Ephesians 5 - Part 1 | Wade Branch

I don't know about you, but I love coming to worship.

It is a good day. We've had a great worship so

far. We've sang some songs of

comfort, of encouragement, of of submission to the Lord, and I

hope that we can all seeing that today with the whole heart and

in unison as we worship God. It's a great day.

It's an honor to be here. If you want to follow along with

us today, we're going to be pretty much exclusively in

Ephesians Chapter 5. So if you want to, I'm going to

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

have the verses up here a little bit large so that we can all see

the verses. Well, that means we're kind of

going to chop it up a little bit.

So if you want to be able to see the whole flow next to you, it

might be helpful to have that in your Bible.

So we're covering Ephesians Chapter 5 this morning and just

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

a quick reminder of the purpose of this book, The 1st 3 chapters

reminded us reminded Christians, remember he's not writing this

letter to the world. He's writing this letter to a

church, to A to a a church in Ephesus.

And he's reminding these Christians of their spiritual

blessings in Christ. And all of that reminder, all of

that strength that we derive from the blessings that are in

Christ, where God has placed us, where He has welcomed us into,

should give us a motivation for the last three chapters,

chapters 4 through 6, where He gives us an exhortation to step

up and to walk worthy. Walk like we are Christians,

walk like we say we are. And so that's the general

purpose of this book. We've kind of covered all the

way up to this point. And we're in the middle of our

call to responsibility. He first called us to walk in

unity and He's calling us now to walk in purity, purity, freedom

from sin. And it should be freedom, It

should not be slavery to God in a negative sense.

It should be freedom from sin and a willing service to God.

And we're going to cover today this walk in love.

We're going to walk as children of light and we're going to talk

about walking as wise. So here we go, a little bit of

lead up from chapter 4. The book of Ephesians was not

written in chapters, so chapter verse 29 has a direct lead in to

the rest of what we're going to study today.

Paul says let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth, but only

such as is good for building up as fits the occasion that may

give grace to those who hear and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of

God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be

put away from you along with all malice.

Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another

as God and Christ forgave you. Chapter 5 S Starting in today's

verses, the plan is to get through the first half of the

chapter about 16 verses, verse one.

Therefore be imitators of God as dear children.

So after everything he's already said to us about being kind and

tenderhearted and about our speech and all these things,

he's going to say, First of all, imitate God as dear children.

So that is the standard. You know, sometimes talk we, we

reference imitate me only as I imitate Christ, as Paul says.

But again, it's always back to Christ.

It's back to God. Our standard is not one another.

Our standard is God, and we are to imitate him as dear children.

You know, as I think about how a child imitates their parents, it

it's funny seeing, you know, having our own child now and

seeing Charlie Taylor and I laugh a lot.

We've got a lot of laughter in the house and what he's been

doing lately is he'll he'll see us laughing, He'll kind of stop

for a second and he'll cock his head back.

He'll open his mouth and make a fake laugh.

Children imitate their parents, and I think the place that comes

from is a place of admiration. First of all, if you have good

parents, it's from a place of admiration for your parents.

I think it's secondarily maybe as they get older, it's an

understanding that the adult is the standard of maturity.

The adult is the standard for what we want to, as a child,

want to grow up to be. It's an admission of a superior

awareness of what is good or safe or healthy.

If a child sees an adult maybe mowing the lawn or whatever, you

might say the child wants to do that because that looks good,

It's safe. It's healthy for me to do that.

And so the child wants to follow along.

And I think maybe most importantly, it's out of love.

A child will imitate a parent out of love for the parent.

And I think that's a wonderful picture of of God's relationship

with us, that we should want to admire God for his ultimate

standard of what's right and wrong and good and safe and

healthy, that we would love him, that we would admire him and

that we would follow him in imitation.

Now, I acknowledge that there are people maybe in this room,

who did not have a great example to where you learn to naturally

follow a parent. That was a great example to you

or some, that you learn to dearly love and want to follow.

