Ephesians 5:18 - Out of control

"...and do not be getting drunk with wine, in which is overindulgence, but rather keep being full of the Spirit..."

-This is not about alcohol.  Paul does not in any way here prohibit the consumption of wine - only it’s excess.  Because that which fills you controls you.  And when you are full of wine (in other words, drunk), you generally look like a fool (cf Acts 2.13).  Unwise and foolish choices are generally what result, which is precisely the kind of thing Paul has been exhorting against.  The issue is not what I drink or eat or do.  Nor is it simply about not looking like a fool - after all, the things of God look foolish to the unbeliever anyway (1Corinthians 1.18).  Rather it’s all about control, what controls me.  Anything that fills me pretty much takes over and affects the choices I make - jealousy, anger, lust, a sweet tooth, a chemical substance, love...  Even an athlete wants to maintain intelligent control in all things - if they want to be successful (1Corinthians 9.25).  They do not allow themselves to be mastered by anything.  The added danger of wine (or any alcoholic beverage for that matter) is that when it fills me it actually alters (impairs) the functioning of my body as well as my mind, such that I become a danger to those around me (and to myself).

-But no, Paul says, instead be filled with the Spirit.  Christ-follower, you have the Spirit of God living inside you (John 14.16-17; Acts 1.5, 1.8, 2.17-18; Romans 5.5, 8.9, 1Corinthians 6.19, 12.7; 2Corinthians 1.22; Galatians 3.5), in your heart, ready and willing and able to take the wheel (as well as the gas pedal and actually be the engine).  He is ready to live and love and manifest God’s awesome power and breathtaking goodness in and through the life of anyone who will let Him have control.  Out of control - that is how to live the Christian life.  Not out of control because no one intelligent is actually at the helm, but rather because the King of kings Himself has shown up, and He has taken over.  Here we have the key to miracles, to the greater works which Christ promised (John 14.12) - HE does them by His Spirit THROUGH the life of those whose hearts are truly and completely His (2Chronicles 16.9).

-How then are we filled with the Spirit tho?  Paul here gives us a command, with no strings attached.  Anytime there is a command in Scripture my response is faith, simply to trust and obey.  That is how we begin the Christian life, that is how we continue therein (Gal 3.2-3).  Ask God to fill you with His Spirit, believe that He has, and then go out and live into it.  There is no ritual to perform, no magic words to utter.  Faith.  And surrender.  We do not get more of the Holy Spirit - remember, He already lives inside every true Christ follower.  No, we do not get more of Him - He gets more of us.  He gets more and more control of the things we want and the things we care about and the things to which we devote ourselves.  No sacrifice, this.  What we find is that what He wants is exactly what we were made for in the first place.

Ephesians 5:17 - Moving to Koblenz...

"Because of this do not be coming to be foolish, but rather be understanding what [is] the want of the Lord..."

-Is it not the fool who says in his heart, there is no God?  I.E. this oh-so-greater-than-I Being with Whom I have to do?  Or at he least lives like it.  Don’t be a fool, Paul says.  Don’t be phren-less.  Phren is the thinking, understanding mind.  So, don’t be mindless, witless, thoughtless, brainless, unintelligent.  Don’t let this happen to you, men and women of Ephesus - you have begun well, having trusted in Christ, now finish!  Don’t let yourself become a statistic, one of those who gets sucked back in by the world.  Don’t live your moments and days and lives like there is no God Who cares about you and what you do.  Rather, let your mind and desires flow together and be joined with what the Lord wants.

-A beautiful word picture, this - the confluence of two rivers flowing together and joining together as one, merging into an indistinguishable whole.  There is a town in Germany called Koblenz, whose name actually derives from the Latin word ‘confluere’ - there the Rhine and Moselle rivers meet and merge, the beautiful Moselle caught up into the mighty waters of the Rhine, once joined becoming inseparable, indistinguishable.  This is a perfect picture of what can and should happen with those who follow the Lord, who are walking as children of Light and are trying to learn what pleases Him (cf Ephesians 5.8-10).  Our wants and desires merge with what He wants, flowing together and becoming indistinguishable.  His wants and desires become our own - we are thus transformed into men and women after His own heart, always doing the things which are pleasing to Him, just like Jesus (John 8.29, 2Corinthians 5.9, 1Thessalonians 2..4, Hebrews 13.21, 1John 3.22).  And really, what better place is there to be than caught up smack dab into the heart of the Happiest Being in the universe, in Whose presence is fullness of joy, in Whose right hand are pleasures forever?

Ephesians 5:16 - On opening up heavenly wormholes and a serious can of glory

"...buying up the time, because the days are evil."

-Time.  Life measured out to us in vapors, ever-so-brief moments, minutes, days and years and lifetimes.  The times of my life, so much sand through the hourglass, each grain a precious gift fraught with indescribable potential, yet entirely irretreivable once it flows through the narrow neck of right now.  Time does indeed march on, keeps on ticking, relentless, unstoppable, like the waves of the ocean.  I cannot push the pause button, much less rewind.  There it goes.  There goes another one.  And another.  And another.  What am I doing with the time which has been entrusted to me, these precious moments?

