In his sermon 'How To Walk Circumspectly,' Carl Provost unpacks Ephesians 5:15-21, emphasizing the need for Christians to walk wisely and carefully in alignment with God's will. He contrasts worldly wisdom with biblical wisdom, urging the congregation to be imitators of God by walking in love, light, and wisdom. Provost uses the metaphor of an acrobat to illustrate the concept of balance and discipline in the Christian life, encouraging believers to consider the consequences of their actions as they navigate a sinful world. The sermon highlights the importance of redeeming the time, understanding it as seizing opportunities for godly living because the days are evil. Provost underscores the transformative power of music and spiritual songs, which should reflect the light of the Gospel and serve as a tool for encouragement within the church. He advocates for a life of gratitude and submission within the church community, emphasizing that this mutual submission should be rooted in the fear of God and a recognition of shared sinfulness. The sermon concludes with a call to foster an environment of transparency and support, encouraging believers to confess sins and hold each other accountable, thus truly embodying the love of Christ.

Please take your copy of God's Word and turn to Ephesians chapter 5 for the reading of God's Word. Starting in verse 15. See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Wherefore, be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.

Heavenly Father, we come before you as we open this word, Father, and as we continue to examine the command that you've given us to be imitators of You. And Father, I pray that You would use these words. Open our hearts with Your Spirit and transform us and help us to walk in a way worthy of You, Father. We pray in Your Son Christ Jesus' name. Amen.

When we look at this world and we look at what the world holds up as wisdom, and we look at it from the perspective of what God's Word teaches as wisdom, what we really see in this world is the way of the wise fool. We see many learned men being praised for their knowledge. But oftentimes when you hear them speak, it is foolishness and folly. And we recognize this because we look at these things through the lens of Scripture. And we recognize that what the world holds up as wisdom is foolishness.

We see that there are those men who profess to be wise, they deny that there is a God. They mock Christianity. I think of Stephen Hawkins and some of the things he says. And he's always on the news. And you listen to these things and it just sounds like nonsense.

And you recognize that there is no wisdom in Him because there is no light in Him. We recognize that as we've been going through this word in chapter 4 we talked about this whole concept of putting off and putting on. And putting off the things of the world and putting on Christ. And in chapter 5 we began with this, it says be imitators of God. And we are told to walk in love.

And there it deals with those characteristics that are unloving and that we are to walk in love, to build unity in the body of Christ. Last week we looked at walking in the light and what it means to bring the light to bear upon the darkness and to allow sanctification to take place in our life and we look at this last aspect of walking here Before we move into what is called the family codes, some call the text after this one, but this is the last one that deals with us corporately as a church and how we are to walk together and to walk in wisdom and what that must look like. See, for God's Word teaches us that the wisdom of this world is foolishness and that they are fools. In fact, it describes them in Psalm 14.1. It says, the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God, they are corrupt, and they have done abominable works.

There is none that doeth good. See, this is in Ephesians, and these Ephesians were saved from paganism, and the Greeks thought highly of their philosophers and their wisdom and of their gods. And so what we're about to see here is Paul teaching them in a sense turning their former beliefs upon its head showing them that it is foolishness and to teach them how to truly walk circumspectly as wise. So how do we walk circumspectly? That's the title of the message today.

How to walk circumspectly. Verse 15. See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise." Now you don't see it in this translation, some other translations you might have it there, but the word therefore is actually in the Greek. And it's to build upon this concept that was directly before it, this concept which ties all the way back to being imitators of God. And then walking in love and walking in the light.

And now they're called, to see that you walk circumspectly. Well, that word circumspectly is a word that most of us don't use today. I can't recall ever hearing anybody use that in a sentence, but it's the Greek word behind it is one of those words that we often find that it's hard sometimes to label it with one word and circumspectly comes close. The word circumspectly actually means to carefully consider all circumstances and possible consequences. It's saying that before you take a step and walk you should be considering the circumstances and the possible consequences.

The Greek word behind circumspectly actually is acrobus. And it can also be translated as accurately or carefully. Walk accurately, walk carefully. But if you notice, if you listen to that, oftentimes some of the words that we have in English today come from Greek words. And acrobos is where we get a word acrobat from.

And as we look at this word and contemplate what's being told here, I want us to think about an acrobat. You many of us watch the Olympics and we see what these acrobats can do. And we recognize that it comes from years of training. And they train and discipline their bodies in order to perform these acrobats. In order to perform in such a way that They must know their own limitations.

They know how far they can push their body. And they recognize that it takes intense discipline and training in order to perform what they have accomplished. And we also see that balance is a very important aspect of their training. In fact, oftentimes many of the points that they lose is when they fall a little bit out of balance. And I want to think, as we think about walking circumspectly, I want us to think about this concept of balance.

