“Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise,” instructs Paul in Ephesians 5. So then, how shall we live? What does God’s wisdom look like?
Here’s my sermon for August 15, 2021, on Ephesians 5:15-20, Proverbs 9:1-6, and John 6:51-58.
How many of you have read the owner’s manual for your car? Car manuals can be some of the most boring, repetitive documents in existence, so it’s easy for me to not open mine unless I’m trying to decipher a warning light, but a couple weeks ago before we went to Kansas City for the Luther League mission trip, I picked up the rental van, and it was a really nice van, a 2021, with some features I’d never had on a car before.
So, I actually read through most of the owner’s manual, and I learned that it could do some cool things like automatically steer to stay in the lane. On the trip, I also discovered that when I used that feature, it would beep at me to pay attention, because apparently on really straight sections of highway, it couldn’t tell that my hands were the wheel. But it was a neat feature I wouldn’t have known about without reading the manual.
Of course, knowing the features of a car doesn’t do much good unless you use them. I did read a few sections from our mini-van’s manual when we got it a couple of years ago, and I learned about a great feature where instead of carrying the remote for your garage with you, you can program the code in and just push a button on the visor. Most days when I pull out of the garage, I think about how convenient that sounds and tell myself I really ought to try programing that in. Still hasn’t happened.
I don’t want to go too far with this comparison, because the Bible is a lot more than just a bunch of instructions and rules, but this section of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians does work as a sort of owner’s manual for how to live a Christian life.
So today, I want to look at some of the instructions Paul gives us here in chapter five. Hopefully you’ll agree that when we follow these instructions, life goes a lot smoother.
Paul starts in verse 15 by telling us to be careful how we live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time because the days are evil.
Time, of course, is the most valuable thing any of us have, the only thing we cannot earn more of or replace. We don’t know how much we have. What does it look like to make the most of your time? I think it starts with paying attention to your life.
Paul says the days are evil and that feels a little strong to me, but I do think the days are greedy. Our culture is greedy. It’s demanding. So much of the world around us is built on grabbing your time, keeping you busy, entertaining you, doing whatever it takes to keep you from pausing and just being still. The success of websites and tv shows is measured by time of engagement, how long marketers can control your eyeballs.
But making the most of your time, as Paul talks about it, doesn’t mean being busier or taking on more things—more volunteering, more serving—but being intentional about what you do. Maybe that means learning to say “no” to some things, occasionally just being still.
Maybe it means taking a look at your calendar and see if what’s on there is what should be there. This is a call to look at our lives and see if what we’re spending our time on lines up with who we are as God’s children, with how we want to use the time we’re given on earth.
Paul continues then, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
Don’t be foolish—that’s easier said than done. In the passage from Proverbs, it talks about laying aside immaturity and instead seeking wisdom. It portrays Wisdom as a person, a woman inviting the foolish to come in, and to learn.
Maybe the most foolish thing we can do—the opposite of wisdom—is to think “that doesn’t apply to me!” To think I know more than I do, to think we’re self-sufficient, to pretend we have wisdom when we really don’t.
In fact, there’s a word for exactly that delusion: “Sophomore” which literally means wise fools. It’s the people who’ve had one year of high school, or one year of college, and think they know everything. And you know people like that—maybe it’s you sometimes—people who are foolish enough to think they’re being wise.
And maybe we do understand how this world works. But Paul calls us as followers of Jesus to focus on understanding God’s will, not following the world’s wisdom.
God’s will is obviously too big for us to grasp or fully understand—God is God and we are not God—, but in the instruction manual of the Scriptures, we’re given guidance.
God’s will for us__God’s general will for all people—is for us to trust in God, to put others before ourselves. Maybe a simple definition of maturity is to realize you are not the center of the universe.
You are not the most important person in the world. We know our basic calling from God is always to love our neighbor, to act in whatever ways will benefit them as children of God. God’s will for us is that we live according to God’s rules, God’s priorities, as followers of Jesus.
Acting that way is often foolish in the eyes of the world. This world doesn’t understand why we would choose to give, or to sacrifice, or to put others before ourselves. It doesn’t comprehend the idea of following a savior who would lay his life down for others. It can’t grasp the idea of receiving life through eating and drinking the body and blood of our Lord, given for us, becoming what we eat, and yet this is the example we follow.
As Paul says elsewhere, in First Corinthians, “the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God…God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom.” And there’s freedom in realizing life is not all about you.
Next, Paul has this fascinating bit about being filled with the Holy Spirit, comparing it to being drunk. I think that comparison gives us some picture of the freedom found in God, the freedom the Holy Spirit gives us when we realize we are set free from the judgments and restrictions of the world around us.
But also, I think Paul is making a deliberate contrast here between the Holy Spirit and alcohol. Drinking alcohol is not inherently bad, but too often, people look to things like alcohol and other drugs to try to find an escape from life, to try to find a high, to try to find meaning; trying to substitute for what God offers. People try to use drugs and alcohol to fill a hole that can only be filled by the Holy Spirit.
Wisdom is recognizing joy and gratitude, peace, meaning in life come from the Holy Spirit. Foolishness is when we look elsewhere for life, when we look to sources other than God for true joy and peace.
True wisdom is a gift from God, offered to us by grace. It’s not something we earn or deserve, but receiving it means trusting in God, letting go of our own sophomoric foolishness, putting God first.
Finally, Paul instructs us to give thanks to God at all times. The only way we can do this, he says, is by being filled with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one who enables us to recognize God’s wisdom, to see the blessings and provision God has given us.
The Holy Spirit stirs up faith in us, so we can trust in God and recognize everything we have is a gift from God.
So what does it look like in your life to be careful how you live, to live wisely? What immaturity might God be calling you to lay aside so you can walk in the way of insight and live according to God’s wisdom?
We’ve had a year and a half of disruption from the pandemic, and it seems like we’re continually moving towards a new normal.
Perhaps as we get ready for a new school year, as we enter a new season—and whether or not you have kids, fall’s rhythms of life are different than summer’s—perhaps this is a good time to pause and evaluate, to see if you and God have your priorities in the right order.
This line about making the most of our time as Christians reminds me of a line from a song by Switchfoot: “This is your life, are you who you want to be? This is your life, are you who you want to be?”
And if not, what needs to change?
God has claimed you; that’s not in question. But what wisdom have you, what have we learned from this time of disruption? What have we gotten rid of that we don’t need back? What have we missed that ought to come back? For what shall we give thanks? How do we use well the time that God has given us?
God gives us the manual on how to live. There’s no cost; it’s a gift. You have been claimed as a child of God. Jesus has given himself for you as the bread of life. The Holy Spirit is enabling us to respond, stirring up faith.
So how then will you live?
Amen