Ephesians, 5:18-21
Randy Peterman · Jul 5, 2009
Ephesians (2009), No. 27
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926138212319

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

First things keeping first I was asked to or it was suggested and I think it's great to present Let's see to present some of this material. This is This is some of the Elders material and it's back in the back in a supplement if it's something that you care about if it's something that you're interested in it's just some of the some of the research is that the elders have developed on will and choice and just so there was a little maybe a little bit of confusion and if there is any here's the elders official position I think the important thing to remember with with imperatives is the idea of relationship it does have the wrong date on it I'm sorry yeah so we're a month behind and well five or seven days behind on today's handout But anyway, at any event, you want to keep in mind the idea of relationship when approaching these imperatives.

Done. You move. No, no! You've just been there for so long, you kind of threw me. I kind of like it. It's a good look for you. You look as good from this angle as you do from that angle. I can hear you better. It's good. Alright, cool. But in any event.

So, the thing to remember, I think, is the element of relationship. A lot of times when we get into imperatives, we come into the question of, oh, is this law? Is this something where I've got to memorize all these laws or God's going to punish me? And if we remember the relationship that we're in with God, then that kind of goes away. Or no, that doesn't go away, but it changes the nature of a command or an imperative.

In other words, the command or the imperatives that April may give me, Brad, please don't make fun of my clothes in front of other people. There might not be a law attached to that. There's probably not a law. There's probably not a consequent, like, or else I'll poison you in your food. That's not the way that a marriage, our marriage, operates in a system of rules and laws and da-da-da-da-da-da. But she might give me an imperative that out of love and respect and the desire to maintain fellowship with her that I would keep.

So law is not particularly the issue with choice. And I was talking to Vern about it this morning again and the real, the real point, if you want to call it a point, is that we're constantly called to choose to either abide in the Christ nature, abide in our new nature, or abide in our sin nature. We've constantly got that choice before us. We also have, if you're interested, I can email it to you, just some other Greek references about imperatives in the book of Ephesians, but this will give you a lot to chew on.

I didn't want to chew up a bunch of time considering we're already starting late. But I was asked to bring this stuff out, so there we go. Um, there we go. Ephesians 5, 18 through 21 is our passage today, which is really fun. We covered sex a couple weeks ago, but I get to do drugs and rock and roll. And I feel really good about that because, um, if you know anything about my background, I'm a musician. So there we go. All right. Would someone like to volunteer to read our verses today, whether out of your own Bible or off the handout? Preferably out of your own Bible, if you can. I will. Thank you, Mark.

18 through 21? Correct. Alright. And be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in songs and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for things unto God and the Father in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. There we go. Cool.

Well, so these passages, the last three weeks, have been really entrenched in the culture of Rome and Greece and Ephesus. One of the things that needs to be pointed out right up front about this imperative is that for the Greeks and for the Romans, getting drunk was a religious obligation. It was something that they would do just because they thought they should, which is kind of insane to us, right? Because we think of, we've been nice and good and programmed down with our... our Puritan heritage in America here, where all alcohol is bad and everything is something to be afraid of.

But the reality is that for them, they would have the celebration of Bacchus. I think it's Bacchus or Dionysus. And they'd go together, get as drunk as they possibly could, and tear animals apart, live animals apart, with their bare hands. This was worship to God, which is kind of bizarre. But Paul, for whom this would have been, of course, abhorrent thing to do, starts off by saying, hey, you know that thing that everyone else does to worship God?

Don't assimilate that. Don't think that you can get drunk and tear animals apart to praise the God of the universe, because that just doesn't work. So it starts off with this imperative to do not get drunk on wine, which leads to- so the NIV has debauchery, and I think King James has dissipation, right? I don't know, I have the King James. Who's got it? It says, and be not drunk with wine wherein is excess. Excess, even better, which is great.

So this comes from this word, a-sotia, or not to be, or not savable, if you like. Wherein the works of which are not savable. So, in other words, Do not be drunk on wine, because if you're getting drunk on wine, you're not abiding in the spirit, you're not walking in the spirit, which is ultimately the only choice that really matters. If you're not walking in the spirit, nothing that comes out of you is worthwhile. Nothing that comes out of you is safe. And then he says, this is great, so just out of curiosity, if we could have a little discussion, why do people choose to get drunk? Why do people go out and get loaded?

