If you have a copy of the scriptures, let me invite you once again to turn to Paul's epistle to the church at Ephesus, the book of Ephesians. And we are returning today to the fifth chapter, Ephesians 5. And we'll be looking today, Lord willing, verses 17 through 21 Ephesians 5 verses 17 through 21 let me invite you once again as you're able let's stand and honor the reading and hearing of God's Word Ephesians 5 beginning in verse 17 the Apostle Paul writes wherefore I Be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. May God bless today the reading and the hearing of his word, and let us join together in prayer. Gracious and loving God, we do give thee thanks today once again for thy word, for this special revelation. Holy men of old were moved by the Holy Spirit, like the Apostle Paul, to write these things. Now, give us light, give us illumination. Open our eyes, unstop our ears, loosen our hearts and minds to receive, to appreciate, to cherish, Thy word. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated. Well, we are continuing today this ongoing exposition of Ephesians. And we're in that part of Ephesians where there is much stress on the practical matters of living the Christian life. And there's been this metaphor that the Apostle Paul has used, that of our walk, our conduct. And the stress has been repeatedly upon the fact that our walk, our conduct, should match up with our profession or confession of faith. It's been said that integrity is when there is a large gap between who you say you are and how you actually conduct your life. And so Paul is calling for there to be integrity in the living of the Christian life. And since this word, this instruction has been inscripturated, it's not only the words of Paul, it is the word of God. We are receiving it today as instruction to us on how to live the Christian life. I was listening to a podcast this past week, and someone mentioned this little acronym, which I knew, but it's sort of forgotten about, B-I-B-L-E, the Bible. And they said it's basic instruction before leaving Earth, the Bible. It has instructions for us in the living of the Christian life. Now, we need to be careful about this because in stressing the importance of faithful Christian living, what we don't want to do is give the impression, the implication that our salvation depends upon our good works, that that could ever be the basis of our salvation. And Paul has made that plain. I don't think he could teach the kind of things he's giving in chapters 4 and 5. We'll see on into chapter six, unless he had not first laid clearly the foundation of salvation. It's a touchstone in the Christian's Bible. Probably Ephesians two is one of the most marks. Probably open your Bible up. Probably ought to just almost naturally fall there up and look at verses 8, 9, and 10 of Ephesians 2. For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. And then, though, he adds in Ephesians 2.10, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. And so that image of walking was there before chapters 4 and 5, before he said in chapter 4, verse 1, walk worthy of your vocation, before he said in chapter 5, walk in love, and walk as children of light, and walk circumspectly. He had said in Ephesians 2.10 that There were good works that God has given to those who are saved, not as the ground of their salvation, and not as the root of their salvation, but the fruit of their salvation. But he has given these that we should walk in them. And so there's an emphasis on the conduct of the Christian life and our living our Christian life with integrity. Now, we're going to look at this passage, and it gets us up to verse 21. submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. And that's going to be kind of a title or introduction to what we'll look at, Lord willing, in weeks to come, something that's called the household code. here in Ephesians, where Paul gives instructions to wives and husbands. He gives instructions to children and parents or fathers. He gives instructions to servants and masters. And so the practical teaching of the living out of the Christian life will continue. And we are just furthering that a little bit more today. This also brought to mind the title of a famous apologetic book that came out in the 1970s by Francis Schaeffer. It was titled, How Should We Then Live? And really that's the question that Paul is posing and answering in this passage. In light of the fact, if we are believers, if we were at one time children of disobedience and children of wrath, And if we were once dead in our trespasses and sin, and now we've been made alive in Christ, how should we then live? How should we then live? Paul is always joining doctrinal truth with the practical implications of it, and that's what we're looking at today. Sometimes, I know in our Reformed circles, it said, we're so cerebral. We're always talking about doctrine. Well, I hope we're remedying that over these last several weeks and that we're talking about things that are highly practical about how we are to live the Christian life. Well, let's move, if we can, to walk through our passage today. And I think we can trace in our passage today at least five aspects of wise, practical Christian living. And I'm going to suggest that there's one of these nuggets in each one of the verses that we will look at. In verse 17, we're told that we should understand the Lord's will. In verse 18, we are told that we