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You're listening to audio from Faith Church Indy.  This fall we're studying the book of Ephesians,  learning about the new life that we find in Christ.  Now here's the teaching. stand with me as we read from Ephesians 5, page 22 in your scripture journals, page 1162 in the Bibles in the Seeds. So Ephesians 5 15, 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. This is the word of the Lord.  Good morning, everyone.  I'm Jeff, one of the pastors here.  Glad to be able to worship with you today and open God's words together.  Let me ask you,  do any of you like me have ever had this experience where you start going in one direction for quite a while until you finally realize you've gotten off track somewhere? uh Not just driving, sometimes it's,  well, I think back to projects like assembling furniture  or grills or toys. And there's a part of me that really  believes  kind of a conspiracy  that all these assemblies instructions are written by AI that actually hates humans. uh You open up the box, there's uh 73  random screws, 13 oddly shaped pieces and an instruction sheet that shows happy people effortlessly putting this thing together  with parts and skills that you don't seem to have.  Also, you're required to use a tool that nobody in this continent actually is familiar with.  Honestly, though, the problem that I struggle is that I will just tend to jump into the thing and start assembling it because I think I know what I'm doing and I'll go that way for 30 or 40 minutes until I realize that something has gotten dramatically off track. And uh the thing that I'm putting together looks more like a piece of postmodern art than a storage shelf.  And that's when I finally go back to the instructions and say, you know, maybe I should see what this thing has to say for direction. Isn't that what our lives sometimes look like? Right?  We can  sleepwalk or sometimes even charge  through life, through... decisions through emotions, through relationships, through work or school,  attitudes, habits. And when things start getting wobbly or they start leaning sideways or threatening to actually collapse, we finally say,  maybe I should check with God about this. Well,  in the passage that we heard read from Ephesians 5, Paul says,  pay attention, look carefully how you walk, not as unwise, but as  wise. He's saying don't drive your life and then consult God later.  Wisdom Paul says is seeking is listening to  is  following the instructions  of the one who made us the one who intends to guide us. Wisdom is being led by God's spirit. Paul says  we've been walking through this picture that Paul gives us in the book of Ephesians a vision of. Life that doesn't just live in church on Sunday, but a life that is actually filled to the fullness of God himself. A life that has been  genuinely, comprehensively made new by God's work through his spirit in coming to know Jesus. Christians are  genuinely new people. And God has entered our lives to renew our minds, to transform our character, to reshape  our values, our priorities. And we can't make that life work by following the instructions from  our culture,  from the world around us, from our families of origin, even from our own intuition or desires. And today we come to a passage that shows us  what it looks like when faith really hits the ground. When we try to live out our faith on Monday morning and our decisions and our habits and  our relationships and our impulses and desires. This is one of those passage where  Paul doesn't want us to  just have knowledge about the right way to go, but he's actually connecting the theology in our heads with the direction of our feet. Paul doesn't want us to be Christians who agree with doctrine, but it just kind of lives up here and never actually gets worked out with any kind of effectiveness or experience. He wants us to actually live genuinely new lives, empowered by God's Spirit. Not in some kind of vague  theoretical sense, but  actual  lived  out lives. He wants us to live in the newness that God has brought into our lives by His Spirit. So if you haven't already, go ahead and open  your Bible to Ephesians chapter five. starting in verse 15 and we're going to... Look through this passage together at what Paul says about what walking in wisdom actually looks like and how we can experience it in a way that changes us and reflects what Jesus is like. So  let's just start in verse 15. Paul begins  with a command about how to walk, how to live. Remember, that's just an analogy for our lives. Look carefully then how you  walk.  means  basically the same thing that we would understand in English. Carefully, intentionally,  thoughtfully. God wants  His people not to be just spectators drifting through life, watching it happen around us, but as people who are awake and attentive and engaged. In other words,  Paul is saying, don't drift. Don't live life on autopilot. I remember reading a story a few years ago of  a lady, a hiker who fell off of  a mountain ridge. Not because the path was particularly difficult, not because the weather was bad, but you can probably guess why. She was looking at her phone. Right? She thought she knew where she was going.  