mean externally?
It means to disobey the law of God, to disobey the things that God says in Scripture. But sin also has to do with the internal internal, with our heart, with our motives, our mind. It’s not enough to just understand and to remember that you and me sin and that those sins are the deeds of darkness. We also have to remember and reckon with that me and everyone were once darkness. You were darkness.
I was darkness. All of us were once darkness. Notice it doesn’t say that you were once not church attenders and now you are church attenders, therefore you’re made new. Doesn’t say, hey, at one time you were not religious and now you’re very religious, good for you. It’s far more significant than that.
You were once darkness. In other words, verse 8 is saying humans don’t just do dark things, they are dark things. And we, of course, naturally reject this line of thinking. Look, again, I’m not perfect. Saying I am or that I was darkness myself is going a little bit too far.
That’s too negative a view of human nature.
This was reinforced for me in a new way a few years ago when I went with my children on 2 separate occasions to Washington, D.C. I was a chaperone with Los Altos Christian School a few years ago on one of their Washington, D.C. field trips. And we would always pay a visit to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Some of you have been there. When I was there one of those times, I heard about a concentration camp survivor from World War II.
His name is Yehiel Dinour, Y-E-H-I-E-L Dinour. This man passed away about 20 years ago, but a concentration camp survivor. And before he died, I learned that the TV show 60 Minutes— some of you have seen 60 Minutes. Minutes, once had an episode in which Mike Wallace interviewed Yehiel Danour. And you may know that one of the architects of the Holocaust was a man named Adolf Eichmann.
And Adolf Eichmann disappeared after World War II, and he went into hiding. He was eventually caught, and in 1961 Adolf Eichmann, this architect of the Holocaust, was put on public trial. And in the trial, eyewitness survivors of the concentration camps who had physically seen with their own the particular evil things that Eichmann had done were brought in to testify against him. Yehiel Danour was one of them. And when Yehiel Danour went into the courtroom— and this was all caught on film, you can see this on YouTube— when he saw Adolf Eichmann, he started to sob uncontrollably, and he just collapsed.
He physically collapsed. And the judge had to pound the gavel because there’s all this great disorder in the courtroom. It was all very dramatic. Well, Mike Wallace in the 60 Minutes interview showed Yehiel Dinur the clip of how he just collapsed, and Mike Wallace asked him, what were you thinking in that moment? What were you feeling?
Were you feeling post-traumatic stress? Was it just that you were just filled with rage to see this man? And Yehiel Dinur said something that seems to have set Mike Wallace aback. He caught him off guard. What Yehiel Dinur said was this, when I walked in and I saw this man, I suddenly realized he was no demon, he was no Superman.
I saw that he was an ordinary human being just like me, and suddenly I just became terrified about myself.
I saw that I too am capable of some of those same things.
After the interview, Mike Wallace closed the segment and concluded, Adolf Eichmann is in all of us.
The point is that Yehiel Danour looked into his own heart and he saw darkness there. That’s not how most of us think about ourselves. That’s not how our world thinks about ourselves. We create categories of sin and we deem those who commit certain deeds of darkness to be monsters, to be beneath us, but isn’t that the same kind of thing that the German officers had with regards to the Jews in World War II. Thought of them as beneath themselves.
We simply don’t want to admit that we— what we are capable of. We don’t want to admit it. We don’t want to admit that there is a darkness in the middle of every human heart. And so Paul says Christians are not in denial about that. Other people are, not Christians.
And so understanding that God’s wrath comes on sin sin because sin deserves punishment. Christians recognize and then freely admit that we owe God everything. And so when we sin, we’re not simply messed up, we’re guilty, we’re deserving of God’s wrath. But look again at verse 8: You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. It could have just kept it there, that you were once darkness.
There are plenty of churches that just leave it at that, you were once darkness and just focus on that, but you have to have this balance. But not simply focusing on that, but now you are light, ignoring the part about darkness, because that’s not fully accurate. You need both for those who are in Christ. After everything, though, that Paul has said about you were once darkness, how could any Christian say, hey, look at me.
Look at all my goodness and righteousness and light. The only reason that any Christian can say something like that is because of the prepositional phrase in verse 8. Don’t miss it. But now you are light in the Lord.
If you go back to the beginning of Ephesians, this is hammered home again and again. It tells us that at the very moment that you receive salvation through Jesus, the very moment that you put your trust and your faith in Jesus as your sin bearer and as your Savior, you confess him as Lord, you receive him into your life, that very moment you are united to him. You are put in Christ in a sense so that even though you continue to sin after becoming a Christian, and that sin represents darkness, in Christ God sees you as just as beautiful and as acceptable as Jesus. It’s mind-blowing. Yes, sin is that bad and it’s that terrible, But God’s grace is that free, and it’s that available.