-Yes, each of these gifts can be a moment, a time of blessing, a time of opening up a serious can of glory, of showing off the breathtaking goodness of almighty God, a time of the wonderful impossible, where God can show up and break into this world to do His thing.  What if that moment, that minute or season which just passed, had indeed been a time of blessing?  What if something of the divine had shown up, if I had been a part of opening up a portal to heaven, a metaphysical wormhole of sorts, and heaven actually came right through it?  What if in that moment the King of Kings had made an appearance on planet earth and done something divine through me?  What if instead of spending that moment (and every moment) on self and on sin, instead of frittering it away on so much chaff, what if I had stewarded it into a blessing?  We claim that ‘Christ lives in me’, do we not?  God loves and longs to work through His people.

-But let us be perfectly clear on this point - this time we have been given, it is not ours.  The translators of the NASB version insert the personal pronoun which is NOT there in the original Greek, and of course it is natural to make this assumption regardless - my time, my life.  But in this we err egregiously.  Time is a gift.  A divine, beautiful season of opportunity, this.  In fact the Greeks have a special word for it, more than just clock time - it is God-given time.  And even once given, I am not the owner - just the manager.  One day, at the end of days, when ‘my time’ is up I will be called to give an account of how I spent ‘my time’, which again was never mine to begin with.  I am merely the manager.  I’ve been entrusted with a handful of days (along with a fistful of talents), full of so much potential, and I have the opportunity to maximize them for the Kingdom of God, to show off the breathtaking goodness of almighty God as much as possible and help to populate the streets of Heaven.  Which means it’s hunting season, people!  You know how hunters love to hunt, and they are given just a short period of time each year in which they can hunt.  Once the season opens, they are all in.  No distractions, no diversions - they are going to give it their all, devoting every possible moment to this favorite of pastimes.  But we're not talking about a pastime.  For those who follow Christ, each and every day is hunting season, gifted full of moments to open up cans of God’s goodness on an unsuspecting world.  So, how about this day?  There’s no time to worry about yesterday.  How will I make the most of this day to impact eternity?

Ephesians 5:15 - Eschewing sunscreen and cotton candy

"Therefore be watching how you [all] are walking, not as unwise but rather as wise...’

-Same song, second verse.  We are called, redeemed, and set apart to be light, children of the Light, lighting up the darkness with goodness and righteousness and truth.  This is exactly what God set us apart to do and be in Christ, why He sent His Son to die for us and then left us here for a beautiful season of opportunity.  And it is on us to make sure that happens.  So Paul exhorts us, watch out!  Be on the lookout, and look carefully at your life, at what you are doing and saying.  We are the ones who are responsible for waking up and letting the light of Christ shine in our hearts and through our lives.  God has given us Light - what am I going to do with it?

-There are two possible responses here.  One is unwise.  The other is... (wait for it...) wise.  The unwise path is taken by the one who in spite of receiving the Light decides to join in with the deeds of darkness, to live a life of hiding, a life of immorality and greed and filthy words, always putting something else in God’s place in their heart.  The unwise path means ignoring the Light and pursuing counterfeit lesser realms of satisfaction.  It is the choice to subsist on so much cotton candy - to see and come out into the Light and still walk in darkness is surely the height of stupidity.  Wisdom, however, says there is an I AM, always and forever every moment of every day a God with Whom I have to do, and I am not He.  He is far greater, and He is way better.  Wisdom journeys in this Light, soaking up all the shining rays of God’s blazing breathtaking goodness at every turn (no sunscreen necessary).  The wise response involves being on constant lookout for ways which my life may not be pleasing to the Lord, which may not be showing off His breathtaking goodness and holiness and truth.  That path is a slippery slope of baby steps and compromise, indulging my fleshy desires in small little bites and before I know it I am journeying away from the Light in my heart.  I must be on constant watch each and every day against both my flesh and against any outside influence which may endeavor to entice me back into the darkness, back into hiding, away from my lewis-onian holiday at the beach and back to making mudpies in the slum.  Watch out, my friend...!

Ephesians 5:14 - Sleep is WAAAAY overrated...

"Therefore it is saying, 'Be rising, the [one] sleeping, and rise up out of the dead, and the Christ will shine upon you.'"

-The ‘it’ which is saying what Paul is quoting here is not Scripture.  Most likely it was part of some early Christian liturgy, possibly a baptism hymn based loosely on Isaiah 60.1.  The imagery is most definitely that of resurrection, arising and rising out of the dead into blazingly glorious new life, a life which will be illuminated and animated by the Light of heaven, Jesus Christ Himself.  It is a summary appeal based upon the previous eight verses.

-But sleeping is reserved for the darkness.  That is typically the course of things after dark (absent the advent of the electric light bulb) - either you are getting off course, into some kind of nefarious trouble, or else you are asleep (or probably should be).  In this case, we have sleep as a metaphor for death, which in turn is not the cessation of physical existence but rather the metaphysical state of the one who is separated from Christ, dead in their transgressions.  Jesus Christ came to wake us up, to get us up out of our spiritual seplucher, that cradle of lies and darkness on which we were dead asleep, and ultimately to light up our lives with His blazing goodness for all to see.  But note the order.  This is no busting in on a sleeping adolescent and turning on the light the way your mom or dad used to do it when you were younger.  First we wake up.  Then that heavenly Light goes on.  To be sure, the Light, the light of God’s truth and glory is all around us, even for those who are dead asleep in their life lived apart from God.  All they need do is open their eyes...

