Ephesians: Walking Right (4)
Notes
Transcript
Walk in Wisdom
Back at the beginning of December we paused our series on Ephesians.
We stopped at Eph.5:3-14, with walking in the light. We were instructed to Exalt God not idols, exercise caution, Exhibit fruit, and expose the darkness.
before that we were told to walk in love and before that we were to told to walk diffrent.
Now Paul is instructing his readers that because I have told you all this, you have no reason not to walk in wisdom.
The word “wisdom”, in our language means, “knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgment as to action.”
In Scripture, it carries the idea of understanding the will of God as it is revealed in His Word, coupled with the desire to live it out.
So, the call here is for believers to yield to the Word of God in our daily walk.
We are to hear His voice, as it is revealed in His Word, then we are to live out that revealed Word moment by moment.
In this passage, Paul gives us some instruction into how we are to walk as wise believers in this old sin filled world.
first thing we need to see is, To be wise in our walk.....
I. We must walk with Accuracy
I. We must walk with Accuracy
a. The Command
a. The Command
The wise walk is clearly defined in this verse.
Paul calls upon to the church to “see then that ye walk circumspectly.”
• The word “see” means to “observe.”
• The word “circumspectly” carries the idea of being “diligent, accurate, and precise.”
• The command is for us to
“give attention to the way we walk in this world”, so that we “walk accurately and precisely.”
If you’ve ever seen anyone walk a tightrope, then you know what Paul is referring to here.
The person on the tightrope watches where they place each step.
The least deviation or inaccuracy in their footing would result in a certain fall.
As believers, we must give due diligence to every step we take in this world.
To do less is to guarantee that we will fall into the trap of the enemy.
I would remind you that we have an enemy that is set on our destruction, Peter writes,
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
He sets traps for us and lies in wait to attack us and to destroy our walk with the Lord.
James says it this way:
But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
The phrase “drawn away,” means “to lure prey from it hiding place.”
like a hunter sets a trap to catch an animal, Satan does all he can to lure us away from the place of safety and closeness to the Lord.
He seeks to lure us into sin.
The word “enticed,” means, “to catch by bait.”
If you are going to bait deer, you don’t use dead fish. You have to use corn or apples, or something else that is attractive to the animal.
Satan knows what makes us tick.
He knows what is attractive to us.
Like a hunter who studies his prey, Satan studies us to see what we like, and he baits his traps accordingly.
Satan is a treacherous and very dangerous enemy.
Yet, the only reason he has any power at all to deceive and destroy us is due to the sin that dwells within each of our hearts.
As James says, we are “drawn away of” our “own lusts.”
Satan is only able to tempt us to sin eternally, because the will and ability to sin already exist within our hearts.
Every time we fall into sin, it is only because we take the bait and fall into the devil’s snare.
The only reason you and I fall into it, is because we fell for the deception.
We got snookered.
We didn’t watch our step and we fell into the trap.
Next, Paul gives them some counsel that many of us should take heed too
b. The Counsel
b. The Counsel
We are counseled to “walk…not as fools, but as wise.”
We are not to walk like the world around us.
They stumble around in the darkness of their depraved condition, and they take no heed to where the next foot will fall. They are blind
2 Corinthians 4:4 (KJV 1900)
In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
We are no longer like the blind.
We have been redeemed out of the darkness and called into His marvoluss light
1 Peter 2:9 (KJV 1900)
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:
We have light to lighten our path.
Psalm 119:105 (KJV 1900)
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, And a light unto my path.
We have been made to be light
For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:
We do not stumble about like a blind man, but we have been equipped to walk accurately, placing each step precisely where it pleases the Lord and leads us closer to Him.
What a blessing it is to know that we do not have to fall for the deceptions of Satan.
We do not have to be ensnared in his traps.
Through the help of the Holy Spirit, every subtle maneuver of the enemy is painted with the light of Heaven.
We do not have to yield to his devices.
We do not have to walk his way.
