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Look carefully then how you walk. Live purposefully and worthily and accurately, not as the unwise and witless, but as wise, sensible, intelligent people.

Transcript

Hello everyone. Thanks for joining with me on another Helping You Become podcast. I pray it's a blessing to you. Well friends, thank you for your company today. I do appreciate you joining with me. I take access to your heart and mind very, very seriously indeed. So thank you. Thank you for joining with me today in the study of God's word. Turn in your Bibles, please, to Ephesians Chapter 4. Now as you do that, I'm just going to pause and pray for us.

Father God, we appreciate your kindness and goodness. Thank you, Lord, that it was your kind intent, Lord, that had us, and wanting us to be born again in Christ Jesus, part of the family and the economy of God. And, Lord, as we seek to understand more about our purpose, about how to live purposeful, worthy and accurate lives. Holy Spirit, we ask that you give us revelation knowledge, please, sir. Give us actionable intelligence, please, so that we can honour Jesus and bring glory to our heavenly Father. By this, my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and prove that you are my disciples. And so that is our prayer today, to honour you Jesus, to glorify the Father, and to bear fruit. Please help us in that. And Father, we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

So, turn in your Bibles, please, to Ephesians chapter 4. Did I say that? And let's look at verse one. This has been our foundation scripture, or one of them anyway, for this series.

This is our week four. I, therefore, the prisoner for the Lord, appeal to and beg you to walk and to lead a life worthy of the divine calling to which you have been called?

Oh, dear me. The Apostle Paul, who recorded some, you know, two -thirds of the New Testament for us, appealed to and beg you, beg you, beg you, to lead a life worthy of the divine calling to which you have been called with behaviour that is a credit to the summons to God's service.

How do I do that well? Yeah, I'd love to do that so well, yeah, and I suspect you would to. Look carefully then how you walk. Live purposefully and worthily and accurately, not as the unwise and witless, but as wise, sensible, intelligent people.

Ephesians chapter 5. I'll read that that's so strong. Look carefully then how you walk. Live purposefully. I got to live full of purpose. Live full of purpose. Live worthily. There's got to be worth to what I'm doing. Yes? And accurately. There's no point in being sincere, but sincerely wrong. Okay. Live full of worth. Do worthwhile things.

Now remember that's worthwhile, from the perspective of God. Yes, from his side of the desk, from his viewpoint. Live accurately from the Lord's perspective,
not from our own perspective. Not as the unwise and witless, but as wise, sensible, intelligent people, intelligent people, sensible, you know, Why? We've thought this through. It's got nothing to do with our, you know, academic prowess. It's got everything to do with how we apply ourselves to the life that God has given us.

Do we have a structure and routine happening in our life? Are there things that we Shoulder the responsibility of willingly. Now, there might be things that you shoulder the responsibility of unwillingly. Well, yeah, okay, we've all got that. You know, I'm not really sure I want to do that. But anyway, you know, we all experience that kind of thing.

However, shouldering responsibility is a powerful, powerful thing. And it's a critical part of the way our human mind is wired to move forward. And there's some incredible studies on that from, you know, psychologists and these sorts of people that talk to us and teach us about how the brain interacts and the left side and the right side. And they work together to move us in a forward direction with purpose, with accuracy, with worth, all of these things, ethical, honesty, truth, yes, love, all of these things are foundational and vital to our existence.

So verse 16 of Ephesians 5, making the very most of the time,
buying up each opportunity because the days are evil, therefore do not be vague and thoughtless and foolish, but understanding and firmly grasping what the will of the Lord is. I personally would like to do that well. Yeah? I would like to do that well. And I suspect anybody that honours God, that loves the Lord, that appreciates their salvation, Jesus is just not some kind of, you know, fire insurance thing or hell insurance or whatever you want to call it. No, no, no, no. The Lord Jesus Christ is a real person who gave his life for you and I so that we don't have to give up our eternal life. And this is really important to understand.

It's not some religious kick. It's not some weird, you know, thing, club, you know, whatever. No, no, no, no, no. This is real. This is about the application of ourselves in a forward way that is honouring to the divine calling to which you have been called. Now, Paul wrote this letter from prison, and it seems, the historians and theologians tell us that probably Colossians and Philemon were penned around the same time thereabouts.

But he'd written this book of Ephesians to the church at Ephesus. Now, there's a particularly interesting thing there, and I'll turn over in my Bible, just listen to the rustling of the pages for a second, and I'll turn over in here to the Book of Acts, and this is BIG in my Spirit.

