It is now June, and that means summer is upon us. And with it being summer, this also means here at SonRise we change gears for a few months. We’ve spent the last many summers working our way through various Psalms and have enjoyed those seasons, but this summer we’re going to do something different.
Let me explain it like this. If you we’re driving your car around town like normal, going about your day, and you began to hear your car making a strange noise, would it be wise to do nothing and ignore it? Of course not! I mean, ignoring the sound is an option, nothing could be wrong, and it might go away. But the odds of your car continuing to function as it should aren’t very good at all. If ignored the sound will likely get worse which means the repair will likely be more costly than it would’ve been if you took the car in when the noise began. We get this. Wisdom looks like seeing to things that aren’t operating as they should so that normal operation will resume.
So Church, throughout the past year we as your elders have noticed a pattern in the Church. Beginning in January more than a few of you have come to myself, or to Andrew, or to another elder asking for advice, for counsel, or for help with issues surrounding your families. Issues in marriage, issues with children, issues in parenting those children, issues in singleness, and the like. Because of this we decided to forgo another Psalm Summer this year in order to speak to these very things.
So today we begin a new 5 week series called the ‘Christian Home.’ In this series we’ll be mainly looking into Ephesians 5-6 covering a multitude of matters, including basic Christian living and how that translates into being a godly wife, a godly husband, a godly child, a godly parent, and a godly single. We’re calling it the ‘Christian Home’ because all these roles and realities are present in our homes. So it is our aim here in these weeks to put before you some of what God has to say about our homes and how they can operate so as to glorify Him and bring us much good. Don’t mishear me. Problems with families will continue, because of sin. But Lord willing, we’ll be better equipped to walk through them after this series.
This week we begin with the basics, a Christian living 101 if you will, looking at Ephesians 5:15-21…
But, before we can just dive into this text, we must see the context so we know what’s going on. Paul has been crafting his argument throughout his letter to the Ephesians for 4 whole chapters up to this point covering many things about right doctrine and right practice. As chapter 5 begins he makes two astounding commands in v1-2, that we should be imitators of God as His beloved children, and that we should walk in love as Christ loved us. From this point on, in v3-14, Paul traces out what these two commands actually look like when they’re lived out. And Paul says it’s all about light and darkness. Look at v8, “…for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.” He then says walking as children of light means living in all that is good and right and true…which implies the opposite, that walking in darkness is to live in all that is sinful and wrong and false. This is how we’re to live as Christians, walking in the light and not in the dark, and as we do this, Paul says in v14, Christ will shine on us all the more.
Now, we’ve come to our text, v15-21, where Paul gives three further examples of how this all works itself out. He tells us about a wise life, about a full life, and about a worshipful life. Let’s look at each of those now…
A Wise Life (v15-17)
“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.”
Having the laid much of the groundwork already, about us needing to walk in the light and not in the dark Paul now applies this further and the first thing he tells us is to be careful how we live. What kind of carefulness does he have in mind? He says the kind of careful living in view looks like wisdom. Well, what does this wisdom look like from day to day? He says this wise carefulness looks like making the best use of our time, or redeeming the time, because (note the reason given), the days are evil. So, because the days we live in are evil days, the Christian should be careful about all of life. This is what wisdom looks like.
When I read this it makes me think of tripping. Last week we were at Busch Gardens, walking around with friends, having a good time, and as we were waiting in line talking I wasn’t paying attention to what was around me and I took a step back and tripped over a tree root. It was one of those moments where you immediately realize there is no possible way of correcting what’s occurring. I tripped and fell on my back, in the middle of a line of people waiting to get on a ride, all because I wasn’t being careful.
