Ephesians 5:15-21 - “How Am I Doing?"

Ephesians 5:15   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. 18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, 19 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; 20 always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father; 21 and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.

Paul begins this section by saying, WATCH CAREFULLY HOW YOU LIVE… i.e. How am I doing?  And he presents us with two options:

Way to live #1) unwise, foolish, drunk w wine —> dissipation

Way to live #2) wise, redeeming your time, understand what God wants, be filled w Spirit —> speaking/singing, giving thanks, subjecting to one another

So what do we have here?  We’ve been looking at contrasts.  God’s beloved children vs sons and daughters of disobedience, children of wrath.  Truthing in love with gracious grateful words which build up vs rotten me-first words.  Light vs Darkness.  Polar opposites.  Totally opposite directions.  Completely opposite outcomes.  Diametrically opposed.  And the stakes are eternal.  They could be no higher.

So Paul says, wake up, and be on the lookout.  Be watching very carefully how you are walking.  [which conjurs up the old Monty Python Silly Walks skit, arms and legs and neck doing all kinds of ridiculous undulations and gyrations ...]

Obviously Paul’s not thinking about thinking about feet and legs.  He’s thinking about how we live our lives.  The choices we make.  How we spend our time and our days.  God called us out of darkness, bought us and set us free from sin and death by the blood of His Son, and set us apart to be His children, children of the Light, lighting up the darkness with goodness and righteousness and truth (of Christ!).  He called us into His family, into this beautiful diverse body of Christ.  He calls us to guard the oneness of this body and build up this body.  This is 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 divinely appointed season of opportunity.  And it is on us to make sure that that happens.  So Paul exhorts us, wake up, and watch out!  Be constantly on the lookout, and look carefully at your life, what you are doing, what you are saying.  Wake up sleeper!  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 doing with it?  How am I doing?

There are two possible polar-opposite responses here.  One is unwise.  The other is wise.  Unwisdom fails to take God into account.  The unwise path is taken by the one who in spite of receiving the Light decides to acquiesce and even join in with the deeds of darkness, to live a life of hiding, a life of immorality and greed and filthy words, a life of me-first, always putting something else in God’s place in my heart.  Pleasing myself instead of pleasing the Lord.  The unwise path ignores the Light and pursues counterfeit lesser realms of satisfaction.  It is the choice to subsist on so much cotton candy.  For someone to see and come out into the Light and still walk in darkness is not only unwise, surely it is the height of stupidity.  Psalm 14.1 The fool has said in his heart, there is no God.  Wisdom, however, says there is a God with Whom I have to do - and I am not Him, a great I AM, always and forever every moment of every day.  He is far greater, and He is way better.  Unfathomably better and wiser.  Wisdom journeys in this Light, His 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 in sync w what God wants, may not be pleasing to Him, which may not be showing off His breathtaking goodness and holiness and truth.  

So we ask, how am I doing w my time…?  Because my life is time measured out to me by the hand of almighty God, my Father in heaven.  In 24-hr installments.  Time is a gift, one which we can squander so thoughtlessly.  Time is precious.  Irreplaceable.  The Greeks have two words for time - chronos, which means literal clock time, and kairos, which refers to a special season of opportunity.  A divine moment, or moments, if you will.  So Paul says, be redeeming the kairos.  Buy these up and make the most of them.  Don't waste them!  Recognize that each day and moment of your life is a gift, an opportunity to shine.  Time to shine, Paul says.  Make the most of it, this season of opportunity.  It’s harvest time, ya’ll.  It’s go time.  And time’s a-wasting.  Too often God’s people, we are straightening pictures on the walls of burning houses.  Or doing nothing at all.  Squandering our gift.

We have one job, Paul says… [picture one job fails, which tend to be quite entertaining]   So then avoid the fails and don’t be unwise, don’t be foolish.  Instead understand what the will of the Lord is.  The will of the Lord.  We’ve talked about this.  It is the Greek word thelema, and it refers to wants and desires.  This is the question of what does God want.  And this then becomes my one job.  I have one job.  Wisdom asks, what does God want?  And so there is this confluence.  Have you ever seen a "conflu" [confluence, where two rivers merge together]?  That’s a great picture of the word Paul uses here.  “Understand”: literally a flowing together, a merging together of heart and mind, of desires and wants.  Our wants merging together with the Lord’s, our wants getting caught up into His.  You and I have one job - walking in the Light begins and ends with this one profoundly simple yet humanly impossible task.  Flow together with what the Lord wants.  (And didn’t Israel rise or fall on whether or not they “inquired”…?)

