Again this morning continuing in Paul's letter to the Ephesians, this morning in chapter 5. If you would turn to that chapter in verses 15 to 20, that's what we'll be looking at this morning. We're ending in the middle of a sentence there in verse 20, but verse 21 through chapter 6 verse 9 are really a whole new section of this letter on the theme of mutual submission. We'll get to that in the ensuing weeks, God willing. This morning I want to focus on the instruction that Paul gives there in verses 15 to 20. So if you would, Stand in honor of the reading of God's word, as God's people have done. Let us hear the word of our own God. Ephesians 5, 15-20. 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 and hymns and 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. So in this reading from God's holy, infallible, and inerrant word, may he make it a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. Please be seated. Let me pray for us as we come before that word. Oh God, our Father, help us to understand and in understanding put into practice your word for us this morning. We thank you for the Apostle Paul, we thank you for the gifts that you gave to him, and that we get to enjoy the fruit of those gifts here so many thousands of years later. So bless us this morning as we come to your word, in Jesus' name, amen. You might have caught the sense in these verses that this is a passage about wisdom, wisdom and folly. But what is wisdom? How do we know if something is wise? Paul asks the question in 1 Corinthians 1, verse 20, Where is the one who is wise? We try to capture wisdom. We come up with simple little aphorisms or adages. We teach them to our children. We quote them to one another. But how helpful are they? How successful are they really in capturing wisdom? Let me give you some examples. Is this true? If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Or is this true? Don't beat your head against the wall. Which is true? Does absence make the heart grow fonder? Or out of sight, out of mind? Are you never too old to learn? Or is it true that you can't teach an old dog new tricks? Do many hands make light work? Or do too many cooks spoil the broth? Too many cooks in the kitchen? We're told not to judge a book by its cover. But we're also told clothes make the man. Which is true. How do we know? It's kind of confusing. It's contradictory. What do we make of this? Even in the Bibles. Turn, if you would, to Proverbs. We're going to be looking at Proverbs tonight, but this is a different chapter. Proverbs 26. One of my favorite little passages in Scripture. Proverbs 26, verses 4 and 5. This is wisdom from God. Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes." Which is it? Do I answer a fool so he doesn't become wise? Do I not answer him because I might become like him? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to make of this? It seems too uncertain. Is there anything we can do? Now part of what we understand, especially about Proverbs, but even those other little aphorisms and things that I just quoted, well, the truth of them kind of depends on the context, doesn't it? On the situation. If you find yourself becoming foolish, well, stop answering the fool. But if you find the fool starting to think he's wise, it might be time to tell him that he's not. Is there any wisdom That's true, that's certain, that we can depend upon. And I would say yes, and I think we have an example of it in our passage today. This passage continues a pattern that began back in verse 3 of this chapter. Contrast. The contrast a couple weeks ago is between sons of disobedience and children of obedience. Children of obedience being marked by, in verse 4, an attitude of thankfulness. Being thankful for what Christ has done for them. And that motivates Paul's exhortation, his commands, his imperatives, as we're in that section of the letter now. Telling us to put off sinful behavior, things like sexual immorality, impurity, covetousness, filthiness, foolish talk, crude joking. And then last week we saw the contrast between darkness and light. Paul tells us, you are light, so walk in the light. You're light in the Lord. It's his work that makes you light, in and through him. So wake up, he says. Wake up and walk like children of light. Well, this week the contrast is between foolishness and understanding. foolishness and wisdom, those who are unwise and those who are wise. And Paul now addresses us with three new exhortations, three new imperatives, three new commands. If I can simplify the first one, he's saying, see, look carefully, pay attention. The second one, understand. And the third one is an interesting one, be filled with the Holy Spirit. I want to look at each of those in turn. Noting a couple things here before I do. Each exhortation, each command is given in opposite to another command. Don't do that. Do this instead. Do not do what is foolish. Do what is wise. The first command, Paul gives us a reason for following that command. And then the third command, he tells us about four things that flow out of that desired pursuit of being filled with the Holy Spirit. Four fruits, if you will. And those lead into the next part of Paul's letter. So we'll take those in turn. C, he tells us, look carefully in verse 15. Pay attention, you could put it. Paul's been telling us what it means to be imitators of God, walking in love as Christ has loved us, taking no part in sinful behavior, the fruit of darkness, and so on and so forth. Be who you are in Christ, he's been telling us and will tell us in these latter three chapters. And if that's what we're supposed to do, if that's what's supposed to be our focus as