The Freedom of Walking Wisely

A name you won't hear in the church much is Henry David

Thoreau. He wrote an essay called

Walking, where the whole intention was to help the people

that read his essay to do just that, to put 1 foot in front of

the other, to get out in nature and to walk.

And he lived in the mid 19th century, and he feared the

encroachment of industry and commercialism as the cities were

rapidly expanding. And he was afraid that there

wouldn't be anywhere to go and walk anymore.

Just shortly after him was Ulysses S Grant, who signed the

Yellowstone National Park Protection Act into law and

established the first National Park, in part.

So we would always have a place to go and put 1 foot in front of

another and to be out in nature and to walk.

It would always be part of our experience.

And there's a lady named Cherie Harder, president of the Trinity

Forum. She said to throw a walk in

nature was something significant, sublime, even

sacred, a spurt of vitality, a revelation of beauty, and even

at times, an act of resistance against injustice.

And while Thoreau was critical of the Church and religious

institutions, he preached walking as a form of liturgy, an

embodied practice that formed the thinking, imagination and

values, and therefore the character of the practitioner.

It was a way to become more alive and more fully human, a

way he followed throughout his own life.

There's much to learn from walking to enhance our gratitude

for the natural world and our appreciation of our place in it

and our awe of the Creator. And so he was critical of

Christianity. But he still says of walking, it

requires a direct dispensation from heaven to become a Walker.

And so us as the church, we would say the same thing.

We would agree and say that this Christian life on this Christian

walk must be granted. It's a direct dispensation of

heaven that we get the gift of walking after God.

And so we, we want in our wisdom to understand that this is not

just an, an intellectual conception of walking with God,

but truly walking biblically with God.

That's why Christians are called adherents of Christianity, are

called being on the way. The way implies our religion.

We walk in it and Jesus Christ saying I am the way and the

truth and the life. And he invites every Christian

to follow after him, which implies some level of walking

and following in his footsteps. And as you follow Jesus, you'll

see in Scripture that he's never portrayed as being in a hurry.

You never see Jesus anxious, you never see him stressed.

You never see him run. You see him walk, He withdraws,

He stops, he waits, and he walks first.

Peter 221 Christ left you an example so that you might follow

in his footsteps, walking after him.

And those who walk after Jesus closely and follow his heart are

called those who walk with God. Genesis 524 Enoch walked with

God in Genesis 69. Noah was a righteous man,

blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.

And in the summary of the Christian life in Micah 68, a

passage you all know they probably have memorized, he says

he has told you, Oh man, what is good and what does the Lord

require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and

to walk humbly with your God. Turn in your Bibles to Ephesians

515 and we're going to see the the 7th and final time that

Christians are called to walk in the book of Ephesians.

And you can listen so that you can become one who truly

understands what Scripture means when it tells you to walk after

God. Ephesians 5, we're going to look

at verses 15 to 21. Paul says, look carefully then,

how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of

the time, because the days are evil.

Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of

the Lord is and do not get drunk with wine for that is

debauchery, But be filled with the Spirit addressing one

another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and

making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always

and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord

Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for

Christ. To go back to Ephesians one to

three. This was theology.

This is giving our our new identity and it's all rooted and

found in theology proper in God the Father.

He says that you are to walk and the unity that God has created.

We were to preserve the unity of the Spirit and the bond of

peace. It's unity that we preserve, but

that is given by God. He goes in Ephesians 41

summarizing all of that theological content.

He says, therefore walk worthy of the calling to which you've

been called. Walk of the calling.

Skip to Ephesians 417 As we've moved through these these

metaphors of walking, he says walk not how the world walks,

but walk in holiness. And we move to Ephesians 5, one

to two. We were commanded to walk in

love, walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for

us. And then 57 to 9 commanded to

walk in the light, for at one time you were darkness, but now

you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of the light,

for the fruit of what is right and found is found in all that

is good and right and true. And then you come to our text

today, Ephesians 515. He says for the last time we are

to walk, but now in wisdom and in the fullness of God's Spirit.

