Our acts of love are ultimately for Jesus, even if they seem like they're wasted on whomever you're pouring that act of love out on. You see, I would say that that's what's missing from many of your spiritual lives. I know, I know, because I speak as one of you. You do a lot of right things for God. but you really do it without being passionately in love with God.
Welcome back to the Summit Life podcast with Pastor J.E. Greer. One of our favorite things about this ministry is hearing from you, how God is using Summit Life in your walk with Him. We recently received this message from a listener. Today's message spoke to me in the center of my soul.
I needed to hear this teaching on this day and at this time in my life. Thank you, Heavenly Father. Please don't ever stop telling people about Jesus with the same loving clarity in this message. We'd love to hear your story too. How has God been working in your life through His Word and this podcast?
Share your story with us by visiting the Share Your Story page at jdgreer.com and recording a voice memo. Today, Pastor JD shows us why, when we experience the beauty of the gospel, we are compelled to walk in love. Light and wisdom, not simply to become a child of God, but because as His beloved children, we can't help but want to be like Him. Let's join Pastor JD in Ephesians chapter 5. You got your Bible.
If you take it out and open it to Ephesians chapter 5, Ephesians chapter 5, and the title of the message this weekend is Walk This Way. Apologies, of course, to Run DMC and Eris Smith for the shameless 80s throwback there. But first of all, I am a child of the 80s. I wasn't born in the 80s, but I grew up in the 80s. The cultural pinnacle of music and movies and all things art.
And secondly, more importantly, I believe that phrase summarizes perfectly what Paul is trying to say. In Ephesians chapter 5. In Ephesians chapter 5, Paul is going to lay out for us three specific ways that we should walk in light of who we are in Christ. Three different times in the chapter, he says, walk this way. Perhaps even more importantly, he is going to show us where we can get the power to walk that way.
You see, if somebody's legs are disabled, you're going to have to do more than simply explain to them how to walk. You can't show them videos of how to walk. You got to first correct what is broken. I got a call about a month ago from one of our staff pastors telling me that another one of our staff pastors was in the emergency room. And I kind of panicked.
I was like, why? I mean, he's in his mid-30s, he's really healthy. He had kids, and they said he broke his femur. At which point I was like, you gotta be kidding me. I was like, well, what happened?
And it sort of got quiet in the other line. And after a minute, the guy said, skateboarding accident.
Now, at that point, honestly, y'all, I don't know what to feel or what to say because breaking your femur is no joke. You know, a 35-year-old man doing skateboard stunts to show off for his kids. I feel like there's a lot of room for joking in that.
So I'm just not sure what to do with that. When I finally got Blair on the phone, I was like, so what'd you do? What'd you do? And he said, he said, well, I was trying to show my kids how to do a 180 backside kick flip on the top of a half pike.
Well, if y'all know anything about Blair, I can assure you that he shared Christ with every single EMT, every single nurse and doctor at Duke Hospital and wrote them all a thank you note after it was over. We will probably be able to start a campus there in the femur ward of Duke Hospital at any point now. But for the moment, for the moment, Pastor Blair is not able to walk. His problem, however, is not here. It's not that he doesn't remember how to walk.
It's not that he doesn't know the mechanics of walking. His problem is here in his leg. And his leg is broken, so he doesn't have the strength to walk.
So if the doctors want to enable him to walk again, they can't just explain to him how to walk. They got to correct what is broken. And so they've inserted a metal rock. There in his leg to help reshape his leg so he can walk again.
Well, see, that's basically what Paul does in Ephesians 5. He doesn't just tell us how to walk, he points us to the place where we can find the power to walk again. Which is why Paul starts his walking instructions, if you will, in Ephesians 5 with a very important word, and that word is. Therefore. Therefore, is how the chapter opens.
Therefore, therefore connects what Paul is about to say with what Paul has just finished saying. And what does Paul just finish saying?
Well, for four chapters, he's laid out for us what God has done for us in Christ. He showed us what God has saved us from and who God has predestined us to be. Therefore, in light of all that, he says, be imitators of God. Be like God as beloved children. As beloved children means because you've been made a beloved child.
Not in order to be a beloved child, but because you are a beloved child as a gift of God's grace. You see, almost every religion in the world teaches the opposite. Almost every religion in the world teaches you that if you will keep the laws of God sufficiently, then you can become a child of God. Christianity reverses that and says, no, for four chapters, Paul's explained, you became a child of God as an act of adoption by God's grace. He gave you a gift in Christ.
