17-Ephesians: “MEASURE TWICE: Wisdom Is Skill, Not Information” | Ephesians 5:15-21

Last week we ended with a charge that we who are believers in Christ are not walking towards the light. Because we are believers in Christ, we are the light. And because of this truth, we should walk like we are the light. Which leaves the obvious question, how? Well, Paul answers that question this week.

And the answer might be different than what you think. So please turn with me to Ephesians chapter 5:1 15 where we begin. Paul continues in chapter 5 saying, "See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise." He starts with this, "See then." Now, it'd be easy to pass right by this because this just seems like a filler word. I mean, English is full of filler words. But Paul's writing is not full of just filler.

These two little words have purpose. This C is a call to actively be watching. Actively be watching. The call last week was to walk as children of light. Actively be watching that you are walking as children of Christ.

And because of this, we read this then this is how we are to live. This is how we are to act. This is essentially a call to be auditing your own life, which as I'm sure is something that all of us do on a regular basis, do we not? Right? Look at ourselves in the mirror and ask ourselves, how are we doing in our actual walk with Christ?

As opposed to just assuming, well, I'm in Christ and so I'm good. How are we legitimately walking? Does our lives reflect that we're walking in our in the light? does our lives show or do our lives show something else? Now Paul tells us then to walk circumspectly. So this walking, this is literally as you're walking around.

As you're walking around, you need to be doing this circumspectly thing. Now, I'm going to be honest. This is not a word that I use on the regular. This is one of those words that I was talking with someone earlier is a big big word. It it's a word that meant something to people a couple hund a few hundred years ago. it doesn't mean as much of us now.

But when I first looked at this, I thought to myself, well, could it be about circumstance? Could it be about introspection? Could it be about suspicion? But no, it's none of those words. It actually comes from Latin.

That circum you might remember from I know all of you paid attention in math class in school, right? This word circumference. That's where this comes from, right? Circumference. And then the back half of that word meaning to look.

So look all around you is what Paul is saying. As you're walking, look, be looking around you. Now in 1611 when the first edition of the King James Bible was written, circumspect would have been fairly understood as a person being careful. That's how people would have understood it. Now for most of us in this room, including myself, we look at it and we don't assume anything.

But there are people, it is still in uh the the dictionary, but the modern ear instead of hearing that looking around hears be cautious, be hesitant, be timid. Uh the actual literal Miriam Webster's uh rendering of this at this point is careful to consider all circumstances and possible consequences. But this is not what Paul is communicating. This is what the word means when we look at it. And if you go and you look it up in the dictionary, that's what it's saying.

But that's not what this means. So what you end up seeing here instead is in our modern language we hear this. What we hear is like a tightroppe walker. Someone who is tip tumbling. Someone who is holding back.

Someone who is nervous. A person who's avoiding risk. A person who is timid. A person who's afraid to fall off the rope. But what Paul is communicating is no, you need to be focused on measuring.

You need to be focused on being exact. you need to be focused on matching the standard. And so what that is, that's a measuring tool measuring a piece of metal. That's the idea that's going on here is when you look at your life, when you look around yourself, how do you measure up to what Christ desires you to be as a believer in Christ? How is it measured? But there's more.

Not only is the believer to live an accurate life, they are also not to be fools. Now here we need to be careful because once again our language and how it's translated can so easily fail us. You may remember a couple of weeks ago Paul calling the Ephesians and us to to be away from and to not be part of foolish talking. And we might remember back then that this talking this foolish talking was moronic talking. It literally is where we get our word But instead, what he's saying is we need to be about giving thanks.

And this matters because it's easy for us to get to this verse that we're at right now and think to ourselves, so we need to not walk as morons, but instead we need to walk as people who are wise. Now, as much as I wanted to actually tell you to stop being morons and and be wise, that's not what Paul is saying here. I got to be honest. It's me. I'm those of you that know me, you understand.

I wanted to say that, but that's not what Paul is saying. And it's important that we understand why. Because one of the things people will attack the Bible of is being inconsistent. People will say that it's inconsistent. And this is why this matters.