Forget their problems, like anesthetic purposes. What else? Social. Absolutely. Become funnier. Laugh more at least. You know? You know the reason why people might get drunk? Why we might be tempted to get drunk? fact the amount they've had is not adequately assessed and therefore more is simply partaken.

So there's kind of an out of the control, not purposeful kind of scenario. Certainly judgment is impaired. That's why perhaps the most important aspect of being drunk with wine is that ultimately the spirit is not in control, right? Yeah. And there's also, there's been another, there's been another train of thought of trying to translate this is, do not be drunk with wine, but rather be drunk with the spirit, which isn't at all the meaning here. In fact, it's two different words between drunk and filling. And the being filled with the spirit is, as we've talked about before, talking about being controlled by the spirit, being in the control of the spirit. So if you're drunk with wine, you're not controlled by the spirit.

But I think there's an even cooler dichotomy that's getting set forth here. When people go to wine, they look for, we alluded to comfort, for fellowship, for, for some reason I came up with a number of different things on my list. Maybe I'm more sedative, maybe I'm more inclined to want to get drunk, so I understand the temptation better than you. But the reality is that people go to wine or alcohol for a lot of things. to do a lot of things for themselves.

Make them feel more confident, right? Less nervous. Have you ever heard of liquid courage? Or like the thing, what is it, the t-shirt that says beer? Helping white guys dance since 1872? Yeah, I mean stuff like that. There's something that people look for in alcohol and the reality is that as believers we don't need to look for that comfort, that sedative. Because all those things that we would look for in alcohol, or that humans look for in alcohol, are better found in walking in the Spirit and resting in God. So what keeps us?

I mean, this is one of those kind of insane... Jeremy, was it last week, alluded to that we get insane or get foolish pretty frequently. What leads us to this insanity? To go, ah, it's just so much easier Because he's exhorting this of believers, he's not exhorting this of non-believers, right? So why would you have to tell a believer this? If we've got all these amazing, wonderful resources, and yet still the temptation is there to rely on these earthly, yeah, short-pultures and so on.

Well, that way it goes back to what I talked about last week, the unwise and the foolish. The foolish who either don't have a knowledge of what the Bible says, Or we know what the Bible says and we choose to ignore it, but we don't believe it. We don't actually have the faith that God's going to provide everything He says He's going to provide, so we look for other means. That is truly foolish. It comes back to, I'll never forget, it was right at the beginning of our course we had Bob had a slide that said, our faith is too small, and then there's like 18, our faith is too small, is going down into infinity. And I think that's really the reality. We don't think we can trust God. Oh, I'm sorry, I'll speak for myself. That's definitely the reality in my life, why I'm tempted to self-medicate.

Maybe it's not with alcohol, maybe it's with or any other number of other things that may not be in and of themselves sinful. It might just be eating a really good dinner or going out to McDonald's or something like that. But it's still a sedative that I'm using because, you know, I've had a rough day and I don't feel like the Lord will deliver on his promise to comfort me. And I think you mentioned earlier relationship.

That's where it comes in so important because you look at these imperatives and It's so easy for people to say, OK, let's not get drunk with wine. So then we simply look at alcohol, and we make all these prescriptions regarding any type of alcohol. And well, you don't want to do this, so let's, you know, it's like the Pharisee. We don't want to break this law, so let's add all these buffers. That's going to help us, which isn't the point at all.

And like you say, we could be mastered by anything, which is part of the principle here. he takes this cultural instance, but then he makes it such a more universal, and it's not about just being drunk with wine, it's about being mastered and controlled by something other than walking in fellowship with Christ. It could be alcohol, it could be drugs, it could be work, it could be coffee, it could be music, it could be anything that we're giving ourselves over fellowship and that relationship with God. And that's the universal principle that Paul, I think, wants us to understand. We have to focus on that fellowship there with Christ, that relationship. Yeah, it's Chester McAuley and the Grace Series. All of a sudden our question becomes, does it master?

Does it keep me from? Yeah. I had a friend in college who was a believer but had gotten to college and as usual decided to challenge everything about his upbringing and said, I just don't see anywhere in the Bible where it tells me that I can't get drunk. And I said, really? Like, have you read the Bible? And he said, oh yeah, lots of times. So I brought to him this verse and he goes, he looks at it and he says, it's all good.

Don't drink one. So obviously he missed the spirit of the passage, right? By saying that it's okay to be drunk on tequila but not wine. That wasn't exactly what Paul was getting at, right? What Paul's getting at is exactly what Jeremy's talking about. And it also, once again, I think Ephesians is in many ways just the epistle of Christian maturity. God wants maturity out of us.

