“I WALK THE LINE”
Life is like a parking lot after a blizzard, full of slippery spots that you must tread carefully. It is appropriate that Paul should use this metaphor of walking in relation to how you live your life. “Be careful how you walk…” since there are so many ways to fall.
Johnny Cash was the bad boy of the music industry way back when. He used drugs to energize his concerts; he used drugs to get to sleep and to wake up. His personal life was a shambles as his career estranged him from his wife and daughters. Then he met June Carter and soon after that he met Jesus.
Cash knew he had to straighten out his life in response to these new relationships. It wasn’t easy. But he wrote the song, “I walk the line” as a commitment to a fresh start. The temptations were always just outside the door of Johnny’s life, and he wanted the lyrics to say, “I’m going to be true to those who believe in me and depend on me, (and to be true) to myself (and most of all) to God.” (see lyrics).
I keep a close watch on this heart of mineI keep my eyes wide open all the timeI keep the ends out for the tie that bindsBecause you're mine, I walk the line, mmm
I walk the line.
The Apostle Paul laid a foundation for us to know the God who chose us, adopted us, saved us by his grace, and loved us without limit. That was the message of his first three chapters in Ephesians. Then he began the “walking” metaphor in 4:1 “I therefore…urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called…” And from there he has given us practical instruction on how to walk that walk. God’s love calls out to us to respond, not to prove anything or earn our salvation, but to walk in the freedom of it.
In today’s passage, Paul teaches us more on how to walk the “Jesus way” by giving us another three steps. These steps come in the form of what I call “NOT-BUTS” because he says, “not this but this.” To live a life worthy of the calling we have received, we put our feet into the steps of Jesus and learn to walk like him.
Step One: Make the Most of Every Opportunity (5:15-16)
Paul had been talking about imitating God and walking in the way of love (5:1ff) and what doesn’t belong in that walk. He continues now, “Be very careful, then, how you live (walk) – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil,” (15-16).
The command is straightforward, “Be very careful how you walk.” Take care to live wisely. Be accurate; be precise; pay close attention to the way you live. Think of how you walk on that icy parking lot, choosing each step carefully. Be deliberate. This is wisdom, a strong theme in the OT. Paul may have had Proverbs 4:14 in mind, “Do not set foot on the path of the wicked or walk in the way of evil men.”
We live in evil times, and we are surrounded by people who choose to do evil (they reject God’s ways). So, Paul expands on how we walk by charging us to make the most of our opportunities. The original word here is “redeem,” as in to buy up or purchase the time because the days are evil. In Jewish thinking, the present age is evil, filled with potential for evil actions. As Paul said in Eph. 2:2, the spirit of the evil one is at work in those who are disobedient.
Since we live in evil days and we are confronted with evil all the time, we can do something profoundly good. In truth, we cannot “buy time” – but we can seize the moments that might otherwise be wasted. Do we “buy time” or “spend time”? In other words, are you wasting your time? I know I waste far too much time on trivial things.
John Piper says he doesn’t watch TV, not because it’s wrong, but because he wants to be deliberate in how he uses his time. He said, “It astonishes me how many Christians watch the same banal, empty, silly, trivial, titillating, suggestive, immodest TV shows that most unbelievers watch – and then wonder why their spiritual lives are weak and their worship is shallow with no intensity.”
Is this fanatical? I confess, it convicts me as to how I spend my time. I wouldn’t want to make a rule that none of us should watch TV ever again – that’s legalism. But Paul’s instruction challenges us to be deliberate in what we allow to influence us and how we spend our time.
Step Two: Understand who God is (5:17)
The second “not-but” is short and sweet: “Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.”
It may be short, but it is often misunderstood. What does Paul mean by understanding what the Lord’s will is? Does he mean “for my life”? Does he mean I should try to figure out who I should marry, what job I should take, or what political party to vote for? Are we to seek his personal guidance for our lives? No, there is a much larger perspective to this command.
What are we supposed to understand about God’s will? In Ephesians 1:9-10, Paul zooms out of our myopic view to a much grander view saying, “And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ…” God’s will is to bring the universe back into order, to bring all things together under Christ. To understand the Lord’s will is to understand and grasp the basic storyline of the gospel. God is fixing this broken world and calling sinners to come and know him. He is calling us to be in community with one another even when we have little in common – but we have Christ in common. We are invited to understand the gospel and where we fit into this story.
Someone said, God is not so much interested in what you do as in what you are. Back in 5:10, Paul urged us to “find out what pleases the Lord.” What pleases God most? Faith. Hebrews 11:6 says it is impossible to please God without faith. Faith is believing God, believing what God says about life, believing what he says about people, about yourself, about the need of people. Through this lens we analyze and understand what is going on around us in terms of what Scripture has revealed.
