Our Authenticity: Be Careful How You Live

Intro: Good morning, Fellowship Espanol, my name is Josh Aguilar, I am one of the elders at FE, today we will be ending our series in Our Authenticity and starting next we week we will begin our Christmas series which will focus on Christ and some of the people who encountered him, I hope you will join us. We will come back to Ephesians in January.

I hope you have enjoyed our focus on Our Authenticity, it has been a blessing to me, it has challenged me, and I hope it has been a blessing to you and has challenged you to grow in the Lord. Open your Bible’s, your Bible APP or follow along on the screen as we read Ephesians 5:15-21,

Ephesians 5:15–21 (ESV)

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.

15 Por tanto, tened cuidado cómo andáis; no como insensatos, sino como sabios, 16 aprovechando bien el tiempo, porque los días son malos. 17 Así pues, no seáis necios, sino entended cuál es la voluntad del Señor. 18 Y no os embriaguéis con vino, en lo cual hay disolución, sino sed llenos del Espíritu, 19 hablando entre vosotros con salmos, himnos y cantos espirituales, cantando y alabando con vuestro corazón al Señor; 20 dando siempre gracias por todo, en el nombre de nuestro Señor Jesucristo, a Dios, el Padre[c]; 21 sometiéndoos unos a otros en el temor[d] de Cristo.

Look carefully how you walk, I love this phrase, God is commanding us to look, be aware, observe, watch with precision or accuracy how you walk, which as we have seen in the past, means how you live, we are commanded to watch, with attention to detail how you live your life. Like a painter who is creating a masterpiece watches carefully what colors he uses as he paints, we are to carefully watch the lives we live.

Why?

I remember when we lived in Fordyce, AR and I was driving to Little Rock every morning to go to work, I would leave around 4:30 in the morning. There were some mornings I would jump in the car and begin my trip, and all of the sudden I would be in Sheridan, AR halfway to Little Rock and not remember the last 25 minutes of my drive. I would be like how did I get here so fast. Sometimes we can go through life like that, we are moving through life on auto pilot or not paying attention and when we take a minute to look carefully how we live, we think, “how did I get here?” This is why we are commanded to be careful how we live because it is easy to drift to a place you shouldn’t be

In the rest of the passage, like Alfredo mentioned last week, Paul tells us specific ways we shouldn’t live and tells us how we should live. Paul tells us 3 ways about how we can becareful how we live our lives and live wisely;

Don’t waste your time

Understand The Lord’s will

Be filled with the Spirit

Do not be foolish but walk in wisdom.

Do not be unwise, which is another way of saying don’t be foolish, but walk in wisdom. How do we walk in wisdom? What is wisdom? A definition would help us here, John Piper says wisdom as

“The greatest human wisdom is the factual knowledge and the situational insight and the necessary resolve that together have the greatest likelihood of success in achieving the intended, righteous goal.”

Let’s walk through this for a minute. Wisdom is

A. Factual knowledge – first, part of wisdom is knowing. We must have factual knowledge about the bible, life, work, and other forms of knowledge, but this is only part of wisdom.

B. Situational insight – Along with knowledge, we need know how to apply this knowledge to the various situations we face in life. Which is why, many times it is good to get the advice from godly men and women who have experienced more life than me or you, to give us insights on the situations we may face. But still, there is more to wisdom than knowledge and situational insight.

C. Necessary Resolve – here is the third aspect of wisdom, this is taking our knowledge, situational insight and putting them together and have the necessary resolve to live them out in our lives, if we have the first two without the third, we are still lacking.

Where do we find this in scripture, it is in many places, but here is a couple of verses in Proverbs 2:1-2

Proverbs 2:1–2 (ESV)

My son, if you receive my words

and treasure up my commandments with you, (knowledge)

making your ear attentive to wisdom

and inclining your heart (necessary resolve) to understanding;

Hijo mío, si recibes mis palabras, y atesoras mis mandamientos dentro de ti, (Conocimiento) 2 da oído a la sabiduría, inclina tu corazón (resolucion necessaria) al entendimiento; (vision situacional)

Walking in wisdom is knowing what to do, in the specific situation you are in and having the resolve to do it, regardless if it is hard, you don’t feel like it, you would rather do something else. Which is interesting, because the first thing we are commanded to be wise about is our time.

I. Redeem the time

“Make the best use of your time” the language Paul is using here is very important and I do not think the english or spanish version capture the intensity of Paul’s message. The word Paul uses here literally means redeeming the time, we know that word means to buy or purchase. The question you have to ask is how can we buy or purchase time? What is the currency we use to buy time? We all have the same 24 hours in a day, what is Paul asking us to do here?

How you spend the time God gives matters. In order to live wisely, we need to take advantage of the time God gives us. God gives us all 24 hours, if you sleep 8, you have 16 hours in your life to redeem. You can use those 16 hours and waste your life by make the pursuit of worldly pleasures your goal, you can waste your life buy making the pursuit of money and power your goal, or while you are living your life, you can redeem your time by living wisely. By not wasting your time on careless things, but things that will edify you and those around you. By living with a Gospel Centered, Christ Centered intensity that allows you live life in such a way, that you are not wasting your time, because when you get to heaven God is not going to be impressed by the power, wealth, or other careless pursuits you ran after. God will look at how we leveraged our lives and resources, like time, for the Gospel.

