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Sermon Sunday September 13, 2020 – Walking in Wisdom

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Ephesians 5:15-17

Walking in Wisdom

If we are all honest, we want to make our lives count. We would like our time on earth to make a positive impact on those around us, and we want to leave a mark. This desire does not mean we have a problem with pride, rather it is the direct result of the fact that we were created in the image of God and designed for a purpose (See Psalm 139:16-17).

In Ephesians 5, the Apostle Paul wrote two sentences that give us three keys to living a life that will make a difference.

Paul encourages his readers to walk carefully. The Greek phrase means to walk with precision and accuracy. The cry of the previous verse is to wake up! Paul is encouraging his readers not to drift through life as sleepwalkers. Sadly, many professing Christians are drifting aimlessly through life as if sleepwalking.

There is a vast difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is available to anyone; it is knowing facts that are available to anyone who is willing to learn about a particular subject.

However, wisdom is the ability to make sound judgments based on the knowledge you have. Wisdom is a gift of God and something that God encourages us to ask for (James 1:5, Proverbs 2:6).

Walking in wisdom, is not simply knowing where to go or what to do in a particular situation. Walking in wisdom is taking the knowledge we have and then asking the Lord to direct our path, to lead us.

The ultimate mark of walking in wisdom is to walk with an eternal perspective, knowing that we are living for so much more than the temporal goals and rewards of this world.

Every moment we have is a gift from God, and the older we get, the more we realize that life is short. Another translation of this verse is, “redeeming the time”. The Greek word is the same word that is used to pay the price to free a slave. As the Apostle notes, these days are evil and under the control of Satan. We must make every effort to redeem every moment from the grip of the enemy of our souls. Satan loves for us to waste time playing games and watching TV, all the while we are missing out on the purpose and calling on our lives.

Do not miss this, we are in a war and Satan and his demons are constantly working to distract us with temporal things, even good things. As followers of Jesus, those who have been bought by the blood of Jesus, we should constantly war against those things that fritter away our limited time.

Our calling is to shine as light in the dark world, so that when the King of Kings comes, we will not regret the way we spent our time.

Verse 17 begins with the statement, “therefore do not be foolish…”. Foolishness is the opposite of wisdom. Foolishness is acting or speaking without thinking. Foolishness is not employing our understanding with wisdom. God has blessed us with the ability to think and to reason.

But that is not the complete verse, the rest of verse 17 states, “…but understand what the will of the Lord is.” I have heard it said many times in Christian circles, “God expects us to use our brains”, however, if we rely solely on our own intellect, many times we will miss the will of God for our lives.

Many times, we will miss God’s best for our lives, because to live by faith as a follower of Jesus will often require us to do things or go places that go against common sense. In the eyes of those around us, we are throwing out common sense and being reckless. But the safest and most rewarding way to live is to trust in the Lord and to pray daily for His leadership and guidance in our lives. Proverbs 3:5-6 could not be a more direct instruction in this regard:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
    and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
    and he will make straight your paths.

How do we discern the will of God for our lives? The will of God is not a mystery to be discovered, it is a lifestyle to be walked. As we walk with God, we grow in our knowledge of Him and we are transformed in our minds.

Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

I have always prayed that God would direct my path along the lines of Galatians 2:20, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me…”.

There is active participation on our part. We must be walking. Discerning the will of God requires us to step forward in prayerful faith and allow God to direct us as we move.

Ephesians 2:10 shows us that God has a plan for our lives. We were saved for a purpose. God reveals His will to us as we read His word (Psalm 119:105), as we spend time in prayer and as we seek the counsel of wise brothers and sisters in Christ. Frequently God uses circumstances to direct our path (See Romans 8:28).

We can move forward without fear and anxiety knowing that our Father in Heaven is the source of wisdom and the one who saved us for His perfect purposes.

Are you walking in wisdom?

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Hearing God’s voice March 3, 2019

Psalm 29 and Romans 12

When I have my devotional time with the Lord in the morning, I have developed the routine of reading a Psalm and then a chapter from the New Testament. As I meditate on the Word, I am frequently amazed to find that the two passages are linked around a certain theme.

The Lord speaks through His word to us and as I take time to be still and know… I hear from the Lord and am encouraged.

This morning I read Psalm 29 and Romans 12, at first glance there seems little that connects these two passages. Then I was reminded of a conversation that we had yesterday.

A group of us were taking a break from painting and the conversation led to the unfathomable majesty of God as it is displayed in creation. Psalm 29 mentions the power of God and that He is due all glory and majesty as He sits in the splendor of His holiness (Psalm 29:2).

As the conversation developed we began to discuss how God leads us as we have to make daily decisions that affect the course of our lives. To be followers of Jesus, we must submit ourselves to His perfect will for our lives, the difficulty comes in discerning what that will for our lives.

Sometimes we wrestle with the big decisions such as, marriage, career, international mission trips or buying a house, to mention a few. How can we know the will of God for a specific situation? What we are talking about is hearing the voice of God.

Psalm 29, as I read it this morning mentions, “the voice of the Lord”, seven times between verses 3 and nine. The voice of the Lord in Psalm 29 describes God’s general revelation of Himself through creation. The Psalmist pictures the voice of the Lord as crashing thunder, earthquakes, floodwaters and mighty winds.

Years ago, I used to love walking along a deserted beach during the fiercest storms and howling winds. My shouting prayers would be swallowed up by the power of God’s wind and rain. I felt the presence of the Lord and He spoke to me in those times, bringing clarity and direction when I needed it most.

