Ephesians 5:3-20

Read Ephesians 5:3-20

RAMP: READ / ANALYZE / MEDITATE / PRAY

R: Read the Passage

A: Analyze

Journal your responses to the questions below:

1. What does this say about God and/or Jesus Christ?

I love how this passage tells us the truth that there are things that please God. And we are to find our what those are.

2. What does this say about you?

Well, for starters, we are prone to those sneaky but evil sins.

3. Is there a command to follow?

I found several, but my favorite is: to live wisely. More on this below!

4. Is there a sin to repent of?

Maybe not at surface level, but let’s dig in a little. I bet your list gets longer as we go.

5. Is there a promise to hold onto?

What promises are there about the light? Peep verses 13-14.

Nicole’s Notes:

It may be really easy for some of us to breeze by this passage and assume we are free from immoral, impure or greedy sins. Watch your pride. 

The danger in this passage is reading it too quickly and standing over it with our prideful, holier than thou attitudes. We would never dare admit to these sins. Instead, we like to think of everyone else in the world who ’needs to read this.’ If you have had just an ounce of that thinking so far, stop right now and pray. Ask God to speak to you directly. Not condemning, because that’s not His nature. But ask Him to to show you where you may actually be living immorally, impurely or with a greedy nature. Ask Him to forgive you for your prideful heart. 

Some of us may read this passage and fall completely on our faces in shame or guilt. Get back up and brush yourself off. There’s hope for all of us. 

WARNING: you should not move on until you’ve humbled yourself before the Lord. 

If you’ve spent even 5 minutes in church, you know that an idol is anything worshiped over, instead of or more than God himself. At the surface, it’s easy to think that we worship God most of all, because it’s flashier and takes more effort. There’s definitely merit in the fact that worshiping God takes initiative and it takes sacrifice. It’s a lot of work to get the whole family to church on Sundays, to serve each week and to attend a group. It may be true that worshipping God through the context of your church involvement is the most time-consuming worship you give. It may also be true that worshipping God is the most effort-filled worship you give. BUT is all that time and effort resulting in actual worship? Maybe not. Worship isn’t an activity. It’s not something we check off the list as ‘done’ for the week. It’s not part of your weekly responsibilities. 

Worship comes naturally to humans — the trouble is that because of our sinful nature, it isn’t directed to God naturally. It’s directed to our families, our children, our jobs, our social circles, our responsibilities — the fun ones and the mundane ones. Our heart is inclined to worship, but it’s not inclined to worship God. 

Oftentimes, the greatest source of our worship is ourselves. On a vey un-spiritual level, think about how much time you think about you. A lot. Every decision you make takes you into account. Or if you are a mom, every decision you make takes your kids/family into account. That’s the natural bend of our heart. So may it be even barely true that we are self-worshippers? Kid-worshippers? I’d say probably so.

Immoral, impure and greed grow out of a heart that has replaced God with functional saviors. Ouch. The saviors that meet our needs and provide for us. You know the ones — those jobs. That paycheck. That friend group. They serve good functions in our life. Have they become what saves us? What we lean on for stability and comfort? What satisfies us most when it is functioning at its best?

Can I be honest? For me it’s my time. When all is going according to the schedule and calendar — when things are taking the appropriate amount of time/energy, then I am most satisfied. I function best when the schedule is maintained. What am I most greedy with? My time. I’ll give you money if you need it. I’ll even buy you a nice gift. But I may not give you my time. It’s my most prized possession. What do I wake up thinking about each morning? What do I take into account with each and every decision I make? My time and how it will be used. It’s safe to say that when left to my own sinful ways, time becomes my idol. I shudder to think what immoral or impure roads I would travel if I did not keep this in check.

If immorality, impurity and greed are all categories Paul uses for idolatry when compared to our worship of God, then it’s safe to say God takes this seriously. It is not hard to imagine why there would be such strong warnings against them — to the Ephesians and to us. These sins are sneaky, that’s why the warning is to “watch out!” Functional saviors lead us to miss or ignore the blindspots in our life, and lead us to immoral, impure and greed before we even know it. Watch out! 

To minimize the sinfulness of these sins, we often rename, redefine or manage them. My mind is spinning with all the ways I’ve renamed, redefined or managed my time sin. What about you? What are you renaming, redefining or managing?

You may be thinking one of two things at this point:

• "I don’t have any immoral, impure or greedy sins." I’ll say it again — watch your pride. Ask yourself these questions:

  • What do you wake up thinking about?

  • What/who do you take into account with every single decision you make? How much money it will cost or make you? Your kids? Resources? How it appears to others? What will people think? How will this impact your future? Will this get you a raise? Will this make that person jealous? These sins are sneaky for a reason.

• "Your biggest sin is being greedy with time?! Girl, you don’t even know the sins I’m struggling with.” First of all, you think I’m going to lay out all my dirty laundry in an email?! Kidding. But not really. You’re right, I don’t know the sins you’re struggling with. Immorality may be really personal for you right now if you are involved in a relationship that doesn’t honor your spouse. Impurity may hit hard when you think about Thursday nights at Brewskys. And heck, you may have stolen something out of a greedy heart. I get it. I know. And you know what else I know? God gets it too. And He loves you in spite of your sinful nature. If you have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, your sin is not too big to scare God off. There’s no sin too big He can’t and won’t forgive. 