-And yet, there is another form of sleep, a tragic slumber.  Sadly, asleep in the Light is the western church today, a modern-day Sardis really (Revelation 3.1-3) - sated with past glories, full of head knowledge and fire insurance but woefully timid and impotent and increasingly marginalized, distracted by all the bling and baubles and all the trappings of modern life, so much time for recreation and entertainment but not enough to engage my neighbor, more than enough resources to build great buildings and huge homes, for fancy cars and flamboyant vacations and fully funded 401k’s but not enough to fully support those who are taking the Good News to the ends of the earth (much less forsake it all to go there herself), rooted in comfort and ease and unwilling to risk too much for the cause of Christ.  To us our Savior likewise urges, ‘Wake up! Your work is not finished...!’  In the economy of Heaven, sleep is way overrated.  To quote Robert Frost,

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.”

Ephesians 5:13 - Lunar Luminaries

"...but the all [things] being corrected by the light is being revealed, for everything being revealed is light."

-You are light in the Lord.  Walk as children of Light.  Manifest the fruit of the Light, show it off, and at the same time bring to light and correct the hidden deeds of darkness.  Remember, darkness can only exist in the absence of light.  It is the polar opposite, and as such stands in diabolical opposition to the Light.  And yet it is powerless to stand against the encroach of light.  Light, the absolute antithesis of darkness, dispels it at every turn.  It eradicates the hiding, the deception, the stumbling - Light is by its very nature a corrective agent.  Light begets light - it spreads, it reveals, and it corrects.  By the operation of the Light, when the Light is allowed to do what it is intended to do, what once were dirty deeds done in darkness are brought out into the Light where they can be healed and transformed, where they can actually become light.  No more darkness.  No more blindness.  Not when the Light does its thing.  But therein lies the key, inasmuchas the Light is designed to shine through the lives of these ones who have themselves been thus illuminated, healed and transformed into conduits of the Light.  As one who has ostensibly been transformed to be a child of Light, I am nevertheless not the Light, not the Primary Source.  I am a secondary luminary.  The Light comes to me from without, and it is encumbent upon me to cooperate with the Light in whatever way possible, such that it is freed to do its thing not only in me but through me as well. I let this little light shine and I pass it on.  I become a source of light, more lunar than solar to be precise - lighting up the night and shining (by reflecting) the True Light in dark places and dark hearts as well as on dark deeds.

Ephesians 5:12 - On wise monkeys and Bactine

"For the [things] secretly coming to be by them, it is shameful even to be speaking..."

-These deeds of darkness are wrought in secret, they are birthed and brought to life in hiding, away from the Light of Truth.  Yes, the life lived on this way of death is one of hiding, hiding (deludedly) from God first and foremost, hiding from self - deceiving myself and desperately trying to convince my audience of one that what I am doing can’t be wrong - and I’m hiding from my fellow man, from my parents, from my boss, from my spouse.  I hide because in fact I AM ashamed.  What I am doing is definitely shameful.  Not everything, of course, but the disgraceful deeds of darkness are hidden away at all costs.

-And so God’s people, we don’t partake of them.  We don’t join in with them.  And we don’t even speak about them, these deeds of darkness.  To be sure, there is indeed a juiciness about them, luridly fascinating.  We can find ourselves talking about them with a sort of titillation in our souls.  But the shame which others bring upon themselves when they engage in these deeds can spread to others, to us.  So much spiritual collateral damage.  We don’t talk about it, nor should we watch it or listen to it.  Exposure to evil, whether through seeing it or hearing about it as well as simply talking about it, leads to desensitization and acclimation.  It feeds that vein of evil in our own hearts which the Lord actually wants to root out of our lives.  It is the ancient Chinese proverb of the three wise monkeys: hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.  Normal monkeys do ‘ape’, however - they imitate that to which they are exposed.  Monkey see, monkey do.

-But no, we’re not talking about simply turning the proverbial blind eye.  The monkey’s are not merely burying their heads in the sand.  It is not about ignoring dark deeds.  Remember, we were just told to be correcting these deeds.  God's people are to be salt, light.  We are God's Bactine, the anti-septic for the festering mass of moral putrescence which infects our world.  And in order for that to happen, clearly we need to be able to talk about the deeds.  Rather we are talking here about avoiding a kind of verbal engagement which does nothing at all to clean up or correct such deeds, that which is more akin to gossip actually.  When we talk about such things and don’t address them directly, we actually glorify them and those who do them.  We shine the light on them for our own personal info-tainment.  And we engage in a type of moral acquiescence.  We get the taint of the disgrace on our own souls.  But it should NOT be this way.  So definitely don’t join in - either solve the problem, or don’t talk about it.

Ephesians 5:11 - THE Rescue Mission

"...AND do not be sharing together with the unfruitful works of darkness, but more even be correcting [them]."

-So these two concepts are connected, intertwined.  We are pursuing the things which bring God pleasure, and we are refusing the unfruitful deeds of darkness.  We reject the latter out of hand.  The deeds of darkness would be anything someone would not want to be caught doing, something blatantly and obviously wrong, and would certainly encompass anything which you would not be willing to do if, say, Jesus were standing right next to you in the flesh.  These things Paul has just been describing for us (beginning in Ephesians 4.14 and continuing on through 5.6), but would primarily include the immorality and impurity and greed (Ephesians 4.19, 5.3), as well as the deceit (Ephesians 4.14, 4.25, 5.6).