So how does this confluence, this flowing together of wants happen?  Next Paul gives us the key.  Remember how the oneness of the body is produced?  Who produces that?  The Holy Spirit.  Third person of the Trinity.  The promised Helper.  The Spirit of Christ Who dwells in the heart of each and every person who has put their trust in Christ, each believer who God has joined as a part of the body of Christ.  Paul says, be filled with the Spirit.  Present tense.  Constantly.  Every moment of every day.  

John 7:37-39   Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive…

What does it mean to be filled?  Paul gives us a picture to help us out - he says, don’t be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit.  That which fills you controls you.  If I am drunk, it means something else (alcohol) is controlling me and changing my behavior.  It could be some kind of liquor.  But there are many different things which can be in control of my life, my heart.  It could be anger.  Greed.  Jealousy.  Fear.  Lust.  Food.  My appearance.  My body.  A relationship.  So many things which I can allow to control my life.  It could simply be me.  Paul calls this dissipation.  It means unsaved living, me-first, walking in darkness.  You and I were not meant for this.   When my lovely wife & I worked with Cru we learned a great illustration to help us understand this: [our lives are like circles and there is throne in that circle that represents the control center of our life]

But now it is absolutely critical here to understand that this is about more than just control.  It is not only about guidance - where the Lord sort of sits next to me in the passenger seat and nudges the steering wheel from time to time.  Like some spiritual GPS.  Turn this way.  In 1/4 mile, turn this way.  Oh, you didn’t do that - recalculating.  It’s nothing like that.  This is about complete dependence and reliance.  Total surrender to Christ.  He is in the driver seat.  But not only that, He is the engine, and He is the fuel. Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.  Do you realize what Paul is saying there?  He is in prison, in chains.  He’s not necessarily talking about the power to break those chains and bust out of that prison.  He’s not talking about being happy only when everything goes the way I want.  He’s talking about the power to make it all about Christ with a heart that overflows with gratitude and joy and love - even in deep dark dungeon.  Even when life isn’t turning out exactly the way we wanted it.  When my body breaks down.  When my car or my stuff breaks down.  When life is messy.  We get so bent out of shape and sideways by how the brokenness of life makes things more inconvenient for us.  I can only do all things through Christ.  How am I doing?

And Paul is saying, watch out!  It is a slippery slope of baby steps and compromise, indulging my wants, my fleshy desires in small little bites and before I know it I am journeying away from the Light in my heart.  There are two ways this rears its ugly head in the church today.  The first (so, unwisdom) says, I don’t need daily bread.  I don’t need the Lord, fresh fire for the battle this day.  We fail to wake up cognizant of the fact that this day there is nothing we can do apart from Christ.  Nothing.  My job.  My family.  My school.  Much less show off God’s blazing goodness to the people sitting in dark dungeons of darkness all around me.  The second way God’s people journey away from the Light is by saying, I don’t need you.  My brother and sister.  Maybe I need daily bread, sure, I need to rely on Christ today and every day, but I don’t need you.  I don’t need the body.  I can make it on my own.  Me and Jesus - we got this.  And we drift away from life-changing world-shaking engagement with the family of God.  We take our little light and try to wave it all by ourselves instead of joining it to the would-be bonfire of a local assembly.  We need to wake up and watch out!  You and I must be on constant watch each and every day against both our flesh and against any outside influence which may endeavor to entice us away from connection to Him and His people, back into the darkness, back into hiding, back to what C.S. Lewis described as making mudpies in the slum.  Watch out, my friend…!

There are no lone ranger Christians.  I need you and you need me.  We need each other.  We journey together.  That’s what family does.  But the heart that says, I don’t need you, I can make it without you, me and Jesus we got this - that’s just me-first.  Yes I get it that too often people’s experience of church means that they maybe have been wounded by someone else’s brokenness.  Or perhaps they have become disenchanted with an expression of faith which is devoid of joy and love and true community.  Maybe their experience was one of lemon-sucking legalism.  Or maybe there was some two-faced hypocrisy.  Or perhaps it was just a meeting, some slick program where folks seemed to care mostly about noses-and-nickles, largely devoid of real community.  I get it.  There are a lot of churches.  Especially in this part of the US.  And they’re all full of broken and messy people - just like me.  And so things don’t always look the way they’re designed to look.  But that doesn’t change the fact that God designed His people, the church, you and me, for oneness.  For community.  For this truthing in love, building up one another.  And it is incumbent upon each of us to journey with this realization of the true reality of the world - these days ARE evil - and then to pursue this growing understanding of the want of God.  His thelema.  God wants us to want Him, and to journey in this common unity, oneness, community, to build up this body of Christ which will blaze forth the light of His truth and love for a world lost in darkness.