It was a well-marked trail in a national park, but she stopped paying attention. She was confident. She was casual. She was kind of careless. She didn't consider that inattention can lead to a disastrous direction. And that's what Paul is getting at in this passage, right? When he says, look carefully how you walk, not  anxiously, not fearfully, but intentionally, thoughtfully. Because Paul's point is you cannot drift into a wise life. You don't just sort of  accidentally live with wisdom. It requires effort. requires intentionality, investment, eyes open, mind alert, heart awake. Because every step that we're taking is heading us somewhere. It's actually shaping our lives.  And so Paul sort of drives the point home. says, look carefully how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise. And that word wise,  carried enormous weight for these people because in this culture of Ephesus, their world was shaped by Greco-Roman philosophical traditions,  Stoicism, moral philosophy, people who claimed to be able to offer a path to a wise life. Wisdom, though, is often viewed as kind of special knowledge. It was uh available to the educated. was  required, you know, philosophical sophistication or sometimes mystical insight. through uh magical practices. And into this kind of exclusive, confused  marketplace of wisdom, Paul says something absolutely astounding. True wisdom is not found in special knowledge. True wisdom is about simply seeking to do God's will.  And when he says that,  he's not saying  some  strange  esoteric hard to understand secret plan of God. He simply means seeking to do what God has already told us. That's what wisdom looks like. Look at what he says. He reframes the whole idea of wisdom. Don't be foolish in verse 17, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Isn't some complicated, hard to figure out thing? Understanding the will of the Lord, a life shaped by wisdom, is obedience to Jesus. It's partnering with him to pattern my life after him. And Paul says then in verse 16, as we said, that this life of wisdom is intentional. Make the best use of the time because the days are evil. Now, when he says the days are evil, he doesn't mean that the world is just irredeemable, that the days are hopeless.  He means that life, as we experience it, is full of all kinds of forces, all kinds of powers, all kinds of voices, spiritual, cultural, personal, even individual to ourselves, that want to pull us away from the will of God. We live in days  just like the one Paul is picturing here. Days filled with distraction designed to numb our souls. Days filled with noise that would drown out the voice of God. Days that are filled with temptations to just a swipe or a click or a thought that's right in front of us. Days where we don't just see anger and bitterness and fear and cynicism and resentment, but they're sometimes even celebrated, encouraged. So what does Paul say? Make the best use, redeem  the time, buy it back, snatch  up every moment that you can for the kingdom. And he's not saying we need to put more stuff in our schedules, right? He's saying that the time that we are already investing our lives in is incredibly important. It's irreplaceable. It's the one resource we can never get more of in this life. That's a  word for us. Not to do more, but to recognize that every moment that we live is a moment that God intends for us to live with Him and for Him. Every conversation, every decision,  every opportunity is a place where Jesus wants to shape you and shine through you.  Paul's saying to walk in wisdom is to see time differently, not  as something that we just sort of spend, but actually as something that we invest.  something that we are stewarding. Life is not aimless.  It's not just a series of hectic busyness followed by downtime. Walking in wisdom is a steady progression towards an actual goal that God intends and helps us accomplish. To grow to look more like Jesus. That's why Paul ends this section with this clear call. Do not be foolish in verse 17, understand what the will of the Lord is. Wisdom doesn't begin with intellectual brilliance or philosophical expertise. It begins with submission, surrender, with aligning our wills, our desires, our plans, our calendars, our hopes, with God's purposes to say, direct me, shape my will, help me to choose the things that will actually reflect what you are like and what you want me to grow into.  The person who seeks to  walk in the will of the Lord is not saying, you know, how close to the line can I get without going over? They're saying, how close to Jesus can I stay in this moment that I'm experiencing right now? Because wisdom is not fundamentally about avoiding sin. It's about Pursuing God it's about trying to stay close to him That means  it'd probably be helpful for me to look at the patterns  in my life the things that are shaping my life and say is this actually conforming me to Christ or moving me away from  A few questions to consider. What is the first voice that I hear in the morning? I've been really helped and  challenged by a book that  Pastor Joey shared with me several years ago about  habits that we can develop weekly, daily, monthly.  And one of the great taglines that just sticks in my mind is no phone before Bible. What's the first voice that I hear in the morning? If I'm grabbing from my phone, It's going to be a voice of anxiety, of fear, of busyness, of distraction, of all the stuff that I have to get to do.  Am I listening to Jesus first for all those expectations, desires, plans?  