"My Rods! My Cones!"
EPISODE 191
Swap Your Steps for the Lord’s
This week we discuss replacing old habits with a new way to walk, including some specific changes. What is “proper” behavior for a Christian? And practically speaking, how do we get filled with the Spirit? It’s a conversation about wise choices and discerning the light through “evil days.” We get into the difference between applying Scripture’s principles and commands versus making up our own rules. And we find that life without Christ is sleep-walking and conversion is like waking up. You can find all the resources for this series at biblegeeks.fm/ephesians.
Takeaways
The Big Idea: God wants us to follow his lead by replacing destructive sinful activities with wholesome ones.
This Week's Challenge: Note three times you've chosen wisely today in your journal or to a close friend.
Episode Transcription
Something about when we actually finally do see Jesus and we open our eyes and, "My rods, my cones!" [Laughter] [Music] Well, hello everyone and welcome to Bible Geeks Podcast. This is episode 191. I'm Bryan Schiele. I'm Ryan Joy. And thanks so much everyone for tuning in. We are in session 10 here of our We're talking through Ephesians guided study. We talked about a whole new you on the last episode and now we're gonna be talking about a new walk. And I think for me, thinking about walking, I just put a pedometer complication on my Apple watch and I get to see how many steps I take every day. And that's not exactly what we're talking about here in this episode, but it's not too far off either. - Well, yeah, it's gonna track how much you walk, how you, I don't know, does it track how fast you're going around, how you're doing it. We are changing the way we live. I guess kind of like an Apple Watch gives a measurement of how you're doing. This chapter is gonna give us a standard and some things to focus on as we think about how are we walking and what is this new life in Christ gonna look like? - And so as we kick off this conversation, let's drop our conversation starter that we put out not very long ago, and that one we called Texas Switch. (imitates music) This is Talking Through Ephesians, Texas Switch. Unlike Tom Cruise, most actors rely on a professional stunt double to perform their dangerous on-screen feats. To fool the audience, a cinematographer might employ the Texas Switch, where the actor and stunt person swap places while the camera is still rolling. The actor vanishes behind something, revealing their replacement for the rest of the shot. It's a trick that's hard to unsee once you know what's happening. Continuing from the last chapter, Paul begins this section in Ephesians 5:1-21 with some switcheroos of his own. Rather than living lives of anger and bitterness, we walk in love. Instead of spending our days hiding in the darkness of sin, we walk in the light. No more foolish choices, we walk in wisdom as we seek God's guidance. So here's the big idea. God wants us to follow his lead by replacing destructive, sinful activities with wholesome ones. the sections before this one, Paul starts with a conversation about our walk, this time encouraging us to walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. We're God's children, imitating his leadership each step of the way. And if we're God's heirs and not sons of disobedience, we're walking in the light rather than in the darkness. We aim to please our Father by our lives, shining his revealing truth into the shadows of sin in and around us. Practically speaking, instead of filthy jokes, we speak words of thanksgiving. Instead of sexual immorality or idolatry, we stay pure. It's not hard to see people making foolish decisions all around us. We once made them too. But now we walk in wisdom, allowing God to define a new standard for right and wrong. Rather than stumbling around in drunkenness, we fill ourselves with the Spirit and sing our unending praise and thanks to God. So here's the big question. What choices mark your new walk with the Lord? So follow along with this guided study at biblegeeks.fm/ephesians, and may the Lord bless you and keep you. Shalom. Okay, so the big idea we talked about there is that God wants us to follow His lead by replacing destructive sinful activities with wholesome ones. It's the switcheroo, right? I like that. The old switcheroo. And this is such a helpful truth because it focuses us on new habit creation, not just avoiding our old patterns. We talked about it's like the inception idea. Once you don't think about a butterfly and all of a sudden you think about a butterfly. Sorry, man. That's an awful thing to think about, I know. But it's like, if you're doing a diet, we did a diet years ago called the Whole 30 and we ended up throwing away, I hate throwing away food. And you end up like clearing out so much of your fridge in your pantry because there's a lot of stuff that you're not, it's an elimination diet and you're getting rid of certain things, it's like a reset. But you also have to fill your fridge up and your pantry up with good things and it gives you all these good options that you focus on and you think about, okay, this is what I'm starting to get excited about eating and you start retraining those taste buds. And so I think this is just a really helpful way, not just of thinking of these specific commandments that Paul gives us here, but to think about our whole reworking of our life in Christ as we keep trying to strengthen ourselves, just constantly thinking about what am I going to do instead of this thing that I don't want to