-The prohibition here is two-sided.  Don’t be sharing in any way in these deeds (which is a repetition of what Paul just said in Ephesians 5.7 - don’t be partaking with them) - DO NOT join in with those who do them, BUT instead be correcting them (the Greek word Paul uses is most often translated as reprove or convict).  Merely exposing the deeds is neutral at best.  What most likely results is shame and disgrace.  Rather, what we are aiming at is change of behavior (and heart).  Yes, it may very well be that in order for change to take place that the deeds may need to be made public and there may indeed need to be serious consequences, but in no way are we trying to merely bring shame or disgrace on anyone.  We are refuting and convincing those thus engaged in these dark deeds, those living apart from God and the life that He desires, that the path they are on is the way of death.  And we have the cure!  Thus our response is also not a quarantine.  We do not cordon ourselves off those who are dying.  No cloistered monasticism, this.  We engage with the world lost in darkness, we get them the cure.  We light up the darkness with the Truth of Jesus and lead out ones who have been enslaved to the deeds of darkness, mired in a fruitless existence which only leads to death.  The Ultimate Rescue Mission.

Ephesians 5:10 - Our Ultimate Aspiration?

"...proving what is pleasing to the Lord..."

-Is this not our ultimate aspiration, to please the Lord?  To be always learning and doing what He wants me to do?  This thus becomes (or should) our full-time occupation, our magnificent obsession (Romans 14.18; 2Corinthians 5.9; Galatians 1.10; Colossians 1.10; 1Thessalonians 2.4, 4.1; Hebrews 13.21; 1John 3.22).  Doing that which brings Him pleasure, that which He finds sweet, delightful, pleasant, smooth and straight.  There are both things which to Him are abominable, which He hates, a nasty foul stench in His nostrils, and then there are things which to Him are a fragrant, soothing aroma.  They bring Him great pleasure.  In this, Jesus was our Shining Example (Ephesians 5.2) - Who always did (and does) the things which are pleasing to the Father (cf John 8.29).

-And to that point, we’re not talking about some kind of an intermittent, once a week or once-per year ritual or pilgrimmage.  No little-dab’ll-do-ya.  No - pursuing and living into the things which please our heavenly Father can and should be an every day thing.  I wake up in the morning and my thoughts turn to Him.  Words and a heart of praise, gratitude, submission, dependence.  My heart (re)turns to Him repeatedly throughout the day, talking to Him, inquiring of and listening to Him, constantly, I am yearning for Him and mindful of what He wants, aware of His presence, His guidance, His power, until I lay myself down to sleep with a deep abiding sense of His goodness and faithfulness and nearness in my life.

-Sadly, I must confess that my personal experience does not mirror this in a terribly consistent way.  I find that my heart and mind are prone to wander, my hours and days frittered away in the pursuit of perfecting the unnecessary, too much of my life lived as a practical atheist - God out of sight and out of mind, me-myself-and-I living as if He doesn’t really exist, in no way living and moving and having my being in Him.  I can (and do) go long hours without saying a word to Him, He Who lives in me and is always by my side.  Maybe I toss up a little prayer for favor.  I can go days on end without spending any real time with Him, without seeking His face.  I can go months and even years without ever telling another soul about Him, the fate of the lost souls around me and the sad state of my own heart towards Him barely affecting my slumber.  Oh, I believe.  I have my fire insurance.  I show up to a church service pretty much every Sunday.  I tithe.  But apart from some head knowledge and not sleeping in on Sundays, how different is my life from the happy pagan living next door to me, really?  What of this constantly trying to learn and showing what is pleasing to the Lord?  How does my life fit into that?

Ephesians 5:9 - 100% Di-Vine fruit

"...For the fruit of light [is] in all goodness and righteousness and truth...’

-The fruit of light.  The fruit of light.  You will know them by their fruit, Jesus says.  And if I have His light in my heart, if I AM in fact Light, there will be some by-products of that, some inevitable outcomes which one could expect to emerge, expect to be true of me - things which are as divine in origin and effect as is the Light itself.  Paul lists them (or at least three prominent ones) - goodness, righteousness, and truth.  All fruit, all of it, all the time, 100 percent divine, divinely sourced.  No spiritual GMO's or pesticides or worms here.  Not a bad apple in the bushel.

-All goodness.  If I am Light you will find in me all kinds of things which are good, good traits, good words, good deeds.  Divine things - like God Himself.  He is the Supreme Good - He is consummately breathtakingly good and manifests this goodness in all that He does (Genesis 1.31; Exodus 33.19; Psalm 34.8 84.11).  He works all things together for good (Romans 8.28) - ALL things, even that which an adversary might intend for evil He will work for good (Genesis 50.20).  Good typically contrasts with evil, being not so much about conforming to a standard per se (right vs wrong) but rather more about that which is welcome and pleasing, something which somehow helps or meets the need of another.  And that’s really the thing, isn’t it?  Goodness is all about the experience of others - this is walking in love.  And so Light brings goodness to others.  Light provides warmth.  Light helps one to see, and actually brings out the color which would be otherwise hidden.  Light turns an otherwise dull marginal existence into something extraordinary and abundant and beautiful.  Truly divine.

