- Hello everyone. We're gonna be studying this passage of Ephesians and in chapter five, verses 15 through 21, paragraph is called, or the title of this study is called Walk Carefully and Wisely. And before we begin, I just have a quick couple just tips wise. I provide about four or five inductive study questions for the passage.

Please try your best to answer those questions, but if you don't have the time to sit and work through all those questions, it's actually better for you to just sit down, take a piece of paper and try to make as many personal observations that you can. Trying to notice what's in the passage and just trying to outline the passage for yourself.

Potentially you might gain a lot more than that. The other thing is, although I do provide the handout and things like that, I do always recommend working from your Bible. That way you have your affinity towards the text that you're working with, but also just for retention and memory wise, it's proven to really help in terms of that arena.

So let's take a moment to pray and then jump into the study. Lord, we thank you God for your grace. Thank you Father for providing for us your fatherly instruction. God desiring for us to exhibit greater sanctification in our lives. What's more Father God, we thank you for your call for us to live in such a fashion that God, we are emulating you, reflecting you, but walking also in your wisdom.

We pray that you would help us to both understand and to apply your word. It's in Christ's name we pray, amen. Okay. So let me take a moment to read to us the passage for this study. And it's from Ephesians chapter five, verses 15 through 21. And it says, "Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of your time because the days are evil.

So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine for that is dissipation, but be filled with the spirit, speaking to one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.

Always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, to God, even the father, and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ." As we take a look at this passage, we wanna take a moment to review that we have been receiving lots of instructions to walk in such a fashion that reflects the gospel.

Starting from chapter four, verse one, recall that we were challenged to walk in a manner worthy of the calling. And that entailed walking then in humility, walking in love, walking in care, and walking in unity. In chapter five, verse one, the scriptures called us to imitate God as children, as beloved children of the Lord.

And the command was for us to walk in love. In our previous section, we were challenged to walk as children of light, no longer living in darkness, no longer living in that kind of foolishness or in immorality and greed and covetousness, but to walk in the light. And here we're being called to walk carefully in wisdom.

So as we take a look at the passage, I have this kind of a messy slide here with lots of colors and things indented. But you see what I'm doing here is just making sure that I observe where are the major commandments, okay? So what I mean by the major commandments is that here we have in purple, therefore be careful how you walk.

Right there is a standalone command. It's an imperative in the second person. And it's essentially saying you need to be careful in the way that you live your life. This sentence here, making the most of your time, is underneath that. Verse 17, do not be foolish, okay? But understand what the will of the Lord is.

Verse 18, do not be drunk with wine, but be filled with the spirit. Major command. Jumping down to verse 21, and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ, okay? So outlining this passage, essentially I would take those major commands and summarize it and say, walk carefully and wisely.

Verse 17, understand God's will. Verse 18, be filled with the spirit. And verse 21, humble yourself. In these many ways, we are to exercise a careful walk, but more so than anything, exercise the will of God and the wisdom of God. So this is us being wise through the gospel.

Let's begin then with the first commandment and jump into the study here. The first commandment is to walk carefully and walk wisely. The passage says, therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of your time because the days are evil. I would like to sometimes ask, even amongst the four commandments that we just saw as an overview, which one is most important or which one takes most emphasis?

And what's interesting is within this paragraph, we realize his challenge on a broad scale is be careful in what you're doing, right? Take a look at this. In the Greek, there's a kind of strange, or I guess, but more emphatic formation of this command and challenge for us to be careful how we walk.

If you were to take literal translation of each word, it reads like this. See then accurately how you walk around, okay? See then accurately. And the challenge for us then is to be not haphazard, is to not just be on autopilot or cruise control, but to make sure that we're giving special attention to what we're doing.

And therefore, by immediate just kind of reflection upon this commandment, we need to be asking ourselves and meditating, am I paying attention? And do I have the humility to examine what I'm doing and to assess, is this wise? Are we asking the question, are we doing anything that's actually like wasteful?