If we understand who God is and what his plan is, that certainly affects how we use our time. AW Tozer wrote, “Time is a resource that is non-renewable and nontransferable. You cannot store it, slow it up, divide it up or give it up. You can’t hoard it up or save it for a rainy day – when it’s lost its unrecoverable. When you kill time, remember that it has no resurrection.” Time doesn’t stop. If we grasp the Lord’s will, we wake up to the importance of seizing opportunities before us: to share Jesus, a word of comfort, a prayer for someone who is hurting. Don’t put it off till later.
Step Three: What are you being filled with? (5:18-20)
The NIV messes up the third “not-but” by putting a period where it does not belong and inserting “instead” rather than “but.” Why is this here? Why does Paul start talking about wine or alcohol at this point? Paul seems to veer off in a new direction saying, “Do not get drunk with wine, which leads to debauchery, but…” Let’s stop there for a moment…
A preacher named AC Welch preached on this text and began with this sudden sentence: “You’ve got to fill a man with something.” The unbeliever, he said, found his happiness in filling himself with wine and worldly pleasures; the Christian found his happiness in being filled with the Spirit.
I have heard this said many times before: What’s inside of you is what spills out when you are rocked in life. Picture a glass full to the top of some liquid. I did this the other day; I filled Sharon’s mug too full of tea and then tried to move it from the counter to the table. What’s in you will spill out when you are bumped, tripped, or jostled.
Do not get drunk on wine, it leads to debauchery. I always wondered what debauchery was – it sounded so complicated and bad. I found out it means “without any limits” or “with reckless abandonment.” It is escapism, a throwing of all restraints overboard and living without control. That describes pretty accurately drunkenness. Intoxication relieves you of logic and sensibility, of your inhibitions, of self-control.
What are you being filled with? Paul counters alcohol with the Spirit. He says, to satisfy that need for something to stimulate and strengthen you, be filled with the Spirit. He is God’s provision for this need in the human spirit. You need something, right? On TV shows or movies, after a crisis or a fight, the character often gasps, “I need a drink.” No one ever says, “I need a fresh filling of the Holy Spirit.” But WE should! Be filled with the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and SELF-CONTROL.
Do you see how Paul says this? Be filled with the Spirit – it’s a command. We can be filled by the Spirit or resort to some inferior way to get rejuvenated. It’s a command for all of us – not just some so-called spiritual elites. You can be filled with the Spirit as well as anyone. Just ask. It’s a passive experience – I mean, it is something that is done to you. HE fills YOU. And it’s an ongoing experience, not a one-time thing. We grow weary and stale and need to keep coming to Jesus for more of his Spirit.
Now notice three verbs that are the result of this filling: Speaking, singing, giving thanks. What’s in you comes out of you. Paul said something similar to the Colossians with a slight twist: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God,” (3:16). For the Colossians it is the word of Christ that fills them. But this is not a contradiction since Paul later says in Eph. 6:17 that the sword of the Spirit is the word of God. The Spirit and the word are that closely linked.
What spills out of you? Out of me? I wish I had time to speak more about worship. What kind of songs spill out of you throughout the day? I really do enjoy singing, especially here in our worship time. I may not be the best singer, but I take God’s command seriously: “Oh come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation,” (Ps. 95:1). Ray Stedman said he sings from the heart rather than out loud. He said he was in a choir until one day he missed practice, and someone thought the organ had been fixed. But to sing from the heart, the inward bubbling, the effervescence of knowing God’s love for you, how do you keep that inside? You have to sing out loud. Make a joyful noise.
The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard taught that God was the true audience for worship. Congregation members were the performers. Worship leaders were the prompters. And the true measure of any worship service is not whether I liked it, or you liked it but whether God liked it.
What’s filling you? And what is bubbling out of you? Are we speaking words that build up? Are we singing to the Lord? Are we giving thanks to God with our words? What’s in your cup?
Be careful then how you walk.
This command is not meant to make you anxious. Rather, Paul’s intention is that you walk through life with purpose and deliberate steps. Pay attention to the path you are traveling. Understand the Lord’s will as you navigate life. And remember that the Holy Spirit is ready to fill you with fresh wind and fresh power to do this, to walk the “Jesus way.”
As Patrick Mayberry sings, this is my song:
Step by step, day by day
Lead me on, Lord I pray
Road gets dark, walk by faith
Lead on Good Shepherd, lead on.
Follow Jesus
AMEN
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