do. Yeah, there are a lot of buts here in this verse or in these verses. I mean, just from the fact that he is comparing one thing that we used to do with the thing that we should now be doing. And so I think your idea of replacing like what we eat, I think is something that we can all relate with. But, you know, for the big question there that we dealt with is what choices mark your new walk with the Lord. And I think I've always loved those spot the difference games growing up, you know, when you have two identical pictures, except for a handful of like minor changes that are hidden between the two. And you got to spot the differences. I wonder how hard we're going to have to look though to spot the difference between our new walk and our old walk. You know, are we going to have to be like looking really deeply at every minor little thing or is it going to be pretty obvious that we've changed in a lot of things and these choices that we make now, are they different? Are we walking in a new way because the Lord has called us to walk that way? You might have been a quote unquote pretty good person before you came to the Lord, but I think knowing the Father and being taught by Him and all the things we've been talking about recently, I think that should lead us to make some really big major changes in our life. And it should be obvious to see on the outside that we're different than we used to be. I think that was one of the big realizations that slowly crept up on me. From the time I was baptized and I became a Christian, I knew what I needed to do and I repented of my sins. that the more you grow in Christ, and as I went from, I don't know, I was like 12 or 13 when I was, I became a Christian, and then I, as I was 16, 17, 18, you know, I'm studying the Word, and I started to realize this is not just a little thing. This is not just a switch to reading my Bible before bed or something. And it might not look like a million little things like you're saying, but just the level of commitment and the orientation of what my purpose and focus in life is is now totally different because I'm driven by that. - Oh, 100%. And I think as we'd like to do on a lot of these episodes, we dive in and we get super deep right off the bat. Now let's skim the surface ever so slightly with our icebreaker question maybe. - Well, I teased it with my big idea illustration about food and making food choices. So this is our icebreaker. What healthy alternative food do you reach for over the original, Bryan? - Well, oddly enough, I've been through enough strange diets where I've developed a strange affinity for monk fruit sweetener instead of sugar. I really like monk fruit, and I won't always use it straight up. Sometimes I'll cut a little bit of regular normal sugar with it, but it's probably something that in 10 years we're gonna learn is super bad for us, but I almost prefer it over straight sugar now. Monk Fruit sweetener is mine, so what about you? - I also like some of the natural non-sugar sweeteners and I can't handle most candy bars anymore. Just some sugar just, man, it just gives me light-headed, swirling dizziness whenever I eat like a whole thing of, like I love a Reese's bar or a Heath bar or something like that, but I just can't do it anymore. And so I've found this replacement, these Lily's Ultra Dark Chocolate Bars. I like the 70, 80% chocolate. - You like to get kicked in the mouth by chocolate. - Yeah. - And I got you. - Oh yeah, yeah, smack me in the teeth. There's lots of good antioxidants. And they're sweetened by stevia instead of sugar. And I just, I think they're way better. And so that's, I keep them in the freezer, break off a piece at night after dinner. It's just the perfect palate cleanser snack dessert at the end of the night. - I don't think Kit Kat would appreciate your overuse of that phrase there. - Don't break me off a piece. - Yeah, no, it's okay. - Of that Lily's bar. - I gotcha, all right. So let's move on to our actual segment here on the episode. The first substantive thing that we're gonna talk about, and that is our Finding Jesus segment. We're in Ephesians five versus one to 21, talking about a new walk. And of course, as we've been talking about a little bit on the past few episodes, every section that we've started with has started with a conversation about walking. And it's no different here. He says, "Be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us." And so he talks here, as we've discussed in the conversation starter, about different choices we could make. We could live as covetous people, idolaters, or we can choose a better way. And so he goes on to talk about walking as children of light, how we walk in wisdom and how we walk according to God's standard. And rather than choosing our own path and our own ways, getting drunk with wine, being filled with the Spirit instead, dressing one another, singing to one another, these Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, we submit ourselves to one another because we revere, we love Jesus. So where do you find Jesus here in these first 21 verses of Ephesians 5? - Well, it's time for your morning wake up call. I love the last verse as I brought this up several times, the last half of verse 14. It says, "Therefore it says, awake, O sleeper, "arise from the dead and Christ will shine on you." And he introduces the quote by saying, "Therefore it says," the problem is, we don't know what it is. There are a lot of Old Testament passages about God's face shining on people, but none of them seem close enough that Paul could be quoting