Walking in Wisdom

Welcome to our women's Bible study on the book of Ephesians, which is called Finding Purpose. Today we're going to cover Ephesians chapter 5 verses 1 to 21. I really love this passage because of its organization. If you know me, you know that I gravitate toward organization. And I feel like Paul just all of a sudden decided to write an essay in the middle of this letter. This is an essay form. Let me show you what I mean. I'm going to put it on the screen. His thesis here is be imitators of God as beloved children. And look at three supporting statements. For example, walk in love, walk as children of light, and walk in wisdom. I just love this. This is so good. I'm choosing a title, Walk in Wisdom, for this morning. And the reason I'm choosing that title is, first of all, we already kind of covered walk in love quite a bit last week. So I thought it was wise of us to choose walk in wisdom. Did you see what I did there? And also, I do think that that's where the Holy Spirit is leading us this morning. So first, let's look at this thesis that Paul has. He wants to convince us that we are to be imitators of God. Now, sometimes children imitate their parents, and sometimes they don't. They say that kids copy what parents do. I say false. I was cleaning all the time when my kids were at home. But now that I've raised four kids and observed six grandkids, I would say that children copy 10% of your good habits and 100% of your bad habits. That's just life. But the good thing here is that God has no bad habits. So if we imitate 100% of who he is and what he does, we are good to go. Somebody might say, you know, imitating God, that's a ridiculous notion. He's God, and I'm not. And there's some truth to that. But what did we learn about when we get saved, when we become children of God, we have the Holy Spirit. And now all of God's character and his holy law, it has been downloaded into us. It says, the Bible tells us, it has been written upon our hearts. So we really have everything that we need. It is a matter of are we going to resist that? Are we going to obey that, yield to that, and imitate that? It's really a choice now is what we're getting at. So let's get started. Walk in love is the first of the supporting statements, verse 2. And walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. This is the briefest of our three statements, only one verse. So I want to draw our attention to some of the three phrases that we see in this that help us understand what love is. Because this is not the emotion of love that we see here. There's something else at play. Look, gave himself up, sacrifice to God, fragrant offering. These all point to something, well, sacrificial. And so Jesus actually is our model in this. He demonstrated this. Last week we went to Romans chapter 5, verse 8. I'll put it on the screen again. God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So God loved us when we were unlovely. God loved us when we were sinners. God loved us when we were children of wrath. God loved us when we were his enemies. And therein is our example to walk in love. Now we already talked last week quite a bit about love. Bearing with one another in love. Speaking the truth in love. Truthing in love. And building up in love. What we decided is it really means to seek another person's good. That is what we're doing when we're loving. We're seeking another person's good. We might be injured along the way when we do that. But it's still the right path. There might be sacrifices for us to make along the way. But it's still the right path. So it bears noting that just because something is right, it's the right path for us, doesn't mean it's easy, doesn't mean it's popular. Many missionaries have lost their lives seeking other people's good. Walking in love. Bringing the gospel to some place. Many of us have sustained emotional injury by sacrificially loving someone. Have you ever been taken advantage of? Have you ever been marginalized, patronized, excluded, ridiculed? Of course. We have all experienced some of that in some way. But it is still the right path. I find it interesting because I feel like here in the month of October, every message that's coming out of this church on Sunday or Wednesday or women's Bible study, all points to what Jesus told his disciples in