What Paul is saying has to align with what Jesus says about how we approach people and how we talk to people. Right? Jesus said this back in Matthew 5. But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother says, "You fool shall be in danger of hellfire." He says, "You fool, you moron." Now, as such, Paul led by this Holy Spirit, he's not going to violate what Jesus is saying here. That's very important for us to understand.

So, what's going on? Instead of like we were talking about being involved in moronic talking, when Paul is using here for fool that the translators translated as fool is actually don't be unwise. Do not be unwise. Now, do you see the difference between calling, hey, you you know what? You're being unwise.

You see the difference in the way that's being communicated and the way that ends up coming across. And this is important because literally that word unwise is the opposite of biblical wisdom. So now we need to understand though, what is biblical wisdom? What is it to be wise? And this is something that we struggle with on a regular basis.

This is one of those little big words because we look at wise and we think one thing. We so often think of wisdom as intelligence. We think of wisdom as education, book learning, the accumulation of all kinds of knowledge. But biblical wisdom is closer to skill. Knowing how to do a thing competently, knowing how to do a thing well that's been practiced.

I'm going to give you an example from the Old Testament. Some of you may know a guy named Bezel. Okay, maybe not everybody knows Bezel, but he's in the book of Exodus 35. Listen to what it is that Moses writes down about this guy bezel and how this relates with this word wisdom and how it helps to unlock for us what it means. So, we're in Exodus 35 starting in verse 30.

And Moses said to the children of Israel, "See, the Lord has called by name Bezale, the son of Yuri, the son of her, the tribe of Judah, and he has filled him with the spirit of God in what? wisdom in understanding in knowledge and all manner of workmanship to design artistic works to work in gold and silver and bronze in cutting jewels for setting in carving wood and the work of all manner of artistic workmanship. So question how many of the in of us in this room feel skilled about how we live life? [snorts] How many of us feel skilled about how we navigate relationships? How many of us feel skilled about how we raise children? How many of us feel skilled about how we live for Christ? Wisdom is not just a body of information.

You're not wise because you've memorized a ton of Bible or that you've gone to seminary. A a perfect example of this is the religious leaders themselves who knew more about the Old Testament Bible than anyone in this room and yet they crucified the Savior. They had all the knowledge but they had no wisdom. Wisdom family is competence at living. It's being skilled at living specifically in the manner described in the word of God.

This really helps to open up when James tells us if you lack wisdom, ask and it will be given to you. That is so much what this life is. Most of us walk around and we're like, Lord, I don't know how to share the word of God with anybody. You lack the wisdom. But here's the thing you need to understand is that wisdom takes practice.

Becoming wise is taking the things that you know and practicing them. And this is something we're going to see as Paul continues on. So Paul is telling his readers and us to become skilled at living as believers. Continues in verse 16, redeeming the time because the days he says are evil. He says redeem.

Now typically when we use this word redeem, we think about buying back or maybe turning in something for something else. We redeem a ticket for whatever the prize happens to be. And and when we see time, we often think of all time. But this is not what Paul is saying. Paul is using redeem is closer to buying something, purchasing something.

And time here is opportunity. We have an opportunity to buy something with the time that we have. We can spend our time that we've been given skillfully or we cannot spend it skillfully. Often times we say something like, "Man, I wasted a lot of time." You see what I'm saying? You see what Paul is saying here?

There's a great opportunity to be had for the sake of the gospel in this world, family, because the days are evil. Even though the days are evil out there, this gives us opportunity to invest what it is that God has given us into these days and for God to do amazing things in and through us. Because of that, I'm going to give us an example here. So, imagine you show up at home. It's about 6:00 in the evening, and you see your neighbor across the way.

Their car is still running. The garage door is open. And you can tell by their body language that something is wrong. You don't know what's wrong. You You have no secret knowledge of anything that has happened.

You can just obviously see something is wrong. Now, you have a choice at this point. Now, over the course of the next hour, you expected that you would go in and you would eat dinner. you would spend some time with your family or you thought to yourself, well, maybe what I could do is push off dinner a little bit and I could walk over and see if there's anything I can do to help in this situation. And this is the thing that we understand. Either one of those choices costs the same amount of time, right?

All of us have only the time that is given to us and that time is going to be spent on something, right? You cannot put your time in the bank. Some of us wish we could. We go to sleep. That time is being spent.