should be filled with the Spirit. In verse 19, it says we are to sing and make melody in our hearts to the Lord. In verse 20, it says we must give thanks always and for all things. And in verse 21, it says we must submit in the fear of the Lord. And so there's our outline. Not the five points of Calvinism, but the five aspects of wise Christian living that are laid out in our passage today. So let's start looking at verse 17, the first of these five aspects, which I've described as we are to understand the Lord's will. And so Paul begins, verse 17, Wherefore, be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. Now, the teaching here, of course, connects with everything that's been said before. And in the immediate context, if you look back to verse 15, where he had said, see them that you walk circumspectly, he had introduced the language of contrast between foolish living and wise living. And so he said, walk circumspectly, not as fools, in verse 15, but as wise. And I mentioned when we were talking about that last Lord's Day that there's a little bit of Solomon in this. There's a little bit of the wisdom literature, a little bit of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes in this. That we are not to live as fools, but we are to act with wisdom or to walk with wisdom. And the children from Bible school, I think I mentioned this last week, know, as Proverbs 9, 10 teaches, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Not being afraid of God, not being terror-stricken by the Lord, but having awe and reverence. Some have described this as an aspect of worship, an aspect of the Christian life that is increasingly rare in many of our evangelical churches, to have a sense of fear, awe, that we are in the presence of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And as we talked about with our children in Vacation Bible School, what does it mean to live a wise life? It means to live a life where you give the most glory to God and where you Try to be the greatest blessing to yourself and to others, loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself. That's living a wise life. And so he starts off here in verse 17. Wherefore, be ye not unwise. Don't be a fool. Don't live foolishly, but live wisely. And we also noted last time how in verse 16, he talked about we are redeeming the time. The Christian is being a wise steward, a good steward of his life. We're living in this in-between time between Christ's first advent and his second advent, his first coming and the second coming. And the days are evil. We live in a fallen world. Again, think about what Paul said in 2 Timothy 3.1. We're living in perilous times. And in living in these circumstances, we are redeeming the time as Christians, making the most of the time, trying to be wise stewards of the management of our lives, our resources, and everything that we have. And one aspect of that, then, is what Paul stresses here in verse 17, the first of these five points we're looking at. He says, but understand what the will of the Lord is. The concept of discerning the Lord's will has often been experienced by Christians as a difficult task. What is the Lord's will? And sometimes in our evangelical circles, sometimes people with a tender conscience will get sometimes very upset, unnerved by this. Am I in God's will? Am I out of God's will? Is this decision I've made? Am I within God's will? And we sort of see it as a stream, and we're either in it or we're out of it. And so it can become something that one really worries about. Is it God's will for me to go to this school? Is it God's will for me to take this job? Is it God's will for me to attend or join this church? Is it God's will for me to marry this person? Is it God's will for me to have children or to have another child and another or whatever? What is God's will? Can I locate that? And someone might even think, as they sort through this, well, wait a second, the Bible teaches that the Lord decrees all things. He knows the end from the beginning. He knows the die when it is cast into the lap, the lot when it is cast into the lap. He's sovereign over all things. We do nothing in this life apart from His permission. The bird doesn't fall in the field apart from His knowledge. Can we ever really be out of His will? Does understanding God's will mean that we must have meticulous understanding of the ways he's working out his purpose in every tiny detail of life? If you think about it, that seems unlikely because we are not God, and our knowledge is necessarily finite. And so there are going to be limitations on what we might know about his will. Someone might think, I'll just throw my hands up in despair. What can I do? What Paul exhorts here, however, I think, is that we strive to understand God's will. And he means that in a way that I think should be taken most likely in a broader and a more general manner, it's an exhortation to know God's will. How do we know God's will? Well, let's think about that. Where is God's will revealed unto us? Where is his will revealed to us? Second Timothy 3.16, all scriptures given by inspiration of God. It's profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction, and righteousness. Where do we understand God's will? Well, the first place we start is we understand God's will when we know the scriptures. And so in verse 17, when Paul says, but understand what the will of the Lord is, surely a large part of that is the Christian