Ephesians the 5th chapter, verses 15 to 16. Ephesians chapter 5, verse 15 and 16. Here the Apostle Paul writes, therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. Be careful. It's something you've probably heard over the holidays said maybe whenever you were bringing in some dish out of the trunk of a car, somebody may have told you, be careful with that. Or maybe bringing in some present and setting it by the tree, maybe somebody told you, be careful. It's a statement we make often, actually. Yes, you can build a fire, kids, outside, just be careful. Be careful on the road. The roads are wet. Y'all be careful. People say it all the time. Well, according to the Bible, be careful is a statement that should be made in Christianity. Some a hundred times throughout the Old and New Testament, we're told to be careful in various ways. In the New Testament, just a small sampling, 1 Corinthians 3.10, Paul tells ministers to be careful how they build on the foundation. Then in Titus chapter 3 verse 8, to all believers, he says, those who have believed must be careful to engage in good deeds so that they become profitable. But the reason we know this, which we're focusing on today, is Ephesians 5.15, isn't it? Because here, as we come to this verse, Paul has told the Ephesians and then us and all Christians who ever read this throughout time to be careful. And he says this as his opening statement. as his summary thesis for this whole entire last section, which we took an overview of last time, chapter 5, verse 15, all the way to 620. This is the thesis statement. Everything telescopes up into this one single summary conclusion to the whole entire letter. It's an amazing thought. I don't know if you would have thought that. If someone were to ask you, what is the takeaway? If you had to, we play that game sometimes. Yeah, but if you had to just pick one statement, what would you say? I wonder if you would have said, be careful. That's where Paul's mind goes. So what are we to think of this? What are we to make of this and how should it affect our lives? Well, if you begin to look just initially at this as he starts writing about it, I think you see, one, just the general exhortation to be careful. Then you see four ways to do so. So first we have just be careful, then we have four ways to do so. So we look first of all at just the general call to be careful. The implied subject is you, second person plural, so all of us. This verb to be is in the imperative mood, so it's a command. is followed with a predicate adjective, so we are told to be this kind of person, a careful person, and it has this all-important conjunction, therefore, putting this as the great consequence to all that we've seen. So we are all here called upon by the great Apostle Paul in response to all that he has said in Ephesians to be careful. What exactly does that mean? The Greek term, which is translated careful, comes from a word that is akron. And you may think, well, you've heard of that, because this term akron is a word picture for the highest point of a mountain. And there's a town in the United States, Akron, Ohio, that is named after this. The two men who founded that town founded it on the highest peak of the mountains in that area and thus they gave it the name from the Greek, Akron, Ohio. It's the highest summit in that state. Well, this idea of a point of a mountain came to be used almost for what we would think of as like the point of a pencil. You could think of the point of a pencil almost as a little miniature mountain. And you have this idea of a fine point and metaphorically it came to be used of fine motor skill versus gross. or fine point and particularity versus general, fine versus coarse, you might say, being particular. So we find it used in the New Testament, for example, and other places of searching carefully for a specific thing, like, say, a certain baby. Matthew 2 verse 8, Herod told them to search carefully, Akron, for this child. He didn't just want any child, he wanted that particular child. Or also, in chapter 2, verse 7 of Matthew, he wanted to know the exact time that the star took place, so he could calculate exactly which children to sift through. And that word there, exact, in our Bible, has got the Greek Akron under it. Or Luke, when he comes to write his gospel in Luke chapter 1 verse 3, says that he carefully examined all things and is now going to write this story. It refers to the details of a story. It's Akron with a fine point. Who said this and what followed that? And just with great detail, he is going to tell this story. So there are times when you want to be particular. There are times when someone has a particular personality is problematic, isn't it? And you want a general personality. Someone with a particular personality all the time will cause trouble. When you're sick, you just don't want your spouse to go grab any medicine from the cabinet. You got a particular medicine that you want. Well, I brought you some vitamin C. No, I need my antibiotic. I don't need a supplement, just any old bottle out of the cabinet. When you go to a heart doctor, you want particularity. You don't just want any artery snipped. and end around, you need this one, this particular one, that's causing the problem. So we talk about a heart doctor being careful. And when you build a bridge, the engineer needs this particular angle. It's not like, oh, just so long as it's supplementary. No, we need this particular angle laid down this way. When a man is working in the yard, he tells his son, go get me you know, a three-quarter inch wrench. Well, another won't do. I need that particular one. The other doesn't fit the bolt that I'm trying to work on here. To use it for women, when women picks out her clothes or decorates her house, she's not satisfied with just any curtains. It's not like any curtains will do. Oh, we're going to do supper. Just any food will work. There's particularity even within you say, spaghetti, but I want these noodles. I mean, we get very particular at times in life. When you pick out breakfast, you don't