We do not have to find ourselves overcome by his schemes.
Our Lord has made us wiser than that.
He has given us all we need to be able to walk in His will for His glory.
But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things. I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth.
But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.
That is not to say that you will not stumble, which is all about growing, a baby must learn to crawl before it can walk and even after it takes steps, it will still stumble and fall, but it gets right back up and takes off again.’
But this time with just a little more caution. You know they maybe hold there hands out or hold on to something. They want to walk with a little more accuracy.
We seem to be the same way, when we stumble or fall, God helps us up, we walk for a little bit with just a little more caution even holding on to our Father for a little more accuracy, but then we get comfortable and start running off while our Father is yelling saying slow down you are going to fall.
if we would just slow down and listen to the Holy Spirit and stop running off, messing around the traps Satan has laid for us, we would come out on top far more often than we do.
Beloved, you are not fools! Christ has made you and made you to be wise.
We must walk with accuracy
II. We must Walk with Urgency
II. We must Walk with Urgency
We are to walk accurately, but we are also to walk with Urgency.
a. Be Diligent
a. Be Diligent
The Lord here says we are to be “redeeming the time…”
• The word “redeeming” means “to buy up; to deliver from loss.”
It was used in that culture of “purchasing a slave in order to set the slave free.”
• The word “time” does not speak of “clock time”.
It does not speak of minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years.
The word he uses here is a word that speaks of a “measured allotment of time.”
Paul is talking about the small window of time we have in this world. In other words, we are to “deliver the allotted time we have been given in this world from loss.”
This phrase speaks about our walk with the Lord.
It challenges us “to make good use of every opportunity for serving the Lord.”
Peter says it this way:
And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear:
The Lord has determined the boundaries of our lives.
We will not live one minute more, one minute less, than the time we have been allotted by the Lord.
Seeing his days are determined, The number of his months are with thee, Thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass;
Lord, Make me to know mine end, And the measure of my days, what it is; That I may know how frail I am.
An ancient Greek statue depicted a man with wings on his feet, a large lock of hair on the front of his head, and no hair at all on the back. Beneath was the inscription: “Who made thee? Lysippus made me. What is thy name? My name is Opportunity. Why hast thou wings on thy feet? That I may fly away swiftly. Why hast thou a great forelock? That men may seize me when I come. Why art thou bald in back? That when I am gone by, none can lay hold of me.”
You and I have been given a short window of time to live in the world.
At best, our lives are a “vapor,” James 4:14.
We are here just “a few days,” Job 14:1.
We need to make the most of every opportunity we are given to serve the Lord.
• Take the time to pray.
• Take the time to worship.
• Take the time to share the Gospel.
• Take the time to be holy.
• Take the time to read the Bible.
• Take the time to honor the Lord every minute of every day.
b. Be Vigilant
b. Be Vigilant
Paul tells us that we should salvage the time we have been given, because “the days are evil.”
The word evil comes from the same word that gives us our word “pornographic.”
The days are wicked, evil and filled with every kind of sin and vice.
God has placed us here to be light to a world trapped in darkness.
We are His “ambassadors,” 2 Cor. 5:20.
He has given us but a short window in this evil world to serve Him, walk for Him and bring glory to His name.
There are many evils around us and Paul here is reminding us to be vigilant in our day.
Dont be beguiled by the devil.
Seize the opportunity you have to defeat the wiles of the devil by being diligent with what time we have to serve Him.
We are to redeem those opportunities in order to make our lives count for the glory of God.
One day we will all leave this world.
When it comes time for you to die, what kind of legacy will you leave behind?
I pray that my life will be more than just a dash between two dates. I pray that I can be said of me, “He did not miss an opportuity to serve.
The moments of our lives either serve to glorify God, or they are lost forever, and thus they glorify the devil.
Let’s be diligent with our time and vigilant in our day.
We have but a few moment of time to be about the Fathers business.