As believers, and believers who desperately want to live a life worthy of the calling we’ve received, we must FIGHT AND PROTECT against these sneaky sins. How? Live in the Light.

This passage gives us some pretty solid instructions for fighting against these sneaky sins:

1. Cultivate a heart of thanksgiving to God (not just how we rattle off what we are ’thankful for’ each November. Thanksgiving TO God FOR His goodness.)

• God, thank you for your generosity in my life.

• God, thank you for what I have. I acknowledge and know it all comes from you

• God, thank you for giving me what I need. Always.

• God, in YOU I am and have all I need in order to be used for your glory.

• God, I don’t need to look anywhere else other than to you for what I need and desire.
  

2. Don’t partner with the dark or those who like to hang out in the darkness (verse 7). You know who they are. They may be your closest friends with the darkest secrets. Nothing good grows in the dark, you know this. Don’t hitch your wagon to people who are happiest when it’s dark and when things are unseen.

3. Live out your identity as a child of the light (verse 8-9, and think back to Chapter 4). And remember — we are not light on our own, but only because of Christ in us.

4. Display light by making good, right and true decisions, even when it requires calling out the darkness around us (verse 11-12).

5. Seek to please God in how you live (verse 10). 

From my commentary regarding verses 5-14: "When awakened Christians, who were once darkness but are now light, shine the light of truth and righteousness in a dark world with their words and deeds, they make visible the shameful and secretive deeds of the darkness; they may also be used to help those in darkness come to the light themselves." 

Rise and shine! Get up and shine the light of Christ in all corners of your world. Living as children of the light shines His light wherever you go — and in every decision you make. 

I really love any passage that brings up wisdom. It is like a treasure hunt for me throughout Scripture, like there are clues along the way to gaining a heart of wisdom. A bread crumb is right here in this passage and I love it — LIVE WISELY. How?

• Walk with the wise — find them, walk with them, watch them, learn from them, surround yourself with wise people. Let your daily paths be filled with wise people walking in the same direction as you.

• Ask God for wisdom and believe that ALL treasures of wisdom are found in Christ. Sooo many promises in scripture tell us that when we ask for things, God freely and joyfully gives it to us. And how many times does scripture tell us to ask for wisdom? Connect those dots and start asking and receiving wisdom from God. 

• Build your life on the rock of God’s Word. How can we understand the Lord’s will and what pleases Him? Read His word. I don’t like to think of the Bible as an instruction manual, that is so impersonal. Christianity is not a set of instructions to follow until we die. God’s Word is His WORDS! To us! Straight from Almighty God. Read His words, soak them in and you will know what pleases Him. 

Think about how much you know after 5 chapters of Ephesians?! You are more equipped now than when we started — you know more now than you did then about God’s will and what pleases Him. He doesn’t give us an expectation with no roadmap — He lovingly sets the bar for holiness and righteousness and then gives us exactly what we need to live fully in it — His Word and His Spirit.

M: Meditate

• Has attending church on Sundays become the extent of your worship?

• How else can you worship each day? I will tell you some of the ways Timmy and I intentionally worship:

  • Dinner together at home — like a prepared one that took effort. We let that enjoyment roll up into worship.

  • Being outside where everything around us is already worshipping — the trees stretching upward, the birds chirping, the sun shining. Not many of those inanimate objects inside your house are worshipping, but nature is in a constant state of worship. Join in!

  • Godly conversations is one of my favorite forms of worship. I have a lot of conversations each day and I want them all to be worshipful, and not in a weird way. But it’s possible for each conversation to be directed upward, to be hopeful, to speak life and promises of our God over the people I’m speaking with.

• What are your functional saviors? Think about where you find satisfaction through something functioning well and walk yourself through it with immorality, impurity and greed as your lens. 

  • Maybe your kids

  • Maybe your husband

  • Maybe your job

  • Maybe your friend group, or your desired friend group

  • Maybe your bank account

• What sins have you renamed, redefined or managed?

• Are you too closely connected to the darkness? What parts of your life does no one else know about? What feels most comfortable when it’s unseen? Bring it into the light.

• Are you too closely connected with people who live and function in the darkness?

• Remind yourself of what it looks to live as children of the light (Chapter 4)

• Where do you need more wisdom? 

P: Pray

• Confess, repent and turn from immorality, impurity and greediness. It’s ok if it gets ugly — bring it into the light of Christ with full confidence that forgiveness abounds.

• Ask God to show you your functional saviors and then ask for Him to help you believe He is bigger. Pray for courage as you put those idols to death. Ask for forgiveness for giving them more worship than your Lord & Savior Jesus Christ.

• Ask God to fight for you against these sneaky sins. 

• Practice thanksgiving:

  • God, thank you for your generosity in my life.

  • God, thank you for what I have. I acknowledge and know it all comes from you

  • God, thank you for giving me what I need. Always.

  • God, in YOU I am and have all I need in order to be used for your glory.

  • God, I don’t need to look anywhere else other than to you for what I need and desire.

• Ask God for wisdom and believe He will give it to you.