Sermon: The Christian Walk: In Wisdom
Precise Christian Living
#1760-PM
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 29-Apr-24; 81 minutes
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transcript:
If we look up the definition of the word "accuracy" in Cambridge Dictionary, we find that it means "the fact of being exact or correct, the ability to do something without making mistakes." Now, if we wanted maybe a scientific definition of the same word, it would be "the agreement of a particular measurement with the accepted standard." So if your measurement of inches comes up correct, that is, in line with what an inch is, that is the accepted standard, then you are measuring with accuracy.
In terms of something like logistics or sports or ballistics or tactics, anything like that, it can mean "the fact of being exactly aimed and moving on an intended path." So something like a flight plan or a thrown ball in some sort of ball game, a missile, a marketing initiative, a political attack, or whatever thing that has that sort of trajectory, can be said to be accurate if its execution goes as planned.
So when any kind of action is executed with accuracy (try to say that five times fast)—taking a scientific measurement, shooting an arrow at a target, steering a race car around a track to get the most speed, planning a complex building project, planning to teach a class, all things like that—the overall goal has been reached by careful planning, by understanding and controlling many various factors, along with the executor's dutiful application and persistence in maintaining the standards necessary throughout the process.
I know that was a mouthful, but to put it simply, when you want to do something with accuracy, you have got to plan, understand and control variables, and execute it as accurately as possible by the standards that have been set so you reach a predetermined end. Otherwise, if you do not do some of those things or especially if you do not do any of those things, you are not going to be accurate. You will be inaccurate.
Let us give you an example of how this works. Let us take the shooting of an arrow at a target. Real simple. To hit a bull's eye, the archer must have skill, training, and likely he has had years of practice behind him, especially if they are professionals in one way or the other or if they want to bring down a deer, it does not matter which it is, there should be some skill, some training, and some practice. That is only logical.
So an archer has to know the correct stance to use when holding a bow and shooting an arrow. He must be able to hold the bow steady and be strong enough to draw the bowstring. He must know how to control his breathing. He must know the principles, at least in general, of ballistic flight so he can account for distance, height of the target, wind, gravity, and even if the target is moving. He has to be able to try to control as many of those factors as he can. But he can only be accurate, that is, hit the center of the target on a regular basis, if he is careful to execute all of these things together to their highest levels.
Now, probably you do not remember, but the second half of the definition I first gave you from Cambridge Dictionary is "the ability to do something without making mistakes." Let us think about that for a minute. Being accurate or free of mistakes is very difficult. We have a saying that we use fairly frequently, "To err is human." Ain't that the truth? I mean, look at your own life and tell me how accurate you are. How often you make mistakes? Can you go through a single day without making a mistake?
Human beings are mess-ups and fumble machines. I mean, we cannot even grasp a pen, you know, it falls out or there is all kinds of things that we do where we just mess up because we, as organic beings, are not very accurate. We are very imprecise. Our speech is all over the place because we have trouble finding the right word, the correct word, and so we settle for inaccurate words over precise ones and cause misunderstandings. "Oh, that's not really what I meant," but the damage has been done.
Our hands shake, especially as we get older. We cannot hold them quite as steady as we could when we were young and so precise manipulation of things proves difficult. We all see things from biased perspectives because we have grown up a certain way. We have learned certain things or we have not learned certain things, or we have learned from certain people who bias us against certain things. And for certain other things, we listen to a certain news channel and not this other news channel because this channel is more up our alley and this one is not. And you can go on and on with biases that we have just based on our experience.
We become biased about certain things. It is just the way it is and we have to unlearn those biases if they are wrong. We want to be biased for Christ, but we do not want to be biased for Trump or men. We are told that "do not trust in princes, trust in the Lord."
We find that we do not know the whole truth about anything. There is always something more to learn. We may be very skilled on certain subjects, very knowledgeable, but it is wisdom to keep trying to learn and not just stay stuck on what you learned, let us say, when you were in college. I mean, that is going to end in disaster, especially in college in these times. So we have to just keep on searching for truth. Not that we do not have the truth. I am just saying there is always more to learn, more to make it real, more to make it accurate, as accurate as possible.
And then there is the human proclivity to assume a lot. You have factor A, B, and C, but you do not have E and F, but you assume E is correct and F is not, and then later on, you find out that E and F were also correct. We just do not know.
Then there are pressures and distractions. We become distracted over all kinds of things. The people in my family will tell you that all you have to do is turn on a TV to some sports event and I am distracted. I watch bowling! If it has a ball or a puck or something like that, I will be attracted to it. So we lose focus because those things distract us. We are not keeping our mind on what we should be doing.
