Awake Walkers Celebrate

Introduction

Hold up pen and baseball

What do these two have in common?

Can someone compare and contrast these two for us?

Feels like a silly and bizarre question right?

Even looking at your faces, some of you are wondering if I have lost it!

But hold that question and we’ll come back to it in a few minutes

Setup

Two weeks ago we looked at the contrast between sleep walkers and awake walkers

Verse 14 says to “Awake, O Sleeper”

We saw that awake walkers - those who have been awakened by the Spirit of God:

Walk in love

Walk in light

Walk in wisdom

As we continue in Ephesians 5 and then on to chapter 6, it is not a change of thought as he moves to discussions of drunkenness and marriage and parenting

Rather, it is the implications of being awake walkers and application of being awake walkers to the Christian life

With that, let’s turn to Ephesians 5:15-21

Scripture Reading: 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.

Pray

Not About Drunkenness

Before we go further, allow me to provide a little caveat

This passage is really not about drunkenness

It is about how being awakened by God transforms us

It transforms our relationships

It transforms the way and the purpose even of our celebration

How do I conclude that?

Look at verses 15-17

Ephesians 5:15–16 “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.”

Ok, but then the start of verse 18

“Therefore…”

As has often been said, “What’s the therefore there for?”

Point: Therefore is a connecting word

What comes after it is an outflow of what came before it

Instead, in our passage here tonight through the first half of chapter 6, Paul is working out the implication of being awake walkers who walk in love, light and wisdom in the context of human relationships

How awake walkers celebrate with one another

How awake walkers pursue a deeper form of marriage

How awake walkers parent and how they child

How awake walkers manage and work

That is, as we “Awake, O Sleeper” our relationships start to look different

For tonight, we want to see how being awake in Christ shapes our ability to celebrate with one another

Celebration as Picture of Christian Interaction

Let’s look in again at first part of our passage

Ephesians 5:15–18 “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,”

As I mentioned just a few minutes ago, and we saw last time together, one of the contrasts that Paul draws here with the idea of “walk” is between those who walk in foolishness and those who walk in wisdom

Then he follows up that comment with one specific way that people walk in foolishness: getting drunk, which he calls debauchery

Two important caveats

The admonition is against drunkenness, not against alcohol entirely

I mean, we will celebrate the Lord’s Supper in just a few minutes and we offer both wine and grape juice

Second, if you have struggled or have a family history with alcohol addiction, the walk of wisdom probably says that you should avoid alcohol entirely

I have a friend who doesn’t drink and he is the first to say it’s not an objection to alcohol generally, but a specific awareness that there is a family history of alcoholism

That is the walk of wisdom right there

Given those two caveats, let’s zoom out and see what Paul’s real intent is here

That is, why contrast drunkenness with being filled with the Spirit?

“Do not get drunk on wine” vs “be filled with the Spirit”

They feel like vastly different things to contrast

Example: imagine I asked you to contrast this pen and this baseball

You would think - rightly - that is a weird request

Unless, of course, unless there is something they have in common even if not immediately evident from the outside

Because the life of Christian celebration can look so exuberant that people think you are drunk

This is, I would suggest, exactly what happened in Acts 2 when the the Apostle Peter preached his sermon at Pentecost

Acts 2:13–15 “But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.” But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day.”

Context: Christians were speaking in foreign languages, being a little exuberant

Why?

Acts 2:17 ““ ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams;”

You see that?

The people thought thought these Christians were drunk

But really they will filled with - and overflowing from that filling - the Holy Spirit

There is a form of Christian celebration that can overflow from those who have been filled with the Holy Spirit that to the outsider looks like a merry drunk fest

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Maybe you have heard the idea that all of life is worship because our heart posture before God and our posture with one another were so deeply intertwined it just flowed out of us

That is what I think is happening in verses 18-21

Ephesians 5:18–21 “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.”

Notice the four phrases Paul uses here

First and last about our posture with one another

“addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs”

“submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ”

Middle two about heart posture before God

“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”

Now, none of this means you necessarily should walk around singing to one another

Goodness knows none of you want me doing that

I might break your eardrum from my tone deafness

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But imagine us being so filled with the Holy Spirit and our heart posture of worship before the Lord that it overflowed into the community around us that people assume we must be drunk

Illustration: Eagles Super Bowl victory

So I kinda have to use this illustration since Philadelphia sports does not have the winningest history and many of you know my fandom for Philly sports

The Eagles just won the Super Bowl a couple of weeks ago

Yes I’m still in shock!

And I kinda needed to use this illustration simply because I want to keep celebrating it!

But what happened right afterward?