just want any of a certain one in mind. Or for the children, when you want a toy or some gadget or something that you're into, you're not satisfied, just any toy will do. You hate that, right? comes to your birthday and they give you a gift, and they just brought any gift. There was no particularity to it. So we know that there are times in life where particularity is called for, and Paul is telling us here, the Christian life is one such time. He is saying, you need to be particular. You need to be specific and accurate and exact and detailed that the question is about what? And that's why there follows four kind of adverbial, kind of laying out the manner or the way or how to go about being particular. What kind of particularity does he have in mind? He's obviously not talking about toys and dinner. So first of all, I would say he tells us to be careful ethically. He says be careful and then he writes how you walk. This clause is defining further what he means by careful, what type of carefulness, what way to be careful that he has in mind. It is a walking carefully, a living carefully. The walk, as you know, has been used several times, all the way back in Ephesians 2, verse 10, for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. Or chapter 4, verse 17, so this I say and affirm together in the Lord that you walk no longer as the Gentiles walk. or the heading of chapter 4, I implore you to walk in a manner worthy. And he's mentioned it several other times. This is his catch-all term for just living. how you live, but he doesn't mean biologically living. He means ethically. He doesn't mean what cereal you eat. He means ethics. And ethics refers to, we use these terms, how you ought to behave and ought not to behave. You should do this. You should not do that. You're wrong. This is right. And you ought to go this way, left, right, forward, all this kind of talk that we do. This is rude, this is not rude, this is an entire ethical discussion about right and wrong. Everything that goes under that umbrella is captured by this word walk. judging by what comes next. You can get a feel, though, for some of the things he's referring to. What is he going to refer to? He's going to refer to worship. He's going to refer to marriage. He's going to refer to children to parents and slaves to masters. He's going to refer to this armor of God of attacking the culture. So he's talking about what choices you make in life. So let's be particular with it. Be careful who you marry. Be careful who you hang out with. Be careful where you work and how you work. Be careful how you parent. Be careful how you maintain your marriage. Be careful how you worship, where you worship, what church you go to, what church you leave. Be careful how you parent, how you educate. Be careful how you fight the culture wars. That's the armor of God. Be careful that you pray. Be careful how you pray. Be careful with the Word of God, how you handle the Word of God. All of this is under this one big heading and you know as well as I do that the world, your own flesh, and worldliness even within the church will be one great dampening influence to tell you otherwise. Just chill out. Just rest. Just chill. Just don't be too serious. You're like Cocoon off of Pocahontas. Too serious. Calm down. And this will bother you and cudgel you into not being careful. You know, the Olaf approach to life. You just run out there. I remember Abram when he was younger, just run out there. There could be ant beds everywhere. Just naivety. Naivety. And he needed parents to watch after him and care for him. So Paul says, these people may, Paul is looking us in the eye and telling us, people may tell you that life is good and life is fun and just coast on, but he says, I'm looking you in the eye and saying, be careful or be a casualty. Be careful or you'll be a casualty. You might say this is the 10th specific thing that we need to do in the list. Remember way back in 425, he began getting specific. Replace this with this. Replace this with this. Here you would say this is the 10th one after saying replace darkness with light. Replace carelessness with carefulness. This is an amazing fact. I wonder again if you and I would tell someone. That is the takeaway. I wonder if we would tell each other this at any time. I wonder if we would remind each other. Brother, be careful. I just want to tell you, be careful. Sister, be careful with the way you're currently feeling, lest you act off those feelings and do something terrible. Be careful. this reminder to be careful. We see that it's biblical here. So to be careful ethically with your life, with what you do with your life. And the way to be careful with your life is spelled out next by this pair of not but prepositional phrases. He says, not as unwise men, but as wise. So the second thing we can say about Paul telling us to be careful is not just to be careful ethically, but number two, to be careful wisely. And before we start answering this, I wonder if you have a tendency as well as I do, when I looked at this, to start automatically filling in the blank. for what wisdom is. With a lot of true definitions, just not the ones, or not particularly the one that Paul has in mind. Things like, you may say, well it means the right use of knowledge. Just true. Or wisdom is choosing the best means to achieve the best ends, which is also true. Or you may say wisdom is really the way the world works. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the wisdom literature is all about kind of downloading in me this understanding of the way the world works, so I know how to navigate it to be successful. So the way the world works, there's this logos, there's this reason running the universe, which we Christians know is the decree of God, the will of God, the aim and purpose of God. And so there's this way that it works, and that would be wisdom. Along with Proverbs, you have this idea of the contrast between the two roads, the two ways of life. One way that's successful, another that ends by falling off the bridge. So this way of wisdom and folly, and there's people who know the will of God and follow it, and those who don't know the will of God or know it and don't follow it. Jesus says, the wise man is he who builds his house on a rock. So it's not just knowing the will of God, but having the heart to follow it and do it is wisdom. In Jeremiah, when the king obeyed, he says, is this not to know me, says the Lord. So knowing God, this is why people who are disobedient, Paul can say they do not know God. The Gentiles do not know God. Well, they know some of them enough to be culpable that they don't know enough of them enough to realize how they should live differently. So, all of these are true, but just remember, remember, we have to ask what exactly though in the context of Ephesians should be ringing in our ear? And might Paul have a particular idea in mind here? Because wisdom and folly have already been used several times in the context of this letter with a very specific meaning. So let's look back over what we've seen. Chapter 1, verse 8. Look what he says here. "...which He lavished on us." So this is His grace He lavished on us. So God not only when He saved us, He tells us He gave us every spiritual blessing. So not only election in verse 4, not only predestination in verse 5, not only redemption in verse 7, But to lavish is to add more, to do something extra. But He lavished on us, and He says, in all wisdom and insight, He made known to us, what? The mystery. The mystery is a term Paul uses for the secret purpose of all things. Something that you and I could never know. Something that you can't get by natural theology. John Lennox, the Oxford mathematician, used this analogy of, you know, Grandma Betty bakes a cake. The chemist can tell you, can answer the what question about this cake, but not the why question. He can tell you the chemicals that are in it, the nutrition facts that are in it, so he can answer the what question. He can't answer the why question. And a scientist can answer certain what question. What is a bone? What is the composition of a banana? But really think about it. An unbelieving, rebellious scientist, one that's not submitted to Christ, cannot tell you why the banana. He has no idea why it exists. Only he does, he's rebelling against the truth, but he doesn't from his starting point. And Paul is telling us, you know, there are a lot of people in this room right now. And you know what Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 2? None of us know the thoughts that are in each other unless we reveal them. Who among men? knows the thoughts of a man, except the spirit of the man that is within him. So some of us in this room could be having all kinds of thoughts, and we get people wrong all the time. Don't we think, well, he's not thinking and he is thinking. Well, he's thinking A, and no, he was thinking B the whole time. Similarly, Paul is saying, if it's that way with you, how much more with God? We do not know God unless He reveals Himself. He is a person. And so we don't know why He created this universe unless He would reveal it to us. And Paul is saying, that is what I mean by mystery. And mystery for Paul, this is not like unsolved mystery, something you cannot figure out. Pagan thought where this is something that is always outside of the reach of us. But it's a mystery in this sense. It is something that was once hidden, but now revealed. It's a mystery like a gender reveal, which has become popular in our day. Until the moment that whatever is exploded or cut or whatever that reels, blue, pink, that the gender of this coming child, in a sense it's a mystery. But once it's revealed, it's no longer a mystery. And so this is Paul's idea of God's purpose for the world in Christ. The mystery is now revealed. That's the idea. He revealed the mystery, and He defines the mystery as the mystery of His will. So this is what He's doing. And it says, it is according to His kind intention, or His good pleasure. So God has a pleasurable aim of what He's doing. And He says, which He purposed in Him, that is Christ. So the purpose of the banana is Christ. The purpose of the water molecule is Christ. The purpose of the sun, moon, and stars and galaxies is Christ. Because God made all of these component parts, and He says His singular purpose is in Him. So, this is why Jonathan Edwards said, the doctrine of redemption is greater than the doctrine of providence. in his essay on the history of redemption, because providence serves the higher purpose of redemption. It's connected to it logically. Now he goes on in verse 10 to say, with a view, so he has this purpose and he says, with a view to an administration A term we've heard a lot from presidential administrations. It's an economical word, an economy. Some people still talk like that, the economy of God. They basically mean the way he's running everything. The way you're moving all these parts around in an economy. That's a lot of parts. Well, imagine running the whole universe. That's even more. And he says, he has this purpose with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times. That means like a ripening grape, this thing was, everything was moving along for when Jesus came into the world. which we could go into, there are many things, you already know some of them. But he says, that is the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. So this means Jesus is viewed in God's plan as the great uniter, the last Adam, the second man, who is going to put back together again what the first man destroyed. So God's purpose is the reunification of all things. God's purpose is the same purpose to John Lennon's song, Imagine. There being harmony. There being peace. But it's not a Tower of Babel approach to the peace. It's the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob approach to the peace. When you read in Genesis, you see the Tower of Babel. They're going to make a name for themselves. And then contrasted right beside it in chapter 12, you have the pericope of Abraham, and God is going to make a great name for him. So you have these two ways of