it here, so what is it? Therefore, it says. And so most scholars think he's quoting an early Christian hymn, maybe a baptismal hymn, a hymn that you would sing as someone comes up out of the waters of baptism. So that's a guess, and whether that's the context or not, it is a biblical fact that this passage describes what happens when we come to the Lord. We arise from the water, arising from the dead with Christ. Romans six talks about it, Colossians talks about it, opening our eyes to the full waking reality of what our life is and will be. And it's like the sun is breaking through our morning window. Christ shines his presence on our life and his love and his strength and his goodness reaches us in this way that shapes us and changes us. It makes you think of his transfigured face on the mountain, but now it's his lasting glory and it's shining on us. I think of second Corinthians three that he's shining on us and we're being transformed by his presence with us. So life without Jesus is a sleep walk and coming to Christ is like waking up. And I think that's just so beautiful and really true. Yeah. I think that's where I went to with this as well. Not the awake, go sleep or rise from the dead. But as he's talking about walking as children of light, I'm seeing how he is the sun, not just the sun, he is the S U N, not just the S O N. He is shining down on us. He's enlightening our steps. He's helping distinguish between our darkness versus His lightness. He's showing us what the sin around us really looks like. And I've definitely seen that in my own journey. I think we've talked about that a lot. Just seeing how the more you learn of Jesus, the more you sit at His feet and come to know Him and experience Him, the more you realize how your ways, how your choices and the things you might naturally want to do are dark and we need to put those things away from us. It's almost reminds me of somebody who's been inside for too long. You know, like that arise from the dead, the, the awake, go sleeper there. You know, I was in a hotel room not too long ago. I shut the blackout curtains and everything like that. I was allowed one day to sleep in a little bit longer so that it was actually, it was full sun outside and I opened up the blinds and I immediately had to shut the blinds cause it was way too bright in there and it's jarring just to see how dark the world is, how dark the deep corners of my heart can be when illuminated by the light of Jesus, when compared to the walk and the ways of Jesus, how it really just highlights my need to continue working. And it helps me see myself clearly, it exposes my darkness, and Jesus has a lot of work to do in extinguishing all of the dark parts of the corners of our lives and the ways that we walk and the things that we might naturally want to do as children of darkness, now becoming children of light, it's a whole new game. - I love this as an antidote to what we talked about last time about the nose blindness and not being sensitized to all the darkness and instead now something about when we actually finally do see Jesus and we open our eyes and my rods, my cones, ah, you know, (laughing) I can't see anything. I'm dumb. But it's overwhelming, the light, but then it changes us. And now you have your eyes open and the light is shining in and you see everything for the first time and you see the mess that's around you, unfortunately, and you have to deal with it. You have to walk with it and you have to make sure that you're not in the mess. - I don't know why I just made this connection, but this is Paul, right? This is Paul who literally saw the light, right? The fact that he's telling us here to be children of the day and this comparison between the darkness, he knows firsthand what it's like to be blinded by the light. Let the scales fall from your eyes. Oh man, so good. All right, so let's move on here to our next segment here on the episode, and that is scripture du jour. What is the soup du jour? It's the soup of the day. That sounds good. I'll have that. This is a cop out segment that we like to do every now and again, where we just bring up something that we found that was interesting from the verses. It's easy for us to kind of look at the depth here that he's talking about in these verses here about our walk. So what did you find here that was super interesting or helpful for you or something that you might just want to bring out as something that we should roll around in our minds for a while? Well, two phrases struck me in the passage. The days are evil. I think that's a really interesting and helpful phrase as I think about it, and be filled with the spirit. And the one I think is an antidote to the poison of the other. Being filled with the spirit can help us deal with this darkness in the evil days that are around us. So I don't know if you ever feel like you're living in evil days. I think a lot of Christians feel this way. We were just talking about the light comes in and you see the mess around you. I think we can very easily see the mess that's around us. I think about it a lot and try not to make that something that I'm just constantly talking about, but it's a reality that we have to face and recognize and deal with. And later on in the armor passage in chapter six, verse 13, he says, "Take up the armor so that we can stand in the evil day." And I think that's referring to the day of trial, the temptation or difficulty. There's a time coming when you're going to be tested and you're gonna need this armor because the evil one is gonna go after you and in the