Be watching carefully how you live.  Not as unwise but as wise.  Understand what is really important, what really matters, what is most valuable, irreplaceable.  That which needs to be stewarded with utmost care.  Which is: your soul - each precious soul of those living all around us - and your time.  Buy up the time, make the most of your precious time - because the days are evil.  The days are evil.  We are contending with evil.  I think as we grow up our general assessment of life is that it’s either too short, or that it’s too broken.  Life is too short, my days are too short, I’m too busy, there’s not enough time in the day, too much to do, always something I gotta do, running around like a chicken with my head cut off.  Or it’s just broken.  Can’t be fixed.  Some sickness.  Some woundedness - somebody hurt me.  Something’s not right, and it’s holding me down, holding me back.  There is certainly some truth to this.  Life is short.  And it’s not perfect.  And do you understand that in saying these things we reveal the truth that we are wired for something else, something higher, something better?  The rest of the creatures on this planet have none of these concerns.  They don’t sit around lamenting the fact that there’s not enough time in the day or that things are broken.  Our cat, our dog, the bird in the tree - they’re not thinking about how they need more time in their life, or how they need a change of circumstances.  Ball, squirrel, food, lick, sleep, bite, attack, fly, run - their existence is what it is.  But we humans - we are wired for life that isn’t short, that isn’t broken.  We are wired for paradise.  Rivers of living water!  And what we’re talking about here are hearts which are tapping into this unseen reality, this eternal Kingdom of God, tapping into what God wants and to His unfathomable resources, His breathtaking goodness and limitless power - and it changes how we live.  It changes our hearts - because the King of Heaven is making a home in our hearts.  And yes, sometimes it breaks through and even changes the physical world around us.  Miracles.  Supernatural living.  Greater things than these you will do, Jesus said.

But we don’t need to get hung up on the grandiose.  The outcome Paul describes for us here is far more simple.  What is the fruit of wise and understanding Spirit-filled living?  There are four things, Paul lists four participles which flow from this Spirit-filled living: speaking to one another, singing together, thanksgiving, and subjecting ourselves to one another.  Speaking to one another, singing together, always giving thanks, and subjecting ourselves to one another.  There is this journeying together.  Mutual dependence.  There is this grateful celebration.  Hearts of joy.  Rivers of living water.  We were meant for this!

And so, we need to stop hold ourselves back from the Lord.  So many things we put in His place.  So many things we give our hearts to.  And we need to stop holding ourselves back from one another.  Lots of excuses.  We need to be filled with the Holy Spirit.  How am I doing?

Ephesians 5:7-14 - “deLight of diVine”

Ephesians 5:7 Therefore do not be partakers with them; 8 for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light 9 (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), 10 trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them; 12 for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret. 13 But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light. 14  For this reason it says, “Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

I think we take light for granted.  We have a superabundance of light.  Streetlights.  Spotlights.  Headlights.  Christmas lights.  Neon lights.  Floodlights.  Flashlights.  Smartphone lights.  We flip a switch and voila, light.  Easy access.  Altho...have you ever been stuck in the dark?

What was it that signaled the birth of the King of the Jews to the wise men from the East?  Light.  What did Simeon say about Jesus when His parents presented Him as an infant in the temple?  “A Light of revelation to the nations…”

Re the coming of Jesus, Matthew quotes Isaiah: Matthew 4:16  “THE PEOPLE WHO WERE SITTING IN DARKNESS SAW A GREAT LIGHT, AND THOSE WHO WERE SITTING IN THE LAND AND SHADOW OF DEATH, UPON THEM A LIGHT DAWNED.”

These people were sitting in darkness, in the land and shadow of death.  What we learn here is: Darkness = land of the dying (death being the absence of life); Light = Life.  Dawn then, the coming of light, is the onset of life.  Often in Scripture, when God shows up, there is Light…

John 1:4-5,9  In Him [Jesus] was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it… There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.