That the Christian life, in a sense, is learning how to walk rightly. Not steering off to the left or the right. We are told in Hebrews to run the race with our eyes fixed upon Christ Jesus, not looking to the left or the right to the sins that so easily ensnare us. And so we recognize that within the Christian life, we still live in a body that has limitations. We live in a body that has struggles with sin.

And we are being sanctified, but we recognize that we have to keep those things in check we have to discipline ourselves and We have to train ourselves with the Word of God and as we looked at last week It's the light of God's Word that brings about this sanctification It's the light of God's Word that trains us and disciplines us to walk rightly. And so we see that in order to walk in wisdom, we must be those who look at the possible circumstances and consequences of our actions. And we examine those with God's Word. And we walk in a way that we are imitating God. But we also see that a characteristic of walking circumspectly as wise is to redeem the time.

Verse 16 says, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Now here the word time, there's two words for time in the Greek language. One's keros and one's kronos. And some people read this verse and they think about redeeming the time or on some versions they making the best use of time and they think about it in this idea of Kronos and the idea that we only have such a certain amount of time and therefore we need to live every moment before the glory of God and in one sense that's correct but the word actually used here is kairos, which actually has to do more with a particular passage of time. You could actually read this as redeeming the opportunity, or making good use of the opportunity, or the event.

And so it's speaking about a specific point in time. And in understanding this idea from the idea of shining light upon the darkness and recognizing that every opportunity that comes before us, every time or situation that comes up before us, is an opportunity for us to apply the principles of walking as wise men. See the idea here is that there are no accidents. Everything that happens is ordained by God. We recognize that He has directed our paths.

He is with us. He has promised to never forsake us. And we must circumspectly look at every opportunity that God gives us. And we're told that it's because the days are evil that we must do this. And so what does this mean?

That we must take every opportunity with these events in time because the days are evil. We must recognize that we all, everyone here still struggles with sin. And rather than allowing Satan to get a foothold, we must redeem the opportunity knowing that God can work all things together for good. See, the word here isn't just the word for making the best use of or redeeming, it's this concept that something happens and that we redeem that event. And we redeem it with the gospel of Christ Jesus.

We recognize in God's Word that there are things that happen that we don't understand at times. There are great evils in this world. And even when we circumspectly look at our own life, we recognize that there are weaknesses and temptations that we have. Weaknesses and temptations that we cannot stand against in our own strength. But we recognize that God was not surprised by any of these.

In Genesis 50-20 we're told that what was meant for evil, God meant for good. And this is what it means to live circumspectly redeeming the opportunity of the time, recognizing that even when we don't understand what's going on, Even when we are found in sin, that rather than giving Satan a foothold, rather than allowing him to use it, we redeem it with the Gospel of Christ Jesus. And we trust what God's Word says. In Romans 8.28 it says, And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. All things work together for good.

This means that even our sinful actions can be used for good. God brings in chastisement during times of sin for our good. God uses this to shape us, to sanctify us, to conform us to the image of His Son. This is exactly what we as a church did two weeks ago. We redeemed the moment in time, recognizing that what was meant for evil can be used for good and that God can bring healing to this body, He can bring healing to this church, He can work all things together for good of those that love Him and are called according to His purpose.

We redeemed an event of sin knowing that God will use it for good. We understand That this is God's will for us. What exactly does it mean God's will for us in verse 17, it said, and take. Wherefore? Be not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.

It's saying the way we handle situations in life is directly governed by God and His will. See, oftentimes we get caught up too much in what is the will of God for my life. And we're like, should I take this job? I'm just not sure what the will of God is for my life. Should I buy this house?

But the will of God is how you walk. And the will of God is to walk in love. To walk in light. To walk circumspectly. To order your life according to His Word.

That is His will. When we walk circumspectly, everything else will fall into place. In Matthew 6.33 it says, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." What's being taught there is that we don't have to worry about the mundane things of life if we seek first the Kingdom of God. And we can trust and know that He will direct our paths. And as long as we're not actively in sin, we can make decisions without worrying whether we're making the wrong decision or the right decision.

We can recognize that the desires that have been placed in our heart and the things that we want to do are things that God has placed there and that He directs our will even through our own desires. As long as our desires are shaped by the Word of God. As long as we shine the light of God's Word upon them and there is no darkness in them, we can trust and know that we can be led by them. See, there is a great freedom and liberty to live this way. To live trusting in the sovereign, providential God who directs our paths.

