Look to How You Walk! (Ephesians 5:15-21)
Look to How You Walk!
Ephesians 5:15-21
Introduction
In his evangelistic tract Thoughts for Young Men: An Exhortation Directed to Those in the Prime of Life, J. C. Ryle, with his characteristic fire, warned young men about many of the dangers they face which would keep their souls from heaven. Among those dangers is what he would call “thoughtlessness”—by which he does not mean insensitivity, but a failure to think. “Men will not think clearly, they will not look forward, they will not look around them, they will not reflect on the end of their lives and the inevitable consequences of their current ways.”
He goes on later to warn of the importance of careful consideration of our hearts in this world which would easily deceive us of the condition of our own souls: “Believe me, this world is not a world in which we can do well without thinking. That is especially true in the matter of our souls. ‘Don’t think about it,’ whispers Satan. He knows that an unconverted heart is like the accounts of a dishonest trader: they do not bear close inspection.”
But even among these, he also urges us to a serious mode of life more generally. He tells the story of Sir Francis Walsingham who was Queen Elizabeth I’s Secretary of State. When he retired he gave himself to serious thought. “Some of his former friends came to visit and told him he was becoming melancholy. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘I am serious; for all are serious round about me. God is serious in observing us; Christ is serious in interceding for us; the Spirit is serious in striving with us; the truths of God are serious; our spiritual enemies are serious in their endeavors to ruin us; poor lost sinners are serious in hell; and why then should not you and I be serious too?’” As Paul says in Ephesians 5:15, “Look carefully, then, how you walk.”
If what Paul has been teaching us in Ephesians is true, then we must pay careful attention to our lives. If the church really does lie at the center of God’s plan in the present age, if our salvation stretches from eternity to eternity, if Christ truly is in the heavens and all things are under his feet, if he has raised us up with him, if we are one body in Christ, if we are called to unity in the body, if we really are “the mystery…which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit,” if the angels are watching, and if communion with our Lord hangs in the balance, we must walk carefully. Do not such great realities call us to a serious, intentional, careful living?
Beyond that, Paul in these verses is culminating the second half of the book. These verses are the climax of chapters 4-6. He has walked us through the need to walk in unity as the church is governed by the preaching of the gospel by men given to the church to lead it. He has taught us of our ministry to one another and our growth into maturity through that ministry. He has taught us the need for personal holiness and showed us the path to get there. He has exhorted us to walk in love and to walk as light in the midst of a dark world. If we are called to walk this way, then does not it require a great degree of thoughtfulness? Of intentionality? Of care in how we live?
In fact, note the little word “then.” We are to be careful how we walk because we are to be light in darkness. The careful walk of the church is her shining light in the darkness. Lackadaisical, le se fare holiness produces a sputtering light. The candlestick of the church only shines brightly when she walks together with intentional care. This is why we have so many structures—it promotes a careful walk together. Our calendar brings balance to our time and covers our responsibilities. Our budget directs the spending of the Lord’s resources. Our meetings are given to talking about the first and most important things. Our prayers are diligently for what the Lord has laid in front of us and what he has commanded.
Yet, how many of us wake up each day with a sense of urgency to “look carefully to how we walk”? Think about the thoughts that rush through your head when you first wake up? What are they? Do they sound like this: “Lord, what would please you today? How can I tackle my growing sense of anxiety? What manner of life would draw my family or my neighbors into saving faith and how can I live that way today? How can I be reconciled with my brother/sister at church who offended me? What do you have for me today?” I would daresay that we too easily default to the world’s way of living: turning our minds off, mindlessly bumbling through each day in the hopes of simply surviving another bland, dull, lifeless day of a meaningless existence. But Paul says, because you have been called to a high calling, because you are to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, “Look carefully then how you walk.”
Such a high calling is worthy of a careful walk. That word careful is also important. It tells us that our lives are to be accurate, careful, or precise. It is a similar thought to how Paul exhorted Timothy: “Train yourself for godliness.” Self-discipline is the gym in which we grow in careful living. Imprecision is almost never good. Imprecise words hurt. Imprecise engineering costs lives. Imprecise budgeting costs money and loses efficiency. Imprecise exegesis creates heresy. So also imprecise living projects a false message to the world: “Christ is not worthy of a careful life.”
