Ephesians: Our Identity In Christ~Part 20
Our Identity In Christ
Ephesians 5:15-17
15. Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise,
16. making the most of your time, because the days are evil.
17. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
. (Ephesians 5:15-17)
Be careful! These are words which are very familiar to all of us. In fact, we use these words to exhort one another quite often. When our children leave the house, we often say, “Be careful.” If our children are teenagers, and are driving the car, we might say, “Be careful, be safe.” What we are saying is “Watch out! Don't do something foolish! Look out for the other guy! Watch your step!” We not only exhort our children this way, but we also exhort one another this way.
We all know how easy it is to become distracted. We also know what can happen when we are distracted. The world can be a dangerous place. We all know that. And that is why we exhort one another to be careful.
Just as it is in our earthly walk, so it is in our spiritual walk. In fact, our text exhorts us to be careful how you walk. Our walk with God should be one that is given great care. We need to watch what we are doing. An animated film of Pilgrim's Progress, the classic by John Bunyan, had Pilgrim, the main character, being attacked by roaring lions. The lions almost reached him. But Pilgrim discovered if he carefully and cautiously watched his step, and stayed on the path, the lions could not reach him. They were held back by chains which kept them just out of reach. But Pilgrim had to keep his eye on the path. If he took his eye off the path he might stray into the lion's territory and be devoured. This is what is in view in the exhortation of this text. A literal translation of the Greek term translated be is “look, or observe.” The apostle is saying to “watch, or look” carefully at what we are doing. How we live is important. We need to pay attention.
Be Wise
Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise . . . (Ephesians 5:15)
Being careful is only being wise. Proverbs 14:16 says, “A wise man is cautious and turns away from evil, but a fool is arrogant and careless.”
When we are told to be careful we are really being told to be wise. A foolish person is the person who is careless. A foolish person always thinks he is right. He doesn't need any help. He knows what he is doing. He just plunges ahead, thinking that he has everything under control.
Proverbs 12:15 says, “The way of the fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man is he who listens to counsel.” That is precisely the fool's problem; he trusts in his own way.
Proverbs 28:26 says, “He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, but he who walks wisely will be delivered.”
How one should walk is then explained by the first of three contrasts, not as unwise, but as wise. Although these adjectives have not appeared earlier in Ephesians, wisdom language has already turned up on three significant occasions in the letter. Wisdom language often needs definition from its context, and these earlier instances provide us with some clues as to how we should understand ‘wise’ and ‘unwise’ in this passage. According to Ephesians 1:8, 9 it was God’s intention that believers should understand his saving plan. He therefore lavished his grace upon us ‘in all wisdom and insight’ by making known to us the divine mystery, the content of which is his consummate purpose to sum up all things in Christ. In the following intercessory prayer (1:17–19) the apostle prayed that God, who had given his Spirit to the readers at their conversion, might impart this same Spirit of wisdom and revelation for them to understand more fully his mystery and to live in the light of it.
We are exhorted to walk in wisdom. The wisest thing we can do is to listen to God's counsel. Proverbs 9:10 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” To fear God is to respect what He says, and to obey it. So, the wisest thing we can do is to heed God's warning to be careful how you walk. In other words, pay attention to what comes next.
The mystery had already been made known in Christ (Ephesians 1:9–10), but the readers needed to grasp its full significance. The third reference is to the manifold wisdom of God (Ephesians 3:10) which had to do with his richly diverse ways of working that led to a multiracial, multicultural community being united as fellow-members of the body of Christ (Ephesians 3:10). That divine wisdom is integrally related to the mystery. The mystery is shaped by the divine wisdom; at the same time it is reflected and revealed in the mystery.
So wisdom and mystery go together. Truly to understand the mystery is to be wise, and commits believers to bringing their lifestyle into conformity with God’s wonderful plan of saving men and women in Christ. To be wise is to grasp the significance of the Lord’s will, as the parallel contrast in v. 17 makes clear (‘do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is’), which is another way of referring to his saving plan. All of this necessarily involves the wise person in walking worthily of the Lord (cf. Col. 1:9–10). But the unwise live as those who despise or have no true understanding of God’s gracious purposes.84
The contrast between wisdom and folly, the wise and the foolish, has its roots in the wisdom traditions of the Old Testament. (Proverbs (4:10–14; 9; 10:8, 14; cf. Ps. 1, etc.)85 According to the Proverbs, the way of wisdom that members of the covenant community are to walk requires insight and understanding into God’s will. Those who know His saving purposes should walk in a holy way as the people of God.
Buy Up The Time
. . . making the most of your time, because the days are evil. (5:16)
If we are wise people, then we are engaged in making the most of our time. One of the reasons that we're exhorted to be careful is because time is finite and limited. There is only so much time available to us. A wise person uses time, a foolish person wastes it.
An article was once published entitled, “If You Are 35, You Have 500 Days To Live.” The article went on to contend that when you subtract the time you spend sleeping, working, tending to personal matters, eating, traveling, doing chores, attending to personal hygiene, and add in the miscellaneous time stealers, in the next 36 years you will have only 500 days to spend as you wish. Think about how you spend your time. When all of the necessary things are done, how much time is left? No wonder the Psalmist advised, “So teach us to number our days, that we may present to Thee a heart of wisdom.”
Ephesians 5:16. Those who are wise will have a right attitude to time. An expression, ‘you are buying time’, similar to the one used here (making the most of every opportunity), appears in Daniel 2:8. In relation to the Chaldeans who were unable to tell Nebuchadnezzar his dream, and so attempted to gain time before their death. If the meaning is the same in Ephesians, the force would be that believers are living in the last days, and so they should try to gain time in order to walk in a way that pleases the Lord.