John 3:19-21 

“This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”

Matthew 6:22-23   “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!"

How are our eyes this morning?  What’s in my heart?  Last week Paul talked about beloved children of God and sons/daughters of disobedience.  Two drastically different kinds of people, two opposite strands of DNA, with two radically different outcomes.  Love, and wrath.  This week we have darkness and light.  Darkness and light.  Also polar opposites.  Paul doesn’t elaborate here on what darkness looks like (did so last week).  But these are all the things which comprise me-first living.  Pursuing what I want.  Life/living apart from God.  But the light - the fruit of the light consists of all goodness, righteousness, truth AND a heart that is trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.

But let’s keep in mind - darkness is not a thing.  It is the absence of light.  The absence of the positive.  And this used to be you.  Us.  We were sons (and daughters) of disobedience.  We were darkness.  At one point, that church, that assembly of luminaries in Ephesus, didn’t even exist.  Not a single beam of light in that area.  Darkness is the absence of light.  But now in the Lord we ARE light.  Because Christ, THE Christ, Jesus, shone on you. God creates and sends light for a reason.  There is a purpose behind it.  God is Light, and He created the light.  And now we are light in the Lord.  What does this mean?

Acts 26:17-18 “…I am sending you to the Gentiles, to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.’

Luke 11:33-35   “No one, after lighting a lamp, puts it away in a cellar nor under a basket, but on the lampstand, so that those who enter may see the light. The eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye is clear, your whole body also is full of light; but when it is bad, your body also is full of darkness. Then watch out that the light in you is not darkness."

You WERE darkness.  In other words, nothing to look at.  Nothing good to see.  There was no life in you, nor was it shining out from you.  That skyline, that hilltop was pitch black.  In fact, that lifestyle you were living - the outcome of that is wrath.  Death. The dark destination of the dying.  God’s wrath is poured out on the sons of disobedience, because of their unfruitful deeds of darkness.  But now you - you all - ARE light.  Walk as children, offspring of Light.  Little lights.  Beacons.  Cuz you’re not merely IN the Light.  You all, you ARE light.  We don’t just have the light - we ARE the light…

But, don’t participate or partake with them, those sons of disobedience.  These words represent a deep level of sharing.  Paul isn’t saying don’t love the sons of disobedience.  But he’s saying, you all are different.  Don’t be sharing in what they are doing, in their deeds of me-first darkness.  You’ve been called out, called out of that.  And now, you are “de Light”. 

Matthew 5:14-16   “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Who is in heaven.”

The Lord indeed has glorious plans for His people…! [Is 59-61]

We are the light of the world…!  Light can be used in two ways.  Usually we think of light as something we turn on or use so that we can go in any of the nuanced ways and places and directions we want to go.  But there is a more absolute sense, in which we are surrounded by darkness, and we desperately want to find our way out.  We are lost in a vast wilderness of night, it is pitch black - no stars or moon, not even a new moon, we are wandering aimlessly, bumping and stumbling around, hurting ourselves and those around us, dangers everywhere - thieves, cliffs, gorges of eternal peril - and then we see it, there on the horizon, a lighthouse, city on a hill.  A beacon of light, out there for all to see, shining the light of Christ to guide those who are lost and adrift in dark land of the dying to the Lord.  That is God’s people.  The church.  So that they will SEE your good works, the fruit of the Light in your life and glorify your Father Who is in heaven.  The illumination of our assembled lives points people to Jesus.

The fruit of light.  The fruit of light.  You will know them by their fruit, Jesus says.  And IF we have His light in our hearts, if we ARE 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 us, both individually and collectively - things which are as divine in origin and effect as is the Light itself.  Paul lists them here (or at least three prominent ones) - ALL goodness, righteousness, and truth.  All fruit, all of it, all the time, 100 percent divine, divinely sourced. 

All Goodness.  If we are de Light you will find in us 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.  He works ALL things together for good - even something an adversary might intend for evil He will work for good.  Good typically contrasts with evil.  It's not so much about conforming to an absolute b&w 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 others (and us) 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.  What are some ways we are bringing goodness to others?  How are we doing as a church?