evil day when the evil one comes, you have to be prepared. But this phrase is similar. It's not the evil day singular, it's the evil days. The days are evil. And that's a phrase used back in Ecclesiastes 12 where I don't know if you remember as a kid, as a teenager, you hear all the time all the workbooks that you use bring you to Ecclesiastes 12 and tell you to remember your creator in the days of your youth. And then the rest of that is before the evil days come, the hard times when we say I have no pleasure in them. And so the evil days there aren't necessarily moral evil, they're that kind of difficulty that's gonna come. Already, probably you and I are starting to feel some of the creaking. I'm not saying I have no pleasure in them, but things are a little harder than when I was 17. But sometimes in the Old Testament, evil means that kind of trouble. We're in the midst of evil days full of difficulty, and that is also true right now. We are in a time of great difficulty, not this century or this decade, but this period of life before Jesus comes again is a time of great difficulty. But there are also morally evil days under the power of the evil one. We talked about back in chapter two, verse three, the Prince of the air and Jesus gave himself, Galatians two, verse four says to deliver us from the present evil age. And so I think that's part of what he's talking about here. We are in the present evil age. Again, not talking about read the newspaper to see if you're in the evil age because of something that rush is doing or whatever. But we are in this time in between. Jesus has come once and established His kingdom, but the kingdom is also still to fully be revealed when He comes again and makes everything new and we're risen, all those things. And so we're in this period, in this evil age. And so we need to be wise, He says, while the days are evil. We need to be circumspect. We need to be filled with the Spirit. We need to make the best use of our time because days are tough. The days are evil and there's darkness all around us. And then in order to deal with that, you must be filled with the Spirit. And I think it's interesting going into this second phrase that he doesn't say you are filled with the Spirit. He has said in other places earlier, we're sealed with the Spirit. We are sealed with the Spirit. spirit is our guarantee, but this is a command. He's giving us a commandment not to be drunk with wine, but in parallel to fill ourselves with the spirit. So in our society, when someone gets pulled over for driving while they're drunk, we call it a DUI, driving under the influence. Alcohol has influenced your capacity, your way of driving. And when we fill up with the spirit of God, we put ourselves under His influence. So sometimes, I don't know if you've ever felt like you need to fill up your tank, like you need God's strength. I need some, I need some of the Lord. I need more of the Lord. I need more strength. I need more direction. I need more of you Lord. So I think the natural question then is how can we obey this commandment? How can we be filled with the spirit instead of being filled with drink? And I think we could list a lot of the spiritual disciplines. We talked about a while back when we did the study of disciplines, think about prayer, think about study of the Word, it's going to fill you with the Spirit, meditating on God's Word. There's so many things we can do, but Paul gives us a list right here. So we don't have to look any further. It's all part of this same sentence. "Be filled with the Spirit" is the commandment. And then there are all these "ing" words of what we're doing, you know, all these phrases that support being filled with the Spirit, singing these words of truth to each other, making melody in our hearts to the Lord, giving thanks in Jesus' name, and submitting to each other. And that is a pretty good list of spiritual disciplines, and they're both a result of being filled with the Spirit and a way of drawing near to God. And this is that thing we kept talking about last week about how we're doing things and God is doing something. And as we do the right things, as we draw near to God, but he draws near to us, James 4 verse 8. And so these are things we do to call on him for help, to serve him, to obey him, and to be close to him. And when we draw near to him, then we're going to find we're filled with his life, with his power, with his will, with himself. - It is so, I think, fitting for this section to be talking about this one way of walking, one way of living, and contrast it with really the antidote or the solution for that. So I'm really happy that you stuck to that idea here that the days are evil and focus on that. Just settle it on the fact that the days are evil and the way to get around that, the way to deal with that is walk in the spirit, be filled with the spirit. And so I also thought here in my observations about these verses, I don't know if you grabbed onto this too, but I felt really deeply challenged by the idea of things being proper here. How he talks about there's a propriety here. there's a correct way that things should be done. And I don't know that we always think about that, that we always focus in or hone in on that idea here about things, things are proper. It's just, it's like a foregone conclusion that there are things which should not be done. They're shameful things. They're improper things. Impurity and immorality is not fitting for a follower of Jesus. That is just totally tied into the idea of walking in wisdom as well. Wisdom is