And the question is, fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, is what will we do with that time? Will we take the time to walk over and risk that person putting a hand up and saying, "Get out of my face. I don't want to have anything to do with you. This is none of your business." or are we willing to take the opportunity to walk across, invest that time that we have been given to maybe speak something into their life that's transformative? What are we willing to invest the time that we have been given for the sake of the gospel?

And the thing is is a lot of you will say, "But I don't know how to do that." But that's the thing. None of us know until we practice it. There is a skill to be ma to to be practiced. Right? One of the the pictures here is you see these these metal things being worked on.

Nobody becomes a matter master craftsman at anything without a bunch of failure. You become a master at things as you do it repeatedly and as you fail and then you slowly begin to succeed. And so taking that opportunity, you may walk over and you may completely fumble your words. Now, the thing that's going to pop into your mind is the enemy is going to tell you, "Oh, well, you know, if you say something over here, this person is never going to come to Jesus." Well, that means your God's too small if you fall for that nonsense. Because our God can take the nonsense from our mouths and he can transform it into something powerful.

One of the things I stories that I love is a pastor I met uh he's from Jefferson, Oregon and he said he got up front and he he preached this sermon and he came down and he's like well he's on the ride home with his wife because we do this a lot of times. Holly and I will have these conversations sometimes. She doesn't always get to hear my si my sermons live, but if we do, we often will have conversations. But this pastor is having a conversation with his wife and he's like, "Honey, I just thought that was the worst sermon I have ever preached." And she said, "Honey, I agree with you." And he said, "But but then this woman, she walks up to me and she says, "Pastor, what you shared was so transformative in my life. Thank you for listening to to the to this to the word of the Lord and to speaking it.

And his wife said, "Well, honey, obviously the Holy Spirit got hold of those words as they left your mouth and did something with them before they hit her ears." And that's the thing we need to understand about our God is we go and we work in the fields. You get this in 1 Corinthians 3. We work in the fields, we plant, we water, but it is God who causes the growth. Amen. And so our job then family is to take this time that we've been given in these evil days to go forward and to share with anyone and everyone who will listen because again that time is going to be spent on something and is it better to be spent on watching whatever the latest thing is on TV or is it better spent on on sharing the truth into someone's life?

Amen. Again, we are to be going. We're to be making. We're to be baptizing. And we are to be teaching.

This is what our God has commanded. Not just pastors, not just elders, not just deacons, not just directors, not the leadership in the church, but every single believer, whether they be young or whether they be old. This is the thing that I I was reminded of again recently as I was talking with another group of pastors. It's like, I'm having a problem because I've got these older folks who were refusing to do anything for the work of the ministry. They're refusing because they've said they've retired. family.

We may retire from our jobs in this life, but as long as we have breath, we do not retire from the work of the gospel. And so Paul continues on to verse 17 and he says, "Therefore, do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is." Therefore, again, now because of what I've just said, Paul says, "Do not be unwise." Now this version is different from the unwise that we had previously in verse 15. This one is this not as a fool but as wise but this fool not as unskilled. Not as someone who is unskilled. Here the translators use unwise.

It's it's more accurately described as someone who is not thinking. Again, not a It's just someone who's choosing not to think in that moment. Anybody else have ever had those moments? Anybody know anybody else who has these moments? We need to be constantly thinking and focusing on the word of the Lord and accomplishing what it is he's called us to do.

So, what Paul is telling his audience is don't be someone who's not thinking. Instead, he says, understand. Now, understanding is not receiving new information or holding a bunch of information. It's seeing how things fit together. And maybe you've had those moments where you're just like, man, I just don't understand what is going on right now.

And then suddenly it's like everything just like clicks and you're like, I finally get it. It took entirely too long, but I finally get it. And this is what Paul is saying. What is the information that that we have at this point that we're supposed to understand at this point is what the will of the Lord is. Now, I'm going to be honest.

I talked to more than one people, more than two people, more than three people. I talked to a lot of people who are constantly saying, "Well, pastor, I don't understand what the will of the Lord is." But we do. Or we don't. I mean, maybe you don't see how it all fits together. Or maybe we're just purposefully trying to be ignorant to it because we I'm going to be honest.