Spontaneous, exuberant, over-the-top, partying

People running in the streets

Eagles fight song and chants breaking out

I was at the Phillies vs Rays spring training game last week and in the middle of the game someone started the E-A-G-L-E-S chant

Philly is known for greasing up street light poles so people don’t try and climb them

And unfortunately it still doesn’t always work

After the NFC championship a couple weeks before a college student died after falling from a light pole

During the Super Bowl parade, the GM of the Eagles got a gash in his forehead because he asked someone in parade route to throw him a beer and the can hit him in the face

Estimates were that over a million people were at the Eagles parade

So why mention that?

Because Christian celebrations rarely look like that

No, they should not include the drunken debauchery

But they can look like exuberant, over-the-top partying

Notice the four phrases Paul uses in verses 18-21

First and last about our posture with one another

“addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs”

“submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ”

Middle two about heart posture before God

“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”

How many of us would feel foolish if we broke out and songs to one another?

I’m pretty sure the answer is most of us

But then why isn’t it weird when that happens at a Super Bowl parade?

Or during the 7th inning stretch when everyone stands up and sings “Take me out to the ballgame”?

Or at a karaoke bar when someone is warbling horribly off tune and yet no one cares and everyone is enjoying it?

Or at a concert where Jimmy Buffett is singing Margaritaville, and he hits the chorus, he just steps back from the microphone and let’s the crowd carry the song?

Or even a birthday party where everyone sings Happy Birthday?

There is a Christian celebration where in worship

Where the “singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart” and

Where the “giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”

Pours out of us in song with and reverence for one another

There is a Christian celebration where our ability to be over the top in our celebration is mistaken for a drunk frat party but without the debauchery and, even more, is honoring to God and uplifting to our souls!

What Christian Celebration is NOT

Before go any further and look at what Christian celebration is, let’s pause and ask what it is not

First thing, from this passage, it’s not debauchery

The moment it moves from reverence to one another to taking from another, it ceases to be Christian celebration

The moment it moves from uplifting you to building myself up, it ceases to be Christian celebration

Second, it’s not a denial of pain and heartache and sorrow and grief and lament

I mean, we have an entire book of the Bible named Lamentations

The book of Psalms is filled with songs of sorrow

Given the journey of our family over last several months, I have experienced a sadness that I’ve never known before

There are, sadly, some Christian spaces where deep grief is not welcome and people are left to feel like their sadness or depression is a sign of their lack of faith

That is not true and not biblical

The Bible anticipates a day when there will be no more sadness or pain or sorrow or tears or grief or death

But that day is not this day

What Christian Celebration IS

Biblical

We looked a few weeks ago at the parable of the great banquet

And after we finish Ephesians we are going to do a series in the parables

But there is one feature that shows up over and over again the parables

Celebration!

Parable of the guy who leaves the 99 to find the 1

What happens when he finds the 1?

He throws a party

And what about the parable of the prodigal son?

He comes home and what does the father do?

He throws a party

Could go on and on

But here is a fascinating fact: in the Bible, feasts outnumber fasts by a ratio of 7:1

God-honoring

We are, as our passage says, “giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”

Joyful

What is a party if depressing?

No, celebrations are joyful

Here is my point: Celebrating is biblical, God-honoring, and joyful

But it is more: it is an act of subversive defiance

Celebration as subversive defiance

As we walk in the light, we can be a people who celebrates exuberantly not because everything is going our way or going right

In fact we recognize that it is a pretty dark world

But Christian celebration is a form of defiance because it declares that:

Dark is overcome by light

This present darkness is overcome by Jesus, the light of the world, and

One day all darkness will be gone forever

Now to give your $10 theological term for the day, celebrating now is an anticipation of the day of “eschatological consummation”

I said a few minutes ago that “that day is not this day”

That day of New Creation - the very name of our church - is the day when Jesus returns and all that is wrong and broken and distorted and twisted - will be gone forever

That day when of New Creation when all that will be left is joy forever

We celebrate now in part because we know that day of eschatological consummation is coming when we will celebrate in full!

Christian celebration is an active of subversive defiance because it declares that:

The brokenness of our world does not win and will not last

Jesus wins and one day he will bring the New Creation forever

And that New Creation has already started - in us

As 2 Cor 5:17 declares

2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

Celebration Filled by the Spirit

So no, this is not quite like comparing a pen and a baseball, two things that are so different as to have almost nothing in common

When we celebrate even with one another it can be mistaken for a merry, drunk fest

But it is not

It is an act of defiance against the brokenness of the world

It is an act of declaring that we are filled with the Holy Spirit

It’s an act of declaring that we have been made alive by Christ

It’s an act of declaring that it is God who saves

Throughout our study of the book of Ephesians, we have noted several times where the Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - are all present and active

This passage is no different

We are filled with the Holy Spirit

We give thanks to God the Father

And we do so in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ

Because it is that one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who will bring that New Creation to pass

And until then, we celebrate because we are his!

Pray