He doesn't want little rule following. He doesn't want us followed around by the pedagogy law, the tutor law, telling us what to do and what not to do. How much should I give? How much should I this? How much should I that? God wants mature adult believers out of us, right? That's his goal.

People can make a decision and say, yeah, I'm not going to say I can't have any wine because blah blah blah blah blah, and I'm not going to make a big rule and law out of it, although in certain people's lives, right, that's a necessary decision that they need to make.

But it's between them and the Lord. Not between me and them and the Lord, or the church and them and the Lord. It's between them and the Lord. So in grace, we're going to be drawn, hopefully, as we abide in Christ, not hopefully, Definitely. As we abide in Christ, we will be drawn to maturity and be able to say, you know what?

I can. I can have a glass of champagne on New Year's. And I, as I rest in Christ, will not go too far. Not a big deal. We don't need to make rules and worry about everybody else going crazy. Because, you know, they have the Christ life within them, and if they are abiding in that, they'll come to maturity too. Good news for us, right? So, filling of the spirit.

Once again, the cool thing about these is both drunk and filled are passives because you don't actually push a button and make yourself drunk, right? You drink the wine and it makes you drunk. Additionally, in something of a similar way, you don't go and fill yourself with the Spirit. You don't go and get the Spirit as if it were a fluid somewhere and pour it into yourself. But rather, you are filled with the Spirit by abiding in Christ. You're controlled by the Spirit by abiding in Christ. And once again, that's better than any worldly escape that's going to leave us hollow, that's going to leave us dead, that's going to leave us...

Sorry. So, as it were, um, cool. Now we get to my other favorite part of scripture. Verse 19, moving on to page 2. It says, speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord. So, um, it starts off, uh, this, this translation is a little bit It's a speak. It's actually a present active participle. It's be speaking. Participle is with the ing ending.

So it should be be speaking to one another in love. So our daily conduct as we're interacting with each other, as we're abiding in Christ, we are to be speaking to one another. And it carries the force of an imperative. This is part of the Christ life lived out with us. lived up in us. We're speaking to one another and I love that one another if you ever have some time with a with a Strong's concordance or something look up that word aleilon or one another and just check out all the one another's in the New Testament They're really interesting. I have I have it printed off or I have it on my computer.

I didn't bring it today It's such a fun Exciting study to see how the how the Lord how the Holy Spirit wants us to interact wants to interact through us with each other and minister to each other and all the other all the commands that are there. So it is a lot of fun. Here we're told that we are to be speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Music's a big deal in all the churches.

Even though it's probably the smallest deal in the Lord's sight, it becomes a really big deal to us. Because if the music's not great, we won't get 150,000 people. If we don't get 150,000 people, how are we going to build a bigger building or a new parking lot? And then if we don't have a new parking lot, how are we going to glorify God? So that's ridiculous.

But the reality is that there's plenty of people who will only go to a church that they say will sing maybe the Calvinist Psalter or the Scottish Psalter. I haven't met too many of those. But they used to be around. I think they died. More recently, you might hear people say, I only want to go to a church that sings hymns from a hymnal. Hymns from a hymnal. And then, quite frankly, what you see most of in my generation, hello. Most of it in my generation is people who will not go unless there's a drumbeat. Will not go to church if there's not a drumbeat.

And what I hear, kind of consistently from each, because I've been in music for a couple years now, what I hear constantly from each party is, well, I just can't worship the Lord like that. I just can't worship God if there's a drumbeat. Or I can't worship God if there's not a drumbeat. I can't worship God if they're not trying to manipulate my emotions by bringing the lights down and someone doing this or that or doing a nice dance. I can't worship if that's going on. That's ridiculous. It's all flesh. It's all flesh. Whether you're on the really holy Calvinist Psalter side or you're on the really holy hand-raising, jumping up and down, it's all flesh, right?

I mean, imagine if there's been a lot of talk about love languages. Your love language is gift and cards, your love language is this, your love language is that. Imagine me saying to my wife, well, your love language is gifts and cards, and my love language is time spent Therefore, we have to get a divorce. We can't love one another, because you don't want to be loved in the way that I will naturally love you. It's ridiculous, right?