Maybe not everybody had that, but I think that person still

has a craving for that. You might not know exactly what

it's supposed to look like from your own life, but there's a

craving. There's an innate desire there

that you know what it should look like.

And you have a craving that God should fill in our lives, that

we would follow him with love. And even we can learn as adults.

We can learn obedience. Jesus we learn from the Bible,

and Jesus learned obedience by the things he suffered.

That means we as adults can learn obedience to God out of

love, out of imitation. As a dear child of his, we can

learn that as an adult, even if we haven't learned it, because

Jesus learned obedience in his life.

Now, I also think that this is a helpful analogy.

Whenever I'm struggling with something, whether it's

frustration or anger or maybe it's being down about something

and I, you know it, it helps give me proper context.

When I look at my life in light of how a child looks at a

parent, I look at, try to look at my life as that's my

relationship to God. How simple and silly the

problems we can think a child's problems are and their

frustrations. And come on, it's just this,

just just get up, move on, move on to the next thing.

Here's a toy, here's a replacement for whatever you're

frustrated by. It's so simple to us as adults

when we talk to a kid, it help. It really helps me to think

about my relationship with God like that.

Whenever I'm frustrated or upset about something or something I'm

getting really petty about. God sees me the way I can see a

child. When a child is frustrated or

you name it, disconcerted about there are problems in our life

is so simple. Sometimes we make it more than

it is. Verse two and walk in love just

as Christ also has has loved us and given himself for us.

Christ is the ultimate example that we are to imitate.

No greater love has no man than this to lay down his life for

his friends going on in that verse and and has given himself

for us and offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet

smelling aroma. It's wonderful that we get to

have that kind of influence on God's environment.

You might say if you're going to put a candle in your room for a

sweet smelling aroma or you would smell the meat coming off

the grill, that sweet smelling aroma, we get to be that in a

sense, in the presence of God and we can offer ourselves as a

sacrifice. And this is all rooted in the

Old Testament, how in the Old Testament they would have

sacrifices and those sacrifices could be offered to God in a way

that we're pleasing to him. In Philippians 4, verse eight,

it says a fragrant offering is a sacrifice acceptable and

pleasing to God. Romans 12 tells us, it says, I

appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God,

to present your bodies as a living sacrifice.

So that is the context that we are as a sacrifice to God, that

he we would come up before him like the Old Testament, a sweet

smelling sacrifice. That's us now.

It's not a it's not a death, a burnt offering.

Now now it's a living offering, holy and acceptable to God,

which is our spiritual worship. The ESV says verse 3.

But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let

it not even be named among you, as is fitting for Saints.

OK, let's break this down. There's several different words

here. I think you can get either

caught up in all the words and missed the point, or you can say

I don't know what any of these words mean and kind of miss it

that way too. So let's get a general sense.

The word fornication comes from the Greek word porneia, which is

like a general umbrella term for sexual sin.

He says All in all, sexual sin stay away from it at all.

He says all uncleanness that that we know what he's talking

about, that that dirtiness, all that it is going to have a big

conversation here about sexual sin as a category and it's all

going to be kind of lumped together here, that uncleanness

or covetousness, that word covetousness means greedy desire

to have more. And I think this is especially

in the in the sexual sense, but it's true throughout areas of

our life. Covetousness, that greedy desire

to just have more. It will separate us from God and

our hearts intention. We're going to talk about more

in a minute. But that covetousness, that

greedy desire to have more, is the cycle of sin.

Sin wants to trap us in. That's the problem especially

with sexual sin, is it has a desire to captivate and turn on

a cycle of insatiable need. And we will live as slaves to

the flesh and the flesh desires if we're not careful.

He says these things, let it not even be named among you, as is

fitting for Saints. Now we're told another passage

that was once you OK, this could be our past, but he doesn't want

these things to be associated with us anymore.

He says, as is fitting for Saints, it just doesn't fit.