And then there is other problems like giving in or giving up before we reach our goals. We just do not have the endurance or the stamina, the perseverance, the diligence, or whatever it is, to take something through to the goal and finish. It is just the way we are. We have a lot of weaknesses. We have strengths too and they help carry us across many finish lines. Sometimes it is sheer stubbornness, but we all have these problems that we have to overcome in order to do something well, to reach the goal, and to be accurate in how we speak, how we think, how we teach, and many other things besides.
So, because we are very fallible, we err a lot. Accuracy in most matters is not to be found, not complete accuracy. We can be accurate as we can be but complete accuracy always seems to elude us a bit. And that is not terrible because I said, again, we are organic, very inaccurate beings. We are not robots, we are not designed to do things quite that way. A lot of times it is unnecessary because we form habits and we do things a certain way and that works for us. But other ways might actually be better and more accurate, but we are satisfied with what we need to do because we are used to it. We are not necessarily accurate or precise about things, but they get the job done and most of us are satisfied with that.
Like I said, complete accuracy in most matters is not to be found. Oftentimes when we are accurate at something, say shooting a basketball or swinging a golf club, and we get that one perfect shot, well, it is not skill, I am sorry to say. It is probably luck. You just happen to have the right swing, you had the right shot, and it worked. We are just lucky that way every once in a while. That is the shot that makes you come back and waste your money on a golf course.
Now, there is a caveat to that; that there are times when we are accurate, when we do something right, like shoot a ball or hit a golf ball, because we have dedicated long hours and endured a great deal of trial and error. A lot of failure. A lot of overcoming of bad habits that made us inaccurate in the first place, so that we built and improved the skill to make us more accurate more often. And if you are doing that in a professional level of sports, let us say, then you will have people saying, "Hey, you should come play for us," because you put in the time and you have improved yourself.
I do not know how many of you follow professional golf. I follow both the PGA and the LPGA. I actually think the women are more interesting to watch. Not because they are pretty, but the game is more competitive with them. They seem to use more skill rather than power. But the two number one golfers in the world right now are Scottie Scheffler and Nelly Korda. And if you get a chance to watch Nelly Korda, she is just incredible. She just recently won five tournaments in a row. But they are the world's number one golfers not because they were born that way. Yes, they are natural athletes and I know for sure that Nelly Korda comes from an athletic family. I believe it is her father and her brother are ranked, or at one point were ranked tennis players. And her sister also plays in the LPGA and I guess her mother probably does something, the whole family is sports related. And I do not know about Scottie Scheffler.
But it is not just the fact that they are athletic people. Both of them paid their dues over long years. They had to get intense instruction from the time they were young. They had to study the game, study movements, study their physical body, study the skills that they would need. They had to observe other golfers to a great extent to see what they were doing right and what they were doing wrong. There was a lot of trial and error when they tried to figure out their swings.
Scottie Scheffler has a weird swing. He does not do certain things that the golf pros tell you you need to do in order to hit it far or hit it accurately. But he has been able to put all his skill, talent, practice together so he strikes the ball great every time, even though it is unorthodox.
And of course, we cannot forget the many thousands of hours of boring and repetitive and sweaty and exhausting practice that they have to do, how many golf balls they have to hit every day just to maintain their skill level right now. And just before this year Scottie Scheffler was having trouble putting. He was not hitting his putts. He was pretty bad! Not hitting close ones, even "gimmes" he would miss from time to time. Well, they are "gimmes" for you and me, you know, like six footers. No, just kidding. But yeah, he was having trouble hitting some of even the shorter shots and he put in dozens of hours to make sure that he got his putt back into shape and now he has won, what is it? Four out of the last five, I think, and the Masters Golf Tournament because he became more accurate in his putting. And he had to do the work to be that accurate.
So, they live golf 24/7/365. And they failed repeatedly along the way before they began winning, but they kept on it. They stuck to it and now they are the number one golfers in their respective leagues by a long shot. And if they want to stay there, they are going to have to continue putting in the work to maintain their skills and beat off the competition.
Now, as "dear children of God" with the goal of the Kingdom of God, we have to have a similar champion mindset in terms of accuracy. We must be accurate in reaching toward the goal of the high calling of Jesus Christ, that is, eternal life in God's Kingdom. So like athletes and musicians and chess players and you know, lots of other people who are skilled in their professions, we have to remember "perfect practice makes perfect" and we need to be practicing to be perfect day-by-day and as sharply and as accurately as possible.