-Righteousness on the other hand tends to be more about how I conform to a moral standard.  I am right (morally) - all right, alright.  I think right, I say right, I do right, all in conformity to the Divine - what God is like and what He wants.  Thus if I am Light in Christ you can expect to see all kinds of traits and words and deeds which are right in God’s eyes, which are in fact like Him, God-like (godly).  Justice.  Honesty.  Integrity.  Faithfulness.  Self-control.  Not to mention obedience and submission.  All right.  I am not cutting corners and taking convenient moral short-cuts.  No compromise or moral expediency.  No immorality or impurity or greed of any kind.  And all this, not in some harsh antiseptic lemon-sucking tea-totaling stuffiness with all the joy siphoned away.  Remember, all goodness is also front and center.   A delicate and difficult balance to maintain, this, to be sure, but fruit is not something forced - it is produced effortlessly as the branch simply draws on the resources of the Vine (cf John 15.5).  The Di-Vine naturally produces His fruit through the ones who are vitally connected to Him.

-Lastly, Light also reveals truth.  It shows off reality, what things look like, how they really are.  Hard to hide in the light, right?  So, all truth.  Absence of falsehood - no hint of it.  No deception or empty words.  No lies, duplicity, pretense, cheating.  Just honest truth, which of course is a sort of sad redundancy since there is really no other kind of truth, is there?  Yet the way of the world is contrary, is it not?  The world is full of charlatans, those who double-deal and deceive in order to squeeze out a little bit more whatever for yours-truly, lives which are essentially swamped in some murky moral backwater.  No true north.  In contrast, children of Light illuminate the world around them with the Truth.  Keeping it real.  Authentic.  No shadowy hiding or spinning of the truth.  Ultimately making it about Jesus, Who IS the Truth and Who now reproduces His life in and through those who are truly His to a lost world adrift in darkness.  He is the Divine True North, and that’s the gospel truth.

Ephesians 5:8 - Light is a thing

"...for you were formerly darkness, but now [you are] light in [the] Lord.  As children of light be walking..."

-You were not only living in darkness, you WERE darkness.  Formerly.  But NOW... no longer.

-Darkness is actually not a thing, is it?  Light is a thing.  In fact it is THE thing.  Darkness is not a thing - it is nothing.  It is what you have when you take away... the light.  If you take away everything.  Before there was (and whenever there is not) light, back before there was anything.  In the beginning, God said let there be light, right?

-But before you came to be in Jesus (assuming you are in Jesus), you were nothing.  You had no Light, and you were basically as good as nothing, dust in the wind, so much ashes and dirt.  Fraught with potential, but in the dark - ignorant.  Because there was no true knowledge of God in your heart.  And we choke on that truth, don’t we?  We see so much goodness and wisdom and creativity and yes, potential in people, but it is all only potential until the Light is turned on in their hearts and thru their lives.  Therein lies the harsh reality which Paul has been emphasizing throughout this letter.  Apart from Christ we were enemies, we were children of wrath, destined for the icy cold outer darkness (or that lake of fire), eternal existence-apart-from-God.  The life lived with God cast out will get exactly what it wants.  Payback time will be a proverbial female dog, but it will also be exactly what (I thought) I wanted.  (And sadly, many of God’s people will be more distrurbed about employing that 5-letter b-word than they are about the plight of their neighbor’s soul.)

-But now, you are Light!  Somebody turned on the switch!  The people who were sitting in darkness saw a Great Light (Matthew 4.16, Isaiah 9.2)!  They were living there, walking and stumbling around (cuz that’s what you do in the dark), stubbing their toes and banging their heads and generally aimless and hopeless.  No flashlight, no smartphone app.  No bic to flic.  Not even a match.  But now... not only did Someone turn on the light, not only did you see the Light - you ARE light, Paul says.  You ARE light.  It’s not just that the Light is on in my heart and I see, but I am now a beacon for others, a lighthouse in the night pointing the way to Safe Harbor amidst the pitch-black rocky stormy seas of life, to give my neighbors and the nations a glimpse of the truth about God in Christ, to help guide them out of that same darkness to the foot of the Cross and to Jesus.  Walking as a child of the Light means that I am going to shine this little light of mine (of His!) everywhere I go.  "Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine..."

Ephesians 5:7 - Enough of slummy mud pies already!

"Therefore you all do not be coming to be partakers with them."

-Do not partake together.  Do not join in.  Don’t let yourself get sucked (back) in to the cult of excess, into the misuse of the gift of sex, into a life of dirty words and deeds, into the pursuit of a life lived with no regard for what God wants.  Because wrath is coming.  The wrath of God is on its way to be revealed and poured out on all those things, on all the unrighteousness of men, on those who have supressed the truth in unrighteousness, who have exchanged the truth of God for a lie.  Living a lie.  Because the truth here is that, that is not who you are.  What is fundamentally true of you is, you are a saint.  If you are in truth in Christ, you have been called out of all that to be separate and wholly other, just like the One Who called you.  You are God’s child, an heir of the King.  You have been pulled out of the muddy nasty river which runs wide and deep and fast, full of all those who are living into the lie of godlessness.