believers, he then says, Look carefully then. Look carefully. He's not just saying, open your eyes and look around. We used to go on car trips when we were kids, and every now and then my dad would say, look around, look at this beauty, look at what you're seeing, keep your eyes open, you might see something. You go on a tour, a guided tour, and the tour guide is showing you things and pointing them out to you. That's not what Paul is saying, just look around and see things. be generally aware of what's going on. He's doing something very similar to one of my favorite little vignettes from the Sherlock Holmes stories. Sherlock Holmes scolds his good friend, Dr. Watson, telling him, Doctor, you see, but you do not observe. The doctor saw the same data, the same clues, heard the same testimony that Sherlock Holmes did, but he wasn't observant. He wasn't understanding what those things meant. He wasn't looking carefully. Paul's saying, I think, something similar here. Pay attention. Look. Understand. Observe. But do so carefully. Do so attentively. See accurately. And what that means, I think, for our lives as Christians, look carefully then how you walk. We need to be paying attention to how we live our lives as Christians. We can't just go through the motions as believers in Jesus Christ. We're supposed to pay attention to what we do and how we do it, how we walk, how we live our lives. This idea of paying attention to how we walk continues that idea of walking that Paul's been using in Ephesians. 2. 10. Created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. The very beginning of this section of imperatives on how to live. 4. 1. Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. 17. 4. Don't walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 2. 5. Walk in love, as Christ has loved us. And as we saw just recently in verse 8, walk as children of light. Pay attention, Paul is saying. Look carefully, observe what you're doing and how carefully you should walk as those created in Christ Jesus for good works, to show yourselves worthy of the calling as those no longer like the Gentiles. as those who reflect the love that's been shown to us in Christ Jesus. As those who are light, walk in the light. And then the contrast. Do not walk as those who are unwise, but as those who are wise. And who are wise in this context? All that stuff from chapters 1 to 3. All that beautiful instruction on the gospel and what God has done for us, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Chosen in Christ. Raised in Christ. Called to and saved by faith in Christ. A new people in Christ. Loved by God in Christ. Changed from darkness to light. Those who are wise are those who live like they are in Christ. By contrast, those who are unbelievers, Paul calls them Gentiles in chapter 4, they walk in futility, the futility of their minds. It's a pointless, worthless, empty existence. But then he goes on to tell us in verse 16, to make the best use of our time because the days are evil. He's not speaking here of the particular circumstances which any one of us might be experiencing, although those experiences might be a reflection of what he's talking about. What he's talking about is the times, what's going on out there. The world around us is evil. And I think he really means the whole of existence ever since the Fall. The times are evil. We could say the season is evil, or the seasons are evil. The times are evil because in the fall of man, sin entered into the world, and sin is evil. Sin is darkness. We talked about it last week as being disgusting, even shameful to talk about it. Sin is all around us. In fact, I think in our day, we're part of a time in the life of God's church where sin is multiplying. It's not just multiplying, it's being celebrated. It's not just being celebrated, we're being told to revel in it ourselves and approve of it ourselves. The times are evil. Look carefully how you walk. Be wise in how you walk. So this is a command that's vitally important, and underlying it, I think, is a sense of urgency. Look now. Be observant now. Pay attention now. Make the best use of the time you have now. Examine yourself and your walk. And then the second exhortation or command, verse 17. If we're to do this, and if we're going to do that successfully, the second command kind of follows. Therefore, do not be foolish, but strive to understand the will of the Lord. Getting this understanding is not optional. It's not a suggestion from Paul. He's saying, do this. Get understanding. And get understanding of the will of the Lord. This is an echo of, I think, the father-son kind of instruction we see in the book of Proverbs 4. Father tells the son to be attentive, in verse 1, so that he might gain insight. Same idea in chapter 4, verse 5. Get wisdom, my son, so you can get insight. And then he goes on in verse 7. The beginning of wisdom, my son, is this. Get wisdom. And whatever you get, get insight, get understanding. And of course, this falls on what we saw just last week, trying to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Understand what the will of the Lord is, what is pleasing to the Lord. Well, that's great, Paul, but how? How am I supposed to do this? It's interesting, there's a similar question that's asked and answered in Psalm 119. The psalm asks the question, How does a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. God's word is the path to understanding. God's Word is the path to wisdom and instruction. We see it in the wisdom literature all the time. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. You want understanding? You want to avoid foolishness? Fear God. Submit to Him. Submit to His instruction that's found in His Word. To know His will, we have to know His Word. We oftentimes make that question of knowing God's will a personal one. What does He want me to marry? What job does He want me to take? Where does He want me to move? What house does He want me to buy? Those are things that we can pray to the Lord about. But what Paul is getting at here is, what's the will of the Lord for how you live your life? How you walk as a believer? See the wisdom in God's Word. Look at it carefully. Observe it. Understand it. Agree with it. Submit to it. Don't argue with it. Don't do what people are doing today, trying to pull it apart. Deconstructing Christianity is the latest craze. That's folly. Wisdom sees the truth and the value of God's word, and how good it is and how wise it is to believe what it says and to do what it says. That's wisdom and understanding. Do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And then verse 18, really through 21, is the third instruction, the third command. Again, a contrast between wisdom and folly. Do not get drunk on wine, he says, but be filled with the Spirit. What an interesting contrast. Don't be drunk on wine, be filled with the Spirit. Some of the early church interpreters of this passage especially would say, get drunk on the Spirit. I think in our day that probably is not a helpful word. But there's the idea, instead of filling yourself with alcohol, fill yourself with the Spirit of God. Drunkenness, he says here, is debauchery, an interesting word that can describe all sorts of dissipation, all sorts of profligate, worthless behavior, reckless kinds of living, unsafe living. The word itself in Greek brings to mind the very opposite of safety, and I think there may be a little bit of a wordplay in there too, because the word sounds a little bit like the word for wisdom. Sophia, wisdom. Sotia, safety. Asotia, drunkenness. Dissipation, debauchery. Don't do that. It's foolish. You want to be wise? Again, don't walk like the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds, into destruction and condemnation. You want to be wise? Do be filled with the Spirit. Now what's in mind here is not what we often hear in contemporary evangelical circles, this baptism of the Holy Spirit or some special filling that happens at special times. That's popular today, but that's not what Paul's talking about here. This isn't about special miraculous gifts, or special ecstatic unusual behavior, or different kind of experience of things. Paul's intent in saying that we should be filled with the Spirit is that we would receive and experience the Spirit's powerful work molding us into the image of Christ, that we might be filled with all the fullness of God. This echoes themes he's already taught us about. Paul's imperatives in chapters 4 to 6 follow after his indicatives in chapters 1 to 3. This is who you are, be like this. Earlier in the letter, Paul prayed the prayer that we might know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with the fullness of God. He tells us in chapter 4 verse 13 about the various ministries that have been given to the church, pastor, preacher, teacher, and these are given to build up the body of Christ for this purpose, to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. This isn't something spontaneous, although that happens, and that's a wonderful thing in the life of the Christian. But Paul is talking here about something that's a command that we do, that we look carefully to do. It's deliberate, purposeful behavior. Be filled with the Spirit. Well, how do we do that, Paul? Well, thankfully, he tells us. He gives us four clauses that follow upon this command. The first way to do this, speaking to one another, or we could say addressing one another in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Those different terms are not meant to describe different kinds of singing, but rather the full range of singing that we can offer to God. Going on, he says, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart. Speak to one another in song, sing and make melody to the Lord. The first two ways to be filled with the Spirit. And what's interesting here is the dimensions that he has in mind. Horizontally, sing to one another, speak to one another in songs, address one another in songs. There's the idea of teaching and instruction and guidance that we have mutually for one another. Doing this as we sing, What should that tell us about the content, the words of what we sing? It needs to have meaning. It needs to be instructive. It needs to have depth. But there's that other dimension, the vertical dimension. Sing and make melody to God with all your heart. To do these things, we have to be paying attention. It goes back to verse 15. Pay attention. Look carefully as to how you walk. Look carefully as to how you speak to one another in songs, hymns, and spiritual songs. Look carefully how you sing and make melody to the Lord with all your heart. What do the words mean? What do they teach us? How do they describe God? Do they speak truth about God? Do they speak truth about us? Do they give honor to God? Do they give Him praise? In this context, singing is much less about us and our experience of it than what we offer to our neighbors and what we offer to God. So we should sing heartily, for that is evidence, fruit of being filled with the Spirit. If you can sing, sing. Don't hold back. If you can't sing, sing. We are to sing to one another. We are to sing to God. And I'm thankful we have a singing church. But we can always do better, right? The third thing. How do we be filled with the Spirit? What's the evidence of being filled with the Spirit? Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. This just follows again on verse 4 of chapter 5. God's children are thankful children. They're filled with thanksgiving. So they continually, these children of God, give thanks to Him, continually doing it and doing it for everything, nothing left out. Being thankful involves, therefore, remembering what God has done, remembering His promises, what He will do. That's been, if you've been following along in a daily devotional from Ligonier, Things Unseen, that was the topic that Sinclair Ferguson talked about, remembering. How important it is for us to remember what God has done. How important it is for us to remember what God has forgotten, our sins. I think of Psalm 103, forget not all his benefits. Who healeth thy life, who relieves thee from destruction. Remember who God is. Remember what He has done for you in Jesus Christ, His Son. Remember the death that bought us life. Remember the resurrection that promises our life, our own resurrection. Remember His coming and what that means for us. Remember all the blessings that are promised to us. The grace, the mercy, the love of God that Paul described in the early chapters of this letter. Abundant, profuse, unlimited, immeasurable. Remember those things. You remember those things, you can't help but be thankful. Doing this is what people filled with the Spirit do. Look carefully, being wise, being intentional, being deliberate, remembering the things of God, and being thankful for them. The fourth one I'm just going to mention briefly because we're going to spend some time there again, Lord willing, in the next few weeks. Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Submission to one another is evidence of being filled with the Holy Spirit. So being filled with the Holy Spirit in the way that Paul describes it here, again, is not just some strange thing that happens out of nowhere. It's a call upon us to understand the Lord's will. to understand His work that He describes in His Word, to encourage one another as we speak and sing and fellowship together, lifting up our psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing to God, making melody in our hearts, making music, giving praise and thanks to God. Paul keeps coming back to this idea of thankfulness, this motivation for Christian behavior that flows out of a grateful heart. He's warning us, don't be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit. But what drives out that temptation to be filled with something else? It might be wine, it might be food, it might be drugs, it might be work, it might be sex, it could be all sorts of things. that we might be tempted to fill ourselves with? How do we avoid that kind of debauchery? Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving that remembers God and who He is and what He's done. The other thing that Thanksgiving does, gratitude towards God, how does it put God in relation to us? Puts Him in His proper place, ruling and reigning. Again, the beginning of wisdom is to fear God, to honor Him. Thanksgiving recognizes that God is the source of anything and everything good that we have. That all we have is only by God's grace, His favor resting upon us. But that because of His favor, we're safe. Again, that little word play with debauchery. We're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. This is a gift of God to his people. Nothing earned, nothing deserved. Thanksgiving keeps things in proper perspective, in their proper relationship. God has been good to me. God has been gracious to me. God has taken care of me. He's the one in charge. And I get the blessings. I get the benefits. Thanksgiving also motivates us to speak God's Word to one another, because we want the good of our brothers and our sisters. It motivates us to sing with joy from our hearts. It motivates us to be willing to submit to those around us, as we'll see again in the coming weeks. That lack of gratitude again, it puts something else in the place of God. all sorts of idols, all sorts of pursuits, all sorts of things that might seem wise or pleasurable. We read about them in the summons to repentance. We love those things. We love to chase after them. We love being contentious. We love chasing after weird theories and weird ideas. Paul keeps driving us back to God and to his word and to the truths it contains. You want profitable, hopeful, helpful, joyous, flourishing existence. Be students of God's Word. Thankful for what He's done. We do give in to the temptation now and again to that kind of foolish behavior. But the good news of the gospel is that the grace of God for His people is far greater. Far greater than our folly. Far greater than our sin. And we know that because of what He's done for us in Christ Jesus. Remember these things. Remember them. Be thankful. Pay attention. Look carefully. Observe. Understand the will of the Lord. Seek out what His desires are. And I'm going to say this as a Presbyterian pastor. Let us be filled, filled with the Holy Spirit. Let's pray. Lord our God, would you fill us indeed with your Spirit. Would you teach us, show us how to be observant children, imitators of you, those who walk in light and not in darkness, those who pursue truth and not falsehood, those who sing with joy and gratitude. We fall away, we get distracted, our attention gets diverted. Lord, don't let us walk down that dangerous path too long. Call us back to Yourself, that we might rejoice, that we might be thankful, that we might offer up to You the praise for all that You've done for us and continue to do for us and will do for us through Jesus Christ, our Savior. We ask it in His name. Amen.