And just as there is no sin that does not deserve God’s condemnation and wrath, so there is no sin so great that can bring condemnation on those who are in Christ Jesus. Amen? So, knowing that we’ve been given a new identity, knowing this, Paul says, live, walk as children of light. Let’s remember— excuse me.
Let’s remember, this isn’t calling us to become something that we’re not. This is calling us to walk in what we already are as a result of God’s goodness and grace. So how do we do that? We do so by walking in obedience to God. This is verses 3 through 14.
We, we walk in light by making a concerted, intentional decision each and every day that as children of light, I’m going to have no part with darkness, that as children of light, I’m going to flee from sin. I’m not going to categorize sin and minimize my sin. I’m going to walk in light by continually seeking to kill sin in my life, the immorality and impurity and greed, verse 3, in my own heart, any obscenity or foolish talk or coarse joking, verse 4, my engaging in fruitless deeds of darkness, verse I’m going to repent of the so many different ways that I seek to do what is right in my own eyes. I’m going to walk in light by putting to death the deeds of my sinful flesh and to have no other gods before me. I’m not going to worship them.
I’m not going to give my heart to anything other than to God, except for the one true God, and to say, God, You are light, and in You is no darkness at all. So fill me, God, with Your light. We walk in light by remembering that sin is ever-dwelling in our hearts and that sin goes so much deeper than just external sin, so that whenever we haven’t— well, I’ve never physically done this sin— go back to the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus talks about a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, that understands that sin is more than just external. It’s in our heart, and we need to come to God each and every day with humility and with contrition Asking God to show us, God, today the darkness within us. Cleanse us.
Turn us back towards You once again so that I can more accurately reflect You. And we walk in the light, verse 10, by trying to find out what— God, what is it that pleases You? How do we find out what pleases the Lord? How do we prayerfully ask, God, what will please You? That’s how we walk in light.
And then the third way this passage says that we’re to imitate God is to walk in love. Walk in wisdom. Walk in wisdom. That’s in verses 15 through 21, particularly verse 15 and 16. I’ll highlight here where it says, be very careful then how you live, or be very careful then how you walk, not as unwise people but as wise.
And you make the most of every opportunity because the days are evil.
I desperately need wisdom. You desperately need wisdom. We need wisdom. And wisdom is all about knowing how do I apply biblical truth to life? How do I discern what verse 10 is telling me to do, to know what pleases God?
Wisdom is not just about obeying Christian rules. Wisdom is knowing the right way to live in all of those many different situations that you and I will face in life where the Christian rules don’t so clearly apply. I mean, how do you decide what to do in a morally permissible, permissible situation? What job should Should we move? What school should I go to?
What should I do with my money? Who should I marry? There are lots of morally permissible choices before you and me every single day, and yet some of them are wise and some of them are foolish. So we need wisdom. We need verse 17 to understand what the Lord’s will is.
We spend so much time thinking so carefully about our jobs, our education, our hobbies, our appearance, appearance. It’s just natural that we would operate that way. But Paul now in Ephesians 5 is trying to elevate this priority of living the Christian— as a Christian in the world to imitating God. So this is saying, don’t just go through life on autopilot. Don’t just go through the motions with regards to your relationship with God.
Consider carefully how you walk, how you live. That word walk there is saying that you should pay careful attention to the you’re heading in. Look at the path that you’re on. Be honest about the motives of your heart and about the reasons underneath the decisions that you make, because that’s going to determine the impact on your— of that activity on your soul and on other people. We’re also told in this passage to make the most of every opportunity.
Some translations say we’re to redeem the time. At a first glance, it may seem as if Paul is saying, hey, don’t be lazy. Don’t be lazy. Don’t waste time. Be efficient.
That’d be good counsel. What the original language of the text is really telling us when saying to redeem the time is to make the best use of this current moment. So this is admonishing us to be careful with our choices. Why? So that we can wisely discern how to live as Christian— as a Christian in a world that is increasingly filled with people who do what is right in their own eyes.
Live in this current age. And it starts with knowing you friends and I were placed in this world for a reason, in this generation for a reason. Therefore, to make choices that fit with that identity in Christ. And as those who understand that we have a divine purpose, we’re not to partake in the same things that the rest of this world does. We can be in the world but not be of the world.
And a person who seeks to walk in wisdom is able to do both. So, how do we walk in wisdom? How do we gain wisdom? I’ll tell you, the book of Proverbs, which we’re not going to spend a lot of time in, but the book of Proverbs tells us the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. You want wisdom?