takes up as a calling a lifelong task of knowing and learning more about the holy scriptures. And then as he comes to know and understand aspects of the scriptures, he's also committed, she's also committed to obeying these things rather than rebelling against them. The Christian is committed to understanding what the will of the Lord is. When I hear someone pose that question, what is God's will? What is God's will for my life? Et cetera. Maybe you're thinking that today. Maybe you're on the precipice of a decision and you're thinking, what is God's will for me to do? I think about Paul's statement in 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 3. He said this. He went, yes, what is God's will? He answered the question. For this is the will of God, 1 Thessalonians 4, 3, even your sanctification. What's God's will? Your sanctification, that you be holy, that you be set apart to God. And so With that as a rubric, then when we come to decisions, we think, well, is this going to promote my sanctification and my holiness? Then it's something to be pursued. If it's going to work against my sanctification and my holiness, then it's something I should not pursue. And that would be, obviously, a general rule. Of course, there are many details along with that. But the first task of a Christian is to understand the will of God as He's revealed it in His Word. Second of these five aspects of living the Christian life, in verse 18, I've summarized it as Paul tells us, be filled with the Spirit. Now, that's the positive, be filled with the Spirit. And to illustrate this, Paul lays out a contrast. And so he says in verse 18, and be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the spirit. And so Paul gives a contrast here as an illustration between a lesser experience, a meaner experience of being drunk with wine, wherein is excess, being inebriated with the greater, the higher experience of being filled with the spirit. Drunkenness, of course, is something that's condemned in the scriptures all the way back to Noah in Genesis 9. We're going through our series through Genesis. We did a message on Noah, and it famously says in Genesis 9, verse 21 of Noah, he drank wine and was drunken, and he was uncovered within his tent. And so his nakedness and shame was exposed to his own sons. The children in Vacation Bible School, we're getting a lot of Bible School references today. One of the verses we asked the children to memorize was Proverbs 20 and verse 1. Wine is a mocker. Strong drink is raging. And whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. And so drunkenness. is not a virtue, it's a vice. It is to be avoided by believers. Now, yes, we know, on the other hand, Psalm 104, verse 15 says that God gave wine to gladden the heart of man. And in 1 Timothy 5 and verse 23, Paul told Timothy to use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities. But nowhere in the scriptures is drunkenness promoted. Some of you, our members, surely know that we have a membership covenant. And that membership covenant, we make a commitment to one another when we join the church about various aspects of our lives. And one of the things that we make a promise to do is, it says, we will not abuse ourselves through addiction or excess. That's kind of tough because that applies to food, too, gluttony. And it applies to drunkenness. We will not abuse ourselves through addiction or excess. But Paul's point here in verse 18, kind of a side angle, his point here is not to promote temperance. His point is to promote the greater experience. This is a comparison from the lesser to the greater. Don't be drunk with wine, but be filled with the spirit. That's really the stress that is being given to our passage here. Now, some of our charismatic friends They will speak much about the Spirit, and they will even tell us that there's the so-called second blessing. You become a Christian, and then later on you might get a second blessing and a filling with the Spirit and speaking in tongues and so forth. But we believe, the Scriptures teach, that every genuine believer is Spirit-filled, from the moment of his or her conversion. The Spirit is not a second blessing. It's a primary blessing that comes to the believer. The key passage that teaches this is Romans chapter 8. Romans 8 teaches about the indwelling spirit within the believer. Romans 8 and verse 9 says, Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. So there's no such thing as a Christian who doesn't have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in him. And in Romans 8 and verse 15, Paul tells believers in Rome, But ye have received the spirit of adoption. So one of the things that happens when we become believers is we are spiritually adopted. Every believer has experienced this, but the Bible also teaches that there will be lesser or greater awarenesses of the Holy Spirit within us. There will be lesser and greater experiences of the Holy Spirit within us, and there will be lesser and greater interactions between our spirit and the Holy Spirit. Romans 8.14 speaks of believers being led by the Spirit of God. And Romans 8.16 speaks of the Spirit itself bearing witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And so Paul's exhortation is that as Christians, you're born again, you have the indwelling Spirit, but be filled with the Spirit. Enjoy the manifestations of the Spirit. Let your spirit have fellowship with the Spirit of God which