You can't be a child of God and be wrapped up in the mess

because it's so unfitting. It doesn't work that way.

Proverbs 27 verse 19 through 20 says as in as in water, face

Proverbs 27:19–20

reflects face, so the heart of a man reflects the man.

Hell and destruction are never full, so the eyes of man are

never satisfied. That covetousness is a cycle

that's kind of ingrained in us, that when we get stuck in it, we

will never be satisfied. There is no satisfaction with

the pleasures of flesh that can bring us.

There's no satisfaction with gratifying any kind of fleshly

desire. There's only satisfaction in

God, he says verse four, neither filthiness nor foolish talking,

that filthiness. Again, it it's that dirty

behavior. It's that we're going to get

into a minute some of the details but it's that it's that

space in your mind. It's that space in your action

where there's it's gross, it's filthy nor foolish talking.

Now this phrase, as I understand, literally means an

easy turn of speech. And I guess the implication from

what I was reading would would be from this is as this sexual

immorality transfers over to our talk, it can make it to where a

conversation easily turns from something innocent into a sexual

and pure conversation. And as I think about, I think

about high school, and thankfully most people grow out

of that, but I think a lot of people don't.

High school conversations can easily turn from just something

innocent. And then somebody makes a

comment. Everybody's laughing because

it's a sexual connotation now, and it's that easy turn of

speech where something can be turned and pure, just like that.

Another definition I found for it was words void of decency and

honor. He goes on to say so.

Nor foolish talking, nor crude joking, the ESV says, which are

out of place, it has no place in our lives as Christians.

And you know what? As I think about high school, as

I think about this idea of crude joking, for a long time I didn't

know this was wrong when I was in high school.

And I actually, I was trying to like, you know, trying to start

writing my life and and following God more and and

developing A seriousness with my faith.

There came a point where I was like I didn't know this verse

existed. You can't, you can't just joke

about whatever you want. I mean, it's just joking.

You're not really doing it. You're not really approving.

You're just joking, right? As we're going to see today,

that that's wrong. The new King James calls it

course Jesting Jest just came from the court jesters.

That's just somebody who makes jokes.

This is the first time that I felt kind of a disagreement with

God. You might say many things in my

life that I was doing wrong. I knew what I was doing and I

felt guilty for it, but I did it anyway.

But this one, once I read this verse, I was like, no, I mean I

can practice good things, but if I joke about it, it's just a

joke, right? It's just my humor.

And if the least, you know, if I'm going to be a Christian, the

least thing I can do is I can joke about it and we're going to

see that this is all out of place.

It's because our speech has purpose.

And why is the purpose Ephesians 4, verse 29, the verse we

Ephesians 4:29

started for today? It says let no corrupting talk

come out of your mouths. But only such as is good for

building up. As fits the occasion that it may

give grace to those who hear. Why?

Because of our speech. Not just our speech.

Everything we do as Christians should have purpose.

I know many of us, myself included, do not always

exemplify that. But our purpose should be in

everything we do. So the Bible talks about empty

speech. Our words should not be

pointless. Our words should have meaning,

1st Corinthians 10 verse 31 says.

So whether you eat or drink or whatever, you do, do all to the

glory of God. Why should we not say things

like this, even if we don't think it matters?

Because everything we do has value as Christians and that

should be exciting. That should be motivating for us

Now. Maybe if you're someone here who

has concerns about where this might lead you.

Or maybe someone on the podcast later, some practical changes.

What might happen. And what happened for me when I

was in high school, Ish was you might have that feeling of,

well, I don't have anything to say, it's awkward.

I was going to make a joke and now I'm just kind of don't have

anything to say. It is awkward.

It may be awkward now for a time, but we have to replace it

with good things. Once there's that space, that

void, Matthew 7 says. You got to fill that space with

something good, you got to fill it with good things.

And the reality is you won't get the same reaction from people if

you went, you know, as a high school student, make cracking

jokes that are appropriate. They thought you were so funny.

