Our text for this morning is a part of what my Bible titles as “Practical Ways to Fulfill God’s Purpose in the Church,” and subtitled, “Renewal of Personal Life.” Paul’s theme in his letter to the Ephesians is best summarized by chapter two verses eight and nine, “8For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:8-9). And with that stated, Paul moves on to talk about the complement of that, which is how that is demonstrated in our lives in verse ten, “10For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).
Scientists spend a great deal of time and a lot of money to research where we came from and how life came about. Scientists search the heavens above, the seas below, and the fossil remains of long ago looking for the answer to the question of how life began. Anyone who can read can pick up a textbook today and read how plants germinate, how animals reproduce, and how humans are conceived, but all of these explanations merely explain the process of what is happening, what is going on today. None of these books tell where life comes from, or how or why life began. For those answers one must read the Bible where it is simply stated that God created all things. Life is no mystery, life is a gift from God. We may never fully understand the how, but we can know the who.
In our text for this morning Paul does not even address the issue of how, where, who, why, or even what, probably because for him that is a given. Paul does, however, allude to the fact that this gift of life here on earth is not for an eternity, but is in fact for a very short time. Putting our time spent here on this earth into the perspective of eternity, we begin to see and understand that we are here on this earth for only a very short length of time. The average life span is about 70 years. Some people do live to be 100 or a little older, the earth has been around for over 6000 years, and compared to eternity, we can begin to see that our time on this earth is very short indeed.
Paul begins by reminding us of how we were, at least how we were from conception and before being given faith, and how we are now that we have been given faith. He says, “6Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. 7Therefore do not associate with them; 8for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9(for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), 10and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. 11Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. 12For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. 13But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, 14for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you’” (v. 6-14).
The Christians at Ephesus were sinners and we have a hint at some of their sin, especially as Paul talks about exposing the things done in secret. How true it is that most often sin is done in secret, or in what is perceived as secret. Sin is done in the dark in order to hide the sin. Paul reminds the Ephesians and us that we cannot hide our sin. Understanding that God is light and as John tells us in His Gospel that Jesus is the Light of the world who came into the world to shine in the darkness, certainly we understand that all sin is exposed by God and even judged by God.
Yet, even though we know that sin is sin. Even though we know that God will expose our sin, still, the Old way of life continues to be an attraction. Temptation and sin abound in our world and continue to attract us to itself. Paul exhorts us to not be smooth talked into sin. In the Old Testament reading for today we hear Solomon personify wisdom. In other places he personifies evil and sin and warns against falling for the smooth talk of such evil.
Paul warns us against temptation and sin and even more he exhorts us to rebuke those who do sin. This does not mean we are any better or to think of ourselves as any better than those who sin, simply that we are to care and love others so much that, recognizing sin, we are to rebuke such sin. And as we have said before, there is a difference between recognizing and even rebuking sin and judging someone. We can and should recognize sin because God tells us what is sin, but we are never to judge and really we cannot judge, only God can judge.
As Paul says, the ultimate exposure of sin will be by God on Judgement Day. And on Judgement Day God will indeed judge sin and unbelief. With this ultimate exposure of sin in mind, Paul tells us how we are to live.
Because Paul knows that we are here for a very short time he tells us in verse fifteen, “15Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise” (v. 15). What is unwise living? Let me say that I am not here to judge anyone on whether they are living wisely or unwisely, because I know that I do not always live wisely, but I would like to give you a couple ideas to think about. Do you have a goal for your life? What is it? What is your purpose for being here? Or are you living life aimlessly, one day or one week at a time? It is unfortunate, but many people in our world do live one week or should I say, live for one weekend at a time. For many people life means making it to the next weekend. For some people, and there are times when I must include myself in this category, some people live as if life will begin when I get through a certain stage of my life. For some people, especially those who are suffering from some long term illness the thought is that “if I can just get through this illness then I can live my life again.” What we forget when we have such thoughts is that each day is precious and is a gift from God and should be lives as such, even in times of suffering.