is in you. And really, I think what this comes down to in verse 18 is it's a question of what in this life really excites you? What really exhilarates you? What really fills you with joy? And for the Christian, it is Christ. It is Christ in you, the hope of glory. And so the Christian doesn't need drugs or alcohol or even exotic experiences to intoxicate his life. It's a sign of the perilous times in which we live that so many persons, they're so bored with life. They're so bored with the wonderful things we're already given, the beautiful creation, the ability to move and walk about and see and hear and taste. Life is amazing. And there are people that are so bored with it. They're so bored. And they become addicted to entertainment and to thrills. And we have whole industries that are related to taking people skydiving or jumping off a bridge. And you've done that. I'm not criticizing necessarily. But if you're living for the next great thrill, the next great exotic experience, that can be as much of a distraction as going down to the pub and getting blasted or getting your other drug of choice and getting wasted. The Christian doesn't live for that. We live for something greater, better, and higher. We are filled with the spirit of God. And we're living for that, for Christ, and there's nothing that compares to it. Everything else is the floor, and it's being in Christ, and the ceiling, and beyond. Third practical aspect of wise Christian living, verse 19, I described it as, sing and make melody in your heart to God. Paul says, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. This passage, along with Colossians chapter 3 and verse 16, is one of the most important proof texts within the New Testament to justify singing as an element of corporate worship. Colossians 3.16 says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Same three things mentioned here in Ephesians 5.19. Colossians 3.16 continues, singing with grace in your hearts Same prepositional phrase as here in Ephesians 5.19, and also the same, to the Lord. It's hard to believe, but at one point, there was actually a great controversy among the early particular Baptists in England as to whether or not singing was part of scripturally sanctioned worship. When the Reformation came and there have been so many problems and accretions in the Roman Catholic Church and even in the Church of England, and people were discovering the gospel, and people like the Puritans were wanting to go back and purify things, and some of those early Puritan Baptists, they were challenging whether or not there should even be singing. They said, because singing has this wonderful power. Singing is amazing, and it's kind of a strange thing. It's communicating with your voice, and it's altering it, and it's emotional. And they said, people can get so distracted by that. It's, again, looking for a thrill. Don't be drunk with wine, but be filled with the spirit. And they also wanted everything that they did in worship to have a clear scriptural warrant. And there were actually some people who said, Let's get rid of singing. But there were others who said, wait a second, Ephesians 5.19, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord and Colossians 3.16. And they looked to those passages and they said, wait a second, scripture does justify in new covenant worship, singing. Those of you who attend our church know that one of the hallmarks of Reformed churches, whether they're Reformed Presbyterians or Reformed Baptists or Dutch Reformed, is something called the Regulative Principle of Worship, the RP. And it's the idea that everything that we do in worship, we want it to be regulated by scripture. We want to have a command in scripture that tells us that we should do this. I've used this analogy before, bear with me if you've heard it before. But let's say it's my birthday or something and I go to a restaurant, a nice restaurant and I'm met at the door by the maitre d' and I'm taken to my table and the waiter comes over, shows me the menu and he says, what would you like? I look at the menu and I love a good steak. And I'm like, yeah, I want the steak. Bring me the steak. And the waiter goes back into the kitchen. And after a while, he comes back later. And he's got a plate. And it's covered. And he sets the plate down in front of me. And he says, yes, sir. Here it is. And he pulls off the cover. And there is a big piece of chicken. And I say, wait a second. ordered a steak. I wanted a steak. And the waiter says, oh, yes, sir, but see, I prefer chicken. There's something disordered about that. And the analogy is that when we come to worship, the one who orders, the one who directs what worship is, is God. And he orders what he would have to take place in worship. And we do not come and say, well, I know you said you wanted this, but I really like this. This really appeals to me, and I find this more interesting or more thrilling or something like that. And I'll give you, instead of what you have commanded, I'll give you what I desire. The Puritans called that will worship. It's worship that's based around man's will rather than the commands of God. And so we try to follow that. And so how can we justify singing in worship? Well, we look at Ephesians 5.19, we look at Colossians 3.16, and we see in that our justification. I want you to notice in this command in verse 19, I want you to notice four things about this. First of all, notice that this indicates