This is really, really important. And Acts chapter 19, verse 1, while Apollus was in Corinth, Paul went through the upper inland districts and came down to Ephesus. there he found some disciples. Now looking at verse 8 of Acts 19 and he went into the synagogue and for three months, for three months spoke boldly, persuading and arguing and pleading about the kingdom of God. But when some became more and more stubborn, hardened and unbelieving, discrediting and reviling and speaking evil of the way of the Lord before the congregation, Wow. These people are trying to influence others, the congregation, against the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's serious. What happened next? Well, then Paul, he separated himself from them, taking the disciples with him, and went on holding daily discussions. Hear that, listen to that sentence, those words, daily discussions, daily discussions. Paul went on holding daily discussions in the lecture room of Tyrannis from about 10 o'clock till 3 o'clock, 10 o'clock to 3 o'clock daily discussions. Paul's on 10 o 'clock to 3 o 'clock every day, every day, 10 o 'clock to 3 o 'clock, 10 o 'clock to 3 o 'clock.

Why am I just parroting that, going over and over and over. The next verse, verse 10. This continued for two years. This continued for two years daily, daily in the School of Turinus, for two years, five hours a day, from ten to three, ten to three, ten to three, thereabouts, five hours a day for two years. So the book of Ephesians, all of the things that Paul says in the book of Ephesians, okay, he had spent two years in that area ministering to these people, over two years actually, but ministering face to face for five hours a day for two years.

Paul has covered some ground. So some of the things that, you know, he writes in Ephesians like live and walk and lead a life worthy of the divine calling to which you have been called with behavior that is a credit to the summons of God. Thanks for the information, Paul. How do I do it? Verse 15. Look carefully, then how you walk. Live purposefully and worthily and accurately. How do I do it, Paul? Well,
I suspect, and this is my opinion, I suspect that Paul covered a lot of ground, face to face, five hours a day, daily teaching in the School of Tyrannus, or School of Tyrannus, yeah, five hours a day for two years. He covered a lot of ground.

So, the more effective and purposeful our lives are in the things of God. The greater the impact is that we have for the Lord, for ourselves, for our families, and for the gospel. Each one of us only has a certain amount of time. We see that in verse 16, 15, 16 of Ephesians. Chapter 5, live purposefully, worthily and accurately, not as the unwise and the witless, but as wise, sensible, intelligent people, making the very most of the time because the days are evil. We've only got a certain amount of time, okay? We've only got a certain amount of time. We have to be very careful with our hours that God gives us each day.

How do we use that time the most effectively? And that's really important. It's such a powerful question. How do we use our time the most effectively? Now I covered last week, please go to our website and get this series, livingsuccess.org. Go to livingsuccess.org. You can subscribe there and all of that sort of thing. And there's free subscriptions there, but you can get these series, download them. They're yours, okay? No problem. So go to livingsuccess .org. Look at Part three of living an effective life, and I covered about the things.

Jesus said, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these other things will be added to you. Paul's saying, we've only got a certain amount of time here. We've got it directed in the right areas. So much of our time is directed towards the wrong things. Much of our day, much of our time is focused on other things than our purpose and the divine calling to which we have been called.

Okay. Now, you might say, well, Joe, I've got a job, I've got to work, so do I. Yes, so I get it, all right? But how can we also structure our lives so that we can honour that divine calling to which we have been called with behaviour that is a credit to the summons to God's service. And I think, this is my view, I think Paul taught the how-to-dos of all of that face-to-face with the Ephesians when he was ministering in the School of Tyrannus for, over two years, five hours a day, every day for five hours. He covered a lot of ground face to face.

So, I think these things are very, very serious considerations. If we're going to genuinely glorify God and bear fruit, John 158, by this my father is glorified that you bear much fruit, and so you prove to be my disciples, if we're going to work hard at pleasing the father, John 8:29, he who sent me is with me. He has not and opens the door and lets me in, I'll come and abide with him. Jesus, permanently standing at the door and, you know, knocking on the door of, you know, people's hearts and minds.

So we're living in this permanent invitation. And what's happening? Distractions coming in, attack, and are direct competitors for our time, yes. Distractions are direct competitors to our purpose. We have a purpose and a divine calling in God. Now, I've heard people say, well, Joe, I want to know what the will of God is. Okay, that's really easy. Start by just doing the word. Find something in your Bible to do. Just a little thing, okay?