And because of that, because of that, you should love God and you should want to imitate God, not because you have to to become his child, but because you're so grateful that you are his child. Y'all, the older that I get, the more I often look into the mirror. In the morning, I'll suddenly look up and I'll kind of be startled because I see Lynn Greer, my dad, looking back at me. He's not in the house, but I just look at him, I'm like, I look like I'm starting to look like him, or I'll overhear myself walking around the house yelling things, and I'll feel like it's him. Like I'll walk into rooms where nobody is and the lights are on, and I'll be like, Is anyone in this room?
Is anyone in this room? It sure seems like somebody's in this room because all the lights are on in this room. And I'll turn because that's what my dad said when we were growing up. And so I overhear myself sounding like him and I see myself looking like him, but that's okay. That is okay because I love him and I've always wanted to be like him anyway.
We'll see as children of God who've been saved by the mercy of God. We adore the beauty of God and we want to become like our God. His nature, his character is so deeply beautiful to us because by that beauty and by that character, he saved us. In fact, y'all, the worst thing you can try to do is try to imitate God when you don't really love God or have God's heart inside of you. I remember one time really admiring this guy for just how much he seemed to care about people.
He was one of those guys that, whenever you talked to him, you were always the most important person in the universe to him. And he was always interested in what you were saying and remembered details that you told him. And I was just like, man, I really want to be like that. And so I tried to imitate him. I tried to be enthusiastic about every person that I met.
I tried to make him feel special. After a while, I realized I just don't like people as much as that guy does, I don't think. More than I need to imitate that guy's behavior, I need his heart. And that's where Paul starts, because that's where you have to start. Sermons that only focus on the must-do of Christianity.
And by the way, that's where the majority of sermons you hear, that's where they focus, is you gotta do this and do that. We call those doo-doo sermons around here because we think they stink, right? You focus only on the do part of Christianity, and it wears you out. It wears you out because we're like, do this and do that. And then you think, and then I'll become a child of God.
And he says, no. No, you've been made a child of God by grace. And because of that, it's going to change your heart, and you're going to want to imitate God. And when you imitate God, you're going to walk in three different ways, he says. Here are three ways that you can walk in Ephesians 5.
The way number one, he says, you should walk in love. That's verses 1 and 2. 1 and 2. And walk in love. Two compulsions to walk in love.
First one is: Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us. In other words, you need to love others the way that you have been loved. How has Christ loved you? What words come to mind? Unconditionally, sacrificially, generously, always forgiving, never giving up.
You know, those kind of words. That's how you should love others. That's your first compulsion. Your second compulsion, as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God, like an Old Testament sacrifice, where you are loving God by doing this thing. You're loving God by loving somebody else.
It's like offering a sacrifice. The Christian has two inward compulsions to love. The first is simply doing for others what Christ has done for us, loving like we have been loved. Let me just ask you. What would your relationships look like if that became the standard for how you related to the people that are in the orbit of your life?
Let's take just one small area and let's apply it in one small area: the area of forgiveness. To those of you who are married, what would your marriage look like if you regularly forgave your spouse? In the way. and to the measure that Jesus forgave you. I think I've told you, I know I've told you before, that several years into our marriage, Veronica and I, my wife and I, were having a hard time because we were both so focused on how the other one had hurt or disappointed us.
And so I responded to her based on what I thought she deserved, according to how she had treated me. And she responded to me based on what she thought I deserved, according to how I had treated her. And one day a counselor looked us both in the face and told us that even though I was a pastor and she was a pastor's wife, she said that your problem is that neither of you are acting like you actually believe the gospel. He said, The problem is you're both acting like you're righteous people who are being asked to forgive somebody who's wronged you. Instead of thinking yourself primarily as sinners who have been forgiven of far more than God is asking you to forgive that other person.
Then He taught us a phrase that literally transformed our marriage. And I've given it to you before. That phrase was, first sinner, Second, sinned against. You're first and foremost, your identity is a sinner who's been greatly forgiven by God. Only secondly, are you sinned against?
He said, You've reversed that. You think that you're primarily sinned against? He said, Oh, yeah, yeah, you're a sinner too, but you're primarily one that's been wronged. He said, if you would change that focus and you would see yourself as a recipient of great love and forgiveness and begin to love and forgive her the way Christ loved and forgave you, you'd find that 98% of these problems in your marriage would disappear. We are to love as we have been loved.