So in this sermon, we are going to continue our investigation of our walk with God through what the apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 5 about walking in love and light and wisdom. If you remember in the last two sermons, we have considered walking in love and walking in light, that is, imitating the life of Christ in sacrificial love for God and others and in walking in the revealed goodness, righteousness, and truth that we get right out of the Bible.
Today we are going to tackle walking in wisdom to which God has called us. He has not called us just to wait. He has called us to walk and He wants us to do it with godly wisdom. If you will, please turn with me to Hebrews the 11th chapter. We are going to read verses 8 through 10 and then drop down to 13 through 16. This is the section of Hebrews 11, the faith chapter, that features Abraham.
Hebrews 11:8-10 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would afterward receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
Hebrews 11:13-16 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.
If we would go back to Romans 4:11 and 16 (we will not, I will just tell you what it says there in relation to Abraham) Paul calls him the father of all those who believe. And he also, then, in verse 16, calls him the father of us all. We have kind of put this all together and say that Abraham is the father of the faithful, which is not a bad way of putting it. So in his life, in the life we see in the book of Genesis that we can read and the other snippets of information we get from the rest of the Bible, we have a pattern of living, in him, as aliens and pilgrims in this world. He is on a journey to the city of God, that is, the Kingdom of God, and God constantly seems to point at Abraham—of course, in the New Testament, He mostly points to Christ but Abraham is a fitting object of our study—so that we can see how a righteous man lived in terms of coming out of this world and walking toward the city of God, the Kingdom of God, the New Jerusalem.
Then in Exodus, we get Israel's exodus from Egypt. And it provides a similar type that is a prolonged migration from the land of their slavery to the Promised Land with all of God's works, all of God's provision along the way, all their trials and failures and lessons learned, and their ultimate gaining of the land—because of God's faithfulness. So it shows us a little bit different view of walking the path toward the Kingdom of God.
Abraham is an example of walking through his life mostly right and becoming more accurate. He was faithful to God. He learned his lessons. He became more faithful to God, trusted Him more and more because God would teach him and he would learn, and he would put those things into practice. Conversely, Israel walking through the wilderness did it mostly wrong! As a matter of fact, they failed to learn their lessons time and time again. And as the author of Hebrew says in chapter 3:17, their corpses were strewn across the wilderness.
So Abraham died in faith, as we just read, and Israel died in sin. They failed to enter God's rest, whereas Abraham is promised to arise in God's rest.
So in the Bible, God provides a picture of a righteous walk that is not His Son, but is a faithful man whom He loved and helped along the way, as well as a sinful walk of those He also called His children, but they failed. And we are to take instruction and lessons from both, both the positive example and the negative example.
Let us go a chapter forward here in Hebrews 12, we will read the first two verses. So Paul goes through all these heroes of faith and he ends chapter 11 with, Okay, these are all dead. They died in faith, they did great things, they gave us good examples. What now? They are waiting in their graves for the conclusion of the mystery of God here up until the first resurrection. So, it is kind of like between 11 and 12, verse 40 in 11 and chapter 12, verse 1, it is like, "Ok, now what? How does this apply to us?"
Hebrews 12:1-2 Therefore we also [so we are now being inserted into the flow of the thought here, the stream of faithful people], since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
What he does here as he finishes the stories of these faithful men and women is that he begins to put these old Testament examples into a New Testament context, because he wants to make that transition from these people who essentially lived under the Old Covenant but were faithful to God and were people that He worked with by His Spirit. So they were converted people. But now we come to us, kind of in the blank space between chapters 11 and 12 is the life of Jesus Christ and His work that He has done.
So then it comes to us. Now, what do we do? What does this mean for us? How are we supposed to take this information that we have been given about all these great people of faith and apply it in a New Testament context, after Christ has lived and died and been resurrected and back on His Father's throne? Where do we go here?
He says, "Therefore we also." Let us do something. So what he does here for us, to make it very urgent, he changes the metaphor from Abraham taking a pilgrimage, walking to the Kingdom of God, he now looks at it as a race. An endurance race for sure, but one that we have to put our all into to reach the finish line as a victor, to win, to prevail, to overcome. And our prime example now—he does not forget those people in the Old Testament because they are great examples to go back to and see how they live. But his prime example now is Jesus Christ because He walked a certain way that pleased the Father. And now we know from Him, His resurrection and ascension, He has done it! He has shown the way, He has had victory. And if we want to have victory too, we have to do it like Him because He is the great Trailblazer, the Archegos that goes before us.