making a great name. This one fails, this one's going to succeed. So, God wants peace. God wants unity. God doesn't want crying and tears and pain and sorrow. We see how He acted at the tomb of Lazarus. And Paul is saying that he has a purpose to reunify all things in Christ. And this is the wisdom you and I have been given. And you go over to the end of the chapter, And he's saying, I'm praying, verse 17, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom, and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, that you might know this purpose. And he goes into how Christ has already been raised from the dead. In other words, it's like Joseph has already been seated in Egypt, And now it sets into motion the next stage of the plan. Hebrews does this, we do not yet see all things subject to Him, but we do see Jesus. In other words, we see Psalm 8 fulfillment begun. We see the already, we see that it's in motion. As Gandalf says at the return of the king, there are now things set in motion which cannot be undone. That's what Paul is announcing. That's what Gamaliel was saying. Blessed God has set into motion something which cannot be undone. And you would be found fighting against Him. Look at chapter 3. Paul again talks about this wisdom that we've been given. He says in verse 1 of this chapter, For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus, for the sake of you Gentiles... So Paul is saying, I have a relationship to you Gentiles, if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace which was given to me for you. So you may say, I don't need Paul. What do you mean? Yes, you do. Yes, I do. Here's his relationship. It is God's grace given to me for you that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery as I wrote before in brief." This is an incredible verse for the doctrine of revelation. There's so many people out there that think God reveals stuff to me, And then I go talk to people. No. He reveals it to the apostle Paul. He writes it. You read it in the book. And then you have the revelation. That's how it works. That's the order. So by referring to this, when you read, that is an amazing cause. When you read your Bible, you get the revelation. When you read this letter, you get the revelation, you get the wisdom. You will understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other generations, here it is again, this idea of something not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed. What is it? To be specific, verse 6, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, fellow members, fellow partakers. You remember Jesus saying they're going to come from the east and west and sit at the table with Abraham. That's the mystery. That Rahab is invited. That Ruth is invited. That's the mystery. That Monique is invited is the mystery. That He's going to give the kingdom gladly to Gentiles also. That is the mystery. And look, there's still too much. The Holocaust has made it so that we can never say this. but the Holocaust was an anathema and we are against everything that is it and leads to it, but there is no salvation simply for being a physical Jew. The Jew to whom all the promises of God were made is Jesus. And no one has salvation except in Him. It's like we don't realize Peter and John were preaching to Jews. telling them their salvation in no other name but in Him. And Jesus called synagogues of Jews the synagogue of Satan. And He called people who were from Abraham children of the devil. So being a child of Abraham is more than being a physical child of Abraham. It's what Romans 9 is all about. And so Paul is sitting here saying this and he says, according to the gift of God's grace which was given to me, according to the working of his power, to me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ. And this is what offends the Jew. You can't give this to the Gentile because then you've ripped away. But God, He tells us in Romans 11, God has ordered it in such a way that He's allowed the Gentiles to go their own way and be utterly pagan fools in their worship and demonstrate that they are nobodies. And He's allowed the Jews to go the self-righteous way and demonstrate their utter arrogance so that He may shut up all in disobedience. and He may have mercy on all. That everyone may be humbled, and everyone may come bowed down to receive grace. As Spurgeon put it, the door is so wide that any sinner may come, but so low that no pride may pass. And so Paul says in verse 9, we just finished here, "...and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery." Notice this, not just the end, but the means to the end. That is radical. You and I, through the revelation given to the Apostle Paul, not only know the end of all things, but we know the means, the instrument God is going to use to do it. which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things." You see, you get this idea, He created it, but why? Why? I mean, when you read Genesis 1.1, ask yourself, in the beginning God created. Ask, why? Why is there something rather than nothing? Paul gives the answer. And then he says, notice the word wisdom again, "...so that the manifold wisdom of God might be made known through the church to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord." So you get it there. Then remember chapter 4, verses 7 to 10, where he says, all the gifts of Christ that he's given his church down through the ages, from Paul, through Augustine, through R.C. Sproul, all the way to our gifts to this day, every single Christian who's been gifted, who's become the light of the world, that he obtained through the gospel, through his descent and ascent, is all for what purpose? Look at the purpose in verse 10. So that He might fill all things. We know what the means is. The means of changing the world is the church. There's no other plan. Every other plan is a Tower of Babel plan. There's no other plan. And then look at the ignorance, look at the intellectual terms he uses of the Gentiles in 4.17, that you walk no longer as the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, darkened