Of course it was embarrassing and humbling and painful all at the same time, but this is something of what Paul has in view here. The days we’re living in our evil days, meaning sinful days. Which has been true ever since Genesis 3. All the days everyone has lived in, the days were living in now, and the days which will be before Christ returns will be evil days. This means we don’t live on smooth, clear, flat ground. Instead we do life on ground where there are innumerable and unexpected ways to get tripped up spiritually as we walk throughout life. And if we’re not paying careful attention how we walk, we will get tripped up, we will fall down, and the pain will be real, both for ourselves and likely for others close to us as well. The call for Christians then is live not just with our heads in the clouds ignorant of all that goes on around us, no. We must live with our eyes wide open, taking care with each step we take, each day we live.
This is, in part, how we redeem the time, by carefully taking each step. We aren’t to live so that life just kind of happens to us, as if we were passive in it all. Rather Christians must be active with intentionality, seeking to use and employ all our time and all our opportunities, for…what? What are we to redeem our time for? This is where we must remember the context. The first fourteen verses of chapter 5 have shown us how the world around us is dark, as we once were, but also how we are now light in the Lord and must live and walk in the light. So then here is the call: we must be those who seize each moment, using and employing all our time for basking in the light of Christ and spreading the light of Christ. Or we could say it like this: we have been redeemed by Christ, so now we must redeem all our days to His purposes, to His agenda, to His glory.[1] No other aim is fitting for us. v17 then puts the final touch on this first point, saying that those who live like this, those who redeem their time, they are not foolish, no, they understand what God’s will for all of life really is. You hear the punch in this? Paul is saying that the Christian life is the only wise life, the only sane life. The problem with lost man is that lost man is a fool, lacking in true understanding.[2] The glory of saved man is that knowing God is an education in itself. Living with Him is to grow in wisdom. This is the wise life.
A Full Life (v18)
“And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit…”
Paul has told us what it is to live a wise life, now he further expands his explanation of what the Christian life looks like by telling us what it is to live a full life, and to do so he brings up alcohol. Why does he do this? Well, some would have us think there is in this verse a kind of one-to-one comparison between drunkenness and being filled with the Spirit of God. That just as one is under the influence when they are filled with wine, so too Christians become under the influence of the Holy Spirit when they are filled with the Spirit. This is correct to a certain degree. One would only have to quote Acts 2:13 where the apostles were mocked as being drunk with new wine when the Holy Spirit fell on them in power at Pentecost. But they weren’t drunk, they we’re enjoying the fullness of the Spirit’s presence within then. So to say the apostles were then and we today can be drunk with the Spirit is go too far.[3] Drunkenness is debauchery, there’s no getting around it. I agree with Martyn Lloyd-Jones who once said alcohol is a depressant while the Holy Spirit is a stimulant. Too much alcohol deadens the senses, removes inhibitions, and eliminates self-control, while the Holy Spirit heightens the senses, promotes disciplines, and even cultivates the fruit of self-control. Some of you hear this and think I’m promoting a kind of anti-alcohol teetotalism. I’m not saying that. Psalm 104:15 is true when it says, “…wine gladdens the heart of man.” Notice what Paul didn’t say in v18. The passage doesn’t say, ‘Do not get drunk with wine, avoid such things entirely.’ No, he didn’t say that. He’s talking about what ought to fill us. He’s aiming deeper than mere behavior. He’s saying that what fills Christians is truer, sturdier, and richer than the best of all wines or the strongest of all drinks. The world is dependent on things like alcohol for happiness and joy, but the Christian has an unceasing spring of happiness and joy in the fullness of the Spirit dwelling within.
So, if Paul is not making a one-to-one comparison between drunkenness and the Holy Spirit why does he bring up alcohol at all here? He uses it as an illustration to teach us that Christians are to empty ourselves of all that is worldly and fill ourselves with all that is godly.[4] What is the fount of all godliness? The Holy Spirit Himself who bears His fruit within us. That’s the point of v18. The full life doesn’t come from drunkenness, it comes from the fullness of the Spirit. And it just so happens that throughout Ephesians Paul has been very eager to speak about what fills Christians. In 1:23 Paul says the church is Christ’s body, “…the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” In 3:19 Paul prayed that we would know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge, so that we would be “filled with all the fullness of God.” In 4:10 Paul teaches that Christ descended from heaven and ascended far above the heavens that He might “fill all things.” And in 4:13 Paul says Christ fills all things by giving His Church gifts like apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers so that we would grow and mature into the fullness of Christ.