This is kind of part of the package of walking in love. And we should be aware of that. Our second supporting statement is walk as children of light. And this begins in verse 3. But before we start reading it, I want to remind us that the first half of Ephesians anchored our belief in the reality that we were once darkness. This is the doctrine that we learned. We were once darkness. And now our behavior should align with that belief, understanding that we're now in the light. In your study guide, we looked at some verses that kind of helped us process this. I'm going to put them on the screen. We'll look at them here. I called it the logic of light. 1 John taught us that God is light because of our new life in Christ. 1 Thessalonians teaches us we are children of the light and that we are intended to, from Matthew, Sermon on the Mount, let our light shine before men. That is our goal. That is our path. We were once darkness. Now we're children of light. So let that light shine. This is God's intention for us. What Paul actually begins with in verse 3 are some ideas of what dims our light. What kind of connections, what kind of activities, what kind of participation will put the dimmer switch on walking as children of light? So let's start in verse 3. He says,

So what he did first is he identified two groups of sins and then he named three in each group. In verse 3, we have the sexual sins, sexual immorality, impurity, covetousness, which in this case carries a sexual tone. Okay, more abundance. And we identified those in the study guide with the definition. And the second group were the verbal sins to be avoided. Filthiness, foolish talk, crude joking. And those are fairly self-explanatory. What do all these sins have in common here? Well, the first thing that they have in common is that they belong to the realm of darkness. Participating in these is actually imitating the darkness rather than imitating God. They all point to the realm of darkness. Second thing, they're all out of agreement with the life of the Spirit. Our last chapter taught us, and do not grieve the Holy Spirit with whom you were sealed. And so all of these things in our life will grieve the Holy Spirit. And the third thing that they all have in common is that the choice to participate in any of these begins in the mind. It all begins in the mind. It is a choice in the mind, whether it is a conscious decision or a habit that has been formed. The choice is up here, which reminds us of verse 23 from last week about the renewing of our minds. How important it is to allow the Holy Spirit to renew our minds. We are not hopeless in this. Even if habits had been formed, we are not hopeless because the Holy Spirit renews our minds. So what did this list mean to the Ephesians when they first heard this, when this letter was spoken? And we're going to talk more next week specifically about their worship to Diana or Artemis. But for right now, let's just say that all pagan cultures have a foundation, a basis. in sexual immorality. All of them. It's just the way it was. So the ideal of marriage and of sexual relations within the confines of marriage, of self-control, of fidelity, those ideals were unique to God's people. They were unique to people who were walking under the the law of God. That's not how the rest of the pagan world lived. Many of these people who were hearing this letter had walked in the pagan world. Remember, this is a mixture of Jews and Gentiles. And so as they're hearing this now, it is a reinforcement and it is a reminder to them that everything that they had been trained, that they had been taught, that they had been programmed in, was false. And it was it was part of the darkness that they lived in. So now their challenge was to renew their mind so that they could have a change of habit, a change of appetite, a change of habit of speech. So what does it mean to us? Well, we have different backgrounds even in this room. Some of us grew up in a culture where mom, dad, family, sexual fidelity, not even coarse joking about those things, that was the norm. We grew up in that. Some of us grew up in the 21st century version of Ephesus and that was not the tone that you grew up with. You grew up with this sort of freedom and sexual immorality all around you. So we come from different backgrounds as well. But what do we all have in common? Every one of us here lives in a culture, in today's culture, that is given over to darkness. I like that you know how we say, well we are where we are. This is where we are. We live in a culture that has been given over to darkness. So suddenly we're all on the same plane recognizing that our culture is trying to deceive us. So these verses are relevant to any Christian at any point on the timeline because we need to meet the cultural deception with discernment. Let's go to verse 6.

