Living Under the Lordship of Christ

Worshiping God in Spirit and Truth

Well, good morning, church. What a blessing it is to serve the Lord and to know him and to be gathered together in the Lord's day to offer and render unto him that which is rightfully due to him. That is all glory, power, praise be unto the one true and trium God.

If you are able, please turn to Ephesians chapter five. And we're going to be examining verses 15 to 21. When you have that, please do stand for the reading of God's word. Again, the text is Ephesians chapter five, starting in verse 15.

Hear ye this morning the word of the Lord. 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.

You may be seated. Let us go before the Lord in prayer. Lord, we cannot even begin to fathom the depths of your love, the depths of your wisdom, the depths of your power and sovereignty. And Lord, we pray, God, that even this morning, by means of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost and the preaching and proclamation of the word of God in the gospel, we would get just a foretaste of the glory that is veiled in your sight.

Lord, help us to see with eyes of faith, to live under the rulership, kingship, lordship of Jesus Christ, to come under that perfect sovereign grace that only you can provide. We ask Lord to help us to put away foolish things, to ready our hearts for worship and for instruction, and lead us not in our own ways, but in the path of everlasting life.

We pray these things and we ask your blessing over the reading and preaching of your word. In Jesus name, amen. If I sound louder than I usually am, it's because I went swimming yesterday and I can't hear now from this ear.

So if I'm talking too loud, it's not because I'm particularly upset, it's just I can't hear very well. I want to comment real quickly on the selection of music that you have heard this morning and that we partook in and sang from our hearts as we approached the throne of God's mercy.

And one of the things that I want to point your attention to is the first song that we sing is Come Ye Sinners, as Pastor also pointed out, how appropriate the call of the gospel is for you and I this morning, is that God is inviting us, he's calling not the righteous, but the sinners.

And he's calling us to himself. But recognize that when we come on to him, we come on to a holy, righteous God. And this holy and righteous God will not leave you as he found you, but instead he will change you, he will transform you, which is why then the next song was Holy, Holy, Holy, we come on to a holy God.

And then we come on to, we come, we who love the Lord because we see the face, the beauty, the majesty of pure holiness. And we love him as he loved us, as he's demonstrated his love for us in the mercies of the cross of Jesus Christ.

And it brings us now to our teaching and our sermon this morning, which is living under the lordship, I know it says leadership in the bulletin, but it should be lordship of Christ, coming under the proper lordship of who Jesus Christ is.

Living Under the Lordship of Christ and the Call to Wise Walking

And when we come on to him, he changes us, transforms us, gives us a new way of life. And that is the entire focus of Paul in Ephesians, starting really in chapter two, when he goes on to speak of the great grace that we've received through the cross and the merit of Jesus Christ, with the great love of which he loved us.

And then he begins to talk about the mystery of the gospel in chapter three, and how this mystery of the gospel is that there is an inclusion of the Gentiles into the covenant family of God. It is no longer that God is just dealing with one particular ethnic group, but instead his heart has now gone towards all the nations.

And all the nations can come onto the God of Israel and be not only saved, transformed, but in covenant relationship with the God of Israel. Then we see in chapter four and five, this new way of life, this new creation, and how we as Christians ought to conduct ourselves, how we ought to live in a fallen and broken world.

We begin this message particularly in verse 15, when Paul says these words in Ephesians 5 .15, look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise. Now notice the indicative, notice what is being brought to our attention.

Look carefully, look carefully. At what in particular is he asking us to look at carefully? When you give that instruction as a, maybe as a father and mother to your child, or maybe as a boss to an employee, and you say, look at this carefully, you're asking them to examine, to take time, to really make sure you understand what is in front of you.

And Paul says, look carefully then how you walk, how you walk. This imagery is brought up time and time again in the scriptures. We see of Enoch, Enoch was a man who walked with God. Noah was a man who walked with God.

The command that we are given in Micah chapter five or six, he says to walk with God, to love justice, to walk humbly with your God. It's to walk. Now, how do we as Christians walk with he who is unseen, with he who is invisible, with he who is not tangible, that who we cannot literally hold onto or grasp?

