Ephesians chapter five, beginning with verse eight. This is the word of the Lord. Walk as children of the light for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible. For anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. 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, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God abides forever. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for the gift of your word, and we thank you for the gift of our Savior Christ, whom you reveal in your word. And Father, we pray that your Holy Spirit may indeed be with us to open the eyes of our hearts so that we may truly live in the Spirit, that we may walk in Christ's ways all the days of our lives. Amen. Well, as we read in verse 14, you are called to reflect Christ's light in the world. And in fact, by virtue of your resurrection in Christ, you do reflect Christ's light in the world. You have been changed in your inner being. You now walk in new life. And as you have been transformed, God calls you to walk in accordance with this new life in your inner being. Now, as we all know, the pressures of the flesh, the world and the devil all mean that there are often temptations to walk in foolishness and debauchery rather than in the light of Christ. But nevertheless, Christ shines on you who have been raised by him. He shines on you because you have been united to him so that you have been raised up to new life in him. And he fills you in the Holy Spirit. He fills you with his own presence so that you, the church, are the fullness of him who fills in all. And so he calls you to walk wisely. And so we see in tonight's passage that these two elements of this call to your walk, which is to walk in wisdom, verses 15 through 17, and second, to be filled in the Spirit, verses 18 through 21. And so first we look at this walk in wisdom, as it says in verse 15, look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise. Paul is addressing here, starting to address how you are to walk in wisdom, how to put wisdom and new life into practice. So it starts with looking carefully how you walk. It's an action with strict focus, with attention to details. It's not haphazard or thoughtless. The way that you walk in this life, in this world matters. And so God calls you to be attentive to the details of how you do it, to be mindful of your walk as you exercise wisdom in it and remembering always what wisdom is. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Wisdom is the skill of godly living. It's the know-how of how to do God's will despite the challenges that life throws your way. And so, Paul continues on that you should make the best use of the time because the days are evil. Now, it would be, it is a very common sentiment that your time is limited. And of course it is. None of us knows how long we may have on this world, so we want to make the most of it. But that's not really the point that Paul is making in this verse. The Greek word that stands behind time here is not a word that expresses a duration of time. You know, you've got so many weeks or months or years. It's referring instead to an appointed time, a time set aside for a particular purpose. And so Paul writes here that you are to make the best use of the time in the ESV. It could be translated also to redeem the time or even to buy the time, make a good deal for the time. It's a call truly to get the most out of the time that has been given you. This particular time that God has set aside for his purposes in your life. And this time is not set aside for you to walk in wickedness. It's not set aside for you to walk in some of the sins we talked about last time. It's not set aside for foolish talk and, um, and idle chatter. No, this time is the time of the resurrection. God has set aside this time for you to walk in the light of the resurrection that you have in him, to walk as children of light. This is the time in salvation history when you have been raised with Christ. If you have faith in him, your inner being has been transformed. so that now you are alive with him. You are alive with the life that you will have outwardly when Christ returns. But nevertheless, these days are evil, are they not? Now again, on the surface, it may seem that Paul is saying, well, the state of morals are particularly bad in ancient Ephesus in the year 62 AD. And of course, some people would read this today and say, well, the morals are particularly bad here in America today. But again, that's not really what Paul is getting after. Paul here is talking rather about the time that you live in salvation history. There is this overlap of the ages for Christ's resurrection inaugurated a new age where God's people would live in resurrection inwardly. But he has not yet put to an end the time where the children of man continue to live in their sins, where sin continues to reign in the hearts of human beings. to borrow Paul's words from chapter two, where many people continue to follow the age of this world, the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. That's the present evil age that we live in this overlap where the world continues in its evil, but Christ has broken in and won the decisive battle against sin and against death. and He has transformed His people by raising you from the dead. And so, you are called to make the best use of the time by walking in the resurrection that Christ has worked in you. Jesus Himself is the first fruits of your resurrection. He has been raised And the resurrection that he has is the resurrection that he gives you, and that he will bring to completion when he returns again. You have been raised in him inwardly, and one day he will raise you outwardly. And so to this day, you are called to shine Christ's light in the dark, evil age by walking in the new life of the resurrection that he gives you. And so Paul reiterates the call in verse 17, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. There's a call to walk in wisdom. And remember, wisdom is not the knowledge of how to achieve your own ends. It's the understanding of how to achieve God's purposes. And so wisdom is found in scripture. And you ask God to give you wisdom in prayer. Search the scriptures. Listen to faithful preaching. Ask God for wisdom to apply these teachings, these truths to your life. If you ask in faith, he will not fail to give you the wisdom that you seek. Jesus himself understood and walked perfectly in the will of the Lord. Jesus had the wisdom to do all that God called him to do perfectly, to be faithful and obedient. And what was the will of God? The will of God for Christ was to die for your sins. And so he calls you to entrust yourself to him, to confess your sins, and to begin walking in new life, to walk in the resurrection as he lifts you up, as he lifts you up out of spiritual death, the death in which we all once walked. Christ raises you up and he shines his light on you and through you. And so walking in the wisdom of Christ, you are called also then in verses 18 through 21 to be filled with the spirit. For it says in verse 18, and do not get drunk with wine for that is debauchery, but be filled in the spirit. That is what the resurrection walk is characterized by, is being filled in the spirit. And so here Paul poses intoxication, not to give a numerical, pharisaical limit on drinking, one drink or two drinks and no more. That's not his point. He's posing drunkenness and stupor, intoxication. as a foil to the clarity, to the energy, to the clear-headedness and wisdom of life filled in the Spirit. Drunkenness leads you astray from walking in the light of Christ. As it says in Proverbs, wine is a mocker, strong drink is a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise. But when you are filled, not with wine, not with whiskey, not with a gin and tonics, but rather God calls you to be filled in the spirit, to be filled with the presence of God, with his wisdom in the sphere of the spirit, in the realm in which you now live your lives as those who have been raised up to spiritual life. And so consider the contrast between intoxication and the fruit of the Spirit that you read in Galatians 5. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Christ, of course, was filled in the Spirit above all measure. He above all whoever walked this earth was perfectly filled in the spirit, had the spirit on him and dwelling in him in the fullest measure. And he fills you in and with the same spirit if you trust in him. And so you are already filled in the spirit if you belong to Christ. And yet we have here before us a command to be filled in the spirit. What Paul is doing here is commanding you to walk in your outer being what is already true in your inner being. And so Paul puts some flesh on the bones of how to live out this command as he gives in the next few verses several participles highlighting four representative ways to live outwardly what is true inwardly. These are not the only ways, but they're a good representative list. As he speaks of how you address each other, how you sing to the Lord, give thanks to God and submit to one another. And so in verse 19a, the first way to live this life in the spirit is to address one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Being filled in the spirit changes the way that you converse with one another. When we get together for fellowship, what is worth our time for our subjects of conversation? sports, politics, video games, entertainment. I mean, it's fine to talk about these things, but there's much more to life than these things, isn't there? And singing, singing of Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs is especially appropriate. Singing the great truths of all that God has done for you and for me in Christ our Lord. And Paul here does not limit us to singing canonical songs, to singing only psalms, but all kinds of hymns and spiritual songs, all kinds of songs that may or may not be inspired by the spirit, but all kinds of songs that are certainly illuminated by the spirit as he is at work in you. not only to address one another with such songs, but also to sing them to the Lord, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart. As joy in the Lord is called for and expressing it to him is most certainly called for. Dorothy Sayers wrote that the greatest sin of the Christian is to be joyless. Another book that I recently read had this excellent quote, the gravity of being a Christian must be matched, if not outweighed by the levity of being one. God has done great things for you in Christ. He has lifted you up out of the grave. And so he calls you to sing to him. In ancient Israel, we know that there were professional singers. There were choirs who were there to certainly to be doing some of the singing, perhaps to be leading the congregation in the singing, but it took training and expertise. Not so anymore in the new covenant song is not only for the pros, but song is for all of the people of God. And so when you sing in the church service, when you sing at hymn sings, when you sing privately, sing to the Lord with all your heart. That's what matters. I'm a former professional voice teacher. I'm here to tell you, I don't care how good or bad people are. I love to hear people sing, sing to the Lord with joy in your heart. That's what he calls you to. In verse 20, to give thanks always and everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. For in Christ, you have every reason for continual thanksgiving as you live in the life of the new creation. For you have an inheritance waiting for you. And you have a great commission from the Lord. You're you're on an adventure. And indeed, in Christ, all things work together for your good. And so as you live this resurrection life, you are to give thanks in all circumstances, in persecution, in trial, while you're waiting for medical tests, while you're waiting for your grades, whatever situation you find yourself in, good or bad, this is God's will in Christ Jesus for you, and he will not allow it to go without bearing fruit for you. He does provide for you and he grows you through everything. He grows you through the good times and the bad. And as you suffer, he makes you like Christ who suffered for you. As it says in Romans eight, that we will only inherit what he has to offer us. If we suffer with him, provided that we may be glorified with him. And as we live this resurrection life in song and giving thanks, we're also called to submit to one another. Submitting to one another out of fear of Christ, the fear of the Lord. For if you have all you need in Christ, what need do you have to elevate yourself over against each other? Indeed, the fear of the Lord means you do not need to get your own way all the time, for you trust in him, not in the good treatment of your peers. When we have the fear of the Lord, we're not standing in terror of judgment from him, but rather standing in holy awe that is due to a divine person. As we put our trust in the Lord Jesus who alone saves. And so indeed, as we exercise this fear of the Lord in our submission to one another, there should even be a certain cheerfulness for it is service to our Lord Jesus. It is service to him as we give way for one another. The Westminster Larger Catechism 131 says that the duties of equals are to regard the dignity and worth of each other in giving honor to go one before another and to rejoice in each other's gifts and advancement as their own. This is God's call to you in the fellowship of the church. And it's not a reason to silently suffer abuse or harm. If your brother does sin against you, you have every freedom to bring it to their attention. And nevertheless, when it comes to allowing others to have their way, respecting one another, caring for one another, you are called to submit to one another out of the fear of the Lord. And so in these four participles, we have this, these representative examples of what it means to outwardly walk as one who is inwardly filled in the spirit. How you walk in the way you address one another, the way you sing to the Lord, the way you give thanks to him and the way you submit to one another. For this is the wise walk in the light of Christ. Christ himself walked perfectly in wisdom. He was filled in the spirit above measure and see what obedience this led him to. What suffering on your behalf to save you from your sins. And what glory as he was raised from the dead and elevated to the right hand of God, the father, where he still sits enthroned, reigning over the universe for your benefit, interceding with the father for you. And he will one day come again to raise you up outwardly as he has raised you up inwardly. He has put sin to death in you. It is doomed to die. He has destroyed the one who through fear of death has subjected you to lifelong slavery. He has changed your inward being. And when Jesus returns, you will not need to be admonished or commanded to walk this way. For your outer self will be raised up so that you eternally will walk in wisdom and in the Spirit. But in this present evil age, in the overlap of the times, take care that you honor Christ as you walk outwardly according to the inner resurrection that you have in Christ. In short, as you walk in wisdom and in being filled in the Spirit. Let us pray.