Like I said, the cultural deception all around us tries to convey the idea that sexuality within marriage is fine if that's what you want to do, but it's a bit old-fashioned and a bit narrow. The culture is trying to convince us that enlightened and modern people have freedom in every area of their life. The culture is trying to convince us that even the construct of male and female as two different genders is outdated. And the culture is trying to train us that any restraint in those above things is bad, judgmental, and evil. And that is the culture, that is the deception that we live under. So we do have something in our toolkit, though, as Christians, and it was already mentioned. What do we have? What tool do we have to not be deceived? The tool that we have is discernment. That's what is mentioned. Specifically, discerning what pleases the Lord. We're going to cover that a little bit more, but I want to handle verses 5 and 6 a little bit more carefully. They, if I condense them, they basically say everyone who is sexually immoral or impure has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Okay. Some of us read those verses, and we speed read through them, and we're just like, yeah, you know what? I'm saved. Covered by the blood. It's all good. It's talking about non-believers. Some of us read those verses ultra-slowly, and we get high-centered on no inheritance, wrath of God, and we get a big lump in our throat, and we begin to swallow and say, I'm in big trouble. I think God has just cast me out. You see that? It depends on our perspective. So I want to talk about it. First of all, a slow read is good. A slow, careful read of that is wise for us, because it's a reminder of what things are in agreement with darkness, and it is a reminder that it creeps into our lives. Invited or uninvited, these things creep into our lives. Every one of us. And so it's a reminder that what we need to do when it creeps into our lives is we need to either push back, or if we've let it in, we need to repent, and we need to believe God's forgiveness, and that we need to turn and move on our way. Okay? Secondly, I want to say that this is not saying that a woman with a single immoral thought or word or deed is disqualified from heaven. That is not what Paul is saying. The sons of disobedience here are those who know God's law and disregard it without repentance. It's the one who gives herself up to immorality without a desire to change. That's probably not you, because I don't think you'd come to a women's Bible study if that was you. And so, but I just want to say that this is, we need to be careful here. Temptations toward immorality will happen in our lives. It's all around us. Okay? But we run quickly to confession, and then we ask forgiveness, and we move forward, and we are cleansed from those things. Now, but what I want to do is move on, because now Paul talks about partnership associations. Okay? We are not to become partners with those who are contrary to God's ways, but we're rather to expose. I'm gonna read verse 7 again, and then jump down to 11, and it starts this way.

In my Bible, I always have notes of different things, and I noticed that I had 2014 high school camp. That was our theme. It was called Arise. It's always sweet to see those things in my Bible, and just walk back in my memory, but that was the verse there. Now, I'm sure some of the Ephesians, when they heard this, they thought to themselves, I already have formed partnerships, and that happens to us, too. What do you do if you were unbelievers when you got married? One of you comes to the Lord, one doesn't. It happens. Maybe you were a disobedient Christian, and you married an unbeliever, and now you have a partnership, and it's just what Paul was talking about. So, what do we do with that? Well, first, I want to say God gives a special grace for those who find themselves in that situation. What it requires is prayer, and we need to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Like I said, you are where you are. We are where we are. Even in a marriage partnership, it is possible to remain partners without partnering in the unfruitful works of darkness. Do you see what I'm saying? You can remain a partner, but just don't partner in the unfruitful works of darkness. God gives us wisdom. He gives us discernment in these areas. But now, the person who's reading this, now what about all the unformed yet partnerships? Partnerships that haven't even been formed. Well, for these, we are warned about here. We are warned not to be partners. Our ministry as children of light is going to naturally expose the darkness as we move through our life. The key to exposing darkness is truthing in love. It is to go about truthing with a fresh coat of love on us every day. When we go about our days truthing in love, we probably won't make too many partnerships with the deeds of darkness because we're going to go around exposing them. It's not like we're going to kick people out of our lives, but they might kick us out of their lives, right? Because no one likes to be exposed. People who are doing deeds of darkness do not like to be exposed. You come into their life exposing, and they're like, I don't want to do this anymore. And it works. But still, we need to be careful about these partnerships. It requires wisdom. And so let's move to this third subject in Paul's thesis, walking and wisdom. It starts in verse 15.

