Have you ever met a family member late in life that you didn't realize you had the whole time? That's kind of like what it's, my experience visiting churches and seeing brothers and sisters in Christ who I've never known but I've always had. It's a pleasure to be with you this morning. Let's pray together. God, we come together as your people to worship you. For we are a called people. You have called us to worship, and you are worthy of our praise. We have seen your mighty acts through history according to your word, and yet your mighty acts are still on display in our lives, in the story of how you have brought us to faith. And to all people, your power and eternal nature are clearly perceived in the things you have made. You are worthy of our praise. So it is that we quickly fall on our face in humility, reverence, and repentance. For before you we are exposed in our sin and rebellion. Forgive us our sin as we forgive those who have sinned against us. Bring us again to yourself by the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ. Renew us in your grace and strengthen us in our weakness. How can we approach you and dare ask for grace but Christ alone? You sent your Son to take on a human condition in order to take our place and grant us the purity and righteousness and glory which he earned for himself through his obedient life and sacrificial death. Thank you, Father, for sending the Son to reconcile us back to you and for sending the Spirit to unite us with Christ. Take now our cares and sorrows from us. We give them to you. We lift up Jane and Charlie and Charlotte and Brenda and Doug and Madison and Marion and Lou and Donna, Cheryl and Linda, for healing, you are the great healer. And we pray for Sharon after the passing of her husband, Paul, that you would comfort her as a great comforter, which you are. Our world continues to experience the corrupting effect of sin and death, whether a natural disaster, crime, political turmoil, or social unrest, May we, Father, always and continually offer our cares and sorrows to you, lest we deceive ourselves, believing we can carry them. Yet embolden us as we pursue others in their distress to lift their burdens as best we can, as you pursue us and lift our burdens. Guide us now and direct us in our common lives in the world, for we need your wisdom to know how we are to walk in this world. It's in Jesus' name that we pray, amen. Well, our passage for our sermon this morning, it comes from Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians chapter 5. So please turn with me there. We'll read this passage together and reflect on it. Ephesians chapter 5. We will begin with verse 15. and read to verse 21, beginning in verse 15. Hear now God's word. Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is, and do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms, in hymns, in spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. This is God's word. Well, it wasn't too long ago, maybe she was 10, 10-year-old girl, made me look like a complete fool in front of her whole family. I was startled by this. This family, we were meeting in their house for a Bible study for the whole church. It happened to be their family game night that the family would have after the church would leave. But I was a single. At the time in the church, they invited me for their family game night. They introduced me to what would become my favorite board game of all time, which is Settlers of Catan. I got so into this game, looking about the strategy that I had, and all of a sudden, another player cuts me off, and I was visibly frustrated. And this little girl said, it's only a game. I had lost perspective. I was so wrapped up in the details that I couldn't see the bigger picture of what was happening that night. The Munchers, as I remember them as, they were enjoying their time together as a family, and I was trying to win a board game. Even if I were to win the game, it would have been a waste of time because my motives were so off track. I would have gotten nothing out of that night that God wanted me to experience. My purposes were so small compared to God's. So Paul writes in Ephesians 5, look carefully then how you walk. Well, isn't that a funny way to talk? Look carefully how you walk? Throughout scripture, Old Testament and New, walking is a metaphor for living. Earlier in Ephesians, Ephesians chapter two, Paul wrote that we were dead in our sins, and how does he describe being dead? Walking according to the pattern of this world. Those dead in their sin apart from God, without the Holy Spirit, live according with their nature, following their deceptive leader, Satan, who guides them in serving and pursuing their own self-centered desires. But God, Ephesians 2 verse 4, made us alive by grace through faith, and why? Verse 10, to walk a new way, to follow after his desires. This metaphor, walking is living, causes us to think about the Christian life as a journey, the Christian life as a journey, and yet, When we get to Ephesians 5, which we read, Paul doesn't say, the Christian life is a journey, therefore be careful where you go, but be careful how you walk. And why is this? Because what our passage this morning is getting at, and what whole books of the Bible, like Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, are getting at, is that for us, in this journey of the Christian life, we are called to concern ourselves with the types of travelers God wants us to be. What type of traveler are you? God is more concerned that you set your mind on that than on where you're actually