Are we doing anything that's actually hurtful? And by further meditation, I should be asking myself the question, if the challenges don't be unwise, but be wise, so you have this compare and contrast, do I know what's in these buckets, right? Meaning, what does it mean to be unwise? What's the stuff that happens when you're not careful and you're not wise?

So you take time to meditate upon that. And I have a couple of things for you as consequences of a foolish life. What do I mean? Think about anything that you're doing. Think about even just putting together furniture. Think about trying to fix something in your house. Think about a project that you're involved with.

Think about church ministry. Think about, you know, whatever it may be, different major facets of your life. What happens if you're not careful? Typically, when the scripture describes a fool and when you're not cautious, you end up hurting yourself, right? You're walking, you're not careful, you stub your toe, right?

You're working, you're not careful, you cut your own hand. You end up hurting yourself. And that's what the scripture calls you fool. You don't understand. You do these things, you pursue these, you know, ends, you have these agendas. And in the end, it's counterproductive. You end up hurting yourself.

But worse than that, you end up hurting others, right? If you're not careful, you're swinging your ax, you're swinging your hammer, you're doing the cut, whatever it may be, what project that you're doing, you end up hurting others. What's more, scriptures many times calls the fool, the fool who's not paying attention and so is absolutely wasteful.

Right now, I'm doing my personal devotions in the book of Ecclesiastes and King Solomon is just constantly asking the question, and what do you actually produce through that? What's the point? Vanity, vanity, vanity, right? Like the call for us to pay attention is a call for us to not simply waste our time and opportunities.

As a matter of fact, I mean, you think about even again, maybe building a piece of Ikea furniture, it's very simple. So you just think, you know what, I'm just gonna do it. You start going and then you realize, ah, I missed a step. And so you have to make a choice now.

I have to dismantle the whole thing to make sure that peg's in there and make it strong. Or you know what, ah, it'll just stand. And next thing you know, you're working with a really insecure, or I guess unfinished piece of furniture. What a waste. And we end up having to do things twice.

What's more, if we're not careful, the scripture says you just run with the world. You run with the masses, you pursue worldly desires, you pursue worldly ends. And next thing you know, you're not even about God's business anymore. So here are the things again, that the scripture many times talks about as a challenge for us, pay attention.

And for me personally, I feel like in recent days, in these last several weeks even, whether it's from just the community groups, the fellowship time with the guys, this personal interaction, I've been really challenged. Like, am I paying attention to what I'm doing? For example, sometimes you, and we all get busy.

Like every single one of us gets busy and we have this desire to make sure everything gets done. But in busyness, the danger is you want to get things done for the end goal of just getting it done. You're not even desiring in the specific task, in the specific moment, am I actually filling the need of the people?

Am I actually filling the need of the hour? Scripture says that even when we're talking, even when we're speaking, your words should be filled with grace, which means there's an intentional love in there. And what's more, it should meet the needs of the hour. Like, you don't just flippantly throw out careless words.

And I got to confess sometimes like in a means to just, and there was a time where I was just actually taking metrics, like I know some of you guys, I've been so slow to get to email. So I've been taking metrics. How long does it take me to respond to a message or an email, right?

Sometimes it's like two days and I'm like, oh man, somebody holds the record at our church for longest time before Pastor Mark replies was two months. I'm sorry, okay, you know who you are. But sometimes my goal ends up becoming, at the end of the day, my inbox should be empty as opposed to, right, greater goals.

At the end of the day, I made sure that the project was going well, that if we're working together, if we're serving together, that everything actually, people are in the know of what's going on, that they're feeling a sense of being fulfilled, or contributing to this project, and all this kind of stuff, you know?

And so I got to confess, sometimes realize just like there is a carelessness and in the end, again, what happens? We kind of miss the goal. And I think one of the greatest things that happens when we're not careful is that the priorities of God get subjugated and neglected because we have these other things going on.