How do we walk with that which we cannot see? And how does this fit in the narrative of what Paul is trying to admonish those in Ephesus, to look carefully then as to how you walk? Well, the way that God's word is commanding us to walk is not literally obviously walking in a garden with God, although that's the imagery that should be conjured up, just like God was walking in the midst of the garden in Genesis chapter three.

So God invites us to walk with him, which is a statement of relationship. God wants you to be in relationship with him. Now, the only problem is, is that you are sinful and he is holy. How can a sinful man walk with a holy God?

And the gospel reveals to us exactly how, that God in the fullness of time brought forth into the world his son, Jesus Christ, born of the virgin, not one who had inherited sin, but one who was perfect, blameless, and the spotless lamb.

So much so, that when John the Baptist sees this one coming on to him, he says, behold, the lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world, and this Christ, this Messiah, this perfect lamb, lived a holy life, the life that you are unable to live.

You're incapable of living. No one here can say they are without sin. Not you, not your grandfather, not your grandmother, not your pastors, no one in this room, no one in this world can say that they are without sin.

So great is the infection of sin that we have had unbroken generations who have been consumed and who have ultimately died as a result of sin. But in the midst of the sea of humanity, there stands only one who was born without sin, who sinned not in his earthly life or course, and this is the righteous one, even Jesus Christ our Lord.

He lived a life that you could not live, and he then died the death that you deserved. That death on a cross. Notice the magnitude. God stepping into humanity, stepping into that which he created, and then being crucified by his own creatures.

You see, one of the church fathers said that he who fashioned the stars was himself fastened to a created piece of wood that he himself brought into existence by the very hands of those whom he formed out of the dust.

What an incredible statement. What a powerful message we see in the cross of Jesus. He died the death that you deserved. Next to two criminals. Died a death that was horrendous, fit for a murderer, fit for a blasphemer, fit for someone who is a sinner.

Yet Jesus, the sinless one, the righteous one, the spotless one, took that upon himself. And then God, in his infinite wisdom and power, left not that one in the grave, but instead raised him from the dead and seated him at the right hand of majesty, where he now lives and is ascended above all powers and principalities and is himself the ascended, glorified Lord of history.

And this one, Jesus, is the one to whom we present to you this morning and the one to whom he beckons all men. Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. This is the one with whom we must walk with.

This is the one to whom we must cling to in order for us to walk humbly with our God, with our creator. Therefore, as Christians, we must walk wisely. And so if you're following along, please write this in.

Christians must walk wisely. Why? Why must we walk wisely? Well, notice what it says in verse 16. Making the best use of the time because the days are evil. The days are evil. Therefore, we see why we see such an indicative, such a call to walk wisely.

It's because the days in which we are in are indeed evil. So Christians must walk wisely as the days are evil. Now, there's three reasons I want to give you this morning to make most and wise use of our time.

The first one is what we just read. Number one, the days are indeed evil. Now, what does that mean that the day is evil? Well, it means simply this, that evil is increasing, not decreasing. You see, evil has always been around us.

So evil was humanity even in its early civilization and its early conception that God brought forth his judgment upon an unjust people by flooding the world and the global deluge. So evil were the people of Canaan that God had to wipe out a whole people group because of the wickedness.

But yet, even today, we're living in evil times and evil continues to increase. You see, we think in modern times, humans think that the more that we progress in our technology, the less evil we become, but really that's not true, is it?

It just enables different kinds of evils. You see, the days are indeed evil and are only getting more and more evil. Jesus said this in Matthew 24 in the Olivet Discourse. Speaking of the end times, he says that the love of many will cool off and evil shall increase.

We've seen that today. Just a generation ago, we see how quickly, even just race relations in this country have devolved, have gone down at an all-time low since the Civil Rights Movement. We see how neighbor rises up against their own neighbor.

I mean, if you have the app, what's that called? Nextdoor. That Nextdoor app is really telling because all I see there is a bunch of neighbors complaining about each other. And the reality is is that, again, our technology is enabling just different kinds of evils.