That's the first compulsion. For the first compulsion, the second compulsion Paul says is as an act of love toward God, a fragrant offering and a sacrifice, like an Old Testament sacrifice. What that shows us is that the one we're ultimately loving when we do these things is God. Here's why it's important.
Sometimes we feel like the person we're being asked to love. is not worthy of our love. Amen? They don't recognize it. They don't even appreciate it.
I mean, I don't know about y'all, but I don't mind loving Veronica like Christ loved the church as long as she recognizes it, and as long as she praises me to her friends about it. That's her part of the deal. But see, I'm not just being kind to my wife out of love for my wife. I'm being kind to my wife out of love for Jesus. I once knew a woman who said, You know, for so long in my marriage, I just couldn't bring myself to forgive my husband.
She said, Because he never seemed to realize how much he'd hurt me, and he never changed as much as I thought that he should change. She said, but then one day I realized my husband may never be worthy of my forgiveness, but Jesus is. And so, for Jesus' sake, first, and only my husband's sake, second, will I do this thing? What if you look through whomever you were being asked to love? Look through them and behind them you see the Lord Jesus Christ standing behind them and then you look at whatever you're doing for them as first and foremost for him Or let's apply it in another area.
How would your giving change? If you viewed your giving as a response to God. first and foremost to what he's given you in the gospel. I often teach you that our giving should not be first and foremost about meeting a need. Our giving should first and foremost be a response to the gospel.
So, when I talk to you about giving, I often talk about the importance of giving our first and our best. You should give your first and your best to God, whether you make $200 a month or $200,000. See, if you're a multimillionaire, you might be able to stroke a check for half a million dollars and not blink an eye. And thereby, you'd become one of the larger givers in our church. But just because you'd be meeting a need, you still wouldn't be giving your first and your best to God.
And so for you, it would be an unworthy response to the gospel. In the same way, if you make $200 a year. And you gave a check for $40, that probably is not going to make that much difference in the life of the church or whatever ministry you're giving to, but it might, for you, represent your first and your best, which is what God is calling for. Does that make sense? In light of what God has given to you, we, as an act of love back to Him, should be giving the first and our best of our resources back to Him.
Maybe the best biblical illustration of all this is the woman who comes in the night before Jesus goes to the cross and takes a really expensive bottle of perfume and she breaks it open and pours it out on Jesus' feet. And it looks like kind of a sweet act of sacrifice, but everybody else is kind of aghast. They're like, that was such a waste. I mean she could have sold that. for several thousand dollars.
And she could have given the money to the poor. It would be much better used putting food in the bellies of hungry people than it would be just as a fragrance that would appear on Jesus' feet for a few hours and then be gone forever. Yet, Jesus was so moved by what she did that he said that everywhere the gospel was preached from that point on, that woman's story would be told because her response so perfectly represented the right response to the gospel, which is love toward Jesus. If you take a note, write it down this way: our acts of love. toward others are ultimately for Jesus.
Even if they seem like they're being wasted on the person you're pouring them out on. You see, I would say that that's what's missing from many of your spiritual lives. I know, I know, because I speak as one of you. You do a lot of right things for God. but you really do it without being passionately in love with God.
Imagine a single mom. with one child. That she pours her life out for just to see him have a chance at a better life. She works two jobs. She scrimps and saves to keep him clothed and fed.
She teaches him industry, honesty, hard work, charity. When he comes of age, she scrapes together her meager savings and she manages to put him through college. He graduates from college, gets a great job, and never talks to her again. He sends her Christmas cards, sends her birthday cards, but he doesn't answer her letters. He doesn't go to visit.
He doesn't return her phone calls. But, but he's good. He's good. He tells the truth. He works hard.
He cares for the poor, just like she taught him. And he thinks, well, what's the big deal? I'm doing everything that she wants. I became the man she wanted me to become. Isn't that good enough?
What would you say? No. No, it's not acceptable simply to live a good life and ignore a relationship with the one person to whom you owe everything. But see, that's exactly what many Christians do with God. They focus on doing right things for God, but are not passionately in love with God.
And so Paul says, if you understand the gospel and if you understand what God has done for you, then you will walk in love toward others as a way of responding to the love of God for you. Number two. He said, you should walk in light. Verses 3 through 14. Let me jump down to verse 8 first, where he first uses the phrase: walk as children of light and try to.