And he says, here, I know this is a tough sled, this is going to be very hard. But he tells us here, he says, "Looking unto Jesus (verse 2), the author and finisher of our faith." If I can put that in just normal English, you know, no spirituality or whatever, just plain understanding of what he is saying here, he is saying we need to look to Christ. He is the one who runs with us from start to finish. So that should be encouraging that we are not in this race all by our lonesome. We are not a solitary person on the road trying to win this marathon with no help.
In fact, it is just the opposite. We have got the Great God, the Creator Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer, our High Priest running alongside. "Hey, you need help? Ask, I'll give it to you." And He is very willing to do that. His life is our template. We can gather strength from that too. Looking into the Gospels and seeing the way those four men described His walk and it gives us a bit of bounce there. Hey, Jesus did it and I have Jesus in Me through His Spirit so I can do this.
Now, let us note the virtues that are emphasized here by the author of Hebrews. I am looking here in verse 2. The first that he emphasized is joy, "who for the joy that was set before Him." This joy is an attitude of rejoicing because of gratitude and contentment and guaranteed well being in Christ. We can be joyful, we can be happy, we can be content, because yes, we have Jesus running alongside us and helping us and He assures us in many scriptures that we can make it. We just have to keep running, keep enduring, keep your eyes on the goal, keep doing what He asks us to do. We can have joy in Christ because Christ lives. As Austin [del Castillo] said, it is by His life that we are saved. His life in us, His life as an example. That is what gets us over the top.
The second one is endurance, enduring. He endured the cross it says there in Hebrews 12:2. That is the commitment and the perseverance and faithfulness that we should have throughout the race. We just have to keep plodding on. Leroy Neff used to say that, I do not know, 40 years ago, the plodders are the ones that will reach the Kingdom. They just kept putting one foot in front of the other and lived according to what they understood and looked to Christ for help in time of need.
The third one that he mentions here is despising the shame. I put it in my notes as indifference to shame. He ignored outside pressures due to His difference from the world and that is what we are supposed to do. We are supposed to say, "I don't care what the world thinks of me. I don't care about the tomatoes and the squash and the rotten cabbage that they're throwing at me. I don't care about the persecution. I'm going to finish the race. I'm going to keep going." Whether the shame comes from persecution or even death, as it did with Jesus Christ, we have to be, in a sense, indifferent to it. It should not shake us because, again, Jesus Christ, King of kings and Lord of lords, is running beside us. So we just need to keep going.
And then we have "has sat down on the right hand of the throne of God." And for us, I have reworded this virtue to keeping the goal and its rewards top of mind. That we have that to look forward to. Just as He looked forward to sitting down again at the right hand of the Father, we can have a similar attitude, a similar desire that we want to have the same reward that He has. Because we are His brethren and His brethren receive what He received. Or put it another way, His bride will receive what He received. So we can have that great goal and all those wonderful rewards, not "just" eternal life. But you know, there is so much that God promises us in the resurrection that that should make us excited to run the race because God wants to give us all those blessings.
And if we conduct our Christian walk after this pattern, we will please God. We will attain eternal life. How do I know that? Jesus Christ. Because Jesus Christ took that path and where did He end up but back with all the life that He had and all the glory that He had in God's Kingdom. And He is sitting down at the right hand of the Father. So we can have the same thing if we walk the same path, that very narrow path, very constricting path, the path that up to now only He has really walked. But with Him in us, we can do it. I mean, look what Paul said in Philippians 3:7. We are actually going to read this whole chapter down to chapter 4. He had just talked about all his human pluses that he had going for him. He said,
Philippians 3:7-21 But what things were gain to me [as a human being], these I have counted loss for Christ. But indeed, I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind. Brethren, join in following my example, and note those who so walk, as you have us for a pattern.
For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame—who set their minds on earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.
Philippians 4:1 Therefore, my beloved and longed-for brethren, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, beloved.
Let us go now back a few pages to Ephesians 5. I want to read the section on walking in wisdom here. It starts in verse 15 and goes through verse 21. I just want to read it through so we understand what we are talking about here and then go from there.
Ephesians 5:15-21 See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.
In this passage, Paul's main concerns are to encourage the elect to 1) take your conversion seriously. 2) grasp what God wants from you. 3) keep His word and His way in the forefront of your mind. And 4) remain grateful and humble.
