Ephesians 5:15-21

Intramural football illustration
--Junior year at SU, played on a scrub flag football team
--We had some surprising victories, and made the playoffs
--Had one makeup game from a rain-out, but we didn’t think it mattered, because
we were already in the playoffs
--Some of our best players who had big tests the next day didn’t show up, we
played half-heartedly, did silly plays [HM on 2nd down w/plenty of time]
--Actually a close game, but we lost; didn’t care
--Next day, our name was scratched out on the playoff bracket and the team that
beat us was put in—turns out the game was actually the deciding game for PO
--We went to have fun at the game; they played to win. Our focus was wrong.

In the last few weeks we have been looking at the texts in Ephesians in which Paul tells us how we are to walk—that is, how we are to live our lives. Paul is emphasizing two things—(1) that we who embrace Jesus as Lord have been brought into a new, eternal community called the church, and (2) the way the rest of the world lives flies in the face of how the church is called to walk.

So Paul tells us, “Look carefully how you walk,” and gives us three contrasts to explain this—three sets of statements that are “not this way, but that way.” Let’s start over in verse 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.” So the first way we are to walk is “not unwise, but wise.”

Walking wisely could mean a full range of things, but thankfully Paul clarifies in verse 16 that he is primarily concerned with the way they use their time. Let’s look closely at his argument. He says we are to make the best use of the time because the days are evil. What does it mean that the days are evil, and how does that shape how we use our time?

The language here is clearly metaphorical. Paul is not saying, “Look out for Tuesday, it’s an awful wicked day!” He is simply referring to the times in general. Another way to understand “evil days” is “corrupt times.” Ours is an age where the old humanity is still alive and kicking, Satan is still deceiving, and sin still permeates family, community, and political life. We need no convincing that we live in corrupt times.

But how is that connected to making the best use of our time? I have always assumed that Paul’s argument involved the fact that time is so short. And Psalm 90:12 affirms that life’s brevity is a concern, “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” But Paul gives us another motivator for wise living—the times are corrupt.

Here is what I think Paul means. The society in which Paul and the Ephesians lived as well as the society in which we live is geared for distraction. You can spend your entire life doing legitimate things and never deal with the core issues of life. I don’t think boredom is even a possibility anymore in America. If you have enough Internet access, TV stations, DVDs, novels, magazines, woodworking, auto repair, or home improvement projects, sporting events, music lessons, and social engagements, you can blow through 80 years of life and never give an hour to thinking about God. And what’s worse, the bent of our society is to convince us that filling up our schedule with these things—to the neglect of God, family, and church—is a wise use of our time.

This is why Paul’s first words in verse 15 are “look carefully!” He’s saying, “Watch out! Beware! You live in corrupt times that would sway you to use your time unwisely. Don’t give in—be wise in your time management! Spend your days living for eternal, not worthless pursuits.”

To use the example of my football game, Paul is like the coach on the other team who tells his players, “Now, I know those guys are playing like this game really doesn’t matter. I know they’re running half-heartedly, trying goofy plays, and not watching the clock. But this game really does matter! Don’t let them fool you; play hard because it counts!”

I wish I had a list of things I could give you to say, “This is wise, spend your time doing this; that is not wise, don’t waste your time doing that.” But this is not that simple of an issue. You could have two guys regularly going to the same driving range; one guy is there because he can’t get along with his wife and doesn’t want to work at his marriage, and the other guy is there because he wants to build a relationship and share the gospel with the guy who can’t get along with his wife. For that matter, you could have people who come to church but don’t have God and eternity branded on their sight, and whose church activities are, eternally speaking, a waste of time. So I can’t give you any lists this morning—just a standard: are we using our time in a way that focuses on eternal things? Is the Word central to our lives? Is building relationships to advance the Kingdom a priority? These are the questions we should be asking. Let us be wise with our time, because the days are evil.

These corrupt times lead to Paul’s second set of contrasts in verse 17. “Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” It sounds like Paul is repeating himself, since “do not be foolish” seems like the same thing as “do not be unwise.” But there is a slight difference in his focus between the two commands. The first deals with how we use our time, while the second deals with how we understand our times.

In order to make this clear, we need to understand the phrase “the will of the Lord.” We often understand God’s will as it pertains to specific situations—“I believed it was God’s will for me to marry Rachael,” or “If it is God’s will, we will close on our house on time” or as we say in the South, “The good Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.” Now, of course God cares about these things and is intimately active in our lives, but this is not how Paul is using “the will of the Lord” in Ephesians. He is using it to refer to God’s redemptive activity in the world.

Turn back with me to chapter 1, and let’s look at three places where the word “will” is used. Look at verse 5: “In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.” Then verse 9, “making known to us the mystery of his will, according to the purpose, which he set forth in Christ.” Finally, verse 11, “[we have] been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.”