The will of the Lord is inconvenient to this flesh. The will of the Lord is inconvenient to this flesh. But the reality is is if you've read the Bible, if you've engaged in the word of God at all, if you've been part of a fellowship like this for any time at all, we all understand to a point the will of the Lord. This is what I mean. Okay?

Th this is just here in Ephesians. Be patient with people. Keep the peace you already have. Tell the truth and love. Stop lying.

Deal with your anger today. Work so you have something to give. Say nothing that does not build up. Drop the bitterness. Forgive the way you were forgiven.

Walk in love. Give thanks. Walk as a child of light. Look at the things around you. Look where you're going.

And and by the door that's in front of you. That's that opportunity that we talked about. We know what the will of the Lord is. The question is, are we paying attention to it? Are we working on understanding it?

Are we asking the Lord for the wisdom to actually take what is his will and begin to live by it? The uncomfortable truth is that we know more the will of God than we want to admit. And Paul is not done. You want to continue in the will of the God. Do not get drunk with wine in which is dissipation but be filled with the spirit.

He says that is do not be intoxicated. Do not be impaired by something. And the reason why I say it that way is because it would be really easy because again, I talked about this in previous weeks. The junior high mind jumps in. Oh well, if it's only wine, that means I can get drunk with something else.

That's not what Paul is saying. We are not to be intoxicated. We are not to be impaired by anything. And the question is why? Now, think about what we've just talked about.

We're supposed to be wise. We are not supposed to be fools. We're supposed to be understanding what is this dissipation? And this is where we find this. This is another one of those big big words.

This is a very simple understanding of dissipation is reckless waste. Being intoxicated is a reckless waste of your time. What kind of understanding, what kind of wisdom can you show if you're drunk with wine? It's a reckless use of that. But then you begin to take that and ask yourself, what other things can be a reckless waste of time?

How far can we take that? How far can that go? And I'm going to I'm going to be honest with you, family. This week was one of those convicting weeks as your pastor is running through this thing and asking himself and filtering his life and filtering the things he does and engages his time, how he spends his time with stuff and going like, "Oh man, how many things in my life are reckless waste in these days that are evil that really need God's people to be spending their time speaking truth into lives for the sake of the gospel." We're then told that we need to be filled with the spirit. Now, think about this in contrast.

Instead of be filling being filled with wine, instead of being filled with reckless waste, we're filled instead with the Holy Spirit of God. Now, you're like, "But I thought we already had the Holy Spirit. I thought the Holy Spirit indwelled us." The Holy Spirit does indwell us. The Holy Spirit is active. That happens at salvation.

We see that in Romans 8. But notice that's not a command. This is what's so powerful about this. We know from Ephesians 1, we're sealed at salvation. This as well is not a command.

Uh we also know that we're baptized. Now, this is not the dunking baptism. This is literally the Holy Spirit. The picture of this is a total infusion. Imagine white cloth going into purple dye and coming out purple.

A total infusion of that. The Holy Spirit come coming upon us, infuses our total being with himself. Right? Again, not a command. But here Paul is giving a command.

Be filled. This is an ongoing thing that we need to be actively doing. Instead of being filled with this reckless waste of stuff, we're allowing the Holy Spirit to come out and be the thing that comes out. What's the opposite of reckless? Right?

Purposeful, beautiful, focused time for the sake of the gospel. Every believer has all the spirit from the time we confess and believe. This is not a question nor is a command. The command is that the spirit have all of the believer. And that's the question each of us has to ask.

Lord, have I given you all of me or am I holding something back? Which is so easy for us to do. I've talked to many people who are like, well, I'm willing to give God this. Like Sunday mornings for example, this is a very common one. Oh, I'm okay to give you from 10:00 until maybe 11:10 or 11:15 or 11:20 or 11:25 if pastor goes long and gets bloiated.

But you start pushing past 11:30, you're eating into my time, God. And so that's the question we have to ask ourselves is, have we given God everything? And a good way to judge this is like that aforementioned person across the way. You see that opportunity? It's like h you know, but I really have to get to this thing over here that really is reckless waste.

And that's the thing that we have to have a conversation with God. Like I'm not there to judge you. I'll be honest. I have a hard enough time with myself when it comes to this stuff because I'll be honest, I've been a believer for over 30 years, but I'm still incredibly selfish. I try and claim these things as my own.