You're not going to get the same reaction talking about good

things. And that's OK.

As Christians, we have to be OK with.

If something is not what's best, I'm giving up something.

That's literally the definition of sacrifice.

That's OK. I don't have to please people.

I don't have to live for the approval of others, and I can

sacrifice what I have proved to be a part of my own identity, my

own humor, my own personality. You know, that's I want to be a

funny person. I can sacrifice if it means I'm

pleasing God. It is OK to replace it with good

things in our speech. So he says neither filthiness,

foolish talking, crude joking, which are out of place, but

instead let there be Thanksgiving.

There's that replacement, there's that specific

replacement here. And this is all going into the

conversation of and why this is so important is because it is

honor versus dishonour. When we take these topics of

sexuality and make them worthless and flippant, we are

dishonouring a very special relationship God has designed.

If something is pure, sexually pure and appropriate in

marriage, it needs to stay in the relationship where it's

pure. And in that, we should be

thankful. Not throwing it around

flippantly, we should be thankful.

In the place where sexual relationships are pure, we

should be thankful for that. It's a wonderful blessing from

God, but in the place and the situation, when something is

impure sexually, such as inappropriate sexual acts, it

shouldn't be talked about joking, making filthy comments,

because that only normalizes the ACT.

You know, when entertainment starts to try to normalize the

behavior. I don't know if you've noticed

this. Many of the older folks probably

have. When entertainment starts to

normalize something that is sinful, it starts with humor.

A lot of times it makes jokes about it, and that creates a

softening of the heart. Whether we realize it or not, If

a public sphere comes up and starts making a joke, they start

with a joke to try to get you kind of on their side.

And just there's a there's a softness now that has happened.

The barrier's broken between two people.

When people and entertainment make jokes, a lot of times they

leave that to try to break the barrier of morality.

You may have seen that with recent trends, maybe trends that

started 50 years ago. It softens the heart toward a

sin and we need to be very careful of that in our place in

perpetuating something just being normal.

Hebrews 13 verse four says let marriage be held in honor among

all and let the marriage bed be undefiled.

There it is again that concept of honoring something God

designed and created instead of perpetuating impurity.

OK, verse 5 for this. You know that no fornicator,

unclean person, nor covetous man who is an idolater hasn't any

inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and God.

So this type of person we're describing doesn't have a place

in God's Kingdom. That is a scary reality, but

it's serious and that's it's true.

That's why we have to watch out for it.

And why is it so dangerous, He says.

Because that person is an idolater.

If I am serving my own desires, if I am serving the whims of the

flesh, I'm not serving God. I'm serving an idol.

The idol is myself. The idol is the pleasure.

The idol could be any number of things, but it's not God.

And the Bible says you can only serve one master.

Now, this sounds a little harsh, and maybe someone's thinking,

you know what? Maybe that's me and I just.

I just can't. I I'm just.

I'm just not made for God, I guess.

I guess I can't do anything about it.

That's just that's just not me. No excuses here.

Here's the here's the beautiful truth.

Do you realize that you are either in the middle of a

temptation or you are preparing for what's to come next?

It's only one of two things. You're either right now in the

middle of a temptation in which you are giving in actively, or

you are opposing that and and trying to and and trying to

follow God's word in the moment. There's really only one of those

two options. Or if you're not in the middle

of the temptation, you are in a time of preparation for the next

temptation or trial. So the good news is, if you're

in the moment, it's simple. Don't do what you're trying.

You're feeling like you should do, and if you're outside of

that, you are setting your mind right now.

I'm confident most people in this room aren't sitting right

now. And so you have a chance right

now to decide. Here is my direction.

I'm going to go this way. I'm not going to go this way.

I'm going to follow God's truth. And so right now, you don't have

to be defined by this because you can set your new direction

right now. That's the whole context of

scriptural repentance is it's not about you're the sum of your

past mistakes. Good, bad, OK, you're kind of in

the net negative right now. That's bad.

