You are new kinds of humans. Holy, you are distinct and set apart now, from your previous identity. You are more loved than you can possibly imagine, beloved children. You are children of the light, you don’t have to live in the dark anymore. Parameters, these are indications of what living into this new identity looks like, sex and money in relationships and anger and work ethic and generosity, how does all of this look like, in light of who we really are now in Jesus. Freedom, the immense amount of freedom that we have, but Paul is like a loving parent who’s trying to give, these new spiritual children freedom by giving them parameters. That sounds paradoxical to us or maybe even contradictory, but freedom, we think of freedom as having no parameters, I can do whatever I want, but that’s not the gospels version of freedom, doing whatever you want leads to ruined human lives.
The freedom of having parameters, God created parameters and we pay attention as though that cramps my style, we tend to focus on parameters as being told I can’t do something, but what we usually neglect is this immense amount of freedom. Paul maps this on to Ephesians, he lays out these parameters of what it means to live into our new identity and there’s really not that many, and what it does, it leaves open this whole part of our day-to-day lives where there’s just absolute freedom to live as these new kinds of people. Most of what we do in our day-to-day lives doesn’t cross those parameters, but we search the Bible in vain for God to tell us where to move and where to get a job, there’s no parameters on that, there’s just freedom.
What does Paul have to say as he guides people into the arenas of freedom, Ephesians 5:1-20, as you read that paragraph, it’s like reading a bunch of top ten great one-liners about wisdom and discerning the Lord’s will and be filled with the Spirit, but what is your guiding light as you go out into your life as a Christian. You know what the parameters are, but most of your life is open before you, what are you supposed do and how do you know how to make decisions in the areas of great freedom that we have as Christians. Paul says wisdom, discerning God’s will and being filled with the Spirit, as your guiding lights as you go into your freedom as a Christian and you know that you’re tapping into and using those, when your life results in being connected with music, giving thanks and submitting to other people. These three things, wisdom, discerning God’s will and being filled with the Spirit, as you consider this arena of freedom in your life, to be super intentional, to be super careful, your decisions about how you live really matters.
Notice verses 15-18, the three don’ts, don’t be unwise, don’t be foolish, don’t get hammered and the three do’s, do be wise, do discern God’s will, do be filled with the Spirit, these are all connected. In this area of freedom, as we approach our lives, there’s no rules, there’s just go be a human being. What are you going to do with your life now? Paul’s idea of what it means to be a wise person is waking up and having an intuition as you go through life what God’s will for that is, and if your going to be a wise person who knows how to discern God’s will for what you’re doing on any given day, learn how to be influenced by the Spirit, but there’s going to be three behaviors that are constantly going to sabotage your ability to be a fully mature human being.
The Bible has a more robust, a really different version of what wisdom is. The Bible talks about knowledge, it talks about understanding, but notice it has different words for that, wisdom and particularly Paul has one Old Testament passage in the back of his head, Exodus 31:1-3. God’s designing his own personal dwelling place in the midst of his people that he’s redeemed, the base vision of wisdom in the Bible, its actually not necessarily your IQ or do you have advanced degrees to be an artisan? No. In this case, God is animating this skill set that this guy has, wisdom is a skill that you cultivate, it’s about bringing potential out of something and making something awesome. There’s freedom here, God takes great joy in investing his own personal presence in the lives of people, to inspire them to make something.
When Paul saying be careful how you live, it’s about making the most of every opportunity, every one of us by the presence of God in our lives, has this presence that’s urging us to become more and more capable of just making good decisions with our lives. How should we live in our new identity, whatever your story is, you are absolutely loved and cherished by your Creator, Jesus loved you and gave himself for you, they say, here’s your life, go for it and be wise, make the most of it. There’s this connection between being wise and just making wise decisions with our life and God’s commitment to be personally present with us. If I’m wise, I’m cultivating this understanding that in any given day we can make decisions that are more in line or less in line with God’s will, but many of us have a conception of God’s will as if it’s some secret hidden purpose that we need to figure out for your life. We talk about it, am I in God’s will, am I going against God’s will, we think God’s will as if it’s some point on a map and we need to find out where the point is, and then figure out how were supposed to get there, that’s not how the Bible talks about God’s will.