Now combined, these four things are wisdom. That is, the practical outworking of knowledge and understanding in our conduct. That is, putting what we learn from the Bible, from sermons, from experience, all those things, into practice to inscribe God's way into our habits and our character so that we can produce a near-imitation of Christ's life in our own life. That is what He wants. This is why it is the last of the three because it is the most practical of the three.
He is saying here, "Ok, now that we know about love, now that we know about light, then we need to put all of this together and produce a life filled with love and light and keep working on it, building these good habits, having the right attitudes, having the right motivations so that we can work out our own salvation," as he says in Philippians chapter 2, and we are told there as well that Christ works in us. So we work it out and He works in us so that we can become mature Christians following the example of Christ. And as I said, also faithful men like Abraham who did it very well.
This is why that once he finishes here in verse 21, he immediately goes into marriage relationships because this is the rubber meeting the road. This is where we have to do our best to live the life of Christ in our relationships—and it starts right there with the spouse. Then it goes in chapter 6, you see that it is talking about children and child rearing. After that, you pick up in verse 5 there with work relationships. And then after that, he talks about putting on the whole armor of God so that we can stand against Satan's attacks and endure to the end.
So his exhortation to wisdom in verses 15 through 21 naturally proceeds on to advice about practical Christianity, Christian living. It is like, "Ok, we've got all the preliminaries done. We have this principle, love; this principle, light; and now we need to put it all together and act it out." We need to behave or conduct ourselves in a way that is befitting the love and the light and Jesus Christ who personifies both in our daily lives.
Before we go into a verse-by-verse explanation here, I want to go to Colossians 4, verses 5 and 6 because this is the parallel verse in Colossians. Ephesians and Colossians have a lot of similarities. They were probably written about the same time and so oftentimes you will see usually a much shorter version of what Paul says in Ephesians in Colossians. And so here he only gives it two verses. But it is interesting to see how between Ephesians and Colossians, he turned it just a little bit to get at something else.
Colossians 4:5-6 Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.
Back in Ephesians 5, he talks about it more generally, but longer, he gives more examples. He tells us what we should be doing, especially in communication again, but more on the attitudes of things. And it gives you the impression that he is talking about within the church. However, in Colossians 4, he is talking about those who are on the outside. So it is parallel. He does use the same thing, walk in wisdom and also redeeming the time, so we know that he is thinking about the same subject, but he gives us a little bit different pointer on it in how we should deal with outside influences.
So here in Colossians 4, he talks about interacting with outsiders and redeeming the time with them. Here, Paul urges us to be judicious in how much time we spend with the world. That is his main point here, especially in verse 5, "Redeem the time" or buy back the time that you spend with outsiders and communicating with them. We need to walk in the same wisdom with them as we would with the church because you are supposed to be a light to the world, an example. And so you need to make the best of the time that you have with outsiders, but also make sure you do not spend too much time with them—because influence works both ways.
It is fine to have worldly relationships, worldly friends. And I know a lot of us who grew up in high school, now through Facebook you could still see them whether you want to or not. And I just got an invitation to my 40th graduation anniversary. I wrote back and I said, "I'm not that old." Yes, the 40th is coming up. But I do not spend a lot of time with them. I do not interact with them very much on Facebook or anywhere else because we do not have anything in common anymore. Now, I am sure if I met them on the street or was in some sort of an event with them, we would get along fine. We would probably talk about high school and how dumb we were and stuff like that.
But following Paul's advice here in Colossians, I would have to make sure that I use that time wisely with them, that I would not be wasting my time. And the best way we can do this is to conduct ourselves as Christians and especially, as he goes into verse 6, it is how we speak with them, the things we engage with them, you know, the subjects we engage with them on, that our speech is not crude, does not fall to their level, but it is on a high level. You do not have to preach at them. He is not saying that at all. He is just saying that when you interact with people in the world, make sure that they can look back and say, "now there was a Christian."
That is what he is telling us: to make sure that we use that time wisely and make a good witness. So he is telling us here that, yeah, it is fine to have friends in the world, but they must always be a lesser priority under God, under family, under brethren. And then you can use what time you have to spare, then, for people in the world.
And one of the reasons why this should be is, as I mentioned a few minutes earlier, about how the communication and the influence goes both ways because unless you are exceptionally strong, exceptionally faithful, it usually plays out that the world tends to rub off on us rather than we rub off on them. They have not been called. So, you know, if God has not called them and they have not come to you for any kind of spiritual help to point them in the right direction, then you are the one at risk—because they are going to drag you down. It is just the way it works. That is how it is in this world.