going. And this shouldn't surprise us being children of Abraham, who was what? Told to go, but wasn't told where. Of course, we would like to know where to go, wouldn't we? Is God's will for my life to choose this sport or to choose that sport? to choose this college major or that college major, to take this job or that job, to move to this town or to move to that town, to spend my investment on this or that. Don't we want to know God telling us the answers to these things? Those decisions are all worthy of careful consideration, but God is not concerned with revealing those types of answers to us in his word. What God wants for you and me is much more profound than where to go and what to do. God guides us through his word by his spirit, not where to go, but how to get there. What kind of travelers should we be? That is the question of Ephesians five. And the answer to that question is travelers who redeem the time. Or as the ESV renders it, travelers who make the best use of the time. So we'll look at three points briefly. First, how to walk. Second, where to walk. And finally, why to walk. So first, how to walk. When writing this, Paul uses a single word but it gets stretched out in English. Paul uses a word for redeem. So another way you could put this main phrase of our text is redeeming the time. How should we walk? Redeeming the time. That's the way the King James Version puts it. So what does Paul mean by redeeming the time? to take advantage of any opportunity that comes your way, saving it from being lost. As far as it depends on you, save your time from the vanity of life. Do you remember the story in Daniel, when King Nebuchadnezzar, he had a troubling dream? It really disturbed him, and he was desperate to find the answer to what this meant. So he calls on all the magicians and all the wise people to come answer and tell him his dream. But he asked them for more than just what it meant. He asked them to tell me what my dream was and then tell me what it meant. They were flustered. They knew their necks were on the line if they couldn't do this. So they said, Don't worry, just tell us your dream and then we'll interpret it. And King Nebuchadnezzar says, I know what you're doing. You're just trying to buy some time. Because you see that my word is final. Time was against them, so they needed to make the best use of the time that they had, and perhaps even redeem the time, or as we might say, buy some time. We don't have a lot of time. It is slipping away. I mean, just this morning, talking to people, asking them how long they've been. And in this church, you've told me 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. You know the time is slipping away, having seen decades of time pass, haven't you? How might we repurpose this time and get the most out of it? This is what Paul is saying here. Redeem your time from the vain purposes that it has in our present evil age. Now, there are many practical reasons why we should redeem our time, but Paul explains that there is actually a single spiritual reality which demands that we live this way. Look again at verse 16. Verse 16 says, make the best use of the time because the days are evil. What is fundamental to living the types of lives we are called to live in Christ is understanding the times in which we live, and notice, they're no different than the times that Paul was writing about in his own day. This is not referring to what's going on with the economy, or what the government is up to now. or who's at war with who, but spiritual realities. What is the spiritual condition of our age? In order to have the right mindset, the right motives, the right goals for how we're spending our time, we must understand that the days are evil. This age we live in, this epoch of history is characterized by spiritual corruption. So Paul writes in his letter to the Galatians, this present evil age is how he describes it. Well, what does this mean, this present evil age? Well, while Christ has dethroned demonic forces and defeated the hold of sin in our life, both demonic influence and sinful desire are still present. seeking to hold us back as we walk this new life in Christ, mysteriously drawing on the curse of the fall, actively working against those who would live according to God's purposes. The nature of time in this present age is in a natural drift towards the purposes of sin and death. And this will remain the spiritual condition of our age until Christ returns and makes all things new, bringing to completion the work that he began in his resurrection. These times are kind of like the times that are often depicted in a medieval fairy tale. Okay, so there's an evil witch. You probably will think of different movies all telling the same thing. An evil witch is banished into the forest after the king returns from years away in battle. Now the people rejoice and they live in relative peace, but they know the witch is still out there. Kids shouldn't go wandering outside the bounds of the kingdom. Undoubtedly, she is devising wicked plans. If one were to wander outside the kingdom, they might get swept into a terrible crisis. And that's why you have a movie, because they wander and get swept into a crisis. It's easy for us Christians to live ignorant of this present evil age, and it is clearly seen in the way we live and how we spend our time. Can you imagine a soldier on the battlefield, his comrades running from bunker to bunker, bombs going off, and he's sitting on a box, playing cards, drinking alcohol, completely unaware of the moment he is in. This is the Christian