Ephesians 5. 1-20

Paul continues to give practical teaching about living the Christian life… he is still reinforcing the teaching he made in chapter 4 (where he has been talking about honest word, honest financial dealings, and finishes by saying become kind to one another) He begins this chapter by using that same word, become… summing up the previous one, (therefore, become imitators of God, v. 1)

1.      Become like the Father. 

We are dearly beloved sons.  That both requires and enables change – becoming like Father  – to take place.  It isn’t enough to say to someone “Remember you are a child of God, and make sure you behave like one!”  It is experiencing the love of our Heavenly father, which results in our treating other people differently – whether by forgiving instead of holding a grudge, or by respecting instead of cheapening and sexualising. If you have problems being like your Father in Heaven, I call you not to “try harder” but to spend more time with father, soaking in his love and becoming more assured that you are really precious to him.

2.      Love like the Son. 

The motive here is Jesus’ love: he loved us and gave himself for us, a fragrant offering and a sacrifice.  We celebrate Jesus’ amazing sacrificial love for us as we break bread together later in the service. The love of Jesus for us, is meant to release us to love each other, sacrificially.  In Phil 4. 18, Paul uses exactly the same words about the gift the Church in Phillippi sent to support him: it was a “fragrant offering and sacrifice.”  

Paul again uses that word “walk”  (v2 cf vv. 8, 15)  I like The Message, which catches the ideas of true and false love… there is a contrast between the self sacrificing love of Jesus, and the self-indulgent sexuality Paul describes in the rest of the chapter.

The key to the problems our society has over sexuality, is summed up simply in this one concept: self-sacrifice instead of self-indulgence.  As we said thing morning, Paul warns about three areas…

a)      Our mouths.  There are things that he says we are not even to talk about… sexual immorality (whoring) impurity and covetousness (in context, it’s coveting your neighbour’s hunky husband or dishy wife.)  Avoid suggestive talk; foolish talk (again in context it’s foolish talk about sex) and crude jokes. (in a foretaste of our world, the ability to invent double intenders and innuendo was considered something really clever in ancient Greece). Such things are not even to be talked about Paul says.  That doesn’t mean we are to be afraid to talk about sex. For too long Christians have been too coy about human sexuality. Like the clergyman writing in the papers who referred to toilet rolls thrown at football matches as “Excessively wide streamers” That’s just Victorian and silly and not what Paul means.  What eh does mean is that we must not allow sexual matters – jokes or gossip – to become something that is talked about for the pleasure of it.  We are, interestingly, to replace all this kind of talk, with thanksgiving.

b)      Our bodies.  We are told not to be partners with people who are walking in disobedience to God or take part in what they do.  Paul is not telling people they are not to mix, just that they are not to join in the wrong things people do. We are in the kingdom of light. We are to live as children of light. We are not to indulge in the deeds of darkness but to expose them, to show them up for what they are.  We do this, not by our words; not by standing up and tut-tutting about how bad people are; we are to expose the wrong by living the right, and by demonstrating that right is right. 

c)      Our minds. See verse 6.  In all these discussions and thoughts about sexuality, we are to guard our minds.  We can allow ourselves to be too smug about all this stuff, so we end up wagging the finger at that rest of the world.  There once was an old preacher, in a simple uneducated church, who said in a sermon “Sin is like a pack of big dogs. My big dogs were tobacco, alcohol and sex.  I have killed the big dog of tobacco. I have killed the big dog of alcohol; and I have killed the big dog of sex.”  At that point someone interrupted: “Pastor, are you sure that last dog didn’t just go and die a natural death?”  It’s a bit too easy to be self-righteous and smug as we criticise others for their lifestyle, if you’ve never been tempted I that area; or when on the outside we look respectable but inside our minds is what C S Lewis called a zoo of lusts and other wrong thoughts. .

i)  So in every area of life, sexual and everything else, right behaviour starts in the mind.  Look how you live: not as unwise but wise.” (v15) 

ii) In the use of our time, to trade with it wisely, because we have a limited quantity. (v16)

iii)     Not mindless (literally) but with joined-up thinking about what God wants for you.  (v17)

iv)     Not under the influence of substances…(v 18a)  There is a connection between substance abuse and all of the abuses and evils we see around us.