Evil is increasing. So therefore, we as Christians must make good and wise use of our time. You see, evil must be countered and it must be countered with good. And the goodness, not of our own self, but the goodness of the grace of Jesus Christ that is merited to us by faith in him, we now bring the goodness of God to the peoples, to our neighbors, to our politics, to every aspect of Christian life.

And again, we must be devoting ourselves even more as Christians then to the things of God. We must make the best use of our time. And unfortunately today, again, partly because of our technology, we can either be hyperproductive as a result of technology or we can be hyperunproductive because of technology.

And so we have to make the best use of our time, be wise in how we administer our time as saints, as Christians, because the days are indeed evil. The second thing I wanna present to you as to why the Christian ought to walk wisely and why the Christian ought to make the most of his time is because number two, the days are short.

The days are short and life is indeed a vapor that you are here just for a little while and then you're gone. You're like the blade of grass in the field that quickly sprouts and then quickly withers away.

Our time here on this earth, if we're lucky, what, 80 years, 90 years, 100 years? And what is that in comparison to eternity? And yet, even if we just turn on the news, we find that people die young all the time, tragically.

Car accidents, sickness, disease, war, so many things that cut short human life expectancy and yet we do not know when our last breath will be, therefore we live with the knowledge of knowing that we can die at any moment, at any time.

It is but by grace that you are alive even today, that God by his goodness has sustained you and put breath in your lungs and yet because of the brevity of life, we are to be reminded that we are to make the most of the time that we have, to use our time wisely, to honor God, to glorify God.

And the last reason I'll give you this morning as to why we ought to use our time wisely is because we will give an account to him, to the creator, for our use of time. You see, living under the lordship of Jesus Christ is to recognize that your life is no longer your own, but rather, you have now come to him who is the proper ruler, sovereign, and maker of your life.

Therefore, we must surrender even our time, which is so precious, which is so fleeting, to him to whom all things belong and of whom every knee shall bow and every tongue confess. Living under the lordship of Christ is again to recognize your life is not your own, that time does not bend to your will, but follows the sovereign course of Jesus Christ.

Therefore, consider with me this morning what life for the Christian looks like under the proper lordship of Jesus Christ. Verse 17 of Ephesians 5, Paul goes on to say these following words. Therefore, again, every time you see the word therefore, think of it as a result of what was just mentioned.

Do not be foolish. Do not be foolish. But understand what the will of the Lord is. Understand what the will of the Lord is. You see, there is a wisdom that comes with knowing Jesus. There is a wisdom that is accompanied by the indwelling of the spirits.

And it means that God is calling us away from foolishness or childish things, things that do not profit, things that do not add, things that are of no heavenly good. And to put away those things, to put on the things that are of God, to be not foolish, but to be discerning.

Discerning the Will of the Lord

Now, I want you to write that in there. Do not be foolish, but be discerning what the will of the Lord is. Do not be foolish, but discerning. You know, a verse that was in the previous section that we didn't get to read, but in John chapter nine, verse four, Jesus says some remarkable words.

And he says something to this effect. He says, work while it is still day, for the night is coming when no man can work. Work while it is still day. You see, the foolish man wastes the day away, does not do what is required of him or what would be profitable or good for him or his family or his business or for the things of God.

But instead, the foolish man allows that time to be withered away, does things at the last second. You know, now I have to admit, I was kind of like that for a long time. I was the kid in school that if there was a project and we had a week to do it, I'd be working on it the night before.

And not only the night before, but the very last hour of the night before. I'd be, oh, it's nine o 'clock. I should probably start that project. And guess how that went. Usually those projects would not be graded very well because I was foolish and did not make the most of my time.

And yet so many of us carry that over even to adulthood, even into family life or work life and we're foolish with the time that we have. And yet God is calling us to be wise, not foolish. God is calling us to be good stewards.

Part of living under the Lordship of Jesus is learning to be a good steward of that which the Lord has apportioned to you in life. Therefore, we're to be reminded not to be foolish, but to be discerning.

To be discerning, to recognize, to seek out what the will of the Lord is for our lives. And so the foolish man does not take the brevity of time into consideration, let alone what God's will is. Oftentimes even Christians make the mistake of not pursuing the will of God.