It is especially during these difficult times and times of struggle that we need to be reminded of Paul’s words in verse sixteen of our text, “16making the best use of the time, because the days are evil” (v. 16). Now most of you have heard this motto in our world today, but spoken slightly different. It first hit the scene in the old Schlitz beer commercials of, “You only go around once in life so you have to grab for all the gusto you can,” or something like that. But the idea is still there, make the most of every opportunity. However, I do not believe that the beer commercial had the same thought in mind about what the opportunity was that Paul had in mind. In our world, many people believe in only one existence, the one on this earth, which means that after death you are nothing so you had better do something in this life to make your mark, to make a name for yourself, or simply to enjoy yourself, because there is nothing after death. But for us Christians we understand that there is life after death and that making the most of every opportunity means something different than going for the gusto. Making the most of every opportunity for Christians means bearing witness of our faith with every opportunity. You may have read it put this way. “Pray like everything depends on God, then work like everything depends on you.”
In verse eighteen Paul goes on to contrast being filled with the spirit, small “s”, and being filled with the Spirit, capital “S”. Paul says, “17Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit” (v. 17-18). Lest we misunderstand and think that Paul is prohibiting the drinking of wine, let me remind you that it is this same Paul who tells Timothy that a little wine is good for the stomach. What Paul is saying is that wine to the point of excess, drunkenness, leads to debauchery. And so we do not think Paul is merely speaking of drunkenness in this text, if we look at the word debauchery and its intended usage, we can see that Paul is speaking of anything to excess. So, with drunkenness we could include one of our favorites, gluttony, that is, over eating, and we would include sexual immorality, and in general any lack of discipline or self discipline.
Contrasted with being filled with debauchery is being filled with the Spirit, that is with the Holy Spirit. Being filled with the Holy Spirit leads to living a life to the glory of God. Being filled with the Holy Spirit leads to what Paul describes in the last three verses of our text, “19addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, 20giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ” (v. 19-21).
Life is our gift from God. That is how it all begins. Remember when we have talked about our purpose in life. God created us for a purpose, in order to love us. Now, think back with me for a minute if you will. Remember that big word from catechism class, the word justification. Justification is a very fitting legal term used to describe our relationship to God. Before God, in and of ourselves we are guilty and deserving of eternal life in hell. But, by God’s grace He sent His Son, Jesus, to live for us, to take all our sins upon Himself, to suffer and die for them. He then rose victorious over sin, death, and Satan. Now by faith in Him, faith which the Holy Spirit works in our hearts, we are justified, we are made just and right before God. Again, borrowing an idea from a friend, being justified means that by faith we stand before God “just as if I’d” never sinned. That is what justification is all about and it has already all been taken care of in Jesus.
God created us to love us. We mess that up, time and again. God stepped in and in the person of Jesus and in the power of the Holy Spirit, giving us forgiveness and faith, He has recreated us for a purpose and that is to do the good works which He has prepared in advance for us to do. So that we might well say that what we do with our life, our gift from God, is also His gift to us. Think back again with me to confirmation class of another big word, sanctification. Unfortunately, it was too often implied that sanctification is something we do. Justification was said to be what God does and sanctification was said to be what we do. Actually, again, understanding our nature, understanding that every inclination from our heart is evil, we cannot even do sanctification by ourselves. Thus, we rightly understand sanctification, and for that matter, we rightly understand Paul’s words to us this morning by understanding that our sanctification is also a gift from God. Sanctification means the act of becoming holy. Because of our justification we are no longer what we were before, completely lost and condemned creatures, but we are not yet what we will be in heaven, complete saints. We are in the process of becoming holy each day. We become holy as Jesus has His way with us. And Jesus has His way with us through means, namely through our daily family and personal devotions, through our daily prayers and reading of God’s Word, through our attending Divine Service and Bible class, through our coming to the Lord’s table as often as we can to be strengthened in our faith. We do this as a response, because of, all that God has done for us, not because we have to, but because we want to, because the Holy Spirit moves us to.
Living in the sanctified life we are careful how we live, we do live wisely seeing every opportunity as an opportunity for the Holy Spirit to work through us because there is evil in the world around us. Living the sanctified life we are not foolish, but we do understand what the Lord’s will is, that is that we do not live undisciplined lives of debauchery, drunkenness, gluttony, or immoral, but we live lives filled with the Holy Spirit. Living the sanctified life we worship together regularly building one another up through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. We sing and make music with our hearts always giving praise and thanks to the name of Jesus. To God be the glory for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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