The verb ‘redeem’ as it is used here, is drawn from the commercial language of the marketplace, and its prefix denotes an intensive activity, a buying which exhausts the possibilities available. It seems better, then, to understand the expression as metaphorical, signifying to ‘make the most of the time’. Believers will act wisely by snapping up every opportunity that comes.
The reason for taking advantage of every moment is that the days are evil. Looking at Paul’s language, given his eschatological or end time perspective, suggests an additional nuance. In continuity with Old Testament and Jewish apocalyptic thought, the apostle distinguishes two ages, ‘the present age’ and ‘the coming age’, which is the time of salvation. The former was called ‘this present evil age’ (Gal. 1:4; cf. Rom. 8:18). In apocalyptic literature evil was understood to characterize the last days generally; this age was dominated by rulers or demonic powers which were doomed to pass away (1 Cor. 2:6, 7). The notion that ‘the days are evil’ appears to be similar to the idea of ‘this present evil age’ in Galatians 1:4 (cf. ‘the evil day’, Eph. 6:13).
These ‘evil’ days are under the control of the prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:2), who opposes God and his purposes. He exercises an effective and powerful authority over men and women who are outside of Christ, keeping them in bondage (Ephesians 2:1–3). But the Ephesian Christians have already participated in the world to come, the powers of the new age have broken in upon them, and they have become ‘light in the Lord’ (5:8). Although they live in the midst of these evil days as they await their final redemption, they are neither to avoid them nor to fear them. Rather, they are to live wisely, taking advantage of every opportunity in this fallen world to conduct themselves in a manner that is pleasing to God. How this is done is amplified in the following verses.
Are we making the most of your time? We should be, because there is only so much time available. None of us know how much that is. How much time do we have? We don’t need to panic and lose all wisdom.
In the cartoon “Peanuts,” Charlie Brown is found commenting to Lucy. He says to her, “Someone has said that we should live each day as if it were the last day of our life.” “Aaugh!” cries Lucy. “This is the last day! This is it!” She dashes away screaming, “I only have twenty-four hours left! Help me! Help me! This is the last day! Aaugh!” Charlie Brown, who is left alone, muses, “Some philosophies aren't for all people.”
Don't overreact, but don't brush the issue aside. How we spend our time is important. It is important because there is only so much time that we have, and it is important because the days are evil. Satan would like nothing better than to steal the time we have. If he can get us to waste our time on trivialities, then he has neutralized us.
The phrase “making the most of” can also be translated as “buying back or buying up.” It is translated as “redeeming” in the KJV. The idea is that we are to “buy” the time. We are to “buy up every opportunity” to use our time wisely. If we do not, then we may miss the opportunities God places before us.
Napoleon is reported to have said, “There is in the midst of every great battle a 10 to 15 minute period that is the crucial point. Take that period and you win the battle; lose it and you will be defeated.” We must all be careful not to miss the opportunity which is placed before us. We must look carefully for it.
I read of an ancient Greek statue which depicted a man with wings on his feet, a large lock of hair on his forehead, and no hair on the back of his head. Beneath the statue was this inscription: “Who made thee? Lysippus made me. What is thy name? My name is Opportunity. Why hast thou wings on thy feet? That I may fly away swiftly. Why hast thou a great forelock? That men may see me when I come. Why art thou bald in back? That when I am gone by, none can lay hold of me.”
Because the days are evil we cannot afford to fail to seize every opportunity. If we do not seize the day, we may find ourselves in the same situation as the five foolish virgins who let their oil run out before the bridegroom came and were shut out from the wedding feast (Matthew 25:8-10). Or we might find ourselves in the same situation as the people in Noah's day who missed the opportunity to enter the Ark because the door was shut. We must make the most of our time.
Know God's Will
So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. (5:17)
Being wise means that we should avoid making foolish choices. And the only way to do that is to understand what the will of the Lord is. This is the key to walking in wisdom. This is the key to making the most of your time, to understand the will of the Lord.
If we are to make the most of the time we have available, then we must understand how to use that time as God desires it to be used. Simply put, we must know God's will. If we fail to understand what the will of the Lord is, then our time will be taken up in things which may not be important. We will find ourselves giving our time to things that are expedient, not necessarily that are important.
General Eisenhower is quoted as saying “The urgent is seldom important, and the important is seldom urgent.” The way we know what is important is to know God's will. Otherwise, your life, like mine, will be controlled by the “Tyranny of the Urgent.” What you give your time to is what you give your life to. It has been said that most middle-class Americans tend to worship their work, to work at their play, and to play at their worship. As a result, their meanings and values are distorted. Their relationships disintegrate faster then they can keep them in repair, and their lifestyles resemble a cast of characters in search of a plot.
The real question is “What does God desire of me?” Do you understand the will of God for your life? Do you consult the Lord on how you spend your time? Understanding what the will of the Lord is can refocus your life on the things that are important. This puts us on the path of wisdom.
What is God saying to you through His Word? If you could go back and change the past, how would you change how you have used your time? The things you regret not giving more time to are precisely the things that you should begin giving more time to. Opportunities may have passed you by which will never be recovered. But do not let the opportunities of today pass you by. Do not wait for tomorrow. Begin today to seize the opportunities. Begin today to start making the most of your time. Begin today to seek to understand what the will of Lord is for you. Time is important, not because time is money, but because time is life.
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