And this is the final “don’t do this but do that” sentence…

3.      Drink of the Spirit

But be filled with the Spirit. Being controlled by a substance is foolish; begin controlled by the Spirit is wisdom.  In Acts 2 the disciples were filled with the Spirit of God and some people thought they were drunk. The Jewish scholar Philo said “When grace fills the soul, that soul thereby rejoices and smiles and dances, for it is possessed and inspired, so that to many of the unenlightened it may seem to be drunken, crazy, and beside itself. For with the God-possessed not only is the soul wont to be stirred and goaded into ecstasy but the body also is flushed and fiery” Finally, keep on being filled with the Spirit. 

a)      It’s present tense. That means it’s something that is supposed to be happening, over and over again. 

b)      And it is passive. That means it isn’t just something you do nut something that is done to you. You allow the spirit to have control…

c)      It is primary to the Christian experience.  Paul has built up a theology of the Spirit in the life of the believer in Ephesians. See 1:16f  I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers,  that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit …;  2:18  For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.   2:22  In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.   3:4f  the mystery of Christ … revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. 3:16  that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,  3:19  and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 4:3  maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4:4  There is one body and one Spirit. 4:30  do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God

d)      It produces results… speaking to yourselves with psalms, hymn and spiritual songs. We don’t get filled by doing these things; we are released by being filled.


© Gilmour Lilly June 2011

John 14. 16 "I will ask the Father, and he will give you another comforter..."

John 14. 16 "I will ask the Father, and he will give you another comforter..."

Jesus is going away, but promises to come back and take them to be with him. They are facing a major change. They won't have Jesus with them; whatever happens to the Kingdom they signed up for, will be their responsibility.  They were human. Like us, they were uncomfortable with change and with responsibility.

Jesus goes on to say he is going to get these rooms ready for them to occupy. "You know the way there", he says. The lads are upset about this.  They are arguing with Jesus...

 "No, we don't know, Lord," Thomas said. "We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?"  (v5 NLT, which translates Thomas' words brilliantly!)

Jesus answers, "I am the way, the truth and the life... If you know me, you know the Father.  From now on you have seen him..." and Philip again begs to differ.  "Show us the Father and we'll be happy with that.  That's all we want..."  (He doesn't agree that they have seen the Father.)

Jesus says, "Have I been around so long yet you guys don't know me. If you've seen me you have seen the Father. What about the powerful things I have done? Don't they show you something of the Father's character?"

It seems like these guys were really slow.  But so are we. And we argue with Jesus too.  We sometimes think, "What's he on about?"  or, "That can't be done."  We want to do the safe thing - arrange a meeting like we know we can do because we've done before; get a good speaker, show a film, buy into a programme, hand out leaflets. Or else we want to tell ourselves witness if difficult because nobody's listening; ... Jesus says, "heal the sick; find the person of peace; tell them the good news; the fields are white for harvest; you'll do greater works than me (not more spectacular miracles but a more widespread mission)"

Three years intensive training and mentoring with the best teacher the world has even known, the most effective mentor - because he could do the stuff as well as teach it; and because he understood exactly what was going on inside his students all the time.  Yet they still didn't get it.  Facing this big change from having Jesus walking with them from day to day, to knowing Jesus seated at the right hand of the Father, it was not just knowledge they needed... they needed power. They needed presence. They needed someone to keep walking with them, and not only with them but in them: "Another Comforter, The Holy Spirit."

Unlike English, Greek has two words for "other".  "Heteros" means another, different.  Don't you get annoyed when people say "England" when the really mean "Britain"?  We want to tell people, "Scotland" is another country. It's different to England.  That's "heteros". The second word is "allos"; it means another of the same.  Remember the song about the red yo-yo?  It finishes off when "Wee Annie announced that her Granny had bought her another yo-yo."  It was another of the same: "a red yo-yo wi' a wee yellow string!"  That's "allos".  Jesus says the Spirit is another comforter, an "allos" comforter, another the same as Jesus.

The "Comforter".  That word is one attempt to translate a Greek word "parakletos" that means "one called alongside" - like a lawyer who stands beside you in court and speaks on your behalf.  Like a comforter or an encourager who is with you in difficult times. Like a helper who does the things you cannot do for yourself. Jesus says "another comforter."

The Holy Spirit... The breath, the wind of God blowing in and through them.  The Spirit who was hovering over the deep at the beginning of creation; the Spirit of truth who has been already working with them through Jesus; and who was going to come to work inside them.  That is who the Holy Spirit is.  He is God; like Jesus is.  He is God who is always there, with us and around us all the time; he is God come to live inside us, and to equip us from the inside.