I mean, I'm going to love April regardless of the specific expression that day. And the only advantage to something like the love languages thing is to know, oh, so you're more naturally inclined towards this. So I know you're saying you love me when you clean up the dishes or something to this effect.

Getting down to the point. Worshipping is not about us. Worshipping is about God. Right? And you're worshipping God whether there's a drumbeat or not. Right? Does that make some sense? The other thing that I... Wisdom tells me not to, but I'm doing it anyway.

There's been a lot of talk about vain repetitions at this church. Not, I believe, at all, what Jesus was talking about. If you repeat the chorus, God doesn't hate you for repeating the chorus. in your spiritual song. Jesus was talking about the practice of the Greeks, who thought that by repeating themselves and repeating themselves, and it was a Buddhist practice that came along through the Silk Road, by repeating themselves and repeating themselves, they would either bring themselves into a self-hypnotic state and feel kind of cool, or they would twist Zeus' arm to give him what they wanted. That's what Jesus meant when he was saying, don't get involved in vain repetitions.

I said it 160 times, and therefore it's going to come true. Jeremy? Well that's, this is obviously a lot after this time, but the Muslims, that's one of their staples of their, they have to say Allah is whatever, and so on and so forth, 150,000 times as part of getting into paradise. Same thing, although Paul had no knowledge of that, that's I think not the same idea. It's exactly, yeah, it's exactly the same principle, that by repetition we do something. We have some sort of power.

So the only thing I want to say is that most of the world doesn't have an overhead. Doesn't have a printer. So worship songs wind up being simple. Really simple. Like two lines. And they repeat them over and over again. Is it vain? No. Have you been there? No, it's not vain. It's just about as much as you can coordinate without without that.

They're not trying to self-hypnotize. They're not trying to twist God's arm into saving them or hoping that if they repeat it, it will become more true. But the reality is that a simple song or a simple refrain that's repeated more than once is not something that displeases God.

So I just kind of wanted to slide that in since we're talking about music and we won't be able to talk about it again until we come back around to Ephesians. 4 or 5 in verse 19. And why? Because worship is mentioned all over scripture, and only a handful of times is it ever talking about music.

And that, as a musician, is a little bit disconcerting. But as a Christian, it's kind of like one of these things that is rather amazing. Because if you ask believers out on the street, you see someone wearing one of those cheesy Christian t-shirts and say, hey, you're a Christian.

Did you worship this week? They go, no, I missed the service. No, you missed a lot more than the service, friend. Right? Because worship's not about when you sing. You do worship when you sing, or at least I hope you do, if you're resting in Christ. But worship's something that needs to be happening all week as an outflow of your life. Outflow of your resting in Christ. That's why worship in Scripture is so common, and yet so rarely does it ever talk about music. So I'm willing. to sacrifice my own living and cut my own feet out from under me and say, don't spend all that time worrying about when you're going to be seen, when you're going to be this way. Worry about actually worshiping the Lord.

Your time in prayer and your fellowship. I mean, that's when it's going to happen. That time that we spend together is amazing and wonderful. And it's something that God wants. And it's very clear from this verse that God does want music to be a part of our life. Why? God made music. He put it into us. It's a fantastic thing.

But don't let that become the center of, I didn't worship this week. Because you didn't sing? Maybe you didn't, but that'd be kind of sad, right? So yeah, we'll leave the music thing to rest. But the other last thing that I wanted to say, and this is kind of a funky challenge that I was always praying over this verse. I kept continually talking about, we always take this verse, pick it up, and throw it into church service, right? We think immediately, this is something, because it's a hymn song, a spiritual song, it's a church service thing. I want to challenge us, or at least ask the question, is it something that needs to be relegated to just the church service?

You know, it's so funny. I hate American Idol. No, it's supposed to be all the time you're awake. Yeah. That's exactly right. We're so spoiled. We've got CDs to listen to whenever we want to. We've got MP3 players and iPods and all this kind of stuff that keeps music cramming into us.

And any time you want to hear music, you are able to hear the best vocalist, the best song, the best, the best, the best. And all of a sudden, it dehumanizes music. It takes music away from you and I and puts it in this upper echelon of you really have to be above level B in order to make music. In fact, I've talked to a number of people, obviously, who say, I hate singing in church because I have a bad voice.