Talk about, you know, changing your speech in Proverbs chapter 4. He wrote a remarkable thing, a truly remarkable thing, in Ecclesiastes 12. Now, verse 13, all has been heard. The end of the matter is, fear God, revere and worship him, knowing that he is, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole of man, the full, the original purpose of his creation.

Fear God and keep his commands, our commandments, the object of God's providence, the root of character to fear God and keep his commandments, the foundation of all happiness, fear God and keep his commandments. Now, this is huge, this one, the adjustment to all inharmonious circumstances and conditions under the sun.

What, in harmonious circumstances and conditions under the sun, I can adjust all of that by fearing God and keeping his commandments? What? Yes. So as we, you know, people say, oh, what's the will of God? We'll just, number one, focus on the word of God, yes? Learn the word of God. Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments, yeah? So to do that, we've got to read his commandments. We've got to know what they are. Learn the Bible, learn the New Testament. Start with reading daily our New Testament and the book of Proverbs, yeah? And then finish every day, every, every evening, every night by reading one of the Psalms.

That's a great place to start to understand the will of God. Now, the will of God doesn't necessarily mean that you are called to the ministry. No, no, no, no, no. That's a very small percentage of people that God calls to the ministry. As in the fivefold ministry, we are all called to the ministry of the body of Christ, to serve others.

You want to know what the will of God is? Serve others. Start there, and then watch it unfold. As you learn to focus, as you learn to prioritise, as you learn and to develop discipline, I mean strict discipline, as you learn to develop routine and understand routine. And I just don't mean, you know, oh, well, let's get up at 5 o 'clock every morning and read our Bibles. That's a great thing to do if you can do it. Praise God, that's wonderful.

Okay, start at 6 o 'clock, you know? Read for half an hour, read for an hour, you know, whatever time. But do it every day, every day, every day. And as you learn routine and you implement those sorts of things, at some point you'll start to understand the power of routine and what it means and what it does and what it changes and what it forces away from your life and what it ushers into your life.

Same with discipline, yeah? Same with patience. All these sorts of things, yeah? So let's just fear God, keep His commandments and we're then in a situation where we can start to adjust the inharmonious, inharmonious situations and conditions that are going on under the sun. Now, that just doesn't mean around our own life. That means your spheres of influence can extend way beyond you. Yeah? Now we're in a situation with the internet. You can do just about anything. You can just go just about anywhere with a few keyboard strokes and a search. Okay?

So what is it that you can produce? What is it that you can do? How can you influence others? How can you support? How can you serve? How can you lay down your life in the service of others? Start there and then watch the will of God fold for you as you learn the deeper foundational principles of things like developing behaviour that is a credit to the summons of God. It just doesn't mean be nice. It means understand why you're nice. Understand how to be nice. Understand all of the components that make up grace that enable you and empower you to be nice. Yes?

There are all the different layers of understanding. Proverbs chapter four, with all you're getting, get the understanding. The understanding is the why of your now. You have a now. Why is it the way it is? Yeah. Understanding is understanding the reality of the repercussions of the word of God. So powerful, so important to get that. So there are many, many, many things that distract us, oh dear me, and hinder us, they become direct competitors,yeah. They become direct competitors to us fulfilling our purpose or fulfilling it well. Yeah?

I personally would like to do these verses well, make the very most of the time, buying up each opportunity because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be vague and thoughtless and foolish. Joe, don't be vague and thoughtless and foolish. No, I don't want to be that. But understanding, be understanding. Yeah, now you're getting my attention. Be understanding and firmly grasping what the will of the Lord is. As I said, I personally would like Thank you and where we serve in the body of Christ. It's through service to others and service of others that we see how and where our behaviour is improving and growing.

Let's just read that verse again. Ephesians chapter 5 verses 15 through to 17. Look carefully then how you walk, live purposefully and worthily and accurately,
not as the unwise and witless, but as wise, sensible, intelligent people, making the very most of the time, buying up each opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not, do not be vague and thoughtless and foolish, but understanding and firmly grasping what the will of the Lord is.

Praise the Lord. I do invite you to join with me next week on this station and we'll look further into the study of living an effective life. Linda and I and the team at Living Success, we are dedicated to helping you become. God bless. Thanks for joining with us on this podcast. We are dedicated to helping you become all you can possibly be in Christ Jesus. Please do check out the resources at livingsuccess.org

God bless.