Ray Bentley Ray Bentley

Ephesians 5:18

This is one of the most fascinating verses to me in the in the New Testament. Paul says, and do not be drunk with wine in which is dissipation or excess, but be filled with the spirit. Now that is that's amazing to me. Why is Paul comparing a man who gets drunk with wine and alcohol, with a man or a woman that is filled with his spirit?

Paul says, once you have been bathed, then saturated in the love and the grace of God. Now we are free to begin exploring. What does it really mean to walk with God? What does it mean to have my heart transform my desires, my interests, my thinking, my emotions? everything about me. What does it mean to walk with God?

Now I am learning how to love others. And that I've been brought into this marvelous and wonderful family. Then, beginning in verses eight through 14, Paul says, to walk with God also means to walk in the light. In verse eight he says, for you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of the light.

Neither filthiness nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather the giving of thanks. So here's what it means to not walk in love. Now Paul was writing to a church that was in the midst of a Roman pagan culture, a very sensual culture, and a and a culture that was, you know, beyond even where we are now, although it seems like our that we are moving, we never seem to stay the same.

So if you live only for the outward things, the problem is it never satisfies, and it never obviously fills the hole that's on the inside. So you're caught in a trap. That which initially satisfied me doesn't do it anymore. And so now I need more. And so the accumulation of things or the vulnerability to addictions or whatever in the flesh, it just grows exponentially out until finally you're lost.

Beginning in verse one of chapter five, Paul says, therefore be imitators of God as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma. So he says, therefore be imitators of God. Now therefore, what is there for?

And that's what Paul is saying, that as as Christians, you know, being a Christian is, well, let's say what it is not it's not being a religious person as opposed to a non-religious person. Being religious doesn't really mean anything, at least especially to God. It doesn't mean that now I follow a system of rules and morality and, and so forth.

Cleaning out the old clothes and the closet. And I've given here from these verses 17 or 19 for words that typify the what the worldly wardrobe has to offer. And I'm obviously talking about now on the inside. Number one hardness. Here's here the condition of our heart. The Bible says, is a hardening of the heart. And there is a certain logic to it, because life is full of pain and we don't like pain.
Let's read this scripture out loud together. Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is. You need to change the way you think, and we need to start thinking heavenly thoughts and heavenly minded ways.

What are clothes for? Well, there to cover up what needs to be covered up and to make us presentable. It's the same dynamic for our heavenly wardrobe, as we'll find out today. We're studying the words of Paul the Apostle about the spiritual clothing we each must wear.

Ephesians 4