that there is a horizontal aspect to singing. Speaking to yourselves in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. And it's the speaking to yourselves. Sometimes we think about singing, particularly in the modern praise, worship environment, Singing is often thought about only as something directed to God. And we'll see in a few moments, there is a vertical aspect to singing, and there's scriptural justification for it. Psalm 96, verse 1 says, oh, sing unto the Lord a new song. But Ephesians 5.19 and Colossians 3.16 also remind us that there is a horizontal aspect to singing. Part of the reason we sing is to edify and to encourage one another and to exhort one another. And my faith in the Lord is built up as I hear you also confessing alongside me the precious promises and doctrines that we believe. And there are also, often we sing hymns that have ethical exhortations. Trust and obey. Trust and obey, for there is no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey. And maybe somebody might be there who's not trusting very much, and the whole body begins exhorting that brother, that sister. Trust. Trust and obey. We're trusting. through our weaknesses. We're trusting alongside with you. So there's a horizontal aspect. Notice also, secondly, it tells us what we are to sing. We are to sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. And you may not know this, but there's been a lot of debate about this passage as well. Because there are some who have suggested that when it says psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, that it really means psalms, psalms, and psalms. That when it says psalms, it means canonical psalms, 150 psalms, our prayer book, worship book. But also hymns refer to the psalms. And spiritual songs doesn't mean things that necessarily speak to our spiritual experience, but things that are inspired by the Holy Spirit, 2 Timothy 3.16. All scripture is given by inspiration of God. So the only things we could sing that would be spiritual songs would be scriptural. Psalms. Others have suggested, well, Psalms means canonical psalms, but hymns can refer to uninspired writings. And spiritual songs could be psalms, could be other parts of scripture, could be writings that are pleasing to the Spirit of God, even if uninspired. At the least, I think Ephesians 5.19 and Colossians 3.16 says that when we gather for worship, we should sing canonical psalms. Isn't it strange that that's become a rarity in our day? This is what happened. And when the Reformation came, John Calvin, Geneva, what's one of the first things they did? The Geneva Psalter was issued. And they began going back to the basics, sing the psalms. And I found some people who come to our church where it's not been an experience they've had before. They say, well, after I did this, it was kind of weird in the beginning when you said, well, let's sing a song. That seems strange. But once you start doing it, then you begin to benefit. You begin to memorize God's word. It begins to find a resting place in your heart. And it's amazing how we can memorize things we sing. And think about our children. When they come to church, if they come here from an early age and they're singing psalms, they're memorizing large parts of God's word. And they have such a greater capacity to memorize things than we who are older do. So at the least, we can sing faithful biblical psalms. We don't believe that we should exclusively sing psalms. We believe that we can, just as we can pray prayers that aren't prayers within the scriptures, we have preached sermons that aren't sermons taken from scripture, that we can also sing uninspired and yet biblically faithful in edifying songs within worship as well. But we must admit that with the singing of uninspired songs, we always run the risk of saying some things in error. There are even sometimes some good hymns. The hymn, How Deep the Father's Love for Us. It's not a bad hymn, but there's a part in that hymn where it says, the father turns his face away from Christ on the cross. There's some people who've been questioned, is that really a biblical thought? Because in Psalm 22, verse 24, it says, neither hath he hid his face from me. And so we have to be careful about what we sing, especially if it's an uninspired song. Third of these four points, singing must come from the heart. It's that little prepositional phrase. Speaking to yourselves in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart, in your heart. The standard for singing is not musical excellence. We are not giving a performance here. We are singing faithfully from the heart, in the heart. And fourthly, I said there's a horizontal aspect to our singing. There's also a vertical aspect in the end, because look at verse 19. It says, we're making melody in your heart to the Lord. We're singing to him. So there's a horizontal aspect, also the vertical aspect. Fourth of our five points will come to us in verse 20. Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Giving thanks. This fourth aspect of the Christian life, of living a wise Christian life, is being a thankful Christian. Giving thanks to the Lord. There are so many great psalms which speak of this. I think about Psalm 136, which is a psalm of thanksgiving. We often read it around Thanksgiving season. It begins in Psalm 136, verse 1. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever. Sometimes we read it as a read in response. We'll read a line of it, because it repeats over and over again, for his mercy endureth forever. Thanksgiving is a basic aspect of prayer. Some of you have been taught the little acronym ACTS, A-C-T-S. How do we pray? Adoration, confession. thanksgiving and supplication. So thanksgiving is connected to prayer. Notice also, he says here in verse 20, giving thanks always. It addresses the time duration of thanksgiving. The Christian has a thanksgiving that has no beginning and no end. He's always giving thanks. And this also connects it to prayer. As Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 5, 17, we are to pray without ceasing. We've noted before that the Muslims say they pray five times a day. In Jewish tradition, they pray three times a day, evening, morning, and noon. But with Christians, the standard is always constant prayer and constant giving of thanks, constant thankfulness. And notice also the little prepositional phrase, giving thanks always for all things, for all things, not merely for good things or the things we perceive to be good, whether rightly or wrongly, not for some things, but for all things. Paul likewise said in Philippians 4, 6, be careful for nothing. That doesn't mean be careless. It means don't be burdened with care. Be careful. Don't be filled with care. Don't be careful for nothing. But in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God. Even in the difficult experiences of life, trials, the Christian comes to the Lord with thanks. Psalm 119 verse 71 says, it is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn by statutes. R.C. Sproul gives a nice caution, a valid caution though in this. He says, some, in literal zeal, actually thank God for things he despises. This faulty thinking drives some to the conclusion they must thank God for the very evil he hates. And when I read that, I thought, I wonder if there's ever been a robber out there who said, oh, thank you, Lord, that I was able successfully to rob that bank. Well, that would be a violation of giving thanks for all things, right? Sproul says, may this never be. We dare not thank God for evil consequences of sinful actions, such as when a drunk driver kills another person. What we praise God for is for being God in the midst of such terrible tragedies, and for his redeeming purposes, which can bring light out of darkness. We don't praise God. Thank Him for the evil things. We thank Him because we know that He can bring good out of it. Romans 8, 28. He works all things together for good to those who love him, to those who are the called according to his purpose. And notice also that this Thanksgiving, like our singing, is to be God-centered and God-directed, unto God the Father, or unto God who is the Father. And it is to be in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thanksgiving here is so related to prayer, We remember John 14, 13, Christ said, and whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. And so we, as Christians, typically begin our prayers addressing the Father, as Christ taught in the Lord's Prayer, Matthew 6, 9. Our Father which art in heaven, and we often end our prayers in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Fifth and finally, and I'm going to spend less time on this, because we're going to be talking a lot about it, God willing, in time to come. Submitting yourselves one to another in fear of God. For Christians, submission is not a dirty word. We are submitted to God, James 4, 7. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. We are submitted to lawful civil authority, Romans 13.1. Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. Peter said in 1 Peter 5.5 that the younger were to be submitted to the elders. Biblical submission is not abuse. It's not abusive behavior. And the Bible doesn't teach here in saying submit yourselves one to another that Christians are simply like doormats, or even to one another. It's about proper submission to others as they are related to us, as our Baptist catechism teaches, whether they be our superiors, inferiors, or equals. As we'll see later in this series, a woman, a wife, is not bound to submit to all men, but to her own husband as unto the Lord. And we'll be talking a lot about that as we look at the Pauline family code, household code to come. Well, friends, we've worked through our passage. There we have it. Five essential aspects for wise living of the Christian life. Basic information before leaving Earth. Understand God's will. Be filled with the Spirit. Sing to the Lord. Give thanks always and for all things. Be submitted to rightful authority. These are things that would lead one to not live as a fool, but to live wisely, to walk as children of light, and to walk circumspectly in this world. Amen? Let me invite you, as you're able, to stand together. Let's join in prayer. Gracious and loving God, we give thee thanks for these instructions that we have received. And we would trust that certainly thy words would not fall to the ground today. But they would find a resting place in our hearts. And if through the stammering of this preacher things have not been said clearly, or if they've been said errantly, we ask that the Holy Spirit would correct that and would drive these nails. into place within our lives so that we would be, for those outside of the faith, that they would come to know Christ. And for those who are in Christ, they would be edified in him. We ask this in Christ's name, amen.