in their understanding. So when you come to chapter 5, And he's already told us in verse 4 that there'll be no foolish joking, there'll be no foolishness, which is not fitting. It makes sense. Well, yeah, we're people with the insight, with the wisdom. We have the sports almanac from back to the future. We know who wins, how they win. Like, we're not supposed to be nervous in the fourth quarter when we're down three points. We know the winner. We have the book given to us. That's what Paul is saying. So when he says here, be careful how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, he is not just basically parroting Proverbs to us here. Oh, just, you know, make wise choices in life. No, no, no, no, no. He's saying, go back to those definitions you have, that there's ends and means. Paul has a vineyard that accomplished nothing. Many, the Proverbs tells us, are the plans of man, but what? The counsel of the Lord stands. That means we live in a universe who has controlled all of it like a great contractor toward one great end and in the very end there's a top put on the top of the building to finish it. That means anything I'm doing that's out of sync with that is ultimately unsuccessful. It does not... You say memories. There are no memories. What do you mean memories? They fade away. The pictures fade away. The carving on the concrete tomb fades away. People dig it up later. They don't respect it. It fades away. Peter says, we have an inheritance which is undefiled and will not fade away reserved in heaven for us. Jesus said, don't store up here what fades away, what destroys. You see, memories are like our unbiblical fault. Not that memories are wrong. Do not get me wrong, of course. But it's a sad part of living in this fallen world and the way the universe is run at this present moment that they fade. So the point is when people are just, well, I'm going to leave a legacy. No, there's only one legacy. There is no legacy. What do you mean a legacy? How could there be a legacy in a universe that has one purpose and it alone is accomplished? There is no other legacy. There's just blind, ignorant men who built a castle of sand to be swept away in the end. There's no legacy. There is no memory. except what is producing an eternal weight of glory that lasts. That's why Paul says, even if I'm poured out, I rejoice because I have not done it in vain. Which implies, he says, brethren, be steadfast and movable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. And as much as you know it's not in vain, implying without the resurrection, without this, it is vain. So understand, Paul did not patronize people. I understand you don't have Jesus, but you have a pretty good life. No, you are wasting it and the clock is ticking and none of it is lasting. Which is why, consequently, the way to be wise is spelled out the way it is next. By this phrase, redeeming the time, making most of the time. This is a participle, and it is a phrase, and it is functioning to explain how to be wise. In what manner does a wise person live? And so we get our third point. How are we to be careful? Ethically, wisely, temporally. Be careful with minutes and seconds and hours and days and months and years and quarters and decades in lifetimes. Making the most of the time. Some translations say redeeming the time. What does this mean? A very amazing study here to figure this out. So they say it's a marketplace term for buying. You go to Kroger, you redeem something. That's how they use it, redeeming. And if you think about it, it kind of makes some sense because To redeem means to buy back, almost like you went to a pawn shop or something. But part of the meaning, it's only part of the meaning they have in mind. You don't necessarily have to be buying back something you lost here. The idea is there's an exchange. There is this for this. I'll give you this and you give me that. You go to the coffee shop, I'll give you two dollars, you give me the cup of coffee. There's an exchange. I had to lose the two dollars in order to gain the cup of coffee. So, in a sense, I had to pay for it. Jesus had to lose his life in order for you and I to gain ours. This is put in place of that. God gives Christ and gets us in return. There is a losing of something in order for there to be a gaining of something. But watch this, the object of the verb making is not persons, as in salvation, nor is it apples in the marketplace, but it is time. And it means the object to get, well, the means to get it with is not money, but the choices we make. You can't make more time, Paul says, but you can make the most of it. You cannot make more of it, but you can make the most of it. You cannot generate it, but you can gather it. How? You look at your schedule. We do this all the time. We say, I just don't have time. I don't have time. And we don't. But guess what? You can say no to things and make room. I will not do that. Bye. Now I have an hour. That is redeeming the time. You get the picture. You have to lose in order to gain. That is what it means to redeem the time. I am going to consciously lose this to get this. Because I judge what I'm going to be doing in this block of time as worth so much. And this as worth so little. In Daniel 2.8, this very same phrase is used of the conjurers. The king says they were buying time. How? They were living in such a way that they got more time to do this particular task. You could do that today. Tomorrow, if you're exercising and you have a few errands to run, you could say no to the errands and you could swell out your exercise time. You could buy more time. But the point is you had to pay for it. You had to lose in order to get. So we have this phrase of buying up time, getting more time. And that is what it means to redeem the time. Now I want you to imagine something here. Why does Paul say, if you have wisdom, then the next thing you do, the way it manifests itself that you're a wise person, is you redeem time. You become a person that loses things and activities in order to get more time for other things and activities. Why would