Instead, they think that God is kind of like a cosmic cheerleader on the side and whatever you decide to do with your life, whatever you want to do with your life, he'll just be on the sidelines and he'll cheer you on.

That is not the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible is sovereign. Every knee will bow to him, he will not bow to you. Therefore, recognize and discern what the will of the Lord is. And I've taught you this before, but I want to give you again just four things to consider.

I know I'm giving you a lot of lists today, but I want to give you four things to consider on how to discern the will of God. And the first one is very simple and it's very important. And you kind of need all four of these at least in order to know if this is God's will.

And the first part is, is it biblical? So you have to ask yourself this question. If you're in life and you're considering a life change, you're considering what the will of the Lord is, ask yourself this question, is this biblical?

A few years ago, I was at a church in Edmonton, I was pastoring a church there, and a couple come up to me and invited me to dinner. They were boyfriend and girlfriend, and they invited me to dinner, and I'm thinking, okay, great, maybe they're thinking of getting married and want to ask me for premarital counseling, that'd be great.

They invite me, we go to Red Lobster, and they give me a really nice meal, and then they say, pastor, we've been praying about this a lot, and I think me and so-and-so, we're gonna move in together.

I said, really? I said, without getting married? Like, yeah, you know, we prayed about it, and we feel like the Lord would be okay with that. You know, and I just about dropped my lobster and steak, and said, well, we're not praying to the same Jesus then, because my Jesus wouldn't permit that, because it's in his word, he never contradicts his word.

So you cannot pursue something that is not God's will for you, and how do we know God's will? It has to be in the word. Okay, can't contradict this word of God, can't contradict the scriptures. Second thing is that the spirit of God ought to testify.

Now, how does the spirit of God testify to these things? Well, the Bible says in Romans 8 that God's spirit bears witness of our spirit, that we are God's children. Jesus said of the third person of the triune God, the Holy Spirit, that his job is to convict the world of sin and righteousness.

Not just sin, we focus on that part a lot, but it's to convict of sin and righteousness, what is good and what is evil, and the spirit convicts. There ought to be a conviction, a heaviness of the working of the spirit in your life.

The third part, very important, is that there ought to be a consensus amongst godly people. You should bring your heart, your desires, your thoughts, your considerations to godly people to see if the spirit is also testifying to that degree.

And I'll give you a perfect example. That when I was, you know, just younger, and my wife and I decided that we wanted to move to Canada, before we actually made the decision, we brought it to our pastor, we brought it to many friends, and the thing that we heard often was, we don't want you to leave, but this sounds like Jesus.

This sounds like God's working in your life, and God is leading you in this way, so therefore we give you our blessing. That's so important. Often as Christians, we don't even consider the counsel of others, let alone the counsel of pastors, and that's such a danger, and that's such a pitfall for Christians.

We think that we can do it all on our own, that we can muster up enough intellect or strength to make these difficult decisions for life, but God's word encourages us to bring things to godly people. We see that throughout the book of Proverbs.

Matter of fact, within God's law, it says that you need two or three witnesses for every matter to be established. Therefore, we ought to bring our hopes, our dreams, our concerns to God's people to see if there is a consensus amongst the people of God, and the last thing that should be considered when considering the will of the Lord is, am I forcing the circumstances, or are the circumstances being sovereignly opened?

You see, sometimes the first three things align. You know, it's not unbiblical. It's maybe a very biblical thing you wanna do. Then, you know, you feel a conviction about it, and then people around you seem to affirm it, but then the circumstances don't open up.

The circumstances don't seem to align, and recognize this, that our God is a sovereign God, and when God opens a door, no man can shut it, but when he closes a door, no man can open it, and so these four things ought to align, and we can begin to discern what the will of the Lord is, and follow him, and consider his will for our lives, not to be foolish, but again, to be discerning.

The four things I just gave you, these are ways, and these are not the only ways, but these are ways that I have seen to be tested and true to discern the will of the Lord for the Christian life. Therefore, again, do not be foolish, but be discerning as to what the will of the Lord is.