Discern what is pleasing to the Lord, take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. God has shined the light of His presence and the truth about you and the world into your life. And so you should walk in that light. Try to discern, that's the language of intentionality. In other words, you need to focus the light of God's word on various relationships in your life to think about whether or not you are living according to the light of God.
Sometimes after my wife goes to bed, I I try to read and uh it annoys her when I leave the bedside light on because it makes it hard for her to sleep with the ambient light or whatever. And so being the awesome husband that I am, I went and bought one of those little um LED headlaps, you know, things right there. I look like a cave splunker, but it totally gets the job done. But the light is focused wherever you're pointing it. In fact, it's kind of funny when she'll call my name or something.
I look over at her and like right there in the middle of the night. But I've got to focus exactly on where I'm reading because it's a really bright light, but only where I'm shining it. What Paul is saying is, you got to take that brilliant light of the gospel and then you got to look into various areas of your life to analyze whether you're living according to what you know is true in God and Christ. Point the light of the gospel there. Think about them.
Don't go with the flow. And do not assume that your heart, because you're a Christian, is going to steer you correctly. Y'all, I was so proud of my nine-year-old the other day. Kind of bragging her for a minute. She went over to some friend's house to watch a movie.
It was a Disney movie, and she got back, and I was like, Well, how was the movie? And she said, oh, it was really good, dad. Dad, except for that stupid theme that is in every single Disney movie, that you should just follow your heart because your heart always knows best. We all know where that leads, don't we, Dad? I said, Yes, we do.
She said, like Adam and Eve, they followed their heart and it led to disaster. I said, That's my girl. That's my girl right there. Pauline, don't follow your heart or your instincts. Paul's saying, Don't do that.
You got to think through your life with a gospel lens. And to do this takes effort. It's not going to come naturally because the current of the world is going so strongly in the other direction. In fact, in verse 14, he intensifies the metaphor a little bit by comparing it to waking up. He's like, awake, old sleeper.
Arise from the dead. And Christ will shine on you. You know how hard it is to really wake up from a good sleep? You know, whether it's a nap or whether it's just early in the morning, I mean, I'll freely admit, my wife is awesome at this. I just don't understand it.
The alarm goes off like for a half second, no matter what, bam, she is up and she is on it and she is out. Me, I'm like the total opposite. That alarm goes off. I have such glorious plans often for my morning that get ruined by a little teeny tiny button on the top of that alarm clock that they make way too easy to access called snooze. And the alarm will go off and be like, I don't need to go to the gym today, snooze.
God will forgive me if I don't do my quiet time, snooze. I'll just go into work a couple hours late, snooze. I can always get another job, snooze. You just snooze, snooze, snooze. Getting up is hard.
And Paul says, wake yourself up. Because the world you live in is sleeping in death. Don't go with the flow. You gotta wake up. And so he highlights in those verses a couple of really specific areas that we need to shine the light on.
Now, these are just a couple of examples. He could have chosen out a bunch of examples, but two of them are really specific. The first one, go back to verse three, where he starts this section. First one was sexual immorality. But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness, we'll come back to that in a minute, must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.
Proper means fitting. Or consistent with what you know from what you've learned in the light.
So let's ask the question. Why is sexual immorality not proper or fitting with being in the light?
Well, the world's attitude towards sex is... It's physical desire. And in that way, it's not unlike other physical desires. You get hungry, you eat.
So, when you desire sex, it shouldn't be thought of that much differently, and the Bible calls that darkness. Because the Bible, by contrast, shines a light on what sex is supposed to be. This is great imagery here. When you're in darkness, like think of walking into a dark room. If you walk into a dark room, try to go from one side to the other and can't see anything.
I guarantee you, if you're barefoot, your toes are going to find the corner of that table just so you can bang your toes in there. Because it feels like I should walk this way, but if you turn the light on, you see the way you actually should walk. He said, a lot of people are going through life feeling their way through what feels right and what feels right, but they end up in disaster. He said, so God shined His light in this area of sex and said, just because it feels right, doesn't mean it is right, and shows us instead, listen, that sex is a profound union between a man and a woman, a mingling of souls, if you will, an act of love and commitment in which a oneness in your bodies is supposed to be matched by a oneness in every other area. I mean, when you think about it, when you are sexually engaged with somebody, your bodies literally interlock.