What are the careless moments in my day that maybe God wants to redeem, to help me redeem? Is it when I'm scrolling on my phone? Is it when I'm tempted to drive angrily because all the people on the road are out to, you kill me or they're slow me down and frustrate my purposes.  Is it about the need to discern what's going on instead of just reacting? Where do I need margins?  Maybe  the wisdom that I need in my life is going to be formed by slowing down to give space for God's Spirit to actually speak to me. Walking in wisdom means walking awake. means walking intentionally, attentively. cannot, we cannot drift into godliness. We don't accidentally become  whole, wise people. Wisdom is being led by the Spirit, so live intentionally, Paul says. Live with a purpose in mind. And then he gives this startling contrast in verse 18. Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit. Now drunkenness was a problem in the ancient world, just like it is in our world. Ancient writers often warned about abusing the consumption of alcohol, but there were very few that just condemned alcohol outright, and Paul doesn't hear. We should seriously consider the dangers of alcohol and the problems that abuse of alcohol, that drunkenness causes, but not all consumption of alcohol is sinful or destructive, right? That's not what Paul is saying. This is an area though where we need to discern the will of the Lord. But fundamentally, Paul is not really giving a rule about alcohol. He's talking about influences in our lives. In Ephesus,  the pagan cults that these people were coming out of used drunkenness to kind of induce an ecstatic state, right? Like  the idea was that you could draw near to God by letting go of inhibitions, my senses are overwhelmed, and I'm open to whatever the spirits are.  Sorry, that was an unintended pun.  Look, Paul is saying  that may be the world that you live in, that may have been your former life, that may be normal in your city, but that is not the way of God's Spirit. The Spirit does not fill us, does not guide us through loss of control, but through intentional surrender of control to Him. Does that make sense, the distinction? You see that the contrast,  how brilliant Paul is here, he's not primarily talking about  wine, he's talking about anything that controls us. Anything can intoxicate  us. Power, pleasure, approval, entertainment, political obsessions, success, even ministry. The question Paul really asks is, what is it that you're relying on to cope with life,  to feel in control? Because whatever fills you  is what forms you. And it kind of makes sense, right? We all understand that.  If you take a dry sponge and you put it in a bowl of water, you don't have to tell the sponge what to do, right? It just naturally absorbs  whatever it's in. And if you place the sponge in a bowl of clean water, it comes out clean. If you place the sponge in a bowl of dirty water, it comes out dirty. Whatever fills that sponge comes out when you squeeze it. Right? And our hearts kind of work the same way. Whatever we're soaking in, the news that we consume, the fears that we replay in our head, the desires that we entertain, the habits that we practice, the voices that we listen to. And when life squeezes us, and it will squeeze us, whatever we've been filling ourselves with comes out. So if you want to know what is filling you, one of the ways to do that is to pay attention to your reactions. When I'm stressed, what do I reach for? When I'm lonely, what do I try and fill myself with? When I'm bored, where do I tend to drift? When I'm wounded, what do I turn for comfort? Who do I listen to? Whatever we turn to consistently is what's filling us. It's what's forming us. And whatever fills you forms you before you even make an intentional conscious response. So maybe what would help us is setting limits on digital consumption. Maybe it's  stepping away from habits that are just numbing us instead of actually  shaping us. Maybe it's addressing patterns in our lives that have quietly gotten control of us. The Spirit will fill what we empty out and make available for Him. Paul's  warning us not just about drunkenness, again about this larger principle, whatever fills you forms you. I'm filled with anger, I'm an angry person. If I'm filled with bitterness, I become a bitter person. If I'm filled with anxiety, I become an anxious, fearful person. Only the Holy Spirit can fill us in a way that will produce  the fullness of life that Jesus wants you to experience when we're pressed, when we're squeezed. That's why Paul tells us to be filled with the Spirit. And it's interesting that that verb, to be filled, is in the present tense.  Keep on being filled. Be continually filled. Keep seeking to be filled. Let the Spirit shape your life moment by moment. But if the Spirit already lives in us because we belong to Christ, how can we have  more of Him? Even more, how can Paul command us to do something that sounds like we're trying to control God Himself? Well, the Bible describes people as being filled with joy, filled with anger, filled with knowledge, filled with peace.  And we understand that that means whatever that is, is what's dominating and defining their lives, right?  