And we're going to pause there. Have you noticed in life that foolishness happens naturally? Of course you have. You've raised children. But it happens naturally. Foolishness will happen naturally. Wisdom needs to be activated. In all areas of our life we just take the path of least resistance. We have found out that deception slips in unannounced. But discernment requires intentionality. And wasting time comes automatically. It comes automatically to me. But making the best use of our time is a determination. That's what I've discovered in life. So I want to show us these two main areas that Paul points out. Put them up on the screen. We see two main areas where wise people really shine. The first is how they use their time. And the second is how they discern what the will of the Lord is. And the reason I wanted to settle on this is because I feel like this is so practical and so useful in our lives. So let's look at the first one. Wise people know how to use their time. Wise people know how very precious the commodity of time is. It is, in my estimation, the only thing that's been given to us by the Lord with complete equity. What I mean is God has given us different shapes and sizes, different IQs, different experiences in life. We were planted in different geographical areas. You never got to choose your mom and dad. It was just, it was given to you. But time is different. Every single one of us in this room has 24 hours today. We've been given this with complete equity. And it's for us to determine what we're going to do with it. Wise people are disciplined with how they use their time. And sometimes it requires saying no to lots of ideas or suggestions or things that we could possibly do in order to focus on what's important. And this is subjective because you can't look at the girl next to you and say, oh, I see how she uses her time. I'll just do it that way. And I'm sure I'm going to be, make wise use of my time. No, that doesn't work. On a nice, sunny October afternoon, it is a possibility that the very best use of your time could be walking through a meadow. That is a possibility. On a nice, sunny Saturday morning, it is a possibility that the best use of your time could be to wash your own windows. That's a possibility. But it depends on what the Lord has given you to do. Right? We were watching a biography about, Galsim was Elizabeth Friedman. She lived during both world wars and she was a cryptologist for, during both world wars, broke the code for both Nazis and then also bootleggers. Like she took down the mafia. It was an amazing story. But since I was handling this information, I couldn't help but compare her life to my life. And I was just like amazed at what she spent her time doing. I don't know if she was a believer. She married a Jewish man and that, thus the name Friedman. But, but I just thought about this concept that you can't look at somebody else and say, I'm going to do that. Her life was way off the charts in one direction. And maybe some of your lives are way off the charts in a particular direction. We need to understand what the Lord's will is for our own lives, which brings us to the second point. Look at here. Wise people know how to discern what the will of the Lord is. This sounds mysterious, but it's not that mysterious. First, we know that we all share a general will of the Lord for us. What are some of those things, our purpose that we have discovered? Well, we're to walk in humility. We are to be, you know, truthing in love. We are to be kind, you know, all of these characteristics that is God's will for every single person in this room. But then to discern the will of God, we also have a particular will of God. And this requires more attention in our lives. It requires prayer. It requires listening to the Lord and paying attention when we read the Bible. Sometimes discerning the particular will of the Lord in our lives is a matter of trial and error. We think that God is directing us in a certain way. We give it a try. We might have assurance. It's like, absolutely. Sometimes we give it a try and we're like, uh, that is not, that's not for me. That is not how God, and so we have to back out. And so I want to say that wisdom is keeping trying. Keep on trying. That's walking in wisdom, trying to discern the will of the Lord and keep on trying to discern the will of the Lord. I feel like one of the most useful things I can do to wrap this up today is to ask you a few questions. So, and me too. I'm asking you and I'm asking me, are you devoting time to the things that God has called you to do? Or are you wasting time in areas that he hasn't directed you? That's a question we should ask ourselves as often as possible. How about this one? Are you devoting time to develop the gifts that God has given you? Because God has given you gifts to be used in his kingdom for his body. And one thing that I've noticed is that the gifts aren't given to us fully mature. Time matures them. Use matures them. And so we need time to grow and God puts us into situations where our gifts have time to grow. God is growing our gifts in ways that we might not even understand right now. So if you're in your twenties or your thirties, you might be frustrated with this conversation because you might feel like you are spending so much time on mundane and irrelevant things. But God is growing your gifts through that. If you're in your fifties or sixties, you might be able to look back at all of the time you spent doing those mundane and seemingly irrelevant things and you might be able to say, oh, I see what the Lord was doing. What a beautiful work he did by putting me in that particular place at that time. I spent all of my twenties in a suit going to work. You know, first we weren't walking with the Lord. We weren't really saved. And then when we were, Paul was in Bible college and so it just was what it was. I was making money and I, it seemed like the Lord always put me in the situation where I was working with