You become one person physically. And that is supposed to be matched by oneness in every other area. Emotionally, spiritually, financially, your futures are supposed to be united together by covenant. And when you have sex outside of marriage, you're taking physical oneness from that person without giving them the rest of yourself.
Now you say, oh, but I do love them. I'm sure that you do. But the point is, you haven't given yourself to them in covenant form yet. And you and I both know that until you do, you can walk away at any point. You say, well, we're just not in a place where we can get married right now.
Fine, then stop having sex. Scripture is clear that God didn't want you doing that until the covenant uniting you for life is in place. Having sex outside of the bonds of the covenant places you in darkness. See verse 5? Listen how strong the language is.
You may be sure. There's no question about this. We're not talking about something up for interpretation. You may be sure that, who? Everybody who is sexually immoral or impure.
Or who is covetous. Again, we'll come back to that. Has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let me translate that for you in really plain English. If you're sleeping with your boyfriend or girlfriend.
You have no inheritance in the kingdom of God. Did you see? That's not me making that up. It's right there. And I know that that's making some of you nervous.
And maybe even feel a little awkward because right now you're sitting next to somebody you're living with or sleeping with that you're not married to. Is the Word of God not clear there? And by the way, maybe you haven't realized that before until just now. Fine. You now have information you didn't have previously have, so start living right today.
Ladies, listen, if that guy knows Jesus at all, and if that guy is going to be any kind of spiritual leader, then he will heed this. And if not, he is in darkness, and he's just going to lead you and your future family into darkness. And so you need to get out of the relationship right now. Was that direct enough? Did I say that clear enough?
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Second thing that Paul says, we should not even be named among us. Go back to verse 3. Covetousness. Covetousness is not proper among saints.
Now, what is covetousness?
Well, another word for that is greed, right? or craving something that God has chosen to not give us at the time. Never being satisfied. By the way, do you notice how balanced the Bible is culturally? You see, I start talking about sexual immorality being wrong, and all the conservatives start nodding their head.
Tell them. And then you switch over to greed, and all the liberals start nodding their head. You get them. I've told you the Bible is like an equal opportunity offender, it offends both left and right, just in different ways. You show me a Christian that's actively fighting both sexual immorality and covetousness in their life, and I'll show you somebody who is most likely a genuine believer and not just a product of their parents or their particular Christian culture.
Now, why is covetousness not proper for a believer? Why would covetousness not be proper for a believer?
Well, Paul says, verse 5, go back to that, because it is a form of idolatry.
Now you say, well, that didn't make sense. How is not being satisfied with what you have and always wanting more, how would that be a form of idolatry?
Well, an idolater is somebody who worships something in the place of God. And you worship, listen to this, you are worshiping whatever you think is absolutely necessary in order to have a happy life. God is supposed to be the only thing. That you feel like you absolutely need to be content in life. Doesn't mean you don't want other things.
It just means that the only thing that you need in order to be happy in life is the presence of God. And when you are dissatisfied with what you have, you are saying God is not enough. And that is improper in the same way. As if I stood up here week by week and talked about somebody else's wife all the time. Oh, it is, he is so lucky to have her.
She is so beautiful and so pleasant and so talented. Can you imagine the joy of being able to come home to her all the time? And it must be awesome. But you know what? In God's sovereignty, he assigned me to Veronica.
And I will accept my lot. I mean, you would think, like, well, what's wrong with Veronica? Like, she must not be much of a woman or a wife if JD is always complaining about her like that. That would dishonor her. It dishonors God when our happiness is contingent on something besides Him.
So let's just get real, all right? What is it that makes you dissatisfied about your life? What do you look into in the future and say, well, when that happens, then I can finally be happy and feel secure. Is it when you make a certain salary? When you graduate from a certain school, That when you have the approval of a certain circle of friends, Maybe it's when you get married.
Or when you get married to somebody else. Or when you have kids? Or when you lose 20 pounds? We shouldn't feel that way about anything in our lives except God.
Now, again, we might want to make another $10,000 a year, or we might want to be married. Or we might want to lose 20 pounds. There's nothing wrong with that, but our soul should depend on nothing for security and joy beside the presence of God. And so he said, if you really understand who you are in Christ, and you won't walk into covetousness, you'll walk in light, the light of who you are and what you have. Here's your third way to walk, verse 15.