And that's such a huge challenge, right? People talk about like, oh, I don't have enough time, and I don't have enough of this. And actually, scripture is saying, no, no, no. You never have enough time for everything. What you need is not just more time. You just, if you had three more hours, four more hours, well, what's three more hours if your priorities are all over the place?

What's four more hours if your heart is all over the place and you just want to do everything else? What you need is focus because instilled in the reality of every single one of our lives is we don't have enough time for everything. And what's more, I think scripturally, when the Bible talks to us and commands us to exercise wisdom, it's precisely talking about the fact that we need to watch our life and our doctrine and what's coming out of our mouths closely.

We need to be wise. And if you think about 1 Corinthians 2, you don't have to turn there, but I just want to talk about the general wisdom. Scripture says that this world has its own wisdom or what it thinks is valuable, what it thinks is priority. But you, you now have the mind of God.

You know what you think, sorry, you know what God thinks is wise. And so therefore, everything that we're participating in, everything that we're doing is actually spiritually appraised. It's spiritually valued. And therefore for us, that to us, when we exercise that is our wisdom. So I wanted to spend a lot of time on that because that is the thrust.

That's the main exhortation as a propositional statement at the beginning of the paragraph, you need to be careful. Secondly, the commandment is to redeem the time. Notice here in verse 16, the passage says, "Making the most of your time because the days are evil." So let's make an observation here.

What does it mean to make the most of your time? I mean, we can just use synonymous and say, "Hey, maximize your time, don't waste it." So essentially we remember when we were in school, our parents would tell us, "Prioritize, prioritize and make sure you're using your time wisely.

Do your work first before you play, focus." That's the kind of maybe exhortation we may feel. But here and now there's more to that. The term to maximize, or I guess make the most, actually means more literally to buy it all out. So when you look at those dictionary entries of what a word means, a lot of times they're comparing how is this word used in other Greek literature?

How is it used more specifically in other passages of the Bible? And in other passages of the Bible, this term is used to purchase it all. Or it's also used of Christ when he's purchased us. So when you think about this then, there's more to it than, "Yeah, just use your time wisely." There is this heart where you want to, imagine you're into something, like let's say you're into woodworking.

Now all of a sudden your heart is into wanting to buy all the necessary tools to get this done. Because this project that you have, let's say you're building a piece of furniture like a chair, you wanna make sure you have all the paint brushes for the finish, including the drill bits, including the nails, including like all of that, right?

And in that sense, whenever your heart is into something, you want to make sure you have all the pieces. And for those of you guys who are into like tools, you want all the tools for every scenario, right? You know what that feels like, buy it all, right? Don't go buy it all.

You know what I'm saying? Here is the heart behind wanting to make the most of the time, you're all in in that moment. What's more, other passages of scripture really tell us to make the most of every opportunity. Colossians chapter four, "Conduct yourselves with wisdom towards outsiders, making the most of the opportunity.

Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person." Galatians six, "So then while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith." What a challenge for us to redeem the time that we want to make sure we are maximizing the moment that we have.

And I wanna highlight that because when we look at this passage, oops, it says, "Because the days are evil," and we should take a moment to meditate on that, right? The timeframe, the days that we have are evil. And I'm gonna leave that to your discussion. But in terms of what does that mean?

Does that mean like the generation that we're in, just like Jesus said, what a wicked generation, a perverse generation. It was wicked and perverse then, it's wicked and perverse now, right? Is that what he means? Well, what's really interesting is another thing to notice is that when he uses the word time here, so right here on make the most of your time, when he uses this idea of time, it doesn't mean like the hours and the moments that you have.

I want you to go make a schedule and every single moment needs to have some kind of like things slotted into it. Maybe you could, right? It'd be great if we could read and pray and evangelize and do nothing else. But honestly speaking, there are so many other things and responsibilities in your life, right?