who wastes their time, unaware of what it means that the days are evil. Now, it's not a matter of just spending our time however we see fit, so long as you don't sin. Just don't sin, do whatever you want. No, no, no. Paul wants more for us than that. God wants more for you than that. So Paul lays out specific characteristics which should mark how we spend our time, how we are to redeem our time. When you realize that you have a free hour in your day just opened up, or a free weekend, hey, the guys are off to the weekend retreat. We got all this time. What do you do with it? Here are some questions that can help us think about how to spend our time. According to verse 16, which we've read, we can ask, does this reflect the fact that I believe the days are evil? that I am at war with the pattern of this world and my own sinful nature. Look down at verse 17, here's the second one. He says, therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. According to verse 17, we can ask, is this according to the will of God for my life? Does this reflect my own Christ-like resolve to doing what God has called me to do and being who God has called me to be in this moment? Now, let's qualify some things. This is not to say that with every unexpected free hour you might get, you must do something holy with it. We are called here to apply wisdom, not a rubric of rules, which means sometimes there will be moments you need to redeem your time by finishing that project you've been putting off. And there's other times you need to redeem your time by putting the project down and spending that time with your family. Sometimes, some of you will love this, sometimes the best thing you could do with your time is to take a nap. This is why we were called to walk in wisdom, not apply a rubric of rules, because it's not always going to be the same answer for every moment. So could you take a moment now and just consider How have you been spending your time lately? Are you treating each day like it's Groundhog Day? Have you lost sight of the big picture of what God is doing in your life? Have you gotten preoccupied with certain things that just don't really matter all that much? Satan loves when you and I let temporal issues of life override our awareness of what really matters, our spiritual health. It's family game night, stop caring about winning the board game so much. Francis Chan once said, our greatest fear in life as Christians should not be a failure, but rather of succeeding in things in life that don't really matter. So how can we become the types of people, the travelers in this life who know how to redeem time? Paul says, be filled with the Spirit. Be filled with the Spirit. Now Paul is saying this to children of God. He's saying, children of God, be filled with the Spirit. These people that he's writing to have already been filled with the Spirit. So it's not a call to have the Spirit re-indwell you, but to have the Spirit empower you. So I think it'd be better for us to say, be filled by the Spirit. Be filled by the Spirit. Our status before God as His children is never changing. Could you do anything to physically not have your children be considered your children anymore? No, change their name, put them up for adoption, they will never biologically not be your children. Your status as God's child is immutable. And yet, our present state may be more or less strengthened by the Spirit. This is how Paul can write to the church in Thessalonica, do not stifle the Spirit. And on the flip side, we read in Acts 13, 42, that the apostles were continually filled with joy and continually filled with the Holy Spirit. Isn't that interesting? And yeah, if you've been a Christian for more than five minutes, you know what I'm talking about. There are times when you are encouraged and emboldened in your faith, and other times you just are not excited about those things and you hope pastor doesn't call you. Reading your Bible feels bland. Maybe you don't even have the energy to pray. It could be that our sin has stifled the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit here in our life, and yet other times there may be no sin whatsoever, and we can feel empty and abandoned by God, because spiritual warfare outside of us, these are just the common highs and lows of the Christian life. But don't get discouraged. Remember why we experience this. because the days are evil. This is the natural drift of life. Now, what about this analogy Paul talks about? He contrasts being filled with the spirit with an analogy of being drunk with wine. Because someone inebriated is unable to distinguish between what is right and wrong. what is safe, what is dangerous, what is wise, what is foolish, let alone does someone inebriated have the ability to do what is right, wise, and safe, even if they knew. So Paul calls us to be filled by the Spirit. This contract with drunkenness indicates that being filled by the Spirit makes us spiritually sober-minded so that we can have the perspective needed to know the difference between redeeming our time and wasting our time, between what would be wise and what would be foolish, to know what the will of the Lord is for your life in this moment. This is the new way we've been called to walk. Having been redeemed by God through Christ, we are empowered by the Spirit so that we might redeem our time. Yet we stray. We stray like a car with bad alignment. If you drive without holding onto the wheel, you will stray. So you need to keep your hands on the steering wheel at all times. So Paul offers us these three habits of life