Sermons

In Christ Jesus, fellow children of God striving to live our faith in this life. Live the Wise Life! I. Understand the Lord’s will! II. Make the most of every opportunity INTRODUCTION “It’s my life – I’m going to live it the way I want to.” Have you ever said that? Thought that? Maybe heard someone else say that? That is a fairly common and prevalent notion in our world today – “don’t you or anyone else dare tell me how to live my life!”. If we approach life from the perspective of our sinful human nature – that is the way we would go. But what does God think about such a way of thinking? For the last 4 weeks we have heard Jesus in our Gospel lesson speak about himself as the Bread of Life. But what happens when people feed on that Bread of life? What does that do to people’s lives? Paul in our second lesson for this week answers that question. Today we listen as God through the pen of Paul in his letter to the Ephesians encourages us who have fed on the Bread of Life to Live The Wise Life! Paul tells us that that means that we first 1) understand the Lord’s will and then 2) make the most of every opportunity. We hear again vv. 15-17 of our Second lesson from Ephesians 5 which capture those thoughts very well. I. Understand the Lord’s will! “Well I know what I’m supposed to do!” Might not that be our reaction when we hear the encouragement which Paul gives us in our text “understand what the Lord’s will is”? Might we not be tempted to take it as an insult? After all, “I’ve been to church, maybe a Lutheran Elementary school, maybe even a Lutheran High School – I know what God wants me to do.” But before we adapt such a way of thinking, Paul reminds us “the days are evil”. The world and even our own sinful flesh will try to turn our thinking away from knowing what we should be doing. Every time that we try to learn and understand God’s will, the devil through the influences of the world, those who call themselves our “friends” or even our selfish sinful nature tempts us to think “I don’t want to do that, that’s no fun”. That is exactly why Jesus continues to speak to us about feeding on the Bread of life through Word and Sacrament. It is only through the spiritual food which the Bread of Life alone can give that we can know and understand God’s will. But Paul doesn’t just say “understand what the Lord’s will is”, he also gives us a very specific example of what God’s will is. “Don’t get drunk on wine which leads to debauchery” – in other words, don’t abuse or misuse God’s gift of alcoholic drink. Paul’s words also give us a good reminder – when we look at what the Lord’s will is, don’t overstate Scripture and try to make up guidelines where God doesn’t put them. Notice that Paul doesn’t take the stance of a prohibitionist, he says don’t wrongly use what God has given. Then Paul himself goes on to say – feed on the bread of life in word and song (v. 19). II. Make the most of every opportunity But not only does Paul encourage us to know what God’s will is, he encourages us to do it Paul puts it this way “making the most of every opportunity” Did you hear what Paul said – make the absolute most of every opportunity which God gives you to carry out his will as you show love for him by obeying his commandments and as you show love to each other. “Well I’m better than the neighbors next door. You should hear the way they curse and the wild parties that they have every weekend”. “Well I give what I think is a pretty good offering – it’s got to be better than most of the people in this church.” Isn’t that the way the devil likes to tempt us to think? If we measure ourselves against others and look better, then certainly we are doing God’s will. But Paul doesn’t tell us to measure ourselves against our neighbors or even other members of our Christian congregation. He says we are to measure ourselves against the stand of “making the MOST of EVERY opportunity”. Paul uses the term the most – Jesus said it this way in the Gospel of Matthew (5:48) – “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect”. Paul speaks to us as children of God who have feed on the Bread of Life and asks us to look at all that God has done for us. He says to us when the child of God looks at how Jesus lived the perfect life for all the times we have failed so miserably and when we look to the cross and see how Jesus paid for each of our failures to consider and do his will, we are moved to ask “Lord how can I use the blessings you have given to me [more blessings than I could ever use] to do your will?” CONCLUSION A man had a large boulder in his front yard which he had looked at for many years, so one day he decided to turn it into a piece of art. Day after day he chipped away until several months later, it took the shape he wanted. His neighbor asked him “How did you make an elephant out of that large boulder?”. His reply - “I chipped away at it day by day by day until it got to be what I wanted”. In a spiritual sense, that is what Paul speaks to us about today. He doesn’t want us to think that because we have feasted on the Bread of Life we can leave God’s house and be a super Christian. His encouragement is that every single moment of every day we strive to know and understand God’s will. Then motivated by what he has done for us to make the most of every opportunity. That will enable us by God’s grace to live the wise life.