You gotta take care of your family, you have to work, right? You have to do all these kinds of things. But the idea is you should understand that there is a period of time you have. And that's the word used, the Greek word used, it actually is more specific to not chronos, but it's more specific to the time that you have as a period, it's a season, okay?

So we recognize that we have limitations and we have to be careful then with those limitations. As just an encouragement to you, for me as I think about it, I personally was very challenged by this because I love learning stuff. And some people have commented that I'm kind of like a Jack of all trades.

And that to me, it's not necessarily I wanted to be a Jack of all trades, I just like learning a lot of stuff. The second half of that little idiom, Jack of all trades, master of none, okay? I don't like the master of none part, but that's also true, I'm master of nothing, okay?

And, but the thing about it is, as I look upon that and look upon, let's say my life, truthfully speaking, there's so much vanity and waste. And what I mean by that is, like I pretty much, when it comes to sports, I have pretty much every equipment that you could need.

I have a badminton set I haven't touched in two years. I have tennis rackets, I have like three of them, including Bia's, like both of us played tennis in high school. We love tennis, haven't played in years. I have a basketball, football, volleyball, soccer ball. I mean, you could just go down the list, right?

You have pretty much everything related to sports. You talk about musical instruments. I mean, I want my kids to learn music. So for their birthday, there's a ukulele we got, we got a hand-me-down piano, they have a guitar at home, they have an old violin, like I want them to do everything.

I mean, talk about like, let's say fixing stuff. I mean, I have car parts I have yet to install. I've been sitting there for six months. I mean, it's crazy. And when you think about that, we are such so privileged that we are allowed to have so many hobbies.

And yet part of it is, the problem is, our hearts wants to do everything. And I think there's like a warning there. Is it wrong? No, it's not wrong to have hobbies. There's a warning because that could be vanity. King Solomon says, you know what I did? I grew a green thumb.

He said, I planted vineyards, I have gardens, I have majestic gardens. And then he says, vanity of vanities. And it makes sense. It makes sense. And you know what the strange thing is, I almost had like a desire to share with you some worldly advice, like don't be this guy who has your hand in everything and have hobbies all around.

Just pick one that you really, really like and become a skilled individual because then you could use that, right? But that too. So what if you're like the master of carpentry? Let's say you were the number one prospect of a sport. That too could be vanity. Unless we have a desire to glorify God.

Unless we have a desire to serve people. Unless we have a desire to, in some ways, use that as a platform for an element. You know, it doesn't have to be always like, I'm gonna preach that Christ crucified and he resurrected and da-da-da-da-da, that would be great. But even right now, what I think is really encouraging is people using their skills, their stuff that they have and their services to raise funds for a great cause, like that's really awesome.

Two thumbs up for that. When you use it for those kind of purposes and you realize, yes, you have the responsibility to work and do it excellently, but if it stops there, that too could be vanity, right? We have greater causes, essentially. Okay. So again, we realize what a command and challenge for us in this first two verses for us to be careful, to be wise and to maximize the opportunity that we have.

Okay. The other commandments we're gonna go through just a little bit faster. Commandment number three is, understand the will of the Lord. Okay, understand the will of the Lord. He says here, so then do not be foolish. And we already talked a lot about what foolishness means. Foolish means you just don't understand like what you're doing.

You're like not paying attention to if you're even achieving the right goal. You're hurting people, you're hurting yourself, right? But then he says, understand what is the will of the Lord, right? You gotta understand what God desires. And I just wanna make a mention that the command, yes, is to understand, but we know that regularly in scripture, it means so much more than say, ah, I get it.

No, it means to understand so you can do, right? It means to understand so you can implement it. But I wanna highlight this thing. As a believer, your growing wisdom is your growing understanding of what is the will of the Lord. We talked about in previous passages, you have to have a mental picture in your mind.

Are the things that I'm doing, lifting a pleasant aroma to God, or is it a stink, right? Is what I'm doing in line with what God is pleased by? Does he like it? Do you know of God well enough that in the things you're doing, you could almost picture him looking at you and be like, no, right?