about discernment. And so for these things to be defined as proper, like a proper way of living, an unshameful way of living, fitting and correct, he's not giving us like a hard and fast list of things. And that's what I wanna be really careful about because I think so often, if we think about things being proper, it feels like then you have to give the list, like the pharisaical list of how long should a skirt be in order to be considered proper, or how far should you sit away from your boyfriend on the couch in order for it to be considered proper or seemly? - A Bible's distance. - Exactly, a Bible's distance between you, right? It's not that he's laying out these clearly defined rules, but there is a properness. There are lines as to what is proper and improper. So, you know, on one hand, he's not going so far to just define all of these things for us and leave no ambiguity. But at the other end, don't just think that anything goes, right? Because everything that should be done, that we will do in our lives needs to be proper, needs to fit the occasion and be seemingly as he's talking about here. I think that's a helpful thing for me to remember because there is for a lot of us just a danger in being overly prescriptive. And that's what the Pharisees were really guilty of in a lot of cases, just teaching as doctrines the commandments of men, filling up their books of what to do and not to do with the things that they've come up with, like building a code, even an unspoken one about our dress or our speech or our practices, that might seem like an appropriate way to deal with this verse, these verses. Here is our code of conduct or here is our code of how we walk. But that's not what Paul does here. He is giving us a general guideline of how we walk, but it's up to us to make sure that we're just keeping in step with Jesus, that we're walking with humility, we're walking with gentleness, we're walking with patience, We're walking with love. We're producing the fruit of the spirit in our life, but he's not going so detailed to the point where he's giving us all kinds of nitty gritty rules on every little aspect of everything. Like we've got to think about these things too. - Yeah, there's all these, he's really focusing mostly on even the commands are pretty broad. There's just principles and we have enough instruction to deal with all of the situations of our lives in these principles. There's very little of the Bible outside of like Leviticus that's case law where you have when this happens, this must be done. There's some, but a lot of it is we're being educated by the Spirit in how, what is proper. And I like, I really like your focus on this because as you're being educated by God's Spirit, what is good and what is holy and what is righteous as you take all of this into consideration you start to think holistically about learning Christ as we talked about last week and being like Christ, there are some things that as this verse in the English standard in verse four, it says, which are out of place. Yeah. And it makes me think of that thing on Sesame Street when we were little that said, one of these things is not like the other. Wasn't that on Sesame Street? Yes. Whatever that was on. Yeah. One of these things is not like the other. Which one is fitting out? look at your life, it should be clear enough if we're paying attention that some things are out of place for the life of a disciple that is following Jesus and training to be like Him. Is this something that is fitting for someone who has learned Christ, who is the temple of God? And we can start to see all of these things, man, here he is serving and praying and wait a minute, what is that doing there? And it's, well, that's out of It's out of place. It's out of place. 'Cause you're, why are you telling that crude joke? That's out of place for who you are. - And so I think that's a really helpful thought to, that's very application focused, which is quite appropriate for this section of scripture. - Yeah, and I feel like we're just gonna roll this thing right into our reach out question and stab right at the soft underbelly of the whole thing. So let's dive in. ♪ Reach out, reach out and touch someone ♪ - So our reach out question this week is what aspects of this new walk might you overemphasize and which should you pay more attention? And so I feel like this is right in line with what we've been talking about. What do you focus too much on maybe? And what should you focus a little bit more on than you do now? - It definitely is right. It goes with your thought about properness. I didn't use that word, but I guess starting with the overemphasizing, and I might have not gotten what you were thinking whenever you put that in, but I guess there's some things that are good that I talk about and think about more than others, things that are in this passage, like singing, we're commanded to sing. And maybe I talk about that more than a lot of other good things, but the verse that convicted me most, though I'm not yet certain of all of the applications and starting to formulate as we talk about this is verse 11, take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. That verse is one of those stab the underbelly kind of a verses. It is. Paul is going for the jugular there and making us really recognize that most things aren't gray. There are some things that it's not 100% clear where that line is, of course, but there are some things that are just the unfruitful works of darkness. and most things, there is an absolute distinction between good and evil. And