And the command for you today is to look carefully how you're

walking, not as unwise but as wise.

And the beauty of the metaphor is in its simplicity.

We talk about walking over and over because it keeps coming up

again. And it's comprehensive of all of

life and as because it is comprehensive of all of life.

And it's so simple. Paul's going to take this

concept and apply Christianity to all of our life, all aspects

of our life. And so the command is look

carefully. And the word look means direct

your attention to this. Consider this, give thought to

this, and He's giving us an opportunity to pause for just a

moment and look how you're ordering your life.

Is it ordered spiritually? Is it Spirit ordered?

And He helps to us to examine our lives by looking at 3

particular areas. He does this by bringing up 3

contrasts that we're going to do together.

Look through together. The first one's in verses 15 to

16, He says don't walk as unwise but as wise, redeeming the time.

That's the first contrast. The second one comes in verse

17. He says don't walk foolishly,

but know what the will of the Lord is.

And then the third contrast is in verses 18 to 21, not drunk

with wine, but filled with the Spirit.

Not filled with wine, but when filled with the Spirit.

And these contrasts are our focus.

They represent idolatrous distortions to what our hearts

are prone toward. There's these good and gracious

gifts that God has given and in our in our flesh, we, we distort

them and they remind us of these, these gifts that our time

understanding and pleasure and we see that God has given the

gifts. We distort them and God redeems

them. We'll put it in a simple

outline. The first one will be we redeem

the time without worshipping efficiency.

We redeem understanding without worshipping autonomy and then

finally we redeem pleasure without worshipping the world's

goods. And we steal that word

redemption from verse 16. It's a very purposeful word that

Paul uses and it means to buy back.

Redemption is a salvation word. We were we were bought with a

price. And here he's saying you are

buying back that which otherwise might be wasted or corrupted

from the powers of this world. So Paul saying these our

understanding and time and pleasure, these are the gifts of

God. The world can't take them from

us, and neither will we corrupt them ourselves.

All right, These are the gifts of God.

And so Paul redeems them so that we can walk in a manner worthy

of the calling to which we've been called.

Look at the first one with me, verses 15 to 16.

We will redeem the time without worshipping efficiency.

Sherry Harder, president of Trinity Forum, explains that the

pressure on Christians to live as machines or as avatars grows

every year. The pressure to be endlessly

productive, ever available, always online.

If you feel that way, can you nod at me?

You feel the pressure to be productive like a machine.

And some of that desire to be efficient and to be productive

is a good thing. We preach all the time.

Protestant work ethic is is to be celebrated.

We look out in the world and we see the the heaviness and the

weight of all the ministry that needs to happen.

And thinking of an old hymn called Rise Up, O Men of God, it

says that the power of the church is unequal to the task

that we've been given there. We don't have enough power for

this calling that God has given us to.

And so there has to be some level of of measured effort.

And so we look at at the pressure that 7.772 billion

people in this world, as counted by the IMB, need fellowship and

discipleship and salvation. And by their estimates, 59% of

the world has no access to the gospel.

That's a weighty statistic. There's 328,947 children in the

foster care system. A point in Time count revealed

last year that there were 771,480 people experiencing

homelessness on a single night last year.

And there are 117,300,000 refugees displaced in the world

right now because of persecution, war or violence.

So you hear that and you say, who has time for a weekend away

to rest with that going on in our world?

Who has time to go to the bathroom when 59% of the world

has no access to the gospel? And so here's where you feel the

pressure toward efficiency and optimization and scale.

And God's given us time as a gift.

That's what he's saying in this passage.

And it's meant to be stewarded according to God's Word more

than it's meant to be optimized. Scripture brings balance.

And he's going to remind you in a moment, you can't change the

world. I'll just relieve that pressure

from you. Your, your call is to be

faithful, to shepherd your time and to steward your time, not to

optimize it. So these, these statistics can

burden you and they can crush you.

And here's the temptation to worship efficiency and

optimization and scale. We could say, what if we could

disciple Christians faster? What if we could make disciples

of Jesus Christ five times as efficiently as we do now?