That's not how it is. As a Christian, if I decide

today I'm going to be different, That's what God cares about.

That's called repentance, and you don't have to be this

anymore if you feel like you're stuck in this position with

these habits, these lifestyles, these mindsets.

Verse six, let no one deceive you with empty words.

For because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons

of disobedience. You know the only thing that's

going to take us from a place of caring about what we just talked

about is going to be some kind of message, whether it's someone

or something that tricks us into deception and thinking that it

doesn't matter, into thinking God's judgment's far off.

The the devil in the garden says, will God really do that?

These are empty words. If anyone tries to devalue the

serious commands of God, they're empty words.

And because of these kinds of empty words and this deception,

the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

I believe no sane person would look hell in the face and say

I'm ready for that. Bring it.

Even the people who flippantly say that have no idea what

they're talking about, So the only option is this deception.

May we open our eyes as Christians to help ourselves,

our families and other people see the seriousness, because

this is going to bring people to hell, and that's terrible and

that's heartbreaking, he says. Therefore, do not be partakers

with them in that sexual immorality.

Don't don't take part. Yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to

buddy, buddy up with you guys who do this.

I'm going to be part of this sexual immorality.

He's like, you're partaking with that, but you're partaking in

the wrath of God. If we stay there, he says please

do not partake with those two things.

They go together. Verse 8.

For you are once darkness. There it is.

There's that message for the Ephesians.

You are once darkness. That was your past.

Not anymore. You were once darkness, but now

you are light in the Lord walk as children of light.

There's what defines us. There is your defining

assurance. He wants to remind you who you

are. And remember, we've talked about

all these things. He's talking to Christians.

It sounds like he's talking to a group of people out in the

world. He's talking to Christians,

reminding them, reminding us of our identity.

Remember, you are light in the Lord.

Don't let the devil define you and say this is all you are.

You're just a cycle of mess and a cycle of sin.

You're not. Now.

We are to walk as children of light.

It's not just a belief, it's not just a mindset, it's a walk.

It's action. Verse 9 for the fruit of the

Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness and truth.

Just a quick reminder, we've talked about fruit of the Spirit

recently in Galatians. The fruit of the Spirit.

It's the fruit or the effects of God working in US and us

allowing that and submitting to that.

The fruit of that, the fruit of the Spirit is in goodness and

righteousness and truth. That's what it comes through.

That's where the good stuff is at.

That's where the worthwhile time is at verse 10, finding out what

is acceptable to the Lord. When someone said it like this

for me, I don't know. I just clicked one day.

I was someone said treat God like you would treat someone who

you have a one-on-one relationship with.

And if you talk to him and try to learn what makes him happy

and learn what upsets him, it's kind of simple when you look at

it like that. May we find out what is

acceptable to the Lord. You know when, when, when we're

dating and you're trying to figure out just the right gift

for the girl or for the guy. You go, right?

You ask their you make, you ask their parents.

Maybe you ask their best friend, hey, what kind of candy they

like? What kind of gifts do they like?

Will this? Will this ring or this piece of

jewelry? Will they like that?

Will they not like that? There's all that inquisition,

There's all that asking and questioning.

What can I do? Are we all in a place in our

faith where we're still inquiring as to how can I make

God happy? How can I find ways to please

the Lord verse 11 and have no fellowship with the unfruitful

works of darkness? Why does God not want us

involved in any of this? Because He, He doesn't like us

and wants us to have no fun. No, it's because they're waste.

They're unfruitful. He just talked about the fruits

of the Spirit. He says this has no fruit.

Now another passage says there are fruits of the deeds of the

flesh, so there are bad results from sin.

He's not saying there's no there's no consequence.

He's just saying nothing's really going to come of this.

It's just a waste of your time. The unfruitful works in darkness

don't have any place in there, but rather expose them, expose

darkness. And as we consider what he's

already said, if we're just constantly making jokes about

something and making it meaningless, we're not exposing

it. We're letting it hide, we're

letting it hide. Talking filthy crude Joking

allows that sin to hide in the darkness for what it really is.