How then are we to live that careful life? The rest of this message is dedicated to unpacking what it means to “look carefully to how we walk.” How do we walk carefully, accurately, precisely? How do we walk well? Three principles to walking well:
Attend to Wise Living (vv15-16)
First, if we are to walk carefully, we must attend to walking wisely. What is the fundamental aspect of careful living as a church? Wisdom: “not as unwise but as wise.” To walk carefully is to walk wisely.
What does it mean to walk as those who are wise? If you look at how wisdom has been used in Ephesians, you get your answer:
1:8 – redemption is lavished on us in all wisdom and insight. In other words, our salvation has flowed from and expresses the wisdom of God. We look at how God has orchestrated history and we say, “That’s wisdom.”
1:17 – The only reason we can see and understand God’s wisdom is because of the Holy Spirit’s work in our hearts to enlighten us. Thus, wisdom is the Spirit working in our hearts to see and gladly acknowledge what God is doing in the world. It is the spiritual understanding of our place in God’s plan.
3:10 – God’s wisdom is displayed in the church to angels (probably evil ones). Thus, part of that wisdom is understanding that when we live as a church, we demonstrate God’s wisdom to angels who watch us and who see God’s wisdom as he renews humanity in the church.
5:15 – Which in turn means that it matters how we live together as a church. When we walk wisely, we see all those realities and we live in light of them. We read the cosmic room. We align our lives with his purposes—to display his renewing power through the church as he remakes people into his Son’s image by their service and love toward one another. To walk wisely is to do that.
How is that expressed practically? V16: “making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” It is important in our production-oriented American society to remember that “making the best use of the time” (or, “redeeming” or “buying up” the time) does not necessarily mean “fill every spare second w/ frenetic activity so that you are as productive and efficient as humanly possible.” Naturally, we all know that sloth is sin. Time is short. The necessity of work is great. But the kind of thoughtful, prudent investment of the time we have been given should not be confused with raw efficiency or productivity. In other words, redeeming the time happens by carefully considering the way we walk, not by over-work or anxious toil. God could have created the world in a millisecond, but instead chose the (relatively) inefficient timetable of six days, followed by a day of mere enjoyment. This should color our understanding of what it means to redeem the time.
Yet, it does bear emphasizing the opposite as well: Disciplined efficiency should mark the child of God. For every one person given to over-work, there are two given to sloth. Laziness is the death knell of wisdom. God’s plan does not move forward when spiritual couch potatoes run the show.
And how urgent the need for disciplined efficiency! Paul says, “the days are evil.” Even though the forces of the future have invaded the present age, the world still lies in the lap of the evil one. And he exercises all his powers to hamper our opportunity for service. Consider all that the Lord has called us to since chapter 4: we must display God’s glory through our conduct, expose evil, abound in good works, strengthen one another, win sinners for Christ. Do you think that Satan will allow us to do that unopposed? The days are evil, and therefore our time cannot be dedicated to God without in some way being redeemed—bought up, taken advantage of. Calvin comments: “Everything around us tends to corrupt and mislead.” It is easy to waste time, and therefore, “Let us recover it in every way possible.” Every missed opportunity is one you will never get back.
Think about it like this. Time is short, and opportunities are few, and they pass quickly. If you’re 30 and you faithfully attend church for the rest of your life (for men, that’s 76 years on average), you will attend church approximately 2,400 times. That’s essentially how many sermons I have left to preach. That’s not a lot! And that is every reason why Satan will do everything he can to make sure you don’t get here on Sunday mornings. The demons regularly descend on Sunday mornings! And what overcomes those moments? Thoughtful planning. In other words, wisdom.
But such could be applied to every other area of godliness. Financial management. Evangelism. Discipleship. Prayer. Bible reading. Marriage. Parenting. Church planting (something you are to be commended on!). Redeem the time. Buy up the opportunity.
Transition: Yet what is to direct our disciplined efficiency? If we are to redeem the time and act wisely in these evil days, what are we to do? When the opportunity presents itself, what path shall we take? Which is why Paul tells us that we also must…
Understand God’s Will (v17)
Not only must we attend to walking wisely, but we must understand what God desires from us. We must understand his will. And we must do that because the days are evil.