What if we could scale righteousness and holiness and

plant more churches more quickly?

What if Chris and I and John and Hudson could optimize our sermon

prep time down to two or three hours a week so that we could do

more and more and more? What would be the result of

that? Would it be good?

One modern missionary organization says that their

goal is to reach the maximum number of people for Christ in

the least amount of time in the most efficient way.

And when the Scriptures are saying here redeem the time for

the days are evil, it doesn't mean redeem the time because the

days are passing away and there's only so little time you

have to have. And so we need to do as much as

we can. That's that's not what it's

saying. It's saying redeem the time

because the days are evil, meaning we're part of this evil

wicked world system and there's evil people all around us.

So use the God-given opportunities as they present

themselves. The days are evil.

That's Ephesians 2. Two, you're living among a

horrible wicked system. And so your call is to seize the

opportunities in front of you as God leads.

Your call is not to distort the gift of time.

One other way of distorting it on the on the the edge of

efficiency and doing everything you can and as much as you can

would be to do nothing. That's the opposite of redeeming

your time. And so there are some that are

lethargic and lazy. You're not pushing back darkness

with light. So Scripture teaches on wisdom

using wisdom, how much time to rest versus how much time to be

active. I love Ecclesiastes.

We're going to go back there someday.

Ecclesiastes 46 says better as one handful with quietness than

two handfuls of toil and a striving after the wind.

This is your balance, right? Better.

No handfuls. You're lazy, you're doing

nothing, you have nothing, you're doing nothing. 2 handfuls

is your, it says it's toil and striving after the wind.

And so it doesn't say this is how you order your day.

God's will for you is, you know, you do this at 9:00 AM and this

at 10 AM. It says 1 handful with quietness

is better than none or two with striving after the wind.

There's your balance and you go to the book of Ecclesiastes.

It's going to tell you as a whole what that whole book is

doing is reminding you, you cannot change the world.

There's one person that can do it and it's Jesus Christ and he

takes the pressure off of you. What you are called to do is to

be faithful in the sphere that God has given you.

And so we bring balance. Scripture balances this idea of

redeeming the time with another virtue and it's long-suffering.

James in the last book of his chapter of his book says be

patient. Therefore, brothers, he slows

you down. He says be patient until the

coming of the Lord and see how the farmer waits for the

precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it until it

receives the early and the late rains.

So also you be patient. So he says you are to be like a

farmer and he slows you down and he says be patient, be patient,

be patient, be patient. And sometimes things in the

church, if you've been here for any amount of time, you know,

sometimes we move very quickly and praise God for that.

It seems like the Spirit will sometimes open up a doorway and

we move and everything falls in place and we seem to just move

effortlessly. And then there's other times

where progress seems very, very slow.

And that's in the eye of the beholder, I think even of the

replant. When God opened the door for

that, it was 8 months, it seemed like we were blazing.

He opened the door. We moved over 200 people to this

building and to merge with this congregation.

We lost no members as we did it. It was the supernatural work of

God. And then other times it feels

like we're standing still. And so this is the balance of

Scripture. I think it comes with wisdom

that we move as the Lord moves and as a general role.

When you move and establish things hastily, they fall away

hastily. And when things come with a

certain slowness, I've, I've learned to, to actually love

this about our elder board here. Elder board is that things come

deliberately and they come slowly.

And I think that attends wisdom. It's, it's a good thing.

It's well said that individuals tend to underestimate what they

can do in five years and overestimate what they can do in

one. And so we need to be wise.

We need to be patient. We blend these two virtues,

urgency and patience, and they fit together in God's Kingdom.

You are called to be urgent and you are called to be patient.

So it is in Scripture. Proverbs 19 Two.

Desire without knowledge is not good.

Whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.

Proverbs 21 five. The plans of the diligent surely

lead to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to

poverty. So when you feel that pressure

of the world to to be a machine or to be an avatar, consider the

optimization of the prophet Jeremiah, who after a lifetime

of ministry had no converts. And consider the scale of Jesus

Christ, who spent his entire life ministering in a small

region of the eastern Mediterranean and after pouring

himself out had a Church of only 120 people.