A Life Filled with the Spirit Instead of Debauchery

We see in verse 18, Paul then goes on to say the following, do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit. I want you to write this in, we must not waste our time in debauchery, but be filled by the what?

By the Spirit, by the Holy Spirit of God. Notice what's being brought to our attention here, Paul uses the abuse of wine as an example of a wasted life. So Paul not only just says to you, hey, here's what it looks like, or here's some practical advice, you know, don't waste your time, you know, be wise with your usage of time, but he then brings up an example.

He uses the abuse of alcohol, the abuse of wine, debauchery as an example of a wasted life. You see, the idea behind the Greek word that is used here for debauchery isn't simply drunkenness, but the wastefulness accompanied by drunkenness.

It's not just to be drunk, but it's also, again, it gives the connotation, the idea, of all the wasted time and effort and energy and money that goes along with the consumption of alcohol and the consumption of, you know, any type of addictive behavior.

You see, drunkenness here is just simply the go-to drug of the ancient world. You know, they didn't have some of the drugs that we have today, obviously, and so you can, you know, take that example of debauchery or drunkenness with wine, you can insert pretty much anything there.

You know, notice what the scripture says, do not get drunk with wine, or do not waste your time with wine. Do not waste your time with pornography. Do not waste your time with recreational drugs. Do not waste your time with the things that detract from the glory and the majesty of God in the Christian life and walk.

Make use, wise use of your time. And there is nothing necessarily sinful in itself with drinking wine, though I got a lot of Baptist friends who would say otherwise. There's nothing particularly sinful with the consumption of wine.

But where it becomes sinful is when, of course, one gives themselves over to it fully and wastes their life and time away. You see, drugs, alcohol, these are all things that we use today, just as it was used in the ancient world as a way of escapism.

Today was a tough day at work. I'm gonna drink a couple beers so I can just kind of forget about my day and kind of mellow out. But then what do we do with our afternoon hours if we're just consuming alcohol?

Well, oftentimes, our afternoon hours, instead of being productive or put in study for the word of God, instead it becomes wasted. And we just kind of waste away. You know, wine can be a thing of gladness, according to scripture.

I just want to put this out there. There are more times in scripture where wine is actually put in a positive connotation rather than a negative. But the ones that are negative are pretty strong in reminding us that we as Christians ought not to be mastered by anything because we already have a master.

We have a Lord to whom we must obey and bow the knee, and that's King Jesus. If you can, turn to 1 Peter chapter four. And notice what the Apostle Peter says concerning this very thing. Very similar and wise advice, similar as to what we see from the Apostle Paul.

And notice what, again, it says in 1 Peter chapter four, starting in verse two, Paul giving this good word of stewardship of God's grace. He says, in verse two of 1 Peter chapter four, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh, no longer for human passions, but for the will of God.

There you see that again. The idea of putting away human passion to pursue God's will. Verse three says, for the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.

With respect to this, they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of the botry, and they malign you. Let's stop there for a moment. Paul, Peter, through the inspired word is giving us instruction.

And he says, therefore, as Christians, we must not continue in the course of life like those of the Gentiles. And the sensuality, the passions, the drunkenness, the orgies, the drinking parties, lawless idolatry, these are all examples of a wasted life, of a life that has not come under the proper lordship of Jesus Christ.

He says, don't waste your life on these things. Dear Christian, don't do it. There's a better way, there's a better life to be lived under the grace of God, under the will of God, under the sovereignty of God.

And he says, with respect to these things, they are surprised, that is the Gentiles, when you do not join them in the same flood of the botry. Is that not true? Maybe you recognize this in your personal life, whether at your job or whether at school or some other social settings where you're around unbelievers and they begin to partake in things that are not wholesome, things that are not of God.

And then they wonder, what's so different about you? Like, who do you think you are? Why don't you come over here and have a beer with us? Why don't you come over here and do this with us? And they invite you to participate in their wickedness.

And then they think it's strange when we do not participate. And when we do not participate with them, they malign you, they judge you, they cast dispersion on you. And they say, who do you think you are?