Look carefully then on how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise. Number three, walk in wisdom. He goes on to tell you what that means, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Listen, listen.
Wisdom means learning to think correctly. about those things that are not spelled out in scripture. Wisdom means learning to think correctly about those decisions that are not spelled out in Scripture. A lot of the decisions that you make in life, a lot of big decisions, are not directly spelled out in Scripture, right? Like what job you take, or how you spend your money, or what you do with your time, or who your best friends are, or what you watch on TV, or who you hang out with, or who you marry.
Walking in wisdom means making decisions in those areas in ways that fit well with an understanding of what God is doing in the world and what He's trying to do in you. I think that word redeeming there is a really, really important word in that sentence because the context is the age that you live in. The days are evil in and of themselves. The culture we live in is evil, which means that if you want to grow closer in your relationship with God, you got to be intentional about it. You simply cannot coast into closeness with God.
And when you understand that, It'll change how you look at some of the, listen, neutral things in your life. Paul says a lot of things are allowed for me as a Christian. They're just not helpful. in advancing God's purposes in my life. Take an obvious example.
Um what you do with your time. Watching TV all the time for five hours a night may not be morally wrong. But is it helpful for growing you spiritually? I would suggest it's probably not growing you spiritually at all.
So, one of the ways of redeeming the time is to have some intentionality and say, I'm not just going to do what I feel like every night. I'm going to actually reserve a little bit of time so that I can be progressing in my walk with God. Right? or you could apply to certain relationships. You might have relationships in your life that are not wrong.
They're not wrong, but they're just not helping you grow spiritually. Listen, I say this not just to teenagers and college students, but especially to teenagers and college students. I always say you need to look at that circle that you put closest to you because that is going to determine the shape of what you become spiritually. Your friends are the future you. You show me your friends, I'll show you your future.
Because you will become like those people you have put closest into your life. And there's a lot of friendships that may be allowed, they're not wrong. But they're just not helpful for the purposes of what God's trying to do in you. In light of what you know that God's doing in the world and what the gospel teaches us about the lostness of the world is what you're doing with your time, would it be considered wise? Doesn't the gospel teach us that we're on a rescue mission?
I mean, that means certain things may not be morally wrong in themselves, but they're just not wise in light of what we know about the world. Y'all, this is one of the reasons I went into ministry. I went and met there were a lot of different career paths I could have chosen. But in light of what I knew about eternity, And the talents that God had given me. My question was: what's the best use of my time with the short life that I have?
If you know that people around you are dying without Christ. What should you be doing with your time? I knew that God had given me a gift to teach and lead, and I thought, well, I feel like the best use of those are going to be doing what I'm doing right now. Is it right to play around while people perish? God had given me that gift, so I decided to pursue that as a way of redeeming the time with the short life that I have.
Now, hear me clearly. I am not telling you. that you should leave your career and go into ministry. But I'm asking you, are you leveraging that career in ways that would be considered wise in light of what you know about the world? Are you using that career to spread the gospel?
Your career is going to put you face to face with people I can never get close to. Are you using that to share the gospel with them? Have you started a Bible study on your team, in your campus? Have you started a Bible study in your workplace? Are you going on mission trips instead of just using all your vacation time to take trips?
You ought to put on your schedule.
Next year, I'm going to take part of my vacation time and I'm going to go on a mission trip. Maybe God's given you a job that could be used as a platform for gospel expansion into an unreached people group. Maybe that's a way that you could redeem the talents that God has given you for his ministry. If you know the ship you're on is going down. What should your attitude be?
Is it not to make sure that people know where the rescue boats are? Here is wisdom's question. A thousand years from today. A thousand years from today, will I be glad that I live my life the way that I'm living it now? Paul says three ways that you should walk based on what you know about the gospel and your identity in Christ.
Three ways. Walk in love. Walk in light. Walk in wisdom.
Now before we close this Let me show you a couple of things that Paul warns them about. that he knows could trip them up in this walk. Since the theme of the chapter is walking, you might call these potholes in the Christian life. That's not the word that Paul uses, but I think it serves as a metaphor. Pothole number one is back in verse six.
He says, here's one thing that could trip you up. false assurances. Let no one deceive you with empty words. For because of these things, he's talking specifically about sexual immorality and covetousness, which we covered, because of those things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Empty words.