And you can consider the efficiency of parents like Lois

and Eunice as they taught Timothy.

You can consider you as a parent as you try and teach your

children it. They resist efficiency and

optimization. We spent all last week teaching

Lily the letter L. That's what she learned last

week. They resist progress.

It it's there's only so far efficiency can take spiritual

growth and discipleship. And so I'll take the pressure

off you again with the wisdom of Ecclesiastes.

You will not change the world. Your call is to be urgent.

Your call is to be patient and to stay in the sphere that God

has given you. George Mueller wrote

beautifully, every child of God is first to get into the sphere

appointed of God and there exercise full trust and live by

faith upon God's sure word of promise.

You get in the lane that God has given you and you serve

faithfully in your context. And so our culture, when we

think of redeeming the time, we think along the lines of speed

and efficiency. But when God and the Scriptures

talk about redeeming the time, it's along the categories of

wisdom, morality, and relationship.

And so it leaves room for efficiency, but it brings this

balance. Scripture is so balanced and

this verse on redeeming the the gift of time is in the context

of being wise. You can look down and see it in

verse 15. He says look carefully then how

you walk not as unwise, but as wise.

So your manner of life has to be characterized by wisdom and not

the absence of it. And you see that there's the

translations of this make a stark contrast.

That's there in the original. You don't walk with without

wisdom. Ah, Sophia, but you walk with

wisdom, not ah Sophia, but Sophia.

And so we actually saw these, these passages, we were to walk

in wisdom and we were to walk in light.

So we named our daughter Sophia. And her name is Sophia Elaine,

which is literally wisdom and light.

But like, if we name our child this, maybe she will embody

this. But it says you don't walk.

Ah, Sophia. But Sophia and wisdom goes

beyond intellectual understanding and cognitive

awareness. There's no biblical category for

for wisdom. That is just merely the

accumulation of knowledge. It's living it out, which is why

it says here you are to walk in wisdom.

Lu Anita, define it in their lexicon.

It's one's capacity for understanding and thus to arrive

at insight. Wisdom is insight into known

facts. So it's one thing to to know the

verses on walking and that you can you can categorize it.

I'm to walk in love. I'm to walk in light.

I'm to walk in in wisdom. And it's another thing to

actually do it. And so that's what Paul is

saying. He's saying, examine your walk,

examine your heart and walk in holiness.

Knowledge is knowing that you were to walk in these things and

it's to memorize the verses. Wisdom is living it out

faithfully. And so the first gift that God

gives you that Paul highlights in this section is the gift of

time. And we tend to disorder it by

worshipping ourselves and not making any use of time.

We worship it on one end of squandering our days and

laziness and lethargy. And I think more of us,

especially in a church like this where we we work so hard is we

tend to overwork and we prioritize efficiency and

optimization and output. And we worship the God of

efficiency. And so God orders our time

toward faithfulness and stewardship, not maximal output.

So you're called a steward your time and to redeem it, not to

optimize it. And you look now to the second

gift as we continue to verse 17, redeeming discernment without

worshipping control. So God gives also the gift of

understanding. Look at verse 17.

Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of

the Lord is. So I think we take this gift of

understanding and we warp it in a couple of key ways.

I think #1 again, we worship ourselves as gods and we say, I

want to be. I want to do my will.

I want to go the direction that I see and deem is best for me.

I will determine the pathway that I will go.

We could call this autonomy. The word autonomy literally

means self rule. I am my own law.

I determine where I go. Now, this is captured in the

famous poem, I know you've heard it, William Henley's poem

Invictus. I am the master of my fate.

I am the captain of my soul. And so while we might not say,

you know outright that this is the way that I live.

We, we default to it on accident when we say I'm going to submit

to, to everything God says so long as it doesn't interfere,

interfere with my will. So long as this doesn't

interfere with my will and my plans and my design for my life,

I'll submit to God's word. Or I'll take the Scriptures so

long as they don't cost me something, so long as it's

convenient. I'll submit to the Word of God

so long as I don't have to reshape myself from my

lifestyle. Forgetting the words of First

Corinthians 619 to 20, he says. Or do you not know that your

body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, whom you have from God,

and you are not your own? You were bought with a price.

Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which

are gods. You're bought, you're redeemed,

you've been purchased. You are a slave of sin.

Now you've been bought and you are a slave of righteousness,

but a slave you remain, and we submit to the will of God.

You can't confess. Jesus is Lord while using the

understanding and the discernment that He has given

you to determine the way that you will go.

You submit your understanding to His control.

And if you want to see how it works out in Scripture, you see

it in Isaiah 68. Who will go for us?

Whom shall I send? And Isaiah submits himself to

the Lord and he says, here I am Lord, send me.

And it makes you understand that there's the, the metaphor of of

a throne. There's a throne in your heart.

And only one person can be seated on at an at a time.

Either you are seated on the throne determining where you

will go, or the Lord is seated on that throne.

You give your understanding, you give control to him.

First Samuel 310 When he says, Samuel, Samuel, he says, speak

Lord, your servant is listening. Luke 138 Mary, submitting

herself to the Lord, says, Behold, I am a servant of the

Lord, let it be to me, according to your word, Jesus to his own

Father in heaven. Luke 2242 Nevertheless not my

will, but yours be done. And Jesus says to Paul from

heaven, I am Jesus of Nazareth. And Paul says, What shall I do?

Lord, You can practice and rehearse saying that what shall

I do, Lord? What way do I go?

That's your reminder that Jesus says not everyone who says to

me, Lord, Lord, will inherit the Kingdom of heaven.

But who inherits the Kingdom of heaven?

The one who does the will of the Father.

Look at verse 17. Don't be foolish.

Understand what the will of the Lord is and the implication is,

and then do it. Submit to it, remembering that

you were bought. And there's a second way that we

distort this gift of understanding that the Lord has

given us, and it's by submitting to the gods of the age, the

revelation of the gods of the age, rather than the revelation

that God has given us in the Bible.

And so we we speak of scientists like we would speak of priests

saying, would you please look into your microscope and give

some revelation about what I am and who I am?

Where we say to the cosmologists, we look to them

and speak to them and say, look into your telescopes that we

might have some new revelation about where we came from.

And we go to the soft sciences, we talk to psychologists and

sociologists and anthropologists that we might be granted

revelation about how we are to live.

And it reminds us that there's the wisdom of the world and

there's the wisdom of God. And the wisdom of the world says

you can be wise in this world if you would study gender theory

and if you would study performativity and de

naturalization and intersectionality and queer

theory, and the world will look at you and they will say you are

wise. The Bible says don't be foolish,

but understand what the will of the Lord is. 74 times in

Proverbs he contrasts wisdom with foolishness.

These same words, the one who walks in the ways of the Lord

and the one who follows the path of wisdom versus the fool and

the fool is the one. It's the same word used in Luke

about the guy, remember, the one who who has such a big harvest

that he says, I don't have anywhere to store all my crops.

So he says, what am I going to do?

I'll tear down my barns and build bigger ones.

And I'll say to my own soul, this is the wisdom of the world,

soul, relax, eat, drink and be merry.

And the Lord looks at him and he says, you fool, it's the same

word. So in contrast to being foolish,

Scripture says, use the understanding that God has given

you to discern what the will of the Lord is.

Reason it out with the help of the Holy Spirit.

Read the Scriptures, submit to God's revelation, and see for

yourself what it is you should do.

As a theologian named Michael Allen, Rafael Bello introduced

me to he. He has a a quote talking about

this text that has become one of my favorite quotes ever.

And he says this text reminds us of a mature church who knows the

will of the Lord. Not because a minister has told

them what particular choices to make, but because a minister has

instead equipped them with the word of the Lord and has LED

them in a community marked by these formative rhythms.

Do you love that as much as I do?

It's not that you need to be told what to do is that we are

part of a church body that is continually getting into

fellowship. It's going to put these rhythms

and wash these rhythms over you in just a minute.