You may remember in our study in the book of Acts in chapter five, Luke talks about this man named Ananias and said, Satan had filled his heart. The Bible talks about people being full of the Spirit. Jesus had his baptism and Barnabas and Stephen. I think Paul's, what Paul's trying to say is  that we can align our lives  So that the influence that motivates and directs us is not the world, not even our desires and impulses, but the Holy Spirit. And that's not just a one time experience, right? He's saying we can  actually experience that more  and more as we continually  give ourselves to the Spirit's presence and invite him to fill us and shape us. oh To be filled with the Spirit  is to live with an attitude that is constantly saying, Holy Spirit, I want you to have all of me. I want you to take my desires, my plans, my fears, my intentions, my hopes, my habits, the things that I've told nobody. And I want to give those to you for you to shape me, to form me, to help me respond appropriately to them. That's the heart of spirit-filled living. Wisdom is being led by the Spirit, Paul says. So live a surrendered life, an intentional life and a surrendered life. And now Paul goes to show us what that actually looks like in verses 19 and 20. A spirit-filled life sings,  it praises, it overflows with gratitude. 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. Now, for these Ephesian Christians, again, this would have been totally category-shattering, right? Because they're used to ritualistic  temple-based worship. In the ancient world, worshippers didn't sing. The priests might sing, choirs sang, professionals sang, the worshippers  watch what other people are doing on their behalf. But in the Church of Jesus, everyone sings.  Do you see that?  Everyone participates. Why?  Because it's not a performance,  it's a mutual encouragement.  see, Paul is saying when we gather as God's people, our worship is  vertical, but it's not just vertical, it's actually horizontal as well. You are strengthening the faith of your brothers and sisters when you sing. You're helping carry their burdens.  You're reminding them of the truth. You're pointing them to the goodness of God and the riches of His grace.  We need that. We need to hear one another sing. We need to hear each other declare truth. We need to  experience the collective witness of a spirit-shaped community worshiping God together. I remember  talking one time with a woman whose husband had passed away and she said that after the funeral she could hardly bring herself to come to church. It was just  so difficult. And she didn't have the strength to sing. But she said I would sit and I would listen to the people singing around me and they carried me. Their voices gave me strength until I could sing.  Again, they sang about joy until I felt like I could believe I could experience it again. That's what Paul is picturing here when he says we address one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.  Worship is a response to God, but it's also a gift that we give to one another. It's hope, it's reminder, it's encouragement, it's strengthening one another. Sometimes your voice becomes somebody else's expression of faith. and they need you to sing for them. Paul adds making melody in your heart. And I love that he says that, right? He doesn't even say making melody with your voice,  because not everyone has a great voice. And that's fine, right? That's exactly Paul's point. It doesn't matter how good of a singer you are. He's saying, don't just sing with your mouth, sing with your heart. Don't just hit the notes, hear the truth. Don't just follow the music, but follow it. to Jesus, let it point you to what you're actually the one you're actually singing about. Because spirit-filled worship is not about style or volume or polish or even quality, although we should do our best. It's the overflow of a heart has been captured by God's grace  and wants to offer back praise and response. And then in verse 20, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Spirit-filled people are grateful people. That's the work of God's Spirit in our hearts. Gratitude is the expression of a spirit-filled life. But notice it's not. giving thanks. mean, I know we know it, but it's worth just reminding ourselves giving thanks when things go your way. It's not give thanks when stuff turns out the way you'd hoped. Give thanks when things are going well. It's giving thanks always and for everything. And Paul's not saying pretend that evil things are actually good. He's not saying everything that happens to us is objectively good.  But being able to give thanks for everything means that we trust God. deeply enough to know that he is at work in everything. In the hardships, in the pain, the disappointment, in the suffering, in all the things that we don't even know how it's gonna turn out. God is working and so we can give him thanks. Gratitude  is the response of a heart that is  anchored in the foundation of God's goodness. And even if you can't see it in your life right in front of you, you can  always look to the cross. Do you want to know how much God loves you and how good his purposes are for you? Look at what he has done for you and his son. When the Spirit fills us, grumbling decreases, complaining loses its grip, cynicism dies, and worship flows out. Wisdom is being led by the Spirit, Paul says, so live a worshiping life empowered by the Spirit. And then, Paul says the most radical thing of all, absolutely unbelievable to his hearers, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. There is nothing, absolutely nothing in the Greco-Roman culture. that related to this, that sounded like this. Their world was  absolutely built on hierarchy. Husbands over wives, fathers over children, parents over  kids, masters above slaves, elites above commoners. And the people on top have all the authority and get to call all the shots. Paul says in the church, the spirit creates a new dynamic of relationship.  