Can you picture that? That to you is your wisdom as a child of God. Father's day is coming up. And if you're thinking about what should I get my dad? The first question is, what does he like? And if you're sitting there like, I don't know. Listen, you have a bigger problem than finding a gift.

You need to get to know your father better, right? If you can't think of anything your father likes, you don't even know what he likes, right? It's different. Like when buying a gift, you know what people like, and sometimes you don't know whether they already have it or they don't have it, right?

That's another issue. But if you're sitting there like, I don't know what he likes, I don't know his preferences, I don't know if he's gonna enjoy this, then you really need to grow in your understanding of God. I think an arena where this applies a lot too, is in marriage.

What I mean is understanding God's will makes you wise in marriage. Understanding God's will makes you good in marriage, a good husband and a good wife. You know, some people say a key to a happy marriage is good communication. And when communication is bad, marriage is bad. Yeah, there's some credence to that because, you know, people don't communicate well.

If you're sitting there and you don't have the maturity to say certain things with calm, with control, you're gonna ruin the marriage. And people make much of like, you know, men are from Mars and women are from Venus and you just don't understand each other and it's horrible, right?

Well, yeah, typically men don't know how to express things into words. They're not used to like digging deep and why did I do this? And what am I feeling right now? It's just, we're not used to it, all that kind of stuff. We need to grow. A part of it, you just need to grow.

And also ladies, you know, and the way that they communicate, sometimes it could be with a kind of complaint or whatever it may be and we need to grow. I don't know, like there's differences in the way that we communicate. Sometimes we're more verbose, sometimes we're not. Sometimes we say things, sometimes we don't.

We need to grow. But the fact of the matter is, that's not to me the best key to the relationship. Why? I have seen people speak two different languages and yet make it work. I have seen people who, yes, they need to grow and all that kind of stuff, but that may not be the key key, okay?

The reason why is because, I think the key key is when a husband understands God's will, what pleases the Lord, and he knows what he's supposed to be doing, that's the key. Because what's incredibly frustrating on any team, whether it be a sports team, whether it's in a business team, whether it's in a school team, whatever it may be, if an individual is unwilling and unknowing of what they're supposed to do, automatically it's dysfunctional, right?

Automatically it's dysfunctional. And that's what I'm talking about here. What's worse than a person who perhaps doesn't even know what they're supposed to be doing, is a person who in their selfishness, laziness, rebellion, they know what they're supposed to be doing, but they're in disobedience. The fool does not obey God.

The fool doesn't know what the Lord likes. And within marriage, if a husband or a wife, they don't know their God-given, what God is pleased by as he sees a husband, but if they don't know what God is pleased by of what he sees as a wife, then yeah, that relationship is already on the rocks.

And that's why we're talking about here, what's wise when we see the Lord is to abide in him. What's wise is the desire to know what he is pleased by. Next, commandment number four, be filled with the spirit. Be filled with the spirit. The passage commands us and says, and do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the spirit, speaking to one another in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing, making melody with your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, to God, even the Father.

Now here and now is a beefy chunk of text that could even like require an hour of study on its own. We don't have the time for that. So we're just gonna make some major observations and move forward from there. Take a look at this observation. You recognize there is this contrast.

Before it said, don't be fool, be wise, right? Don't be careless, be wise. Don't be a fool, understand what the will of the Lord is. Here it says, don't get drunk, for that is dissipation. So when you have this kind of comparing contrast, but be filled with the spirit, you have, in order to kind of appreciate it, you gotta really appreciate the contrast, okay?

And so we have to ask this question, what is it about drunkenness? And what's interesting is the passage describes drunkenness as dissipation. What's more, I started asking this question, why do people love getting drunk so much? What is appealing about drunkenness that some people would actually desire drunkenness over being filled with the spirit of God?