This is not living a sinless life. For no one here can achieve that. This is living the redeemed life. See, Christ lived the sinless life so that we don't have to. Christ lived the sinless life because no one else could.

We were all dead in our trespasses and sins, under the wrath of God, all deserving of hell. The will of God for you is to live what is oftentimes been coined the cruciform life. And what that means is that you are one who lives as a disciple of Jesus and you are being shaped by the cross. This is a people in a church who share and show the cross as they live. They apply the gospel to each other's lives.

This is a life lived vertically, loving God with all of your heart, mind, and strength, and hands that are loving the people that Christ loved first. So what does this look like, living this cruciform life? Living a life where we walk circumspectly. Verse 18. And be not drunk with wine, where is an excess, but be filled with the Spirit." Now the couple verses following behind this are going to give us a little fuller expression of what it means to be filled with the Spirit.

But it starts, it says, be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess. Think about this, what does a drunk look like? I think we've all at some time or another seen a drunk. In fact, oftentimes, sometimes in television, they like to put a drunk character in there for the comedy aspect of it. Someone who has lost control, staggering around, has no self-control, oftentimes slurring their speech.

Martin Lloyd-Jones, who recognizes that this was used in a sense to help us to understand what it means to be spirit-filled, but he shows that you can't make a direct connection. For those who don't know, Martin Lloyd-Jones was actually a medical doctor before he became a minister. He says, strong drink is not a stimulus, it is a depressant. It depresses first and foremost the highest centers of all in the brain. They are the very first to be influenced and affected by drink.

They control everything that gives a man self-control, wisdom, understanding, discrimination, judgment, balance, the power to assess everything. In other words, everything that makes a man behave at his very best and highest. And so what we recognize is in this illustration of being not drunk with wine, we recognize that he's pointing out Something that is in direct contrast opposed to what it means to be filled with the Spirit. And in fact, within their pagan religions, oftentimes within Ephesus, They associated drinking and being filled with wine as part of their worship of their false gods. And they would lose control and they would do all types of abominable things under the influence of the wine in worshiping their false gods.

And now he's pointing out to them, what you considered wise at one time is foolishness, and the wise way to walk is to be filled with the Spirit. And we're given some examples of what it looks like to be filled with the Spirit. We know that on the day of Pentecost they were filled with the Spirit and many were speaking the Gospel in many languages. Some accused them of being drunk, but they recognized that there was something different about them. And rather than being a depressant, it was a stimulant for them.

It stimulated them in the gospel. It stimulated them to preach the gospel of hope to those around them. It stimulated them to offer hope to the lost and hurting. It stimulated them to encourage and love one another. We see this throughout the Acts of the Apostles as they're providing for each other in need, as they're sharing in all things, as they're ministering the gospel from home to home.

Here we're told that within the body of Christ, speaking to yourselves in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Speaking to yourself in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Without going into a detailed study and explanation of what exactly it means, Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, which you will find a great degree of difference of opinion on, It's obvious here we have three categories. And I think the first two, you could clearly say Psalms being the Psalms of the Bible, the Psalter. Hymns being those hymns that you find throughout God's Word, both Old and New Testament.

We think of the Song of Deborah, or Mary's Magnificent, or the many short songs, in fact, some call the previous text in verse 14 a song, in this text right here. But there's also this concept of spiritual songs. Some show evidence from the early church, because this was an oral culture, and they oftentimes didn't have the written word, and they would have to memorize things. And we have learned that music is a great tool for memorization. And that oftentimes when the early church would meet, sometimes they would recite Scripture they had memorized to song.

And they would come up with these songs in order to show the overflow of love of the Holy Spirit in them as they would recite the words of God. And there are many of the early church fathers that discuss some aspect of this or another on those that would recite Scripture. But we recognize that it is the light that they're shining forth, whether it's the written light or the light that they've memorized, the light of God's Word that is the content of these Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. And so there is a standard of the Spirit's work here. And the Spirit's work is to shine forth the light of the Gospel.

We are told that they were making melody in their heart to the Lord. Now I want you to think about this, making melody in their heart to the Lord. Think about what music means to you. Think about even what we've seen in history. One of the things I thought about was these Negro spirituals.

I don't know if you've listened to any of them, but Many of them were written in a time of a people that were greatly oppressed. But yet, one thing that was given to them was the gospel was given to them on many of the plantations. And they had a hope even in the midst of oppression. And oftentimes, when things were the hardest on them, they would begin to sing these spirituals, these songs that they had written, and it would lift their spirits. It would help them to overcome the difficulties in this life.

It would remind them of the goodness of God. And that's the power of music. And that's the power of the Spirit bringing forth these songs to memory. And they were making melody in their heart to the Lord. The power of music.