that be that way? Bob Jennings used to use this analogy of the Titanic and it came to my mind. again this morning, he says, suppose you work on the Titanic, and you're there and everybody's boarding the Titanic, and somehow, you know, God reveals it to you some way, somebody tells you, this thing in a matter of hours, certain amount of hours, is all going to be at the bottom of the Atlantic. And say you're the wood polisher for the cabinets. Do you think you polish that wood differently? And you see people coming in, look at all these chandeliers, look at these curtains, look at this fine china, look at all that. Do you remember Jesus to the disciples? Oh, look at this temple, He says, it is all coming down. You would say, if this guy knew that and believed that, and live for this boat, he was the ultra fool. Because not only did he know it was going down, he invested in it. No, he would be thinking, okay, what am I going to do? What is lasting and how can I invest in that? And that is the idea. The one who does the will of God lives forever. This world, Paul says, is passing away so that you hold things loosely. You vote as though you are not voting. You marry as though you're not marrying. You buy as though you did not possess. He really means it. to buy a house and a piece of property as if you didn't. Because as you buy it, you know you're buying a piece of the Titanic. And as you marry, you're marrying a piece of the Titanic. Our bodies are going... The person you married is... You're not married forever. So that can't be the meaning of life. He's going to tell us later, marriage has a much more significant meaning than your little romance story. Show you have wisdom, Paul says, by being careful to use your life for what is ultimately successful. And last, rather than being a fool, by using most of it in a contrary way than the things that are being summed up in Christ. To do anything else is to be a fool. There is no legacy. There is no memory. Your Facebook memories will end. Your photographs will go the way of all chemical composition and perish. There is only one thing that lasts. And if wisdom is defined as obtaining your goal in the end and not losing it, there is only one life that is a successful life, and it is the Christian life. Because otherwise, you're just playing dirty Santa with things. You're just holding on to it for a while, calling it yours, and no, it's not yours, you lose it in the end. So be careful, temporally, Paul says, how you spend your time. Act like you're not walking around on the earth like someone ignorant of the purpose of all things. I saw someone posted the other day who claims to be a Christian who Farewell might be a Christian, truth be told, but the purpose of life is to serve. No, it's not. From Him, through Him, and to Him are all things. The purpose of life is theocentric, not anthropocentric. God-centered, not man-centered. But any old humanist will love that, and like that, and share that. But what did Jesus say? Hey, the world can't hate you. Talk about what is good for people, and you're in this community, and y'all are doing this. The moment you mention Jesus, you have thrown the red carpet on you in a bullfight. Because He is the seed that the serpent is angry about. Not you and not me. Finally, the reason to be careful, Paul mentions, how you live your life is not just because you are aware of God and His plan, but because you are aware of a dark one. a dark one who is after you to pull you from pursuing that plan. He says it here and he bookends it later. He says, because the days are evil. And he's going to say it at the end of this section. Verse 13. Where is it at? Verse 13, Therefore take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day. You might be like Rex off of Toy Story and say, I don't like confrontation. Too bad. You're in it. I don't like war and strife. Too bad. There is a war between God and the devil, between good and evil, and you are in it. pick up a bayonet and a rifle and figure out how to use it, you're in it. Or you and your children and your grandchildren will be swallowed up. That's the point. Remember what he tells the Galatians. He's not just talking about here. Oh, oh, yeah, right. You know, the LGBT, all this is going on today. We're just in really a bad time of culture. Paul is like, no, that's not what I mean. This is a segment of the larger thing called the present evil age. There have been times worse than this generation, far worse. Galatians 1.4, he uses this phrase, the present evil age. It is the whole entire period of time from the fall to the second coming of Christ. He's the God of this world. The whole world, John says, is in His power. In Revelation, a guy gets thrown in prison. Jesus says, Satan is going to throw some of you in prison. Who was it that was behind Herod trying to kill the baby? When John writes it in Revelation, he presents a dragon waiting between the legs of the woman to devour. The child wasn't Herod. It wasn't Pharaoh. Have we even understood the book of Job yet? That the book of Job is not just about Job? That there's a behind-the-scenes realm? Paul says, the Lord's bondservant must be kind, patient, when wronged, able to teach in gentleness, reproving those who are in opposition, that God may grant them repentance and they may recover their senses. having been ensnared and captive by the devil to do His will. When people are converted, it's not because of a gifted preacher per se. You know, Jonathan Edwards, after he preached the sinners in the hands of an angry God, went to another church and preached it, and the men stood outside the doorway and dipped snuff and smoked cigarettes with no emotion. We still fall into thinking, well, it's this guy and that guy and that guy, and forget 1 Corinthians 3. I am nothing, Apollos is nothing, but God who gave the growth. People are under the dominion of the strong man, and unless someone stronger than him goes in and binds him and lets him go, he's not coming out. But this one, this ancient foe written about by Luther, is ever after Christians, to devour