Why does this world, the unsaved world, turn to drunkenness so much? Why is it that pretty much every holiday, every celebration, it involves alcohol? People get married, woo-hoo, drinks. People have their birthdays, woo-hoo, drinks. It's St. Patrick's Day, woo-hoo, let's drink, right? People, you know, when they go to sporting events and their team wins, woo, let's just shower each other with champagne, right?

Like, what is it with drinking? And one of the things I realize is people turn to drinking for a sense of joy. It is celebration. It's to them the expression of joy and happiness. But on the flip side, you know what's also interesting? People turn to drinking when they're sad.

Drinking alcoholism is depressing, and they want to drink away their worries and sorrows. They're disappointed with this world? Go drink. They just got in a fight? Go drink. They're pissed off 'cause they got laid off at work? Go to the bar. People turn to alcohol when they're sad. And what are they looking for?

I think they're still looking for joy. What's very interesting is this term for dissipation. I mean, you get the idea, right? Dissipate. It's like, it's windowing down, okay? And what's really interesting, it's a kind of a verbose word. The literal term is to extravagantly squander, right? It's like, woo!

And the picture that I got is a rich boy. Like in our day, you have these rich people who are just like, "I'm gonna buy this. I'm gonna buy that. I'm gonna buy this." And what's very interesting is in one of the theological dictionaries of this term, the term is astos, they liken it to the prodigal son, one who spends so much, he slides easily into fatal influences of flattery, of temptation, and surrounds himself, spending freely to his own lusts and appetites.

Why? Because the prodigal son believed to spend his cash would be more happier and joyous than to be with his father, who's wealthy. The prodigal son believed that that would be to him his greater freedom. His wanton manner of living would be to him more satisfying. Brothers and sisters, when the scripture says, "Be filled with spirit," sometimes people are thinking like, "Let's be filled with power," right?

Let's be filled with greater capacity to do stuff. Well, potentially, yes, the spirit does empower us. But here and now, the contrast is here being drunken on wine, that's dissipation, extravagant spending and squandering and waste, thinking you're satisfied. But to be filled with the spirit, then in contrast, actually is to be filled with great joy because you have the Father's blessing.

You have God's goodwill. Yes, you have his power. You have his wisdom. You have his purpose, his truth, his work. You have him sufficiently. And what you are resorting to, what you are using up and enjoying and taking to full advantage is the presence of God himself. What you have is the control of God.

What you have is a resource of God. And it's all consistent with the theme of Ephesians, "Blessed be God who has blessed us with every spiritual blessings in Christ in the heavens." We've been given everything and we need to be filled with it. And that is the spirit of God.

Why do I say this? Because if you look at this observation, what he describes, underneath being filled with the spirit, what he describes is speaking with Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing with making melody and giving thanks. So when you're speaking and singing and giving, you're filled, you're satisfied.

And the way that I would like to put it is command number five is overflow with joy and thanksgiving. To be filled with the spirit is descriptive of, or is described as having an overflow of joy and thanksgiving to our God and to our brothers and sisters, right? We need to be filled with truth, with songs of joy, with melody in our heart.

And this understanding, if you're wise, you have this understanding. I have been made complete in Christ. I have the spirit of God in dwelling in my heart, securing me, filling me. And what that comes out in is an incredible confidence and also thankfulness. Think about this, when a rich child, that rich child is spending his money.

What's really interesting is if you look not only at a snapshot of that child spending his money, you also see children of rich people killing themselves, suicide, ODing on drugs. That's not just like one or two, we've seen it as a pattern amongst rich people, celebrity children, whatever it may be.

And you almost realize like there is a foolishness there. You pretty much have it so good and yet you're so thankless. You rage over stuff and then you get destructive. There is a foolishness marked in that. There is a wisdom marked in seeing the gospel, seeing the Savior, seeing his spirit, being filled with this truth and overflowing with gratitude.

That's to our wisdom. Next, the final portion of this text says, and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. And so the commandment that we're to recognize is that in the wisdom of God, we need to humble ourselves. If we are walking carefully, if you're walking in sight, you got your eyes open, then you need to be the most humble people.