Paul talks about God’s will, about the parameters that God has set in place for our new life, as new kinds of humans in Jesus. Purity with regard to having sex to someone your not married to, this is not God’s will and so, that’s a way to ruin your life real quick. Biblical authors referred to God’s will, it has to do with discerning what’s pleasing to God. All kinds of things could be God’s will and in many passages in Paul, Paul talks about the renewal of your mind, a Christians mind is renewed when your new identity is in the gospel, you will be able to cultivate the skill of discerning what God’s will is, the good and perfect will, it’s gaining the intuition. We are supposed to be wise and we are supposed to do what’s pleasing to God, but to be filled with the Spirit, that’s a completely different kind of behavior, it’s about some kind of outside influence. You can be wise and unwise of your own accord, but to get drunk or to be influenced by the Spirit, there’s something outside yourself that’s influencing you. Paul in this new humanity, there are all kinds of influences you want to avoid, especially influences that will in any way impair you from being able to make good decisions in the moment and discerning what God’s will is.`
The freedom of having parameters, God created parameters and we pay attention as though that cramps my style, we tend to focus on parameters as being told I can’t do something, but what we usually neglect is this immense amount of freedom. Paul maps this on to Ephesians, he lays out these parameters of what it means to live into our new identity and there’s really not that many, and what it does, it leaves open this whole part of our day-to-day lives where there’s just absolute freedom to live as these new kinds of people. Most of what we do in our day-to-day lives doesn’t cross those parameters, but we search the Bible in vain for God to tell us where to move and where to get a job, there’s no parameters on that, there’s just freedom.
What does Paul have to say as he guides people into the arenas of freedom, Ephesians 5:1-20, as you read that paragraph, it’s like reading a bunch of top ten great one-liners about wisdom and discerning the Lord’s will and be filled with the Spirit, but what is your guiding light as you go out into your life as a Christian. You know what the parameters are, but most of your life is open before you, what are you supposed do and how do you know how to make decisions in the areas of great freedom that we have as Christians. Paul says wisdom, discerning God’s will and being filled with the Spirit, as your guiding lights as you go into your freedom as a Christian and you know that you’re tapping into and using those, when your life results in being connected with music, giving thanks and submitting to other people. These three things, wisdom, discerning God’s will and being filled with the Spirit, as you consider this arena of freedom in your life, to be super intentional, to be super careful, your decisions about how you live really matters.
Notice verses 15-18, the three don’ts, don’t be unwise, don’t be foolish, don’t get hammered and the three do’s, do be wise, do discern God’s will, do be filled with the Spirit, these are all connected. In this area of freedom, as we approach our lives, there’s no rules, there’s just go be a human being. What are you going to do with your life now? Paul’s idea of what it means to be a wise person is waking up and having an intuition as you go through life what God’s will for that is, and if your going to be a wise person who knows how to discern God’s will for what you’re doing on any given day, learn how to be influenced by the Spirit, but there’s going to be three behaviors that are constantly going to sabotage your ability to be a fully mature human being.
The Bible has a more robust, a really different version of what wisdom is. The Bible talks about knowledge, it talks about understanding, but notice it has different words for that, wisdom and particularly Paul has one Old Testament passage in the back of his head, Exodus 31:1-3. God’s designing his own personal dwelling place in the midst of his people that he’s redeemed, the base vision of wisdom in the Bible, its actually not necessarily your IQ or do you have advanced degrees to be an artisan? No. In this case, God is animating this skill set that this guy has, wisdom is a skill that you cultivate, it’s about bringing potential out of something and making something awesome. There’s freedom here, God takes great joy in investing his own personal presence in the lives of people, to inspire them to make something.
When Paul saying be careful how you live, it’s about making the most of every opportunity, every one of us by the presence of God in our lives, has this presence that’s urging us to become more and more capable of just making good decisions with our lives. How should we live in our new identity, whatever your story is, you are absolutely loved and cherished by your Creator, Jesus loved you and gave himself for you, they say, here’s your life, go for it and be wise, make the most of it. There’s this connection between being wise and just making wise decisions with our life and God’s commitment to be personally present with us. If I’m wise, I’m cultivating this understanding that in any given day we can make decisions that are more in line or less in line with God’s will, but many of us have a conception of God’s will as if it’s some secret hidden purpose that we need to figure out for your life. We talk about it, am I in God’s will, am I going against God’s will, we think God’s will as if it’s some point on a map and we need to find out where the point is, and then figure out how were supposed to get there, that’s not how the Bible talks about God’s will.
Paul talks about God’s will, about the parameters that God has set in place for our new life, as new kinds of humans in Jesus. Purity with regard to having sex to someone your not married to, this is not God’s will and so, that’s a way to ruin your life real quick. Biblical authors referred to God’s will, it has to do with discerning what’s pleasing to God. All kinds of things could be God’s will and in many passages in Paul, Paul talks about the renewal of your mind, a Christians mind is renewed when your new identity is in the gospel, you will be able to cultivate the skill of discerning what God’s will is, the good and perfect will, it’s gaining the intuition. We are supposed to be wise and we are supposed to do what’s pleasing to God, but to be filled with the Spirit, that’s a completely different kind of behavior, it’s about some kind of outside influence. You can be wise and unwise of your own accord, but to get drunk or to be influenced by the Spirit, there’s something outside yourself that’s influencing you. Paul in this new humanity, there are all kinds of influences you want to avoid, especially influences that will in any way impair you from being able to make good decisions in the moment and discerning what God’s will is.`