Now let me say I believe in teaching and I believe in training and mentoring.  I believe that in Church leadership we need to do what we can do to develop skills, knowledge and character, so all Christians can become Confident, competent and credible.  But teaching and mentoring on their own are not enough. We need something else... We need the Holy Spirit...

How can we have the Spirit?

He is given...to people who love Jesus and have fundamentally brought their lives into line with his Kingdom. The synoptic word for that is repentance... Jesus doesn't mean that the Holy Spirit is only given to people who are perfect.  We are not going to be perfect and sinless until we see Jesus in Heaven.  We sin; we repent; we are forgiven; we are slowly transformed.  That's the mystery and the process of grace in our lives.  But grace, forgiveness, the Kingdom of God, are all about repentance, a decision that says that as far as we are able, we will live our lives under god's rule and authority.  "If you love me you will obey my commands" Jesus says.

He is given...Because of Jesus.  It is Jesus who asks. He promises to do this asking.  He does this asking from the right hand of the father.    He hints at that when he says, "If I go away I will come to you".  In John 7. 37-39 we are told the Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified.  It's the glorified Jesus, the Jesus who has paid for all our sins, who has brought us back to the Father, restored us into a relationship with our Heavenly Father, who promises to ask the Father to give us the spirit.  And in John 7.37 Jesus says we need to thirst and to drink.  Drinking is a matter of putting yourself and the water together. Holding the glass to your lips, tipping it towards you and swallowing.  To drink is the simplest way in which animals take things into their bodies.  We need to ask the Father. When we pray for the spirit we join with the Prayers of Jesus.

He is given...By the Father. "Jesus says, "I will ask the Father and he will give you the Spirit".   Jesus also tells us that the father gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him...  We have a loving Heavenly Father who delights to give good gifts to his Children.  You don't have to impress your heavenly Father to receive the Spirit.  You don't even have to twist his arm.  He is a loving Heavenly Father who delights to give.  Jesus knows.  He walked and walks intimately with the Father and he knows, "I will ask the Father and he will give you the Holy Spirit."  This is a Father/son issue here.  We need to get to the place where we know our Heavenly father's love and care over us, and where we trust our Heavenly Father enough to know, just to know that throe will be no prevarication, no criticisms, no arguments. Just generosity. He will give you the Spirit.  The Spirit comes from both the Father and from Jesus. Like two people clubbing together to get a really special Birthday present for a friend: but whose idea was it; and who put the most money into it, and who went to the shops and bought it? That doesn't really matter; the present comes from both of them.


You can't follow Jesus simply on the basis of Bible teaching, mentoring, and pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. You need to Holy Spirit to come and to fill your life.  The Holy Spirit is Father's gift and Jesus' prayer to you.  If you are walking in obedience to Jesus, Jesus has asked the Father to give you the Spirit. Expect the Spirit to come: expect him to bring a focus on jesus; to help you to understand God's truth from his word; to give you gifts that equip you to serve; to help you share God's love with other people.  Will you add your prayer to those of Jesus today and put yourself in the place where the Spirit can fill your life?

© Gilmour Lilly June 2011

Eph 4:17 -32 - Discipleship: Mind the Gap

Closing one Gap - opening another
In 1968, London Transport wanted to do something to ensure passenger safety on the underground: they decided to use a digitally recorded message that would play automatically wherever it was needed; the engineers who were putting the system together came up with the phrase, "mind the gap!"  The phrase has been used as the title for at least one film, a couple of books, and several songs.  Paul is interested in two gaps: one between theory and practise; the other between discipleship culture and the culture of the world about us.

When he says "So" (v17, NIV) or "Now" (ESV) it's really "therefore" and takes us back to verse 1, where Paul begins to look at "Walking worthy of our call."  Remember the theory?  The amazing idea that Christians are chosen by God, forgiven, related to each other, that we have been given the Holy Spirit - God living inside us; we were dead, now we are alive; we - the Church - are the amazing New Humanity, part of God's Cosmic Plan to show his wisdom to the Principalities and powers.   Now in Chapter 4 he homes in on the practise: he has already spoken about unity, ministry and maturity, and he gets more practical as he goes on. Mind the gap.

He wants his readers to close the gap between theory and practise; and that means to open up the gap between what they once were and what they are now, being different to how the people around them are.  Christians are going to be different.  If we are not different, if we are not distinctive, if people cannot tell us apart from the people around us - or if they can only tell us apart because we are "odd" - then there is something wrong.