Scripture tells us that if you know the will of God, sorry, the fear of God, if you know the fear of God, if you understand God's authority, you understand God's power, you understand who he is to us, that there is the beginning of wisdom because then we know how to humble ourselves, to walk humbly with God.

And therefore, if there's any heart in us that says like, "I'm the man," that's absolute foolishness. So what am I saying? Arrogance and pride is absolute stupidity. It's silly. If someone says, "I'm the man," that means they haven't seen much, they're blind. If someone says, "I'm better than you," it means they're liars and they're deceived.

It's all foolishness. And I want you to think about this scenario. Given that sometimes we can make an appropriate judgment, you may be better than somebody in your work. You're more successful. I'm better than that person. You can be, right? But think about the arrogance to say it. What that means is all you are seeing is you and that singular individual you think you're better than.

But can you say it? I want you to think about this. You know, lately Michael Jordan has been in the media a lot because there's a TV show. And think about Michael Jordan, best player ever basketball-wise, right? Imagine you're in the locker room though. And you realize, you know what?

I'm better than somebody else. Let's say you're in the locker room and you're better than that third string guy who never got playing minutes. So you're just like, "Man, look at you, dude. Oh, bench warmer," right? You saying that means you're just looking at that person but you don't recognize Michael Jordan's in the room.

He's gonna sit there and be like, "Oh, you're talking big. You're talking big, man." And in front of him, he gets, you're gonna look like a fool because like you think you're that good. Do you understand saying that kind of stuff in front of me? Right? And if you've ever seen this, like if you're an adult and you see kids like fighting each other in front of them and saying all this stuff, he may be better than the other kid.

But in the presence of an adult, and so for us as Christians, understanding and knowing that God is ever present, that before God, yes, I may be slightly better than another individual at something very specific. To say that in his presence, it's just silly. It's absolute foolishness. I don't want you to think about this though.

Obviously this passage is not challenging us like, "Hey, don't say arrogant stuff." It actually challenged us to submit to one another. And I wanna ask you this question. Did you think about what that means for you to subject yourself underneath somebody else? And the scripture is challenging us. If you know the gospel and you know what Christ has done and you've seen him serve other people, for you to say like, "I can't, not that guy." That kind of logic has a disconnect and therefore makes you a fool.

You've seen the Lord of all, master, authority, serve sinners. And for us, then to humble ourselves and be subservient to serve the better good of that other individual is just a logical connection. That's the only thing that makes sense. That's the way Christ projects the gospel. If you, though being such a sinner, have been forgiven and you cannot forgive that other person, and you can't take your righteous standard and subject yourself to serve that other individual, you don't make sense.

You're a fool, right? That must've mean you haven't seen. That must be that you don't see the realities. And so as we take a look at these commandments, wow, what a challenge to be wise, logically consistent through the gospel, to be very careful in paying attention to what we're doing.

And we realize being filled with the knowledge of God to us and being aware of his presence, that to us is our greatest wisdom. I mean, in our day, trying to focus on the spiritual is hard, but that to us actually is our greatest reality. And it prevents us being fools, not only just simply in this moment, but fools in terms of the context of all of eternity.

And so I pray that we would've been challenged to be all the more cautious and to be all the more wise in our daily living. Let's pray. God, thank you so much for your grace. Lord, your instruction for us to be wise according to your wisdom. I pray, Lord, that you give us eyes to see the difference between what is the wisdom of man and the world versus the wisdom of God.

I also pray, Father God, that through those eyes, we're better able to assess and evaluate what is valuable, what is important and what is not. I also pray, Father God, that all of this would translate into expressing and living in accordance to the wisdom of Christ. I pray, Lord, that we would exhibit greater humility, that God, we would rely all the more on your wisdom for everyday scenarios.

And I pray that in doing so, we would exalt you. We thank you in some Christ name we pray, amen.