Righteousness on the other hand tends to be more about how I conform to a moral standard.  I am right (morally) - I think right, I do what is right, all in conformity to the Divine - what God is like and what He wants.  Thus if you and I are Light in Christ we 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/divine).  Justice.  Honesty.  Integrity.  Obedience and submission.  Faithfulness.  Self-control.  It complements the goodness. But we aren’t cutting corners or 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 stuffiness with all the joy siphoned off.  It is complemented with all goodness.  All goodness is front and center.  A delicate and difficult balance to maintain, yes, but fruit is not something forced - it is produced effortlessly as the branch simply draws on the resources of the Vine.  The Di-Vine naturally produces His fruit through the ones who are vitally connected to Him.

-Third, 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 shady charlatans, those who double-deal and deceive in order to squeeze out a little bit more whatever for yours-truly.  Hiding the warts and wrinkles.  Hiding my sin.  Hiding the truth.  Suppressing the truth.  Holding down the truth.  No true north.  But now we are de light.  Children of Light illuminate the world around them with the Truth.  Keeping it real.  Authentic.  No shadowy hiding or spinning of the truth.  No show.  No need to hide our messiness (and of course Jesus is THE Quicker Picker Upper, cleaning up ALL our messiness).  All truth means ultimately making it about Jesus, pointing people to Jesus, Who IS the Truth and Who now reproduces His life and light in and through those who are truly His for a lost world adrift in darkness.  Truth AND love.  Truth AND righteousness AND goodness.  Truth ultimately points people to Jesus.  He leads us out of darkness.  He is the True North, and that’s the gospel truth. 

Then lastly, we are trying to learn what is pleasing the Lord.  This is a heart which is dialed in, tuned to this idea of pleasing the Lord.  What pleases the Lord?  What is His “love language”? 

John 8:29 “And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.”

2Corinthians 5:9 Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.

What are the things which please our Father’s heart?  When we deLight in the Divine.  When we surrender.  When we put Him first.  Mt 6.33 - seek first what?  His kingdom, His righteousness - i.e. Him.  First in our heart.  First in our home, in our family.  First in our finances.  First in our day and all our days.  Firstfruits - we give Him the first and the best.  Delight looks like giving the Lord our first and our best.  A pleasing sacrifice, a fragrant aroma.  THIS pleases the Lord.  What do You want, Lord?  Not what I want but what You want, Lord.  When we make it all about Jesus.  When the church comes together as one, walking in love to make it all about Jesus, to point our neighbors and the nations to Him.  Speaking the truth in love - we are to be helping each other, encouraging one another in to grow in these areas of goodness and righteousness and truth.  We grow together - and the fruit of this Light draws people to Jesus.  That’s the thing about light.  In the struggle of light vs darkness, which one wins?  Which prevails?  Light.  That’s the hope of the Good News, the hope we have in Jesus - our Savior, our Coming King.

But it begins with each of us turning our hearts to Jesus.  We have all sinned.  Sitting in spiritual darkness.  We have all blown it.  We all grow up as sons and daughters of disobedience.  And we are separated from God because of this.  Objects of wrath.  The penalty for sin is death.  Eternal separation from God.  Outer darkness forever.  And that leads us to the good news which we really highlight in this season (of Christmas).  The birth of Jesus.  The people who were sitting in darkness saw a great Light - and His name is Jesus.  This One Who came down from heaven to pay our spiritual death penalty so that He could take back to heaven all who trust in Him.  Have you trusted in Jesus yet?  Not in the baby per se.  Not in all the trappings of the celebration of His birth, wonderful as it was.  This baby was born to die.  The manger finds its meaning in the Cross and the Empty Tomb.  We trust in our crucified and risen Savior...

Ephesians 5:1-6 - “Divine DNA”

Ephesians 5:1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; 2 and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.  3 But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints; 4 and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. 5 For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.  6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

“divine” = godlike [Think cars in a drag race] - it’s not about looks, it’s about what’s under the hood, but it goes even deeper than that.  Tesla beats muscle cars not with a bigger engine but with software.  Better programming.  Better dna.  [What we find in this section of Eph 5.1-6 is, better dna = divine dna]

First let’s do a quick overview of this section.  Paul summarizes what he’s been saying, and gives us two broad categories of people.  Children of God, and sons (and daughters) of disobedience.  Who is your daddy?  And when we conduct a paternity test, what are we looking at?  DNA.  DNA shows paternity.  DNA authenticates whose child we are.

Paul reminds us of four things which are true of us in Christ as children of God, which inform how we should live:

•God’s children are loved [picture of parents loving their baby]

•God’s children are saints [white as snow]

•God’s children are blessed / have much to be thankful for [cornucopia]

•God’s children are heirs [Sam Walton heirs received billions][Our dad of course owns the cattle on a thousand hills - and then some!]