The rhythms of fellowship and of worship and of gratitude and of

submitting to one another. And he says because we are being

washed by this each and every week and indeed every day, we

know what the will of the Lord is.

We've made it a habit of submitting to the Word and

understanding the Word and engaging in fellowship.

And he's saying this is the great gift of God.

And so understanding doesn't come from, you know, what seems

best to our wandering hearts. And it doesn't come from

submitting to the revelation of the present evil age.

It's it's also the will of the Lord's not whispered to us in in

private moments. And it's not mystically found on

some Ouija board. It's understood by exercising

our understanding in reading God's Word.

It takes intellectual effort. It takes the gift of the Holy

Spirit who illuminates our mind. If you study the Scriptures, if

you submit to them, then the will of the Lord is clear.

Third gift that the Lord gives. The third contrast, redeeming

pleasure without worshipping the world's goods.

Read with me verses 18 to 21, Paul says.

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be

filled with the Spirit addressing one another and

psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody

to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for

everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus

Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for

Christ. So the final contrast, he says

don't get drunk with wine, but instead be filled with the

Spirit that the issue is control.

Are you yielding control of your faculties to wine, which is no

control at all, or are you yielding control to the Holy

Spirit and being fully in control by the Holy Spirit?

And so it's helpful here to see to the prohibition is not to

refrain from wine. He's redeeming the pleasures of

the world. The prohibition is to refrain

from intoxication. He says intoxication is

debauchery, which literally means incorrigibility.

It's a word that means lacking understanding or lacking

control. And this is coming back to

redeeming the time. We can't be drunk because

there's work to do, right? We can't, we can't waste our

time and be lethargic because there's there's work to do.

And so oppositely, he says you have to be filled with the

Spirit. Colossians 316.

If you put this passage in alignment with that, you'll see

that being filled with the Spirit is letting the word of

Christ dwell in you richly. Being filled with the Spirit is

being fully submitted to Jesus Christ, being fully submitted to

his word. And there's a kind of a, a

decision that you have to make, I'm going to put before you and

let you make it. It's very interesting that

downstream of this main verb, which we're going to see in

multiple weeks, even getting into husbands, loving your

wives, these are all participles hinging on the main verb of be

filled with the spirit. That's the main verb that's

going to all this is going to come from it.

And so we have to understand how do all of these participles,

what's their relationship with this main verb?

There's kind of two ideas here. The first option is to say that

they are simply a result, that if you are filled with the

spirit, the result is that you worship and you fellowship and

you sing and address one another in psalms and hymns and

spiritual songs and you submit to one another and you're

there's so much gratitude overflowing from your heart.

It's it's the first option, the result.

And the second one is much more interesting.

It indicates means meaning if you are doing these things, if

you are coming to church to fellowship and to worship and to

mutually submit to one another and to express gratitude, then

you will then you will be filled by His spirit.

Meaning that when you do these things, then the Spirit will

come and fill you. And there's some precedence in

this second chronicles. The people are singing and

playing instruments and raising their voices.

And then the temple of the Lord is filled with the glory cloud

or you come to Acts in Antioch. It says that the church is

worshipping the Lord and fasting.

And then the Holy Spirit says, set apart for me Barnabas and

Saul. So you choose which one you

think is the most faithful. But I want you to see wherever

you land. Paul's telling you this is what

ought to come out of a Christian household naturally.

This is what is to identify your fellowship.

This is what is to be part of your church.

These are like the gifts that came before.

Paul says that God has given the gift of pleasure.

Like the other contrasts, we take these good gifts and we

distort them. How do we distort the pleasures

that God has given us? He says it here that we use them

in excess. We take the gift of wine and we

become drunk rather than enjoying wine.

We get drunk with it, or we seek our joy in the gift rather than

the giver of the gift. Have you ever been guilty of

that replacing the joy of a relationship with God and his

church with the temporary highs of alcohol or substances, or we

use those substances to cope and define coping as dealing with

and attempting to overcome problems and difficulties.