It's like, yeah, and God really cares. He made your voice. He knows you're not a very good singer. It's still music to Him. It doesn't have a, it doesn't, there's no difference to Him. I mean, you think God who hears choirs of angels sing every day is going, wow, that Pavarotti's really got something going on. Of course not. To Him, He made the voice. He knows what it's capable of. It's not the fact that it's more beautiful that gets Him excited and pleased. It's the fact that someone's willing to use whatever gift He's given to glorify Him that matters, right?

So, what I'd like to challenge us to do is to sing a song to one of your friends, to one of your brothers or sisters in the Lord this week. I just want to challenge you to do that. No, no, no, they don't want that. No, they didn't make my voice. The Lord did. Exactly. But you are called to speak to them in Psalms and spiritual songs. Sounds like a lot of me. Only if you're going to be punished for not doing it. Yes, go ahead Bob. So Brad, take this a step further.

So is music spiritual versus aspiritual versus unspiritual. I mean, the text seems to put this in context of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. You've tried to define these, but I'm not satisfied by your description. That's not a criticism. It's just, I mean, what's a spiritual song? I mean, could that be Chopin's second piano concerto that ultimately was not written, presumably, to glorify God? I mean, the issue is how you know, you gotta let the spirit work on the believer, right, to determine what a spiritual song might be, right?

Yeah. I mean, it's definitely the most general of the terms. So, do you know your chorus? Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't think many people know their chorus. Well, no, but are we going to start getting legal about what spiritual music is in terms of praising God, praising the Lord in His name in our heart? I mean, and by the way, it says in our heart, I mean, it implies outward singing, but also implies songs in your heart, right? presumably are sung in private. Which is fantastic. Carol, you can sing in private. Yes, Carol. I've been doing that for many years. I even do it in church, but I don't thrill anyone with results. But it's not for their benefit, unfortunately. It's not good enough to be for their benefit. But anyway, I wanted to bring up, well, I think I've lost it now. Let's see.

God says to do your work as unto the Lord, you know, like it's a gift to him, whatever it is. Well, I think that's kind of how the music is. If it's from your heart, in the Spirit, to the Lord, it's spiritual. You know, and God accepts it as that. Just like, you know, if you're washing the dishes well so that your family will be healthy, and you're doing it with the care and tenderness and zeal that you would do it as a gift to the Lord. Then it becomes good work and it becomes a gift to the Lord. And I think that really encapsulates it.

So, just going back, just in case anyone hasn't read ahead in the handout, Psalms, the biblical psalms, are mostly talking about music in address to God. God you are, God you give, directly addressed to God. Hymns are songs about God, concerning God, telling about His character, His might, His love, and so on and so forth. Spiritual songs, this is the most wide and broad of all of it, is songs of a spiritual nature. Songs of a spiritual nature. incorporate all three here at Hall of Hills quite frequently. A hymn, a song, a spiritual psalm, a spiritual song. In other words, songs to God, songs about God, and songs about spiritual things. It can be about our experience as we walk in Christ. I wouldn't recommend that we start singing all together, you know, good songs that are not directly concerning the Lord, the Bible, da-da-da-da-da. I wouldn't recommend that.

But, going back to Carol's point, doing anything that you do as under the Lord, it doesn't matter if you're playing some old blues with some friends. I teach kids all the time, and very few of them want to learn. Like, yeah, for like 10 or 15 hours out of my week, I'm teaching young students from from five to twelve, very few of them want to learn Christian music. Many of them want to learn classical music. And whether or not they realize, well, sorry, whether or not they realize what I'm doing is all going, I'm doing as to the Lord, hopefully, as I rest in Christ. I realize that's really not the question. I don't need to be shoving Christian music down your throat. And that is kind of a criticism that I would have with a lot of Christian music.

Christian artists feel like, in fact, there's even a term in the corporate Christian music, JPM, so Jesus Permanent. How many times do you get to say the name of Jesus permanent in your songs, making it thus more or less markable? So Christian artists can't write a song about, you know, good steak. All we can do is write a song with JPMs, with Jesus Per Minutes.

And we've kind of backed Christian artists into that corner, saying, all we'd like to hear from you is good, solid, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the reality is that, you know, they wake up and have a bad day, and maybe they want to write a song about that.

And the Lord will continue to come into that. The Lord will continue to influence it. I'm not suggesting that they should have secular songs, or purely secular songs, because the true believer who is walking in Christ isn't capable of making anything secular, right? Anything that's going to come out is going to be of Christ.

But yeah, the reality is that there's a reason that there's fewer atheists in the music departments at most big colleges than in other places. You can look at a science book and say, hey, maybe God doesn't exist. Aren't we proud of ourselves? You can't look at music and do that. It doesn't make any sense.