mutual submission. It doesn't mean the erasing of differences or roles. It means a posture of a heart is service. It means I'm not demanding my rights. It means I don't require that people honor me and respect me. I don't use my strength to dominate. I use my strength to serve. I use my gifts to bless other people and build them up. Paul tells us the motivation and the power for this out of reverence for Christ, which is so important because it's not out of respect for that person. It's not because they deserve it. It's not because they've earned it. It's because we love Jesus and we have known his grace to us who are people who don't deserve it and haven't. And so that's the honor and the love that we give to one another.  It's  not a one-time act, it's a daily  pattern of Spirit-empowered choices. Man, it might be good.  I'm asking myself uncomfortable questions about this. Where do I insist on my own way? Maybe in the car? I don't know why the car is a big battleground for control, right? Like who gets to drive? Which way we're gonna turn? What music we listen to? Where do I insist on my way at home,  in meetings, in small annoyances? Where do I resist receiving help? See, because sometimes pride looks like needing to do it all yourself because I can't trust they're gonna do it the right way. So, you know, I have to do it because  you're not gonna get it right. And sometimes  humility and love is letting others lead and serve you. even if they don't do it the way that you are gonna do it.  It's asking myself, where can I take a lower place? Where do I need to not be the center? Where do I not need to have my voice speak out? Not to diminish myself, not to devalue myself, but to let someone else be built up. For me, uh relational humility has looked like working to slow down my reactive responses to things that I don't like and trying to be quicker to apologize when I get that wrong and asking God to help me choose gentleness when my pride wants to control or demand. Submission is not  losing, right? It feels that way.  in us and in our culture, submission is not losing, it's letting Christ win through us in how we respond. If you want to know if a church is filled with the Spirit, you don't look for miracles, you don't look for, you know, ecstatic experiences, you look for humility, you look for service, you look for mutual care, for people who resist the temptation to hold on to grudges and demand their own way. Because when the Spirit fills a people, pride goes out the window, competition turns into cooperation, division turns into unity, that's the presence of God's Spirit. Wisdom is being led by the spirit, Paul says, so live a humble life. All of us are filled with some. Something is shaping you. Something is forming you. Your responses, your desires, your  attitudes. Something is  directing your soul. And the question that Paul asks is not so much are you a Christian, but what are you filled with? You're filled with worry, with resentment, with fear, with self-protection, with pride, with habits that you can't break, with the noise of this world, with the noise of your own  inner monologue sometimes.  The Spirit fills  those who make themselves available to Him. He fills surrendered hearts. He fills people who say, Lord, I don't want to drift anymore.  I want you to shape me. I want to be intentional about it. I want you to lead me in wisdom. I want you to shape my worship. I want you to deepen my gratitude. I want you to humble me in my relationships. I want you  to fill me, Lord. That's the life. that God is inviting you and that's the life that Jesus died to bring us into, not religion, but... A life that's filled to the fullness of God and shaped by Him. May we become a people who are marked by that kind of wisdom. Shaped, empowered by God's Spirit, formed by surrender, overflowing with worship, anchored in gratitude, committed to  mutual love. That's what Jesus is offering you. Let's pursue that. Let me pray for us. Father, we come before you with  open hands, open hearts. Thank you for your word that searches us, that steadies us, that guides us, that calls us into life. Thank you for the gift of your Holy Spirit. The one who fills what is empty, who strengthens what is weak, shapes us into the likeness of your Son. Lord, we confess that too often we walk carelessly. We drift through our days. Forgive us for the things that have filled our lives and controlled our hearts more than your spirit has. Today we ask you, Spirit, to fill us. us with your wisdom, your presence, with gratitude, with joy, with humility, with love. Help us be a people who walk wisely, who worship from the heart. shape us,  Holy Spirit, our worship, our work, our relationships, our home, and we would reflect you in what we do. Have your way in us, Lord. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen. Thank you for engaging with our community by checking out this podcast.  If you would like more information about our church and ministry, you can find us at faithchurchindeed.com.