III. We must Walk with with Competency
III. We must Walk with with Competency
Finally, Paul says, “Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.”
The word “unwise” means “to be foolish, or ignorant.”
It refers to a person who “thinks himself wise when actually he knows nothing.”
If you take this verse in connection with the two that precede it, you have Paul saying, “Don’t run through this world like an fool.”
If we are not careful, we will fall into the trap of busyness.
We will allow the enemy to so dilute our calendar with good things, that we wind of frantically running from one activity to the next, all the while missing out on what really matters in this life.
God did not create us or save us to live like we do.
We run here and there with our calendars, our smartphones, our schedules,
thinking we have to do all those things for ourselves, and for others,
not realizing that Satan has baited the trap,
and we have taken the bait.
We allow ourselves to get so busy doing all the things we do that we don’t have the time to enjoy the Lord Who saved us.
I am preaching to myself here, but we need to learn to say, “no.” It’s hard to do, but it must be done. I would also say, that if we truly love others, we will not make unrealistic demands on their time.
Instead of running through life like a maniac, we are counseled to be “understanding” of “what the will of the Lord is.”
How do we understand the will of the Lord?
The basic answer is that we find the will of God in the principals taught in the Scriptures.
The Word of God reveals the will of God.
We have to slow down long enough to read the Word of God, to meditate on it, to understand it.
We must take time for the Bible, or we will let the moments of our lives slip though our fingers and amount to very little in the work of the Lord.
Think of how foolish we are in this matter.
We send our kinds to school in an effort to help them learn,
but we don’t take the time to teach them the book written by the wisest Being in the universe.
It would be a shame for you to send your child from your home to a college to be educated in the wisdom of men, if they left your home ignorant of the Word of God.
We strive to learn all sorts of things, glorying in our knowledge, while we do not take the time to learn from the fountain of all wisdom, the Lord Himself.
The lack of biblical knowledge in the average church is astonishing.
Our ignorance is proven by the things church members believe and the things they say.
That kind of ignorance does not have to be.
God has given us His Word.
It is without error.
It is infallible.
It is inspired.
It is eternal.
It is food for the soul.
When we read the Bible we are exposed to the very mind of God Himself.
We need to read it much and read it often.
We need to be a people of the book, knowing its Author intimately, and understanding it message clearly.
There is no excuse for any believer, who owns a Bible, and who can read it, being ignorant of the Word of God.
It is our ignorance of the Word that explains the problems we have with sin.
It is our ignorance of the Word of God that explains the problems we have in our relationships.
It is our ignorance of the Word of God that explains why our churches are devoid of power, empty of life, and dying on the vine.
we need to repent of our neglect of the Word of God and pick up our Bibles and read.
Knowing the Bible settles us.
It gives us peace, hope, help and strength.
It helps us know the God of Heaven,
and knowing Him teaches us how to walk in this world.
Knowing Him teaches us how to make our lives count for God’s glory.
Do you have a Bible?
Read it! Learn it! Love it! Live it!
Your Bible will keep you from being spiritually ignorant.
It will make you wise in the ways of the Lord, and it will open your eyes to the schemes of the enemy.
I love this saying. This Book will keep me from sin or sin will keep me from this book!
Conclusion
Conclusion
You do not have to live like the world around you. Your life can count and leave a legacy behind when you leave this world. You do not have to be spiritually deceived and ignorant of Satan.
We can walk in wisdom, if we will follow the clear guidelines given to us in the Word of God.
If we will simply take His Word and make it the rudder of our lives, we will sail a straight course through this world. We will live a life that honors God and gives light to the world around us.
I will close with a couple of questions:
• How is your walk with the Lord? Are you walking in wisdom, or are your walking in ignorance?
• How is your relationship with the Word of God? Do you read it? Do you live it?
How is your relationship with Christ?
Do you have one?
Nicodemus thought he had a relationship with God but Christ told him, Ye must be born again.
Have you been born again?
If not you can be today.
Wont you come as the pianist plays.