All light does is exposes something for what it really is.

That's all God wants. He wants to expose sin and he

wants to shine the light on what is good so we can see it for

what it really is. Verse 12.

For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done

by them in secret. And again, if something is pure

sexually and needs to stay in the relationship where it's

pure, if something is impure sexually, it shouldn't be talked

at all except to as is specifically needed to expose

sin and to call it out for what it is.

That's really the only reason we should be talking about

inappropriate things, is to expose them if it's needed.

Especially necessary verse 13. But all things that are exposed

are made manifest. Have a light, for whatever makes

manifest is light. The Bible says the light shine

out of darkness and the darkness could not comprehend it.

Darkness wants to hide. Sin wants to hide in your life.

Sin wants you to feel shame, especially sexual sin.

What makes you want to feel shame So that you hide it and it

stays unexposed. But God's light will make

manifest. Verse 14.

Therefore he says awake you who sleep, arise from the dead and

Christ will give you light. Remember, he's talking to

Christians, awake you who are asleep.

You know the scary thing about sleep in light of this context

is you can think when you're asleep.

You can hear when you're asleep. You can talk when you're asleep.

As my wife will tell me, tell you, you can run when you're

asleep, and you can sing when you're asleep.

There's a lot of things that I do in my sleep that I didn't

realize I can do as Christians. We may be able to hear and sit

and sing and talk and still be asleep.

Are you awake? Are you asleep?

Spiritually. Christ wants to give us light.

One man said this. Some of you Christians do not

care whether souls are saved or damned.

It is enough for them if they're comfortable, if they can attend

a respectable place of worship and go with others to heaven,

they are indifferent about everything else.

That leaves a pit in my stomach. That makes me afraid to think

about how many Christians is it me?

Do I care about whether souls are saved or named?

It's real. Sometimes we don't talk and act

like it's real, but it is. Verse 15, he says.

See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but

as wise. The word circumspect comes from

2 words, basically circum meaning all the way around

inspect, which is to see, he says.

See everything that's going on around you.

That's especially true spiritually.

Spiritually speaking, we cannot see the whole picture.

And you know what? Some people see just a little

bit and they see either maybe good.

Like I'm seeing the pleasure in my life, I'm seeing good things,

and that's all I care about. And they need to look around at

the spiritual danger they might be in.

Then on the other hand, maybe there's people who are maybe in

the church who only see the bad in things.

I mean to look around and see all the wonderful blessings.

Or maybe there's people who in the world who only see the bad.

You know, I was talking to someone the other day who they

were just going on and on about the dangers and and and the

world and and you don't realize what's all going on right now,

right? Like everything is mind control,

everything is scary. Everything is like, watch out,

Big Brother's come. There are truths to the scary

realities that we live in and the spiritual realities and

physical realities. There are a lot of truths there,

but that person needs to have the comfort and to know what to

do with that fear, to take it to God and follow him because he's

the only thing that's going to free us from this body of sin

and death in this world wherein where there are scary things

spiritually, and in the world, the governments, the powers that

be, there are scary things right now.

And so the message for everyone, especially Christians, is to

look around, see what's really going all the way around.

You don't just see part of it, Look at the whole picture.

But it's not just looking at it because people can see that and

not live it, he says. Walk circumspectly.

Walk like you see everything that's going on around you.

When I'm pulling into my to my high school parking lot, there's

kids walking down the street who aren't paying any attention.

They're on their phones and they're about to get hit by

cars. Don't walk like that.

One of my students got hit by a car the other day.

Don't walk like that. Spiritually Walk like you.

Realize what's going on around you.

Pay attention, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

OK, the big point of this verse, and we're going to close here,

the big point of this verse is to make the most valuable use of

your time. That's been kind of the message

I want to drive home. Today is everything has meaning

as a Christian. Your words, your actions, your

physical life. And here he's saying your time

has value. Redeem it.