And so you think this goes back to Paul saying we're redeeming

the time because the days are evil.

We live in terrible times. Remember those statistics.

There's, there's wickedness all around.

And so you can cope with that through substances or you can

cope with that through these measures that God has given.

So God redeems these things. We have to ask as he left us

with nothing to draw pleasure from, as he left you no ways to

cope with the difficulties of the evil days, Is there nothing

that will help you overcome the negative emotions like drugs and

alcohol can? And this is where he says he's

left you fellowship, He's left you worship, he's left you

gratitude, and he's left you submission.

These are gifts of God. These are pleasures.

These are how you cope in the last days with all of the the

hardships that come on you. He begins with fellowship.

Being around other believers is balm for your soul.

Being around other believers is literally healing for your soul.

Have you ever experienced this before?

It's incredible what happens. And so when you're in a bad

mood, when you're in a funk and you can't shake it, what you

don't need is alcohol. What you need is to be around

your church. And so for me, when I'm in a

funk, what I don't need is alcohol.

I need Jeff and Debbie Goss to come to my back porch.

I need them to come with vanilla bean ice cream and strawberries

and aged balsamic vinegar. And I need to light my chiminea.

And I need to be there with my wife, and we need to fellowship.

And you know what? By the end of the evening, I'm

feeling pretty good. It's it's healing.

It's literal healing for your soul.

Not just fellowship, but worship is part of the pleasure of the

world. Verse 19 addressing one another

in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

Jeff was very careful in selecting the songs this

morning. So we sang psalms and hymns and

spiritual songs together, making melody to the Lord with our

heart. It's amazing how you can enter

church on a Wednesday night or a Sunday morning completely

defeated and completely exhausted and walk out

rejuvenated. It happens to me.

We've resolved that on the days we at least want to go to Life

Group or at least want to go to church, we will especially go

because we know when we leave, we will leave healed.

So we sing. It says here psalms and hymns

and spiritual songs. I wanted to go through that.

It's hard to even make any distinction between them.

They're synonyms. Psalms is the word psalmos,

which means literally plucking, which is why we've taken that.

We we see that word and we deduce from it that the psalms

were all set to the Old Testament Psalms were set to

stringed instruments because of that word.

And so most likely the word psalms means the Old Testament

psalms. We tried to prioritise,

prioritise this as a church recent sermon series was, was

surrounding this exact thing. We built the whole sermon series

around singing Psalms. And the second word is, is

hymns. The, the literal word is hymnos.

It's where we get our words for hymns.

And it doesn't even necessarily mean singing.

It's, it's reciting or singing poetic material.

And it's, it was used in the Gospels to singing the Psalms at

Passover. Some of you know, at Passover,

they would always sing songs before they would go out.

Jesus sang hymns before he went out to the Mount of Olives.

This is the word that it used or when Paul and Silas sang hymns

while they were in prison, This is the word that was used.

It's it's songs of praise to God.

And finally, he says spiritual songs Odice where we get our

word ode. And most often it refers to

songs of joy or praise or just simply singing.

So again, you it's hard to make distinctions between these

words, but the the point is clear.

We hear his message. The people of God are meant to

sing. We are meant to sing and to

worship through song. The third one is gratitude.

Read verse 20, giving thanks always and for everything to God

the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is corporate Thanksgiving. There's entire Psalms in the Old

Testament that are under the category of corporate

Thanksgiving. Look, when are you to be

thankful? It says always, and it says what

are you to be thankful for? And you continue reading.

It says always and for everything, all prayer being

directed toward God the Father. Remembering what James says,

that every good and perfect gift comes from above, from the

Father of lights in whom there is no variation or shadow due to

change. We give thanks toward God the

Father. We give thanks for time,

especially here. We give thanks for the

understanding that he's given us, and we give thanks for the

pleasures that he's given us in this world.

And if you lack something to give thanks for, turn here and

give thanks for those. And finally, verse 21,

submission, submitting to one another out of reverence for

Christ. And so mutual submission is a

requirement for membership. Every single time somebody

stands up here, we say, are you willing to submit to this person

as they even submit to you? And that's why we say yes and

Amen, because that's part of, it's not just part of

membership, it's part of being filled with the Spirit.