Now, this topic of understanding the will of God for our lives has created no shortage of confusion in some peoples’ minds. We assume that God’s path for our lives is mysterious and hidden and that we must use a kind of christened divination to figure out what God has unlovingly hidden from us. So, we turn to things like hearing the “still small voice,” or our subjective feelings and intuitions about what is right/wrong or good/bad, or we rely on self-proclaimed prophets who simply tell us what we are supposed to do. One time I had a friend tell me that he knew God’s will because he drove past a license plate that spelled out something that seemed to be an answer to his quandry.
Naturally, if God’s will is so obscure then it is easy to miss it. So this all gives rise to the idea that I could “miss” God’s will for my life and end up living a life I was not supposed to. I could marry the wrong person or take the wrong job or join the wrong church. So many are wracked with anxious nail-biting, wondering whether they have missed God’s best.
While I will not lie to you and say that decision making is easy or simply, or that discerning God’s will is only a matter of reading your Bible, I will say that God has clearly revealed what he wants us to do. When it comes to his will, he has not left us guessing. God has revealed his will in Scripture, and therefore, when Paul tells us that we should understand what the will of the Lord is, he is exhorting us to know the Bible and obey it.
God always guides his people. He always is with them by the Holy Spirit who is given to us as a seal. He is always near us and guiding us into all truth. He is still our shepherd, guiding his flock to pleasant places and along paths of righteousness. Nobody is saying that God does not guide his people. The question is how he guides us. And the correct answer is, essentially, in his Word by his Spirit in the context of his church.
I reiterate: we cannot know God’s will apart from the Bible. That is not to say that the Bible directly addresses each and every question we may have or gives us specific processes for specific situations. What it does mean is that we cannot do what the Lord wants us to do outside of the network of principles that the Bible gives us. Thus, we need to saturate our minds with the thought of Scripture so that when any situation comes up we are able to make the right decision.
Notice how Paul ties this into his thought. The first part of verse 17 is perhaps better translated: “Do not become ignorant.” There is an ever-unfolding process of entropy in this world. The days are evil. There are an endless variety of allurements that would lead us away from single-minded devotion to Christ. But we are not to become ignorant—literally “unthinking,” mindless, foolish, not having good judgment. Wisdom redeems the time by careful, thoughtful attention to life in this evil world. Yet there are many who prove foolish, unthinking, and mindless by allowing their minds to be slowly eroded by the forces of the times. Incessant attention to politics, Amazon Prime/Netflix, social media, food, finances, or even work, family, and even church can numb the mind to the will of God. They can, and often do, instill a sense of carelessness about life in this world. And when that happens, we don’t “take every thought captive to make it obey Christ,” we don’t stop to ask, “Is this course of life really the right one?” The evil times crowd out the will of God.
But Paul says, “Don’t be that way! Instead, understand God’s will.” Understanding is an intelligent grasp that challenges and reforms our thinking. Think of that! Understanding comes when our thinking is challenged and thereby shaped and changed. And notice the intellectual flare to that word: we don’t understand God’s will simply because it feels like God’s will. We understand God’s will when we grasp the meaning of the Bible such that is shapes us and changes us—in other words, sanctification is the means by which we come to know God’s will.
So, in simple terms, what is the Lord’s will? That we would walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which we’ve been called. That we would be humble, gentle, patient, forbearing, loving, unified. That we would have leaders that equip the saints and saints that serve one another. That we would speak the truth in love to reach maturity. That we would not lie or be angry or steal or speak corrupting words or grieve the Spirit or become ungracious. That we would walk in love and shine a light in the world. As we shall soon see, God’s will is that wives should submit to husbands and husbands should love their wives and children should obey parents and parents should not exasperate their children, that slaves should obey their masters and masters should treat their slaves as equals. In all, God’s will is that we should “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might” (Eph 6:10).
Transition: Yet, as we have seen, we cannot be wise and understand God’s will if we are constantly dominated by the forces of this world. Rather, we must be completely under his sway. Thus, Paul’s final exhortation…
Be Controlled by the Spirit (vv18-22)
We must be “filled with the Spirit” if we are to walk wisely and to understand God’s will. Yet, to be filled with the Spirit we cannot be drunk with wine.