Use the value in your time because the days are evil.

There's what we just talked about.

There's evil days. Jesus said evil times are

coming, and they were and they are.

They always have been turning evil.

So we've got to redeem the time. I think we get the idea what

that means. But actually this phrase, to go

a little bit deeper, literally meant to buy up opportunities.

So redeeming the time had a connotation of buying up

something, buying. So he's saying buy time, buy up

the time. And it's in the context

basically of an investor. If an investor sees a good

business opportunity, they they go and they buy as many of them

as they can. If you see a stock prognosis

that looks good, you go, OK, I'm going to buy as many of those

stocks as I can afford right now.

I've got maybe investors say like 100 grand right now I'm

dropping it all on this stock. That's the context.

He's saying with time. He's saying we as Christians

should buy up the time realizing its future value.

If I would have told you 20-30, I don't know how many years ago

to go and buy Amazon stock. Go spend $1000 on Amazon stock.

You know how much it'd be worth today?

$1.1 million. If I told you to buy Apple stock

when they had their IPO, their initial public offering, you

know how much money you would have?

You spent $1000 on Apple stock. You'd have $2.2 million today if

you could go back, if you could do Back to the Future kind of

stuff, you would go back and say, hey family, buy this, buy

this, buy this, buy all these stocks.

Because in the future it's going to be worth so much money you

can't even fathom it. I don't care if you have to sell

your couch, buy this stock, because trust me, it's going to

be a lot worth, a lot of money. That's the idea here with time.

Your time on Earth is so incredibly valuable.

Our Time Warner is so short as value by time, he says, being

aware of its future value. There's going to come a day when

we don't have any more time with our families, with the people

who are lost with our own heart to change it.

We need to buy it up right now, use it in awareness of its

future value. Because one day we'll realize

just how valuable that time is. Imagine being God.

He designs the world, sets up a master plan.

He sends his son to die at a cross, and he's just got this

great orchestration of events to where it's all set up for us.

We know what to do. We might have confusion

sometimes that we know today we know what we should be doing

today. He gives us all what we need to

do and God goes, all right, here we go.

He gives us this whole plan, gives us the whole time.

We each get 24 hours a day for a short time in our lives.

And he looks down and he sees this scrolling away, mindless

hours. How much you I'm guilty of

wasting time God has given us. That is precious.

The days are evil. There is evil around us.

There is evil sometimes in US. And we need to walk

circumspectly, just like you said in the last couple verses.

He said wake up, wake up to the realities you live in.

Wake up and by the time that you have aware of its future value.

Because for us and everyone in our lives, it will be worth it

if we invest and use our time wisely for God and spiritual

matters, for His Kingdom. And we will not regret it.

The lesson is yours. Today we're going to offer an

invitation. If you have not started this

walk, like we said earlier, it's not about all these other things

that you might mess up on later. If you messed up in the past,

it's about right now. What are you going to do?

You can only live in the moment, and you could worry about

tomorrow later. If you decide today that you

want to be a Christian, you've heard part of the word.

Maybe you've heard the Word in the past, but you need belief.

Belief that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

You need to repent of your past life and confess that Jesus

Christ is the Son of God. That's that new direction.

Repentance doesn't mean perfection, It means direction.

And I confess that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

I confess there is only one who can say.

There's only one who died for the sins of the world and be

baptized for remission of sin. Not because we're doing some

great work, but because we are submitting to the death of our

desires and the death of our old life, and rising to walk in a

new life because of the work of Christ in US.

Praise God for that. We thank you for listening to

our podcast put on by The Church of Christ at 2215 Plans Rd. in

Bakersfield. If you would like any additional

information or you would like to receive a free Bible

correspondence course by mail, please e-mail us at

[email protected]. Our service times are Sundays at

10:30 AM and 5:00 PM and Wednesdays at 7:30 PM.

Please make plans to join us. We would love for you to be our

honored guest.