But what are we doing? We're becoming more wise as we practice these things that God has called us to. Now, [snorts] Paul continues on and he says, "Speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord." speaking can be more thought of as communicating. Those who are filled with the spirit are to be communicating to one another through song. So those of you who refuse to sing on a Sunday morning because you say you're terrible, you're violating the word of God.

I just but I don't because he said it right. He wants to hear as you'll see what's coming from your heart. Again, these psalms, these are the old, this is from the Old Testament book. This is scripture that's set to song with instruments. You have hymns that are composed songs of praise written by somebody directed that these songs are then directed to our God.

Then we're talking about spiritual songs. And the thing that's interesting is Paul qualifies the generic term for song that everybody there in that day would have understood as like a battle song or as a love song. Paul is saying this is a spiritual song. This is a song specifically meant to be going towards God. Now, what we need to understand, and this one is important, and for those of you who don't know, I've been a worship guy for over 30 years.

We're talking since basically the age of 18, I've been a worship guy. And I'm going to tell you that some of the most horrible experiences I've ever had in the church had to do with people that are supposedly well-meaning abusing me and the people around me because of music and because especially when it comes to to hymns and and what a hymn is and what should be appropriate for the Lord and what should not. Now, I'm going to tell you what what Paul is saying. I'm going to tell you what the Bible is saying because it is our authority. And I'm going to challenge you on something that if this is you and you've ever done this to anybody, whether it's me or somebody else, you are pushing your preference ahead of what it is the Lord desires.

I'm going to call that out right now. The thing is what a hymn is not. The word means a praise song and nothing more. That's what a hymn is. It doesn't mean Watts or Wesley or Fanny Crosby.

It doesn't mean the green, red, or yellow or gray himnil. That's not what a hymn is. There are hymns that are in there. None of that existed when Paul wrote this. They didn't exist.

As much as we like to think they did. I'm going to tell you because a lot of you were not here when this happened. I did a because y'all know I'm a little mischievous sometimes. When I was a worship guy, the associate pastor, one Sunday, I did all psalms in worship. Every last song that we did was a psalm.

The next week I did all traditional. You think about that. How much more traditional do you get than the psalms? But the next week I did traditional hymns. Guess what I got?

Boy, pastor, we really like that second week a lot better. That was the best. And so you ask yourself that question at the point where you're like, "Oh, I like the word of man more than the word of God." Again, that's where it comes down to the the focus on my own desires. Because that's the other thing that I've learned is that I've gotten in trouble when I play the hymns, but I play them wrong. I've gotten in trouble when I play praise songs and I play them wrong.

What I've learned is that we in as Christians again love to push our our own desires, right? Our own preferences. But one of the other things that I get told and and this even happens with now traditional contemporary praise music because it's been around for de several decades now is that why do we keep doing new songs? Why don't we just stay with the old standards? Why don't we do that?

And I'm going to tell you why. And I love this. I love our God. Our God I I think I'm mischievous. Our God is mischievous.

But obviously in a perfect way. And this is what I mean. Check this out from Psalm 33. Sing to him a new song, but play it skillfully again. Sing to him a new song.

Psalm 96. Psalm 98. Sing to him a what? New song. How about Psalm 149?

Sing to him a new song. Guess what? Our God loves variety. He loves new things. Even though they're not really new for him, but he loves variety.

Here's the thing that we need to understand, and this is why this is important. And what Paul is saying, again, this is walking in wisdom. This is what the heart of a believer should be. Singing and making melody in what? Your heart.

Again, back to those of you that are just like, I can't carry a tune, but is your heart for the Lord. That is what he desires. He desires a heart for him to be singing and making melody and praising him. He doesn't care whether or not you can hold out four-part harmony. He doesn't care whether or not you can make a beautiful tune to yourself to impress the people that are around you.

He doesn't care whether or not you've gone into the the the deep depths of the hypoatic union in song. He doesn't care about that. What he cares about is that your heart is for him. That's what he desires. Whether it be an old song or a new song, he desires your heart to be for him. [clears throat] If the hearts do not come from a heart of thanksgiving, praise and worship directed to the Lord, what use are they?