In order to hear God’s voice, we need to position ourselves where we are ready to hear. It may be a walk in a storm or a silent prayer room, but our position needs to be one of submission and expectation. Sit with the Bible open, read with expectation, praying with intensity. As we walk with the Lord, as we mature in our faith, we begin to recognize the voice of God. He may speak to us through nature, through the Bible, through the Holy Spirit or through wise counsel of a mature believer.

This is where the New Testament reading connected in my morning meditation. Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

The key to knowing the voice of God, is a renewed mind. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 2:16 that we have the mind of Christ. At first this sounds impossible to us; how can we have the mind of the creator God? But as we are transformed into the image of Christ, as we mature and submit our will daily to the perfect will of the Father, we will find that our decision making is led by the Holy Spirit. Spiritual maturity is being transformed by the renewal of our minds. This is not an immediately completed work when we become a Christian, nor is it ever completed on this side of Heaven. But, as we mature, as our minds are renewed, we are able to discern the will of God as Romans 12:2 says.

The tragedy is that too many Christians do not mature, and as a result they are tossed about like a rudderless boat in a storm. Everyday we make decisions that have eternal consequences, let us ensure that we submit ourselves daily to the will of God and then position ourselves where we can hear His voice.

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Philippians – Paul’s letter of Joy Part 4 Sermon October 21, 2018

Philippians 1:19-26

The Antidote for a Meaningless Life

Do you know your purpose in life, the reason why you are alive? Atheist philosophers and social commentators and might tell you that life is a pursuit of experiences or the accumulation of wealth, and then you die. What a meaningless and hopeless existence. But there is an antidote for a meaningless life.

Writing from his position of incarceration, the apostle Paul encouraged the Philippian believers to continue to pray for him in Philippians 1:19. He knew that their prayers for him were effective and that God was moving on his behalf, for his deliverance, because of their prayers. Paul wasn’t stating that he knew he would be released from prison, rather he was certain that God was moving on behalf of their prayers towards His good and perfect plan for Paul’s life. Whether that meant, release from his chains or his execution and release from his suffering, Paul was content in the will of God for his life.

Paul continues in verse 20 that he has an eager expectation, he is looking forward with hope, not for his own freedom, rather he was looking forward to the goal of being full of courage, so that Christ will be honored in his body, whether by life or by death. Paul had the eager expectation that his very life would be spent so that Jesus would be magnified through his life. But does Christ need to be magnified? After all, how can a mere human being ever magnify the Son of God, the creator of the universe? The stars are much bigger than a telescope, and yet the telescope magnifies them and brings them closer. The believer’s body is to be a telescope that brings Jesus Christ close to people. To the average person, Christ is a misty figure in history who lived centuries ago. But as the unsaved watch the believer go through a crisis, they can see Jesus magnified and brought so much closer.

The believer’s body is a “lens” that makes a “little Christ” look very big, and a “distant Christ” come very close.

Paul then writes that well known and powerful verse, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” Philippians 1:21

This verse is Paul’s personal mission statement, his lens by which he interprets all of life.

Eugene Peterson writes it this way in the Message, “Alive, I’m Christ’s messenger; dead, I’m his bounty. Life versus even more life! I can’t lose.”

Paul writing to the Galatian church elaborates on his mission statement (see Galatians 2:20).

Whether we admit it or not, we all have a mission statement like this. Some examples of mission statements that we could have if we used Paul’s statement as a template.

“For to me to live is money and to die is to leave it all behind.”

“For to me to live is fame and to die is to be forgotten.”

“For to me to live is power and to die is to lose it all.”

For us to be able to agree with Paul and say, “to die is gain”, we need to have a rich and deep understanding of eternity. Sadly, the lack of focus on eternity is what hinders most of our devotion for the Lord and lack of faith. I sometimes wonder by the way we live, we don’t really believe in eternity, we give lip service to it, but we don’t really live for it. We spend so much of our lives focusing on the next forty or fifty years, focusing on a career, savings, retirement or building a business, when everything around us and everything we spend so much time accumulating will be gone in just a few years. But we who believe in a loving Heavenly Father who created and sustains all things, if we give our lives to the Lordship of Jesus and the spreading of the Gospel, church planting, and discipleship as Paul did, we will be building an eternal legacy.

In verse 23 Paul wrote that he desired to depart this earth. Paul was not afraid of dying, for him it simply meant “departing.” This Greek word was used by soldiers and it simply meant to take down your tent and move on. What a great picture of Christian death, the “tent” we live in is taken down and the spirit goes home to be with Christ (see 2 Corinthians 5:1-7).

Not only does Paul write that to be with the Lord is his desire, he says that it is far, far better. Paul was absolutely convinced that the life to come, was much better than what we experience here. In verses 21-23 Paul has been wrestling with his desire to leave this earth, but in verse 24 there is a turning point in the passage and Paul knew that he would stay to encourage and disciple the young believers in the churches that he had planted. Paul knew that his staying on this side of eternity was to point people to Jesus and seeing them progress and grow in their Christian walk.

Paul didn’t always perfectly know God’s plan for his life (see Acts 16). If Paul struggled to hear God, how do we walk this out in our lives? Most of the time it is because we are too busy and have too many distractions in our lives (psalm 46:10). Sometimes it is because God does not reveal his purposes to us and He is calling us to simply trust Him, building our faith.

Paul didn’t know the exact plan of God, but one thing he did know was that he would remain, and as long as he remained, his purpose was to help them to grow in the faith. Verse 26, begins with “so that”, Paul would remain to help them grow, to encourage them, so that they would glory in Christ Jesus through Paul’s life and example.

This is the chief end of our existence, this is the primary calling of God for His children; to bring glory and honor to the name of Jesus.

Can you really say that? What are you living for? Are you living for the things that the world says are important or are you living for God’s will for your life?