One of the oldest lies in the book. Hear me? Is that God really doesn't take sin that seriously? and that you can be a Christian and not take it that seriously either. In the church today, you hear it in preaching.
That sounds like this. Just pray this prayer and accept Jesus and you'll go to heaven. Just get baptized, that's kind of the main thing, or just go to confirmation class or go to confession, and it's okay to maintain a few sins on the side as long as they're not that bad. I want to tell you as clearly as I possibly can: that is not true. You cannot claim Jesus as your Savior until you surrender to him as Lord, and you cannot say you've surrendered to him as Lord when you openly and intentionally pursue those things that put him on the cross.
So you say you're a Christian. Is he the Lord of your life? That's the other way of asking that question. I don't mean does your mouth confess that he is Lord, does your life demonstrate that he is Lord? Because if what your mouth says you believe about the Lordship of Jesus and what your life demonstrates you believe about the Lordship of Jesus are different, God looks at the life that you live as a better indicator of what you actually believe than what your mouth says you believe.
Does your life demonstrate the lordship of Jesus?
Now, hear me. Let me be clear again. I am not saying that you cannot be a Christian and still struggle with sin. I do. But there's a difference.
Listen, there's a difference in struggling with sin. and the practice of sin. Struggling with sin means falling back into things that you've repented of, that you've turned your back on. Practicing sin means that you keep intentionally doing those things because you've never taken Jesus' Lordship that seriously. I think the walking imagery is really helpful here.
You can walk toward Jesus and still stumble into sin. But what will happen when you do that is you will get up and you will keep pursuing the Lordship of Jesus. What you cannot do is say you belong to Jesus and intentionally walk the other direction in a bunch of different areas. I struggle with indwelling sin constantly. But I can tell you, there is nothing in my heart about which I say, no, Jesus, you cannot have your way in that area.
That's my way, that's my area, don't touch it, I'm going to do what I want there. Paul said, Don't be deceived by empty words. God takes us seriously. Don't have a false assurance if you're not surrendered to the Lordship of Christ. Pothole number two.
He says false comforts. False comforts, this might be my favorite part of the whole chapter. False comforts, verse 18. Do not get drunk with wine. Right?
And all the Baptists said, Amen. There's another part. That is debauchery. But Be filled with the Spirit.
Now, let me ask a question. You see how these two phrases are are parallel? It means that one is kind of compared to the other. Why do you think he compares being drunk with wine and being filled by the Spirit? Is it because you act the same giddy, silly way when you get drunk with wine that you are filled with the Spirit?
Not necessarily.
Some people take that to mean that. That's not what that means. Here's why he puts them back to back. Listen. Because both alcohol and getting drunk on alcohol and being filled with the Spirit are two ways of dealing with life's pressures and disappointments.
But they do it in entirely opposite ways. Watch this. Alcohol is a depressant. that dulls your senses to reality. And so it makes you happy.
By making you less aware of your surroundings. The Holy Spirit, by contrast, is a stimulus. That makes you more aware of reality and it makes you happy and joyful by giving you a clearer picture of what's happening, not a duller one. Let me use this example. Imagine that you're with 10 other soldiers in a foxhole.
And you get news. That there's a group of 200 enemy soldiers 10 miles away headed your direction coming to destroy you. You feel panicked. You feel afraid. You are depressed.
There's nothing you think you can do about it.
So how do you remain happy for the next three hours or so until they get there and destroy you?
Well, one way is you can get drunk on alcohol. And then you can just be happy and giddy until they come and kill you. All right, that's one way. The other way is, what if you sent out some reconnaissance and you found out that only one mile away there were 2,000 friendly soldiers and they were coming to surround you so that when the 200 enemy soldiers got there, they would never be able to touch you. You're going to feel the same sense of joy and confidence and giddiness and peacefulness.
Through two entirely different strategies. You follow that?
So, what alcohol does is it makes you less aware of what's going on and dulls your senses. The Holy Spirit makes you more alert, and both of them are ways of dealing with fear and stress. The Holy Spirit helps you cope with difficulty by opening your eyes more widely to the promises of the gospel. Alcohol gets rid of worry by making you forget. The Spirit gets rid of worry by helping you remember.
Alcohol gives you courage by making you less aware of the dangers around you. The Spirit gives you courage by showing you how much larger God is and whatever it is you're afraid of.