Paul also gives us a list of bad stuff which ought to never ever even be associated with God’s children.  But let’s rewind and remember how we get into God’s family.  It is not by getting rid of the bad stuff.  And it’s not by doing a whole bunch of good stuff.  

Ephesians 2:8-9 

"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast."

Remember, by grace, undeserved favor, we are saved - through faith.  Faith in Christ, trusting in what HE DID on the Cross.  God brought us into His forever family when we believed in Christ.  He adopted us.  Made us joint heirs with His Son.  Blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ.  It’s all ours.  Now we are saints.  We are holy ones.  He has put His divine DNA in our hearts.  His Spirit lives in us.  We are HIS workmanship, His heavenly masterpiece.  Brand new creations.  We are His beloved children.  This is who we are.  And so this is how we should live.  Paul tells us to become imitators of God.  Imitating our heavenly Father.  Imitating, walking like our risen Brother.  But let me say that, divinity - that which is god-like - does not happen all by itself.  Divinity is not an accident.  There is no spontaneous divinity.  It is never accidental.  Just like there is no such thing as accidental complexity.

DNA.  Deoxyribonucleic acid.  It is the chemical name for the molecule that carries the genetic instructions for all living things - their development, functioning, growth and reproduction.  It’s the recipe book for your body.  DNA determines much of how we look and even function at the most fundamental level.  We can alter our appearance, but we cannot alter our DNA.  It is our biological source code.  Do you know how many lines of code your body has?  The average iPhone app has 50,000 lines of code.  What are the odds of that arising by chance?  The F-22 Raptor fighter jet uses about 1 million lines of code.  In fact, so does the typical new car.  That’s about 18,000 pages of printed text (14x War&Peace; 30 Harry Potter books).  Some newer cars - like that Tesla - 100 million lines of code.  Google w all of its internet services, has 2 billion lines of code.  2000 times that F22 fighter jet.  36 million pages - a stack of paper 2.2 mi high.  The human body - your body - has almost double that.  3.3 billion lines of code.  What are the chances of that?  That you and I are some cosmic accident?  That which is god-like is NO accident.

Psalm 139:13-16    

"You created the deepest parts of my being.  You put me together inside my mother’s body. How You made me is amazing and wonderful.  I praise You for that.  What You have done is wonderful.  I know that very well.  None of my bones was hidden from You when you made me inside my mother’s body.  That place was as dark as the deepest parts of the earth. When You were putting me together there, Your eyes saw my body even before it was formed.  You planned how many days I would live.  You wrote down the number of them in Your book before I had lived through even one of them."

But now in Christ we’ve been born a second time.  Re-created by the same amazing Creator.

Ephesians 2:10 

"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we should walk in them."

In Christ we are re-created by God - w HIS DNA! This is what Paul is getting at for these Ephesians, and for us.

Ephesians 2:19-22 

"So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit."

Paul is not talking about brick and mortar.  There is this spiritual forever family.  A body of unfathomable oneness and purpose, with many different parts, joined together.  Divine.

Ephesians 4:11-16

"And He gave some as apostles, (etc)… for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love."

Ephesians 2:10 

"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we should walk in them."

We’ve been divinely recreated to be a productive part of this forever family, to help build up the body by this truthing in love.  AND we have this new source code, this divine DNA.  Yet we still have some choice in the matter, don’t we?  Biologically, we may not be able to drastically change our genetics, but we have a choice in how we live.  The same is true for us spiritually.

DNA.  We’re talking about the fundamental and distinctive characteristics or qualities of someone or something, regarded as unchangeable.  And when we begin to talk about DNA on more of the sociological level, we are talking about the ways things SHOULD be, how they should function.  Who we are - how we choose to live - correlates to who we should be.  SO - choose to imitate your heavenly Father.  Walk like Jesus - imitate Him, Paul says.

Imitation is what?  The sincerest form of flattery.  When you imitate someone, when you try to be like them, act like them - you honor them.  Part of this then is honoring the Lord, making Him look good…

Children actually are born imitators.   Research shows, from the earliest age:  

•We instinctively imitate those we spend time with  

•Imitation helps to socialize, it forges social connections  

•It even facilitates communication. 