them. Think about that. Imagine walking through a field and there are snipers. And you just have a picnic. You just act like, do you realize how many days of our life we've done that? And it's only God's grace that some of us haven't fallen worse than we have already. Peter misses prayer. I just missed prayer. Satan has asked to have you. That's what was going on there. Which is why later when he writes his epistle in chapter 5, he says, Therefore, be of sober spirit for the purpose of prayer. To be thinking, to be careful, to be aware that you have an enemy. But again, everything in the world is to get the Christian out of this mindset. If you think about it, what did Paul just get? This therefore follows. He just got through talking about darkness and light. Warring each other. We're advancing, shining a light, but in a very dark place. We have an enemy. Remember, I started re-reading the story of or reading the first time the Fellowship of the Ring, the actual book. And it's like Frodo's being told by Gandalf, be careful, be careful, watch out here and watch out for that. It's just watch outs everywhere. And that's actually the word for be careful, is carefully look about. So you just take it on the authority of Scripture. Yes, people are even maybe going to try to dump water on what you've heard today. But you're being told, and did not Jesus say, be alert, be alert, be alert? There are two dangers to avoid, and then I'll finish. There are two dangers I want to mention with regard to sin and evil still in the world. And both are wrong approaches. And typically, any healthy Christian falls into both of them over time. So probably when I mention them, you may be able to identify with them. Think of it as a tightrope walk, and you're trying to get to this building. And I mean to walk in the truth. It's like Conrad Murrell said, it's like walking on a razor blade. There's a thousand miles of error this way and that way. But to get to the other side, I can't fall off this side, I can't fall off this side. What's needed is carefulness. to make it across. So what are the two ditches when it comes to being freaked out by the fact that we live in a present evil age? They are otherworldliness and overworldliness. Otherworldliness is basically monkism. You just withdraw. You just are so gripped. You're so fearful of sin that you can't even go to the basketball game. You can't even go to the mall, say, or you can't go to the Christmas light show because you may see something. And you're just so overcome with fear that you literally pull almost completely out of the world. And that can't be right because God sent His Son into this world. And we're called to go and shine the light and to redeem the world and go after it. However... So that typically happens at the beginning of conversion. You get converted, and you're just zealous, and you just maybe do some evangelism, but that's about it. Everything else is, I've got to pray, I've got to fast, I've got to read, I don't have time to go to the t-ball game, I don't have time to play with the little train set with my nephew, I don't have time for relationships. It's just all spiritual, pedal to the metal, here we go in one direction. But then what happens is years go by and you eventually settle and you come to realize, well wait, I am to be in the world. I am to go to the ballgame. This is what I'm supposed to do. That was all kind of pharisaical and wrong. And so then you react and you overly do it over here. And you plunge yourself into worldliness and you just almost have no fear of being sucked in by this world. There's no carefulness anymore. There's just lax, and you watch any movie, no matter how many curse words are in it, and you look at things, no matter how scandally dressed, and then one day someone falls, and we do not realize that it was because we were not careful. Jude says, save some with fear. hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. There is to be a sense of, look, there are certain types of evangelism that you should never do. Well, just to give a crazy example, should a preacher go evangelize in, for prudence sake, I'll just say the worst club you can imagine. And someone says, well, how are they ever going to be reached? That is a trap. Gandalf tells Frodo, do not give me this ring. I would use it with a desire to do good, but through me it would wield a power too great and terrible to imagine and overcome me. He says, it's pity in my heart that would be the way of the ring to my heart. It's caring about people that will suck you in. You get carried away by mercy and Satan traps you. There's nothing more sad than a Christian who was trying to do good and fail. There is mercy and forgiveness for it, but it is a real danger and it has effects. And so the way in the middle is just balanced. It is summed up. There's no other. We try, people reach for it. They're like in the world, but not of it. And who was it? Moody, he says, well, you got to get your boat in the water, but don't get the water in the boat. You get the idea, you have certain relationships where you're trying to reach this person and now it looks like they're reaching you. So there's just this, you have to understand Genesis 3.15, there's only two kinds of people in this world. There's the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman, and they are at enmity. That means if you talk about softball, it might be fine, but as you get closer to heart purposes, the antithesis is revealed. And unless this person is converted, they're not coming this way. And they are pulling you the other way. Both are active. So there's an ever danger to be wary, to be leery, to be aware, to be asking, maybe asking another brother, what do you think about me watching this? What do you think about me going here? What do you think about me looking at this? To keep an eye, to be my brother's keeper. So the emphasis here, though, is on the proper fear of the danger. So let's sum it up by saying fearfully. And I quote Jude if you needed to save them with fear. You should fear what could happen. And you