So you have to be strong, limit your time, make sure you use that time properly so you make a good witness. It is wisdom to, "Come out of her My people," as it says in Revelation. And as Paul also says in I Corinthians 6, "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers."
Now, in verse 6, he speaks about our speech, which our worldly friends influence because with them, what do we talk about? Worldly things more often than not. So we need to be careful. On the other hand, he says, we are to speak with grace. We have got to combat that evil speaking, if you will, that worldly speaking, with grace, that is, gentleness, kindness, godliness, with words that are uplifting, things that are centered on God and His works. Now, we do not have to sound like a holy-roller by any means, but we need to be thinking that we should be more noble in our speech, that we should have an elevated speech, that we should not talk about silly things. I mean, silliness is fine every once in a while, but we should be trying to elevate them to our level rather than descend to theirs. And certainly, of course, we would not want to use any kind of crude speech that they would use.
So the flavor of our speech with worldly people should enhance other people's lives as a witness of one's godliness. I mean, is not that what Jesus Christ did? He always tried to uplift people. Of course, with the Pharisees and others He did have a few things to say, but He never sank into crudity, He never sank into cursing, He never sank into anything that was not helpful to them. And that is how we should be. And if our witness strikes a chord, Paul says at the end of verse 6 here, we should be prepared to answer their questions about the truth.
But this does not mean we have to evangelize them first thing. It is always good to test the waters on a person, see if they are open to it before doing that sort of thing. But even if you do not go into that, you can still make a witness for God by your nobility, your Christ-likeness, your accuracy, to use the phrase from the introduction, that we could be precise in the way that we live our lives.
Let us kind of hone in on that here, and go back to Ephesians 5, verse 15. "See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise." So the paragraph begins with, "See then." That denotes a conclusion or an application of what has come before. And in this case, it is pretty much an application that once we know that we need to walk in love and walk in light, now we see that those two mean that we should walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise. So because God is with us in love and has given us light, we have to respond in a particular way and that is, circumspectly in wisdom.
Now, if you would look behind the English translation of the word "circumspectly," you would find the Greek word akribos. That is Strong's #199, and it means carefully, accurately, precisely, diligently. What it does is describe a mindset of precision, a mindset of getting things right, being correct, seeking to be more accurate all the time in our speech, in our actions before people so that we give them an example of what Christ is like. Because the most accurate of all is the life of Christ in terms of living in this world. So Paul is urging us to look to improve our walk with every step, never being content with our level of righteousness or likeness to Christ. There is always room for improvement. We do not have everything down pat. There is always more and better we can do.
(I was getting ahead of myself there.) This is not an unusual command, what Paul says here in Ephesians 5:15, because God told Israel many times to be careful how they observed God's law and ways. I did a sermon on this a couple of years ago at the Feast. We went to Deuteronomy 4:15, 4: 23; 5:1, 5:32; 6:3, 6:24; 8:1; 12:1, 13, and 32. They all say, "be careful how you do these things that I've told you." He was warning them not only to hear His voice and do what He said, but also to understand why He had them do these things and how to do them to produce the most good.
This is where circumspectly comes into play. It is a very good description of being accurate and precise in our walk, how we can be accurate and precise in our walk. The word "circumspectly" literally means in Latin "looking around." So we are supposed to be going through our life always looking around, seeing the lay of the land, seeing who we are relating with. Of course, knowing what God expects of us and finding out all the details that we can before deciding to go a certain way.
What it pictures is total awareness. We know everything that is going on around us in that particular situation and we are trying to gather all the factors involved in our minds as we decide what to do. That is what it means. When we walk circumspectly, we are going forward but we are keeping our eyes open. The military calls it situational awareness. We have to know everything that we can, every bit of information that we can gather that is available to us right then and put that into the equation about how we need to proceed.
Now, let us go back to Ephesians 5, verse 17. Not 16. We are going to skip 16 for right now because 5:17 is vital.
Ephesians 5:17 Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
We have to become not only totally situationally aware, but we need to become experts on God's will. We need to know what pleases God. As was mentioned recently, that phrase the evangelicals beat to death, "What would Jesus do?", that is knowing the will of the Lord. If we knew what Jesus would do, we would know the will of the Lord, right? Of course! So in this specific situation, with this particular person that we are relating with, at this precise juncture, under these certain conditions, what is best? That is what we need to be able to determine.