What, do you think you're better than us? There's so many times in life where opportunities like this arise, where your faith will be tested, where your conscience will be tested. But remember and hold fast to what the will of the Lord is.

Ask yourself, is participation in this honoring to God? Is it biblical? What would the brothers think? Is the Holy Spirit testifying in my heart, through my conscience, that this is a good or a bad thing?

Consider, dear brethren, what the will of the Lord is. Now, be foolish. Make the best use of your time. Live under the lordship of Christ. And the reason why, it says in verse five, but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

Remember, beloved, that we will give an account. And how we live in this world matters and has implications for eternity. Not that we earn salvation, not that we earn our place in heaven, but rather that our place in heaven is not determined by our works.

That's through faith in Jesus Christ and only the merit of Christ earns us any grace for heaven. But in regard to the crown and in regard to the glory that God receives in our Christian worship, brethren, how you live matters.

How you live has great implication because we will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. That is why then Paul tells us again in Ephesians 5 .18, don't waste your life on debauchery, don't waste your life on drunkenness, don't waste your life on things that are not producing kingdom fruit, but instead be filled by the spirit.

You see, oftentimes we turn to these drugs, we turn to alcohol, we turn to pornography as a way to fill a void in our hearts, to fill the void in ourselves. Yet there is one who stands ready to give you all fullness and the fullness that he offers is through the indwelling of his spirit.

He will make you whole, he will make you filled and it's by his spirit. What the world offers and the way that you can try to fill yourself by means of the sensuality and the drunkenness and the origins of the world will ultimately fail to produce that which it promises.

It will never make you whole, it'll never make you full. It'll only ever leave you wanting more and more. And yet, when you come onto Christ, you come onto the lordship of Jesus Christ, you are filled with the same spirit that raised him from the dead, the same spirit that was hovering over the surface of the deep in Genesis chapter one, verse two, who brought all things into being, who brought all things into creation.

Again, one cannot live properly under the lordship of Jesus and be a drunkard or an addict to any of the passions of the flesh. Again, this is why the reason why the botry and addictive lifestyles are incompatible with Christianity because they submit our wills to the flesh and not to the will of God.

Therefore, beloved, run from sensuality, run from earthly passions, run from the things that will distract you, that will keep you and draw you away from the goodness of Christ, and run onto Christ. Run to him who is good and the proper lover of your soul, who will make you whole and filled with the spirit of God.

Run to Jesus, beloved. Now, we see in Ephesians chapter five, verse 19, after we receive the word of being filled with the spirit, he says, addressing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart.

See, one of the dangers of the botry is that it clouds judgment and it clouds the intentions of the heart. One cannot properly praise and magnify God in a drunken state, in an altered state of mind. Therefore, God is calling us to be of sound mind, to come before him, to offer him what is rightfully due to him, that is praise, glory, and adoration.

Addressing one another, that's the Christian's church, addressing one another in psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord of your heart. You see, Christian worship matters.

It matters. And I wanna use this as an opportunity to remind you, beloved, that when we gather on the Lord's day and we sing songs, I'll be honest with you, I'm still getting familiar with some of the songs in our hymnal.

These are not all, I didn't grow up in a very traditional church, more of a contemporary church, and so a lot of these songs are still difficult for me and I'm still trying to get used to it, but when I learn a song, I try to sing it from the heart.

Because oftentimes what you find in the hymns are far better theologically than what you find in modern day contemporary Christian music. And these are songs that have been tested and tried and are true.

They have a rich historic foundation. And isn't it awesome that we can come together on the Lord's day and sing a song that's been sung for 200, 300, 400 years, joining the saints throughout history and singing with gladness in our hearts?

Therefore, when we sing together and we learn a song, let us sing from the depths of our heart and appreciation for the rich historic faith that we have and also for the grace that is accompanied in our singing that we get to minister not only to God and the host of heaven, but also we're ministering to each other.

Isn't it beautiful and wonderful when we come to a church and you hear every voice lifted and you hear that voice and that song rise to the altar of grace, to the throne of God himself? It's a beautiful, wonderful thing.