Here we must remember good and right theology. One of the glorious promises of the New Covenant is that when one is saved, when one turns away from sin and turns to Christ in faith, they are forever filled with the Spirit of Christ. This filling of the Spirit is a one-time occurrence, not a repeated event, true. But, in the daily living of each Spirit-filled Christian we can choose to walk in the Spirit or walk in the flesh. And however we choose to walk will determine what fills our lives. Walking in the flesh will fill us with the fruit of death, and walking in the Spirit will fill us with the fruit of the Spirit. So we must not be those who drink so as to get drunk, or fill ourselves with any other worldliness. We must be those who live in the Spirit who has filled us. This is the full life.
But, this leads to a question, right? You might get the gist of the argument here but find yourself still asking ‘What does living in the fullness of the Spirit look like?’ Our third and final heading addresses that very thing.
A Worshipful Life (v19-21)
“…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.”
In these verses we see what the wise and full life looks like, and it looks like worship. Here Paul gives us three ways how the Spirit makes our lives worshipful: singing, thanking, and submitting.
In singing there is both a horizontal and vertical direction. Interesting that the horizontal is mentioned first in v19, that we address one another as we sing. You ever thought about that as you sing? That the people around you are blessed by and need your singing? Your singing! Sure, you might not sound as ‘on key’ as some others who are singing, even so, the truth of what we’re singing is used by God for our mutual encouragement here as we sing these truths together. And not only are we reminded of what is true when we sing to one another, we’re reminded that we don’t sing these truths alone. No, we sing standing next to others, we sing among God’s Church, our truest and deepest family.
After mentioning the horizontal direction in our singing Paul goes to the vertical direction of worship in v19, saying we’re to sing and make melody to the Lord with the heart. This means singing isn’t just an intellectual activity, and singing isn’t just an exercise in finding the proper range and pitch. Church, the heart must be involved in our singing. That’s what he says here. This means we ought to feel what we sing, we ought to mean what we sing, we ought to love what we sing, and we ought to enjoy God as we sing to Him. This is how we sing.
v20 adds to this telling us that our posture in all of this is to be one of gratitude, thanksgiving. Paul says, “…giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ…” So when and for what are we to give thanks to God? Always and for everything. There’s nothing not included in this. We’re to give thanks for all of life. When it’s morning and evening in the soul, when life is peaceful and sorrowful, when life is as warm as summer and as cold as winter, we give thanks to God for it all. For He uses it all to make us who He desires us to be.
And lastly don’t miss how v21 ends, “…submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Those we sing to and sing with, those we give thanks to God for, are also those we submit to. As foreign as submission is to a sinful heart, here we see that we cannot live the Christian life without submission. Of course we submit to God, that’s a given. But here we find we also submit to one another, that mutual submission is to be the norm in the Church. Meaning we not only instruct and help one another, we heed one another’s wisdom and counsel, and in general we seek to see the Church as the family God has chosen for us, in which God means for us to grow alongside and with one another.
This is the worshipful life.
Conclusion:
So here in v15-21 we have seen the basics of Christian living. All of these themes – a wise life, a full life, and a worshipful life – are to be the soil out of which our Church family and each individual family grows. What does all this look like though in the roles within the Christian home? That is before us in the weeks to come.
[1] Bryan Chapell, Ephesians – Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2009 ) 259.
[2] Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Church History Study Bible, comment on Eph. 5:15, 1795.
[3] R. Kent Hughes, Ephesians: The Mystery of the Body of Christ – Preaching the Word Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1990) 171.