Like, we evolved into these things that can be moved to tears. By sounds. That's one thing I was thinking about in terms of what you put here. Speak, or speaking to one another. In, and then this group. Yeah. Which is, the whole thing is, you have meaning, but I think of message. that whatever that music is, it's a message, because it's the same thing that advertisers do, where they put a creative jingle together with a message hidden in it. And we remember the music, which points us to the message, which is no different than spiritual songs, hymns, things that point us to a message in the song. I think your A Hall of Heals is one of the things that is kind of neat, I like, is that there's care given to what we sing and how we the beat, or the tempo, or any of that. It has a lot to do with what the message of the song is.

That it's true to what we believe. You know, in Korea, they're not quite as scared as we are here in America. People with a good voice, without a good voice, if you get together with people, you're going to sing. It's just kind of part of it, whether you're just meeting together. So we were hanging out with a lot of believers and we'd just be walking along and talking and they'd say, it really reminds me of this hymn. Do you know this hymn? It's in Korean. I said, no. And so they'd sing it for us.

And it was great. At first it made us really, I don't know, I won't speak for you, but it made me really kind of feel awkward and embarrassed. I'm kind of proud of my voice." And they really stunk. And that's okay. But the point is, as Americans, we're so scared and so ready to judge, and we've got that horrible atrocity American Idol on television every other night. And they're, you know, oh, it's this and it's that, and it's this huge beauty contest, and it's this and it's that. And we're so insecure about our voice, and it's like, as we've said, God gave you the voice.

I'm not saying we should all sing, but I don't think we should be afraid to sing. to one another. I've had a few people sing a song to me just quietly and proudly. I'm not saying go to a restaurant today for lunch and turn it into a Bible school musical or anything. But what I am suggesting is that as you're resting in Christ, the Spirit reminds you of a song. Don't be afraid to sing to someone. Just like Alan was saying, it'll make an impression. It'll get through. They'll go humming that song into their day.

I've been blessed before that way, so please feel free to bless others that way, too. The only reason I bring it up is not because I thought, boy, we stink at this, we need to get better, but because I've never thought about it before. And it is kind of fun to free, like, wow, there's this new way that I can minister to people, that other people can minister to me, but I never really felt freed up, because I've always so bound up in, oh, what will she think, what will he think, what will he think, silly. Make music sing and make music or sing and make melody. I just like singing make melody.

That's way more fun Sounds more poetic seems more appropriate in your heart What's the significance of in your heart? Anyone have we talked about a little bit heart to God I'm not sure I'm gonna put every word in here, but it's everything that you think feel the total essence of who you are. And that's what God wants from us. He wants our heart as defined in His way. Yes. And that's beautiful. The heart is the seat of, sometimes called the seat of the will, the seat of all these different things.

But, essentially, I think the important thing, or at least the thing I want to bring up, is that if you're resting in Christ, and then we get into the belief issue, if you believe that we've been blessed with every spiritual blessing, if you're putting your faith in the fact that the Lord can take care of every situation, if you can believe, if you can put your faith in the fact that God is working all things together for good, for those who love Him, if you can rest in Christ, if you're resting in Christ, and you can, or you are, as the Christ-natured, and you will, take joy in all suffering?

What do humans do with all that joy but sing? What other outflow do we have after singing? Why do we sing at weddings? Because just talking isn't enough sometimes. Because that's the big extra explosion of gratefulness and gratitude and joy and emotion and life that we've been filled with. How cool is that? And we're licensed, hey, from your heart, if you get this, if you're in, if you're resting in Christ, there's gonna be a song in you.

I love, love A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh, all of them. But one of my favorite parts about it is that Pooh is constantly running around writing silly little songs. Everywhere he goes, he's just walking, so he writes a song. You know, we listen to the radio, he writes a little song for himself, a little poetry, and then sings it to himself, and then goes, I think I'll go share this with Piglet. I just think that's kind of fantastic. Have you ever written a song?

Try it. It's fun. It's worthwhile. Jeremy? It's amazing that God has created us that way. One of the highest forms of expression of our joy is music. It's hard, like you said, when you start to see what God has done for you and you start to look at the body of Christ and what God can do, it's really hard not to turn to Gene Kelly and Sting in the rain, and just, we're so joyful, we're so happy that it doesn't matter. We just want to express that joy, and it's amazing. Exactly. It's so cool.