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t52tt5LhOIU]  - Now their imitating us doesn’t always make us look good -  [Story of the daughter playing with her doll who exclaimed in her mom's hearing: "This g.d. baby won’t take a nap!"  Who was she imitating...? :)]

We imitate by nature - the question is who?  What happened to the Israelites in the promised land.  They began to imitate the idolatry of the peoples who lived around them (Judg 2.17).

How do you imitate someone?  Imitation requires time, time spent watching the other person.  You watch the other person, and then you begin to try and do what they do.  You practice.  So how do we begin to imitate God?  We watch Him.  In His Word.  His people.  We watch Jesus.  Then we practice walking in love.  Love which sacrifices - like Jesus.  Because remember, Paul is focused on how we relate to one another in the assembly, in community.

Immorality, impurity, greed - these things which Paul is calling out, these all say, I want what I want.  It is all about me.  Me living into the worst example of me.  My pleasure.  My happiness.  Doing what I want, getting what I want will make me happy.  No, it won’t.  It will make me selfish.  The focus is on me.  On what I don’t have, what I don’t like.  It makes me ungrateful.  Instead of words of gratitude and words that build up, there are hurtful words.  Filthy words.  Rotten.  It’s rampant in our entire society.

Geno Auriemma (on how our society is trending) - “Recruiting enthusiastic kids is harder than it’s ever been…Recruiting kids that are really upbeat and loving life and love the game, have this tremendous appreciation for when their teammates do something well…it’s really hard.  Kids…are allowed to get away with just whatever, and they’re always thinking about themselves.  Me, me, me, me, me.  I didn’t score, so why should I be happy.  I didn’t get enough minutes, so why should I be happy.  That’s the world that we live in today, unfortunately… Kids check the scoreboard because they’re gonna get yelled at by their parents cuz they didn’t score enough points… On our team, we put a huge premium on body language.  And if your body language is bad, you will never get in the game.  Ever.  (so-and-so) was acting like a 12yr old, so I put her on the bench… When I watch game film, I’m checking what’s going on on the bench - if somebody’s asleep over there, if somebody doesn’t care, somebody’s not engaged, they will never get in the game.  Ever!”

He’s talking about this gratefulness, this others-centeredness.  Because it is not about me…

“We hear so much and see so much of the coddled generation these days and especially in youth sports, where there is a focus on the 'me' culture.  (Geno's) comments get to the heart of what it takes to excel today: to work really hard and really embrace the power of being a teammate. Life is not a highlight film…”  -Donna Orender (former president of the WNBA)

The power of being a teammate.  Life is not about me.  Life is not about what I don’t have.  Certainly not for those who have trusted in Christ.  Life is not about me.  Which sounds unfathomable to Me, my fallen self.  But because me-first relegates God to 2nd place at best, me-first also makes me an object of God’s wrath.  We were His enemies, Paul says.  Children of wrath.  The sentence of death was upon Me.  Even as the rest.  And rightly so.  Me had freely chosen - along with the rest - to go the way of Me.  Me put other things in God’s rightful place.  Me deserved to be separated from God and His breathtaking goodness forever.

Let’s not miss this. Yes, our God is slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness, but He gets angry.  Angry at sin, at Me-first.  My sin.  He is so good, but He is not safe.

This is why the Good News we celebrate at Christmas (and ideally the rest of the year) is so good - God gave us the greatest gift, the gift of His Son, Who was born as a baby and grew up so that He could die for me - and all the rest.  In Christ we have the forgiveness of our sins.  Through His blood.  By grace through faith.  And so now for those who trust in Christ, we’re not talking about try harder.  We’re talking about good works and a new life which GOD has prepared - and which He is working out in and through us.  This new DNA.  But yes we have a part to play.  Knowing who we are - and Whose we are - we have a part to play.  Imitate God.  Watch Him.  Observe Him.  Spend time with Him.  Put His love into practice.  Instead of this Me-ness there is We-ness.

Paul says, you all there in Ephesus (plural) - the Christian life is not about me.  Imitate your heavenly Father.  All y’all.  This One Who so loved the world that He gave.  Imitate your risen Brother, Who also loved you.  Who gave Himself up for you, an offering, a sacrifice that brought great pleasure to the Father.  Walk in love - together!  Truth in love!  Guard, grow the oneness.  Unity.  Love one another.  Lay down your lives for one another.  Be giving thanks, grateful for what you have.  In one another.  Make it not about what you don’t have or don’t like but about how God has loved you, how He has blessed you - TO BE A BLESSING!