-So Paul is enjoining us not to be joining in with them, with the sons and daughters of disobedience, with all the ways they find to fill the place of God with something other than God.  Don’t join in with them, do not do what they do, don’t be imitating them - remember, you should be imitating your heavenly Father.  Walking in love and overflowing with gratitude.  It doesn’t mean don’t ever be with them, for how else will they ever get a glimpse of Jesus, a whiff of God’s great love and joy and breathtaking goodness emanating out of your spiritual pores?  The time already past is more than sufficient for you to have indulged your flesh in these things.  You’ve made more than enough mud pies in the slums already.  Something better is being offered here, something else is ours for the taking...

Ephesians 5:6 - The Consummate Evil

"Let no one be deceiving you in empty words.  For because of this the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of unbelief."

-Disobedience stems from unbelief, generally speaking.  Show me someone doing that which God does not want, and I will show you someone who is walking in unbelief.  They are believing something about God which is not true or are simply not believing that about Him which is true.  Either way they are embracing a lie.  In other words, they are deceived.  Deception, falsehood - the lie - is the consummate evil, it lies at the root of all sin.  "They exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, Who is blessed forever, amen." (Rom 1.25)  Thus the two go hand in hand, thus it has been from the very beginning, where that crafty serpent of old deceived Eve into swallowing an exotic cocktail of half-truths and lies and thus managed to persuade her to do the one and only thing which God had forbidden.  It is God’s would-be-children believing what is not true, and making life choices based on that belief.  Believing what is not true about God, perhaps that He does not exist, or that He does not see or care about what I do, or perhaps that His wrath is not a thing.  Oh, but it is a thing.  Unrighteousness begets wrath like rotten food attracts flies.  It’s like the field of dreams - if you build it, they will come.  If you do it, wrath will come.  Oh, it’s coming.  Which is why throughout the millennia the Lord has pleaded with and implored and urged His children to NOT do the things which He hates.  He has sent angels and prophets and judges and apostles and His very own Son, all to remind us of what is true and to turn from the wrath which is to come.  "Flee, you fools," cried Gandalf, and flee we should, but in that day there will be no place to hide, save one - the Cross, where the wrath of God has already been poured out and fully satisfied.

-But know this - if I deceive you, you don’t know it.  Paul joins in the royal and ancient chorus of divine messengers and declares truth about false truth.  He warns against those who would deceive and lead astray with empty words.  These clearly are folks - friends(?) - who are trying to get me to join them in their daring deeds of darkness, in their excess and pursuit of more and of that which is simply out of place for a true child of God.  Those thus engaged in that which God does not want are not His children, they are not son and daughters of light.  Paul calls them sons of unbelief, of disobedience.  They are in fact children of wrath.  Only you and I were never made for this.  What a tragic waste of that wonderful impossible miraculous gift that is life, time measured out to each one of us, a fleeting moment in which we have the chance to come to know and experience and spread the knowledge of God’s breathtaking goodness.  Don't be deceived.  Don't waste this.

Ephesians 5:5 - Abominable oxymorons

"For this you know that you know, since every sexual immoral or unclean or greedy person, who is an idolater, does not have an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God."

-True that.  People instinctively know what is wrong - God has in fact written this in their hearts (Romans 1.19).  Even the nations where God is largely absent from the public consciousness know that corruption is wrong.  They know it should not be that their government and military leaders and law enforcement officials are all dishonest and prone to taking bribes, that their neighbors all cheat and steal at every turn.  Nevertheless sadly man is born for sin and trouble as surely as sparks fly upwards.  It is inescapable, unavoidable, yet it is patently and particularly clear to all that anyone who would claim to follow and represent almighty God and yet is caught up in any kind of immorality or corruption is disingenuous at best.  Oxymoronic.  One might concede that corrupt politicians perhaps are a universal given, but a corrupt “man of the cloth” is the ultimate disappointment, an abomination even.  We know in our heart of hearts that dirty water should never come out of a clean spring.  Thus we know for sure that any person who lives a life where God is not in fact first in their hearts is no child of His.  Not an heir.  A pretender.  Imposter.  Hypocrite.  Yes, something other than God is behind the curtain.

-And this is the rub - fundamentally, with things like greed and immorality, we are in fact talking about idolatry.  Putting anything other than God in the place of God in my heart.  'Cuz He gets dibs, first place in the pecking order of my life.  Such that when I am giving myself to the pursuit of more, to the things He does not want, it shows that He is not in first place in my heart.  First place - this is what the Lord wants more than anything, is it not?  He wants it, He longs for it, He compels (2Corinthians 5.14) and commands it, does He not?  The great command (Deuteronomy 6.5, Matthew 22.37), the first three of God’s ‘top ten’ (Exodus 20.4-7) - the surpassingly great, breathtakingly good God Who is entirely better - He made us to know Him, to be in an everlasting right relationship with Him, and to seek Him first, to love Him with all our heart, to enjoy Him in Whose presence is fulness of joy.  Yes, this is the heritage of the elect, the calling card of the redeemed - you and I and all God’s children will know them by their fruits (Matthew 7.18-20).

Ephesians 5:4 - No more fountain of filth

"...also [not] shamefulness and foolish talk or vulgar talk, which were not fitting, but rather more, thanksgiving."