should be careful to avoid it. There's a way to parent that you should be frightened about because of what you could do. There's a way to handle your marriage that you should be terrified of because you can lose it There's a way to work. There's a way to do prayer. There's a way to do the culture wars that suck you down. So as I end, I thought of this memory come back to my mind. Paul Washer, when he was a missionary in Peru, there was this native kind of Indian man there named Paco. And he tells all these stories that Paco is the one who would lead him through the jungles of Peru if they had to go somewhere. Because he knew what to eat, what not to eat, what they could drink, not drink, where to step, what animals were OK and which were not OK. And in the jungles of South America, I mean, that's about one of the deadliest environments you could be in. It's just you drop one of us in there, we're dead. Because you know what to eat, what to drink, and you have to eat, you have to drink. You don't know, there's nowhere to step, and how do you go through here? So I want you to have this idea of there he is, there are things to do, and he will die, and there are things to do, and he will live. And if you think, Jeffrey, I just really like this idea of just coming to church, singing the hymns, remembering that I'm saved by grace, and going back for the week, and coming to church, and singing. And this really, it's terrifying that I could lose this, and lose my children, and lose my marriage, and fall into sin, and terrible things happen, and hurt people, and Satan is after me. I know it's unsettling. But it is true. What would be more unsettling is if one of those things happened? So like washer going through the jungle, you and I need wisdom. We need a guide. We need the wisdom to come to us so that we make it through it to the end. So Paul says to us today, he says, if you've heard anything I've said, that this world fell, it's being put back together again. Yes, it has started. Yes, it is moving forward. Yes, you're saved. Yes, you're not going to lose your salvation, but you can absolutely ruin so many things. and hurt so many things. And it is dangerous. So be careful. Ethically, wisely, temporally, and fearfully. Fear sin. Fear the world. Fear yourself. So ask yourself some questions here at the end. Have I taken one of these extreme views and I need to bring my life back to the center somehow? Somehow I'm way over otherworldly over here and I don't have any relationships. I'm not trying to reach anyone. I can't do anything normal. Man, have I swung the pendulum over here and, you know, I'm watching things that defile my conscience. I have no seriousness about me as to like, you know, even something like you may say, well, it's not a sin. Paul says, you know, it may be lawful, but is it profitable? You see, there's a purpose to the world. And is it helping me toward that purpose? And how am I using my time? Am I just piddling it away? Have I gotten sad about something, maybe, and I'm just limp, and it's just piddling away? Understand that the call is still to somehow redeem it. No, you cannot make more of it, but you can make the most of it. The thief on the cross redeemed the time. He lived his whole life wrong. And in the end, he redeemed the time. And look what God did with it. He said, it doesn't matter how old you are, it doesn't matter how far you've gone, don't have the thought that, well, so much of it has been wasted, and Mary and Joe over here, they've not gone through what I've gone through, so now I can never have that life. Even that is false. God is able to do things in one year of a life. that other people took 70 to do. So nothing is too difficult for Him. There is no reason to not put your life into His hands and do it a second ago. Immediately. So redeem the time and realize this is not legalism. Realize that Paul tells Titus, these things speak with authority. And it doesn't mean me only. It means all of us to say to each other, remind each other. Now, you can't lay down a law, but you know if you've just been scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and not praying. You know if your soul is just empty when you come into the prayer meeting and you just hear Because you're just on the psychological dopamine cycle of the next Netflix series at night time? That is not for you. You're a Christian. And you have life. And you have some more time. And there's stuff that can be done and it can last. And God is able to use... What did He do to make the latter wine the best? He is able to do that. So please, let us all think about this. Let us not shun our need of wisdom. Let us not live aimlessly, purposely, lessly, or naively. Well, may the Lord help you as much as this has been helpful to me to think about this initial word from Paul. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this day. Definitely, so we thank you for it. And we thank you for the scriptures. And we thank you for the local church. We thank you for your whole church. We thank you for every help we get. And Lord, we pray that our hearts would be in the right spot when we leave here today. We pray that they wouldn't be sinful toward one another. Pray that you would help anyone with anything. I've said, Lord, there are plenty of arrogant preachers in the world, and it doesn't need another one, and I don't desire to be another one, so would you delete away my lack Lord in this presentation that we could all see what really is God speaking and think about you and think about our lives and be encouraged to come to you and to put our life back in your hand and to have the grace and the humility to just be a Christian who actually still needs to correct things, who still needs to repent, Help us not be people who say that we're not sinless, but then never repent of anything. But help repentance and grace and sanctification to be a part of our lives, Lord, and linked to your word. So we just pray whatever this word was meant to do in a human heart that is being sanctified, that you would do it in our hearts. In Jesus' name, Amen.