So anyway, I've been walking on sunshine all week to get to come here and go, hey, let's sing a song! And I almost brawled, but I thought, well, you know, we're going to run out of time, because I'm me, and I talk too much, defying the idea of singing. And I was going to sing parts of this, but I decided not to do that, too. But anyway, it's just fantastic.

Here we've got this other kind of fun thing. Here we're speaking to one another with psalms and spiritual songs, but also we're singing and making melody of our heart to the Lord. Is it two singings? Possibly, but I think they're overlapping in a lot of ways. I mean, when April sings an encouraging song for me, Both she and Cadence will be sitting around the house, and it's just the most beautiful thing in the world.

And it's encouraging to me. They don't necessarily mean it to me, necessarily. But it is. It's really encouraging. You've got 100 greatest children's Bible songs rolling around. They're just singing those. It's a marvelous thing. They're singing to the Lord.

But boy, if I'm not encouraged, I'd be, yeah, always encouraged. How about that? Over the overflow of the joy and the life in our heart comes these songs to the Lord. And, oh by the way, we'll only be encouraged if we share that with one another. So, I would encourage you, free up, whatever it is, feel free to do that. If you want to sing me a song after this, I'm all up to hear it.

Fantastic. Randy and I both write songs, so we share all of our songs back and forth. And I can't even tell you, you may or may not know this, Randy writes beautiful songs for the Lord. He writes beautiful songs about other stuff. But I'm encouraged when he shares them with me. So anyway, we'll move forward, because I'm perseverating on this far too long. I'm a musician. Give me a break. Okay. Always giving thanks to God and Father for everything in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. So, always is kind of a fun term, which includes how much of our time? 95%. Just a solid 95%. So we're always to be giving thanks.

I meet a lot of young and immature Christians, and even otherwise, but a lot of young and immature Christians who feel like, I just don't feel like praising. I don't feel like we have anything to, I just don't really feel like I'm in the mood. Wow, then you don't get it. Because we've always got something to thank, and I'm not suggesting that we be callous and not mourn with those who mourn. Maybe they don't feel like singing a big joyful song because something really tragic has happened, and we do need to be with them and weep with them, but there's a song for that too.

This is a point where we realize how, that the law is insufficient. Can you make a law of that? I think it's all the time. We could try to, but that's not humanly, that's not a human possibility. That's only Christ and grace working in us. It's not something you can make a law about. Which is, it would be ridiculous to even try, right?

And I think, I take out even more so than More so than a constant command, like, in other words, you know, don't talk to me, I'm giving thanks, because I'm always supposed to be giving thanks. I'm also supposed to be praying continually, so the Lord's really got me doing a lot of things always. It's kind of painful, and I'm a little scattered. No, I think what it's really talking about is just like when he says, pray continually, he's talking about continue to pray, you know, each day on the deal. Here, it's always an appropriate time to be giving thanks to the Lord. There's always something to give thanks to the Lord for. And as we rest in Christ, sure enough, that'll happen.

It's all positional union, correct? Yeah. It's what the first three chapters of Ephesians are all about, right? Being bonded in grace in heavenly places, right? So why wouldn't you? It also speaks to, you know, when you're in trials or any of that too. It's always, as Hal used to say, you know, You should be thankful for those trials because they're going to bring you closer to him and more conformed to him.

As opposed to, you know, we don't have anything to be thankful for today because this happened. That's the wrong view. It's a validation of citizenship. 28, I can say there's no major tragedy that's ever happened in my life. Not had, no. Yeah. But to hear people who've walked with the Lord through big troubles, and that's why it's so great to be a part of the body, who have. I mean, my troubles have been like, I really don't like my job, or I lost my job.

Or, you know, is there going to be enough money to get through this month? And it feels big at the time, but in reality, that's not much, right? So to hear other believers, and to be a part of other believers who can say, like Hal, who can say, really, you can rejoice in these trials. It's vital. Which is why this is so body-oriented. Because, among myself, I'm just going, That's why they don't feel like worshipping. Yeah. Exactly. The minute we let our eyes get onto us and off of Christ, where are we? In the flesh. In the flesh.

Real quick, I know Randy's pointed this out before, but in reference to Romans 8.28, but give thanks for everything, that even means our sin.