every aspect of the world I interact with, I need to be discerning between good and evil. Whether it's the people I'm around, the media I'm exposing myself to, the choices I'm making, I have to be clear with myself and others about where I stand. This is the unfruitful works of darkness. only will I take no part in them, but I need to, with my life, with my words, with the choices I make, let the light shine on them so that it can be seen what they are. And that's not always necessarily convicting someone of it. It includes that. I think it helps me to understand what this application is for me about this idea of taking a stand. "Here I stand, not with those deeds. I stand in the light and I will let the light be seen and recognize that over there as darkness." I love this verse too, how he talks not only about exposing them, but he says, obviously at the beginning of that, he says, "Take no part in these unfruitful works." And then he says, "For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret." It's even just that idea of glorifying it or even just talking about it. about it. Like he's almost leading you to like just even watch what you talk about because these kinds of activities the kinds of Practices that people do it's don't even talk about it. I don't know I feel like there's he's being really careful with how much time and attention that you give to sin And so I think if you're thinking about things that you should pay more attention to it's like Exposing them letting your light letting the light of Jesus obviously shine on these things But then also just realizing that it shouldn't be what your whole life is about Your whole time and thought and all of your energy should not be spent fixating on these terrible things 'cause that's just, that's not something we wanna spend our time filling ourselves with. And that could be just so easy for us to do. - Yeah, I think he's really trying to share and spread his appropriate disdain for these evil things because they have lived in a life that was a different way and it was just okay. And I've gone through periods of my life where certain things were just okay. Or like, it didn't bother me as much. And he's saying this needs to be, he shouldn't even, it's awful and gross and dishonorable to even talk about these things. And so absolutely don't participate in them. I don't want to give a list of these things because they're too bad. - Yeah, it's actually interesting that we're taking this conversation here because my answer to this question, which aspects of this new walk might you overemphasize? I see a lot of the heavy hitter sins here. Some things that I could probably spend a lot of time talking about, you know, sexual immorality. He talks about idolatry here, foolish talking. Maybe we could spend a whole episode just talking about foolish talking. But maybe for me, I think personally, I think I overemphasize the secret struggles that I face. And he does talk about those here. He talks about those things that are done in secret. There are things that people don't ever know about. Things that I've said, things that I've thought, but I think for me sometimes I fixate on those or I think about them more, I overemphasize those things more because it's shameful. Those kinds of things that nobody else knows and I don't want anyone to ever know, but those are the things that I roll in my mind a little more than I should. So hopefully we can all connect with that, but yeah. I think the things that I should pay more attention to in these verses and you talked about the Sesame Street thing of which one of these do not belong like does it feel like singing and addressing one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs belong in this whole list? It feels to me sometimes like it comes out of left field. We've been talking about all of these terrible things that we shouldn't do and all the things that we should do and then he wraps it all up by saying and we should sing more and I don't know like you you talked about how you might overemphasize that or you might think about that aspect here a lot more than some people do. I would be in the camp of somebody who doesn't think about that as much as maybe I should. And so for me, something I can focus more on doing is singing. And I know we sing together in worship and that's helpful, but I can take these songs out of the building into my daily routine, help encourage myself, help encourage other people, build a deeper relationship with the Lord, all these things that I can do. Singing is a great way to do that. And I think it's maybe something I should focus on more than I do today. - So it is interesting how we swapped. We have the opposites on each side, but what you're saying really highlights to me is how much of a switch happens at awake, oh sleeper, arise from the dead. There's this darkness and all of this description that's really trying to help us to see how awful this other way of life is and how dark and shameful. And then you get to this bright picture where people are singing, there's melody in the heart, there's Thanksgiving, people are submitting to each other, they're walking in wisdom, they're making the best use of their time, there's no foolishness. And so it's really these two completely different ways of letting, not whenever the Wizard of Oz goes from the black and white tornado to a bunch of munchkins singing on the yellow brick road in color, but it's not all sunshine, but it is a very, there is sunshine in my heart today as we sing, you know, or Christ has shined on us. And so