Notice what he says, because the days are evil. Why are the days evil? What is Paul taking about? If we turn the page in our Bible to Eph 6:13, we read

Ephesians 6:13 (ESV)

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.

Por tanto, tomad toda la armadura de Dios, para que podáis resistir en el día malo, y habiéndolo hecho todo, estar firmes.

Paul here in this passage gives us the image of a soldier going to war, suiting up in his armour. Be ready, you are in war, put on your armor, you have enemies out there who are trying to convince you to live foolish. The problem we have, is we are in a war, but many times we live like we are in a time of peace and we fall into the traps the world and the devil set for us, or sometimes we are the victims of our own evil desires. We all have this problem, we are coasting down the road and we look up and think, how did I get here. We must have realize we are in a war and we must Redeem the time because the days are evil.

II. Understand how the Lord is working.

Paul moves on and says understand what the will of the Lord is, when the Bible talks about God’s will, there is God’s sovereign will, God works all things according to the counsel of his will, Eph 1:11 says. This God’s will that governs all things that comes to pass.

There is also God’s will of command, this is all the commands God gives us in the scripture. This is the revealed will of God in the scripture. “look carefully how you walk” is a command in scripture for us. This is God’s revealed will for our lives.

So what is Paul taking about here when he says understand what the Lord’s will is? Two things come to mind:

There are hundreds of decisions we face daily that the Bible does not specifically tell us what we should do. the Bible doesn’t tell you what house to buy, what neighborhood to live, what car you should drive, what college you should go to. We face many decisions, so how do we know what to do? This is what the scripture means by live wisely, have the knowledge necessary to make the decisions you need to make, have situational insight on the decision and the necessary resolve to follow through. God says follow the principles outlined in the Bible, for example if you want a house but you can’t afford it, don’t buy it. God doesn’t want us to be foolish but wise.

The other issue that comes to mind is we need to understand how the Lord is working. We need to be the men of Issachar, do you know about these men?

1 Chronicles 12:32 (ESV)

Of Issachar, men who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do, 200 chiefs, and all their kinsmen under their command.

De los hijos de Isacar, expertos en discernir los tiempos, con conocimiento de lo que Israel debía hacer, sus jefes eran doscientos; y todos sus parientes estaban bajo sus órdenes.

The Bible says they were men that understood the times to know what Israel ought to do. These men were people who could see how God is moving and working and said we need to move in this direction. When you are living life do you try and understand how the Lord is working in your life, your family, your work, your church? Do ask him to show you? Can you you discern the times and know what you ought to do? Understand what the will of the Lord is.

III. Be Filled with the Spirit

Notice Paul says do not be drunk with wine, in Ephesus alcohol was used in excess, like it is today, but it was also in the worship of idols, people would get drunk in their worship to their false gods, which many times also included temple prostitution. When people are drunk they use theri ability to control themselves. In reality if you just look at the things Paul ask us not to do in this passage they can relate to each other, drunkeness leads to foolishness which leads to unwise living. Paul says do not be drunk with wine because is is debauchery, that is an interesting word, it is a compound word and it means not saving/not healing, it is unhealthy living, wasteful living because when you are drunk you can not be careful how you live, Paul says do not be drunk wit wine, but

Be filled with the Spirit, some people in the Pentecostal/Charismatic world use this passage to say when you are Spirit filled it looks like when some one is drunk. That is not what this passage is saying, Paul is saying when you are filled with the Spirit, you have self control, the opposite of what happen to you when you are drunk and out of control.

Being filled with the Spirit is also explained as a mystical experience today, but in reality be filled with the Spirit is synonymous with being in Christ, or abiding in Christ, the ministry of the Spirit is to exalt Christ, we read that in John 15-17, if the ministry of the spirit is to exalt Christ how does the Spirit exaly Christ in our lives, how do we become filled with the Spirit. Paul writes this to the colossians:

Colossians 3:16 (ESV)

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

16 Que la palabra de Cristo habite en abundancia en vosotros, con toda sabiduría enseñándoos y amonestándoos unos a otros con salmos, himnos y canciones espirituales, cantando a Dios con acción de gracias en vuestros corazones.

To be filled with the Spirit is to be filled with Christ, to be filled with Christ is to be filled with God’s word. How much of the word are you filled with today?

The Bible explains to us the effects of being filled with the Spirit.

a. Being filled with the Spirit changes how we relate in community. _ When we are filled with the Spirit we love to come together as God’s people and worship together as God’s people. When you are filled with the Spirit you have a burning desire to be among God’s people singing together because it edifies us as the church.

b. Being filled with the Spirit changes how we worship - When we are filled with the Spirit, our worship towards God is authentic and sincere. We are seeking for Christ to be exalted and magnified in us. It is a joyful celebration God when we are filled with the Spirit.

c. Being filled with the Spirit changes our perspective and helps us be thankful. - The passage giving thanks for everything, that means we are giving thanks to God for the good, bad and ugly things that happen in our life. When we are filled with the Spirit our perspective changes, we begin to see things from an eternal perspective instead of a temporary or earthly perspective. Which is why we can be thankful for everything, because we serve a sovereign God who controls all things and works all things for the God to those who love him.

d. Being filled with the Spirit changes our pride into humility. - Submitting to one another, be filled with the Spirit removes the pride in our hearts so we can submit to one other out of reverence for Christ because we are working to edify each other.

Be careful how you live, not as unwise but wise by

redeeming the time

understanding the will of the Lord

Being filled with the Spirit.