These verses make it clear that God’s will is his blueprint—his plan to redeem for himself a people—the church. So Paul’s admonition to “understand what the will of the Lord is” is a charge to understand our world through the lens of God’s plan of redemption. Think of how we define headline events as opposed to normal every day stuff. The world defines what should make the headlines by way of dollars, popularity, and glamour. The Superbowl, the Oscars, a U2 concert, a Hollywood affair—these make the headlines. But what about when a mother prays for hours for her wayward son? What about the businessman who catches a vision for God’s glory and moves to India to see the gospel spread? These are the events that will be remembered a billion years from now—these are the real headlines. Paul wants to reorient the way we look at our world so that Kingdom things become most significant and Hollywood is revealed to be the hollow trend that it is.

So we have seen that as God’s new community we are to be careful to walk in a way that is not unwise but wise, eternally-focused in time management, and not foolish but understanding God’s saving activity in our world. Let’s look Paul’s final contrast in verse 18. “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.”

Let’s focus on the negative phrase first—“do not get drunk with wine.” Paul is not as interested in making a statement about drunkenness—though he obviously sees it as sin—as he is in providing an example of the direct opposite of being filled with the Spirit. Thankfully Paul gives a reason why we are not to be drunk with wine—“for that is debauchery.” Now “debauchery” is not a word we use often, so if you were wondering about its precise meaning, it is “unrestrained, self-indulgent behavior.” It could be the party scene or getting drunk in the quietness of your home. But the point is that there is no value in drinking a fluid or putting a drug into your body that will only cloud your senses and leave you with a hangover and a desire for more. It is worthless. Profitless. It doesn’t accomplish anything in the long run.

If that is not how God’s new community is supposed to live, how are they? They are to be filled with the Spirit. This is not the first time we have encountered the “filled” or “fullness” language in Ephesians. In 1:22-23, Paul tells us that God “put all things under [Christ’s] feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” The church is the fullness of Christ’s presence in the world—we are here to display what he is like. That is why Paul prays in 3:19 that we be filled with all the fullness of God. Likewise in chapter 4 we are told that ministers are given to the church “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain … to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

What we see in these verses is what we see in 5:18—it is the Holy Spirit that works individually and corporately in the church to fill them up with the fullness of God. The Spirit is the one who works in and through us to convict, edify, and nourish the body. We are not to be stuck in worthless activities like drunkenness that never accomplish anything. We are to be filled with the Spirit—allowing the Spirit to work powerfully in our lives so that the body might be full of God, and in turn, display who God is to the world around us.

I want to insert a parenthesis here. We’ve talked about “being filled with all the fullness of God” often in Ephesians, and to be quite honest, we still beat our heads against the wall and say, “What does that mean?” I wonder if it might be helpful to use the phrase, “he’s full of himself” as a starting point. You know people like this, don’t you? They always talk about themselves and their accomplishments, and are consumed with others thinking as highly about them as they do. Well, we want to be a people who are not full of ourselves but full of God. We want our highest commitment to be right thinking and right worship of him, and we want others to think about and worship him well. End parenthesis.

Now, how does this filling happen practically? Paul gives us three ways in which the Spirit does this work of filling us to the fullness of Christ. Each of these three has a beautiful combination of the horizontal and the vertical—relating to one another and to God.

First, verse 19 says, “addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart.” When we gather to worship corporately, we are reminding each other of how great God is. We pray that the Spirit would use us to reignite a flame in a brother or sister’s heart for the majesty of our King. At the same time we are ministering to one another and focusing the content of our worship to God.

Next, verse 20 says, “giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The one-another, horizontal aspect is not explicit here, but think about what causes our hearts to erupt in thanksgiving to God. Sometimes it is spiritual blessings like salvation and joy and peace. But part of the “everything” for which we are to be thankful is one another—the blessings God has given us through relationships in the body.
Finally, verse 21 says, “Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” This is actually a hinge verse to the sections on husbands and wives, parents and children, and masters and slaves. In the original it reads, “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, to your own husbands as to the Lord.” Aaron will be preaching on this section next week, but for now it is significant to note that the instructions for relationships among believers all fall under the heading of “be filled with the Spirit.” Being filled with all the fullness of God is not an ecstatic, mystical experience that requires the right music and lighting. It is a practical, sometimes hard, Spirit-driven pursuit of right relationship with God and right relationships with one another. We will not shun dramatic encounters with God in prayer and worship. But we will also seek to show the world what he is like through our daily relationships.

These three things—worship, thanksgiving, and relationships—are some of the ways in which the Spirit is working in our midst to mature us into the fullness of Christ. So let us not live our lives in wasteful, worthless, profitless pursuits. Let us be filled with the Spirit so that we are a community full of God.

Brothers and sisters, we were born with a bent to waste time. We were born with a bent to emphasize the sensational instead of the spiritual. We were born with a bent to debauchery. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Let us look carefully how we walk.