What does that mean? Naturally, it excludes by definition literal drunkenness. It is a sin to drink alcohol to the point of being drunk. In the Bible wine is neither seen exclusively as good or bad. At times, wine/alcohol is depicted as a source of many evils. E.g., Proverbs 20:1 says, “Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.” Or Isaiah 5:11, “Woe to those who rise early in the morning, that they may run after strong drink, who tarry late into the evening as wine inflames them!” Noah was undone by wine. Drunkenness was characteristic of Ahasuerus’s court. King Amnon was murdered because he was drink and caught unaware by his assassins. Even today, we know the kind of carousing and immorality that occurs because of drunkenness.
But often the Bible uses wine as a symbol of God’s blessing. Melchizedek brought out “bread and wine” to bless Abraham. When Isaac blesses Jacob, he says, “May God give you the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth and plenty of grain and wine” (Genesis 27:28). Psalm 104:14 says, “You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man’s heart.” When Isaiah sounds out the gospel call, he speaks about faith like this: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” Jesus himself would have used wine to institute the Lord’s Supper, made good wine for the wedding at Cana, and would have drank it as a normal, regular part of the culture of that day.
In other words, the Bible consistently views wine like it views everything else in God’s good creation: a good gift which is twisted by sin. Like all gifts, the enjoyment of that gift has parameters. It must be hedged in by the prohibition against misuse in drunkenness. It has also hedged in by the law of conscience—if your consciences says that it is wrong to enjoy wine, then don’t violate your conscience! It is also hedged in by the preeminence of Christian love—we do not seek opportunities to unnecessarily offend one another.
But here, the principle of drunkenness extends beyond the literal drinking of wine to a deeper principle: namely, that of control. Why? It says, “for that is debauchery.” Debauchery is reckless abandon. We all know a common side-effect of drunkenness is the lowing of inhibitions—which is another way of saying, it deadens self-control. When you are drunk, you are not in control of yourself. And that is precisely the problem.
So, the command to not be drunk is a symbol of a greater command to always be in control of yourself, to not be under the dominating influence of anything that would override your ability to “redeem the time.” Thus, we can be drunk with power, allowing the desire to control others override our obedience to the Lord. We could be punch-drunk, so carried away by comedy that we say what we otherwise would not say. We could be, as they say, “High on our own supply,” so enamored with ourselves that our pride inflates us beyond the degree of what is proper. It includes additions to things like gambling, or pornography. It includes not only drunkenness with alcohol, but also with illicit drugs. Yes, this does mean that I think this precludes the use of marijuana of any kind. Also psychedelic drugs, which are now beginning to be used in some psychological practices with something called MDMA Assisted Therapy.
Anything we would do which would lead us away from a self-controlled, disciplined, time-redeeming Christian life must be avoided. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6:12, “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be dominated by anything.”
We must instead be dominated by the Spirit of God. “Be filled with the Spirit.” Now, again, this is rife with problems that arise from the charismatic movement. Being filled with the Spirit is not the same thing as speaking in tongues, nor is it a heightened spiritual experience, nor is it a second experience of grace that comes after conversion to make you a “super-Christian.” Rather, being filled with the spirit is being filled with the power of the Spirit to do his will—something which we ought to experience regularly.
Thus, to be filled with the Spirit is precisely the opposite of being drunk with wine. When we are drunk with wine, we are dominated by the influence of wine—it is the controlling influence in our lives at that moment. But when we are filled with the Spirit, we are dominated and controlled by his desires, his will, his power, such that we accomplish his will. Which means that being “filled with the Spirit” is the same thing as walking wisely, using the time well, and understanding what the will of the Lord is. When we are filled with the Spirit, we allow God’s will to prevail in obedience to Scripture and to the Holy Spirit’s direction.
So, the question then becomes, how do I be filled with the Spirit? You put yourself in the places where the Spirit has promised to work. You read his word. You pray. You come to church. You have fellowship with other Christians. And this is how we come to be filled with his power.
How do we know that it’s working? That is the rest of the verses:
A Spirit-filled person engages in a culture of mutual edification and admonition –
We “address” one another. That is literally, we “speak to one another.” This calls us back to Paul’s earlier teaching on the speaking ministry of our members. Rather than being tossed around by the teachings of this world, we “speak the truth in love, we…grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (Eph 4:15). That’s what it looks like to be filled with the Spirit. Involvement in the body that the Spirit creates will drive us to minister to the other members of the body. So, a church that is filled with the Spirit is always speaking the truth to one another so that we grow up into maturity.