Because even in our sin, I mean, it says give thanks for everything. thankful, I guess, that through, even though we're sinners, God's grace, our sin allows God's grace to be even more apparent. And there's a level where we're not grateful that we've sinned, but we can look at the fact that, oh, we messed up, and we can spend the next day in sackcloth and ashes, or we can return in fellowship with Christ and be thankful that even though I'm a wretched sinner, and continue to be a sinner, God's grace is still more than abundant. And even though, because I've so much, you know, spent my life in sackcloth and ashes, which we don't need to anymore. It's been taken care of, and God doesn't want us to. God wants us to, you know, like Frank says, okay, you sin, take care of it, let's give back to our fellowship. Take out the trash, give back to the fellowship.

And even in that, we can be thankful that God still, His grace is enough, more than enough. And so there's that weird almost paradox that we're not thankful for our sin, but I like that way better. I love that. That's fantastic. And completely the reality. It's cool.

So everything, and then it says, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and this kind of throws us back to 218 when we talked about the prosagogae. Prosagogae, it says, Jesus Christ is our prosagogae. The prosagogae was the fellow who sat at the door of the king's chamber and said, you can go in, you can't go in, and announced people. The big stick bashed on the floor a couple times, said, this is Brad. the farmer, come, go talk to the king. If the prosagogue didn't introduce you, your life was forfeit. So really, the guy you needed to have his ear was the prosagogue, was the doorman, right? And Jesus is our introduction. Jesus is our introduction to be able to go boldly before the throne of grace.

It's in Christ that we can do this, and go constantly about everything in thanksgiving. to the father, which is kind of cool. So there's a kickback to that. Lastly, and I think we're massively out of time, even though I only heard one bell. Submitting to one another. Here's another one of our great one another verses.

Submitting does not obviously mean knuckle under. It doesn't mean without any question, without any that they'll just obey. It doesn't mean become the slave of. What does it mean? What's the difference between submit and obey? Obey has to do with compliance. Submit has to do with...

I can't think of a good word. Giving yourself over to it. You know, have your way. I'm yours. What about the word support? Does that work a little bit better? The Greek is under-attach. Upatassa. Under-attach. We're called to under-attach to one another, which has not the idea of, like you say, just blind obedience, but rather the idea of supporting one another, which means that if I'm in submission to me as a believer... bad example. In submission to one another, Jeremy and I, as friends, Jeremy might, as part of his quote-unquote submission to me, really his under-attachment to me, might be pointing out something that I'm doing that's incorporating sinful or arrogant. It happens a lot when I stand up here. So, Jeremy's, part of my relationship with Jeremy, part of his under-attachment or support of me, is to say, Brad, you came off as kind of an arrogant jerk again today. And in my response, thank you so much. Whereas obedience is, right, if I'm going to be obedient, it's just, Jeremy, you did a great lesson today, nothing was wrong, and I agree, I'm going to obey everything you say.

Right? See the difference? Once again, maturity, relationship, great stuff. Out of time. For reverence, reverence, right, sometimes translated fear, this is one of those fun words because anyone who's sat out and looked at the ocean and all of its hugeness and seen its power knows I'm not afraid of it, because I'm sitting, but at the same time, or looked up at the stars and just felt like you were engulfed in the greatness of it all.

There's something that happens in your stomach, and maybe this is just me, I mean, it's not everybody, that is akin to fear. It's just so big, it's so great. I get that way when I see blue whales. I can't help it, they're just so huge that I get that weird kind of thrill in my stomach. That thing could swap me with its fin, never know I was there, and I'd be done. It's not fear, but it's akin to fear.

So that's why I like that idea of awe-filled reverence for God. We sit and we know we have nothing to fear from God, but just by the immense greatness and majesty that stands before us, there's kind of a thrill in the pit of our stomach that goes, wow, that's a lot more than anything that I've ever been able to figure out or imagine, figure. All right, any closing thoughts? Oh, and that reverence, that fear, should cause us to under-attach to one another as we rest in Christ. Questions? Comments? As we're massively out of time?

Heavenly Father, we praise you and we thank you for the gift of this day, for this time. Lord, for the blessing of being able to be in fellowship, Lord. share our love for you and our experience with you in song and in Lord, the wonderful gifts of who you are. Thank you for giving us so much to celebrate. Your servant G.K. Chesterton said that the reason not to believe in Christianity is because it's too good to be true, not because it's too bad. And Lord, your news is almost too good to believe. But we praise you because you're trustworthy. In Jesus' name, amen.