we are in the light. And so there's a different way in the midst of the darkness, we are singing, we are giving thanks, we are grateful. And we are like living this different way where instead of fighting with each other, we're serving and submitting to each other. And so that was something that jumped out at me whenever you said this seems out of left field. It doesn't seem out of left field in that list at the end where you're filled with the spirit, but it seems totally in contrast with the things we were just talking about. - Exactly, yeah, I think that's right on. So let's move on here, I think, as we wrap up this episode, to our challenge for the week. - I am ready to face any challenges that might be foolish enough to face me. - So this week's challenge, I think this is a cool one, note three times you've chosen wisely today, and you can do that in your journal or to a close friend. So not just focusing, we talked about what are you focusing on, not just focusing on those difficult things, not just focusing on bad choices. Sometimes we can obsess over those things, but noticing not just the way you don't wanna go, but the way you do wanna go. Where have you won? Where has Christ brought a victory in your life and you chose wisely? And this focus on wisdom at the end of this section, verses 15 to 17, I think is really a focus that we all can do well to think about. not only am I doing good, not only am I making moral choices, but am I making the wisest of all the possible good choices? Am I being skillful in the way I say it and how I interact or how I spent my time today? And so I think this is a really cool thing to think about and just, it's about noting, it's about paying attention, whether it's in a journal or you're talking about it or however you deal with it. - Yeah, I think the big problem is we don't have like a really old crusader following us around, like Indiana Jones, to tell us that he chose poorly. - Poorly. - He chose wisely, you know? We don't have this person around who can just note our choices and qualify them and say, yes, that was good, thumbs up, or no, that was bad, thumbs down. We need to do that on ourself. - Thankfully, the consequences aren't as drastic as those crusaders. - Oh, no doubt, for sure. But I think we would develop a good skill if we could introspectively look at our own decisions and the things that we've done throughout the day and been able to say, "This was wise, this was good. "I think this was a choice that the Lord would have made." And with that, we will now wrap up with a closing prayer. And we wanna ask the Lord for his help as we try to make these good choices. The closing prayer we suggested in the study guide is, "Lead me to imitate your love and holiness today from Ephesians chapter five verses one to two. So let's go to God in prayer. Holy father, you are our awesome God. We live to be like you. We pray for your help. Help us walk like you, help us talk like you and think like you and love what you love, hate what you hate, help us to reflect your goodness in the world. We ask for your work of new creation to continue in us for your power and your life to fill us for your presence. Open our eyes to any missing truth that we're blind to, whether it's about your word or about our own lives. Let your light expose the darkness. We pray for the strength to step away and abstain from evil and for the courage to expose it. Give us discernment to know your will in any complicated situation we find ourselves in. May we walk with wisdom or Give us of all of our sin. Let us see the light of your face so that Christ may shine on us today. We pray in his name, amen. - Amen. All right, so this has been our 10th guided study session. We've been talking about a whole new walk. And on the next episode in our 11th guided study session, we're gonna talk about the household. We're moving on to the end of Ephesians 5 in verse 22, all the way into chapter six, verse nine, where Paul's gonna spend a lot of time talking about marriage. He's gonna spend a lot of time talking about parenting and in fact about being a servant and in being a master. So there's all kinds of things that we can take away from and learning how to be a good member of our family and a good member of our community at large. And in order to prepare for that conversation, we'd encourage you to read Ephesians 5 versus 22 through Ephesians 6 verse 9. These are some of my favorite passages here in the book of Ephesians. - Yeah, you've pointed to him several times, and we all, just that passage about the husband and wife and the church, this mystery is profound. And I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church. This is what marriage is teaching us about the Lord, but it also teaches us about how we wanna relate to each other, what the true vision for, as Steve Jobs would say, an insanely great marriage is going to be. What does God want to create? And it's like a living parable of the church and Jesus and their relationship together. Well, thanks so much, everyone, for giving us your rods and cones here on this episode. This has been episode 191 of the Bible Geeks Podcast. You can find us on our website at biblegeeks.fm. You can find show notes for this episode in your podcast player of choice or at biblegeeks.fm/191. You can find this series at biblegeeks.fm/ephesians, all the conversation starters, all the study guides, everything you need for these conversations to have them on your own, or they're on our website until next episode. May the Lord bless you and keep you slow. [MUSIC PLAYING]