Start with your understanding of who God is. The more you know who God is through Scripture, spending time with Him, worshipping Him, the more you will grow in wisdom. The fear of the Lord, it’s the beginning of wisdom. Book of Proverbs tells us if you want to become wise, then walk with wise people— not smart people only, wise people who are able to apply biblical truth to every situation. James 1:5 says if you want wisdom, ask it of God.
He gives generously to those who ask. And this passage here in Ephesians 5 is saying if you want wisdom It’s connected to being filled with God’s Spirit. What does that mean?
To be filled with God’s Spirit means to be controlled by God’s Spirit. Every believer, like, if you’re a Christ follower, you’re already indwelt with the Spirit of God. That happens at the moment of conversion, Ephesians 1:13. So to be filled with the Spirit is something a little bit different. It means that the Spirit is not just indwelling you, but is ruling and controlling and empowering you.
Just as alcohol can fill a person and control that person, what that person does— we call that drunkenness— this is saying to be filled with God’s Spirit where he is leading you, and the things that come out of your life are Spirit-led. How do we know if we’re filled with God’s Spirit? Scripture gives us an idea. If you’re filled with God’s Spirit, you and I will naturally things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and goodness, and gentleness, and self-control. If those things are not in your life and increasingly evident in our life, then you’re not being filled with God’s Spirit.
You may be indwelt with God’s Spirit, but you’re not drawing on His power, and I’m not drawing on His power. How do we know if we’re filled with God’s Spirit? Those things, but also the Spirit’s going to produce, verse 20, perpetual gratitude. Gratitude, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, it says. Everything?
I’m giving thanks even for trials? Everything. Is that kind of gratitude evident in your life and in my life? If so, we’re being filled with God’s Spirit. He’s producing that within us.
And the Spirit will also produce a spirit of submissive love to one another. Verse 21, we’re to submit to one another another. Why would I ever submit to somebody else in a million years? I don’t want to submit to somebody else. We do it out of reverence for Christ, is what verse 21 tells us.
The Spirit produces that kind of work in us. Here’s the point: it’s impossible for you and I to live the kind of life that God wants for you and for me on our own and in our own power. We can’t do it. If you could do it on your own, then Jesus would have never said, apart from me you can do nothing. So God has given us the Spirit to provide the means and the enablement and the empowerment we need to walk in love, to walk in light, and to walk in wisdom.
Let’s be clear, we’ll never be able fully to imitate God in everything. I can’t create the world out of nothing, can you? I can’t know everything. I’m not omniscient, are you?
We’re not going to be able to fully imitate God in everything in this life. Scripture says one day we’ll see Him and we’ll be like Him because we will see Him as He is. But we can reflect God’s character in our words and in our actions. And the way, friends, that an invisible God that others cannot see, the way that an invisible God is made known to others is through everyday believers who walk and seek to imitate God by walking in wisdom and walking in light and walking in love, loving others as Jesus has loved us. But to do that, you have to think about and to recognize that if you have received salvation and you really are adopted by grace into God’s family, and if you don’t think of yourself as a dearly loved child of God, to remember then that you are accepted by God, no longer under any condemnation, If you’ve put your faith and your trust in Him, even when you and I don’t quite meet the standards.
We have to think of ourselves as who God has made us to be, to know with confidence that God does not give up on us, to know that we have unfettered access to God and are never alone, to know and to trust that He works in all things, all things, even the bad stuff, for your good because you love God and are called according according to His purpose, Romans 8:28. If you don’t remind yourself of these things daily and of who you are in Christ, you simply will not be able to live the Christian life at all. You can’t. Jesus made Himself a fragrant offering, a fragrant sacrifice to God, pleasing sacrifice. And He did this not simply so that you and I could be good, moral, nicer people, but so that you and I could become new people who live and walk in that new life every day.
Let’s pray. God, I want to thank You for Your Word. Pray that we would walk out of here clear on what You’ve done for us, clear on who You have made us to be for those of us who seek to follow You and have received Jesus into our lives. And I pray that we would walk out of here newly inspired to walk in love and in light and in wisdom and to imitate You in everything that we do. I pray that anyone within the sound of my voice who has never put their trust and faith in Jesus for salvation, that they would know that there is salvation in no one else but in Jesus, that our sins separate us from You, and the result of not following Jesus and not receiving salvation is an eternal separation from You.
God, we pray that no one here in this room would experience that. We pray that we would turn to You and ask You to rescue us and to save us and to forgive us. Make us more like You. May we reflect You more clearly in everything that we say and do. We pray all these things in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
