August 19, 2012
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
When we travel west to Asia and cross the international dateline, we lose an entire day. We may be boarding a plane on a Monday at SFO but by the time we land, it’s already Wednesday. Fortunately, when we come home from our adventure, we literally gain back that day. But what if you flew to Asia with no intentions in coming back to San Francisco? Have you lost that day forever?
As people of faith, a day is a gift from God. It’s a gift to be treasured and valued. Jonathan Edwards, the well-known Puritan preacher, wrote at age 19 in his Resolutions: “Resolved: Never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in the most profitable way that I possibly can.” That’s taking care of every day, and every moment within it.
In this week’s passage, again from Ephesians, Paul is advising the Ephesian Christians to make the most of every day God gives us. The environment and culture that existed around these Christians is one that was enough to cause concern. As a thriving city on the crossroads of the cultural superhighway of its day, Ephesus drew people from all over. It was urbane and sophisticated. It’s easy accessibility made it a center of various cultural and religious activities. It sounds like San Francisco where you can find the wildest and sometime mysterious religions that put new Christian believers at risk.
How You Live
Paul tells us to “Be careful then how you live” (v. 15). The Greek word for “live” comes from the same root as “behave” and “walk around.” Throughout the epistle to the Ephesians, Paul wants people living, behaving and walking around in a way that matches their new identity in Christ.
Living in their new identity in Christ means they can no longer live like other people. They can’t toggle living one way on Sunday and live another way Monday to Saturday. They can’t live only for their individual satisfaction and not consider the welfare of the entire community. They are now expected to live, behave and walk around every day in their new identity in Christ. They are to make the most of the time they have.
After this opening command, Paul unpacks this “new identity” living with three “nots” with three positive Christ-inspired actions.
Not Unwise but Wise
If I were to ask you what would a wise person look like. Most of you would say someone with gray hair or no hair; maybe with wrinkles. We associate wisdom with life lived. Sound judgment comes over time. When I came to FCBC in 1998, I had very little gray hair but now I am more gray than black. And even with this, some of you still think I am too young and perhaps not as wise!
But here the apostle Paul is talking to converts in a missionary church maybe only 30 years after the death of Christ. This isn’t the stereotypical gray-hair Christian wisdom from an older congregation. We are not talking about deep spiritual legacy passed on through the generations over 2000 years. These Ephesians were young Christians.
Paul is saying that to be wise means, “making the most of the time.” Wise living requires intentional, hard work. It’s you personally being freed from the cultural pressures placed on us. It’s making a choice that sets us apart from others, or at least the way others tend to manage their time or make use of their time.
Regardless of our age, the kind of wise living Paul is talking about is possible. We are to be careful or more accurate on how we live. This requires self-reflection of where our life is heading and making a difference. It means that when other people see the way we live, our living, behaving and walking around speak about the truth that we have a new identity in Christ.
So, ask yourself: “How am I living a careful life?”
Not Our Will, but God’s Will
Paul’s second point in verse 17 says, “So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.”
Jesus prayed two crucial prayers that demonstrate this. He taught his disciples to seek his Father’s will on Earth, as it always is in heaven. And then modeling that on his last anguishing night in Gethsemane, he resigned his desire to his Father’s agenda, praying, “Not my will, but yours be done.”
We all have needs, desires and silly hopes—so let’s honestly express them to God, especially since God already knows them. When we share these foolish things with God, we continue to have a real and personal relationship with God. But when we ask something from God, we can remember the example from Jesus Christ—not my will but yours be done.
Many of us would pray to God to know his will over big-ticket issues—do I take this job, do I marry him, should I move to another part of the country or stay close to home, etc.? But what if we learned the “small-ticket” practice of seeking God’s will? Imagine these everyday situations when you might desire for God’s presence in helping you to follow his will:
*Feeling stress about the bills this month
*Heading into a social setting with “them”
*Feeling dateless and hopeless…again
*Responding to the shrill whine of our child
*Frustrated after an appraisal or failure at work
In all these and many other everyday “small-ticket” issues of life, we pray, “God, what is the life you want me to lead right now?” By making the most of the time to just take a minute pause to tune into God’s word for our lives can help us to follow God’s will and not our own. Like Christ’s submission to his Father, we can fully express our desires and wants and then pray, “Not my will, but yours be done.”
Not Spirits but Spirit
Paul’s third point is about drunkenness. With regard to alcohol, the Bible is clear on two ends of the scale—drinking is not a sin, getting drunk is. The spectrum in between is an issue of moderation, wisdom, and maturity.
We don’t know precisely why Paul is talking about drunkenness but he could be responding to a specific issue he heard from the Ephesians or maybe he’s warning against the way some pagan cults encouraged drunkenness to create a connection with the spiritual world.
What is clear is that drunkenness is in contrast to be filled by the Holy Spirit. We can either be controlled by spirits or controlled by the Holy Spirit. And the difference in our thoughts, motivations, emotions, words and actions is pretty glaring.
In verses 19-21, to be filled with the Holy Spirit, we are singing the Psalms, making music, giving thanks, mutually submitting. Living a Holy Spirit filled life means reorienting the compass of our entire being. We intentionally come to worship on Sunday and attend Sunday school classes afterward. We intentionally walk around and act like Christ living ethically and truthfully. We intentionally behave in Christ-like ways that will invite people to see the importance of claiming a new identity in Christ.
For every day that we have been given that is from God to be treasured and valued, we would make the most of it and carefully live it.
Getting Back the Day
There’s a story from the Jewish tradition about a famous rabbi and his friends, who had spent an entire morning at manual labor, far from their village. The work was difficult and dirty. At lunchtime his friends brought a pail of water so their teacher could wash his hands thoroughly, fulfilling the ritual law.
To their surprise, he used only a few drops. How could it be that their wise and pious rabbi would avoid the command to wash his hands thoroughly before eating? Cautiously, one of the students asked, “Rabbi, you used so little water. It was not nearly enough to get your hands clean.”
Wordlessly, the rabbi pointed to a servant girl walking up the road from the well. Across her shoulders was a yoke, with a heavy jar of water dangling from each end. “How could I do my washing at the expense of this poor girl?” the rabbi asked. “The water I save may prevent one trip to the well for her.”
“Be careful then how you live,” advises Paul to the Ephesians. When we live with the identity of Christ, our careful living includes caring deeply for the welfare of others.
The next time you travel to Asia and lose that full day, pray about what you might want to do on that lost day while you are on your trip. And when you gain the day back by coming home, may you make the most of the time by carefully living in your new identity in Christ.
Let us pray.
Dear Lord, the Creator of the world who made time a way for us to count our blessings. We pray that we will commit our lives in service to you. Show us how to live our lives in wisdom, listening to God’s will, and be filled with the life-given Holy Spirit. Lord, may we make the most of the gift of time on this earth worthy of the Gospel. In Christ’s name we pray, Amen.