for staying on the path. I'll touch on briefly. Now we're at this point of where to walk. Where to walk? How can we keep from straying? And these final two points are perhaps as, will perhaps be as long as the whole first point, so don't worry. So don't worry, we're moving just fine. He talks about music, he talks about thankfulness, and he talks about service. Let's look at those. Verse 19, let's read that again. Verse 19, Paul says, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart. Now, remembering the context of this letter, who is he addressing the letter to? Not just general Christians, but the gathered church, the church in Ephesus. So we can see how practically this plays out in your life. We are strengthened by the Spirit when we make music to the Lord with the gathered church. So apply it to your life. Redeem the time. Make church attendance a habit. That's assumed. But when you're at church, listen to the church. Listen to your church family sing together. And every once in a while, not all of you at once, but every once in a while, someone take a turn and stop singing. And just look around at your church family who's singing, and tell me you're not filled by the Spirit in that moment. This last phrase, with your heart, shows us that a mindless mantra won't cut it for God. Think about the words of the song. Dwell on the truth that they describe. Pour yourself out before the Lord with all your heart. You don't need to be a good vocalist. You don't need to even like singing. Music infects us. It turns over the hard soil of our hearts. Singing to the Lord will break light into your heart as the Lord strengthens you by His Spirit. Well, how fitting is it then, the next thing Paul says is to give thanks. Well, what else can we do when a song has filled our heart to the Lord than to pour out praise and thanksgiving to Him? So second, thankfulness. Let's look again at verse 20. Verse 20, he writes, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Reflect on the goodness of God in your life, especially in prayer, and thank Him for those things. Because we are strengthened by the Spirit when we express thanksgiving to God. And this will get you warmed up, because we are told to give thanks to God for everything. Always and let's face it There are things in your life you don't like There are people in your life you don't like There are circumstances that are frustrating to deal with that we'd rather not know Listen, God is weaving together all the circumstances of your life to build you up to look more like Jesus. We know this, we're reminded of it in Romans 8, 28. This is why we as Christians ultimately can give thanks to God for everything. Just as you don't need to be a good vocalist to be blessed by music to the Lord, you don't need to be happy to be thankful. In fact, it's the reverse. A grateful heart makes the heart glad. because thankfulness is another one of the tools God uses to strengthen us by his spirit. Third, service. Service. Let's look again, verse 21. Paul writes, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Now, it might seem strange that this is one of the tools God has in his toolkit for us. Are we really strengthened by the spirit when we pour our lives out for other people? Yes, and the prophet isaiah explains this exact idea isaiah chapter 58 He says if you israel if you take away the yoke from your midst the pointing of the finger speaking wickedness And if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted Then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as noonday That is backwards to how we often think The Lord blesses his people with new light in their life when they repent of their self-centeredness and serve others from a pure heart. This verse of our text in Ephesians seems to be explained in detail by Paul in Philippians chapter two. Paul writes in Philippians 2, not to do anything from selfishness or conceit, but to humbly consider others as more significant than we consider ourselves, and let supplying their need be our desire. What about this last phrase? Out of reverence for Christ, he says. Out of reverence for Christ. Paul goes on to explain in Philippians 2 the self-denial that Jesus himself embodied by becoming a human being. living the life of a servant, submitting himself to sacrificial death for others on a cross. If you love the Lord and revere the Lord, knowing that he poured his life out for you, you will desire to take on for yourself the same attitude of service he had for others. But really, let's think about Jesus in the Gospels for a moment. So put on not what you know from the chosen, but what you know from Jesus in the Gospels. Think about this Jesus. He had a single mission to accomplish, didn't he? And by the way, I've never seen the chosen. I know nothing about it, so I'm not putting it down. Jesus had a single mission to accomplish. And yet, didn't it seem at times that he kind of got sidetracked with little people's problems? all the time, he seems to get sidetracked. What were those times? He was on his way, he noticed that someone in need and he stopped to serve them. Now his disciples thought he was wasting his time, right? But we know that this was indeed part of fulfilling the task for which he had been sent. Jesus was redeeming the time every moment, whether a beggar grabbed his garment as he traveled on, or a crowd of rowdy children interrupted his sermon, To Jesus, there were no little people, there were no little problems, nothing was wasted. He redeemed it all every second of His time. So when's the last time you said, not now, I'm busy. Or thought, they're getting in the way of what I'm trying to accomplish. I'm learning this, I have an eight month old. As if, think about this. as if you or I have a right to not be bothered. We don't. We are not our own. We were bought with a price. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ, out of reverence for who Christ is for you and what He has done for you, and watch the Holy Spirit powerfully change your life. You cannot imagine the type of joy that comes in doing this, the type of joy that'll fill your life if you live like that for others. So third, why? Why to walk? If I were to close this sermon right here, and some of you might appreciate that, but if I were to do that, I would lead you up a stream without a paddle. Do this, good luck, And if you fail, you should feel ashamed of yourself next week when you come back to church. I'm not gonna do that. Neither does Paul in this passage. We have been set on a new way to walk. We have been called and equipped to keep from strain, but how can we persevere to the end? Well, if you think your ability to persevere to the end is ultimately found in you, your discipline, your habits, your work, you will, in fact, go nowhere fast in this journey. In every exhortation and command of scripture, we as Christians must ask ourselves, how does the gospel come to bear in our lives? In light of this command, how does the gospel come to bear on our lives here in this passage? And if we read our passage between the lines, we will see how even this new life is rooted in ultimately not what we do for God, but in what God has come to do for us in Christ, or what we might say shorthand, the gospel. This is because the way we become Christians is the same way we are to grow as Christians. So Christian, the gospel is still for you. The gospel is still for you. What God has done for us is the motive of our growth and the energizing force of our perseverance. So let's take one final look at our text. Did you notice every time that Paul mentions one of these things, interacting with one another, whether singing, thankfulness, or service, there's always a reference to Jesus. Look again with me at the end of verse 19. He writes, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. As we walk this new life, we must walk in reference to Jesus. This final phrase, out of reverence for Christ, is so key. Here, we are reminded of the source of our spiritual energy. It comes not from what we have done, not from pulling yourself up by yourself and getting it done, but from a reverential reflection of who Jesus is for you and what Jesus has done for you. It would be a scandal for us as Christians to shake Jesus's hand, thank him for salvation, and then go on walking in our lives in our own strength. Living out of reverence for Christ means keeping in mind how his life ought to impact our life, how his work for us ought to impact our work for him. And here's the crucial distinction. These habits of the Christian life we are given to redeem our time. They're meant to bless you, not to save you. They're meant to bless you, not to save you. What has Jesus done for you? Well, we might quickly say, forgiveness of our sins. Yes, sometimes scripture describes the holistic work Jesus has done as forgiveness of sins, but let's bring it out some more. Because of Christ, we have been washed. We have been purified. We've been declared righteous. We have been placed in a state of peace with God, whereby we have unmitigated access to Him. We have been adopted as God's precious children. We've been freed from the bondage of sin. I could go on. and yet it's so easy to get it twisted. Desiring to please God, we sometimes convince ourselves that when we fall or fail to live as we ought, that we are now threatening those things which Christ has given us. But in that moment, we've forgotten that the law of God for the Christian is meant to bless us, not to save us. God knows your shortcomings. Yet he always receives you in grace. Not because you may or may not have been redeeming your time well lately, but because Christ redeemed you. As we redeem our time, we must never lose sight of who is redeeming who. Even in the Old Testament, King David knew this. He writes in Psalm 26, 11. This is us, right? He says, ask for me, I shall walk in my integrity. I am very motivated because of church today. And we leave today and you say, ask for me, I'm with David. I shall walk in my integrity. But what are the next words out of his mouth when he's writing this verse? He says, redeem me and be gracious to me. I need to redeem my time because the daves are evil, and I am prone to wander. But more than that, I need someone to redeem me. My effort to redeem the time will be clumsy, and sometimes it'll be lost altogether. But as for me, I have been redeemed perfectly and completely. And it's only because Jesus Christ has redeemed us, that we can redeem our time. And praise God for sending Christ and uniting us to him by the Holy Spirit. May we keep God's perfect love for us in Christ, right on the dashboard, right in front of us as we travel on, so that as we redeem our time, we don't lose sight of who's redeeming who. Let's pray. Father, we are so grateful to reflect on your word, to consider it together, to worship you as one flock. I pray these people would be edified and strengthened in Christ by your spirit. And I thank you for the privilege and joy it was to come here today to worship with them. It's in Jesus' name that we pray, amen. Well, at this time, we're going to now prepare to take the Lord's Supper.