So Paul continues, be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
Now, again, notice how these two things connect. Because watch, this is the way to be filled with the Spirit. Being filled with the Spirit is this new reality, and one of the ways that you're going to know this new reality is by addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
Now, what does that mean? Doesn't mean you walk up to each other, you're like, hello, how are you today? No, he's not what he's talking about. That would be weird. Think of that right there as like a soundtrack going on in your heart.
A soundtrack. You know how like when you're watching a TV show or a movie, you kind of know what you're supposed to be, how you're supposed to be interpreting a situation based on the music that's laying in the background?
So if there's like Perfectly timed. I love it.
So if there's like scary music that's coming in. You're kind of like...
Something bad's about to happen. But if it's like, you know, high-light chipper music, then you're like, nothing's bad is going to happen. What happens is you go through things in life and you start to interpret them and you start to sing a song of despair. And what you need is you need somebody that knows the gospel that is close to you that can say, oh, no, no, no, no, that's not the song of despair. You need to sing in your heart the song of God works all things together for good to them who love him and his eye is on the sparrow and he's watching you and not one hair falls out of your head without your heavenly father knowing or you start to sing the song of I'm overwhelmed and I can't do this and they start singing the song of I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me and you start singing the song of I'm hopeless and I'm abandoned and they start countering that with a good chorus of I will never leave you or forsake you He's saying, change the soundtrack in your heart to the soundtrack of the gospel.
What that means is you've got a few things. One, you got to know the Bible. You gotta have the Bible bouncing around in your heart so that it becomes the soundtrack. Which means you got to read it every day. Every day you got to read the Bible so it's fresh in your mind, and you got to memorize it.
So that it bounces around in there and you interpret things according to the word of God. You gotta listen to it. Listen to, let's take it literally, Christian music. I'm not against secular music. I like some secular music, but I love listening to.
Music that just teaches scripture to my heart because I've heard, I've heard, listen, I've heard songs described as sermons that you can remember. You prove that to you? It doesn't hurt my feelings. Uh watch this. About a year and a half ago, I preached.
A series called The Name. People say it was one of the best sermon series I've ever preached. Seven messages in it. Can you name a single one? Even one.
Nope. Yet if I say What a powerful name it is. You can tell me the next three lines of that song. You see, there is. A sense in which you got to have this scripture that's flooded in your heart so that when life brings something to you, you play the right soundtrack.
And notice that it's one another here. What it means is you got to be in corporate worship like this because that's what we do: we sing the songs of redemption to each other. Hey, give you one other application. It's why you gotta be in a small group. That's why you got to be in a small group because, in order to hear somebody's heart song, you got to be close enough to hear it.
It's like that faint thing playing in the background that you can't hear unless you're close.
So you need to be close enough that you can hear them. going through this and you can say no no no no. No, no, you're singing the wrong song. Here's the song you ought to be singing. It's the promises of the gospel.
Which is why I tell you, listen, for some of you over and over in this passage, you in this book of Ephesians, you have to get off of the sidelines of the church. The blessings of the church are not intended to come to you through one man standing on a stage. The blessings of the church come when you are deeply connected and as the Spirit of God uses the members of his church to speak into your life. And if you're on the sidelines, you're just not in a place where the Spirit of God can do what he wants in you.
So you need to join and you need to volunteer and you need to get in a small group and you need to get connected and you need to get your kids connected here, by the way. Your kids need to be a part of student ministry. You want to know why? Because if not, the songs of their heart are going to be written by Bruno, Mars, and Drake. And that's not one of the songs you want them singing in the back of their heart.
You want them singing songs written by the Apostle Paul and King David the Shepherd and other things that come from the Holy Spirit.
So you got to get connected and get your family connected. Friends, this all goes back to the word at the beginning of the chapter. Therefore, therefore. Therefore, in light of what you have received in Christ. With light of what you've experienced.
This is how you should walk. Have you experienced the transforming power of the gospel? If not, my friend, you can receive it today, right now. It's a free gift of grace, God gives. You don't have to work to become God's child.
It's a gift that He gives that you receive. You can do it right now by surrendering to the Lordship of Jesus. And receiving him as your savior. If you have received that, then you need to return to the gospel and you need to let its truth saturate your soul until your heart begins to say, I want to walk in love and I want to walk in light and I want to walk in wisdom. You can explore more teaching and resources connected to today's message at jiddygreer.com.
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Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries. Uh