the president of a corporation. Well, now I look back and I say, Lord, thank you that you taught me so much about how organizations run well and how they run unwell, you know? And then I spent the next 26 years of my life in jeans, homeschooling kids. And you know, there are days when you're doing that. I was really happy almost every day. I was really happy to be doing that. But there are times when you're doing that, that you just feel like another math lesson and another this and another, it seems a little bit routine and a little bit, but now I can look back and see, Lord, thank you so much. You trained me, you taught me how to organize, how to teach, how to, you know, make things in a, and so I just want to encourage those of you who are younger. God, as long as you're submitted to the Lord, God is using, he's growing your gifts. Just let him do it on his timetable. Let him do it the way he intends. Okay. We got to finish this up. Verse 18

The main point here is filled with the spirit. That is what we are to camp on here. We are to be filled with the spirit. In this letter, we've already learned that we are sealed with the Holy Spirit for the day of redemption. We have been warned that we are not to grieve the Holy Spirit by participating with those deeds of darkness. And now we're told to be filled with the spirit. The verb here, if you want Greek stuff, it's a present imperative. It's not describing one particular filling, but it means keep being filled by the Holy Spirit. So of course, this morning when I was rolling over my notes, I just had to stop and say, Lord, I need you. Would you please fill me with your Holy Spirit today for the work that you've given me today? And it doesn't matter if you're teaching a Bible study, or if you're home with your kids, or if you're going to work, whatever we are doing, we need to be filled with the Spirit once again. Now, why the contrast here? Why the comparison and contrast with drunkenness and the Spirit, okay? Well, first, it is a comparison because both of those influence a person. Both wine and the Holy Spirit influence. Do we not say He's under the influence, okay? And so, it's very similar. Wine, there's a contrast as well. Wine leads us to lose control. The Holy Spirit leads us toward self-control. That's a fruit of the Holy Spirit, right? Now, what about this word debauchery? If I asked for hands, how many of you use that in your vocabulary this week? There would be zero hands that would shoot up. So, it says, the NIV says that wine leads to debauchery. I like that. Let me give you a definition. It is extreme indulgence in sensual pleasures, particularly sexual pleasures, okay? So now, back to our comparisons and our contrast. Since wine leads to debauchery, wine dehumanizes us. Drunkenness on wine dehumanizes us and those around us. But the Spirit, the contrast here is promotes this profitable communication with us and those around us. What did He say? Singing, praising, giving thanks. So, there's a dehumanizing and there's a profitable aspect. I have noted in cultures, particularly my own, that when a culture begins to distance itself from God, the rise of alcohol use goes along with it. Have you noticed this as well? And that's what we've seen in the last 50 years. As a group, we try to get farther and farther from the ways of the Lord and also we tend to drink more and more and more. I'll just say that I am so over Christians defending alcohol use. So, like, just don't try it with me. You know, promoting, either promoting the enjoyment of it through the socials or trying to defend it and convince other people that it's fine. Just to be clear, it is not a sin, okay? This is talking about drunkenness, not drinking wine. But what I'm so tired of is so many Christians, just like this is their banner that they want to raise. Just defend, defend, defend. So, I'm done. So, you know not to talk to me about that. Okay, the concluding sentence here in verse 21, just like the final sentence or paragraph in an essay, Paul just ties this up in a bow.

That is a summary and we're gonna have a larger conversation about that next week as we move on, but this wraps up our former conversation in chapters 4 and 5 because what it really does here is it speaks of humility. Do you remember how we defined humility last week? We said humility is understanding our place in the larger order of things. Not thinking too highly of ourselves, but understanding that we do have a place in the larger order of things. And so, as Paul's wrapping this up, our place is to walk in love toward others. Our place is to bring the light of Christ even into areas of darkness. And our place is to walk in wisdom because the days are evil. Not just our days. Someone could have read this a thousand years ago. Their days were evil too. So, this isn't an End Times statement. This is just, yes, the days are evil because this world belongs to the Prince of the Power of the Air and we are the ones bringing light into that and exposing that darkness. So, this is how we find purpose in our lives. Walking in love, being children of light, and walking in wisdom. So, let's pray. Father in heaven, I just thank you for this structure. I thank you Lord God for helping us through the Apostle Paul really to understand your heart so well. And Lord, understanding is one thing, but we fully know that walking this out is what you're calling us to do. And we all need you to work in our lives to accomplish that. Lord, we need you in order to help us love others sacrificially. Lord, we need you to help us to be bold enough to walk as children of light. And Lord, we desperately need you to help us to walk in wisdom, make the best use of our time, and to discern what it is that you have us to do today, just today, and then this week, and then as we move forward, Lord. And so, I pray that you would help us to remember to always come to you and be filled with the Holy Spirit for the work that you've called us to do. In Jesus' name, Amen.