Walking in Wisdom

Ephesians 5 v 15-20. If I were to ask you to give me a word that describes how you live your life what would it be? I don’t mean how you would like to live your life, or how you hope to live your life, but how you are actually living your life in the here and now. How would others describe the life you live? If I were ask those who know you best and love you the most to tell me what kind of life you are living what would they say? As Christians we are often told that our lives should be different to those who are not Christians. However I think the word different is not weighty enough to describe the distinction God wants between how Christians and non-Christian live their lives. A better word would be ‘antithesis,’ lives that confront the status-quo, and challenge the norms of society. The goal of the gospel is not to tweak our lives and make small changes here and there. The goal of the gospel is not to tidy us up round the edges, and modify our behaviour, but it is to totally transform us, making us into people we could never become, except for the power of the Holy Spirit working his transforming power in our lives. In our passage, Paul uses the word wisdom to describe an antithetical life. There are six things in our passage that help us understand how transformative the wisdom of the gospel is. 1. We need to continually evaluate ourselves. Paul says ‘Be very careful how you live.’ Paul is encouraging the Christians in Ephesus to take an evaluating look at their lives. He is saying don’t just live in a spontaneous, default, automatic unthinking way you have always lived. Don’t live as ‘unwise but as wise.’ The word careful carries the idea of being diligent and accurate. Sometimes we need help to objectively come to an honest assessment about how we are living and the condition of our hearts. Wisdom is more important than knowledge, wisdom is the ability to always make the right spiritual choices in every circumstance in order to bring God maximum pleasure and glory. Wisdom is a spiritual virtue that is developed through having a loving fear of God. 2. We need to learn how to redeem time. In verse 16 the NIV reads making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Some older versions redeem the time for the day is evil. Most of the people I have read on this verse believe that Paul is encouraging the Christians in Ephesaus to live with a kind of ‘seize the day’ attitude. Live a life that is totally intentional. For example I listened to one pastor who said that when he cuts the lawn, he uses an i-pod to listen to bible teaching. I think that is a good thing to do, that is using time wisely. But the problem is this. Often people who live like this become intense and one dimensional, unable to relax, becoming oblivious to the world that is going on around them. Let me give you an example. D L Moody's resolved that he would try to win at least one person to Christ every day. If, under the pressure of his many responsibilities, he forgot his resolve, he would get out of bed and go out into the streets to find someone to talk to about Christ. I am not suggesting this kind of attitude is wrong, but I don’t think is what Paul is encouraging here. Paul wants us to ‘redeem the time.’ The word used for ‘redeem,’ is only found four times in the New Testament and it carries the idea to redeem by payment of a price to recover from the power of another, to ransom, to buy off, to buy up, to buy up for one’s self. Before the Gospel came to Ephesus, Ephesus was dominated by the extremely immoral cult of Diane. The city was controlled by the educated prostitutes affiliated with Diana worship. A worship system that required the use of ritual prostitution whereby the devotee became "joined" with the goddess through her priestesses, ensuring her favour throughout the year. Think of all the wasted lives, wasted years, years squandered on futile living, lives shrunk by promiscuity Now they have an opportunity to ‘buy back,’ the futility and waste of the past by living a redeemed and redeeming life in the present. Redeeming time is to live a life that is the anthesis to wasteful living, wasteful living that has priorities, agendas and needs which are motivated by selfish egotism and sensual satisfaction. Redeeming time is to choose to learn from the past, it is the refusal not to make the same mistakes over and over again. Redeeming the time is refusing to live in the past by devoting the present to God. 3. We need to understand what the will of God is. ‘Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.’ Notice what Paul did not say, he did not say ‘Therefore do not be foolish but know what the Lord’s will is.’ There is a big difference between knowing something and understanding something. The word “understand” is the Greek word “suniemi: which means to not only know and understand, but to apply, or put into action, what you know and understand. Often when we think about the will of God we complicate things. We think in terms of God having a very special, unique, individual, bespoke will for our lives, so we invest a lot of stressful energy trying to discern what God’s will is for our lives. It does not need to be this way. I think you could sum up the will of God for our lives in four words, submission, faith, holiness and love. These four things should be expressed in everything we do. Sometimes our over-occupation with the details of God will rob us of the ability to express a Christ likeness that the will of God should always portray. To understand the will of God is to understand why we have been called to holy living. (See Ephesians 1:4) The details of the will God for our individual lives will usually be discovered as we are transformed as we pursue God for himself. 4. We need to be full of the Holy Spirit. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, There is a bit of a problem when it comes to how we understand what Paul is saying here. At a surface level Paul is warning about the danger of being drunk, however, he is using drunkenness as an illustration or an example of living a life that is out of control. As Christians we can read this verse and think that because we don’t get drunk what is being said here does not really apply to us. But, that misses the point. What ever fills us, controls us. So if I am full of anger, or bitterness, or hatred, or grief then we will be controlled by them. Often the things we are filled with are closely associated with what we worship, that is why Paul probably makes reference to wine and the festivals celebrated to Bacchus (Roman) or Dionysus (Greek), the god of wine. Bacchus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy. He was one of the primary gods worshipped in Ephesus in Roman times. The infamous celebrations of Bacchus, notorious for their sexual and criminal character, got so out of hand that they were forbidden by the Roman Senate. The followers of Bacchus had a strong theology: The more wine they drank, the more Bacchus filled them and controlled them. They became like him. Therefore drunkenness was to be highly celebrated as a spiritual experience. Paul tells us that when we out of control our lives will lead to debauchery. The idea behind this word is to waste our lives. It is so easy to waste your life. When we think of a life wasted we conventionally think of people who have dropped out of life, who don’t take responsibility, it is easy to have a ‘stereotypical,’perception of a wasted life. However, there is what I would call ‘sanitised debauchery,’ which is living in such way that we get our value and significance from our position, possessions, and how we are perceived by others. To continually live a life full of the Holy Spirit is to live out of a fullness that cause us to have the resources to love and serve others. 5. We need to see our relationships as an opportunity for worship. Paul says ‘Speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord.’ There has been a lot of discussion about this verse! What did Paul mean when he spoke about ‘psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit?’ We are not sure, however, at a surface level it is indicating that how we relate to each other, can be and should be an expression of worship, an expression of our devotion and love for God. When we live Spirit filled lives our relationships are a blessing to God. Our relationships with others become something that God enjoys, for being filled with the Spirit will produce the fruit of the Spirit in us. The fruit of the Spirit are all relational. What are our relationships like, could they be seen as expressions of worship or expressions of idolatry, [the worship of self] where selfishness and control motivates us, not love and sacrifice. 6. We need to live with thankful hearts. Paul says ‘always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Paul says something similar in 1 Thessalonians 5:18 where he says, ‘Give thanks in all circumstances, for this the will of God in Christ Jesus.’ Paul is not saying be thankful for all circumstances, but in all circumstances. Thanksgiving is about a lot more than the words we say. Thanksgiving is a heart attitude, it is an expression of a changed heart. Often we live with a sense of entitlement, we think we deserve, or we think God owes us, and we become discontent and begin to complain and grumble. Thankfulness is the antidote to bitterness. Thankfulness is one of the ways we express our confidence in God, you know that despite the circumstances we may find ourselves we have a life controlling conviction that we are loved by a sovereign God. Thankfulness is not a means of burying you head in the sand, and pretend everything is okay, it is not being unrealistic by putting a gloss or a pretence on difficulties, but it is the result of seeing and knowing God in them. Humanly speaking, Martin Rinkart (1586-1649) was in the wrong place at the wrong time. In God’s plan, though, he was in the right place and destined to be a shining example of gratitude to God in the direst of circumstances. He had just been made Lutheran minister of the walled town of Eilenburg, north-east of Leipzig, when the Thirty Years War broke out. It lasted for the rest of his life, almost exactly 30 years. For all this time he served the townsfolk and the many hundreds of refugees who sought shelter there. Soldiers were billeted in his house and they stole his belongings and the food meant for his family. But this was small compared to the suffering in the town. In 1637 a plague swept through the overcrowded slums. In that one year alone, 8,000 people died. At that time there were four pastors in the town. One fled for his life and never returned. Two others contracted the plague while serving the sick and died As the only pastor left, Rinkart was in constant demand, visiting and comforting the sick and dying, and sometimes conducting funerals for 40-50 people a day. In May of that year, his own wife died. Before long, plague victims had to be buried in trenches without services. Even worse was to follow. After the plague came a famine so extreme that thirty or forty people might be seen fighting in the streets for a dead cat or crow! Rinkart and the town mayor did what they could to organize relief. Rinkart himself gave away everything but the barest rations for his own family, and his doorway was usually crowded with starving wretches. So great were Rinkart’s own losses and charitable gifts that he had the utmost difficulty in finding bread and clothes for his children, and was forced to mortgage his future income for several years. Yet, living in a world dominated by death, Martin Rinkart’s spirit was unbroken and clung to the true life of God. After years or horror and agonies, he wrote a prayer for his children to offer to the Lord. It was soon turned into a hymn, known to the English-speaking world through Catherine Winkworth’s translation. It is a remarkable testimony to the faith of a remarkable man but also to the triumph of generosity and thankfulness over bestiality and despair. Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices, Who wondrous things has done, in Whom this world rejoices; Who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today. Oh, may this bounteous God through all our life be near us, With ever joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us; And keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed; And guard us through all ills in this world, till the next! All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given, The Son, and Him Who reigns with Them in highest Heaven— The one eternal God, Whom earth and Heav’n adore; For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore. To live with a sense of gratitude towards God is to be wise. Gratitude towards God can and should be expressed in how we treat others. Being thankful is much more than having good manners, rather it is refusing to take others for granted by recognising their worth and celebrate their value. Gratitude is choosing not to use others for our own gains, by showing appreciation at all times. Conclusion. I wonder as a community do we live antithetical lives that cause others to question and wonder about the lives they are living? We need to be more than different, we need more than a few tweaks. Rather we needs lives that have been radicalised by the glorious life of God.