But there's more to the spiritfilled believer. We're to be giving thanks always for all things to the God and Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We're supposed to be giving thanks always. Always. This is literally always.

There is never a time when we are not to be giving thanks. And you're like, "Well, pastor, what about that time when things are really hard? Always. In fact, we are to count it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing." And not long after this, if you last lack wisdom, ask for it.

If you lack wisdom on how to navigate this difficult situation, and this is a perfect example. How many of us in this room have navigated through difficult situations when we were younger and now easy peasy, right? In fact, a lot of the young people now, we were like, "Ah, why do you struggle?" It's like, "No, you struggled with it when you were their age, too." And we had to learn how to navigate through those things. But even in that, we can thank our God. We can give praise to our God.

And we're specifically to give thanks to God the Father in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, notice right here, two members of the Trinity. What did we see earlier? We saw the third member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, who's who leads, who guides, who directs. And and because of this leading, because of this guiding, because of this directing, we are able to give thanks to God the Father.

And if we tie it back to Acts chapter 1, he gives us the power in the ability to do those things in every situation, in every circumstances. Again, the whole Trinity working in and through our lives presented right here in Ephesians 5. And then we finish with something that will seem rather simple this week, but when we get to it next week, it's going to have whole new implications. We're to be filled with the Holy Spirit. We're to sing to one another through various songs, but then still as part of being filled with the Holy Spirit, we are to submit to one another in the fear of God. this submitting to one another.

Submission is to arrange ourselves under uh an Ephesian heard this is like a military term of like troops getting into formation is what this would have been uh seen as this is an act of will. This is something that is done voluntarily. Keep this in your mind. Keep this in your mind, especially as we set up for 167 hours from now when we're coming into the next verse where it says, "Wives submit to your husbands." This is a voluntary position. What it is not is this is not obedience.

There is a difference to submission than just obedience. Paul is going to address obedience when we get into chapter six, when he talks about children, when he talks about slaves. So submission and obedience are not the same in this passage. And Paul distinguishes them by choosing different words and choosing different parties. The thing we need to understand about submission is that it is not inferiority.

This is important for us to understand because our culture pushes this. If you submit to someone, they are saying you are inferior to them. That is a lie. That is not what true submission is. Now, I'm going going to admit though that this picture kind of breaks my brain a little bit.

But then I remember Jesus. And this is something that we need to understand. The relationship between the father, the son, and the holy spirit. But then especially embodied in Jesus is the perfect picture of what submission is. And we'll talk about this more next week.

But I want you to think about the role of Jesus. Right? Jesus, we are told and have been told back in chapter 1, is far above all of creation. Right? All of creation is at his feet.

This is the picture that we have. And you're like, man, that is amazing. Can you imagine having all of creation at your very feet? And then we remember Philippians 2. And we remember what he who had all of creation, who has all of creation at his feet.

What he did? He emptied himself of his heavenly glory. And he came in the form of man. He came down beneath underneath. He he said he's equal with God.

Paul communicates to the Philippians again in the same time that he's in prison. The same things being communicated that he himself who is God emptied himself. He took on the form of a servant and became obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. And how much different can you get between having all of creation at your feet and being the lowest of the low to the point of taking all sin of all humanity for all time upon yourself. And that is the picture of our savior who submitted himself who voluntarily gave of himself to come below so that he could rise above.

And that's this picture of submission that Jesus himself willingly showed and demonstrated to each and every one of us. What a beautiful picture. But then we're also told that we're to do this in the fear of God. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, "But Pastor Chris, you regularly tell us that there's no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear." That's first John 4. And that's true.

That is an statement, but we struggle with understanding what this means. And so, what I was able to do is I I went back to my friend Noah Webster. That's the Webster's dictionary from 1820. Hard to believe it's been almost 200 years. And I went and found his definition on fear.

And I had to I had to run it through a modern language filter because it it actually used the word awful, which we think is bad, but it it means afilled now is what it's more like. So we had to run I had to run it through a modern filter. But listen to what it is. Noah Webster defined fear as the fear God accepts is the fear of a son, not a slave. It is awe at who God is. rising out of a right estimate of everything that he is.