This is not situation ethics by any means, but godly reasoning and deciding what will produce the most good. That is why we need love and light. They must both be there. The light is truth and what has been revealed and the example of Jesus Christ, and the love is the way He acts. And so we need to plug both of those major factors into our decisions about how we are going to proceed in a particular situation. And when we look at the life of Jesus back in the Gospels, we notice that He ran into problems because He was functioning as we are supposed to function under these two major things of love and light. And the wisdom that He produced is in His reactions to these situations.
And He did not react every time like the Jews thought He would. Because they were looking for Him to follow the letter of the law when He said things like mercy is better than sacrifice, that God prefers mercy more than sacrifice. So He did something that shocked them but was absolutely correct. So with the disciples hungry on the Sabbath, He allowed them to pick, winnow, and eat grain from the field when the law said that was a no-no, that was not allowed on the Sabbath. But He understood, putting law and light together, that in that particular situation, it was right for Him to allow His disciples to eat out of the field. He chose mercy rather than strict adherence to the law.
When the woman caught in adultery was brought before Him, He chose life and mercy rather than condemnation, which the law required. The law required stoning in that case. He said, "No, uh uh. If we stone her, she has no chance to grow and overcome." So He says, "I do not condemn you. Go and sin no more." He still wanted her to do what was right. He still wanted her to repent, but He was not going to enforce justice on her. He decided on mercy.
Though the Jews considered it work, He frequently healed on the Sabbath because He promoted life and wellness ahead of a strict observance of law.
Think about this one. Despite God giving all judgment into His hands as the Son of God, He declined to judge between two brothers in a civil matter. He could have done it and given a perfect judgment. But He did not do it because it was not the right time. He put all the details of the scenario into His mind and He said, "No. Who am I to judge among you?" It was not His time, it was not right then. He was not setting himself up as a political person and that is what He would have become had He started getting involved in civil matters. So He said no.
What about this one? I mean, when you start to think about this, this is amazing. He chose to pay His taxes. Now why is that startling? Well, let us remember who He was. He was the King of Israel or put it another way, He was the High Priest of the Temple. Why should the High Priest of the Temple, the great and glorious God, have to pay taxes for His own Temple? But He did. Render to Caesar what is Caesar's, or the priests, the Levites, and to God what is God's. He thought things through. He did not just say, "Oh, the law says this" and close His mind to any other factors.
He thought things through. He was very conscientious and very conscious about what was most beneficial, as well as what was proper and what would be the best example and what is truly loving and merciful, among many other factors. He was a thinking man and wise beyond us by leaps and bounds. He weighed matters. He did not jump to conclusions. He used the gray matter in His skull, unlike many of us who just react. And that is something we have to overcome. We all do it. We all think we know. But oftentimes we do not truly think it through or we stop before we get to the right conclusion because something shunts us off into some other place.
And I am not condemning anybody for doing those sorts of things because I do them, we all do them. We are not perfect like Christ. So we have to become more accurate as we go along. Like I said, we do not have the skill, understanding, and perspective, but that is what we are growing toward. And if we are serious about it, we need to practice it. We need to practice thinking, bringing all these details and all the the ancillary things that we need to consider so that we can make a right and true and godly decision.
So we cannot get in the habit of making slapdash decisions. But instead, we must learn to think matters through as slowly as we need to, bringing as many factors as possible into our assessment, and trying—here is the big one that is very hard—trying to foresee outcomes. That is very hard. And we all make a lot of assumptions when we try to foresee outcomes because we do not have the foresight of God, of Jesus Christ. So it is a little bit difficult to do that. But we have to train ourselves to think about outcomes and to figure out that if I do this, what will be the response and what will be the fruit so that we can try to foresee the best thing to do. And then we have to choose the one that is going to produce the most good fruit—and that is very hard. But it is something that we need to try to learn to do.
Let us go back to verse 16.
Ephesians 5:16 . . . redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
This phrase, this verse, has the same force as what we saw in Colossian 4:5, do not waste time on low priority matters. A more positive way to look at it would be make the most of every opportunity. You only have so much time. And here, Paul follows up this phrase about redeeming the time with, "because the days are evil." That is a somewhat different emphasis than we saw in Colossians 4.
"Because the days are evil" suggests "because Christ's return is nearer than we think." Or "the evil days of this world are running out." He is trying to tell us that time is short and so we need to make the most of our opportunities. Christ is coming. You only have so long, get to work! We only have so much time. We do not know what has been allotted to us so there is none to waste. Since we can clearly see that out in the world things are only getting worse, so we in response have to hasten our growth, not just to prove our faithfulness to God, but to survive and endure the heavier onslaught of Satan's attacks is why he ends up there at the end of chapter 6 with the armor of God so that we can stand all those attacks from the Devil. So it is never too soon to exhibit godly wisdom in our daily choices and our manner of life. Get to it. Do not put it off.