I've often heard other stories of even missionaries that when they were being persecuted and killed for their belief, that they would sometimes just start singing. And they would just stand there and sing to the Lord as they were being slaughtered. But song is a great encouragement. Many years ago, in one of my early experiences of preaching in a jail ministry, for some reason they had moved us to a different room and they didn't move the hymnals. And me and this other young guy didn't really know what we were going to do.

We had this whole planned service and we had no hymnals. And some of these men that were in jail because they had given in to their sin, they had given in to their flesh, but yet they professed faith in Christ. They were brokenhearted over their sin. They said, we know songs. And the men that were there in jail led the singing, and everyone in the room knew the words.

And that pointed out to me the power of the Gospel in song. And we praise God. And they made melody in their heart. They remembered the words and they sang them. And there were tears flowing.

And we recognize and we see the power of the Spirit. We see the Holy Spirit at work in these times with the overflowing of music. But we're also told that they are those that give thanks always in all things. See, another sign of being filled with the Spirit is being thankful in all things, no matter the circumstances. This is how those that are being persecuted can sing with joy despite their circumstances.

This is a clear sign of those who trust in the sovereign God who has ordained all things. There are no accidents with God. Psalm 139, 14-16 tells us, I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows very well, my frame was not hidden from you. When I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth, your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed.

And in your book They all written the days fashioned for me when as yet there were none of them That's David writing saying that my days Were written in a book before I was even formed You knew me before I was formed. David knew that his sin, whether you look at the many different sins in his life, taken the census in which God was very displeased with him. The way he dealt with many of his children, his sin with Bathsheba, But he understood within God's plan that none of those things surprised God. And he is still called a man after God's own heart. We should be thankful and recognize that God is not surprised by anything that's in our hearts.

Things that we think are hidden from other people. He knows the deepest parts of our hearts. We should be thankful when God has revealed sin. We should be thankful that we are redeemed in Christ Jesus. We should be thankful that He is adorning His bride.

We're told in Revelation that He is adorning the bride, speaking of the church, making us beautiful for that day. And that process of adorning is sanctification, where He is shining the light of the gospel into the darkness of our hearts and transforming us and making us more and more into the image, into that beautiful broad. The last point I want us to look at here of what it means to walk circumspectly is submitting yourselves. Verse 21. Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.

We are called to submit ourselves one to another. There is no place for haughtiness in your hearts and the church. For we all have sin in us. And we are called to submit, or the word which is used here, that word which is hu-pe-ta-so-min-oi. It means to subordinate or line yourself up under another.

See, apart from the grace of Christ, we are all wretched sinners deserving of hell. And we need to look at everybody else from that perspective, recognizing that we are no better than anyone else. We can look at the worst of sinners and recognize that apart from the grace of Christ, we would be just like them under the wrath of God. For there is none righteous, no not one." And we see also that this is done in the fear of God. This is done in the fear of God because we recognize that apart from the redeeming work of Christ on the cross, we would have no hope.

We're told that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. We're also told that the fear of The Lord is the beginning of knowledge We're also told that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom How do we work walk circumspectly as wise it starts with the fear of the Lord? But it's necessary for us to be subject to one another in this area of bringing out sin and being able to walk circumspectly. As was sent out in the email this past week, I think Rosaria Butterfield captured it in her description. And I think it clearly says what it means to walk circumspectly in the church.

She says, the ideal church is a church where everybody is repenting publicly of something. The ideal church is where people are saying, I struggle with this, and I don't want it to define me. But I need you to cover my back in prayer. I struggle. I fail.

I have been a Christian, and I want to struggle in the Lord. That is the ideal church. That's what it means to walk circumspectly. It's to recognize that we are all sinners and that we all need the prayers of each other, that we all need the love and accountability of each other. There are those sitting here now, and we all have hidden sins in our hearts.

And you know it's true. For some of us, things that if they were brought into the light would be scandalous. Don't continue to give Satan a foothold in your life. We are called to confess our sins one to another, and we need to find someone that you love and trust and confess your sin and ask for accountability, ask for prayer. We should have an environment in the church where we love one another so much that we never look down our nose at another, but we see ourself as no better than anyone else, and we create an atmosphere where we can share our sins with one another.

Submit yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Heavenly Father, we come before you. Father, we thank you that you've given us this word. And I pray, Father, that you would use your word to transform us, help us to be that body of Christ that clearly can speak the truth and love into the hearts of our brothers and sisters that can truly love one another in spite of our sins because we recognize that we are all redeemed we are all covered in Christ and Father I pray that we might clearly display the love of Christ. In your Son, Christ Jesus' name, Amen.