And it produces two things. It a leaning toward his service and an unwillingness to offend him. How many of us are just all too willing to offend our God? May it be that that be none of us. that all of us have such a love and a respect and an admiration and a reverence for our God that we desire not to offend him. Now again, why does any of this matter?

Well, for many of us, we've been trained that walking in the light is the same of just learning a bunch of facts about our God. But what we've just been presented with is that walking in the light is taking what we know of him and skillfully living for him. That is what wisdom is in this book. Not the man who can explain the passage, but it's the man who can walk that passage on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday and Saturday and even on Mondays. Skill does not come from a lecture.

It comes from doing the thing perhaps badly at first. Many of us know what we're talking about. And many of us have done a lot of bad things trying to do something good, but we messed it up. This is where many modern Christians though fail is that because we did something bad once, we just stop. But then we also take in information and then we lock it away for ourselves.

Many in this room have everything that is needed to sew seeds into a life that could be transformed for Christ. And yet you choose not to use it, but keep it unto yourself. Paul has a word for where we're to start. We start as unskilled. We start as unskilled.

We're not stupid. We're not morons. We're just untrained. And he he has a word for where we're to take it, where we're to go. That's wi wise.

That's wisdom. Not merely educated, but skilled at what we know, which takes practice. So, I've got two steps for us to to work on this week. One is count a day. Any day, but this one, right?

It's really easy to be a Christian on Sundays. I mean, mostly, but it's a lot harder to be what we represent here every other day of the week. So what I want you to do is just write down where the hours went on a given day. What did you end up spending your time on asking yourself what was actually used for the sake of the Lord? The actually fulfillment of the great commission.

And I'm not talking about I studied 12 hours in the book of Genesis in my prayer closet and then I prayed another 84,000 hours. what we're looking for is actually like I had an amazing conversation with someone at the grocery line. Those kinds of things is what what it is that we're looking for. But being honest with yourself, like I understand how easy it is to kind of fudge those logs. It's like look, I'm not going to see anything that we're talking about here, but I know our king will. And so you can lie to yourself all you want, but he's going to know.

And he wants every single one of us to be trained and skilled at walking for him. All right. Number two, cross the driveway. Someone near you is not okay and you've decided not to know. You've made a purposeful decision not to know.

It's like, look, I don't want to know. But make a per talk to God and purpose to actually go and speak into their life and allow him to do something through you completely unexpected. be willing to risk it. And you know what? You may be turned away. For a long time, it's been a while since I've done this to my shame.

But I went through this time where I was constantly asking people that were serving me how I could pray for them. And almost every time people were elated. But there was this one time, went to this burger joint, asked this young lady, thinking, "Oh, she'll she'll uh love to hear it." Nope. Count changed immediately. And she was like, "No." "Oh, hi." So that could happen.

But I'm going to tell you, my overwhelming experience has been when I go and talk to people and say, "Hey, can I pray for you? Hey, what's going on?" The walls start coming down [clears throat] and people want to share the burden that they have and seek any advice. And you might not have the answer in that moment, but we know who does. And we can take the opportunity even in silent prayer to say, "Lord, lead and guide." And and even if you you have to leave and you leave with a prayer that just leaves, Lord, open their eyes that they may see. Give them an understanding of what's going on right now.

Lead them and guide them through this time. You may never talk to them about it again. Or you may have seen a door completely open up that the Lord now uses you to be a part of transforming their lives. So take that challenge this week. Would you join me in a word of prayer?

Father God, we thank you again just for how amazing you are and how phenomenal it is to hear words like this. Transforming words that that just go against what the rest of the world is saying that go against what our flesh desires but Lord can be so transformative not only our lives but the lives of countless people around us. I pray that we as a church would take these challenges this week and would see ourselves becoming just ever more skilled at doing what it is you've called us to do of going making baptizing and teaching, Lord, of of having those hearts that are not just about accumulating knowledge, but actually activating and living it out, not showing how much we know, but Lord, faithfully serving anywhere and everywhere you call us to, Lord, that you would indeed redeem our time, the time that you have given to us that we would see ourselves using it more for your glory rather than reckless waste. And we thank you, Lord. We're thankful that you of your grace.

We're thankful for your incredible patience. And we lay it all down before you. And we thank you in Jesus name. Amen.