This is characteristic of what it means to be full of the

Spirit. We submit to one another, and

I've gotten to the point where I trust my church more than my own

wandering soul. And so I come to you all more

often than I even come to myself.

And I say, should I adopt more kids?

Just tell me. You tell me.

Should I go back to school? Please, elders of my church,

just tell me. Should I go back to school?

I don't know. I'm clouded by all my interests

and all my sinful heart. And so you can do.

That's why we come here. And it's not it's, it's, it's

humility. It's not a weakness to come and

submit to your church. It's humility of saying there is

somebody else in the world who has the Spirit of God and

there's somebody else in this world who can discern what's

best for me outside of myself. And so we come and we submit to

one another because this body can see things that send clouds

in ourselves. We listen to the body because

Paul says we are one body. Ephesians 425 Extremely famous

saying from John Calvin. A quote from him.

It was in every commentary I read this week.

He says God has so bound us to each other that no man ought to

avoid subjection. Where love reigns, there is

mutual servitude. He says, I do not even accept

kings and governors, for they rule in order that they might

serve. Therefore, it is very right that

he should exhort all and to be subject to each other.

So we submit to one another. So faith church is experienced.

If you didn't get this impression, I'll make it clear.

Faith is expressed and lived in community.

It's in all of this solitude is important for a time, but you

can't read this passage and escape without the understanding

that church, corporate church life is essential for life and

godliness an essential for spiritual formation and worship.

Walking in wisdom is walking in community since it's being

together, fellowship, being together, worshiping together

and singing and being grateful and submitting and the command

for you today is in verse 15. Look carefully how you walk

saying direct your attention to this.

Consider this God has given you good and perfect gifts.

He first gave you the gift of time.

Are you redeeming the time that he's given you or are you

squandering it in lethargy and laziness, or are you

overworking? He's given you the gift of

understanding. He says pay attention to this

and consider this. Are you submitting to no one or

are you submitting to the revelation of the wrong

authorities? He says you need to make sure

that there is not one word, not one letter, not one iota of the

Bible, that you are not submitting your will to submit

to it. Make much of the Scriptures.

And then finally, the third gift is the gift of pleasure.

Are you seeking pleasure in the gifts of the world, or are you

seeking pleasure in the giver of those gifts, even God himself?

Are you seeking joy and pleasure from the appropriate places,

fellowship and worship and gratitude and submission?

Paul says make much of your church, make much of this local

congregation. Do these things.

Walk in wisdom, walk in love, walk in the light, and you will

be like Enoch in Genesis 524, whom God said he walked with

God. Or you do these things and you

will be like Noah in Genesis 69, righteous and blameless in your

generation. Noah walked with God, we say.

May it be said of Heritage Church.

This is a church full of people who walk with God.

Deacons, please come forward as we look toward the Lord's

Supper. I'm going to pray for us.

And then we will pass out the elements and everybody who

confesses Jesus is Lord. All those who walk with God,

however imperfectly, we will take this meal and celebrate

together. Church, pray with me, Lord, we

are so grateful. God, we express our gratitude

corporately as a church for all the perfect gifts that you've

given us. You've given us a body, you've

given us like Elijah, there are 7000 men who have not bowed the

knee to bail. There will always be fellowship

because God is in control of all things and he has brought us a

church, a local body, and a fellowship that we can submit

to. So Lord, even when it's hard,

when we're prideful and we don't want to or help us to come to

church, help us to submit to one another.

Give us the courage to submit ourselves to your word even when

we're afraid, when our when our trust weakens, Lord, and we know

that you will prove yourself to be the great gift giver and that

your gifts are good and righteous and true and just.

Lord, give us strength, Give us wisdom that we may walk in it.

After you and your and your Son's name we pray.

Amen. Thanks for listening.

To learn more about Heritage Church or if you'd like to

respond to this sermon, visit our website at

www.heritageshawnee.org.