-Our words.  That which comes out of our mouth proceeding straight from our hearts.  Words convey to all who hear who we really are, what we are like, what we value, what is important - to us, and what should be to others.  Scripture (and Creation itself for that matter) make it abundantly clear that clean (living) water and dirty polluted water cannot usher forth from the same fountain.  Filthy words, foul words, false words, foolish words, words which distract and deceive and destroy - these do not come out of a clean heart.  We either give God control of our tongue and let Him clean up our words, or we need to consider whether we even have a new clean heart in the first place.

-No, rather than filthy foul foolish false words above all else there should be giving of thanks.  Gratitude.  Gratitude acknowledges provision, and tunes hearts to the positive.  It recognizes and affirms goodness.  An attitude which says, yes this is good and I am satisfied, and that ultimately because God really is enough.  No matter what I have, whatever my lot, God is sufficient, He is more than enough and He is better.  He really does work all things for good.  With thanksgiving I reflect the kind of unselfishness and humility that is in perfect keeping with an awareness of an immanent almighty God.  As much as any speech uttered by God’s people, there ought to be words of thanksgiving, gracious words which do acknowledge and affirm goodness - good deeds, good effort, good intentions, goodness in others and in the world and from the hand of our faithful Creator Who has daily displays His breathtaking goodness for all who have an eye to see.

Ephesians 5:3 - The Proverbial Cookie Jar of Nastiness

"But sexual immorality and every uncleanness or greediness do not letting it be named in you, just as it is fitting for holy ones...’

-We are God’s beloved children, the ones He calls holy and has set apart for Himself.  We have a higher calling, a higher standard - to be like Him.  The bar and example for us has been set way higher than for the rest of those who make no such claim.  There are things we must do and when we sometimes fall short and fail to do them, these are the sins of omission.  There are also things which we must NOT do - when we do them these are the sins of co-mission.  We must definitely walk in love - this is the positive.  And inversely we must NOT give off even a hint of several things which Paul mentions here.  These must not ever even be named among God’s people.  Sadly, the history of the church is more than littered with hints of these among God’s people.  There have been incessant prominent examples of those who lay claim to being a follower of Christ and who even hold a position of leadership within the church but who have gotten caught with their hand in the proverbial cookie jar of nastiness.  Let’s take a closer look at each of these...

-Sexual immorality is porneia, that which is done by a porne or pornos, i.e. a prostitute or anyone else who partakes of God’s amazing gift of sexual intercourse in any way other than the way He designed it to be experienced.  In other words, any sex outside of the boundaries of faithful covenant marriage between a husband and wife (cf Genesis 1.27-28, 5.2, 2.24; Exodus 20.14; Leviticus 20.10-16).  Yes indeed, God has created people with the capacity to experience both incredible pleasure and intimacy in the sexual act, and we cheapen and dirty this beautiful gift when we abuse it.  The sexual act in particular not only is uniquely blessed with the intent to carry out the command to multiply and fill the earth (hence the prohibition against things like homosexuality and beastiality), it is also designed to reflect the everlasting love and faithfulness of God towards His people - Christ and His Bride, the Church - a permanent unconditional relationship of love which no man must ever sever.  Paul tells us elsewhere that the commands against things like adultery are actually fulfilled when we carry out the command to love our neighbor (Romans 13.9), so it is entirely appropriate that the prohibition against sexual immorality here is once again given in the context of the overarching command to love.  The sexual act as designed by the Creator and experienced within marriage is the ultimate consummation of love and trust and intimacy, a wondrous waltz of giving to this one who is my true God-given life-partner - giving away my whole self, my all, pleasuring and pleasing and unconditionally receiving this one to whom I am joined, and faithfully keeping myself all for them and for no other.  Mind, soul, AND body.  Maximum oneness.  So whenever I may allow myself to indulge in thoughts and acts towards another to whom I have not been given, things which are outside of God’s design, I not only deprive myself of God’s best and cheapen the gift, I cheapen the message.  In fact, I completely discredit it.  I desecrate it.  I demonstrate to the world that I cannot be trusted - that I have no self control - and that faithfulness, everlasting love is not a thing.  Nothing but a pipe dream, some nice-sounding platitude but not really realistic.  Yes, the pleasure is great.  It is an incredible gift from our Creator.  But love is greater.  And our bar is indeed, way higher.

-Defilement.  Uncleanness.  Dirty.  We’re talking about moral filth, any words and deeds as well as thoughts (cf Matthew 5.27-28) which are contrary to God’s design.  They do not reflect His image, not consistent with Who He is and what He is like.  The world actually has a kind of wicked fascination with being ‘dirty’, does it not?  Specifically in a moral sense.  Dirty jokes, dirty dancing, dirty deeds, dirty cops.  In our hearts we actually know that dirty is wrong, at least as some level, but it is not uncommon for people to fail to connect the dots.  It all goes back to bearing the image of God, reflecting what He is like.  Sex, for example, is not inherently dirty in the least - it is all the ways we misuse it outside of marriage that make it unclean.  When we dirty ourselves with moral filth, when we allow ourselves to be associated with it in any way, we smear the image of our heavenly Father.  We render Him unrecognizable.  And we display to the world that the faith we profess is a fake, worthless.  ‘irty saint’ - a complete oxymoron, this.  Integrity, honesty, goodness, purity, clean hands and heart - this is the heritage of those Who God calls (and has made) holy.  There is no quarter to be given for any type of uncleanness whatsoever.