Verse 18, this may be the most important verse in this section.
Ephesians 5:18 And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.
Now, you may not think that sounds very important, but it is. What he is doing here, this is the main point of the next three verses, this leads to the next three verses, because verses 19 through 21 has several dependent clauses. You need to know your grammar here a little bit. But these three verses, I think there are four separate dependent clauses in verses 19, 20, and 21 that all refer back to "but be filled with the Spirit." If you have this, if you are not, as it says here, "drunk with wine," but are "filled with the Spirit," then you will be able to do these things that are in verses 19 through 21 much more easily and we actually get the most out of it and grow the most.
So, we can do what he suggests or advises in verses 19 through 21, if we are full of God's Spirit. If God's Spirit is leading and empowering us, we can do these things: speaking to one another in psalms, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things, and submitting to one another in the fear of God. Those are all dependent on our being filled with the Spirit. That is why this is so important. We have to have God's Spirit in great measure, in growing measure, if you will, to be able to do these things better and better all the time, which means that we have to have as close a relationship to Jesus Christ as we possibly can.
We can take this idea that "do not be drunk with wine" as a specific, "you shouldn't do this," but that is really not what he meant. He is not being totally specific. Wine, here, is a symbol. Remember that the nations are drunk on the wine of the wrath of the harlot's fornication. In Revelation 18:3, we see there that Jesus uses it as a symbol of imbibing worldliness or worldly attitudes, worldly motives, worldly ambitions, to gain physical temporary power and wealth and ease in this world.
Wine is a symbol of things that people lust after in order to feel good, in order to be like others that they admire in the world. Whereas the Spirit is the treasure in heaven, if you will. It is spiritual, eternal, good, godly things that is being opposed here. So instead, God's Spirit, not the world's ambitions or attitudes, motivate and guide us into truth. That is what the Spirit does and it guides us into godly behavior to reach an eternal destination, not the physical destination that being drunk with wine will lead to.
Now, if you remember, we read this in the Passover service. Jesus told His disciples on that last Passover in John 13 through 17, that He would send them His Spirit as a helper, as one that came alongside them in their walk. Remember, Jesus runs with us. The Spirit, He told them throughout that sermon, would help them keep His Word. It would help them love God and love neighbor. He said that the Spirit would guide them into all truth. He told them that the Spirit would convict them of their sin and their need for righteousness and the reality of God's judgment. He said that the Spirit would help them bear fruit that pleases the Father and glorifies Him. And so much more that He described there in chapters 13 through 17 about how the Spirit would make their lives better, but He had to go so that He could give it to them and send it to them.
So a great deal of our wisdom that we are to be growing in is to allow God's Spirit priority of influence over us. We do not want to be drunk with wine. We do not want to be drunk with the influences from this world. We want to be full of the Spirit. Notice it does not say we are drunk with the Spirit. It says we are full of the Spirit or filled with the Spirit. So let us look at these things very quickly here in verses 19 to 21.
Ephesians 5:19-21 Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.
If we are letting God's Spirit dominate our thoughts, dominate our attitudes, dominate our motivations, we will communicate with each other in spiritual, uplifting, God-glorifying ways. That is what he is saying here. He is not saying that we have to sing the hymns to one another necessarily. Maybe they did that in the first century, I do not know. But he is saying that our communication with each other is undergirded and informed by His Word, by His joy, by His love, by all those things that we are learning so that we can speak to each other and uplift one another. When we come together, our lives and our interactions will be characterized by praising and thanksgiving and mutual submission to one another because that is what is filling us. The life of Christ, His Word, His light, His love, if you will.
The general impression that Paul gives you in these three verses is of a church that is full of joy and gratitude and humble service towards one another because everyone speaks and acts in godly fear, that is, reverence for God. They do not want to disappoint God. They want everyone, especially God, to see that they are growing, that they are maturing, and they want to help everybody else also mature as they are.
Let us just finish in Psalm the first chapter. Here we have the psalmist contrasting the walk of the godly with the walk of the sinner. And if we do it right, there is big things ahead for us.
Psalm 1:1-6 Blessed is the man who walks not in the council of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper. The ungodly are not so, but they are like chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.
So the godly walk along the way in love, in light, and in wisdom, and doing so brings God's elect to fruitfulness and eternal fellowship with God. While the ungodly walk leads only to condemnation and death. It is pretty obvious which one we should choose.
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