Notice the ones to whom we address this speaking: each other. We speak to one another—this is a horizontal thing. I exhort you and you exhort me and we together speak the truth and that is the result of being filled with the Spirit.
And notice what that sounds like – songs, hymns, spiritual songs. There is a genuine horizontal element in corporate worship. Often the songs we sing are directed toward one another. Corporate singing is a form of encouragement to one another. So, we ask ourselves a question: are we eagerly engaging in the life of the church? Do we speak to one another? And when we do speak, do we encourage? Build up? Stir up to good deeds? Minister?
A Spirit-filled person sings to the Lord in heartfelt worship
This is also singing, but now it is directed vertically. We sing to encourage each other, but we also sing to express our heartfelt worship of the Lord. The connection is natural: we sing about what we love. So, we sing about serving the Lord, and we sing about the Lord. The Spirit directs us to worship the Lord in our hearts.
There is a pointed encouragement in the words “in your hearts.” What happens in your hearts when you sing our songs? Are you distracted by the style? Or the fact that we have hymnals? Or the inconvenience of helping kids find the page? Are you thinking of your preferences? What does your heart meditate on? We sing with our hearts, which means we may be singing words like, “Take my life and let it be,” when in reality we mean the opposite.
A Spirit-filled person gives thanks always and for everything
Giving thanks we understand. It’s the qualifiers we have a problem with. Spirit filled people give thanks always. In all circumstances. Wealthy or poor. Having much or little. Sick or healthy. Young or old. Wise or unwise. Prominent or obscure. Suffering or abounding. Blue collar or white collar. Unplanned pregnancy or childlessness. We must always say thanks. Why? Because we know that we always have something to be thankful for. Sometimes its easier to see than other times, but its always there. We may not want illness, but that illness may drive us to pray more—we can be thankful. Our family may betray and abandon us, but we have Christ and his brothers and sisters—we can be thankful. Our job may be taken away or we might be underappreciated, but we have a heavenly inheritance—we can be thankful. Give thanks always.
And give thanks for everything. This is harder to accept. It’s easy to give thanks for the pleasant things: blessing, provision, grace, abundance, children, God’s faithfulness, etc. It’s harder to give thanks for the unpleasant things.
We should not only give thanks in suffering, but we should give thanks for suffering, because “we know that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame” (Rom 5:3). So we can be thankful for suffering.
We should not only give thanks in difficult relationships, but for difficult relationships, because it is through these that we learn that his “Grace is sufficient for you” (2 Cor 12:9). As Watson says in the Art of Divine Contentment, “Perhaps you would not pray as much if they did not sin so much.” So we can be thankful for difficult relationships.
We should not only give thanks in poverty, but for poverty, for by having little to provide for ourselves, we are forced to rely on God to provide all things for us. In every circumstance, we can give thanks. And this is not just a matter of having a sunny disposition—I don’t think Paul was a sunny guy! It is a matter of disciplined thinking, intentionally redirecting your ungrateful thoughts to grateful ones.
A Spirit-filled person willingly submits himself to the will and preferences of others.
The Spirit-filled are not self-willed. Mature Christians do not insist on their own way. They are yielding, patient, lenient, bending, deferent, easily persuaded upon good reason that another course of action might be better than they personally thought at first. The Spirit softens our wills. He does not make them stronger. And so a person filled with the Spirit will submit themselves to others.
Now, that will flesh itself out in the coming verses in the household code, but the point here is exactly what we looked at a couple weeks ago from Philippians 2:3-4, “Do nothing from selfish interest or conceit, but in humility count others as more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” A Spirit-filled church is full of people who warmly regard one another in love and then willingly defer to one another in issues of secondary importance.
Conclusion
Walk carefully in this world. Our high calling is worthy of a precise walk because so much is at stake. When you design a passenger aircraft, you must take great care to ensure each part is working perfectly—if you don’t the lives of hundreds could hang in the balance. Thus great attention must be given to every wire, every bolt, every rivet, every angle. Engineers comb over these things over and over again to make sure that when the throttle goes down and you speed down the runway that you don’t end in a fireball.
How much more important is the church? And therefore, how much more care should we take in our daily walk, both personally, and as a church?