-Greed.  The thirst for more.  It is the appetite unleashed and unsatisfied, never content with enough, the tragic pursuit of things-created in a vain attempt to fill with vapors the infinite abyss, that gaping God-shaped hole in my soul.  When I give myself to the pursuit of more - more money, more things, more stuff, bigger and better stuff - I declare to the world that God is not God.  That He is insufficient to meet my needs and desires, that He is not glorious, better than anything.  For indeed, if He truly is Who He says He is and Who He must be if in fact He is the One True Creator God, this One Who uniquely designed me to be in a forever relationship with Him, then He MUST be better and more satisfying than any created thing.  Greed says to the world, God is not enough.  That He is not supreme, the utmost.  That it is perfectly ok to pursue something first besides Him, to put something else first in our hearts.

-Sex and money are the two things which most often entice and trip up and shatter both the reputations and the hearts of God’s people, are they not?  The annals of church history are fraught with the foibles of leaders and followers alike - abuses, affairs, divorce, excess, indulgences, moral failures, corruption.  When so-called saints set apart their hearts (and thus their lives and ministries) for something other than God and what He wants, they give unbelievers a multiplied host of reasons NOT to believe.  These ‘dalliances’ of those who name the Name of Jesus have inflicted immeasurable damage on the collective efforts to convince the world that Jesus IS the Way, that He IS the Truth, that He IS the Life, that He alone is better.  God help us...

Ephesians 5:2 - That Nefarious Cinnabon Store

"...and be walking in love, just as also Christ loved you and delivered Himself on behalf of you, an offering and sacrifice unto a sweet-smelling aroma."

-Love.  Be walking in love, presently, constantly, always.  We are following and imitating this One Who IS Love.  His love is constant, faithful, unending, everlasting - it never ends, never fails.  There is never a moment when He does not love, does not act in ways which are consistent with His amazing selfless unconditional love.  This is the fountainhead of our forgiveness, both that which we received at the Cross and experience every day, and that which we extend to our fellow man.  The love of Christ poured out for us, immense and free, washing and covering over our warts and wounds and waywardness like a heavenly tsunami.  Yes, He did say ‘I love you this much’ as He stretched out His hands and died.  Loving us till the end, He died for us, in our place, taking the punishment which we so richly deserved.  He died to Himself as He died for us, and showed us what love and forgiveness really looks like.  Thus we are truly able to imitate our heavenly Father.  We forgive, we love, because He first loved us (cf John 3.16, 1John 4.10).  This the divine order, the way it has always been since Calvary on back to the beginning of creation.  God loves, He blesses, and those thus blessed turn around and pass it on to others, they multiply and fill the world with the life and love and breathtaking goodness of God (cf Genesis 1.28, 9.1, 12.2-3).

-Yes, the love Christ showed when He laid down His life was a pleasing sacrifice and a fragrant aroma to God.  The same holds true for us, as we love and lay down our lives and our rights and whatever ways we’ve been transgressed against on behalf of the ones for whom Christ did die.  It gives God great pleasure when we His children act like Him, when we reflect what He is like.  This is precisely why He made us in the first place, to be His image bearers, to bear His likeness throughout His creation.  Every time we forgive our brother, when we give grace and let go of some way in which we may have been offended, we execute a divine transaction.  We are acting just like our heavenly Father, and we bring great pleasure to His heart.  Our lives become to Him like the nefarious Cinnabon store at the mall, that sweet-smelling aroma which draws you in like a delectable tractor beam, filling the entire place and surely wafting all the way up to heaven (in much the same way as the soothing aromas of flame-broiled meat and baking bread and fragrant incense which the Lord insisted on having in the temple used to do - cf Leviticus 23.18; Numbers 28.6; Exodus 30.34-35, 30.7-8).  Loving forgiveness flowing out of the lives of His children makes Him so happy, so proud.  ‘Well done, My son, My daughter.  In you I am well-pleased.’

Ephesians 5:1 - On Parrots and Monkeys...

"Therefore be coming to be mimics of God as beloved children..."

-Imitate.  Copy.  Impersonate.  Yes, we are called literally to impersonate God, to bear His image and port His persona to those in our assembly as well as to our neighbors and to every nation, throughout His creation.  The quintessential, holy mother of all monkey-see-monkey-do's, this.  He is our Father and we are His children - His beloved children, no less.  Children always parrot their parents, do they not?  They naturally begin to do the things they see their mom and dad do (all the moreso if their parents actually set a loving example).  Kids pick up traits exhibited by their parents without even trying.  And what son doesn’t want to grow up to be like his dad who he knows loves him?  No doubt the same is true for us as children of our Heavenly Father.  The more we spend time with Him, glimpse Him in action, the better we get to know Him, the more we will pick up on what He is like, His attributes, His likes and dislikes, what He likes to do, and we will naturally want to be just. Like. Him.

-And what our Father in heaven does is forgive.  He is kind and tender-hearted, and has indeed forgiven us an unforgiveable debt.  We experience this forgiveness in new and fresh ways each and every day as we follow Him.  Because of this, in light of this fact, and in light of the overarching mandate to guard the oneness of the Body, Paul says, we must therefore follow this divine example, this wondrous precedent our heavenly Father has set for us.  It is incumbent upon us to do just what God did in Christ - we must forgive, and we must get really good at it, just like our Daddy.