Paul paints quite a negative picture of the world the Ephesians lived in.  It's a world whose thinking is wrong. Interesting that Paul deals with the thinking first... it's
o Futile, (not just finite or transitory but empty and pointless)
o Darkened (the light has gone out in the seat of understanding so that people cannot grasp truth.)
o Alienated from God - separated from his life.
People have become ugly on the inside.
o Ignorant In Jewish thinking, Gentiles were not just "unlucky"; they were culpable.  Their ignorance is inside them
o Hard hearted Cf Ps 95. 8.
o Callous no longer feeling the (inner) pain they should over moral evil.
Their behaviour is
o Sensuous
o Greedy
o Impure
Three words that are used together in catalogues of vices.  The society Paul saw in Ephesus lives in excess but is never satisfied.

That could be a picture of our world. It's very easy for us to see it that way, and we should see it that way. Paul paints this picture, though, not to make the disciples feel superior but to motivate them to be really different. (Verse 20 literally starts "but not you...")  There's got to be a gap. On the underground, the gap has to happen. When straight carriages stand alongside a curved platform, there has to be a gap. If our lives are a different shape from the people around us, there will be a gap. If there's no gap, our carriages have become bent out of shape. A curved rail carriage is only fit for going round in circles: mind you that is what the Church seems to do a lot of the time!!   It is vital that Christians somehow manage to be different from our society, while at the same time understanding, loving and being generous to our society.

Learning Christ...
Eph 4:20  But that is not the way you learned Christ!--  "Learning Christ" is a unique phrase: maybe it stands for learning about Christ. But the word is related to the word for disciple.  Acts 19 describes how Paul found some "Disciples" in Ephesus: they were filled with the Holy Spirit, knew the Spirit's gifts; they were taught about Jesus; they saw many people healed, set free from demons, brought to faith in Jesus; they saw the Gospel being ridiculed and opposed; they had burned their books about the occult... Discipleship is about learning by practice not just theory.  I have learned about the piano. Sandra has learned the piano.  Paul is talking about the process of becoming a disciple.

It starts with the mind, not the actions... It starts with accepting that Jesus is who he says he is. Jesus central! Everything else follows on from that.
It includes a radical turn-around.  The Biblical word is "repentance". Here, Paul talks about putting off the old life (like taking off dirty old clothes).  When someone becomes a follower of Jesus, we mark that with an act called Baptism. About a hundred or so years after Jesus' time, baptism involved literally coming to the river, taking off one set of clothes, getting baptized in the water and putting on a new set of clothes. I appreciate the symbolism but I understand why the practice never really caught on.  It was easily misunderstood and almost as easily abused.  But baptism, with your clothes on, is a wonderful sign of being done with your old life and starting a new life.
It is an encounter with God.  Paul says, in verse 23, not "be made new in the attitude of your minds" (NIV); but literally "Be renewed in the spirit of your mind." (ESV) That's another difficult phrase but the NT doesn't use the word Spirit impersonally. "The Spirit of your mind" suggests the Holy Spirit in partnership with your spirit, operating through your thinking.   I think the CEV has got abeter grasp of it : "Let the Spirit change your way of thinking." This business of being different thing is not first and foremost something we do but something that has happened to us.    Conversion is a charismatic event.  It is a dramatic, life-changing process. It is not merely a decision but only happens if "God is at work" within us.
It is the beginning of a process. It is something with which we have to co-operate: we put off the old and put on the new mindset like a new suit of clothes, day after day.

Living the life
Conversion has consequences.  Paul sets up a series of triangles: each one has a negative to avoid, a positive to do, and motive for changing...
Firstly in our words...
v25  Avoiding lies, speaking truth because we are already related to each other (a lie is a stab into the very vitals of the body of Christ - J A Mackay).
v26f  Not indulging in anger (cf v31) but sorting out quick (before sunset) because we are in a battle. Indulging in anger gives free scope to the devil.  Unity attracts the Spirit of God; disunity repels the Spirit of God and attracts the enemy.
Then our actions...
V 28  Not stealing,  but doing honest work, because we have neighbours in need.  Paul values hard work; God worked and he blessed our work as well as our rest; the reason for earning a good income is so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.
Then more on words...
Eph 4:29f  No corrupting talk but words that build up and give grace to those who hear, because the Spirit is Holy.  
Eph 4:31f  An end to bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander and malice, and a new attitude of kindness and forgiveness, because we are forgiven people.

These are some of the gaps that should exist between us and our culture; some of the ways we need to close the gap between what we believe and how we live. Mind the gap!

© Gilmour Lilly June 2011